Chapter 59

Shh-shh-shhk!

Jin Wikyung and Wipeng’s battle against the three Elders raged like a storm.

Sword strikes crashed together from every direction, too fast and fierce for an ordinary martial artist to follow.

Krshhk.

Blocked.

The instant Wipeng realized it, he twisted aside. The Second Elder’s sword grazed his hair as it thrust past.

The Second and Third Elders pressed him as though they were one.

“You bastards!”

Jin Wikyung charged with a roar, only for the First Elder to cut him off.

“Where are you rushing off to?”

Sword Energy shot upward, then plunged toward the crown of Jin Wikyung’s head.

The blow threatened to split him in two. Jin Wikyung hurriedly raised his sword to block. Pale Sword Energy wreathed his blade as well.

Boom!

A figure staggered back through the cloud of dust kicked up by the thunderous impact. Jin Wikyung’s face had gone pale. He spat out bloody phlegm.

What the hell kind of internal energy…

He had trained in exceptional martial arts and taken elixirs since he was a child, but this was a bad matchup. The First Elder was a vile old monster who had lived for more than one jiazi¹ while concealing his black heart.

Together with the Head Elder, he was a living witness who had fought his way through the Great Faction War.

“You goddamn old bastard.”

The First Elder replied with a hearty laugh.

“Lesser Family Head, mind your dignity.”

But the First Elder was not nearly as composed as he appeared.

His trembling blade and throbbing wrist were proof enough.

To think they were this strong.

Even in a street brawl, numbers mattered. How much more would they matter in a fight between masters? Yet Jin Wikyung and Wipeng were stronger than he had expected.

Or perhaps an old man’s pride had led him to overestimate himself.

How cruel. Truly cruel.

One jiazi¹. He had accumulated profound internal energy over those sixty years, but even that could not halt the aging of his body.

If only I were ten years younger.

After a bitter jab at himself, the First Elder stepped toward Jin Wikyung.

The swords of his sworn younger brothers, the Second and Third Elders, grew fiercer still.

Shh-shh-shhk!

“Urgh!”

Jin Wikyung and Wipeng were gradually driven back. Having only just fought the Peak masters of the Mount Heng Sword Sect made their situation even worse.

Their vision began to swim. Small wounds multiplied across their bodies. Their hands and feet no longer moved as they wished.

We can’t keep this up.

Jin Wikyung’s expression darkened.

Fwoooosh!

The First Elder’s Sword Energy had been bearing down without pause when it abruptly changed course. In the next instant, a lightning-fast strike split its target.

Shhk.

Fwaaah!

A man staggered in a spray of blood. The sword he had aimed at the First Elder’s side had shattered beyond recognition, and blood poured from his chest like a waterfall.

The First Elder saw his face and clicked his tongue.

“Discipline Hall Master, you foolish friend. Did you want to die that badly?”

“F-First Elder…”

The Discipline Hall Master’s voice sounded ready to give out at any moment. Yet he neither fell nor stopped speaking.

“You have… violated the family’s laws.”

“Heh heh. And?”

“As the Discipline Hall Master of the great Jin Family of Taiyuan, I command you. The guilty shall abolish their own martial arts and enter the Repentance Cave…”

Shhk.

The First Elder answered with his sword.

The Discipline Hall Master had a nature as unyielding as bamboo, but his martial arts were not particularly advanced. He could neither see nor evade the stroke that pierced his throat.

Fire blazed in Jin Wikyung’s eyes.

“You bastard!”

Jin Wikyung was not the only one enraged. The Discipline Hall Master’s death set fire to the hearts of the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s senior members.

“Discipline Hall Master!”

Before they were martial artists, they were human.

They had lived long enough to have much they had built, and much they had to protect. That was why they had feared it: a Peak master’s prowess, thrown away on a dog’s death.

But the Discipline Hall Master’s dignified end brought emotions they had briefly forgotten boiling back to the surface.

Shame and anger.

“Strike down those traitors!”

“Show them the spirit of the Jin Family of Taiyuan!”

Those most ashamed of themselves were the first to charge. They were the senior members who had belonged to the so-called Council of Elders faction.

They could not forgive themselves for helping the traitors. Nor could they forgive the Elders who had betrayed both them and the family.

“Fools.”

Shhk. Shhk. Shhk.

Every time the three Elders’ swords flashed, another life was extinguished.

The difference in strength was clear. Even so, the Elders’ wrinkled faces stiffened.

These bastards…!

Dozens of First Rate masters surged in from every direction without fear of death, each prepared to take an enemy with him.

It was not their martial arts that rattled the Elders, but their sheer momentum.

And amid that disruption, two men seized the opening without hesitation.

Shhk.

“Gah!”

A scream tore from the Third Elder’s mouth. Before he knew what had happened, Wipeng’s Sword Energy had surged up and carved through his side.

“Little brother!”

The Second Elder wavered at the scream of the sworn brother who had stood beside him for decades. For the briefest instant, his attention shifted elsewhere.

It cost him dearly.

Three swords thrust out at once, grazing him from head to toe. As the Second Elder hurriedly retreated, a bolt of lightning shot toward him.

Fwoooosh!

The instant he felt something cold burrow into his back, the Second Elder knew it was over.

Thuk!

It split flesh and severed bone. The Sword Energy rampaged like a living thing, tearing through his blood vessels and searing them.

How long had it been since he had felt pain like this?

The Second Elder’s vision went white. Soon, he could no longer feel any pain at all.

“I, Jin Wikyung, Lesser Family Head of the Jin Family of Taiyuan, have cut down the Second Elder!”

As Jin Wikyung ripped his sword from the Second Elder’s chest and roared, the Third Elder’s head was falling not far away. Wipeng, soaked in blood, lifted it high.

“Here is the Third Elder’s head!”

The survivors took up the cry.

“Wipe out the traitors!”

“The Jin Family of Taiyuan is not the enemy of the Mount Heng Sword Sect! Lower your swords!”

The shouts ringing out across the battlefield rallied the Jin Family’s martial artists.

With its leadership all but wiped out, the Mount Heng Sword Sect had yet to find its bearings. Before long, however, its martial artists turned their weapons on the black-clad men.

“What are you doing? Those Jin Family bastards are right in front of us—”

“Enough of your nonsense. The only ones attacking us are those bastards in black!”

He was right. The Jin Family’s martial artists were following their command’s orders to the letter, and Mount Heng’s people realized one of their enemies had dropped away.

The black-clad men who had appeared out of nowhere were now their common enemy.

“Show them the strength of the Mount Heng Sword Sect!”

“I don’t know where you crawled out from, but wipe them all out!”

Once the two forces joined together, it was the black-clad men who began to give ground.

They were elites hardened by brutal training, but the deaths of the two Elders inevitably shook their morale. Blades rushed in from every direction, giving them no chance to recover, and the black-clad men began to fall one after another.

“Aaargh!”

“Don’t fall back! Anyone who retreats will die!”

Even in that chaos, the First Elder swung his sword without a word.

Everything within his sight, everything within his reach, was his enemy.

Shhk.

Twenty? Thirty? He no longer knew. Like a man possessed, the First Elder cut down everything that stood in his way. Among them were people who had once addressed him with reverence and young men who looked barely twenty.

What does age matter when it comes to life and death? Anyone who stands before a blade is a person of Murim.

At last, a bear of a man blocked the path of the First Elder, who was drenched in the blood of dozens. His eyes looked ready to burn everything to ash.

“Why did you do it?”

“Wealth and glory. To seize the Jin Family of Taiyuan and swallow all of Shanxi.”

The answer came without a hint of hesitation. Everyone trembled with rage.

Everyone but one.

Jin Wikyung shook his head.

“That isn’t the answer I wanted.”

“Then answer it yourself, Lesser Family Head. Why would my brothers, my lord, and I do such a thing?”

“Revenge.”

Jin Wikyung continued in a quiet voice.

“The grand plan you spoke of wasn’t meant to win you wealth and glory or make you ruler of a single province. Too many opportunities for that have already passed, and you’re all old. And…”

“Enough.”

“The Head Elder has no descendants. Neither do the Second Elder, the Third Elder, or you.”

At that moment, a livid spark flared in the First Elder’s placid eyes.

It was the anger he had suppressed for many long years, a remnant that surfaced for the briefest moment before sinking again.

“Why did you do it?”

Instead of answering, the First Elder raised his sword and pointed it at Jin Wikyung.

No—the tip pointed over Jin Wikyung’s shoulder, toward someone somewhere beyond him.

“Hear it from him yourself.”

In the end, the Head Elder held the final key.

Jin Wikyung strode toward the First Elder.

“I will. After I cut you down.”

“Can you really afford to take your time like this?”

“What do you—”

Jin Wikyung’s frown froze.

Taekyung!

His youngest brother, the apple of his eye, was holding off the Head Elder.

The instant he remembered what he had momentarily forgotten, all the blood in his body seemed to turn cold.

If I delay any longer, something irreversible will happen.

The moment Jin Wikyung grasped the full situation, his voice rang out like bitter frost.

“Wipeng. Take the First Elder.”

“I obey.”

“The rest of you, lend him your strength.”

“We follow the Lesser Family Head’s command.”

Wipeng and some ten surviving senior members spread into a wide ring around the First Elder.

“Everyone else, follow me and open a path! We’re going after the Head Elder!”

Jin Wikyung was about to depart with several dozen guards when he glanced back at the First Elder. Though his end was approaching, the old man showed no sign of agitation. If anything, he looked relieved.

“First Elder.”

“Do you have something left to say?”

Jin Wikyung tossed out a single sentence.

“By the authority of the Lesser Family Head of the Jin Family of Taiyuan, I expel you from the family.”

“Heh heh. Heh heh heh!”

Leaving the First Elder’s laughter behind, Jin Wikyung raced toward the battlefield.

Dozens of black-clad men tried to stop him, but the tide had long since turned. Martial artists surged in from every direction and hacked them apart.

“Open a path!”

“It’s the Lesser Family Head! Kill anyone who stands in his way!”

It was only a moment. For Jin Wikyung, an eternity passed.

Taekyung. Please, please…

He could not even bring himself to think the word death.

How long had he run with his pounding chest clutched in his arms? When he finally reached his destination, his eyes flew wide.

What is this…?

The scene before him was utterly shocking.

Raid.

Until a few decades ago, it was a word used only in games.

But after the Demon King appeared and the Great Cataclysm began, raids became the defining symbol of Hunters.

Countless real battles had been fought and countless lives sacrificed along the way. Building on that experience, Hunters had finally established the modern method of raiding.

Tank, damage dealer, healer.

The tank blocks. The damage dealer attacks. The healer heals.

It sounded simple, but becoming a licensed Hunter required studying a mountain of raid manuals and proving yourself through actual combat.

Hunter training camp… That was a living hell.

But because I endured it, I came out a Hunter. Now, as a seven-year veteran, I can pull the right position and the right response for any situation.

And right now—

“Hey, throw dirt! Keep throwing it!”

I realized that everything I’d learned wasn’t worth shit.

Tank? Healer?

Fuck…

I was a fucking moron for thinking ten melee damage dealers counted as a raid.