Chapter 1073

Slice!

The moment I brought my spear down and cut through its first victim, my heart sank.

Was it because the enemy was stronger than I’d expected?

Or because some part of me was already turning over the word defeat?

No. Neither was true.

I’d believed we would win from the start. I’d never doubted it.

I was simply facing my own limits again.

The limits of a mere human—limits I could never completely escape, no matter how many times I broke through them.

How many people will die this time?

Of course I knew I wasn’t an all-powerful god who could save everyone. No one else could be one, either.

Not the heroes of distant myth. Not even Cheon Taemin, hailed as humanity’s savior.

To gain something, you had to pay a fitting price. Whether that price was time or lives.

But knowing that didn’t mean I could get used to it.

No. I must never get used to it.

If I did, I’d start taking it all for granted.

And another person’s sacrifice and death must never become something I took for granted.

Crraaaack!

Just once.

The spearhead swept through, wreathed in Force. Flesh tore with a sickening sound, and a thick mist of blood spread through the air.

If the enemy had been human, the sight would have struck them with shock and fear.

But even as dozens of monsters were minced into chunks and scattered, they didn’t so much as flinch. They surged in from every direction, a relentless tide.

Their tightly packed front line didn’t match the savage force of their charge.

Their Intelligence isn’t high enough for this. Someone’s definitely directing them.

Before the battle had begun in earnest, the eerie sound of bells had carried on the wind from every direction. I hadn’t imagined it.

Mutants, or monsters.

I didn’t know exactly what to call those hideous creatures, but one thing was clear: somewhere, someone was controlling them like puppets.

There was just one problem…

They’re well hidden.

Maybe they’d taken the presence of Supreme Peak masters like me into account. There had to be several of them, yet I couldn’t find a single one.

Neither could the person with the sharpest eyes among our allies.

Whoosh—BOOM!

Four streaks of light flew in succession toward the east, west, north, and south, swallowing the space before them as they exploded.

Amid the shock waves and thunderous blasts that shook the air on every side, a familiar, calm voice reached my ears.

“I can’t see or sense them from here. They’re at least a hundred jang¹ away.”

Bow Saint had spoken as if she’d read my mind.

At the same moment, Jeok Cheongang appeared, drenched in the monsters’ blood.

“And there are a hell of a lot of them.”

Fwoosh—BOOM!

Before he’d even finished speaking, he thrust out a fist.

Flames raced forward, burning even the air, and swallowed the monsters in a blast of heat.

“Grrr…”

“Aaagh!”

Screams rang out one over another.

Yet even after that mighty strike brought down dozens more enemies, Jeok Cheongang’s expression didn’t brighten in the slightest.

“At this rate, it’ll never end. Unless we wipe out every last one of them, we won’t open a path.”

The battle was going our way. That much was clear.

The problem was what would happen by the time we’d killed all the monsters surrounding us.

A substantial number of our three thousand allies would be dead or wounded, and Dark Heaven would keep pursuing us afterward.

Damn it.

I swallowed the curse rising in my throat and looked around.

The battle against ten thousand monsters had begun only moments ago.

For now, thanks to the efforts of several Supreme Peak masters, myself included, we hadn’t suffered any notable casualties. But that was only a matter of time.

They were already exhausted. They’ll crumble soon.

Battle was a fight against yourself, too.

Our fighters might be handpicked elites, but unlike the enemy, they were human, made of flesh and blood.

Once you knew you stood between life and death, your body tired quickly and your thoughts began to blur.

The Supreme Peak masters were giving everything they had from the start to protect them, and we were burning through our strength faster than usual.

I was no exception.

Thwack! Thud!

My spearhead cut cleanly through the tendon in a monster’s calf. The hulking beast, a full two jang¹ tall, dropped to one knee.

Its enormous frame looked nothing like a human’s.

The flesh covering these monsters was as tough as leather armor. Cutting through their bones, which were harder still, took even more strength.

Crack.

I poured a good deal of internal energy into a palm strike and crushed its skull. Gritting my teeth, I shouted, “Hold the formation!”

The order was repeated all around me, but the replies had already grown noticeably quieter and weaker.

Something has to change.

Fear.

The darkest emotion humans were given.

Of course they were afraid. They were surrounded by monsters they’d never seen or heard of before.

And right now, I had the power to break fear’s hold on them.

There was one move—our best chance to turn the situation around, even if it took a tremendous amount of strength.

One chance. Just one. I’ll find an opening and tear through their line in a single strike.

Even the strongest wall would fall once you forced a gap in it.

I slowly drew in a breath.

The world began to slow. The noise around me faded, and a new sense opened deep within me.

The Middle Dantian. It still felt unfamiliar.

Rumble…

The space around me suddenly trembled.

I reached out, sensing everything around me.

Or tried to.

Right then, someone appeared, letting out a roar loud enough to shatter my intensely focused senses.

“Gaaaaal!”

His voice brimmed with resolve.

With movements far too impish to match it, Great Sir stepped in front of me and swung an iron sword back and forth. I had no idea where he’d found it.

“You foolish, pitiful monsters! Gaettong, a divine general descended upon this land by Heaven’s will, has arrived! Kneel at once!”

“……!”

“……!”

A cold silence fell.

My allies stared blankly at Great Sir. So did the monsters charging at us from every direction.

What the hell is this guy?

Same look. Same thought.

But the man who’d worked the miracle of bringing humans and monsters together in a moment of shared bewilderment carried on in a stern voice, undeterred.

“Hey! What are you waiting for? Can’t you hear Chunja’s command?”

At the Great Sir’s pronouncement, having changed not only his name but his gender, Jeok Cheongang muttered like a man sighing, “We should’ve grabbed that guy and killed him first.”

A perfectly reasonable suggestion. I almost nodded, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.

The Great Sir showing up at the vanguard meant there was a gap in the left wing, led by Sama Pyo. And that meant our entire formation might soon collapse.

That lunatic…!

I’d known he wasn’t in his right mind. I just hadn’t expected him to pull this shit at such a critical moment.

But there was no time to vent my anger.

I held back the stream of curses rising from deep in my chest and was about to send Great Sir back to his post when—

BOOM!

The ground shook with a tremendous rumble. The nearest monster suddenly dropped to one knee.

“What… What is this?”

The sound that escaped someone’s lips gave voice to the question on all our minds, mine included.

Before we could find an answer, the other monsters surrounding us like an iron wall began to tremble.

“Grrk. Grrrk.”

“Kuwo?”

Their pupils dilated. They let out groans none of us could understand.

And then it began.

Thud. Rumble!

The ground shook as heavy bodies fell one after another, raising thick clouds of dust.

Hundreds fell, then hundreds more, then hundreds again.

It went on until every monster filling the vast reed bed had collapsed.

They fell like an enormous line of dominoes. Everyone, including me, stood speechless before the impossible sight.

Everyone except one person.

“Mm. Yes, that’s right. You’re finally behaving yourselves.”

Great Sir turned toward me, muttering smugly.

“Ahem. Did you see that? That’s what I can do.”

Of course I’d seen it.

I’d seen it perfectly clearly, right in front of me.

And at that moment, I could manage only one question.

“…What is this? Am I dreaming?”

“A dream, you say? Well put. A person’s life is like a dream in broad daylight.”

Great Sir nodded with a knowing smile.

Over his shoulder, Jeok Cheongang looked at me, half dazed.

“What… What in the world is going on?”

As if I knew. I was just as dumbfounded.

“I have no idea either,” I answered.

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ve seen all sorts of strange things. Have I lived too long?”

“You have lived a long time.”

“Or could we be having the same dream?”

“Maybe. If you don’t mind, could I hit you once? I think it’d hurt too much if you hit me.”

“That sounds far too much like your usual bullshit for a dream. Come to think of it, it’s been a while since you got hit, hasn’t it?”

“That’s a very realistic reaction. Definitely not a dream, then.”

I swiftly shifted my stance to avoid the misfortune of getting hit by Jeok Cheongang, and a voice reached my ears from far away.

“Those two never change. They really don’t.”

I paused. It sounded like a boy who hadn’t even gone through puberty.

“Wow! I’ve never seen a Master and Disciple like that before!”

The next voice came on the wind, bright and impossible to forget. My lips parted before I knew it.

“…Cheongpung?”