‘Urgh... I should have crushed the Ascending Dragon Sect before those bastards arrived.’
Moyong Yang ground his teeth.
It had only been a matter of time before the Ascending Dragon Sect collapsed.
Look at them.
The Golden Dragon Corps, supposedly their greatest force, were panting as they fell one by one.
‘I should have completely occupied this place. I have to finish those bastards.’
However, the Ironblood Hall stood in his path, followed by the Tiger Fang Gang.
His way had been blocked.
“Everyone, put more strength into it. There are only more necks for us to break.”
They could not retreat now.
Having already launched an all-out offensive, they would fall apart in an instant if they withdrew.
“What? Why did the Commander suddenly order an all-out attack?”
“Everything until now must have been feints and misdirection. Was he not trying to lure the unorthodox bastards into letting their guard down?”
“What does that matter? We still could not break through....”
“Shh, watch what you say. Just swing your sword.”
The Orthodox Allied Forces were just as puzzled.
Why were they forcefully pushing the front line, which had remained quiet for three years, so hard today of all days?
They followed because it was an order, but their doubts did not vanish.
‘Damn it. If I had known it would be like this, I would not have come as reinforcements.’
‘They said it was easy. They said it was a war that ended after merely facing each other.’
Quite a few regretted it inwardly.
For young martial artists, real combat was the best way to earn a name.
However, in the peaceful Central Plains, opportunities to wield a sword were rare.
And when they did appear, they were usually in truly dangerous places.
‘They said this place was fairly well-known without being dangerous.... How many people have already died?’
Though the Ascending Dragon Sect focused on defense, it was not as though they never counterattacked.
There was saber energy thrown out from time to time.
And the Heaven-Revolving Mighty Path’s enormous sword screen.
Quite a few had already been cut down or pierced by them.
In the end, the current battle was bound to weigh heavily on those who had come only to seek fame.
They had never intended to risk their lives to this extent.
“Hurry, hurry. Fight, I said.”
It was only natural for them to resent Moyong Yang’s shout.
‘Why are they not fighting more actively? Is it because this is Liaoning’s affair? Because the Moyong Family is at the center of it? This is the Orthodox Allied Forces, you snot-nosed brats.’
Moyong Yang likewise resented the martial artists who did not fight more actively.
‘We have still not confirmed whether Jeong-gi is alive or dead, nor have we found the Sacred Relic. I cannot surrender this place in a situation like this.’
He still believed that the people who had attacked the Moyong Family were somewhere here, within the Hegemon Fortress Alliance.
He had to believe it.
That was why they had to seize this place.
So that they would not lose Jeong-gi’s trail or any clue to the Sacred Relic.
Then—
“Family Head! Family Head! It is Sang!”
His grandson, Moyong Sang, came running from behind him, panting heavily.
“Sang. What is Jeong-cheon doing that you have come all this way?”
“Father... told me to deliver a message.”
Moyong Sang caught his breath for a moment.
It was news so difficult that he could barely bring himself to speak.
“Family Head... Uncle Moyong Jeong-gi has died.”
Moyong Yang’s eyes widened.
The wrinkles around his eyes smoothed out.
“W-What did you say? Jeong-gi... What happened to him?”
The sky darkened and the ground seemed to sway.
He nearly fell onto his backside in the middle of the battlefield.
He had been uneasy.
Even so, he had believed.
Was his third son not exceptionally gifted in martial arts?
Even if he had been wounded, Moyong Yang had believed that mere black-clad men could never defeat Jeong-gi.
‘My wife. What should I do? Our son. They say Jeong-gi... has died. What am I supposed to do?’
He had promised while holding the hand of his dead wife, Yeon Byeok-hwa.
He had promised that he would save their youngest son and bring him back to the family.
Yet his son had died before him.
What kind of incompetent Family Head and father let such a thing happen?
Then, a thought flashed through his mind.
“Jeong-gi... Your uncle took the Sacred Relic with him. What happened to it? Where is Jeong-cheon?”
“Father is continuing the search to find the Sacred Relic.”
He was searching for the Sacred Relic?
Then did that mean it had vanished?
“E-Even the Heavenly Spirit Jewel is missing?”
He had lost his third son.
And he did not even know where the Sacred Relic was.
Moyong Yang lowered his head.
‘How can I face our forefathers? Even if I die like this, I will not have the face to meet my ancestors.’
The family’s catastrophe.
The death of his third son.
The whereabouts of the Sacred Relic.
He was the Moyong Family’s Family Head.
Yet he had protected nothing.
‘No. Regret can come later. There is something I must do now. Jeong-cheon said he would find the Sacred Relic. He will find it. In that case... I must keep these bastards occupied. And some of the people who attacked the family must be among them. I have to kill them and avenge the family.’
Moyong Yang raised the sword he had been using as a cane.
“Yes. Should we not try everything that we can? Sang... Go and follow Jeong-cheon at once.”
Moyong Sang’s body stiffened at those words.
“Family Head....”
“Go and find the Sacred Relic. This is an order from the Moyong Family’s Family Head.”
“...Yes.”
It was a firm order.
Moyong Sang bowed deeply in a clasped-hands greeting, then left the battlefield at a run.
‘Heh heh... This unworthy descendant will soon go apologize to his ancestors.’
Moyong Yang adjusted his grip on his sword.
“All Allied Forces, listen! We will eradicate that treacherous unorthodox rabble here. Everyone, advance!”
He took the lead and ran into the center of the battlefield.
He was over eighty years old.
Yet his momentum remained robust and awe-inspiring.
It carried an imposing force as though he could seize all of Liaoning beyond Scattered Gorge Mountain.
“RAAAH!”
With a rough roar, his sword became a nighttime Milky Way that decorated the sky.
Pitch-black darkness.
Faintly shining starlight.
Moyong Yang’s sword gathered those tiny lights and flowed like a great galaxy.
“Why is that old man suddenly like this? Did he somehow grow younger—AAARGH!”
“Take down that old man first. We have to stop him from running wild.”
The Ironblood Hall martial artists went pale.
Even so, they charged at him.
Moyong Yang’s aura made their blood boil as martial artists.
“The Commander is leading the charge. Everyone, follow him!”
“Let us go. Eradicate those filthy unorthodox bastards!”
Moyong Yang’s momentum itself became morale.
The Orthodox Allied Forces immediately joined the offensive.
It was a spectacular sight created by an eighty-year-old man.
A desperate battle.
A night of slaughter.
The Ascending Dragon Sect had been the center of the defense.
But once they were defeated and retreated, the Hegemon Fortress Alliance revealed its true nature.
Attacking martial arts that did not consider defense in the slightest.
As both sides abandoned defense and went on the offensive, Scattered Gorge Mountain was gradually stained with even more blood.
“You vermin. Can you not even deal properly with those delicate fools?”
“That is why you bastards are called trash.”
Huge frames.
Muscles like boulders.
When those men, swinging bizarre weapons, joined the battle, the tide turned in an instant.
Massive weapons wielded on the foundation of tremendous external arts.
They were enough to make one’s knees tremble at the sight alone.
“They are merely bastards who are a little stronger. Do not be intimidated. AAARGH!”
Moyong Yang split apart the Ironblood Hall’s formation, which had blocked his way, and pierced through its center.
Then martial artists of Hegemon Fortress appeared before him.
The men who had only watched until now had stepped to the front.
THRUST.
Moyong Yang’s sharp sword tip dug into hardened muscle.
“You... You are nothing more than lumps of meat.”
FWOOSH.
Silver force aura formed around his sword.
When he slashed it across, the hardened muscles split apart.
In an instant, the body was cut in two.
“Did you see? This is the strength of the Orthodox Allied Forces.”
The morale that had fallen with Hegemon Fortress’s arrival rose again.
Moyong Yang, fighting desperately at the front, was like a god of war.
No, he was closer to a madman.
The elites of Hegemon Fortress did not dare approach easily in the face of his martial prowess as he swung his sword like a man possessed.
Advance and retreat.
The slaughter battle, in which neither side could yield, gradually shook awake the pitch-black darkness of midnight.
And then.
As the morning sun raised its head over the ridgeline, announcing that the deep and long night had passed—
The battle came to an end.
At the hands of a single man.
That desperate battle....
***
‘Where am I?’
His vision was growing dim.
It was already so dark that he could barely see ahead, and the objects before his eyes swayed and twisted in different directions.
Ja Cheon-gwang wandered aimlessly through the mountain.
It seemed that he had even lost his sense of direction.
“Urgh.”
His wounds throbbed.
The unpleasant sensation left by the sword that had pierced his abdomen was especially troublesome.
As though refusing to let him forget, blood still flowed from the punctured wound.
‘Damn it, I have lost too much blood. I cannot even move anymore.’
That was why he walked and walked without a destination.
If he put enough distance between himself and them, he could at least avoid being discovered and forced into another fight.
Trickle, trickle...
What was that?
It was the sound of flowing water.
It was not something he consciously thought about.
His body moved his feet in the direction of the sound.
‘Water.’
It was a stream so small that it was almost embarrassing to call it a brook.
Ja Cheon-gwang plunged his face straight into the water.
GULP, GULP...
The cold water soaked his throat.
Come to think of it, he had eaten nothing since he had followed the men who might have been the White Dragon Corps or Black Dragon Corps yesterday.
Neither dinner.
Nor even water.
SPUTTER.
When he raised his head from the water, a cool breeze slapped his face.
It felt refreshing.
“Pant, pant. Where is this?”
No matter how much he looked around, he had no way of knowing where he was.
The trees and the ground all looked similar.
And it was nighttime.
‘I seem to have moved quite far from that place... There is nothing I can do right now. My body is not in good condition either.’
It would be better to move after recovering his body first.
He found a large rock beside the stream.
When he squeezed himself into a crevice in it, there was enough space for one person to lie down.
The grass outside hid his body.
And the trickling stream swallowed even the sound of his shallow breathing.
He closed his eyes.
No, they closed on their own.
The extreme fatigue and excessive blood loss that had continued for an entire day.
He could no longer endure it.
He fell asleep as though collapsing.
Unaware of what was happening above him, on the mountainside of Scattered Gorge Mountain....
***
Moyong Jeong-cheon’s mind was filled with confusion.
“Who are these bastards now?”
There were three black-clad men’s corpses.
They had found six corpses while coming here.
The causes of death were clear.
Sword wounds from the Moyong Family’s secret technique, Dipper Shifts, Stars Move.
They had to be Moyong Jeong-gi’s work.
But the causes of death of these three corpses were unknown.
They were not Moyong Jeong-gi’s work.
No matter how much he tried to speculate, he could not make sense of it.
Blunt weapon marks rather than sword wounds?
‘Judging only by their form, they are similar to the two corpses beside Jeong-gi. The sword aside... These are blunt weapon marks severe enough to crush a head. It is definitely the same man. He killed three men here, then two beside Jeong-gi.’
Something else was even stranger.
‘Why is one man missing his clothes?’
Only one man had been stripped of his clothing.
Since his trousers were black, his upper garments must have been black as well.
‘Were they not from the same group? Why did they kill each other?’
“Search the bodies. Is there anything on them?”
“Nothing was found on these men either.”
Nothing on these men either?
Then they were the same as the corpses beside Moyong Jeong-gi.
‘The clothing is the same. These men must also be the intruders who broke into the family.’
He had never intended to let those bastards die peacefully.
Yet they had already died so pointlessly.
Something was even stranger.
Nothing was found on them?
Then what about the Sacred Relic?
Had these men not taken it?
Had they fought with swords over possession of the Sacred Relic?
It was possible.
In any case, one thing was certain.
‘The Heavenly Spirit Jewel... The man who killed these men took it.’
This was a matter for the direct line, one that others must not hear.
Moyong Jeong-cheon muttered in a low voice.
“There is another man. This was his work. He did not die here, and he could not have gone far. Let us go.”
“Yes, Young Family Head.”
The martial artists went ahead, and Moyong Jeong-cheon was about to follow behind them.
Then—
Glint.
The rising sun.
Its light seemed to hold his feet in place, as though telling him not to leave yet.
“What is this?”
Something glimmered on the ground.
Rustle.
Moyong Jeong-cheon picked it up.
It was metal.
A thin, shattered piece of metal.
There was not merely one or two pieces.
Finely broken metal fragments lay scattered widely around the corpses.
‘A sword?’
For some reason, that thought came to mind.
They were fragments of a sword.
‘But... Can a sword break like this? No matter how weak a sword is, it should not shatter into pieces this easily. Could it be?’
Moyong Jeong-cheon hurried toward where Moyong Jeong-gi lay.
The same wounds.
Deaths caused by blunt weapons.
The corpses beside Moyong Jeong-gi were the same.
As expected.
Metal fragments lay scattered near Moyong Jeong-gi as well.
‘Who in the world is this bastard? Who can shatter swords into pieces and kill people with blunt weapons?’
His common sense offered no answer.
He had never heard of such a situation before.
Far away, the sun heralding morning rose.
The sword fragments, bathed in morning light filtering through the branches, gleamed even brighter.
His gaze turned toward the plains where the battle was taking place.
Why had his gaze moved in that direction at this particular moment?
He could not understand why he had looked there.
Not yet.