Chapter 1127

It all began in an instant—and ended in one.

But a moment that flashed past like lightning could feel like ten years to someone caught inside it.

KWA-DRRRK!

With a grisly sound of flesh tearing, the Blood Lord’s body shuddered.

Hot. Distant.

That was all. That was everything.

How?

The Blood Lord couldn’t understand.

Why hadn’t the palm strike he’d thrown on instinct brought his opponent down before those beastlike teeth sank into his neck?

Why was the Murim Alliance’s banner flying above those damn bandits?

And as he felt his body, no longer under his control, being pushed helplessly backward, he muttered to himself:

Well, it doesn’t matter anymore.

Splatter.

Sticky blood sprayed. Time, which had stopped, began to move again.

Lying in a pool of blood as broad as a pond, the Blood Lord looked up at the sky filling his vision.

Was it always this dark?

In truth, he already knew the answer.

The world was unchanged. Only he had changed.

The monster’s pupils were still as red as blood, but even now, his fading gaze could no longer make out light from shadow.

A world gone entirely black.

Beyond it, all the Blood Lord could feel was the rain pouring down without pause and the chill of blood soaking his body.

No. That wasn’t all.

Someone’s voice echoed in his ears.

“You… still listening, you son of a bitch?”

Jin Taekyung.

It was him.

He spat out the flesh and blood filling his mouth and smiled, though he was panting as if he might collapse at any moment. Even forcing out one syllable at a time looked like a struggle.

“I can hear it. Clear as day.”

The Blood Lord couldn’t answer.

He could only swallow the bloody phlegm rising in his throat and listen to the roar shaking heaven and earth.

—Destroy the Demonic Path and restore Heaven!

Destroy demons and set Heaven right.

It was the old Murim Alliance’s banner, the vow it had upheld to the very end—and the hoof that had trampled its invaders.

Just as it was doing now.

KWA-DRRRRCK!

He couldn’t see.

But he could picture it from the sound alone.

The fanatics wavering at this unexpected turn. The forest of countless spears and blades closing over them.

The undying will and desperate sense of duty carried by every one of those weapons.

“…Why?”

The Blood Lord barely managed to force out the word.

He wanted to ask Jin Taekyung. All of them.

What were they fighting so desperately for?

What could they hold so dear that they would give their lives to protect it?

Jin Taekyung answered that short question, laden with meaning, in two even shorter words.

“Fuck off.”

“So you don’t want to tell me.”

“I’m sick of it. You’re hardly the first idiot like this I’ve met. I’ve gone out of my way to explain it before, and none of you understood a damn thing.”

“I see. So that’s how it was.”

The Blood Lord managed a weak nod. Jin Taekyung watched him, then asked abruptly, “What about you?”

“What?”

“What the hell were you doing all this for?”

The Blood Lord fell silent for a moment. His own silence startled him.

Was it the exhaustion weighing down his eyelids?

Or the sense of death drawing closer with every passing second?

“…I don’t know.”

He should have said that everything he’d done was for the Lord of Heaven. That he would do anything for his great master, and would swear loyalty even if he died here and became a ghost.

But the faithful servant’s lips gave a different answer.

“I don’t… know anymore. Anything.”

With that faint murmur, the Blood Lord looked up at the sky.

Where was the heaven he had trusted so completely?

Would his master, somewhere impossibly far away, feel even a trace of grief when he heard that his most faithful servant had died?

Of course not.

A faint smile touched the Blood Lord’s lips.

Yes.

He had tried to deny it, but he already knew the answer.

The Lord of Heaven hadn’t wavered when the four Demon Lords and the Demon Empress died one after another. Nor when word came that countless followers had been wiped out.

Not for a single moment.

It was almost as if he’d wanted it to happen.

Then did you want this lowly servant to die, too?

The Blood Lord reached a trembling hand toward the sky.

Too far. He couldn’t touch it.

Just like the distance between him and the Lord of Heaven. No matter how hard he’d tried, they had never grown any closer.

Ah.

The Blood Lord swallowed a groan.

He had believed in and revered the Lord of Heaven. But the light pouring down from that heaven had always shone on one person alone.

On the owner of those blazing eyes, who could no longer lift a finger yet still watched him die without looking away.

Jin Taekyung.

At that moment—

Shhk!

The fingers that had been reaching desperately through empty air curled like hooks and plunged downward.

The monster’s final strike carried anger and hatred he no longer knew whom to direct at, and one last duty that now seemed futile.

Just as it was about to pierce Jin Taekyung between the eyes—

KRAK!

A hand caked in dried blood blocked it.

The bones in the monster’s fingers shattered, joint by joint, and his flesh and blood burned.

Hiss.

A haze rose with the smell of scorching flesh.

Beyond it, the old master who had returned to his Disciple’s side parted his lips.

“How dare you lay a hand on him?”

Through heat that penetrated even his dulled senses, the Fire King, Jeok Cheongang, looked down at the monster trembling in pain.

And he wasn’t alone.

The Bow Saint and the Slaughter Saint. Sword Saint Mae Jonghak and Cheongpung. Others, too, who had rushed over covered in blood.

They surrounded the monster like reapers, like iron towers.

They blotted out the sky that had been his whole world and became a broad, sturdy roof sheltering someone else from the rain.

That was why Jin Taekyung could laugh aloud.

He remembered the monster’s joyful cry just moments ago.

“See them?”

He spoke emphatically to the monster, its blood-red eyes wide open.

“Those faces you’re looking at? That’s the paltry heaven I believed in.”

“…!”

What could the monster say?

What more could he do?

He blinked helplessly, swallowed the blood spilling over his lips, and forced out a few last words.

“Rejoice… all you want. This will be the last time.”

As his vision darkened to pitch-black, Jin Taekyung’s voice reached him, faint and distant.

“I was planning to.”

A bitter smile touched Jin Taekyung’s lips. The monster breathed his last, and that breath dispersed into the air.

Ding.

A clear chime rang out like the bell of an ancient cathedral, announcing that everything was over.

It carried boundless joy—and even greater sorrow.

There’s a saying: animals leave their hides behind when they die, and people leave their names.

But a monster that’s neither animal nor human can leave behind a massive amount of EXP.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

The familiar clear chime rang nonstop in my ears.

If everyone could hear it instead of just me, I bet it would’ve carried for hundreds of ri.¹

That bastard sure knew how to make an exit.

The Blood Lord’s end was miserable and shabby, but the System’s payouts were lavish.

How many times had I leveled up in that brief instant?

Three? More?

I wasn’t sure.

All I knew was that several Quests had been completed the moment the Blood Lord died, and I’d turned off notifications after my third Level Up.

Any other time, I’d have passed out from happiness.

No, I definitely would have. Leveling up had become a once-in-a-blue-moon event. Doing it several times in a row was nothing short of a miracle.

But none of it meant anything to me now.

The chimes that should have sounded like heaven were just irritating noise. Even having my crushed flesh and broken bones heal offered only a little comfort.

One small, final comfort: I could pat someone’s trembling shoulder.

“Quit bawling. Your dick’ll fall off.”

Cheongpung didn’t stop crying at my attempt to comfort him. He just spoke through his sobs.

He said he was sorry. And thanked me, too.

But my farewell to Cheongpung—surely our last—was brief.

Unlike him, I still had so many last faces left to see.

And once I’d seen them all, my own final moment would be waiting.

System Time Limit: 5 minutes 35 seconds

I gazed calmly at the hourglass of the final rally, still hanging in the air.

Truthfully, I’d already guessed. Ever since I’d launched One Annihilation at the Blood Lord.

There was a limit to how much a Level Up could heal, and the injuries I’d suffered from One Annihilation’s backlash went beyond it.

Now that what was called innate qi—or original true qi—had been damaged, my fate was like a boat that had crossed a river with no way back.

The System warned me, and I accepted it.

That was all.

I’d taken the step I had to take, even knowing death might be waiting for me.

I had been prepared for this. If anything, I was grateful for the way things had turned out.

Without the healing from those Level Ups, without the extra time it had given me in the final rally, I wouldn’t even have been able to say goodbye.

If that’s what happened, then it was enough.

The Blood Lord was dead. Dark Heaven’s army had crumbled. And I’d been given a few precious extra minutes.

Now I was smiling at faces I’d thought I’d never see again.

As if this were an ordinary, peaceful day, with no enemy to defeat and no one dear to me in need of protection.

Just like this moment.

Yeah.

I was ready to leave.

I had to be.