Chapter 981

Jin Mukyung didn’t know how much time had passed.

After his younger brother had told him everything, a long silence followed. In the end, there was only one thing Mukyung could say.

“I’m tired.”

And so he was left alone.

He forced his aching body upright, leaned against the bed, and stared blankly out the window.

In the first light spreading from the distant east, he watched his younger brother leave the pavilion with a subordinate. The words he’d heard a moment ago came back to him.

Five thousand.

Just two syllables. Far too short to hold the weight of thousands of lives. The number didn’t feel real.

But it was, without a doubt, reality.

Over three thousand died. The rest suffered injuries, big and small, and many were left crippled.

Of the fifteen thousand people of Shanxi who’d gathered at Eight Spring Gorge that day, a third had been killed or wounded.

Many of the casualties were government soldiers from the Shanxi Provincial Office, relatively weak in martial arts. But Mukyung knew they, too, were part of us—people who had put down roots and made their lives on this land.

…A great victory.

Yeah. A great victory. One for the history books.

More than five thousand casualties, yet in a single night they’d annihilated an army of well over thirty thousand.

They’d won an incredible victory against foreign enemies who outnumbered and overpowered them. It was no exaggeration to say they’d written a new page in the history of the Great Nation.

And yet, not a single person looked happy as they spoke of the great victory.

Those who took what belonged to others reveled in their victories. But those who fought to protect what was theirs mourned what they’d lost along the way.

The bodies and blood left behind by the dead were a burden the survivors alone had to bear.

The Hebei Peng Family lost more than half its forces. Great Hero Peng, the Thunderbolt Saber King, still hasn’t regained consciousness.

The great tiger of the Peng Family, which had held sway over Hebei for so long, had yet to wake from his grievous injuries.

No one could have anticipated that the North Heaven Demon Lord—someone he’d considered a friend—would betray him. And the martial arts he’d used in his sudden ambush were in no way inferior to those of the Thunderbolt Saber King.

Even after we took down Jamukha and the North Heaven Demon Lord, things didn’t go smoothly. If we hadn’t subdued the nomads, we would probably have suffered much heavier losses.

Despite having joined the battlefield some time before, the Murong Family’s forces had remained relatively intact until the fighting was nearly over.

If Jamukha had lived to see it, he would have realized the truth too late—and trembled.

Just as he’d used Temur to put the tribes of the eastern steppe in front as human shields, the North Heaven Demon Lord had used Jamukha to keep the Murong Family’s losses to a minimum.

The law of the strong preying on the weak applied everywhere.

That’s when the final battle began.

Sensing their end, the Murong Family fought with everything they had.

While their allies were dying all around them, they took the Temporary Strength Pill they’d held back until then and fought to open an escape route alongside the western steppe nomads who’d refused to abandon their cause even after Jamukha’s death.

Together, they numbered a staggering five thousand.

The people of Shanxi and the Hebei Peng Family were exhausted from the long battle, however high their spirits remained. Thousands of enemies, strengthened beyond their limits, scattered in every direction to avoid the three Supreme Peak masters. They tore through the weakened encirclement and fled.

No—they tried to flee.

Then, beyond the faint dawn light pushing through the darkness, came a roar that shook the whole world.

Three forces appeared beneath banners that should never have been here.

We didn’t expect them either. They arrived much sooner than we thought.

They said the scent of plum blossoms from Huashan filled the ridge in place of the Double Ninth Festival¹ chrysanthemums, soaked in blood and stripped of their fragrance.

A force with a hundred Peak masters at its head charged beneath the Murim Alliance banner and swept through the enemy. Other new arrivals entered the narrow gorge, where quiet had fallen after the terrible fighting.

Their brilliant golden armor gleamed as they rode like the wind.

The world called them the Embroidered Uniform Guard.²

And that was the end of it.

A dense fog of blood rolled over the gorge and engulfed the broad basin.

With the first light of dawn, reinforcements swept in from every direction and crushed the enemy. The Bow Saint and the Fire King dominated the battlefield, while Jin Taekyung drove his spearhead into the chest of Murong Wijin, Head Elder of the Murong Family, who had resisted until the very end.

The battle—the war—ended that day.

Its beginning and end marked by the Double Ninth Festival.¹

It left behind the joy of a great victory, and a sorrow heavier still.

Three full days had passed since then. Mukyung had finally regained consciousness, and his younger brother had told him everything that had happened. Now Taekyung was walking away, growing smaller beyond the window.

Before he left, he’d left behind an old book.

He asked me to give it to you. No—to hyung.³

Remembering the last words Taekyung had tossed out on his way through the door, Mukyung blinked like someone only just waking from sleep.

“…Ah.”

A stifled groan escaped him.

His vision slowly clouded over. Taekyung was no longer in sight.

Only the four characters on the cover of the book resting on his knees remained clear.

Shura Annihilating Fist.

It was the last trace an old master had left in this world—and the legacy of his martial lineage, entrusted to the Sword Demon of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

Another casualty of the battle three days ago. A man who had fought back-to-back with Mukyung but had not survived.

Great Hero Cheol.

Mukyung thought of Cheol Mubaek, the Tiger of Mount Heng.

Cheol had risked his life to buy him a moment against the formidable Demon Bird.

Mukyung remembered his last smile, blood staining his bared teeth. And he remembered Cheol’s voice from a day two years earlier, when the man had approached him as he was leaving the Mount Heng Sword Sect and spoken as though making a joke.

“I hear you’re crazy about martial arts.”

“Pardon?”

“So, I was wondering—are you interested in Seowol?”

“I’m sorry, what are you talking about all of a sudden…?”

“Exactly what I said. I don’t have much, so I can’t offer you gold or silver. But if the two of you got together, I’d gladly give you the Shura Annihilating Fist manual…”

“Uncle Cheol!”

“Goodness, you’ll burst my eardrums. You’ve only just become Sect Leader, and you’re already trying to boss me around?”

It was strange.

Mukyung had thought Cheol was someone whose path had merely crossed his own. Why, then, could he remember that hearty laugh so clearly?

Why did a heavy ache press against his chest?

So that’s what this is.

Only then did he recognize the emotions gripping him.

Sorrow. Anger. And…

Guilt over what he’d already lost.

If I’d been stronger. If I’d been just a little stronger that day.

He could have protected them. Saved more people.

But he hadn’t.

He’d fought with everything he had, swinging his sword without rest through a pitch-black darkness where a day felt like ten years. Still, he hadn’t been able to reach them.

If it had been you instead of me—no, both of you—everything would have been different.

Meeting Cheongpung had made him feel, for the first time, that there was a wall he could not cross.

Watching Jin Taekyung improve at an astonishing pace had rekindled a longing that had faded within him.

He’d been called a genius since the day he first picked up a sword. Only after seeing what those two were truly capable of had he understood: if his talent was a gift from Heaven, theirs was talent they’d taken from it.

What do I… What do I have to do to reach you? To keep from losing anyone else?

Emotions he couldn’t put into words swirled inside him.

He was staring out the window where his brother had disappeared when—

Tap.

A faint sound came from the crack around the firmly shut door.

Then a familiar voice reached him.

“Hey, Mujin. Remember that time?”

Mukyung’s eyes widened. He’d thought his brother had gone. An answer followed, so stiff it sounded unnatural.

“Um. W-Which time do you mean?”

“You know. When we formed that recon squad and were busting our asses.”

“Oh. Ah, yes. I remember.”

“Yeah, I saw a lot of things I wish I hadn’t back then. I just… at some point, I got so angry at how pathetic I was. Why was I only capable of this much? Why did people whose faces I’d gotten to know in passing have to die?”

“…”

“But you know what pissed me off the most?”

On the other side of the door, Taekyung leaned against it and went on as if talking to himself.

“No matter how hard I fucking try, I can’t get used to it. Nothing changes.”

Mukyung’s eyes trembled.

Forgetting even the pain, he clenched his fist as hard as he could and squeezed his eyes shut. Taekyung’s voice kept coming through the door.

“It’s always the same. I thought if I got stronger than I am now, I could stop bad things from happening. I thought once I could use Sword Energy and send out Force whenever I wanted, nothing as shitty as what happened back then would happen again…”

A low sigh slipped through the crack.

“But no. Every time, I still feel like shit. I was asking for too much.”

More. More. More.

The stronger a person became, the more they wanted. Their hopes grew grander, and their sense of responsibility swelled until it felt ready to burst.

Mukyung thought of himself as a boy, endlessly swinging a sword simply because he loved it.

Had that boy felt anything like the responsibility he felt now?

Back then, all he’d had was talent. He hadn’t even thought about restoring his family’s fortunes.

Taekyung’s voice reached him again.

“But I know this much. If we give up, it ends here.”

Taekyung no longer waited for an answer. Hyuk Mujin’s awkward attempts to play along had stopped, too.

The voice continued as though its words were meant for someone else.

“We just have to keep trying. Do the best we can with what we can do right now. If you despair and give up because nothing changes, that’s when hell really begins. Because later, you realize that all the effort you put in meant fewer people were taken from you.”

“…!”

“So just keep doing what you’ve been doing. Keep at it, like you always have.”

The bitterness in Taekyung’s voice slowly faded. A brief silence fell.

Then something whistled fiercely through the air.

Whoosh—thwack!

“Ow! Why’d you hit me?”

“Answer me, you bastard. When someone’s talking, you’re supposed to give them something back. Don’t make it awkward.”

“Seriously? You’re not even talking to me anyw—Mmph! Mmph!”

At the muffled sounds and the scrape of something being dragged away, Mukyung smiled faintly.

Then, in a voice clear enough to pass through the crack around the door, he saw the uninvited visitors off as they left the pavilion.

“Thank you. Truly.”

Their footsteps paused, as though they’d heard him. Then they quickly faded away.