BOOM.
Scattered Gorge Mountain shook.
Was it thunder?
Or an earthquake?
It was a natural disaster that could have been called either.
“Noisy. Gnats.... There. You called me.”
A clumsy manner of speaking.
Slow movements.
The eyes of those who had been fighting fiercely until moments ago turned toward a single spot.
Their bodies froze like ice.
It was a battlefield where monstrous cries and shouts had tangled together and torn at their ears.
Yet in the middle of that desperate fight, a single cannon-like blast swallowed everything.
And at the center of that blast.
A spiked mace larger than a man was buried deep in the ground.
Beneath it, a man had been buried as well.
White martial arts robes protruded from between the massive spiked mace, embroidered with gold.
It was Moyong Yang, the Commander of the Orthodox Allied Forces and the Moyong Family’s Family Head.
He had been crushed so thoroughly that he was no longer recognizable.
He was nothing more than a mangled pulp.
“Dead? Come back to life. Hurry. You called me.”
The man who had reduced Moyong Yang to that state slowly lifted the spiked mace and rested it on his shoulder.
Bits of flesh stuck to the mace fell off with wet slaps.
The giant holding the spiked mace.
The man standing at the center of this battlefield.
The strongest man who had not shown himself for more than twenty years.
Jang Hang.
The Supreme Among Hegemons.
The Colossal Mountain of Hegemonic Might.
At the moment when the battle had reached its height, Moyong Yang had split apart Hegemon Fortress’s formation and begun cutting down their men.
Then Jang Hang had torn through the Hegemon Fortress members and appeared.
He was a giant over eight feet tall.
His body looked as though several layers of fat wrapped around it, and his belly shook with every movement.
He was a being one could scarcely call human.
He swung his spiked mace.
Simply... carelessly.
BOOM.
An earth-shaking roar.
No, a cannon blast.
A single swing.
That was enough.
Moyong Yang’s resolve, burning away his last soul in the center of the battlefield, collapsed helplessly before Jang Hang’s overwhelming might.
“You. Come back to life quickly. You called me. Hurry, fight.”
Jang Hang spoke as he looked down at the corpse that had already been reduced to pulp.
His clumsy speech passed through his thick lips.
His slow and dull manner of speaking.
Everyone’s body froze.
Not only the Orthodox Allied Forces, but even the martial artists of the Hegemon Fortress Alliance.
Immovable.
No one could move.
It was as though time had stopped.
Everyone on the battlefield halted and stared blankly at Jang Hang.
Reverence for overwhelming force.
Despair before overwhelming martial prowess.
“You. Boring.”
Moyong Yang’s soul had called Jang Hang.
The momentum he had released from the heart of the battlefield.
Jang Hang must have responded to that.
For more than twenty years, he had not once left Hegemon Fortress.
Yet Moyong Yang’s soul had made him take those heavy steps.
But the toy was already broken.
Jang Hang had lost interest.
Without a trace of regret, he turned around.
The morning sun rose, driving away the darkness.
The desperate midnight battle, where they could barely see ahead, came to an end alongside the long shadows.
Leaving behind only Jang Hang’s retreating back.
***
As the evening glow stretched long across the sky, a man climbed the ridgeline.
He wore black, but his clothes were stained with so much blood that red clearly spread across them.
It was Ja Cheon-gwang.
He limped slowly up the mountain path.
‘Damn it. Everyone must be eating dinner by now, right? I followed those bastards out for no reason, and look at the state I am in.’
There were the men who might have been the White Dragon Corps or the Black Dragon Corps.
Then there were the black-clad men whose identities he could not even guess.
After the desperate fights against them, his body had become a wreck.
The pain from the sword wound that had pierced through his body was especially severe.
‘Still, I feel a little better after getting some sleep.’
Perhaps he had become accustomed to the pain aching throughout his body.
Or perhaps he had lost so much blood that his mind had become foggy.
That was the greater problem.
Even walking was difficult.
Before the morning sun rose, finding that place had been a stroke of heaven-sent luck.
A secluded stream.
He shoved his face into the water and drank until his stomach felt ready to burst.
Then he squeezed into a crack between rocks and hid himself.
The long weeds filling the space ahead concealed him.
The trickling sound of the stream swallowed even his faint breathing.
Then he fell asleep as though collapsing.
As he sank into a deep sleep, the morning sun spread its light in all directions.
Yet he did not move.
He did not so much as twitch until the sun began to tilt again.
After lying unconscious for more than half a day, he was only barely able to raise himself after the sun had passed high noon.
Perhaps it was because he had slept deeply without moving much.
His wounds had healed considerably in just one day.
When he rose, the pain he had been suppressing surged through him.
But it was fine.
He could move.
‘Still better than yesterday.’
Aside from the hunger from not eating anything for a day, his condition was no longer the absolute worst.
‘Let us go. Home.’
Ja Cheon-gwang slowly began making his way toward the Ascending Dragon Sect.
‘The Moyong Family bastards or the black-clad men might still be around. Even if it takes some time, it will be better to go back.’
That was why he was delayed for quite some time.
It did not help that it was his first time there and that he did not know the roads.
Even so, after several twists and turns, he managed to find the familiar road leading to the Ascending Dragon Sect.
Far away, he could see the Ascending Dragon Sect’s old pavilion and signboard.
The moment he saw that sight, his heart sank with strange unease.
Ja Cheon-gwang touched the wooden case inside his clothes.
There had been four of them when they left to scout.
Now, he was alone.
He would not be able to avoid questioning from the Sect Leader or the Grand Elder.
‘His name was Moyong Jeong-gi, right? Tch. Perhaps that bastard will save my life.’
If they asked about the whereabouts of the other three, he planned to use Moyong Jeong-gi as an excuse.
He would say that a battle had occurred with them.
There were no witnesses anyway.
‘They will not be able to verify it with the Moyong Family, either.’
Moreover, the death of the Moyong Family’s third son was not a light matter.
‘But will they believe me? Perhaps those rigid bastards will not believe what I say. That is why....’
He regretted that he could not bring back even one of the corpses of the three men who had died.
Those men who might have been the White Dragon Corps or the Black Dragon Corps.
The bastards who had tried to kill him.
In any case, considering the possibility that the Sect Leader or the Grand Elder was involved, he had to prepare for the worst.
His hand kept straying toward the wooden case in his clothes.
‘If the worst comes to pass... I will get through it with this.’
His flimsy excuse involving Moyong Jeong-gi.
There was something that could fill in its gaps.
The Heavenly Spirit Jewel.
A single red bead rested quietly in his hand.
‘More importantly... The men who appeared later. Their auras did not feel like anything I have sensed from the orthodox bastards.’
The men who had appeared while he was taking the Heavenly Spirit Jewel from Moyong Jeong-gi’s clothes.
There had been a strange sensation, like his ears were tingling.
He had fought countless members of the Orthodox Allied Forces, but the auras he had felt from those men were clearly different.
‘In the end, I could not find out what those bastards were. That is a little disappointing.’
But it was already in the past.
For now, he needed to worry about the matter in front of him.
Ja Cheon-gwang trudged up the mountain path leading to the Ascending Dragon Sect.
‘What is this? Did something happen?’
As he climbed the path, lost in thought, he felt a strange sense of discord at the Ascending Dragon Sect’s entrance.
Inside the sect was far too busy.
‘This is different from usual. I clearly saw everyone returning yesterday before I left to scout.’
The war had ended, and he had certainly seen everyone return to the Ascending Dragon Sect.
There was no reason for it to be this crowded after a full day had passed.
Though its members were rough and crude, the Ascending Dragon Sect was surprisingly always quiet.
“What is this?”
In front of the training ground, Ja Cheon-gwang’s eyes widened.
The training ground was utter chaos.
Thud, thud.
Several Iron Dragon Corps members were moving corpses onto carts.
It was strange.
There should have been no reason for corpses to appear.
Had they not all descended the mountain safely?
Then—
“What the hell is this? Why is he like this?”
Ja Cheon-gwang’s steps stopped in front of a cart.
One limp corpse.
Though it was covered in blood, he recognized it at once.
His close friend.
Yoo Hwan-geun.
He slowly approached and checked the man’s face.
The playful expression was gone, replaced by cold stiffness.
But it was definitely him.
Even the shape of those lips that always provoked others was the same.
-I am heading down first. Black clothes suit you well, Lord Black Dragon Corps. Take care.
The cheeky voice he had used as he descended the mountain last still lingered in Ja Cheon-gwang’s ears.
It felt like an auditory hallucination.
-Why are you standing there so stupidly? Are you admiring someone handsome?
It felt as though he would open his mouth and snicker at any moment.
“You cannot be like this... You came down the mountain perfectly fine. Why are you like this?”
Ja Cheon-gwang’s voice sank low.
It was not grief.
It was closer to a denial of reality that he could not understand.
The ground seemed to sway.
His head felt as though it were spinning.
“You.”
“Yes? Ah, Instructor.”
Ja Cheon-gwang called to an Iron Dragon Corps member who was moving the corpses.
He was not in good condition either.
Bandages wrapped all around his body, and blood seeped through them.
He even limped on one leg.
“What happened in the span of a day? Explain.”
“I-Instructor....”
Seeing Ja Cheon-gwang’s hardened expression, the Iron Dragon Corps member slowly stepped backward.
Faint killing intent spread from Ja Cheon-gwang.
Terrified, the man swallowed dryly.
“I asked what happened.”
“Well... After we returned to the Ascending Dragon Sect last night....”
The Iron Dragon Corps member told him everything that had happened the night before.
The more Ja Cheon-gwang heard, the more his expression hardened.
‘There was another battle? Again? Why did those bastards suddenly attack us?’
Then a name flashed through his mind.
Moyong Jeong-gi.
A man who had no reason to die in such an absurd place.
And had two black-clad men not been chasing him?
‘What the hell happened in the Moyong Family? Those bastards must have started the war again because of that matter. But what does that have to do with Moyong Jeong-gi?’
His mind was a mess.
There was far too little information.
‘If Moyong Jeong-gi died in the middle of Scattered Gorge Mountain, naturally their entire force would have gone out to find him. I saw Moyong Jeong-cheon, but there was no large force with him.’
Yet the Orthodox Allied Forces had fought a large-scale battle somewhere else?
Those bastards who had been quiet all that time?
At the exact time Moyong Jeong-gi died?
No, more importantly.
‘I know Hwan-geun’s skill. He is not someone who would die in an ordinary battle.’
According to the Iron Dragon Corps member, the Ascending Dragon Sect had fought fiercely while surrounded.
A battle that Yoo Hwan-geun could not handle.
If so, it was highly likely that the Orthodox Allied Forces had attacked with all their strength.
He did not know.
He did not know why those bastards had made such incomprehensible moves.
Ja Cheon-gwang blankly looked at Yoo Hwan-geun, whose eyes were closed.
His close friend.
Number 32.
The man who had always run around with him ever since they had first entered the Iron Dragon Corps.
The bastard whose ceaseless chatter had always been a nuisance.
Number 92, Number 32....
Another friend had left his side.
“AAARGH....”
A scream shattered his thoughts.
In the Ascending Dragon Sect’s training ground, a merciless beating was taking place.
Still dazed, Ja Cheon-gwang walked toward it as though something were drawing him in.
The world seemed to spin, and his steps staggered.
“Die, you bastards.”
The dull Black Death Sword danced.
Sect Leader Lee Woo-yang held the massive greatsword and performed a sword dance.
It was a dance of blood.
Even when striking with the scabbard, its weight did not disappear.
Flesh tore, and blood flew.
‘After remaining quiet all this time....’
It had to be rage over the battle the day before.
Rage at that desperate failure.
From what he had heard, the Ascending Dragon Sect was not at fault.
They had simply been the first to arrive at the battlefield.
They should have been praised for not surrendering the plains.
But none of that mattered to Lee Woo-yang.
The fact that they had nearly been annihilated.
That alone was more than enough reason for him to perform his sword dance.
The members had barely returned alive from a battle like hell.
More than thirty percent of them had already become corpses, and there were too many wounded to count.
It was harder to find someone who was uninjured.
Yet there was no comfort or treatment.
Without even thinking of resisting, they lay sprawled on the ground, receiving the Black Death Sword’s punishment with their entire bodies.
Some writhed weakly.
Others already lay sprawled there with their breathing stopped.
“You nearly got annihilated by a single attack? Do you know what I was told in Hegemon Fortress? You incompetent fools, you trash bastards.”
Lee Woo-yang continued swinging the Black Death Sword without a care.
His eyes were bloodshot.
The beatings continued even against those who had fallen and could no longer move.
The impacts launched their bodies into the air before they fell again.
Quite a few already seemed dead.
With every strike, their bodies only jolted. There was no further reaction.
The Sect Leader had been consumed by madness.
Ja Cheon-gwang tried to ignore it and approached Lee Woo-yang.
The three elders stood behind him, but they did not dare step forward.
“I have returned, Sect Leader.”
In an instant, the Black Death Sword’s dancing motion stopped.
“You bastard.”
THUD.
Ja Cheon-gwang’s head snapped to the side with a dull sound.
The dull Black Death Sword swept past him.