Chapter 985

Leaving behind countless tears and a ceaseless rain of petals, tens of thousands of people—martial artists and ordinary folk alike—departed Eight Spring Gorge and returned to their places.

The memorial for the departed, and the belated Double Ninth Festival,¹ had come to an end. But those who remained had to keep moving forward, toward tomorrow and the day after.

And when we returned to the Jin Family of Taiyuan, more than the few family members left behind in case of an emergency were waiting for us.

“My name is Huang. I serve, though inadequately, as a Hall Master of the Murim Alliance. I’ve come to deliver a message from the Alliance Leader.”

The Murim Alliance’s envoy introduced himself with impeccable courtesy, and everyone’s gaze turned toward the three of us brothers.

More precisely, toward Jin Wikyung.

“I see.”

His voice was calm, though the corners of his eyes were still red.

As if welcoming a guest he had long expected, Jin Wikyung calmly led the envoy inside.

“Before we talk, please come in and rest after your journey.”

“I’m deeply grateful for your consideration, Great Hero Jin.”

In that moment, an unmistakable emotion passed over the faces of the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s senior members and the Sect Leaders under its protection.

It wasn’t only because the envoy bowed so deeply, with genuine respect and reverence.

Great Hero.

Just two words, but they carried a special weight.

This wasn’t some nobody, one of those self-important fools forever puffing each other up. A renowned master of the martial world, entrusted with the important position of Hall Master in the Murim Alliance, had come as an envoy and addressed him that way.

Everything is changing.

I, too, felt the weight of it all over again.

Jin Wikyung was no longer the Lesser Family Head who had led a fading family in place of a father whose whereabouts were unknown. Nor was he merely a young martial artist.

He was the ruler of Shanxi Province, another Alliance Leader recognized by everyone in this land.

No, now he was…

“What are you thinking about so hard?”

At Hyuk Mujin’s sudden question in my ear, I shook my head.

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Mujin.”

“Yes?”

“Want me to make your life a living hell?”

“…No. I was just going to tell you to hurry up and follow them. You were standing there by yourself.”

Hyuk Mujin was right.

Behind Jin Wikyung, who strode forward with confidence, came the Murim Alliance’s envoy, the family’s senior members, and the Sect Leaders under the Jin Family of Taiyuan, including Lee Seowol.

Their faces held a mixture of grief that had not yet faded and joy over something soon to become reality.

I watched them walk away in silence, then turned and headed in another direction.

“Huh? Where are you going?”

“No idea. Wherever I feel like.”

“What do you mean? Maybe someone else could miss it, but you of all people shouldn’t, Captain.”

“Doesn’t matter. I more or less know what they’re going to say anyway.”

“What?”

Hyuk Mujin tilted his head in confusion, then hurried after me. Hearing his footsteps behind me, I laughed softly.

At the same time, a memory came to me.

Eight Spring Gorge.

The narrow gorge that had swallowed so many lives, and the clear chime that rang out amid the rain of petals.

The holographic window that had announced yet another change.

Ding. Ding-ding.

System

Since the world first began, nothing beneath the heavens has been eternal. The vast land and sea, the countless lives that dwell within them, and even the mighty power held by the rarest few are no exception.

No flower stays red for ten days (花無十日紅), and no matter how great one’s power, it does not last ten years (權不十年).

But when a tree’s roots run deep, its branches grow thick (根深枝茂). When a spring runs deep, its waters flow far (源遠流長). At last, it will become another world where many can dwell and find rest.

As the System had told me, the Jin Family of Taiyuan, once rotting like an ancient tree, had now become a forest.

It bore fruit at the ends of countless branches and created a lake as vast as the sea.

Though they might lack strength, the people I had seen and known among them had always been just and righteous.

Unlike those who had chosen the wrong path, seized by anger and greed.

System

The Murong Family has fallen. They are no longer one of the Five Great Families.

At long last, the fame of the Jin Family of Taiyuan resounds throughout the world!

The fame and power of the Jin Family of Taiyuan have risen to that of a member of the Five Great Families!

The Nine Sects and One Gang. The Five Great Families.

Fifteen pillars that had upheld the martial world for hundreds of years.

And now, the Jin Family of Taiyuan had become one of those mighty pillars.

It wasn’t simply because the Murim Alliance had appointed them, or because renowned masters from across the martial world had strongly urged it.

The whole world had accepted it. They had recognized the Jin Family’s courage in standing against an army of tens of thousands.

They had recognized its resolve to protect not just Murim, but this land and its people.

And so, the provincial martial family that had once been slowly fading, its glory behind it, had come together and grown stronger than ever.

System

The Title Scion of a Great Family has been removed!

You have acquired a new Title: Direct Descendant of a Prestigious Family!

As your family’s standing has risen, you have gained a tremendous amount of Fame!

Hidden Quest Might As Well Go All the Way to the Five Great Families successfully completed!

You have earned the very rare Achievement Dad, Where Are You? Glory and blessings to the three Jin Family brothers, who overcame countless hardships and trials through their own efforts!

Jin Wikyung and Jin Mukyung have been granted the effects of Amazing Natural Healing and various bonus buffs. It goes without saying that these effects will not be displayed to the individuals in question.

You have acquired 10 bonus stat points as an Achievement reward!

You have gained a tremendous amount of EXP!

Level Up!

You have gained a tremendous amount of Fame!

Your name and reputation have now reached beyond Murim and across the world. You are a feudal lord appointed by the Son of Heaven, a successor of the Fire King Jeok Cheongang, and a great martial artist in your own right.

Your footsteps have been inscribed in history.

Martial artists have begun to speak cautiously of the glorious Title granted to only ten martial artists beneath the vast sky and its three stars. They speak of the birth of a new young king.

Nothing has been decided yet. Just as the small flap of a butterfly’s wings can bring a typhoon from afar, each of your choices, big or small, will gradually change this world.

But remember: time keeps moving.

May you have good fortune in Murim.

System

The Title Scion of a Prestigious Family has been removed!

You have acquired a new Title: Direct Descendant of a Prestigious Family!

As your family’s standing has risen, you have gained a tremendous amount of Fame!

Hidden Quest Might As Well Go All the Way to the Five Great Families successfully completed!

You have earned the very rare Achievement Dad, Where Are You? Glory and blessings to the three Jin Family brothers, who overcame countless hardships and trials through their own efforts!

Jin Wikyung and Jin Mukyung have been granted the effects of Amazing Natural Healing and various bonus buffs. It goes without saying that these effects will not be displayed to the individuals in question.

You have acquired 10 bonus stat points as an Achievement reward!

You have gained a tremendous amount of EXP!

Level Up!

You have gained a tremendous amount of Fame!

Your name and reputation have now reached beyond Murim and across the world. You are a feudal lord appointed by the Son of Heaven,² a successor of the Fire King Jeok Cheongang, and a great martial artist in your own right.

Your footsteps have been inscribed in history.

Martial artists have begun to speak cautiously of the glorious Title granted to only ten martial artists beneath the vast sky and its three stars. They speak of the birth of a new young king.

Nothing has been decided yet. Just as the small flap of a butterfly’s wings can bring a typhoon from afar, each of your choices, big or small, will gradually change this world.

But remember: time keeps moving.

May you have good fortune in Murim.

The System window had been far longer than usual. It had made the changes all the more palpable, but as always, it ended with a wish for good fortune in Murim.

For the first time in a long while, there was no follow-up Quest.

And yet that was the one thing that left me uneasy, even in the peace that had finally arrived.

What is this? I was sure something else would happen.

It had been a long time since I’d cared about getting stronger just for the sake of it.

In the Quests that came one after another, someone’s death had been so inevitable that it might as well have been written into the bargain. And the burden I carried had grown just as heavy.

On top of that, a greater crisis than ever hung over all of Murim.

They’re not the type to back off just because this plan failed.

It had always been like that.

Dark Heaven had carried out numerous schemes across Murim. Since murdering the Dharma King Hong Dao and stealing Shaolin Temple’s divine artifact, the Green Jade Buddha Staff, they hadn’t made a move anyone could call a success.

And yet, in Sichuan. In Hubei.

Then Nanman,³ the Imperial Palace, and now even here in Shanxi Province, they had brought one blood-soaked disaster after another.

The Murong Family’s betrayal and the nomads’ invasion were certainly huge events. But the forces Dark Heaven has revealed in the process are still far below what I expected.

Apart from the four Demon Lords and Demon Empress who were certainly key figures within Dark Heaven, more than half the enemies we had fought so far had been traitors and underlings.

In other words, it was as if they’d recruited their forces locally.

And they still haven’t shown themselves. Why? And why keep up this string of costly battles that lead only to failure?

My steps had carried me onward without my noticing, but I stopped and frowned.

Then another memory came to me: part of a conversation with Murong Baek, Family Head of the Murong Family, who had met his end as the North Heaven Demon Lord.

“If that’s what you all believe, fine. There’s nothing wrong with continuing to hope.”

“What?”

“Now that I’m in this situation, I find myself wondering why the Western Heaven Demon Lord, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, and the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord failed. How did a plan prepared so carefully for so long fall apart in an instant?”

We never found out what those incomprehensible words meant.

The North Heaven Demon Lord died without explaining them.

But even after I drove the spearhead into his heart, and even now, days after all the fighting had ended, I remembered every detail of that moment clearly.

His utterly calm voice and expression.

The North Heaven Demon Lord had been ready to die. He’d proved it moments later by drawing on even his innate qi.

He wasn’t just saying it to shake my composure.

I know how honest a person can become when facing certain death.

At the end of a life they’ve chosen for themselves, people don’t tell lies.

Then why? Why say that at all?

Of course, the North Heaven Demon Lord’s tone and manner had given me some idea.

I just hadn’t thought much about it because the possibility seemed so utterly unrealistic.

It was as if he thought this situation had been fated from the beginning—or as if he, too, had been used…

No matter how I looked at it, it made no sense.

After the fierce battle ended, I’d shared my thoughts with Jeok Cheongang. He’d answered more firmly than ever.

“Fate, my ass. And as much as those bastards deserve to die, you think masters that powerful grow on trees?”

“Yeah. Something does seem off, doesn’t it?”

“Lord of Heaven. No matter how powerful that bastard is, he can’t use people like them as disposable pawns. Not unless they’ve had their heads cracked open a couple of times by my Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.”

He was right.

There wasn’t a madman anywhere in the world who would use Supreme Peak masters as pawns.

The Bow Saint hadn’t agreed or disagreed. She’d only made an inscrutable face, but whatever she might have said probably wouldn’t have differed much from Jeok Cheongang’s answer.

No. Then why say it at all? And what’s with this suspiciously quiet stretch of time?

I screwed up my face and thought it over.

Had he just spouted bullshit before he died? Or had his words carried some other meaning none of us, myself included, could guess?

As I clung to that endless chain of thoughts, a familiar voice suddenly broke in.

“No wonder you never came, even after I waited all that time. So this is where you were.”

Jeok Cheongang.

His expression was heavier than ever. His voice was low and subdued as he continued.

“Come with me. There’s someone who wants to see you.”