The moment a small but unmistakable voice slipped between someone’s lips, the countless people surrounding him all widened their eyes at once, as if they’d agreed to do it together.
What should they call this?
Survival?
Or resurrection?
No one knew the answer.
All they knew was that something hot surged up from deep within their chests.
“…!”
“…!”
A choked roar rose beyond the Inner City, powerful enough to shake heaven and earth.
The rain that had poured down without end had long since stopped, but their cries didn’t let up.
Some wept. Some laughed. Others raised their weapons high and roared as if the battle still raged.
Exhausted as they were, they rejoiced with all their hearts.
The brutal bloodbath that had seemed as if it would never end was over.
And yet, alongside their joy, they felt a grief too deep for words.
They saw the empty places left by comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder and fought back to back with them only several shichen1 ago.
Finally, they shuddered at the sight before their eyes: a young hero awakening amid a blue-black radiance, a miracle beyond belief.
His Master watched his Disciple with an expression of disbelief, then parted his trembling lips and spoke.
“Yeah. I believed in you.”
Despite his answer, his eyes were soaked with tears.
At the sight of Jeok Cheongang, Jin Taekyung said nothing. He only managed a faint smile.
Whether his Master had believed in him or not—what did it matter?
What mattered was the feeling in his Master’s tears, and that he had kept his promise.
I’m back. Really.
Perhaps it was because his mind was exhausted beyond its limits.
His consciousness was hazy, as if he’d sunk deep into sleep, but Jin Taekyung knew that everything around him was real.
The sky slowly clearing.
The familiar faces surrounding him now, laughing and crying, though he’d thought he would never see them again.
And—
Among the countless holographic windows floating in the air, the words that stood out largest and clearest.
System
Innate qi has been restored!
Status abnormality, Final Rally, has been lifted!
The sudden Quest, A Candle in the Wind, or a Flame, has been successfully completed!
Would he become a candle, its flame dying helplessly away?
Or a blaze that devoured his enemies?
At that crossroads, Jin Taekyung had chosen the latter, and the dying ember inside him had finally been reignited.
The ember called innate qi.
And the second Bone Transformation that followed was nothing short of a miracle—one no one present could have expected.
Not even the peerless giant known as the Sword Saint.
“You make a lot of noise in your sleep. More than I ever imagined.”
At Mae Jonghak’s joking remark as he came over, Jin Taekyung let out a quiet snort of laughter.
“I almost woke up halfway through. It was so noisy around me.”
“Is it still?”
“Yes.”
Jin Taekyung glanced at his allies, who were still cheering, and added:
“But… it sounds good.”
It sounds good.
At Jin Taekyung’s brief comment, Mae Jonghak watched him in silence, then gave a small nod.
“Yes. I think so too.”
No one needed to ask about the battle’s outcome, or explain it.
The proof was all around them: countless allies surrounding them, and a handful of fanatics on their knees, bound from head to toe.
The battle is over.
At those few words, something hot surged up from one corner of Jin Taekyung’s chest.
Perhaps this was only a victory for today.
Today’s victory might be erased by a defeat tomorrow, whenever that day came.
But… for now, this was enough.
Enough that this horrific hellscape had come to an end.
Enough that they had defeated the enormous Dark Heaven army that had stood in their way like a mountain, along with the powerful enemies who led it.
The Blood Lord. And the Grand Sorceress.
Jin Taekyung lifted his head and looked northeast.
He didn’t know how many more enemies lurked beyond the vast desert outside Qinghai.
But the deaths of the Blood Lord and the Grand Sorceress on this battlefield were undoubtedly a major gain for the allies.
He couldn’t be certain, but as far as he could tell, those two had been the Lord of Heaven’s last hunting dogs.
But… what is this feeling?
A sudden sense of déjà vu made Jin Taekyung’s eyelids flutter.
Why?
He felt as if he’d forgotten something.
Something very important—something he couldn’t afford to overlook.
But it didn’t take him long to realize what that feeling was.
Whoooosh!
The next moment, Jin Taekyung’s eyes flew wide as he saw a dozen or so shadows shoot up into the distant sky.
Those are…!
They were none other than strange birds.
They flew across the sky with their wings spread wide, white bone joints exposed and blood-red eyes flashing.
Like messengers rushing to deliver urgent news to someone.
“No!”
The shout burst from him on instinct.
But before he could do anything, the birds, already far away, shot west at a speed far beyond anything they’d managed while alive.
They left one name flashing through Jin Taekyung’s mind like a bolt of lightning.
“…Ma Sanbao?”
He’d forgotten about him for a moment.
No—that wasn’t quite right. He hadn’t had even a moment to think about him.
The powerful corpse sorcerer who carried on the Maoshan Sect’s legacy had been hidden from sight by the shadows of the two monsters, the Blood Lord and the Grand Sorceress.
At the same time, the Blood Lord’s final words before he met his end rang through Jin Taekyung’s mind like an auditory hallucination.
Celebrate to your heart’s content. This will be your last laugh.
He hadn’t understood it then.
He’d thought those words were nothing more than the tired bluster of a defeated general.
But now, the chill running down Jin Taekyung’s spine foretold another crisis.
Could it be?
The tangled threads of information in his mind began to unravel one by one.
Ma Sanbao had never appeared on the battlefield, despite being an undeniably powerful asset—even if he was no match for the Blood Lord or the Grand Sorceress.
The Sword Saint and the Murim Alliance’s elite had traveled thousands of li2 to Qinghai without even telling their own allies the truth.
And then there were the strange birds that had watched everything unfold before flying west.
Wait. If they’re heading west…
No doubt about it.
Mount Kunlun.
That place, already in Dark Heaven’s grasp, had to be the birds’ destination.
At the same time, Jin Taekyung recalled one of the questions he still hadn’t answered.
Why had Dark Heaven’s enormous army, which had occupied Mount Kunlun before he and the reinforcements even set foot in Qinghai, remained so immovable?
Had the Blood Lord really made all these moves just to catch him and every other big fish in a single sweep of the net?
No. That wasn’t all the Blood Lord was after from the start. It was just… they needed time, too.
Perhaps it was because his mind was already exhausted beyond its limits.
Or perhaps because he’d finally grasped the shape of the foreboding he’d felt.
His face had turned as pale as paper as he looked at the people surrounding him. Without realizing it, Jin Taekyung let out the breath he’d been holding.
Along with two bitter words that had lingered on the tip of his tongue.
“…Moving Formation.”
That was the answer Jin Taekyung had found.
It was one of the main reasons Dark Heaven’s powerful army had hunkered down on Mount Kunlun—and the Blood Lord’s last move, prepared in case things went wrong.
And Ma Sanbao, the hidden blade, would move as soon as he heard this news.
Through the Moving Formation newly inscribed somewhere on Mount Kunlun, he would pierce the allies’ most vital point.
The very place called the Central Plains.
“We have to move. Right now. If we don’t, the Central Plains—”
Jin Taekyung’s voice trembled as he groaned.
His breath came hard, and his heart pounded.
Faces passed one after another through his wavering vision. Perhaps they shouldn’t have come here today at all.
Especially the man who had been known as the Sword Saint for decades, and was now the Alliance Leader.
But—
“Yes. We have to move.”
That was as far as Jin Taekyung could go.
Tap.
A hand suddenly touched the back of his neck.
In the same instant, Mae Jonghak struck him with a Pressure-Point Strike, swift as lightning. In an even voice, he continued:
“But this time, you’re going to rest.”
Jin Taekyung answered.
Or tried to.
No. Absolutely not. He couldn’t rest now.
But despite his desperate resolve, his lips wouldn’t move. Exhaustion and sleep washed over him, pressing down on his eyelids with the weight of ten thousand geun3.
Ah.
As his vision went dark in an instant, Jin Taekyung let go of consciousness, a voice ringing in his ears like an auditory hallucination.
“You’ve done well, my friend.”
Qinghai is vast.
But the wings of the strange birds, granted boundless vigor by death, were swift enough to make the distance between Xining and Mount Kunlun—more than several hundred li2—seem insignificant.
And the shocking news brought by these exceptional messengers, unlike any seen before or since, reached Mount Kunlun’s highest peak in less than a shichen1.
No—
It reached a certain corpse sorcerer who carried on the Maoshan Sect’s legacy.
“…So that’s what happened.”
Ma Sanbao muttered to himself as he stared east, his gaze sinking deep.
The news was impossible to believe, but he had no choice.
More than a dozen strange birds had already relayed everything they’d seen and heard in vivid detail.
The outcome of a bloody battle that had raged without a break for half a day—and the presence of people he’d thought could never appear in Qinghai.
I owe the Blood Lord an apology. I thought he was just a man crazed by blood.
Ma Sanbao let out a quiet snort of laughter.
More than anyone, the Blood Lord had obsessed over Jin Taekyung. Yet by keeping one last move in reserve, he hadn’t forgotten his most basic loyalty to the master who held his leash.
A final sword stroke that would lay waste to the Central Plains, now all but undefended.
And Ma Sanbao was willing to play that part.
“It’s about time I left this wretched mountain.”
Ma Sanbao rose from the grand chair and addressed his waiting subordinates.
“Let’s go. To the Central Plains.”
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