Chapter 979

At some point, everyone realized.

“Waaaaah!”

A tremendous roar shook heaven and earth as it rolled over the narrow gorge called Eight Spring Gorge.

The fighters locked in fierce battle across the vast basin all turned their heads at once.

Their lips were cracked like drought-stricken fields. Their hands and feet trembled with exhaustion and fear of death.

After hours of fighting, they were covered in blood from head to toe. They stared desperately toward the gorge’s entrance, praying that the roar drawing closer—and the countless footsteps pounding the earth—belonged to their allies.

Then, beyond the thinning darkness, a streak of light flashed.

Shwaaaaa! BOOM!

In an instant, a deafening crash mingled with screams.

But Iron Blood Saber Peng Cheolyeong, Family Head of the Hebei Peng Family, recognized the light and laughed at the top of his lungs.

“Ha! Hahahaha!”

Crack!

With that booming laugh, he swung his great saber and swept through a dozen nomads in a single stroke.

Beneath the fountain of blood soaring into the air, the fewer than one thousand remaining warriors of Hebei pressed forward behind their Family Head.

Just moments ago, their bodies and weapons had felt as heavy as waterlogged cotton. Now, they felt impossibly light.

As they advanced, laughing like madmen, a thick mist of blood rose in their wake.

Shhk! Shhk-shhk!

“Aaargh!”

“Guh!”

Screams erupted everywhere. Neither the Murong Family’s martial artists, trained in their family’s secret arts, nor the nomads who had once swept across the land with lance and bow could stop the Hebei Peng Family.

No—more precisely, they had frozen at the unbelievable sight before them.

Rumble!

The ground shuddered.

As dawn approached and the darkness faded, thousands of figures poured from the narrow gorge’s entrance. A blood-soaked banner rose high above them.

The Great Jin Family of Taiyuan.

“……!”

“……!”

It could mean only one thing.

Eyes fixed on the characters embroidered on the banner trembled.

Some with shock and despair. Others with hope and joy.

But there were those who belonged to neither side.

“Enough! What are you all thinking?”

The Murong Family’s Head Elder, Murong Wijin, who had been directing the battlefield in Murong Baek’s place, shouted with internal energy behind his voice.

His followers flinched beneath his venomous glare.

“Don’t fall for their petty tricks! This is—this is just…”

Murong Wijin clenched his teeth, unable to finish.

What else could he say?

Anyone who wasn’t a fool could see what was happening.

Reality was chillingly cold.

They had lost. Their enemies had won.

And the ones who had returned to finish it all were neither Jamukha nor Murong Baek. They were the people of Shanxi.

Holding the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s banner so high it seemed to pierce the sky, they approached in tight formation. There was certainty in every step.

Certainty of victory.

Perhaps certainty in the four people leading them.

“Hold on. I’ve seen that guy’s face somewhere.”

His hair had grown into prickly stubble, like a lazy monk’s, and was so red it seemed to be on fire.

Facing the old monster who looked decades younger than he ought to, Murong Wijin trembled.

“F-Fire King…!”

“Oh, now I vaguely remember. Murong… whatever. Right?”

Jeok Cheongang nodded as if he’d finally figured it out. The woman beside him sighed.

“Murong Wijin. Not ‘whatever’—Wijin. And if he’s wearing the Murong Family’s uniform, obviously his surname is Murong.”

“Wijin? Who’s that?”

“That’s understandable. During the Great Faction War, he wasn’t even thirty. He was a child.”

Though Murong Wijin was nearing eighty, he couldn’t say a word.

In front of two monsters like the Fire King and the Bow Saint, he was still no more than a hot-blooded novice in Murim.

In age and in martial arts.

And there was someone else here who didn’t give a damn about either.

“Hey, what’s your name again? Murong… thingy.”

Murong Wijin’s face stiffened at being renamed by both Master and Disciple. Then Jin Taekyung stepped forward and swung his spear.

Whoosh!

The spear’s fierce whistle crossed dozens of yards. The round shape impaled on its tip fell precisely at Murong Wijin’s feet.

Thump.

When Murong Wijin saw what touched the tips of his shoes—an object that was, in fact, a person’s head—a groan escaped him before he could stop it.

“……Family Head.”

Once spoken, words couldn’t be taken back.

Murong Wijin belatedly realized his mistake and clamped his mouth shut, but the damage was done.

“You… You dare…”

“What? Not enough? Want another?”

Jin Taekyung swung his spear again, and another head sailed through the air.

This time, the nomads bit their lips as they recognized the face of Jamukha, the steppe’s greatest warrior and Great Chieftain.

“If you need more, say so. No, wait. I take that back.”

Jin Taekyung shook his head and started walking.

Thud.

His footsteps rang out with unusual weight and clarity.

His reddish, smoldering eyes swept across the vast basin.

“There are too many to bring here one by one. Better to make them on the spot. Fresh from the source.”

“……!”

“……!”

The Murong Family and the nomads—every one of them—instinctively stepped back.

Though they still had nearly ten thousand troops, an overwhelming aura and killing intent flowed from Jin Taekyung. No one dared stand against him.

And in that suffocating silence, another voice rang out.

“If you lay down your weapons and surrender now, your lives will be spared.”

One man had been overshadowed by the three Supreme Peak masters.

He had neither several jiazi¹ of internal energy nor the godlike power to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. Yet he carried an inexplicable authority.

Perhaps it was an authority only someone who had raised a declining family and become the Alliance Leader of Shanxi Province could possess.

“You have my word. On my name, and on the authority of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

Jin Wikyung continued calmly.

His gaze rested on a young chieftain who looked particularly haggard.

“Choose, Temur.”

“……!”

“I know you. And I know you didn’t come here of your own will.”

Temur clenched his teeth.

“I’ve… come too far.”

His brother, with whom he’d shared years of hardship, was dead. And Temur had submitted.

He meant what he said. He had come too far to return to the steppe, to his homeland.

But Jin Wikyung shook his head.

“It’s not too late. Not yet.”

“……Why? Why are you offering me this?”

“Because too much blood has already been spilled. If I can prevent any more deaths, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Despite his composed voice, a tear ran down Jin Wikyung’s cheek.

“That’s all.”

Seeing Jin Wikyung weep, feeling the sincerity in his words, Temur could hardly breathe.

He thought of the path he had chosen, so different from Jin Wikyung’s. Of all the tribespeople who had died here today because he had submitted to save his own life.

“What… do you want me to do?”

“You bastard!”

At Murong Wijin’s furious shout, the Murong Family’s martial artists moved. But a dense forest of lances had already closed in around them.

Before the army of ten thousand, now split in two in the blink of an eye, Jin Wikyung spoke.

“Surrender and submit to us. Completely.”

“……!”

“Too much? Then refuse. You can join forces with the Murong Family right now if you wish. But—”

Jin Wikyung’s voice hardened, then burst into a mighty shout.

“We will fight. We will cross the Great Wall and trample the steppe. Whatever the cost, we will drive you out of there!”

At that moment, a chill ran down Temur’s spine.

The thousands of surviving nomads felt it, too.

They all heard and felt Jin Wikyung’s resolve to repay this grudge, even if it took hundreds of years and cost countless lives.

They heard the sincerity in his tightly restrained voice, seeping through clenched teeth.

And then, Temur had no choice but to decide.

“……Temur of the Golden Clan.”

Temur—the only chieftain who could fill Jamukha’s place—bowed his head.

To the Han Chinese beyond the Great Wall.

To the Alliance Leader of Shanxi and the Lesser Family Head of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

“I offer my greetings, my lord.”

In that instant, time on the battlefield—which had stood still—began to flow again.

Shhk-shhk-shhk!

The forest of lances swallowed the Murong Family. Behind it, thousands of people of Shanxi charged beneath the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s fluttering banner.

The blood-soaked night of the Double Ninth Festival² finally woke to the dawn.

In the hazy space between dream and reality, the young man had forgotten even his own existence. He was trapped in the layers of memory piled up in his mind.

Shwaack!

The child could have been no more than four or five.

With a seriousness that didn’t suit his age, he swung a wooden sword as tall as he was. Each stroke cut the air with a sharp hiss.

No one knew when he’d begun or how many times he’d swung it. His little body was already soaked with sweat.

People standing at one side of the training ground watched in amazement, repeatedly letting out cries of admiration.

“Incredible. He’s held a sword for only six months, and he can already deliver a strike like that.”

“Good heavens. What a martial talent.”

“Look at that speed and trajectory. Fast and precise. It’s hard to believe he’s so young.”

“What’s truly remarkable is that he knows how to work hard. Think about it. Have any of you ever seen a child like him?”

“Never. Even the Head Elder, who was called Shanxi Province’s greatest prodigy in his youth, wasn’t like this. Though the Central Plains did have so many outstanding talents.”

“The Lesser Family Head showed such promise as a child, but then one day he became more interested in books than martial arts.”

“A shame. If he’d kept training with the sword, he’d have reached at least the Supreme First Rate realm by now.”

“What can you do? It’s in the past. The Family Head has always been unpredictable. I suppose the son inherited it from him.”

Family Head.

At the two words someone let slip, everyone clicked their tongues.

They exchanged strange glances and fell silent, but only for a moment.

Watching the child practice his sword with flawless form, stroke after stroke, they resumed their conversation as if nothing had happened.

“In any case, I don’t know much about the great sects of the Central Plains, but I doubt they have many talents like him. No, they must be quite rare.”

“He’s a great blessing to our family. Though it troubles me how gloomy he’s become for a child his age since his mother died in childbirth…”

“Mm.”

The words trailed off, and everyone’s face darkened.

“It’s tragic, but there’s nothing to be done.”

“What can we do? It’s the fate ordained by Heaven.”

“Fate? What fate?”

At the voice from somewhere nearby, the murmured conversation stopped short.

The next moment, as if by agreement, everyone fell silent and looked urgently in the same direction.

So did the young man, who had been watching it all from a spot neither near nor far.

“F-Family Head!”

Hearing someone blurt out the cry in a rush, the young man—who had just turned his head—furrowed his brow.

Perhaps it was the sunset glow spreading from the west. He couldn’t make out the face of the man slowly approaching.

Only a voice reached him, strangely familiar and faintly wistful.

“Well, judging by your reactions, I must be an unwelcome guest.”

He was a man of ordinary build.

Nothing more to add, nothing to take away.

Yet even without seeing his face, the young man could sense something distinctive about him as he scratched the back of his head.

The others facing the man, of course, couldn’t hide their confusion.

“N-No, of course not.”

“Don’t give me that. Do I look so oblivious?”

Beneath the face hidden by the sunset, his faintly visible lips curved into a smile.

He looked over the people silently watching him, then spoke again.

“I was passing by and stopped in for a moment. Don’t mind me. It seems you were watching my second son train.”

“We could hardly claim to be teaching him. The Second Young Master is so gifted that we wouldn’t dare try to correct him.”

“Of course he is. Whose son do you think he is?”

The man puffed out his chest, plainly proud. But the young man saw the smile at his lips falter and turn bitter.

Nor were the people who’d been restless ever since the man appeared any different.

“We’re sorry, Family Head.”

“We spoke out of turn. Please punish us.”

Their voices and expressions were heavy.

As they lowered their heads, the young man clicked his tongue softly without realizing it.

He didn’t know who he was or where he was, but he could infer what was happening from what he’d heard and seen.

Speaking of Heaven’s fate in front of a Family Head who had recently lost his wife…

Whatever they had intended, they deserved punishment.

Just as a nation needed strict laws to stand firm, a family had rules that must be observed.

But the man called Family Head answered in a way the young man hadn’t expected at all.

“Punishment? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Pardon?”

“I told you, I just stopped by on my way past. Oh, was that talk about fate related to me? I wondered what profound conversation you were having.”

“W-Well, that is…”

“Now I’m starting to get the picture. I know how this goes. You were bad-mouthing the Family Head who lazes around all day again, weren’t you?”

“F-Family Head, that’s not…”

“Enough. You people, honestly. I may be the Family Head, but you can’t just gossip about me behind my back.”

The man folded his arms. The others, now on tenterhooks, glanced at one another.

Should they tell the truth, or let it go?

As they agonized, their mouths going dry, the man let out a deep sigh.

“Whew. You’ve confessed this much, so there’s no choice. As Family Head, I can’t just pretend I didn’t hear it. I’ll punish you now.”

Around him, people let out breaths they’d been holding.

Better to take the punishment than keep carrying the weight of guilt. Their faces relaxed as the man continued.

“Confined to your quarters. For half a day.”

“F-Family Head…”

“You’ve looked tired lately. Stay in your quarters for half a day, then get back to work. Oh, and make sure you give our eldest plenty of help.”

That was all.

The man waved away the retainers who tried to say something, dismissing them. Then he looked toward the child, who kept swinging his sword, unaware anyone had arrived.

Only after every pair of eyes around them had turned away did he murmur softly.

“Fate. Fate…”

His eyes lifted suddenly to the sky, empty. His next words were filled with nothing but bitterness.

“No. It’s all my fault.”

Then he turned his head abruptly and added,

“I’m sorry, Mukyung.”

As the man looked straight at him, the young man’s—Jin Mukyung’s—vision turned white.

Father.

At that moment—

Rrrrrumble.

The world around Jin Mukyung crumbled away. Brilliant light poured down from above, and a familiar voice reached his ears.

“Hey, you awake?”