The Roaring Fury Swordsman, Song Il, suddenly wondered what he was doing.
There was barely enough time to escape this hopeless battlefield. Why was he still swinging his sword with all his might?
Shwoooosh!
Streams of Force raced along his blade and tore through the air.
The dazzling streak of light, aimed neither ahead nor behind but into empty space, crossed a distance of more than twenty jang1 and struck the enormous ball of fire in the blink of an eye.
KWA-BOOM!
The sphere shuddered with a deafening roar.
But it faltered for only a moment. Then the calamity resumed its descent as though nothing had happened, and despair filled the Roaring Fury Swordsman’s eyes.
It’s no use. I can’t stop it.
He knew by instinct. He’d already given it everything he had several times.
He was worthy of being called a superhuman, yet his strength was nowhere near enough to stop that enormous fireball—a thing that might as well have been wrought by supernatural powers.
What the hell is this…
He could barely breathe.
The sphere was slowly covering part of the battlefield, its heat unbearable even from this distance. And the helplessness gripping his whole body was something he’d felt only a handful of times in his life.
But at that very moment—
Pop, sh-sh-sh-shk!
The Roaring Fury Swordsman sensed someone appear beside him. At the same time, he saw dazzling streaks of light surge forward.
Fwoosh!
This is…
His eyes widened.
Dazzling light spread. Even from more than twenty jang1 away, the heat that had warmed his skin vanished in an instant.
Dozens of streams of Force shot forward, woven as tightly as a net. He knew them at once.
“Junior Brother!”
KWA-BOOOOM!
His reflexive shout mingled with another deafening roar. Beneath the fiery fragments raining down from the collision, a familiar figure appeared.
“We meet again so soon, Senior Brother.”
His expression and voice were so cold that anyone else might have found them chilling. The Roaring Fury Swordsman murmured, almost groaning, at the sight of his Junior Brother, known to the world by that very demeanor as the Taeeul Merciless Sword.
“How did you get here…!”
His surprise held more confusion than joy, and even a trace of worry and anger. The Taeeul Merciless Sword answered calmly.
“What, did you think this Hwangbo Eom would obey you so readily?”
“You fool! What kind of nonsense is that? What happened to Junior Brother, the Sect Leader, and the other Disciples?”
The Roaring Fury Swordsman bellowed, living up to his fiery sobriquet.
Only moments ago, he’d left Hwangbo Eom to look after the Sect Leader—who had finally collapsed from exhaustion and injuries—and the surviving Disciples of their sect.
Hwangbo Eom should have been leading them in a swift retreat. Instead, he was here.
For a moment, the Roaring Fury Swordsman forgot everything around him and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“You idiot! If you’re gone too, who in the world is going to lead our sect…!”
“They say old habits die hard. You certainly live up to your sobriquet. Come to think of it, you’ve always been like that, Senior Brother—even as a child.”
“What?”
No answer came. Ignoring his Senior Brother’s incredulous stare, Hwangbo Eom swung his sword.
His face was as impassive as ever, but the veins standing out on his skin showed how much strength he was pouring into every strike.
Shwaak! KWA-BOOOOM!
Force shot from his blade and collided with the flames.
The fireball faltered again. Fragments broke away and fell toward the ground amid a drizzle of sparks.
“As I thought, this won’t be enough. Not on my own.”
“……”
“Are you ready for the Moon-Shattering Sword Formation?”
This time, Song Il was the one who gave no answer.
He glared furiously at Hwangbo Eom, gathered all his strength, and swung his sword upward.
Shhk, shwoooosh!
Their sword strikes, as different as their temperaments, flew side by side through the air as though competing.
No. They seemed about to collide, but instead they mingled, growing more powerful together.
As if to prove they had grown from the same root.
KWA-BOOOOM!
The roar was louder, the shock wave stronger than ever before.
The fireball’s course shifted, if only slightly. Taking what encouragement they could from the sight, the two martial brothers poured out Force with everything they had.
Shhk, whoooosh!
They slashed, struck upward, and thrust.
Amid the ceaseless explosions, the two old Daoists could still hear each other speak.
“Don’t worry about Junior Brother, the Sect Leader, and the other Disciples. So Pyeong will do his duty well.”
“So Pyeong… I see. So that’s how it ended up.”
It was too late to change anything now.
Only then did the Roaring Fury Swordsman realize who was leading the Zhongnan Sect’s survivors. His face darkened.
The Zhongnan Sect’s thousand finest.
In less than half a shichen2, a third of them had been killed or wounded. Among those still able to move, few Disciples were ready to bear the sect’s future.
Hyuk Sopyung, the Zhongnan One Dragon.
The Zhongnan Sect’s greatest prodigy, and one of the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes—the finest young martial artists of the Central Plains.
He had once been so lost in wine and women that he couldn’t come to his senses. But since the dispute between the Taeeul Merciless Sword and the Yongbong Escort Bureau, he had grown remarkably, both as a person and as a martial artist.
Even so, the Roaring Fury Swordsman could not set aside his concern.
“He’s still too young. You should have stayed behind.”
“By that reasoning, you’re the problem, Senior Brother, and we could go on forever. Besides, I was even younger than him during the Great Faction War. Junior Brother, the Sect Leader, was younger still.”
“That was different.”
“I’d like to ask how, but I’ll let it go this time.”
Shwaak!
His blade tore through the air.
Spreading a net of Force with all his might, the Taeeul Merciless Sword added in a low voice, “At least back then, supernatural powers like this weren’t running rampant.”
KWA-BOOOOM!
A roar like the sky splitting open. Heat fierce enough to burn them at any moment.
At the center of it all was a fireball much larger than it had been only moments ago.
It might shudder, and pieces might break away, but the calamity kept falling, as inexorable as a mountain.
Closer now, it loomed larger still: hellfire that would devour thousands of lives.
“Can we… stop that?”
The Roaring Fury Swordsman was breathing hard. The Taeeul Merciless Sword, just as visibly exhausted, answered with a question of his own.
“What do I look like to you, Senior Brother?”
A silence passed, brief and yet seemingly endless.
But the Roaring Fury Swordsman had a good idea what his Junior Brother meant.
Right. They couldn’t stop it.
They were only human, and that was a power beyond their understanding, a force of supernatural powers.
If anyone could hold this mad calamity back even a little, it would be true superhumans—those who, in human bodies, had reached a realm comparable to monsters or gods.
“I must be going senile. I never thought I’d want to see that mad old monster, the Fire King.”
“For once, I had a similar thought. A moment ago, I saw some reckless brat flash before my eyes. It made me wonder if I’d really lost my mind.”
The Fire King, Jeok Cheongang.
And the Blazing Flame Divine Dragon, Jin Taekyung.
The two martial brothers would never forget them for as long as they lived.
Not for any good reason, of course.
“They can’t come, can they?”
“Why ask when you already know?”
The senses of Supreme Peak masters surpassed anything ordinary people could imagine. Reading the events unfolding across the battlefield, the two men already suspected that neither the old monster nor the young one from the Fire Gate Clan could come to their aid.
And at the same time, they held the contradictory wish that they didn’t want help from either of them, whatever the circumstances.
Even now, they hadn’t been able to let go of their grudge against the Fire Gate Clan’s Master and Disciple.
And that grudge had led them to commit an irreversible wrong.
KWA! KWA! KWA-BOOOOM!
Explosions followed one another.
But the Force Song Il and Hwangbo Eom unleashed had grown noticeably weaker. The fireball was now less than ten jang1 away, its heat fierce enough to burn away the last of their will to fight.
Grrrrrrr.
It was hot.
A crimson-black shadow, unlike anything they’d ever seen and something they’d never experience again, covered part of the battlefield.
“Do you… regret it?”
The Taeeul Merciless Sword’s quiet question slipped between parched lips.
Staring hollow-eyed at the sky, the Roaring Fury Swordsman answered.
“Yes.”
Seeing his Senior Brother like that, the Junior Brother did not ask what he regretted.
Nor did Song Il ask whether Hwangbo Eom regretted it too.
They had exchanged only a few words, but everything had been said. Each was left with his own silent thoughts.
We should never have done it.
The two men had temperaments as different as their sobriquets, but they’d lived similar lives. In this moment, the same thoughts came to them.
Their peaceful childhood, spent honing their martial arts rather than learning to act with humanity and righteousness.
Their youth, steeped in blood and death, when they’d chased achievements instead of living by a martial artist’s code.
The years of regained peace, when their black hair turned white and they swiftly gave themselves over to self-interest and desire.
And then—
“I hear you two went through quite an ordeal.”
One day, after paying the price for their greed, they had been left with severe Internal Injuries and inner demons. Consumed by hatred, they had received a tempting offer.
“This is a rare elixir I managed to acquire. Its effects rival Shaolin’s Great Restoration Pill. It will be more than enough to heal your Internal Injuries.”
They had said they would not meet him, but the uninvited guest had managed to see them anyway. When the two martial brothers doubted such unbelievable generosity, he offered them something they could not refuse.
“This isn’t generosity. It’s a transaction. If you accept, you can settle an old grudge and help safeguard the Zhongnan Sect as well.”
They had hesitated. In the end, they accepted.
They’d spent their lives as the direct disciples of the Zhongnan Sect Leader, heroes of the Great Faction War and respected masters of the martial world. They couldn’t go on living with this indelible humiliation weighing on them.
They had to take revenge.
Even if they did not kill anyone, they had to inflict on the Fire Gate Clan the same humiliation they had suffered.
And the transaction would safeguard the Zhongnan Sect too.
They could not refuse such a sweet offer.
They had willingly taken the hand extended by the uninvited guest. No—by Sima Gong, the Black Night King.
Only months later did they come to regret that decision.
Now they watched the blazing flames slowly closing over their heads.
“How did you come to this?”
The Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord.
Their youngest Junior Brother had spoken those words in a hollow voice. Hearing the regret in it, they had understood what choice remained to them.
What they had to do.
“Run. There’s still time.”
“I refuse. You go, Senior Brother.”
“I refuse, too.”
Three jang1.
The enormous sphere of fire filled their vision. The two martial brothers stared at it, dazed.
“We never had a chance of stopping it.”
“That’s right.”
“Then why did you come?”
“For the same reason you did, Senior Brother. I felt I had to do something. Even if it was only this. And…”
Two jang1.
The heat and light pouring from the flames were so blinding that the Taeeul Merciless Sword closed his eyes.
Or perhaps he was too ashamed to face the world openly as he died.
“…I was ashamed. And I was sorry.”
To the Master who had taught them humanity and righteousness.
To their youngest Junior Brother and the sect’s Disciples, who had treated them as Senior Brothers despite how unworthy they were.
To everyone else.
And to a certain Master and Disciple who, unlike them—who’d strayed from the path long ago—still walked the righteous path.
“What a damned mess.”
Whether the words slipped from the Taeeul Merciless Sword’s lips or the Roaring Fury Swordsman’s, the voice sounded more hollow than ever.
Fwoooooosh!
The heat and light pouring from the enormous fireball, extending across a radius of hundreds of jang1, were more magnificent than ever.
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