Chapter 57

“Faster! Faster!”

“Huff… huff!”

We ran like mad. Hyuk Mujin was panting like he was about to drop dead, but he didn’t. Whenever his steps started to slow, I put the spearhead to his back, and he might as well have been Red Hare.¹

Then, at some point, the sounds started to reach us.

Someone screaming. Steel ringing against steel…

Good. The battle wasn’t over yet.

Relief hit me, and my heart hammered at the same time. The fighting was still going on, but I still hadn’t confirmed whether Jin Wikyung was alive or dead.

What if he died because we were a minute—or even a second—too late?

If that happens…

Crack.

I tightened my grip on the spear without realizing it. I drew internal energy up from my dantian and sent it flowing through both legs.

“S-Squad Leader!”

I kept running, leaving the reconnaissance squad’s voices fading behind me. The countless tracks the main force had left, and the growing noise of the battlefield, were my landmarks.

Stay alive. Stay alive. Please, stay—

Ah. I could finally see it.

Below a low hill, not even two hundred meters away, countless martial artists were locked in a bloodbath, killing and being killed.

“Die!”

“Gaaah!”

Corpses and blood—and more corpses, more blood!

The sight in front of me was so brutal I was momentarily speechless.

If I hadn’t built up a tolerance from my life as a Hunter, I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull myself out of the shock for a long time.

Jin Wikyung! Where is Jin Wikyung?

But someone else caught my eye first.

White hair you could pick out at a glance even from far away.

The Head Elder!

He stood in front of someone, sword in hand.

Hidden behind the Head Elder’s back, the kneeling man was hard to see, but he was huge, and he had a sword in his hand.

A big guy with a sword?

Only one person came to mind.

Jin Wikyung. If I wanted to save him, I had to move now.

Open Inventory.

The Inventory I used in Murim was packed with all kinds of items.

This spear was one of them, with a wooden shaft and a steel head.

Equip Weapon.

I took out the spear and stepped back a few paces.

Two hundred meters. Impossibly far. Even more so if I was trying to hit someone with a thrown spear.

But I had to do it.

It’s not like I can’t.

Strength, Stamina, Agility.

I pushed the stats I’d built up going back and forth between Murim and reality as far as they would go.

With internal energy in my arm, I could send the spear farther and harder.

“Hup.”

I held my breath and stepped forward. The first step was slow, the last one heavy. My arm snapped forward like a whip, and the spear shot from my fingertips.

Fwoooosh!

The throw was faster and more accurate than I’d expected. It looked ready to punch straight through the Head Elder’s back.

But then…

Shhk.

What the hell was that?

Blue light flashed, and the spear split cleanly in two from the tip of the spearhead all the way down the shaft.

For a moment I couldn’t tell whether I’d thrown a spear or a birthday cake.

“Who the hell are you?”

The old man had quite a set of lungs.

“It’s me, you son of a bitch!”

It was probably a curse the Head Elder had never heard in his life.

On top of that, he and I belonged to the same family in Murim. If you went by the genealogy, the gap between our generations was about the same as the one between an archaeopteryx and a chick.

That alone was enough to leave him stunned. But I still had one decisive blow left.

“The Head Elder is—!”

My voice, loaded with internal energy, thundered across the battlefield. Even I was startled by how loud it was. I could only imagine what it sounded like to everyone else.

I stared at his cold, frozen face in the distance and shouted with everything I had.

“A traitor!”

Jin Wikyung heard the voice right after bringing down all three Peak masters of the Mount Heng Sword Sect.

No—not just Jin Wikyung. Everyone on the battlefield heard the shout.

“Who the hell are you?”

“It’s me, you son of a bitch!”

Cursing?

That was common enough on a battlefield. But if the target of the abuse was the Head Elder, and the young man who had appeared out of nowhere to hurl vicious abuse at him was Jin Taekyung, then it was a completely different matter.

“Isn’t that… isn’t that the Third Young Master?”

“What? That’s Jin Taekyung? But why?”

“What’s going on?”

Jin Wikyung was thinking the same thing.

What in the world is happening?

His youngest brother, who was supposed to be in the rear, had appeared on the battlefield. That alone was shocking enough, and on top of it he had hurled language unfit to repeat at one of the family’s elders.

Wipeng, standing beside him, muttered, “He’s completely lost it.”

Jin Wikyung was just about to nod without realizing it when—

“The Head Elder is—!”

An even bigger bomb dropped.

“A traitor!”

The battlefield sank into an icy silence. Even the occasional clash of weapons abruptly ceased.

Everyone stared blankly at Jin Taekyung.

What kind of bullshit is this?

Betrayal? The Head Elder?

Is he drunk? The Third Young Master’s old habits must be coming back.

Needless to say, the martial artists of the Jin Family of Taiyuan thought so. The martial artists of the Mount Heng Sword Sect were much the same.

Even the senior members who had recently begun to look favorably on Jin Taekyung stood with their mouths hanging open.

“What a madman.”

“Does he even know who the old master is?”

If they had to name the person who had contributed most to this war, it was, without question, the Head Elder.

He had helped Jin Wikyung gather the family’s strength, and in today’s battle he had defeated Lee Cheonbaek.

Even setting aside his merits in this war, Jin Taekyung’s words could only sound like nonsense.

Who was the Head Elder?

He was a master of the previous generation, famous even in the Central Plains as the Blade of Flowers, a symbol of righteousness who had struck down countless demonic masters during the Great Faction War.

Every martial artist in Shanxi held him in some degree of respect.

“That man? A son of a bitch? A traitor?”

“Good heavens. That boy is smearing shit on three hundred years of the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s history.”

The Jin Family of Taiyuan, the Mount Heng Sword Sect—everyone here seemed to share the same thought. But there was at least one exception.

The Head Elder. Betrayal.

The instant he heard his youngest brother’s words, Jin Wikyung felt the blood in his entire body run cold. It was a sense of wrongness, finally showing its true shape.

Lee Seogeun’s death was where it began.

He had died from a lethal toxin. The Mount Heng Sword Sect had named the Jin Family of Taiyuan as the culprit, and that had been the spark that started the war.

But the most important question had gone unanswered.

Who was the murderer?

Even now, with the war nearing its end, the murderer hiding behind it all had never been identified.

No—because the war was nearing its end, no one cared about the murderer’s identity anymore.

Survival of the fittest. The strong would survive and take everything.

This war… was wrong from the very beginning.

Lee Seogeun’s death.

The unnaturally rapid spread of the rumors.

The Mount Heng Sword Sect had declared war, and the Jin Family of Taiyuan had responded. That was how the real fighting had begun.

And the Head Elder had been there.

The Head Elder, who had been living in seclusion, had appeared immediately after news of Lee Seogeun’s poisoning reached the family. His role within the family had been enormous.

A respected martial artist. One of the family’s senior elders.

Without the Head Elder’s active cooperation, the Jin Family of Taiyuan might have split in two.

We were able to come this far because of his help.

Jin Wikyung thought the opposite.

We were able to come this far because this was what the Head Elder wanted.

A span too short even to call an instant. When Jin Wikyung finished the thought, he opened his mouth.

“Wipeng.”

“Your orders.”

“Cut down the First Elder.”

“What?”

The stooped, emaciated old man—the First Elder—opened his eyes wide.

The senior members around him were just as shocked.

“L-Lesser Family Head!”

“What in the world…!”

But Wipeng did not hesitate. Before anyone knew it, his sword was flying toward the First Elder’s chest.

Clang-clang-clang!

Two swords suddenly cut in and knocked Wipeng’s blade aside.

Two fat, exceptionally tall old men.

They were the Second and Third Elders, who, together with the First Elder, styled themselves the Head Elder’s hands and feet.

Wipeng’s brow twitched when he saw the faint Sword Energy gathered on their blades.

“You’ve been hiding your martial arts.”

Instead of answering, the First Elder threw a single punch.

Boom!

With internal energy as deep as the years he had lived, he sent Wipeng flying, then straightened his back.

The field froze at the appearance of yet another Peak master who had spent his entire life hidden in the Head Elder’s shadow.

“First Elder, what… what is this?”

“Then could it be…!”

Betrayal.

The word stamped itself clearly into everyone’s minds.

“That’s impossible!”

The one who shouted was the White Tiger Hall Leader. If the Elders were the Head Elder’s hands and feet, he had thoroughly served as the First Elder’s.

“Elder, Lesser Family Head. There seems to be some misunderstanding…”

But he never finished. At a jerk of the First Elder’s chin, the Second Elder moved with blinding speed and severed the White Tiger Hall Leader’s neck.

Shhk. Thud.

Jin Wikyung and the First Elder locked eyes across the space between them.

“You recruited the White Tiger Hall Leader too?”

“He was a noisy man. That was all. The others were the same.”

Jin Wikyung’s guess had been half right and half wrong.

The Elders had betrayed the family, but the senior members of their faction had not.

“Then why… Ah!”

“Sharp. I’ll give you that.”

The First Elder pulled a dark, grimy bamboo tube from inside his robes. Only a little of the fuse was left, and it was already burning down.

“Could we tell important secrets to men like that? Even just throwing the inside into chaos had already served its purpose. Things were easier if they didn’t know what was happening outside.”

Jin Wikyung’s shout came out as a scream.

“Stop him!”

“You’re too late.”

The First Elder was right.

The instant the fuse burned to its end, something burst, and a red flame shot high into the sky.

Fwish—boom!

It was a signal.

The martial artists of the small and mid-sized sects known as the Five Gates of Shanxi—the Three Paths Sect, a union of three sects; the Byeokdo Sect, which trained chiefly with sabers; and Gunggwimun, which had been pouring arrows from the cliffs without pause—turned in an instant.

“Kill everyone in your path!”

“No exceptions! Sweep them all away!”

They were no longer the clumsy third-rate martial artists they had seemed to be. Killing intent flowed from their eyes, and their sword paths were sharp.

This wasn’t something they prepared overnight.

Jin Wikyung’s face hardened.

Boom!

The Head Elder looked up at the sky. Before the red flame had even faded, enormous roars erupted from every direction.

Too fast. Far too fast.

The signal was supposed to go up only after the Mount Heng Sword Sect had been annihilated. The Five Gates of Shanxi were a blade prepared over decades. It had to be swung only once and finish everything like a bolt of lightning.

Everything has its flow.

The plan that had proceeded without a hitch was beginning to veer off course. As the Head Elder smiled bitterly, a voice slipped into his ear.

“So… it was you.”

Lee Cheonbaek.

His voice was faint, but his eyes burned more fiercely than ever.

“You still have the strength to talk?”

“I’ll tear you to pieces while you’re still alive.”

But no sooner had he finished speaking than blood poured from his mouth. The Head Elder pressed one of his acupoints and murmured, “That would be inconvenient just yet. You still have something to do.”

Lee Cheonbaek despaired.

They had taken heavy losses, but hundreds of Mount Heng Sword Sect martial artists still remained. At this point, with even the leadership annihilated, if their Sect Leader were taken prisoner…

Kill me instead!

The anguished cry never escaped his mouth. The Head Elder pressed his Mute Acupoint and robbed him of his voice. Then his hand brushed the Paralysis Acupoint, and Lee Cheonbaek’s body went rigid.

He had become a living corpse with his eyes still open.

“You bastard! Get your hands off him!”

At the same time, the air split with a shriek.

Fwoooosh!

The Head Elder did not panic. He swept his sword upward from below. Beyond the spear splitting in two along his Sword Energy, Jin Taekyung was charging toward him at terrifying speed.

“Aaaaaah!”

“Squad Leader! Please slow down a little!”

Along with a dozen or so riffraff who had appeared from who knew where.