Chapter 368

The boy—or rather, the “he” bearing the name Mungyeong—looked down at the ground below his feet.

Countless eyes stared up at him in disbelief. Among them was a familiar face.

They had met only once, long ago, but it was not difficult to recognize him.

“It has been a long time, Fire King.”

At his greeting, Fire King Jeok Cheongang’s eyes trembled violently.

“So it really was you…”

The greatest assassin under heaven. He had inspired not merely condemnation and contempt in countless martial artists, but awe. Then one day, he had vanished without a trace, never to appear again.

At least, not until moments ago.

“Why are you here…?”

“A great deal has happened. A great deal indeed. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The question was directed at an old man. He gazed at the Divine Physician—or rather, Dong Feng—with indescribable eyes before opening his lips.

“Thank goodness. I wasn’t too late.”

His voice rang out from every direction.

Six-Harmonies Voice Transmission.

A shudder ran through everyone at the unfathomable realm of martial arts displayed before them. The old physician quietly shook his head.

“You were too late.”

His next words carried a note of regret.

“Too late to turn back the years that have passed.”

“What can be done? Once water is spilled, it is not easily gathered again.”

“Do you not regret it?”

“Regret…”

At his Disciple’s words, he raised his head and looked toward the sky.

The rain that had seemed as though it would fall forever was gone, as were the dark clouds that had blotted out the sun. All that remained was the vast azure heaven.

Is this what you intended?

He posed the question to someone who might be looking down upon the mortal realm from above.

But no answer came.

Just as it never had.

What a damned thing this is.

He slowly closed his eyes. In the pitch-black darkness, memories steeped in blood and struggle flashed past.

He had been raised as an assassin and lived as one. His inborn karma was that of an assassin, so he killed—but he had been born human, and he hated killing.

That was why, near the end of the Great War that had stained the continent with blood, the aging assassin had buried his weapons and chosen to live as a physician.

But…

Had it come to this after all?

With a quiet murmur, he opened his eyes.

A boy’s hands, white and soft.

Returned to Youth had transformed his flesh several years ago, but even that could not erase the scent of blood steeped into his hands.

“I lived as a physician for more than forty years. I wished to die as one.”

His voice, laden with immense internal energy, struck their ears like thunder. The black-clad men staggered as though the sound had shaken their very souls.

“And yet, why have you come here?”

His killing intent made every hair stand on end. The deputy captain, frozen as he stared at the figure in the sky, spoke in a trembling voice.

“E-Even if you truly are the Slaughter Saint, this is no concern of yours.”

“No concern of mine?”

He muttered the words in a low voice before throwing down the travel bag he had been holding.

Thud!

Something bounced out of the bag as it struck the ground and rolled to the deputy captain’s feet.

“T-This is…”

They were the severed heads of two men. Though they belonged to different people, their bulging eyes and twisted expressions looked almost identical.

Like twins born at the same hour on the same day.

The deputy captain’s gaze fixed on one of them.

“Captain!”

As the deputy captain stared in horror at First Fiend’s severed head, the Slaughter Saint slowly spoke.

“One question. Was the one at Qingcheng the second or third of the Qilian Three Fiends?”

“……!”

Only then did the deputy captain understand.

Why no word had come from the Qingcheng Sect—and where the brothers who had failed to return after seeing the emergency signal had gone.

Only one path remained. The realization struck like lightning, and he unleashed a shout imbued with internal energy.

“Everyone, attack! Kill hi—”

Slash!

The deputy captain’s shout was cut short.

A breeze brushed his neck, and suddenly someone was standing behind him.

Can this truly be… the movement of a human being?

That was the last question to cross his mind.

He had failed to recognize the Ghost Illusory Slaughter Step performed by the greatest assassin under heaven—or rather, the greatest assassin in all history.

Only death awaited him.

Fwoosh!

Blood erupted from the severed neck in a fountain. A figure brushed past the collapsing body and took another step, stirring a wind heavy with the scent of blood.

Slash. Slash. Slash!

The heads of the black-clad men who had watched their superior die in a daze flew into the air.

Before the streams of blood could reach the ground, something pale and ghostlike swept through them.

“It was the life I wanted so desperately.”

Murmuring under his breath, he extended both hands. Long, slender threads streamed from his ten fingers.

Threads of Force—beautiful and destructive.

“And yet, why did you…”

Whoosh!

When his ten curved fingers slashed downward through the air, Force tore through space.

Everything that stood in its way was cut apart and split open. Shattered armor and weapons, limbs and heads, flew in every direction.

In a world brought to a standstill by blood and death, only one person moved freely.

“Did you wake me?”

Consumed by sorrow and fury, he was no longer the cheerful boy or the physician who had passed the two-character name Divine Physician down to his Disciple.

He had returned to the person he had been before earning the name Divine Physician, before meeting the young carpenter who had fallen into grief after losing his wife and children to an epidemic, and before burying his weapons and leaving the Murim.

“The Slaughter Saint…!”

Someone screamed the name.

His eyes had sunk deeper than the abyss. He flung out both arms, and the wind—now a raging storm—swallowed more than a hundred black-clad men.

Kwaaang!

A high hill stood east of the Sichuan Tang Clan.

From there, one could see the entire Tang Clan estate at a glance. A small watchtower stood atop it, and martial artists had once taken turns standing guard.

Once.

Drip. Drip.

Drops of blood fell from the watchtower and dampened the grass. Some slid down the hill and touched someone’s hand.

Its back was deeply wrinkled, and its nails had turned green from long years spent practicing poison arts.

The hand belonged to Tang Sadok, the current Family Head of the Sichuan Tang Clan—the Myriad-Poison Asura.

“Cough.”

Blood sprayed from between his parched lips. His eyes, usually cold and forceful, looked ready to go out at any moment.

“Is this how it ends?”

Tang Sadok murmured faintly.

Everything was racing toward its end. His life. The glorious history of the Sichuan Tang Clan.

“Our family, built over centuries… brought down in a single day.”

Tang Sadok’s lament rang hollow. He no longer possessed the strength even to feel anger or sorrow.

His limbs crushed and his internal injuries severe, all the old Family Head could do was lean against an unknown tree and watch his clan perish.

This is my final gift to you.

The smiling face of a middle-aged man flashed before Tang Sadok’s eyes.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord had not kept his promise. To him, the destruction of the Sichuan Tang Clan had been a foregone conclusion from the very beginning.

“Urgh… Blergh!”

The rage flaring within him like wildfire worsened his internal injuries. Tang Sadok vomited nearly half a gallon of blood, then gasped for breath.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

It was an apology to the ancestors of the Sichuan Tang Clan. To the innocent members of his household who had lost their lives because they had been saddled with an unworthy Family Head. And to Jin Taekyung and his companions, who had likely already met gruesome deaths at the hands of the Western Heaven Demon Lord.

Of course, none of them could hear Tang Sadok’s voice.

If we meet in the afterlife, I will apologize to you myself.

Just as Tang Sadok murmured those words inwardly—

Rustle.

The bushes stirred, and he sensed something approaching.

No. It was not human.

Only when the strange presence had drawn right up to him did Tang Sadok realize who it belonged to.

Hiss. Hiss.

A flicking tongue. A horned, triangular head. A pure-white snake burrowed into Tang Sadok’s arms.

“Ha… hahaha.”

Tang Sadok laughed weakly, both happy and hollow.

“So it was you.”

Hisss.

The Thousand-Year Poison Horned Snake, Mimi, hissed as if answering its master. Its cold tongue licked the beard matted with blood.

“Clever creature. How did you find me all the way out here?”

Tang Sadok gazed at his pet snake through clouded eyes.

He had let Mimi loose because he was worried the snake might be injured in the melee. He had never thought they would meet again like this.

Nor had he imagined their final farewell would happen this way.

Rumble!

A tremendous roar shook the hill. The earth rose, and the branches of the trees trembled.

Tang Sadok raised his head and tried to find the source, but his failing eyesight could no longer make out what was happening.

He could infer only one thing.

Has the time come?

It was a roar on an entirely different scale from Heaven-Shaking Thunder.

At last, the destruction of the great Sichuan Tang Clan had reached his doorstep.

Tang Sadok slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again.

“Leave.”

Hiss?

The snake’s triangular snout tilted to one side.

“This old man has little time left. Neither does the Tang Clan. If you stay here, you will be caught up in this calamity as well.”

Tang Sadok was the Family Head of the Sichuan Tang Clan. Even if the Western Heaven Demon Lord did not come himself, someone would certainly come to confirm whether he was alive or dead.

Tang Sadok could easily imagine what those vicious men would do if they saw the Thousand-Year Poison Horned Snake guarding its master’s side.

“So go. Hurry!”

He wanted to shout, but the voice he forced out was so thin it seemed ready to break apart.

Yet the spirit creature that had spent so many years beside Tang Sadok understood the final wish of the man who had been both its master and its friend.

Drip. Drip.

Damp drops fell onto Tang Sadok’s wrinkled hand.

Leaving behind a few tears, Mimi slithered away and disappeared, the snake’s white body gliding across the ground.

As her presence receded into the distance, a bitter smile briefly touched Tang Sadok’s lips.

“Yes. Go carefully.”

In his youth, he had roamed the battlefields. After the war, he had devoted his life to helping his father, the Poison King, rebuild the Sichuan Tang Clan.

He had always been expected to remain cold and meticulous. He had no friend with whom he could share his heart, no lover, and no child of his own blood.

Had that spiritual creature not remained by his side all those years, he could never have endured the loneliness.

From today onward, your name is Mimi. Tang Mimi.

On the day he first encountered the tiny Thousand-Year Poison Horned Snake, Tang Sadok had given her the Tang family name.

They shared neither blood nor even species, but Tang Mimi was a member of the Sichuan Tang Clan, recognized as such by its Family Head.

I have lost everyone, and you alone are the one I send away alive. Hahaha.

Tang Sadok let out a hollow laugh and blinked.

Through his fading senses, the roar and someone’s screams echoed faintly from below the hill.

It must have been the final struggle of those fighting to stave off the clan’s destruction.

This old man is here, too. I, Tang Sadok, Family Head of the great Sichuan Tang Clan, am here! Come to me!

The cry, as if he were coughing up blood, only hovered at the tip of his tongue.

Tang Sadok felt the strength slowly drain from his entire body. His heavy eyelids sank lower, little by little.

I’m tired.

What if he simply closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep?

If he took a short nap and awoke in the grand armchair in the Family Head’s Hall, perhaps he would be able to see the familiar faces of his family.

How wonderful it would be if everything that had happened—including his father’s death—were nothing more than a Butterfly Dream.¹

Yes. If only it were.

His trembling eyelids slowly sank shut.

No—they were just about to close.

“Mimi! Quick Attack!”

Hisssssss!

“……?”

What the hell is this bullshit?

Tang Sadok’s eyes flew open.

His vision suddenly cleared, revealing a young man racing toward him and Mimi’s white body shooting through the air like an arrow.

“Y-You?”

“Wow! Wild Grandpa Tang spotted!”

Tang Sadok blinked at Cheongpung, who was grinning brightly despite the blood covering his face.

“What… what is going on? How did you…?”

Cheongpung answered energetically.

“Mimi! Whirlwind!”

Whirrrrr!

If Tang Sadok had possessed even a shred of strength, he would have cursed him out.

Cheongpung and Mimi realized their mistake too late and bowed their heads.

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

Hiss.

“……”

Tang Sadok forgot that he had been half dead only moments ago and stared blankly at the man and snake before him. At last, he managed to speak.

“Our family… What happened to our family?”

“They all died.”

“……!”

“Oh. Not the Tang Clan. I meant Dark Heaven’s black-clad men.”

You should have said that first!

As Tang Sadok choked on shock and fury, Cheongpung pressed a finger to his Mingmen acupoint. Warmth like a spring day seeped into his body.

“Cheongpung! True Qi Guidance!”

This bastard is going to keep this up until the very end…

Tang Sadok wanted to ask what had happened, but this time he could not resist the drowsiness washing over him.

Just before his eyelids closed, a voice as gentle as a spring breeze reached his ears.

“It’s all over now. Rest easy.”

It was the voice that announced the end of a day longer and darker than any other.