Chapter 61

Gooooong.

The Head Elder felt the air tremble. At the same instant, he grasped the destructive power behind the spearhead hurtling toward his chest.

This is… dangerous.

He had felt his life threatened this keenly only a handful of times. Every hair on his body stood on end, and the world slowed.

Shiiiiing!

Jin Taekyung’s spear came from the front, while Jin Wikyung’s sword flew in from behind. The two brothers’ coordinated attack came together with perfect timing.

A true life-or-death moment.

Fwoooosh.

The one jiazi¹ of internal energy coiled in the Head Elder’s dantian spread through every limb and bone. It poured vitality into his aging muscles and woke his blood vessels. The change did not stop there.

Tssssss.

The Sword Energy that had extended nearly a foot² compressed to half its length.

But this was not a loss of power. It was a concentration of it.

The threadlike Sword Energy wrapped around the entire blade, taking the shape of another sword.

Sword Force.

The symbol of the superhuman masters who had broken through the wall of the Peak realm and opened a great new domain.

It was still incomplete, no more than half-formed, but it was unmistakably Sword Force—the culmination of the martial arts the Head Elder had spent his life mastering.

Shhk.

Even the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s ancestral treasure sword was severed, Sword Energy and all. Jin Wikyung’s internal energy scattered in an instant, the shock wrenching his insides. His face went pale.

One stroke would have been enough to take his neck.

But the Head Elder had no time.

Shwack!

He reached for the spear now almost at his chest. His wrinkled hand, too, was wrapped in a dazzling radiance of qi.

It, too, was an incomplete Palm Force, but it was enough to stop Jin Taekyung’s spear.

No. It looked like enough.

Kraaaaaash!

Until the vortex pouring from the spearhead swallowed him whole.

A deathly silence descended. It felt as though the dozens gathered here—perhaps everyone on the battlefield—were watching us.

No.

Not us.

One man.

“This…”

At the center of countless gazes, the Head Elder slowly opened his mouth.

“What form was that?”

I answered.

“One Annihilation.”

Even saying the words brought on a ravenous hunger. Every muscle in my body stung, and not a scrap of internal energy remained inside me.

But that was all.

Unlike when I’d fought Jopil, I neither passed out nor collapsed pathetically to the ground.

My body can handle it now.

I had grown strong enough to withstand One Annihilation’s side effects. And as I had grown, so had One Annihilation’s power.

The Head Elder’s condition was proof of that.

“One Annihilation. One Annihilation…”

Muttering under his breath, he pressed an acupoint on his shoulder.

The bleeding stopped, but that was all. The arm ground away without a trace by One Annihilation’s vortex did not return.

“I never thought I’d end up one-armed at my age. Heh heh.”

The Head Elder gave a hollow laugh and turned toward Jin Wikyung.

“You have a frightening younger brother.”

Jin Wikyung asked, his face wan, “Does that child frighten you?”

“What about you?”

“I’m proud of him.”

There was not a hint of hesitation in his answer. A smile spread across his pale face.

“I raised him like gold and jade, but he grew into steel. That’s the kind of child Taekyung is.”

The Head Elder stared at his smile.

“You’re quite a capable man. Worthy of shouldering the future of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

“Am I?”

“But not as much as your younger brothers.”

Jin Mukyung had reached the Peak realm at twenty, so that was understandable. But ranking even me that highly was almost more praise than I could handle…

What is he getting at?

As though he had read my mind, the Head Elder continued.

“Power is the one thing a man will not share, even with his own blood. When the time comes, will you still be so proud of your younger brothers?”

The air around us went ice-cold in an instant.

Everyone facing the Head Elder at close range belonged to the Jin Family of Taiyuan. Cautious looks clung to my cheeks, then quietly slid away.

Family Head? I have no intention of becoming anything like that, you bastards.

That was when Jin Wikyung spoke.

“So that was it.”

Bitterness and relief mingled in his voice. The Head Elder’s brow twitched.

“What are you talking about?”

“The reason you betrayed us. The reason today came to pass.”

“…!”

The Head Elder’s trembling eyes answered for him. I sighed inwardly.

So that was what this was about.

A succession struggle.

It felt as though a huge piece of the puzzle had clicked into place. The smaller pieces still out of position began falling into place one by one as they spoke.

“What happened?”

Jin Wikyung asked respectfully.

The shift in his tone was so natural that no one else seemed to notice.

“Do you know anything about your grandfather?”

“I have heard nothing. Father never spoke a word of him.”

“He was a coldhearted man. Toward his children and his only younger brother alike. And…”

The Head Elder gave a dry little laugh.

“He was petty. For many reasons, we gradually drifted apart despite once being close brothers. Then it happened.”

“The Great Faction War.”

“Have you heard of the Hundred Thousand Demonic Disciples? They came in endless waves. The Murim Alliance was formed, but it was little more than a coalition of the Nine Sects and One Gang, each too busy defending its own territory.”

That was also when the Head Elder had begun making a real name for himself.

He rallied Shanxi’s martial artists beneath the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s banner and ultimately drove out the Demonic Cult’s forces.

“The final battle took place right here, at Eight Spring Gorge.”

His gaze seemed to grope toward some distant point in the past.

“It had been a long war. Many had died, and everyone was exhausted. But we still had hope—the hope that we could finally return to our families. All three hundred members of the death squad shared that hope.”

“In the end, you won a great victory.”

Three hundred against three thousand.

The result was the Demonic Cult’s annihilation.

It was a glorious victory and the reason the Head Elder was still remembered to this day. Everyone had believed that without question.

Until just now.

“There was an ambush.”

What?

“We fought while retreating deep into the gorge, but we were hopelessly outnumbered. Even as I swung my sword like a madman, one question refused to leave me.”

The Head Elder’s voice was chillingly calm.

“How could they have set an ambush in advance? My elder brother should have been blocking the road into Eight Spring Gorge.”

“…!”

Silent shock rippled through the crowd. The last traces of color vanished from Jin Wikyung’s already pale face.

“The battle lasted half a day. We fought waiting for reinforcements that never came, and it was useless. Of the three hundred volunteers, only eight survived. When we finally returned to the family, I have never been able to forget the look on my brother’s face when he saw me.”

“Is that… true?”

“Enough time has passed for mountains and rivers to change several times over. Did you think I had come this far on mere suspicion?”

Decades were more than enough time for suspicion to harden into certainty. The Head Elder laughed hollowly.

“My brother turned the war into an opportunity. I became a hero on the battlefield, but he became Family Head. Everyone who had followed me either died in battle or vanished afterward.”

“Then was that why you entered the Council of Elders immediately afterward?”

“Because only then would he feel at ease. Because only then could my people and I remain alive.”

My people?

I thought back to what he had said. The eight survivors who had followed the Head Elder and lived to the end.

It wasn’t difficult to guess who they were.

The Elders and the Sect Leaders of the Five Gates of Shanxi.

The survivors had sworn revenge—revenge against the Family Head and the family that had betrayed them.

The Head Elder slowly swept his gaze over the crowd.

“It had been a very long wait.”

Silence swallowed everyone. Disbelief, shock, shame—their emotions differed, but no one could bring themselves to speak.

Well, no one except me.

“You sure dragged that bullshit out.”

“…!”

I couldn’t hold back the little snorts of laughter leaking out of me.

I had listened all the way through to see where this was going, and this was what I got.

“In the end, you only have one goal.”

I jerked my thumb at the Head Elder.

“Revenge, my ass. You’re trying to become the man on top, aren’t you?”

“What did you say?”

“I’m right, aren’t I? Get rid of everything in your way—the Jin Family of Taiyuan, the Mount Heng Sword Sect—and swallow Shanxi whole.”

“You insolent—!”

Had the old man swallowed a locomotive boiler? Oh, right. No trains here.

“Revenge? Sure. Fine, revenge…”

I picked at my ear and continued.

“But why now?”

This had happened a full forty years ago. Even counting the Head Elder’s age, he had waited half his life.

“How many of the people who stabbed you in the back are even still alive? There’s being late, and then there’s this. And please, I’m begging you—don’t give me that bullshit about a junzi³ waiting ten years to take revenge.”

If waiting ten years made you a junzi³, did waiting forty make the Head Elder Jesus?

This was nothing more than a crazy old man trying to justify himself.

“You run your mouth just because you’ve got one.”

“I did. What are you going to do about it?”

“Do you think you know everything?”

“Do I need to? After things have gone this far?”

The question was so obvious I snorted a laugh and pointed at the battlefield.

A mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Utter pandemonium. The scene before us was exactly that.

“That…”

The cold light in the Head Elder’s eyes wavered. But only for an instant.

“I see. What more is there to say?”

He muttered the words in self-mockery, then raised his sword.

“Head Elder.”

Jin Wikyung’s lips moved, but that was all.

This fight would end only when one side died. They had come too far to turn back.

“Come.”

I wasn’t about to refuse.

“Attack!”

It was time to hunt the wounded beast.

I remembered the day I first saw the Head Elder.

A bearing and dignity that made his age meaningless. His white beard called an immortal to mind.

Fwoosh!

Of course, there were no immortals who mercilessly cut people in half.

Even rotten, a prized fish is still a prized fish.

Drenched in blood, he swung his sword without pause. Everyone stared at him with a mixture of awe and fear.

“Monster…”

The Head Elder had lost an arm, but he was still strong.

He was clearly no longer as strong as before, though.

This is doable.

The Head Elder might have been a Peak master, but the martial artists here were the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s elite. They had fought across the battlefield under Jin Wikyung and were skilled enough to have survived their earlier clash with the Head Elder.

Clang-clang-clang!

The Head Elder knocked away the blades driving at him from every direction, his face darkening. Before, he would have used Sword Energy to cut through everything in his path.

It was proof that the internal energy that had once seemed like an inexhaustible spring was finally running dry.

On top of that, his aged body had reached its limit.

Shraaaak!

Sword wounds began to multiply across the Head Elder’s body. Unlike before, most of the blood was now his.

Now!

I wasn’t about to miss that opening. I drove my spear forward with all my strength, tearing a handful of flesh from his side.

“Hk!”

Even through the pain, the Head Elder cut down another martial artist and lunged at me. He had clearly set his mind on killing me; faint Sword Energy gathered along his swinging blade.

But…

Shhk.

The Sword Energy scattered in a rising spray of blood. Jin Wikyung appeared behind the staggering Head Elder.

“I’d forgotten you were there.”

The Head Elder turned, his face twisting.

“Did my elder brother teach you to put a blade in someone’s back?”

“My family members are dying. Is a sneak attack really that important?”

“Aren’t you ashamed as a martial artist?”

“I am the Lesser Family Head before I am a martial artist.”

“The Lesser Family Head, is it? Heh heh.”

Jin Wikyung regarded the Head Elder with a complicated expression.

“The tide has already turned.”

“So? Are you going to ask me to surrender?”

“Please put an end to this meaningless fight.”

The battle had turned in our favor long ago. But the black-clad men continued their stubborn resistance, and the screams and corpses showed no sign of diminishing.

“You’re right. Perhaps this is a meaningless fight. But…”

The staggering Head Elder straightened his back. A sharp gleam flashed in his eyes, and a blade-like aura began to rise from him.

“We’ve come too far to stop.”

A last desperate struggle?

No. It was more than that. Someone suddenly came to mind.

Jopil.

The Head Elder’s current appearance overlapped with Jopil’s final moments before his death.

Innate qi. He’s drawing out his innate qi.

Internal energy was acquired power accumulated by circulating qi and consuming elixirs. Innate qi was the opposite—the foundation of the human body, life force itself.

The Head Elder was staking his life to use it.

“Cough.”

He spat out blood and raised his sword. His life was fading rapidly, yet his sword shone more brilliantly than ever.

The moment I saw that overwhelming sight, a single word slipped out of me.

“Sword Force…”

It was instinct.

My heart pounded from the mere sight of it. I could feel a terrifying power that far surpassed Sword Energy.

And then—

“Yes. You were here.”

His blood-red eyes, their capillaries bursting one after another, locked on me.

Jin Wikyung lunged to stop the Head Elder.

“No!”

But the Head Elder had already vanished from where he stood.

In a single step he compressed fifty feet⁴ and brought his sword down on me.

Whoooong.

So this is how I die.

It was an attack I could neither dodge nor block.

I was dead. I was going to die.

But…

I can’t die like this.

I wrung every ounce of strength from my muscles. The last scant handful of internal energy raced toward the spearhead.

It was a final struggle, and a show of respect for the life I had lived so fiercely until now.

“One Annihilation.”

Shiiiiiiing!

My final strike, carrying every last bit of strength I had, shot forward.