Chapter 1103

One Against a Thousand.

Just a few years ago, my life couldn’t have been further from the meaning of those four words.

I’d scraped together some secondhand gear at a bargain price after a few rounds of haggling. I couldn’t even afford a decent supply of the cheapest potions. The most I could handle was a few dozen small monsters in the dark, damp caves inside the subspaces known as Gates.

But a lot had changed since then.

More than I could put into words.

Thwack!

The rusty iron sword I swung on instinct sank into the crown of an enemy approaching from the side. His skull split, and bright red blood sprayed in every direction.

Plop.

A sticky, hot sensation brushed my cheek.

Once, that chilling touch would have made me flinch. Then the foul stench that crawled into my nose would have made me recoil again.

But that rookie Hunter, who’d thrown up at the horrible stench of blood he’d never smelled before, existed only in my memories now.

Thrust!

I drove my blade into the throat of an enemy charging straight at me, twisted it, and yanked it free. Blood poured from the gaping wound.

Grrk.

His body trembled as a wet rattle rose from his throat.

But to the fanatics, drunk on years of brainwashing and the strength of the Temporary Strength Pills, their comrade’s gruesome death was martyrdom—and another chance to catch me off guard.

Shh-shh-shhk!

Blood-red Sword Energy rained down from every direction. The dense, destructive strands tangled together like a net and closed over my entire body.

Or at least, that was what it must have looked like to them.

Tap.

One step.

With that single step, the space between my enemies and me vanished.

I spun, and the iron sword in my hand traced a perfect, deadly arc.

Whoosh!

For an instant, the world seemed to stop.

The enemies realized that instead of retreating, I’d plunged straight into their midst. Their eyes slowly widened.

And then—

BOOM!

As the Sword Energy they’d already unleashed exploded, dozens of heads shot into the air like fireworks.

Shhk, fwoosh!

Red.

Everything I could see. The whole world.

Yet even now, every sense and every part of my body kept working without pause.

Whoosh.

Everything caught in the diagonal sweep of my sword split apart.

As I crossed the rising mound of corpses, sticky blood and screams—darker still—spilled around my feet.

Thwack! Thrust-thrust!

I cut, stabbed, and smashed without pause.

It didn’t matter what I held.

An axe, a sword, even an oddly shaped weapon like a mace or a scythe—all of them were made to kill.

Crack!

A storm of blood and flesh swept through the air.

The weapons left to rust deep in Xining’s armory became masterworks steeped in a craftsman’s blood and sweat the moment they landed in my hands. They might break against Sword Energy, but they fulfilled their purpose to the end.

They took my enemies’ lives, just as their owner intended.

……!

……!!

Shouts rang out from the enemies surrounding me and the allies on the wall above.

But I couldn’t make out what any of them were saying.

My ears felt muffled, though my senses were sharp enough to catch every sound. The world before my eyes moved so slowly it was almost boring, yet every detail was clear.

I had no idea how many enemies I’d taken down or how many weapons I’d broken.

I was certain of only one thing.

Insight.

I was climbing toward another moment of enlightenment.

Wrapped in a fog of No-self, forgetting not only what was happening around me but even myself, I moved through a battlefield where life and death hung in the balance.

More. Just a little more.

As if bewitched, I kept repeating the words to myself.

At some point, everything around me had begun to feel hazy, like a dream.

A sensation I couldn’t tell from pain or pleasure ran down my spine like an electric current.

I’d felt it before.

Now the Trance was more intense than ever, taking over my entire body.

Come.

As though they’d heard the quiet whisper in my mind, the enemies charged at me as one. They recited those eight words, that curse of a creed—“Heaven above and earth below, all demons bow!”—then roared and swung their weapons with all their might.

In the same instant, every one of them became a lonely soul.

Shhk. Shhk. Shhk.

Was this what the prophet in the old myths had been like?

Everything split apart as I strode forward without hesitation.

There was no sea before me, but the blood pouring from my enemies surged like waves. It was another kind of Red Sea.¹

And at the end of those red waves spilling away on either side, an insight awaited—one that would lift me to a higher level.

I can do this. I know I can.

Instinct spread over my fading reason.

Without looking, I dodged a blade swung at me from behind. With one stroke, I cut down five enemies charging from the side and the front.

But still, it wasn’t enough.

I suddenly wanted this dreamlike sensation to last forever. This dream belonged only to me, and it was the sweetest sleep I’d ever known.

Even if I woke from it, I’d sell my soul just to see this story through to the end.

If I could make the insight drawing closer with every step my own, I could fall into this same sweet sleep whenever I wanted.

But then I remembered something I’d briefly forgotten.

If there was someone dreaming, then there was someone who could wake them.

Whoooooosh!

A sharp whistle cut through the distant echo that every other sound had become.

The ferocity in it, the enormous force drawing closer by the moment, dragged me out of my dream and hurled me into reality.

Along with someone’s urgent, unfinished shout, suddenly bursting from somewhere in the open air.

“Dodge—!”

At that very moment—

Fwoosh.

The fog of No-self that had taken over my mind and body scattered in an instant.

No—it burst apart.

At the same time, a blood-red flash hurtled toward me from far away, its dazzling light staining my vision a thick red.

“……!”

My eyes widened. An alarm blared in my head, whispering:

Too late. You can’t dodge it.

The flash was terrifyingly fast. Torn from that sweet sleep and thrown straight into reality, I couldn’t move quickly enough to evade it.

Unlike the person who’d warned me half a beat earlier—who might have been watching over me all along.

Whoosh!

In the slowed-down world, I saw someone drop through the air.

A snow-white blade blocked the flash, which was already almost at my nose. Violet Sword Force scattered around it like flower petals.

Cheongpung.

The instant his name surfaced in my frozen thoughts—

BOOM!

A tremendous shock wave shook the air with a roar like the sky splitting apart.

Cough.

In the pale dust cloud that covered everything, Jin Taekyung gave a dry cough, blinked dazedly, and wondered:

Am I still alive?

The question had come to him suddenly. The answer came at once.

Pains large and small stabbed through his body like needles, accompanied by a System alert only he could hear.

No—warning sirens would be more accurate.

Beep! Beep-beep!

Trying to ignore the sirens drilling into his ears, Jin Taekyung struggled to his feet.

Pat-pat.

Stone dust slid off his body.

He felt heavy. Everything hurt.

Maybe it was because he’d suddenly woken from a Trance in which every sense had been pushed to its limit.

His body sagged like waterlogged cotton. But despite the barrage of warning sirens, he didn’t seem to have any serious injuries.

He had the person who’d blocked the flash for him at the last moment to thank for that.

“Cheongpung.”

His tired, cracked voice slipped past his lips. But in the dust cloud, so thick he couldn’t see a hand in front of his face, all he heard were groans from people he couldn’t identify.

“……Cheongpung?”

He called several more times. When no answer came, dread crept over him.

Jin Taekyung took a deep breath and swept out his arm, its sleeve already torn to shreds.

Boom!

Compressed air exploded outward. A gust imbued with internal energy drove away some of the dust, revealing what lay beyond it.

A gaping hole in the city wall, wide enough for five grown men to stand shoulder to shoulder. Allies lay sprawled all around it, groaning in pain.

But there was still no sign of Cheongpung.

Dammit.

Jin Taekyung clenched his teeth without realizing it.

Then he stretched out his hand toward the enemies charging through the ruins of the broken wall and the dust cloud.

More precisely, toward his beloved weapon, which lay behind them.

Vooooom.

His Middle Dantian opened. With a low hum, a spear buried deep in the ground shot upward and returned to its master’s grasp.

It pierced every obstacle in its path.

Crack!

Blood spouted into the air.

Dozens of enemies, their spirits high as they charged, fell like rotten logs. In that brief opening, the allies formed ranks and fought with all their might to fill the gap.

Clang-clang!

Thrust!

“Gaaagh!”

“Hold them! Don’t let a single one through!”

“Cough—Archers! Where are the archers?”

Chaos spread in an instant.

Even as the melee broke out around the breached wall, Jin Taekyung cut down enemies with all his strength and shouted one person’s name.

“Young sir! Cheongpung!”

But no matter how keenly he strained his senses, there was no answer.

Only the screams and shouts of friend and foe rang out around him. That damned innocent voice was nowhere to be heard.

His heart pounded like thunder. With every moment, it grew harder to breathe.

……No way.

No. It couldn’t be.

Cheongpung—he wasn’t the kind of guy who’d go down this easily.

Like the hero in a fairy tale, he’d find some way to survive and live happily ever after.

Then why?

Why did this inexplicable dread keep growing heavier and darker?

“You… bastards!”

Jin Taekyung charged with a furious shout.

It was anger at the invaders who’d caused all this—but also blame directed at himself, the idiot who’d been consumed by a single-minded pursuit of enlightenment.

And the dazzling point of his spear, cutting through the enemy and raising a storm of blood, was drawing closer to one person approaching at a leisurely pace.

The Blood Lord.