Chapter 1029

Tap. Patter-patter.

Hot and damp.

Blood that had shot up like a fountain fell onto my head, soaking my scalp.

Someone who was already a headless corpse would never feel it again.

System Defeated Lv. 135 Gungongbo!

Acquired a large amount of Fame.

Acquired a large amount of EXP.

Splatter!

A moment later, the body lost its balance and collapsed into the pool of blood.

The Second Elder’s head had come off before he could even react. With a bewildered expression, it looked up at his sworn brothers.

Or rather, at the only sworn brother still in this world.

“One down. No—two.”

Jeok Cheongang’s words marked the Third Elder’s end. I turned and saw a silver blade jutting from the back of the man sprawled like a rotten log.

Pssht.

Blood dripped in little spurts with a deflating hiss.

Sama Pyo pulled the dagger from between the dead Third Elder’s brows. When our eyes met, he shrugged.

“Did I do something I shouldn’t have?”

I answered.

“Yeah.”

“If he was yours to deal with, I’m sorry. I thought leaving him alive might cause trouble…”

“That’s not what I mean.”

A question entered Sama Pyo’s eyes. I let out a breath as hot as a ball of fire.

“You shouldn’t have killed him so easily.”

EXP didn’t matter. Neither did whose hand killed him.

He should have suffered more.

He shouldn’t have left this world so easily, in a single instant.

The Second Elder hadn’t. First his collarbone had been torn away, then one arm severed. Only after his Eight Extraordinary Meridians¹ had been ripped to shreds did his head come off.

“Don’t step in again. Not one step.”

My voice sounded strange and desolate, as if it belonged to someone else.

I didn’t even know what I looked like right now.

But Sama Pyo’s and Jeok Cheongang’s grim, hardened expressions—and the First Elder, frozen as if he’d come face-to-face with a fiend—gave me some idea.

“M-monster…”

His body trembled. So did his voice.

In the eyes of the old fiend who had lost the two sworn brothers he’d spent his life with in the blink of an eye, I saw rage he couldn’t hide. And fear, deeper and darker still.

Splosh.

I took a slow step forward.

Maybe it was the blood soaking the ground, but my footfall sounded unusually loud. The First Elder flinched and stumbled backward.

No. He dragged himself back on his rear, bracing himself with both arms.

With both knees shattered, it was the only way he could put even a little distance between us.

“D-don’t come any closer! I said don’t!”

The First Elder flung out his arms with a scream.

Boom!

I turned my head before I even heard the rush of air. The manifested palm force blasted through the space where my head had been a moment earlier.

He was already half-crippled, but the powerful internal energy flowing deep within him still burned like an inextinguishable flame.

Of course…

“Do it again.”

To my eyes, his movements were clumsy beyond words and hopelessly slow. Every move was full of openings.

“Aaaaaah!”

I couldn’t tell whether it was a scream or a battle shout.

Bang! Bang! Boom!

Panicked, the First Elder unleashed palm force after palm force, bursting the compressed air around me.

The force of his attacks whipped my hair about and tore through my collar and skin.

And that was his final struggle.

Grab—crack!

I seized his wrist like lightning and twisted.

It wasn’t a grappling technique built on complex principles, or even a move powered by internal energy.

Just raw Strength and Agility.

That power and speed, far beyond human limits, crushed frail flesh and bone with ease.

“Ghk…!”

His face twisted with terrible pain. A stifled groan escaped him.

But I knew.

If the old fiend before me were the sort to give up after this much, the name Three Elders of Tianshan would have been forgotten long ago.

Whoosh! Crash!

Five fingers curled like hooks flashed down and struck the ground.

One step.

I read his movement and stepped back ahead of him. His hand barely grazed my collar before plunging deep into the earth. I stomped on the back of it.

Crack!

I felt the bones shatter beneath my sole, a thousand geun² of weight behind it.

My calm face was reflected in his eyes, wide with pain and terror beyond anything he’d imagined.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Thud.

I struck him squarely in the jaw. His head snapped to the side, and yellow teeth flew in every direction with the blood.

“When you look at me like that…”

Thud.

One more.

“Right now…”

Thud.

Again.

“It makes me want to kill you.”

Crack!

Sticky blood clung to my fist.

I grabbed the First Elder by the hair. He no longer moved at all. Slowly, I straightened up.

“We’re only just getting started, aren’t we?”

I wasn’t talking to the First Elder.

I was speaking to the monster watching from more than ten jang³ away, his face flushed—the one who had cut off a thousand heads with a single gesture.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord applauded slowly, gazing at me with admiration.

“Magnificent. No—beautiful.”

His answer made my blood run cold.

Even with rage consuming me, I hadn’t expected anything like that reaction from him.

“That’s how a Murim warrior ought to fight. Crush your opponent cruelly and completely. That’s a real fight, don’t you think?”

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord was grinning from ear to ear.

Two of the Three Elders of Tianshan—valuable fighters who served as his own hands and feet—were dead, and the third was crippled. Yet he looked far happier than he had a moment ago.

“Crazy… bastard.”

“Me? Or you?”

“What?”

“Well, isn’t it true?”

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord blinked at me, then spread his arms and turned in a slow circle.

“Look at me. My clothes are terribly drab, but compared to you, don’t I look positively mild-mannered?”

“……!”

“Ah, don’t misunderstand. I’m certainly not saying you look unpleasant. If anything, I find this rather familiar… It’s a good sight, in more ways than one.”

At his satisfied smile, I suddenly felt short of breath.

Familiar, he’d said. Pleasing.

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord, of all people. That old, vicious fiend.

He was talking about me, drenched in blood from head to toe.

About the person I’d been a moment ago, consumed not merely by revenge but by the desire to inflict even greater pain.

“This… What I mean is…”

“Enough.”

A voice I knew all too well cut me off. It was lower than usual.

“That’s enough.”

Jeok Cheongang strode forward, and I suddenly wanted to ask him something.

Who was he speaking to?

Me? Or the Blood-Sword Demon Lord?

Or both of us?

But I didn’t ask. No—I couldn’t.

For a moment, I was too afraid to ask whether I’d looked like a fiend mad with blood and revenge.

And yet, ironically, it was that very fiend who helped me steady my stiffened body and mind.

“To interrupt us at a time like this, Senior. That’s cruel of you. We were having quite a meaningful conversation.”

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord shook his head. Jeok Cheongang spat onto the ground.

“Fuck off. This old man has never had a junior like you.”

“I know. But I’ve admired you for so long that I can’t help myself. I’ll have to settle for loving you from afar.”

“Do I have to turn you into charcoal while you’re still alive to shut that mouth of yours?”

“Probably. To be honest, I was a little disappointed about that. I thought at least one of those three would end up that way.”

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord gave a showy sigh, then continued.

“You have no idea how excited I was when I heard what happened at Mount Jiuhua all those years ago. A descendant of the Fire Gate Clan I’d only ever heard about! And when I heard those fools who dared lay a hand on you had all been reduced to ash—how satisfying that was.”

“What did you say?”

“Well, isn’t it? Burned alive—imagine the pain they must have felt. What revenge could be more certain or more terrible?”

“……!”

“Everyone else shuddered and called you a mad old man. Not me. I’ve admired you ever since.”

His eyes shone like the morning star. Jeok Cheongang and I were speechless. Even Sama Pyo, who had been watching everything calmly, seemed at a loss for words.

A fiend.

More than anyone I’d ever met, the Blood-Sword Demon Lord deserved the word. He was a madman.

Now I understood better than ever why “blood” was part of his title.

And to him, the Three Elders of Tianshan were no more than livestock he’d kept close at hand.

“Those idiots, too. During the Great Faction War, the moment a battle started going against them, they couldn’t run fast enough. Today they stepped forward without knowing their place, so they deserved to die… Ah, come to think of it, one’s still alive.”

Wheeze, wheeze.

“D-Demon Lord…”

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord glanced at the First Elder, who was still drawing shallow breaths, then looked at me.

“I only ask out of concern, but you aren’t thinking of letting him live, are you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“He’s been bothering me for a while. Neither alive nor dead… Better to settle it one way or the other, don’t you think?”

“……!”

“If you’re going to kill him, do it quickly. If you want a prisoner, have that young fellow beside you take him back. He doesn’t know much, though, so he won’t be much use.”

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord gestured toward Sama Pyo, then smacked his lips.

“Ah, though perhaps there isn’t time for that anymore.”

Boom. Boom. Bwoom.

The war drums were drawing closer, each beat louder and deeper than the last.

The Blood-Sword Demon Lord and us.

Behind each side, the aura of countless troops made the air tremble.

Now it begins.

I could feel it.

The bloody battle for the Great Snow Mountain—the great battle we could no longer avoid—had finally begun.

And…

I can end it right here.

I couldn’t tell exactly how strong the Blood-Sword Demon Lord was, but Jeok Cheongang and I should be enough.

Now that the Three Elders of Tianshan, a core part of the enemy’s strength, were gone, the balance of this battle had tipped heavily in our favor.

Surely.

Surely that was how it would go.

Then why…

Why had the Blood-Sword Demon Lord only watched?

Why had he treated three Supreme Peak masters—fighters that valuable—like livestock?

This is…

The moment that thought came to me, my eyes widened.

Whoosh!

Dark clouds had gathered without my noticing. A cold fiercer than the Great Snow Mountain’s own approached, freezing the wind as it came.

And at the center of it all, a company of riders swept toward us like dark mist.

Sssaaaaa.

Not even a pounding of hooves accompanied their ghostlike charge. Watching them, I thought of the otherworldly beings who should never have appeared here, in Murim.

“Death Knights…?”