Chapter 1112

Is this a dream?

The Dalai Lama wondered.

At the same time, he wished more desperately than ever that it was. If this was all a terrible nightmare, he wanted to wake from it as soon as possible—and never have another like it.

But—

Grind.

The pain in the lip he’d bitten without realizing it, the stench of blood in his nostrils, and the acrid smoke all around him whispered the same truth.

That this utterly horrific, unbelievable scene was real.

“Truly…… a fiend if ever there was one.”

The Dalai Lama’s words came out like a groan.

The man reflected in the old monk’s eyes looked like a fiend torn from an ancient scripture. He had burned to death the Twelve Secret Monks—his Disciples and fellow martial brothers—and even the two Black Ghosts who had been such dependable reinforcements.

“Fire King Jeok Cheongang.”

His voice trembled with anger and fear.

The fiend striding toward him, by contrast, showed no hint of hesitation.

Whoosh.

Embers scattered. The air grew hot.

The Dalai Lama’s eyes flew wide as Jeok Cheongang closed more than ten jang¹ in an instant and rushed straight at him, white flames flickering at his fingertips.

BOOM!

Compressed air exploded, and the flames swallowed wind and rain.

KABOOOOOM!

Was this what a wave of fire looked like?

Watching the searing heat sweep through the place where he had stood moments ago, the Dalai Lama felt a chill run down his spine.

“Flame Divine Palm……!”

There was no way he could mistake it.

It was the fiend’s martial art, recorded by his ancestors and passed down for more than two hundred years—the very technique that had sent all twelve Secret Monks, including two Supreme Peak masters, to their deaths.

“You recognize it? Did word of this old man reach all the way to that backwater?”

Whoosh!

Jeok Cheongang’s low voice sounded above him, accompanied by the rush of air. Emerging through the acrid smoke, he drove a tightly clenched fist down toward the crown of the Dalai Lama’s head.

The Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist—the technique that had reduced the two Black Ghosts to ash before the Twelve Secret Monks met their end.

KABOOM!

The ground shook. A pillar of fire shot upward, and the rolling heat burned skin at a mere brush.

Sizzle.

It felt like a branding iron pressed to his flesh.

Yet the Dalai Lama dodged by a hair once more and thrust both palms forward with all his strength.

Crack!

Their hands met. The immense qi within them tangled and collided without pause.

But unlike a moment ago, the fear was gradually fading from the Dalai Lama’s eyes as he clashed head-on with Jeok Cheongang.

He’s strong, but that’s all.

He could feel it clearly through their joined hands. The qi of the man who had displayed such unbelievable power mere moments ago was wavering sharply.

It was the truth his fear had briefly hidden from him—and the truth Jeok Cheongang had wanted to conceal.

Nothing comes without a price.

Perfected Being Hyeoncheon of the Kongtong Sect, who had helped Jeok Cheongang defend the North Gate, was already down with severe internal injuries after a battle involving no fewer than five Supreme Peak masters.

Even Jeok Cheongang could not have come through it unscathed. Realizing this at last, the Dalai Lama fixed a cold gaze on the enemy before him. His anger, briefly driven back by fear, returned.

“You’re gravely mistaken.”

“What?”

“We didn’t learn of you through you, Fire King Jeok Cheongang. We learned of you through your predecessor—the one who should have fallen into the Eight Hot Hells² long ago.”

The Dalai Lama bit off each syllable.

“Our Potala Palace never forgot. No—we came to a point where we could never forget.”

It had all begun more than two hundred years ago, on the day a wild-haired stranger in blood-red rags set foot in Tibet.

For the Potala Palace, it was the deepest, most devastating wound—and a history of humiliation that could never be washed away.

Bring in that suspicious foreigner staying at an inn in Chamdo immediately. I will personally interrogate him to find out who he is, where he came from, and why he’s here.

The Dalai Lama who gave that order could never have guessed what would follow.

The Potala Palace considered its influence in Tibet comparable to that of the Demonic Cult. Surely even an ignorant foreigner would not dare defy them.

Nor could he have imagined that the foreigner would leave the twenty-odd martial monks sent to capture him half-crippled, then storm the palace himself, eyes rolled back in his head.

Who are you? Which bald bastard ordered you to smash the first meal this old man has seen in three days?

Perhaps that had been their last chance.

They could have apologized for the martial monks’ rather rough attempt to approach him. They could have prepared enough meat and liquor to make the table sag, to make up for interrupting his long-awaited meal. Then, once the mood had warmed like an oven stuffed with firewood, they could have talked.

If only they had done that.

But as the records attest, events took no such heartwarming turn.

Twenty martial monks had already been left half-crippled for overturning his table and trying to use their weapons. And the Potala Palace, which strictly observed its principles of non-killing and abstinence, had neither liquor nor meat on hand to calm him.

When the furious stranger stormed into the main palace that day, he found no table sagging beneath meat and liquor. Instead, he found two hundred martial monks who could break a person’s limbs with their bare hands.

Among them were the Dalai Lama of that era, acknowledged by all as Tibet’s greatest master, and four of the Twelve Secret Monks who served at his side.

You seem to be a fairly well-known martial artist from the Central Plains…… Surrender peacefully now, and I’ll settle this with twenty years of wall-gazing meditation. What do you say, donor?

The stranger’s answer was firm.

That’s a terrible deal. I refuse.

Good grief. You’re making this difficult.

You bald monks made this what it is. This old man hasn’t done a damn thing wrong. At least, not yet.

……Not yet?

Ahem. Anyway, I was planning to rest for a while and leave quietly. This time, at least.

……This time, at least?

I didn’t like it when bald monks I’d never seen before came barging in out of nowhere. But if you’d waited quietly in a corner until I finished eating, I would’ve gone along with it. Hell, if you hadn’t tried to force me down, none of this would’ve happened.

I can’t say you’re entirely wrong. Still, even allowing for my Disciples’ slight discourtesy, your response was excessive.

They overturned my precious meal and even tried to use weapons. You call that a slight discourtesy?

Faced with that pointed question, the Dalai Lama chose silence over admitting the truth. The stranger studied him—the man already seemed more martial artist than monk—and sighed deeply.

Hearing you say that, I deeply regret it.

Oh? Truly?

Of course. I swear it to Heaven and Earth.

The stranger’s next words sealed everyone’s fate.

I should’ve crippled them completely instead of leaving them half-crippled.

……You’re a fiend to the bone. What can be done now? It’s come to this. Please, don’t hold it against us. May you find peace in your next life.

And so, the killing began.

A storm of blood swept through, driven by one side alone.

A dreadful storm of blood that would be remembered for more than two hundred years, and would still be remembered a thousand years later, as long as the Potala Palace endured.

“One hundred died there that day. Another hundred were crippled.”

Recalling his sect’s humiliation, the Dalai Lama spoke in a harsh, grating voice. His gaze on Jeok Cheongang was colder than ever, and the anger in his steady voice had swallowed his fear.

“The Dalai Lama of that time died too.”

The four Twelve Secret Monks who had been there with him barely survived, but like the martial monks who lived through it, they were never able to use martial arts again.

“It was a terrible humiliation. Something that should never have happened—something we had thought impossible.”

All of it had taken barely half a day. The Potala Palace’s martial monks, scattered across Tibet to maintain order, rushed back to the main palace with all their might.

There, at last, they saw it.

The once-imposing palace lay in ruins. Scrawled across a charred pillar that had been wrenched from the ground was a single line:

The Jade Emperor³ says: Even a dog should be left alone while it eats.

Beneath that saying of highly dubious origin, the writer had carefully inscribed his credentials in a style every bit as long and grandiose.

“Fifth Sect Leader of the great Fire Gate Clan. Ghost Flame Fist Songhak.”

The Dalai Lama ground out the accursed name that had been passed down to this day.

“If we’d captured him then, none of this would be happening today.”

But the martial monks had not captured Ghost Flame Fist Songhak and sent him to meet Yama.⁴

After branding the Potala Palace with an indelible humiliation, he had melted through the net over heaven and earth cast by Tibet’s Murim and headed straight for the Central Plains.

Before that, he had fled the Mad Wind Society of the great desert—the reason he had entered Tibet at all. Their pursuit had kept him from eating for three days, a particular hardship for the man who valued his meals more than any other Sect Leader in the Fire Gate Clan’s history.

Songhak returned to the clan’s home on Mount Jiuhua in high spirits and wrote a brief account of his thrilling exploits.

I have always held the Fourth Ancestor, the Third Sect Leader, in the deepest respect. Following in his footsteps, I traveled the world and the Outer Murim.

As it happened, I fought the Mad Wind Society of the great desert beyond the scorching sands and uprooted the Potala Palace’s very pillars.

At this, all the men and horses of Tibet grew enraged and pursued me.

But who am I?

I am Ghost Flame Fist Songhak, Fifth Sect Leader of the great Fire Gate Clan. Without so much as a hair harmed, I…… avoided them and returned safely to the Central Plains.

Of course, Ghost Flame Fist Songhak had no idea that more than two hundred years later, a distant descendant would find this proud record and mutter that he was a madman.

Nor did he know the Potala Palace would nurse its grudge for so long.

In truth, he had not cared in the slightest.

“I learned later that before all that, he’d slaughtered more than five hundred of the Mad Wind Society’s mounted bandits in the desert.”

The Mad Wind Society had tried to steal Songhak’s horse and lost most of its leadership instead. Unable to recover from the damage, it eventually vanished into history.

The Potala Palace, however, did not.

With no rival in Tibetan Murim, its members quietly vowed revenge.

Some scholarly monks urged forgiveness and mercy to prevent further bloodshed, but their voices could not overcome the fury of the martial monks, who were closer to martial artists than to monks.

And so the Potala Palace gradually changed.

Its members began spending more time with martial arts manuals than with scriptures. They accepted only children with exceptional aptitude and greatly expanded their ranks of martial monks.

“We swore that even if Ghost Flame Fist died and turned to dust before we could avenge that day, we would end the line of those fiends with our own hands.”

By the time the land had changed nearly ten times over, the Potala Palace had grown into a fighting force far stronger than it had ever been. Even its members believed the time for revenge had come.

But the man who had been chosen as the new Dalai Lama in childhood, according to Potala Palace tradition, was not satisfied. That had been about a hundred years ago.

“We had grown stronger, certainly. But it was still nowhere near enough. To take our revenge ourselves, we would have to face the entire Central Plains.”

Just as Songhak had been shunned as a foreigner the moment he set foot in Tibet, the Potala Palace would be nothing but an outsider in the Central Plains. A dangerous outsider, at that—one with enough power to unleash a storm of bloodshed.

The Fire Gate Clan might have spent years stirring up trouble and accumulating gratitude and grudges, but the martial artists of the Central Plains would never seek out the Fire Gate Clan and hand it over to dangerous outsiders from the west for revenge.

“In the end, we needed greater strength. Or…… an ally who would join us against the Central Plains.”

Crack.

The force in the Dalai Lama’s hands suddenly surged, pushing Jeok Cheongang’s hands back little by little.

The balance between them was finally breaking.

“The Demonic Cult was truly foolish. The arrogant Heavenly Demon mocked us for being weak. That was his greatest mistake.”

“The Great Faction War…… Hah. I thought you were just a bald monk consumed by an old grudge with no claim to justice. Now I can’t even call you a monk.”

Jeok Cheongang forced down the blood rising in his throat and gave the Dalai Lama a scornful look.

“How ridiculous. Don’t you think?”

“What?”

“Look at yourself. You’ve joined hands with fiends worse than the Demonic Cult, and you dare call anyone else a fiend?”

“……!”

The Dalai Lama flinched.

Jeok Cheongang’s sudden rebuke carried a terrifying aura. In the flames blazing within Jeok’s eyes, the Dalai Lama finally saw what he had become.

Red. His eyes were red.

Their light had taken on the color of the pool of blood at his feet.

Slowly, but steadily.

“All for that pathetic power, you even broke a taboo.”

“N-no. I……!”

His eyes and voice trembled.

But nothing he said could undo the truth of the past.

He had needed to grow stronger. Somehow, he had needed more and more power.

The countless pills and martial arts Dark Heaven offered had made that possible.

No—more precisely, that new power, infused with demonic energy, had made it possible.

Jeok Cheongang gave a quiet laugh. The Dalai Lama had been confronted with a contradiction he had forgotten—or had tried desperately to ignore.

“If you’ve got nothing to say, shut your mouth. Even this old man, with a strong stomach, can’t stand the excuses coming off a fiend’s tongue.”

“You bastard! Shut your mouth!”

Fwoosh!

A vast wave of energy surged in every direction.

Using his blazing rage as kindling, the Dalai Lama finally wrung every last bit of power and potential from deep within himself and drove his full strength against the enemy before him.

Crack!

The balance had tipped decisively. Bones shifted, and the flames around Jeok Cheongang’s hands began to dim.

Then, through lips streaked with blood—a testament to his mounting injuries and exhaustion—Jeok Cheongang released a single azure dragon’s roar.

“Hyeoncheon! Now!”

At that moment—

Shhhhh.

The world seemed to slow. The Dalai Lama tore his hands free of Jeok Cheongang’s with all his strength and spun around, every hair on his body standing on end.

He remembered the man who had slipped from his thoughts: the Kongtong Sect Leader, whom he had believed unable to fight.

Far away, Perfected Being Hyeoncheon was leaning against the corpse of a huge elephant, drawing only the faintest breaths. The Dalai Lama froze.

No.

Crack!

The terrible heat that drove deep into his body did not allow him even that instant.

“……!”

His body shuddered as if lightning had pierced it.

Yet no blood spilled from him. Not a single scream escaped his lips. The flames had vaporized the blood that should have burst forth, and the pain was so overwhelming he forgot even to cry out.

But perhaps the worst pain of all was his enemy’s low voice, sounding beside his ear.

“Fire King Jeok Cheongang says: Never harm a being who has something it must protect, even if that being is a beast.”

Like the ancestor who had carved his own words into a Potala Palace pillar, Jeok Cheongang whispered in a faint but clear voice. His hand had pierced the Dalai Lama’s back and burst through his chest. He clenched it tight.

“Especially if that being belongs to the Fire Gate Clan.”

The Dalai Lama could not answer.

His senses cut off from the world, and darkness swallowed his sight.

“Go on ahead, fiend of Tibet. This old man still has something to protect.”

Thud.

At last, his head slumped.

With his enemy’s final words echoing like Yama’s, the Dalai Lama’s world closed around him.