Chapter 963

Boooooo!

As the horn’s unintelligible call rang through the night, Jin Mukyung found himself wondering what was moving his body now: will or instinct?

Shhk!

A flash cut through the air. Another enemy fell beneath his gleaming sword.

The movements carved into his whole body through countless repetitions still traced their paths with precision, even as he staggered and bled.

Shhk, thud!

He slipped past a thrusting spear from behind and drove his sword, held in a reverse grip, into his attacker’s side.

“Guh!”

The dying groan reached his ears. Mukyung pulled the sword from the man’s chest and left the collapsing body behind, already rushing toward another enemy.

His eyes, impossibly, were closed.

And yet…

It’s all so clear.

He could feel everything without seeing it. No—with his eyes closed, everything around him felt even more vivid.

Darkness.

He had spent two years in darkness so complete that not a single ray of light could enter. He had swung his sword to grow stronger and, at times, to keep from going mad.

As his sight dulled, his other senses sharpened beyond measure. His Qi Sense had grown by leaps and bounds.

“K-kill him!”

“He’s only one man! If we take him down…!”

Crunch!

A grisly sound of torn flesh cut the shout short. Mukyung felled yet another enemy amid the endless carnage—he had lost count of how many—and steadied his ragged breathing.

He was dizzy. His body felt as heavy as waterlogged cotton, his mind as hazy as a dream.

The fight against the Demon Bird had given him more than a moment of enlightenment.

A severe Internal Injury.

His organs and acupoints were twisted and torn. He could almost hear them screaming.

Mukyung knew defeating the Demon Bird had taken something close to a miracle. Cheol Mubaek and Wipeng had risked their lives to help him. He had delivered a perfect strike, one he wasn’t sure he could ever repeat. And he had wielded a divine weapon capable of standing up to Force.

If any one of those three things had gone differently, the Demon Bird would be standing here instead of him.

But…

Damn it.

Nothing came without a price.

Mukyung swallowed the blood rising in his throat and drew a breath. He closed his fingers tight once more around the hilt that kept slipping from his grasp and felt, with every sense, the enemies surrounding him. Their breathing was thick with fear and rage.

Beyond the ceaseless shouts and screams, he heard a faint voice.

“Hurry. Go on.”

Jin Mukyung already knew who owned that hoarse, elderly voice.

“I’m not going. No—I can’t go.”

Mukyung opened his eyes. Blood running down his forehead stained his vision red, but he could see Cheol Mubaek and Wipeng, each on one knee and gasping for breath.

“We’re going back. All of us.”

Wipeng laughed at the resolve in his voice.

“See? What did I tell you? Those Jin Family people are stubborn as hell, h—”

Hack. Drip, drip.

He broke off and coughed up blood. Mukyung’s gaze darkened.

The color of coughed-up blood, and what came with it, could tell you how bad an injury was. By that measure, it was a miracle Wipeng was still conscious.

“Damn it. After coughing up bucketfuls, now all I’ve got left is a handful.”

He said it as though it were nothing, but Wipeng knew how dire things were. He fought to keep his eyes open and looked at Mukyung.

“Second Young Master. May I say one thing?”

“No. Don’t say any more. Save what strength you—”

“Mukyung.”

“……!”

Mukyung went rigid. Wipeng bared his bloodstained teeth in a smile.

“Go. Stop being so stubborn.”

“……”

“I know it, Great Hero Cheol here knows it, and you know it too. You know what’s best.”

Mukyung clenched his teeth.

“It’s not too late. We can still go back.”

“Yes. We can go back,” Wipeng added gently.

“If you go alone.”

“What are you—!”

“Leave before it’s too late. You can still break through.”

Pushing deep into the enemy ranks to spare their allies as many casualties as possible had been the right choice. It had also been a costly mistake. Even now, hundreds of enemies surrounded them, watching for their chance to strike.

Wipeng and Cheol Mubaek saw that cruel reality clearly.

The old tiger who had once commanded Mount Heng was no more. Neither was the Peak swordsman with his ghostly swordplay.

The tiger’s claws were broken. The Ghost Sword’s swordplay was gone with his shattered arm.

That was the price they had accepted to tie down, for just one moment, the hand of a fiend who had once shaken an entire age.

But…

“You, Mukyung—you, of all people, have to live.”

“Not because you’re the Second Young Master of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

Wipeng and Cheol Mubaek looked at Jin Mukyung through eyes that seemed ready to go dark at any moment.

The young man reflected in those eyes was no longer simply Jin Mukyung. He was the hope they had to save, even at the cost of their lives. He was the revenge that would one day return upon their enemies tens, hundreds of times over.

“Live. Survive, whatever it takes.”

“And come back. To us, and to them.”

Spring. Summer. Fall. Winter.

The four seasons returned without fail. Only people vanished as they passed.

That was why Wipeng believed, and Cheol Mubaek was certain: the winter that had come early for them today would one day reach their enemies too. The young Sword Demon of the Jin Family of Taiyuan, who would protect countless people in the years ahead, would bring them down.

“So…”

Wipeng gave Mukyung a faint smile. He remembered the young man as a boy, coming to ask him to teach him the sword.

“Leave this place at once. Jin Mukyung—no, Commander of the Heaven Shaking Squad.”

“……!”

“This is an order from your superior in the family.”

Mukyung was struck speechless. He squeezed his eyes shut.

He knew. What the best choice was. What he had to do to save more people.

But his feet would not move.

He still remembered the lesson he had learned alongside martial arts when he first picked up a sword.

Chivalry.

Stand against the strong and help the weak. Never turn away from injustice. Keep faith as dearly as life itself.

That was what it meant to be a chivalrous hero. It was the way of life a martial artist of the orthodox faction, one who stood for what was right, was supposed to follow.

He had learned martial arts because he loved the sword, because he wanted to grow stronger. But he had never forgotten the weight and meaning behind those two words.

What’s best?

Wipeng and Cheol Mubaek had said it, and Jin Mukyung had endlessly repeated it in his heart even as he cut down his enemies.

And suddenly, he understood.

“You’re both wrong.”

Shhk.

He opened his eyes and pressed his foot into the blood-soaked earth.

His sword tip, trembling a moment ago with fatigue and doubt, pointed toward the enemy without the slightest wavering.

“Before we ask what’s best or worst, there’s something we mustn’t forget.”

Shhk, shhk!

A nomad creeping closer was split diagonally through the torso. Blood ran down the snow-white blade that had cut through both the man and his spear.

“What’s right?”

Mukyung moved like flowing water. The blue Sword Energy that had been fading now surged along his blade, the insight of that fleeting moment slowly finding its way into his sword.

Shwaaash!

A thick mist of blood bloomed. Mukyung cut down three Keshik with a single stroke, snatched a crescent saber from a dead man’s hand, and sent it flying.

“What choice won’t I regret?”

Whoosh! Thud!

A single streak of light cut through the air. At its end, death came without even a scream.

A man stringing his composite bow fell. At that signal, the enemies packed around Mukyung gave vent to their pent-up fear and rage and charged as one.

Shhk-shhk-shhk!

Fwoosh! CLANG!

Flashes gleamed in the darkness.

Jin Mukyung knocked away the throwing blades, but a dozen thrusting spears and crescent sabers came down on him.

Pit, pit!

Heat. Drops of blood mingled with the wind whipping past.

He knew he could avoid them, but his body refused. The places all over his body where blades had grazed him burned with pain.

Or perhaps what burned was his disappointment and anger at himself. For even a moment, he had thought about what was best instead of what was right.

This is the only right choice.

The turmoil in his head cleared. Mukyung clenched his teeth with all his strength.

Crack.

The stench of blood filled his mouth.

One pain drowned out another. His fading awareness returned.

And at the same time—

Tsutsutsu.

The blue Sword Energy, rippling like small waves, gathered into one. Guided by the will of the man holding the sword, its currents joined and merged, then traced a single beautiful arc.

An arc so perfect that the dead old fiend would have laughed aloud to see it.

Shwaaaash.

The wind disappeared. A chill cleaved through the darkness.

The ten Keshik squad leaders charging at Mukyung widened their eyes as one.

At last, they understood what the Demon Bird had seen in his final moments. What that monster of a martial artist had felt.

Shing.

Their spears, shining with tangible energy, groaned. So did their crescent sabers.

As the energy around each weapon faded, the ten Peak masters watched their prized weapons break into pieces. Their vision tilted.

“S-Sword Demon…”

Fwoosh!

A dense fountain of blood stained the air.

Beneath the sticky blood pouring down like a shower, Jin Mukyung had felled ten birds with a single strike, like a blue wave. He murmured softly.

“I’ll keep that promise.”

Blue Wave, Falling Bird.

Thinking of the old fiend who had become the first prey of that once-nameless strike, Mukyung stepped toward the enemies frozen before him.

At that very moment—

“May I hear who you made that promise to, and what you promised?”

“……!”

Mukyung’s whole body went rigid.

The unfamiliar voice had come from a man standing barely ten feet away, looking at him.

“You…”

“Jamukha Khan!”

One shout—no, the same cry erupted from every direction, drowning out Mukyung’s voice.

Jamukha.

The voice was unfamiliar. The name was not.

The words spoken by the strongest nomad warrior as he died—the day Jin Mukyung annihilated the thousand-man vanguard that had invaded Shanxi Province ahead of the main force—were still vivid in his mind.

He will punish you. Jamukha Khan will. He’ll take everything from you and burn it—your family, your friends, your home.

Now, facing Jamukha at last, Mukyung understood. There had not been the slightest exaggeration in that curse.

“So it’s you. The Sword Demon.”

Jamukha.

The supreme ruler of the grasslands took a step toward Mukyung.

Rrrumble.

A faint but unmistakable tremor traveled up through everyone’s feet.