Chapter 1120

Boom!

The low sound of air being torn apart rang out, and the whole world seemed to stop.

At least, that was how it felt to the members of the Fire Dragon Pavilion who saw a palm strike, launched at lightning speed, hit Hyuk Mujin in the chest.

And then—

Splatter.

As Hyuk Mujin’s body crumpled, scattering dark-red blood, the world that had stopped began to move again.

“No!”

Taishan’s eyes were bloodshot. The muscles across his body bulged as if they might burst.

At the unbelievable sight before him, he let out a thunderous roar and charged toward the gate.

He forgot his exhaustion. He cast aside his fear.

Like an enraged bull, Taishan swung his two-section staff with all his strength and pressed forward.

Whoooosh! Wham!

Each time the furious wind rose, brains flew and bones shattered like powder.

Fanatics had taken the place of the monsters, frozen like statues at the death of the corpse sorcerer. They tried to block his path, but none could easily stop Taishan in his rage.

No—more accurately, they couldn’t stop them.

KRRRUNCH!

A fierce rush of saber energy tore through the space, and severed limbs flew in every direction.

Amid the swirling spray of blood, Sama Pyo’s eyes—usually so composed—blazed with blue fire.

And someone else plunged into the dozens of fanatics closing in around Sama Pyo, heedless of their fallen comrades.

SHWEEEE!

Song Ilseom’s narrow-bladed sword shot through the air in swift, economical movements, each one utterly cruel.

Even the epithet Soul-Chasing Guest seemed inadequate.

Stab! Stab-stab!

Song Ilseom stabbed and twisted at every opening.

With the most efficient movements, he dealt his enemies certain pain and death.

Blood burst from a terrible scream and splashed across his face. Blades rained down indiscriminately from every direction, leaving cuts large and small across his body. But his tightly pressed lips didn’t tremble.

The blood flowing through Song Ilseom’s veins came from an illustrious family. But what had made him the Soul-Chasing Guest was blood shed on the battlefield.

He had once left the path of the wandering martial artist, which he’d walked all his life to repay the debt of an earlier generation. Now he was throwing his life away to repay a comrade’s blood debt.

He gave himself over to pure rage, without a thought for the cost.

And Song Ilseom wasn’t the only one who felt it.

“How dare you…!”

“You bastards are lower than this beggar!”

Sssshing! Slice!

Ju Hwaran, Gung Gibang, and the thousand defenders who had barely survived gritted their teeth and forced themselves to their feet.

Hope that they could win?

They’d long since erased it from their hearts.

The monsters had stopped moving, but fanatics remained—several times as many. Worse, tens of thousands of enemy reinforcements had appeared.

But hope wasn’t the only thing that could move people.

In that dark, bottomless despair, they had seen it clearly:

Hyuk Mujin, refusing to lose his dignity until the very last moment before he fell.

Fire Dragon Pavilion… No.

Before an enemy they could not possibly defeat, his spirit had not bent.

Swift Wind Sword Hyuk Mujin.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

At last, a thousand blades began to shine again, rippling like a wave.

The defenders clamped their hands over severed arms and slashed-open bellies. They bit their tongues to suppress their pain and fear, gripped their weapons, and stood.

With all their strength, they shouted what might be their last words—the final proof that they had existed in this world.

“Knife-and-Dagger Hero So Gyuhyeok is here!”

“Swift Blade Shakes the Heavens Mu Cheol is here too!”

“Figures the orthodox faction would have such fancy titles. I’m Black-Killing Sword Jo Hyeok, you bastards!”

Masters of the orthodox faction, the unorthodox faction, and those who belonged somewhere between the two.

Their roots, their branches, and the fruit they bore were different. But the great cause they sought to protect was the same.

“Destroy the Demonic Path and restore Heaven.”

Destroy the Demonic Path and set the heavens right.

An old Daoist¹ murmured the four characters they had once shouted until they were spitting blood, back when they fought a hundred thousand followers of the Demonic Path. He tightened his grip on his sword.

Slice.

A body split into dozens of pieces along a streak of white light and scattered.

The Black Ghost had finally met its true end. The old Daoist¹ turned away, and Cheongheoja’s voice rang out, carrying the force of his internal energy.

“I miss those days. The time when you and I were ‘us.’ Don’t you?”

In Cheongheoja’s eyes, steeped in sorrow and anger, a huge figure stood before the ruined gate in the distance.

“Seafaring King Pa Ryun.”

The next moment—

“You haven’t changed, Cheongheoja.”

With a heavy voice that brushed over Hyuk Mujin’s fallen head, the master of the long, vast Yangtze strode out beneath the faint moonlight.

Two more unwelcome guests emerged from behind his imposing frame.

One was a mysterious figure dressed in black from head to toe. The other, a slight old man standing beside him, had a familiar face.

“It’s been a long time, Cheongheoja.”

At the greeting, Cheongheoja’s gaze turned cold.

“Right. You were there too. Green Forest Battle King Tae Gunak.”

“Such a sharp edge to your words. Last time we met, I believe you called me a fellow Daoist,¹ not ‘you.’”

“Those days will never return. Not after the irrevocable choices some people made.”

Tae Gunak looked around, his brow furrowing slightly.

“I’m sorry things came to this. I mean that.”

“You mean that…”

Cheongheoja murmured the words hollowly, then drew up every last bit of his remaining internal energy.

Hummm.

As if sensing that his master’s end was near, the treasured sword that had been with him all his life trembled.

Not far away, Great Sir was still struggling against Black Ghost. But Cheongheoja’s senses and energy had already focused entirely on the unwelcome guests guarding the gate.

He had to bring down more than the two giants who divided the world’s dark-path forces between them.

There was also the mysterious man in black. Instinct told Cheongheoja he was no weaker than either of them.

He must be one of Dark Heaven’s key figures. But who?

The question crossed his mind, but Cheongheoja could only smile bitterly.

Worry was ultimately a luxury for those who survived.

For an old Daoist¹ who had to face three Supreme Peak masters alone, there was no point in worrying any further.

All he could do was resolve to meet his end without shame before those remarkable young people, still advancing as they cut down their enemies.

“Come, you thieves of the world. I am Cheongheoja of Kunlun.”

The old Daoist’s¹ eyes flashed, colder than ever.

“Let’s finish this quickly.”

A quiet voice reached every ear.

Rumble.

The black-robed man stepped forward, and immense qi began to churn around him.

Cheongheoja, charging with all his strength. Great Sir, fleeing in haste from the Black Ghost’s sword. The Fire Dragon Pavilion members fighting their way through the fanatics, and the thousand defenders following them in their final stand.

Every one of them stared wide-eyed, trembling at the eruption of power that filled their vision as though it would be the last thing they ever saw.

SHWAAAA!

A single line—impossible to block, impossible even to see clearly—cut across the world.

“…!”

Why had his body suddenly gone rigid?

Where had this enormous rock come from, pressing down on his chest?

Jin Taekyung couldn’t tell what had caused it or why.

No—he didn’t want to know.

The moment he found out what this sudden feeling of dread meant, he felt the last thread barely holding him together might snap.

But despite that, Jin Taekyung’s gaze toward somewhere in the east, hidden behind enemies and buildings, had begun to tremble.

This is…

His vision was blurred as though by mist, his senses dull as an axe waiting for winter. His whole body sagged like waterlogged cotton.

Even so, he could faintly hear and feel it.

The enormous blast that had rung out far to the east. The steep surge of power.

It pointed to only one thing.

The East Gate… has fallen.

He wanted to deny it, to tell himself it couldn’t possibly be true. But it was no use.

Unlike the fire raging in his chest, his mind had gone cold. It faced the reality coming toward him head-on.

It’s them. It has to be.

Pa Ryun, the Alliance Leader of the Yangtze River Channel League.

And Tae Gunak, the Alliance Leader of the Green Forest Alliance—Pa Ryun’s equal and lifelong rival.

The two giants who divided the world’s dark-path forces between them had finally reached the battlefield.

And they’d brought an army of thirty thousand.

…Then that means—

Unable to finish the thought, Jin Taekyung raised his hazy eyes and looked around.

People leaned against the low walls of the Inner City, gasping for breath amid countless bodies and pools of blood scattered in every direction.

Some of those who had retreated from the three sides other than the East Gate had familiar faces. Others had not appeared at all.

Why?

Jin Taekyung wondered in a daze.

Why hadn’t they returned yet?

He already knew the answer. Still, he asked himself again.

Right. So that’s how it ended.

A weak laugh escaped him.

He thought of the faces he would never see again.

He felt the presence of tens of thousands of enemies surrounding the Inner City, and of the monster leading them.

KWA-BOOOOM!

With a tremendous crash, the Inner City crumbled.