Among the tens of thousands of allies and enemies locked in a brutal fight across the vast battlefield, killing and dying, no one noticed at first.
Not the dazzling white flash that had flown in and shattered the enormous ball of fire.
Nor the Force arrows still raining down over the slopes of the Great Snow Mountain.
Shwip, shwip, shwip!
One, two, three. Then ten.
Ten streaks of light burst forth one after another, tearing through the air as one.
Though each had been loosed a fraction of a moment after the last, the dazzling streaks flew side by side across more than two hundred jang1 and struck the battlefield.
More precisely, they struck the great and small fireballs falling where they had no right to fall.
KWA-BOOOOM!
Overlapping explosions roared across the battlefield, and the heat from the collisions swept over the ground.
Fwoosh, sizzle!
Collars blackened. Hair melted away.
But to those who had already seen death coming in the spheres of flame hurtling toward them, such pain was nothing.
No—their shock was so great that, for a moment, they forgot the pain altogether.
“H-How…? Cough.”
The old Daoist, the Taeeul Merciless Sword, coughed up a mouthful of blood. He couldn’t finish his sentence; the corners of his eyes trembled.
At the last moment, he had given up everything and closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe he was still among the living.
Beside him, though, someone who had watched death bear down on them reacted differently.
“Heh. Heh…”
The Roaring Fury Swordsman let out a weak laugh, not even noticing that one of his arms had been burned black.
He had wanted to die like this. He deserved to die.
And yet he had survived.
Thanks to help he had never expected.
Today, he had seen that destructive, dazzling flash again—the one he’d witnessed in his distant youth, when his now-melted white hair had still been black.
Bow Saint. Is it really you?
An incredible coincidence? Or Heaven’s grace?
With those words echoing in his heart, the Roaring Fury Swordsman squeezed out what strength remained and rose to his feet.
He didn’t know whether this was mere good fortune or fate decreed by Heaven.
But one thing was certain.
If there was a reason they were still alive, it was to pay for the sins they had yet to atone for.
“…Primordial Heavenly Venerable.”2
At last, the Roaring Fury Swordsman planted both feet on the ground. For the first time in ages, he invoked the Primordial Heavenly Venerable and looked up at the sky.
Shaa.
As if answering his call, a ray of light slipped through the black clouds blanketing the sky.
Beneath that light, the Zhongnan Sect Disciples—whom he’d thought had already left—were sweeping through their enemies.
Shing! Slice!
Swords flashed, scattering blood.
Beneath fireballs raining down only on their enemies, a desperate yet powerful battle cry rang out.
“Disciples of the Zhongnan Sect! Don’t you dare retreat!”
“Yaaah!”
KWA-BOOM!
Rrrrmmble!
Flames surged endlessly, and the earth heaved.
Even as they were charred black, the Dark Heaven forces advanced as if possessed, chanting words of praise for the Lord of Heaven.
Yet the Zhongnan Sect Disciples, now fewer than five hundred, did not stop for a single moment.
“Our path is here!”
Zhongnan One Dragon, Hyuk Sopyung.
His cry, ragged as if he were coughing up blood, roused everyone from their exhaustion.
The sight of the Disciples fighting with death already accepted, together with the Force arrows raining down one after another, halted the Gansu Coalition Army’s retreat as defeat loomed.
“Damn it! Attack!”
“Now! Push them all back!”
“Yaaah! You fucking bastards!”
Unorthodox factions, orthodox factions, dark-path figures. Even the imperial army.
They were jumbled together as chaotically as the battle itself. They still couldn’t make sense of what was happening, but all of them knew it instinctively:
If they didn’t seize this chance now, they’d never get another.
And at the front of the group charging at the enemy again with screams that sounded like cries of anguish was a band of fighters who hadn’t retreated for even an instant—not from the beginning, not now.
“Uoooooh!”
Whoom!
The sound of the weapon cutting through the air alone sent a chill down the spine.
With a battle cry like a beast’s roar, the massive two-section staff swept through the enemies blocking the way.
KRAK-KOOM!
Blood and flesh flew in every direction.
Perched on the shoulder of the giant who stood out even on this battlefield, a small, foreign old man spat out a piece of flesh that had landed in his mouth and screamed.
“Hey! To the side! Look to the side!”
But before Taishan could make sense of Namho’s shout, seven enemies rushed in from the flank, swinging Sword Energy.
Shing! Slice!
Three weapons cut through the space first, cleaving their necks and chests.
Splaash!
Amid the spray of blood, Soul-Chasing Guest Song Ilseom shook the sticky blood from his willow-leaf saber and spoke.
“Is everyone all right?”
Namho had had his mouth open and swallowed a mouthful of blood. He answered, “No. My stomach’s churning.”
Thwack!
With a horrifying impact, Taishan felled another enemy—or rather, smashed him halfway to pieces. His voice was unusually subdued.
“Namho. Don’t throw up. Not until we find the Lord.”
“Look at this little shit. Is that how you talk to an old man suffering at his age?”
“Then why’d you come? Did someone threaten you with a knife?”
“…!”
Namho was at a loss for words. Ju Hwaran, cutting down enemies with movements as graceful as a dance, spoke up.
“We’re all right, too. I’m just worried about the Pavilion Master.”
Hyuk Mujin clutched his side, where a long gash had opened during the fight, and muttered, “I’m hurt, though…”
“Everyone’s fine. So stop hesitating and let’s get to the Pavilion Master.”
“No, why didn’t you even ask—”
“Pavilion Master. Danger. Urgent.”
Hyuk Mujin immediately shut his mouth. Ma Junggeol, the leader of the Seven Masters of Baekma Bang, who had somehow ended up here with them, looked sadly from the dagger stuck in his thigh to Ju Hwaran and back.
“Do you have something to say?”
“Young Lady, well. It’s just…”
“You don’t.”
“…Right. Let’s say that.”
At the sight of Ju Hwaran, whose eyes had begun to gleam, Ma Junggeol lowered his head gloomily.
They were crazy.
There was no doubt about it. These people were completely insane.
Why did I come all the way here?
He didn’t know.
He’d blinked a few times, and somehow he was running with them. Before he knew it, he was fighting on the front line.
How could anyone come through a battle like this unscathed unless they were a Supreme Peak master?
He’d been slashed by a sword and stabbed with a dagger in the thick of the fighting.
But he had to keep fighting.
No—he was being told to keep fighting.
Shit…
More than ever, Ma Junggeol wished his sworn brothers were here.
Even the face of Great Sir, who did nothing but talk nonsense, floated before his eyes.
You said you’d bring him here in time. You damn bastards.
Swallowing back tears, Ma Junggeol glanced behind him for no particular reason.
The Great Snow Mountain—perhaps the last sight he’d ever see—still stood magnificent and radiant, as it always had, even after tens of thousands of unwelcome visitors had left it behind…
“Hm?”
For a moment, Ma Junggeol doubted his eyes.
It wasn’t because of the streaks of light pouring down the slopes of the Great Snow Mountain and into the battlefield one after another.
He already knew from these unsettling companions that the legendary Bow Saint had appeared.
But…
What’s that?
What caught Ma Junggeol’s eye was a golden wave flowing down the Great Snow Mountain.
The Great Snow Mountain was always white, blanketed in snow that never melted.
In spring, summer, fall, and winter.
It had been that way for a thousand years, and it would remain so a thousand years from now.
But today, at this very moment, was an exception.
Whoooosh!
The wind howled.
Snow scattered from the ground in the wake of figures that had appeared out of nowhere in the mountain range and were racing forward like streaks of light.
They ran down the steep mountainside as if it were flat ground, moving like a single wave.
A golden wave, its dazzling radiance undimmed wherever it went.
“The Embroidered Uniform Guard…!”
As someone’s cry, thick with emotion, swept across the battlefield, a thousand Embroidered Uniform Guards in golden armor raced down the mountainside like a wave, gathering speed.
All the while, one word echoed in their minds: victory.
And their commander’s voice rang clearly in their ears.
“Do you see them?”
No one answered the question from Jeong Hogun, Thousand Captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
Only their aura, simmering like water in a cauldron, steadily grew stronger.
“Our enemies are there. Evil men who defy the natural order and seek to plunge the world into misery.”
More than a hundred years had passed since the age of warring heroes ended and a new dynasty took its place.
The hero of the Zhu clan ascended the throne and at last became the father of all his people. His descendants, the dragon-blooded heirs, called themselves the Sons of Heaven and firmly established their authority.
From among the countless people, those with the greatest martial skill and loyalty were selected and dressed in golden robes and armor. Thus was the Embroidered Uniform Guard born.
“They have thrown the imperial court into turmoil and sought to bring down the nation ruled by His Majesty the Emperor!”
As Jeong Hogun’s voice grew stronger, a thousand pairs of eyes glinted beneath their low-set helmets.
From Zhejiang Province, where the Imperial Capital stood, all the way to Shanxi.
Then through Liaoning and Hebei—and, as though that were not enough, across half the continent to Gansu.
It had been a grueling journey.
It would be a lie to say they weren’t tired. Even the Great Nation’s finest guards of the Imperial Family did not have bodies made of steel.
But the resolve and loyalty they carried in their hearts were harder than steel and shone as brightly as gold.
Go. You are my sharpest sword and my shield. Protect the Marquis of Shangshan, benefactor of the Imperial Family, and put his enemies to the sword.
The thousand Embroidered Uniform Guards still remembered it vividly.
No—they would never forget it for as long as they lived.
The Son of Heaven they had met the day before leaving the Imperial Capital.
The smile he had worn despite his sickly complexion as he spoke of Jin Taekyung, the Marquis of Shangshan. And his final command.
Remember. His enemies are my enemies.
As the Emperor’s commanding voice echoed in their ears, Jeong Hogun cried out,
“Do you all remember the imperial command from that day?”
At their commander’s question, they answered.
In their own way.
Clang, clang, clang!
Countless weapons finally emerged into the open, glinting in the light. Beneath their helmets, their eyes shone toward the enemies drawing rapidly closer.
A thousand weapons shimmering with tangible qi.
A thousand pairs of eyes radiating suffocating fighting spirit.
And a thousand masters, each possessing both.
The enormous golden wave covered the mountainside and poured toward the battlefield.
No—it became a wave that swept away everything in its path.
Shing! KWA-BOOM!
The instant the Force arrows fired by the Bow Saint vaporized the enemy ranks—
KRAK-KOOM!
The thousand Embroidered Uniform Guards drove through the opening like awls and changed the course of the battle.
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