Chapter 969

The people of Shanxi didn’t see what happened in that fleeting moment.

They were throwing all their strength into driving back the enemies who filled the gaps among the corpses of men and horses and between the scattered rocks.

No—even if they’d been nearby, they wouldn’t have seen a thing.

The strike was so natural and swift that it could deceive the Qi Sense of a Supreme Peak master ranked among the top three of the Ten Kings.

Shhk!

Through pain that felt like fire, the Thunderbolt Saber King summoned superhuman endurance to keep his body from collapsing.

He trembled at the unbelievable truth that had struck him like a giant iron hammer.

So that’s what happened.

Now he knew. At last, he understood.

Why the young chieftain who had crossed the Great Wall and invaded Hebei had survived.

Why a man who, for all his ambition and skill, had been no more than an exceptional nomad had gained such powerful internal energy and learned martial arts unknown on the steppe.

That day, Jamukha hadn’t survived.

He’d been spared.

By the Murong Family that had pursued him. By the man who had led them.

Murong Baek.

His vision blurred with rage and pain. Pressing a trembling hand to the deep gash in his chest to stop the bleeding, the Thunderbolt Saber King stared in shock at the middle-aged man before him.

His features looked as though they belonged somewhere between the Han Chinese and the nomads.

“Impressive. You managed to react even then.”

His voice was as still as a quiet pond.

Yet his sword—when had he drawn it?—was already coming down like a flash of light.

Whoosh!

The air screamed.

The Thunderbolt Saber King’s eyes widened at the merciless strike from Murong Baek, whom he had believed to be his friend.

Twisting away on instinct at the last moment had saved his life, but nothing more.

The Force that had cut deep across his chest left his whole body heavy as soaked cotton.

Boom! Krrrk!

His great saber wavered as it barely caught the sword.

Murong Baek let out a quiet exclamation. Even with his internal energy in disarray, the Thunderbolt Saber King had blocked the attack.

“As I thought. You’re still absurdly strong.”

“Murong Baek, how could you…!”

The Thunderbolt Saber King clenched his teeth until blood came.

The Murong Family and the Hebei Peng Family.

The Hebei Peng Family and the Murong Family.

It was true that the two families, known throughout the world, had once been at odds.

But that was the past.

An old feud long since buried by the years.

Even now, the Thunderbolt Saber King could hardly believe that Murong Baek had betrayed him. Murong Baek, who had fought back-to-back with him in the Great Faction War. The rival of his youth who had become his friend, who had grown old alongside him.

No. He had betrayed everyone on this land.

“When? When did you…”

His breathing was ragged with anger and shock. Beyond the trembling blades, he fixed the traitor with his gaze and moved his split lips.

“When did you join hands with Dark Heaven?”

Murong Baek answered by pressing his sword harder against the great saber. Force surged along the blade toward its tip.

Shhk.

The Thunderbolt Saber King swallowed a groan.

It burned. Murong Baek’s Force had reached his skin before the sword, and now it was digging into his collarbone.

Slowly. Little by little.

Cutting through flesh and bone as though it would not stop until it reached his heart.

“Graaaah!”

Blood burst between his clenched teeth.

Roaring like a furious tiger, the Thunderbolt Saber King drove his great saber upward.

His rage blotted out the pain. Through the Chaos Thunderbolt Divine Art, reserved for the Hebei Peng Family Head, he poured every last bit of internal energy in his body into the blade.

BOOM!

With a crash like the sky splitting apart, Murong Baek’s sword was knocked away.

Agony tore through his damaged acupoints and the collarbone split by Force. The Thunderbolt Saber King endured it with a will harder than steel and thrust out his hand.

“You bastard!”

Poom!

Compressed air burst outward.

A strike from the Great Strength Vajra Palm, a technique the Hebei Peng Family took pride in, swept toward Murong Baek with such ferocity that it outran its own sound.

For the briefest moment, at least, that was how it looked.

Shwaa!

A flash of light—and it was over.

Murong Baek’s figure blurred as he cut apart the palm force flying with the wind. The instant the Thunderbolt Saber King thought he saw him disappear, a red warning light flashed in his mind.

Shifting Form and Position!

There was no time to stop the bleeding from his collarbone. No time to swing his great saber.

He twisted with all his strength and turned toward the fleeting presence behind him, throwing a punch.

Whoosh.

It connected.

Not with a human body of flesh and bone, but with the wind, crushed beneath his fist.

At the same instant, he sensed it: a flash of light shooting beneath the fist he’d swung through empty air, scattering icy killing intent.

“……!”

The world slowed. Eyes wide, the Thunderbolt Saber King moved by instinct rather than reason.

He let go of the great saber he had carried all his life and reached for the flash closing in on his chest.

Thuk.

The sound of flesh being pierced rang out, sharp and slow.

The pointed sword tip drove through the Palm Force he’d hastily summoned as though it were tofu, cut through the flesh and bone of his hand, and emerged from the back of it.

As though that obstacle were nothing, it kept driving toward its target.

Until the Thunderbolt Saber King, holding back a scream, gripped the blade with all his strength.

Krrrk!

The sword stopped.

No—more precisely, it broke.

Plip.

Fragments of the blade fell with his blood.

His whole body went rigid under the overwhelming pain of his hand being crushed in an instant.

All he could do was stare, eyes wide, at Murong Baek staring back. Then he watched, dazed, as Murong Baek—without so much as a scratch on him—thrust out a palm.

Fwoosh.

Beyond the dazzling light filling his vision, Murong Baek’s quiet voice reached him as faintly as a dream.

“You fought well. Like a true warrior.”

And then—

Poom.

An explosion sounded deep inside his body, and the Thunderbolt Saber King’s world turned upside down.

A massive tremor swept through the gorge.

KABOOM!

The ground shook. With a thunderous crash, part of the cliff collapsed.

Even rock built up by nature over ages too long to measure had given way. A human body of flesh stood no chance.

Krrrrk!

Boulders that had been part of the cliff came crashing down beneath the immense weight of earth and sand above them. Dust and debris flew wildly in every direction.

Yet even in the pale cloud, where he couldn’t see a hand in front of his face, Murong Baek kept his eyes fixed on one spot.

He slowly closed the hand that had brought about this devastation, taking in everything within several dozen zhang¹ through his Qi Sense.

Including a faint cough that had just escaped from beneath a shifting mound of earth.

Khk.

Murong Baek didn’t turn his head. He merely reached out and eased the weight of earth pressing down on the person who had coughed.

He retrieved something that had once belonged to him as well.

Wooooom.

The air shuddered as immense qi flowed from his gesture. Then a spear buried deep in the ground flew into his grasp as though pulled by an invisible string.

Fresh blood ran down it—proof that it had pierced someone’s flesh and bone.

“Thank you.”

Jamukha’s voice came from behind him. Murong Baek spoke without turning.

“Why didn’t you follow my orders? I told you to buy as much time as possible.”

“Well…”

“I suppose you underestimated the Thunderbolt Saber King.”

Jamukha bit his lip instead of answering.

Murong Baek was right. He had disobeyed his savior.

Holding his own against the Thunderbolt Saber King had made him greedy. Little by little, he had pushed aside Murong Baek’s order to wait for him.

And there was one more order he had pushed aside.

He, at least, was never to take the Temporary Strength Pill.

“I have no excuse.”

“No, you don’t. If you’d swallowed it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

The Temporary Strength Pill was a double-edged sword.

The early versions that had found their way into the hands of Pung Yang, the Red Wind Band Leader, and others were dangerous enough. Even the newly improved pill was highly addictive and carried severe side effects.

The ordinary foot soldiers might take it, but Jamukha could not. He was the commander-in-chief of a great army, with much yet to do.

Not from Murong Baek’s point of view, when he had placed Jamukha at the forefront.

“How are you?”

“Not as bad as you might think. Once I finish regulating my qi, my Internal Injury should heal soon.”

Despite his words, nearly half of one shoulder had been cut away. His future as a saber fighter was in danger, yet there was not a trace of gloom on his face.

Jamukha knew how mysterious and powerful his savior’s Dark Heaven was—the Dark Heaven Murong Baek had called “us” long ago.

With no worry at all showing on his face, he went on.

“Though that bastard will be wandering the Nine Springs² now, unlike me.”

That was when Murong Baek’s gaze, fixed in one direction all this time, shifted to Jamukha.

“You still have a long way to go.”

“What do you…?”

Jamukha trailed off. Suddenly understanding what Murong Baek meant, he bit his lip.

“You’re saying he’s alive? The Thunderbolt Saber King? Even now?”

It was a natural question.

He had seen what happened with his own eyes: the Thunderbolt Saber King crumbling beneath Murong Baek’s attacks, delivered without hesitation or mercy.

A palm strike of terrifying power had driven him deep into the cliff, where he’d looked like a corpse as he spat blood.

But unlike Jamukha, Murong Baek could sense a thread of breath beneath the countless rocks and mounds of earth.

Stubborn bastard. Just as always.

Thinking back, the Thunderbolt Saber King—Peng Cheolhu—had always been like that.

His natural strength and sturdy body had made him stand out not only within the Hebei Peng Family but among the young prodigies of the entire world. The countless battlefields he had crossed had been no exception.

He always survived. Always.

So Murong Baek intended to end the Thunderbolt Saber King’s life with his own hands.

And now that the cliffs had collapsed in front of and behind them, shutting out every witness nearby, he needed to kill all the survivors, including the Thunderbolt Saber King. Any one of them might pose a risk.

The longer his secret remained hidden, the better.

Then he could deal another devastating blow to the reinforcements coming from the Nine Sects and One Gang.

At least half a day until Huashan and Zhongnan arrive.

There was still plenty of time.

Once everything was ready, Murong Baek would meet the orthodox faction’s reinforcements right here.

By then, he would have dealt with the Thunderbolt Saber King. The Hebei Peng Family martial artists beyond the gorge, now falling to the Murong Family’s unexpected ambush, would be dead as well.

So would the people of Shanxi, slaughtering nomads on the far side of the suddenly collapsed cliff.

First, though, he must not forget the rats hiding beneath the earth, holding their breath.

Shhk.

His spearhead swept through like a streak of light, splitting a huge boulder and the mound of earth beneath it as easily as tofu.

Murong Baek looked down impassively at Jin Mukyung, who held the bloodied Cheol Mubaek and Wipeng in his arms.

Without a word, he brought his spear straight down.

No—he was about to.

Whoooom.

A tremendous rush of air sounded from somewhere, and Murong Baek turned his head on instinct.

He saw it.

KABOOOM!

A spear came crashing through, smashing apart the great mass of cliff rock in its path.

A blue-white flame burned along its icy, translucent spearhead.