Chapter 1115

It was a fierce battle.

Unprecedented in a thousand years of Murim history, stretching back to the day a monk from a distant land crossed the Yangtze on a single reed leaf.¹

It was a bloodbath, too.

One without precedent in the history of the entire continent, not just Murim.

CRUNCH!

A skull split open. Brain matter sprayed.

The boy died without so much as a final cry.

But no one grieved anymore for a boy soldier who hadn’t even reached twenty.

No—they couldn’t.

In the relentless turning of this brutal hellscape, death had long since become cheap.

The only thing they could do for the dead was take revenge.

“The Lord of Heaven is with us……!”

A bloodshot fanatic trampled the boy’s corpse as he stepped onto the wall.

Thud.

A gleaming blade burst out between his brows.

“Who’s with you?”

The fanatic, already dead, couldn’t answer.

A small shadow pulled the dagger from the back of his head as the body crumpled like a rotten log. Then the shadow stepped toward the other enemies, still elated at having seized the wall.

Whoosh.

The figure vanished like a ghost.

The Sword Energy that came flying a beat too late shot toward the space where the shadow had stood, but a cool breeze from somewhere had already swept past them.

Slice—SPLAT!

A fountain of blood arced into the pitch-black night sky.

The speed was blinding, every movement precise and free of waste. Yet after cutting down dozens of enemies in the blink of an eye, the shadow—the Slaughter Saint—looked grim.

This is the limit. We can’t hold out any longer.

He wasn’t thinking only of himself.

The South Gate had been an impregnable fortress with the Slaughter Saint and the Bow Saint defending it. Now the gate was faltering, along with every defender stationed there.

It’s a miracle we held out this long.

Perhaps the fight had been impossible from the start.

Their side had even needed to call up commoners, while the enemy were all trained in a certain level of martial arts and had used Temporary Strength Pills as well.

Outmatched in both numbers and quality, they had held on only by making the most of their defensive position and deploying their handful of elite troops wherever they were needed.

But—

So this is as far as we go.

The Slaughter Saint swallowed a groan and looked around.

Beyond the unrelenting downpour lay a sea of corpses and blood. His allies were collapsing from exhaustion, their bodies pushed far past the limits of their will.

Everyone was tired.

Their limbs felt as heavy as waterlogged cotton. Keeping their minds from giving way was all they could manage.

Even the Slaughter Saint felt his exhaustion mounting and his dantian running empty.

If only we’d taken out the Grand Sorceress. We might have had a chance to counterattack……

But the Grand Sorceress was no easy opponent. She was even more formidable than he’d heard.

The defenses around her and the hundred or so other mages had been as solid as an iron wall. When the Slaughter Saint threw everything he had into breaking through to its center, he found no fewer than four Black Ghosts waiting for him.

All four had been strengthened by an array of enhancement spells.

Without help from the greatest archer under Heaven, who could tear a target apart from hundreds of jang² away, even the Slaughter Saint would not have returned with all his limbs intact.

Still, he had brought down two Black Ghosts. Pride and sheer determination had seen to that.

Shing!

A brilliant flash shattered his brief reverie.

BOOM!

A massive beam of light swallowed the twenty or so fanatics charging at him from behind and exploded.

“You seem relaxed. You even have time to look away.”

At the Bow Saint’s pointed remark, the Slaughter Saint flicked his sleeve.

Thud-thud-thud!

Enemies aiming their bows from blind spots crumpled all at once, each with a long, slender ox-hair needle embedded between the brows.

“I wish I looked relaxed. Maybe then those bastards would be a little scared.”

“Do you think they have any fear left?”

“……Damn it.”

The Slaughter Saint launched himself forward again with a bitter curse, trying to protect as many of his allies as he could from fiends who had mortgaged their very souls to fanatic faith.

Slice! CRACK!

He cut and stabbed, broke bones and twisted limbs.

But that was all he could do.

No matter how tirelessly the two giants who had once shone so brightly in their age cut down their enemies, the exhausted defenders’ resistance faded fast. The fanatics’ fervent voices filled the wall.

“Great Lord of Heaven!”

“Let your majesty and power descend upon this land!”

Grit.

Facing them felt like standing before an enormous wave. The Slaughter Saint clenched his teeth without realizing it.

Kill hundreds, and thousands followed. Cut down thousands, and tens of thousands stood behind them.

Would this battle ever end?

What the hell are we supposed to do……?

He couldn’t even finish the thought.

He was a man of flesh and blood, not an all-knowing, all-powerful god.

……This is the first time I’ve wanted to see someone this badly.

Was it the wounds scattered across his body? Or the internal energy draining away even now?

Caught in the exhaustion and emptiness he’d forgotten, the Slaughter Saint suddenly thought of someone who, long ago, had always brought him confidence and certain victory—even when facing a Demonic Cult army more than ten times their size.

Martial God, what would you have done?

It was a foolish question.

The Martial God would never have entertained such doubts in the first place. That was the kind of man he was.

A true heaven, beyond the reach of even the three brightest stars in all Murim.

And yet, at that moment, another name came to the Slaughter Saint.

Jin Taekyung.

The master of the Morning Star, the new star Dharma King Hong Dao had once spoken of—and now the young man who had drawn the Lord of Heaven’s inexplicable obsession.

And—

The Chosen One.

The Slaughter Saint could be sure of nothing.

Was it all coincidence? Or had someone high above, in the distant heavens, decided their fate long ago?

All he could do was hold tight to their one hope, even if it amounted to no more than a handful.

Slice!

Force streamed from his dagger as it cut through the air, bending like a whip to sweep across the wall.

Amid severed limbs and spilling blood, the Slaughter Saint drew on what little internal energy he had left and slaughtered the enemies before him in a single attack. Then he opened his mouth.

“Everyone, retreat.”

……!

……!

The defenders, barely managing to resist, stared at him wide-eyed. But he had made up his mind. His voice did not waver.

“Messenger, take word to the South and North Gates immediately. The elites stationed at each gate will cover the rear and buy us some time. The rest of the troops are to retreat as quickly and orderly as possible.”

Silence pressed down on them. It lasted only an instant, but felt like an eternity.

To them, abandoning the wall meant that the word they’d been trying so hard to ignore—defeat—was finally becoming real.

Only one person present could oppose the Slaughter Saint’s decision. The Bow Saint watched him, her gaze still calm.

Is that the best we can do, then?

Her Sound Transmission reached his ear.

The Slaughter Saint met her gaze and answered just as calmly.

I don’t know. But…… I want to believe.

That was all.

He wanted to believe in the one person chosen by Dharma King Hong Dao, who had read the heavenly patterns; by the Blood Lord, who had thrown even those patterns into disarray; and by the Martial God, whose life or death was now unknown.

I want to see with my own eyes where coincidence ends and fate begins.

Even if a wretched end awaited him, he would not regret it.

The young brat he had watched as Mungyeong, not as the Slaughter Saint, had the makings of a Great Master worth risking his life for, regardless of age or martial prowess.

Surely they all felt the same.

Bow Saint.

At his quiet call, he looked steadily at her.

I don’t know exactly what you have in mind. But there’s one thing I do know. No—anyone who’s been even a little close to Jin Taekyung knows it.

……

You can keep your distance and refuse to say a word, but you can’t bring yourself to hate that boy.

……!

I want to believe in him. And in you, too.

Her pupils wavered for an instant.

But neither her agitation nor her silence lasted long.

Fwoosh!

High above them, enormous balls of fire came pouring down like a meteor shower, evaporating even the driving rain.

Shing!

The Bow Saint’s hand moved like lightning. A dazzling arrow of light shot forth.

KABOOM!

A crash that seemed to split heaven and earth rang out, and the sky turned red.

The fireballs broke into hundreds, then thousands of pieces, large and small, and rained down. The Bow Saint watched them fall, her face set.

“Honestly, I don’t know what choice I should make.”

The Slaughter Saint was about to groan when she added quietly, “Still, I want to believe, too.”

……!

“Come with me. To the Inner City. To that boy.”

At last, a faint smile touched the Slaughter Saint’s tired lips.