Chapter 1055

Time kept flowing, just as it always had.

It had flowed while the conversation between master and servant ended somewhere in a darkness whose distance and exact location were unknown. And it flowed now, as a young man stopped in the middle of a snowfield that had lost its pure white to blood.

Slosh.

Cold. Sticky.

The blood pooled around his ankles held the deaths of dozens of people. It was also the future of someone standing in it, waiting for death to draw near.

“So this is where you were.”

Kh—cough.

At the young man’s sudden words, the Black Night King Sima Gong blinked through a labored cough.

A face almost exactly like his own appeared in his bleary eyes. He had thought he would never see it again in this life.

“How…”

His words trailed off.

His surprise lasted only a moment. He studied the son who had returned, then spoke in the same calm voice as always.

“I thought you’d gone far away. Why have you come back here?”

“It was too far for me. As I am now.”

The young man, Sama Pyo, answered, then abruptly turned his head to look somewhere.

Amid the unending roar of battle, powerful fighters swept through the remaining enemies, scattering destructive flashes of light. At their center stood Jin Taekyung, the Blazing Flame Divine Dragon.

“Perhaps… it wasn’t time yet.”

Sama Pyo had wanted to reach him, but couldn’t. He had wanted to help, but in the end had no choice but to turn back.

He knew why the few hundred jang¹ between him and Jin Taekyung had felt like tens of thousands of ri²: he wasn’t strong enough.

Yet part of him stubbornly denied something else—the real reason he had come back.

“So, of all the roads you could have taken, you chose to return here?”

“I only happened to see you.”

You.

It was a dry way to address his father. Sima Gong merely nodded.

“By chance. Yes, I see.”

“Yes. By chance. All of it.”

Whatever they said, father and son both knew this was no coincidence. It was a choice.

Neither saw any need to say so. In that, too, they resembled each other more than anyone else.

“How is the battle going?”

“Is that really what matters to you? When you might stop breathing at any moment?”

“My death is in the future. The battle is happening now. Nothing matters more than what’s before us.”

His father was at death’s door, yet his answer was as firm as ever. Sama Pyo let out a hollow laugh before he could stop himself.

“It’s practically over. The enemy leaders are all dead or have fled. The rest will be wiped out soon.”

It was the plain truth, no more and no less.

The scales that had once tipped toward Dark Heaven’s victory had long since shattered. The Blood-Sword Demon Lord and the mages were dead, and the Grand Sorceress had vanished like a phantom.

Even the powerful Black Ghosts were gone. With the mysterious reinforcements led by the Kongtong Sect now on the battlefield, the allied forces were fighting like men possessed.

Before long, the battle that had stained this vast snowfield red would be over.

No. It was already over.

All that remained was slaughter carried on in the name of battle.

Only after hearing all this did Sima Gong, whose fading consciousness had kept him from knowing it, give a small nod.

“A great victory.”

“A great victory. Ours.”

“Ours. Yes, I suppose you can think of it that way now. The Kongtong Sect may see things differently, of course.”

“The Kongtong Sect…?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. You’ve guessed already, haven’t you? The crushing defeat at Dunhuang was no accident.”

Despite the unforgivable crime of betrayal, Sima Gong confessed with pride and composure to the son who resembled him more than anyone else.

“Yes. It’s just as you suspect. I goaded the Gansu sects that opposed me into banding together with the Kongtong Sect to defend Dunhuang, then passed information to the Blood-Sword Demon Lord. I knew what was happening beyond the desert, but I didn’t tell them. If it weren’t for those mounted bandits who came from Ningxia, things wouldn’t have gone the way they did.”

“…!”

“Are you surprised? Angry? Whatever you think of this old man, I have no regrets. I made a choice for gain and survival. Nothing more.”

Sima Gong looked his son straight in the eye.

Gain and survival.

Yes. That was all. It always had been.

He had lived his entire life as a member of the unorthodox faction. To build up a force weaker than the Demonic Path or the orthodox faction—even weaker than the dark-path figures—he had always had to take dangerous gambles.

Just as, after careful calculation amid the great upheaval of the Great Faction War, he had chosen the orthodox faction and claimed the rights of the victors.

His son stood looking down at him in silence. Then he spoke.

“Why did you do it?”

“I’ve told you everything.”

“I’m not asking why you betrayed them. I know what kind of man you are.”

“Then what are you asking…?”

“Why did you make that choice? You, who pursued survival and gain so ruthlessly. Why?”

At the look in his son’s eyes, Sima Gong finally understood what he was asking. What answer he wanted.

A brief silence stretched between them, long as an eternity. When Sima Gong spoke, his voice was low and cold.

“You still have a long way to go.”

“What… What does that mean?”

“What’s done is done. The reason doesn’t matter. As my heir, you should be asking what comes next. That’s what it takes to be a Sect Leader.”

“…!”

“Everything will soon be yours. The household and the sect, vast lands and untold wealth… and, most importantly, the grudges you’ll have to settle. Yet you’re curious about the past?”

Sima Gong let out a mocking laugh at his heir.

“I judged you wrongly. You’ll soon gain half of Gansu, only to lose it all. Wolves and vultures will catch the scent of blood and descend from every direction to tear the Black Dragon Demon Gate apart.”

Thousands had died in Dunhuang alone because of his betrayal. The Kongtong Sect had suffered losses comparable to, perhaps even greater than, those it had suffered in the Great Faction War. The same was true of the many sects that formed the roots of Gansu’s martial world.

Sima Gong knew what would happen if the truth came out. If Dark Heaven, betrayed for the second time, let even a little information slip, the name of the Black Dragon Demon Gate would disappear from the world.

Even the Zhongnan Sect, one of the Nine Sects and One Gang, might not escape. The crimes of the Roaring Fury Swordsman and the Taeeul Merciless Sword—whether either man was alive or dead—might force the sect to close its gates.

But…

Even when the sky falls, there’s a way out. There always is.

Just as Sima Gong murmured to himself, Sama Pyo, who had been watching him with an indescribable expression, finally opened his firmly closed lips.

“There’s another way.”

“What?”

“A way to save the Black Dragon Demon Gate. A way past the wolves and vultures gathering on every side.”

For an instant, a strange glint flashed in Sima Gong’s eyes.

“Blood is repaid with blood. That is the law of the martial world. They will never forget what the Black Dragon Demon Gate has done.”

“Half right, half wrong,” Sama Pyo said quietly. “Blood should be repaid with blood. But not everyone in the Black Dragon Demon Gate needs to bleed.”

“…!”

“Am I wrong?”

A heavy silence fell between them.

Screams and shouts still rang out, yet for a moment it seemed every sound around them had vanished.

At last, Sima Gong spoke, his voice low.

“Yes, you’re right. The body itself is innocent. It only did what the head told it to. Isn’t that so?”

Sama Pyo answered calmly.

“If the head doesn’t satisfy them, I’ll have to be prepared to cut off the limbs one by one.”

“So you mean to cut down this old man and the senior members who followed my orders. Every last one.”

“Too many guests will come bearing grudges. Even if each takes only a sip to wet his throat, they’ll need a great deal of blood.”

“Guests, is it? If you’re receiving guests rather than facing enemies, you’ll have to make the arrangements yourself. You’ll be the host soon.”

“If I cut off the head and arms myself and offer them up, along with reasonable compensation, their grounds for revenge will lose their force.”

“Yes. I suppose they would. Though some may call a son who kills his father with his own hands a monster who has forsaken filial duty…”

“More will call me a hero of turbulent times. A Great Hero of Benevolence and Righteousness, willing to forsake even filial duty for the world and the greater good.”

At that answer, given without hesitation, Sima Gong stared at his son, his face rigid.

His son had just said he would kill his own father.

Then Sima Gong smiled as though his face had never stiffened.

“Truly excellent.”

Forgetting for a moment even the terrible agony that wracked his whole body, the giant who had ruled the unorthodox faction for decades burst into a hearty laugh.

“Yes. This is what I wanted to see from you. This is why I chose you as my heir.”

At that moment, the Black Night King Sima Gong was genuinely happy. He had chosen well. Everything he had built over a lifetime would pass to a worthy successor.

Eight sons and nine daughters. Sama Pyo was his eighth son and his seventeenth and last child.

The youngest and most talented of them all had been his true heir. Now, at last, he had grown into a proper member of the unorthodox faction: a man who could kill even his own father and pursue gain and survival with a cool head in any circumstance.

This is enough.

At the end of his long, hard-fought life, Sima Gong was ready to accept death with a smile of relief.

At the same time, he parted his bloodied lips to speak to Sama Pyo, who was lifting his treasured weapon, the Black Dragon Saber, out of the pool of blood. He addressed the son who had grown from an immature young man into the master of a sect and the new ruler of the unorthodox faction.

“Go ahead and cut me down, Sect Leader.”

At the instant his unfailingly polite voice rang out—

Shwaa!

A brilliant streak of light flashed past his eyes.