Chapter 1183

It was a nameless ruin.

Judging by its size and the number of buildings, it had once been a small city where several thousand households lived. But as everyone had expected, there was not a person to be found.

Only the mountain range stretching endlessly along the distant horizon remained to watch over the ghost town.

The Tianshan Mountains: a giant of nature wearing a bamboo hat of snow that never melted, no matter the season.

The mountains of heaven, huh.

Muttering to myself, I gazed through the window at the vast landscape.

Overwhelming. Almost awe-inspiring.

It was a sight that could only be called Tianshan. The peaks rose through the clouds, high enough that I could almost imagine immortals living somewhere up there.

No, that wasn’t such an absurd fantasy.

Replace immortals with Demon King, and fantasy became reality.

A very horrifying reality, at that.

“Captain?”

A voice suddenly pierced my ear.

Plenty of people called me their benefactor. Only one called me Captain.

I kept my eyes on the view outside. “Yeah.”

Maybe it was because my thoughts were tangled like a ball of string. My voice came out subdued, and Hyuk Mujin hesitated before speaking again.

“Um, have you eaten?”

“Sort of. Why?”

“Slau—no, Great Hero Mungyeong told me to stop by if I had a chance. He wanted to make sure you weren’t skipping meals.”

“He did? That’s unusual.”

It surprised me a little. We’d grown close during our time together, but I hadn’t thought he was the sort to worry about whether I’d eaten.

“He said these are special fasting pills he made before we set out, just in case. We’re running low on food already, and he said he’d kill you if you left any.”

“…Yeah, that sounds more like him.”

I shook my head and took the fasting pill I’d tucked away in my clothes. Hyuk Mujin’s eyes turned cold.

“You said you ate.”

“I said sort of. I didn’t say I ate.”

“Honestly. I knew it.”

Maybe he was acting up because he hadn’t been hit enough lately.

Ignoring his grumbling, I popped the pill into my mouth. I chewed and swallowed through a bitterness I couldn’t begin to identify. Then, along with a surprising feeling of fullness, a System notification rang out.

Ding.

System

You have consumed Mungyeong’s Special Fasting Pill.

Fullness will be maintained for one day.

A small amount of fatigue has been recovered.

All stats increase by +3 for one hour.

It tasted like shit, but it certainly worked.

Though for something made by the Divine Physician, its effects were a little disappointing.

I grimaced and smacked my lips. Then I met Hyuk Mujin’s gaze as he stared at me with an almost uncomfortable intensity.

“What are you doing?”

“Y-yes?”

“Why are you staring? Is there something on my face?”

“Uh, no. You just look really… handsome today. Hehe.”

I couldn’t help a bitter smile at his ingratiating flattery.

It was obvious what he was doing. My mood had been low lately, and he was trying to cheer me up.

I didn’t let on. I clicked my tongue instead.

“Enough nonsense. If you’re done here, get out. Don’t bother me just to make sure I eat.”

“Hey, what do you mean, just? We’re doing all this so we can keep living. What’s more important than food?”

“You sound like someone I know.”

“Are you seriously comparing me to Taishan, that A-Gwi of a bastard—”

His words trailed off.

Hyuk Mujin only moved his lips for a while, as though he’d said something he shouldn’t have. I turned my gaze back out the window, too.

After a brief silence, his voice sounded through the dusty room, quieter than before.

“Captain.”

“Go on.”

“Taishan… he’s doing all right, isn’t he?”

“He should be.”

“He eats so much, he might’ve cleaned out their food supply already. Sneaking food whenever he gets the chance, taking a few whacks from Old Man Nam, getting scolded by Sama Pyo…”

“Could be.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what’s happening. Want to bet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’d both bet on the same thing.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Yeah.”

Silence returned, longer and much heavier than before.

And this time, too, it was Hyuk Mujin—not me—who broke it first.

“Captain.”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone’s… doing okay, right?”

I didn’t answer.

Instead, I looked out at the landscape I’d watched for the past two days, a view that hadn’t changed for even a moment. It was overwhelming and awe-inspiring, yet it felt utterly empty.

I wondered why a landscape filled to the last detail looked to me like a blank sheet of paper.

No.

I thought about the people.

Jin Wikyung, who would run toward me without a care for who was watching, shouting, “Youngest!” at the top of his lungs.

Jin Mukyung, watching his eldest brother rush ahead with a sullen expression.

Sama Pyo, now leading hundreds of subordinates like a proper Sect Leader, and Namho and Taishan, who had somehow become inseparable.

A Thousand Captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard who’d thanked me with a face stiff as a block of wood—and the ruler of the continent, whose body was dead yet who seemed more full of life than before.

I thought of all of them, everyone we’d parted from with a smile in Qinghai.

I thought of the past, already gone, and the future soon to come.

But why?

We’d left the desert behind. Two days had passed, and now the sun was sinking. Still, there was no sign of them.

No Murim Alliance banners rising like mountains in the west. No golden armor surging like a tide from the east.

That was right.

I hadn’t been looking at the landscape. I’d been looking for the people coming from somewhere far away.

Yet as the last day we’d agreed upon drew to a close, I still couldn’t find them.

…Maybe.

I forced down the three syllables that had surfaced unbidden.

Then, as though a wave could erase the disordered sand on a beach, I repeated to myself:

No. That can’t be.

They were strong.

Their blades and spears were sharp, and their resolve burned bright.

They were Murim. They were the Nine Provinces¹ and all under Heaven.

So I held tight to the belief clenched in my fist.

This wait would be rewarded. However exhausted and dust-covered they were after their endless forced march, we would see each other again soon, smiling.

I believed it.

Believing was all I could do.

“Let’s do it.”

Hyuk Mujin had come up beside me without a word and was looking out the window with me. He glanced over.

“Do what?”

“That bet from earlier. Let’s do it after all.”

I watched the world slowly turn red and went on.

“They’ll come before midnight. I’m sure of it.”

Hyuk Mujin stared at me with wide eyes, then let out a quiet laugh.

“That can’t be a bet.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’d both bet on the same thing. That’s not a bet.”

“Damn. You’re right.”

“See?”

“So you’re not doing it?”

“No.”

He added firmly, “Of course I’m doing it.”

His voice drifted out the window on the wind.

Then the sunset weighed down on the world, and darkness came.

A darkness so still it was suffocating.

“We leave in fifteen minutes.”

A draft blew in from somewhere, making the candle flicker precariously. Jeok Cheongang’s voice and tone, however, were calm and composed.

“If we wait another day for these fools who forgot the agreed date—whether they’re from the Murim Alliance or the Imperial Guards—I’ll start producing relics² inside my own body. It’d be a hundred times better for us to move ahead as scouts and vanguard.”

On the surface, it made sense.

Perhaps Jeok Cheongang’s composure made it seem even more reasonable. He spoke as though he’d expected all this from the start.

The Slaughter Saint and Bow Saint nodded on either side of him. The others listened in silence.

But Jin Taekyung was different.

“You want us to go ahead?”

“Is there another way?”

“It’s not that there’s another way. We can’t take that one.”

“Go on.”

“If we went back west and east—even a day’s travel, no, just half a day’s—we might run into our scouts…”

“Midnight has passed. The date we agreed on is behind us. We discussed what to do afterward in advance.”

“But…”

“Fool!”

Whoosh!

The air abruptly heated. His master’s sharp rebuke rang out, and he fixed his Disciple with a level gaze.

“I know what you fear, but moving armies of that size brings countless difficulties. We’re only going one step ahead according to the plan already made. No more arguing.”

Normally, Jin Taekyung would have obeyed Jeok Cheongang. Their relationship might have been more informal than most between master and Disciple, but Taekyung trusted and followed him more than anyone.

Normally.

Not today. Not at this moment.

An inexplicable sense of déjà vu came over him.

What is it?

Something was wrong. No, it was more than that.

Xinjiang had long been treated as a deathtrap under the Demonic Cult’s rule, but it wasn’t unknown territory.

Where had the cult’s immense power, fit to be called a theocratic kingdom, and the strength to fight the Murim of the Central Plains come from?

Xinjiang’s vast lands held substantial manpower and resources. It had once been one of the most important trade routes under Heaven.

The Hidden Shadow Pavilion had long since obtained information about the region, including its geography. Only a few months ago, it had sent in dozens of spies, though just one had returned alive.

But the Tianshan Mountains were different.

If Xinjiang lay beneath the Demonic Cult’s shadow, Tianshan was its Sacred Land: the place where the cult had first risen and put down roots.

A truly unknown land within the deathtrap of Xinjiang.

And no one had been able to reach those roots.

Yet Jeok Cheongang had just said they were merely going one step ahead according to a “plan already made.”

A plan Taekyung had never heard of.

That can’t be. Once we enter Tianshan, joining up with our allies will be next to impossible.

Jin Taekyung felt his heart pounding hard and heat rising inside him.

And all at once, he realized a truth he could hardly believe.

“You were lying. Just to deceive me.”

Taekyung’s voice trembled. Jeok Cheongang answered.

“From the beginning, only one thing was decided. If we failed to meet on the agreed date, we would advance without hesitation.”

His master’s heavy voice struck him like a war hammer.

“We… No. You are the main assault.”

His master’s heavy voice came crashing down over his Disciple’s head like a war hammer.