Chapter 158
Chapter 158: End of Act One (1)
Dong Bong-soo scraped together all his remaining health, stamina, JP, and everything else.
"Heh-heh-heh."
There was nothing. Nothing that could be called strength.
Only enough to grumble lowly. If he squeezed harder, he could move his hand slightly.
Click.
Lying down, he tried moving the wrist holding [Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword].
If he could throw it, he intended to kill Yeon Yeong-ha by throwing it.
But he failed.
The movement was all there was. The act of throwing itself was impossible.
"If I could just kill... if I could just kill..."
He could recover all his energy by leveling up.
But he couldn't do that.
Therefore...
He would die now.
He wouldn't survive.
Pfft.
A light laugh escaped.
'Yesterday, no, has it become the day before yesterday now?'
The moon overhead had tilted considerably, so it was probably the day before yesterday.
Since he died the day before yesterday, was this his second death?
Perhaps another chance might come. Perhaps it might not.
"Rrrrrrrrrr.."
The Martial Jiangshi had approached right behind Yeon Yeong-ha at some point. She now had her head bowed, apparently having completely lost consciousness.
Thwump.
The Jiangshi lightly blew off the head of Yeon Yeong-ha, their creator.
"...!"
An unexpected development.
'Why? How?'
That was his immediate thought. Next came the thought that perhaps control of them had already not been with Yeon Yeong-ha for some time. But he soon erased that thought from his mind.
Whether Yeon Yeong-ha was dead or alive, what he was currently facing was the same.
How the Jiangshi could do such a thing, how they could move even without her controlling them, why they killed her—none of it mattered at all. Even if he knew, it would be useless.
Because it couldn't affect the coming result in any way.
What mattered now was that his turn was next.
That was all.
Crunch-crunch.
The Jiangshi were getting closer and closer.
His brain was spinning that much faster.
Dong Bong-soo was seeking a way until the very, very end. A way to survive from here.
No stamina, no health, no JP.
With his last remaining mental strength, he scanned through his Inventory.
If there was a way to live, it would be inside here, and if not, only death awaited.
Inside the Inventory were countless Jiangshi and meaningless weapons at this point in time...!
"Mm!?"
At that moment, one object caught his eye. Right inside the Inventory.
A single blank sheet of paper with nothing written on it.
Dong Bong-soo didn't hesitate and took it out.
Crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch.
Meanwhile, the footsteps of the Jiangshi were getting closer and closer.
Were there even ten steps left at most?
'What exactly is this, what is it used for, how can it be manifested...'
Only ten steps remained until death. As they drew closer, Dong Bong-soo's brain spun even, even faster.
'No one knows yet what effect this has. Even those high-flying monks of Shaolin couldn't figure it out for a thousand years. I also couldn't discover any secret about this.'
Secret, secret... secret... se... cret.
Blank paper and secret.
Paper with nothing written on it.
Secret, content that hasn't been revealed or isn't known.
No one knows the secret of the blank paper. No one could figure it out. No one could discover it.
Then a strand of thought suddenly came to him.
'What if this is nothing at all!? What if there was no secret from the beginning?'
The moment his thinking reached this point.
A flash of insight gleamed in his eyes.
'It's nothing! There was no secret from the start!'
'That's it. Yes, this is it.'
If this blank paper was a secret map pointing to where the Heavenly Demon's relics were buried, the very method that absolutely no one could do until the very, very end flashed through his mind.
That attempt the Shaolin monks could never make.
On the other hand, if this was nothing, that thing anyone could do.
"Heh heh heh heh."
Dong Bong-soo laughed low but with all his remaining strength.
"Heh heh ha-ha-ha-ha-ha."
He kept laughing. It was truly the first time in his life he had laughed so loudly and continuously.
"Secret, there is no secret. A blank paper is just a blank paper."
Suddenly, the famous phrase from that other world—'Mountains are mountains, waters are waters'—came to his mind.
And.
He tore the Heavenly Demon Book.
Something anyone could do, but also something no one could do—precisely that thing.
Squeeeeak.
"Ha-ha-ha... ha-ha... ha..."
Huuuuuuuum.
The heavens opened, light descended, and erased Dong Bong-soo and his laughter from this world.
Huuuuuuuum.
***
"Th... that!?"
"What on earth is happening again at the Murim Alliance...?"
Hwa Seon-hyang and Paeng Ho-ryu's pupils were shaking. It wasn't just the two of them. Many others who had some breathing room in the battle with the Martial Jiangshi were also blankly watching the light pouring down.
The light was large, wide, and intense.
Many things swept up in those rays of light melted down, and some were caught up in it and disappeared into the sky.
Among them were countless corpses and Murim people, Jiangshi, and considerable portions of the Murim Alliance's remains, as well as part of Cheongsin Mountain.
That's right.
The light was expanding its domain to the point of affecting even a part of Cheongsin Mountain beyond the Murim Alliance.
"Huh?"
"I-it's pushing all the way here!"
"Everyone ev... Aaaaargh!"
By the time people realized it, many had already been devoured by those rays of light.
Hummmmmm.
The rays of light approached Pyeong Wi-rang, Paeng Ho-ryu, and others without fail.
Everyone hesitated at that tremendous force.
At that moment, someone threw themselves toward them.
With grizzled white hair and an eccentric face, Pyeong Wi-rang instantly realized he was Soldier Eccentric.
"E-Elder...!"
Hum-hum-hum!
Before Pyeong Wi-rang's voice could even finish, the massive rays of light swallowed the place where they had been.
The mysterious rays of light, however, did not expand their voracious domain any further.
Just up to there.
However...
When the people who had been flung outside opened their eyes, nothing remained anymore.
Yeon Yeong-ha's corpse that had been running that terrible madness, Dong Bong-soo who had fought against her, and even all the survivors who had been unable to leave the Murim Alliance until now—all had vanished without a trace.
"How can this be... how can this..."
"This makes no sense!"
Pyeong Wi-rang, Paeng Ho-ryu, and Hwa Ye-ji, who barely survived without being caught up in it thanks to Soldier Eccentric, and Hwa Seon...!
Hwa Seon-hyang was gone.
Soldier Eccentric had rushed urgently, but she had already been swept away and vanished in those terrible rays of light.
Everyone stared blankly at the sky in dismay.
But no one could maintain that posture for long.
Because.
"Grrrrrrr."
There were still Jiangshi remaining.
Especially the Eight Desolations Heavenly Slaughter Formation still remained there.
The fight was not yet over.
Perhaps their real fight had only just begun...
***
The final day of the Central Plains.
People of later generations called that day by that name.
That day, he—Dong Guang-chuan—disappeared somewhere along with many Jiangshi and survivors.
Historians recorded his achievements as a noble sacrifice, while others expressed it as the end of a demon.
This was so even though no one knew where he came from, who he was, or what his real name was.
He...
Vanished without a trace. Just as he had appeared...
One thing was certain: if a large number of Jiangshi hadn't disappeared with him that day, the Central Plains—perhaps this world—would never have been rebuilt to its original state.
***
On the day the great light covered the sky, the Murim Alliance completely disappeared. Not in the sense of being destroyed, but 'disappeared' in the raw, literal meaning. Not only the massive structures located at the summit of Cheongsin Mountain, but all living creatures and objects that had been there evaporated without a trace. As if nothing had been there from the beginning.
The Murim Alliance was extinguished from this world just like that.
Following that, Zhengzhou was completely crushed.
The remaining Jiangshi ran wild in madness.
Whether the True Extreme Yin Heavenly Calamity Energy existed or not was no longer any problem for them, and the Jiangshi didn't know how to stop until everything in Henan Province was destroyed. They moved day and night without rest, and they had no fatigue, no fear, no mercy. Only the instinct for destruction and slaughter moved them.
Many were sacrificed, but they couldn't stop their advance.
Eventually, the Eight Desolations Heavenly Slaughter Formation and Martial Jiangshi began spreading beyond Henan Province to other surrounding cities.
Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, even Hebei where the Imperial Palace in Beiping was right before them.
Irresistible force.
No one could stop this undead legion. The Murim sects of each region resisted sporadically, but before the immortal legion, all martial arts were meaningless.
Slaughter became everyday life and order collapsed.
In places they had passed through, hiding during the day and fleeing at night became the new way of life. Naturally, civilization in those areas began rapidly regressing.
Now the deployment of the Imperial Army became inevitable. However, no one knew at the time that this would rather be the starting point of despair.
Finally, the million-strong Imperial Army and the undead legion of over ten thousand confronted each other at Renqiu in Hebei. A great battle occurred and a great slaughter took place.
They lost.
Thoroughly defeated.
The Imperial Army crumbled like grains of sand.
Even more terrifying...
Was the fact that after the battle ended, the number of the undead legion had instead increased.
Jiangshi Disease.
People called it that.
A considerable number of those killed by the Jiangshi resurrected not as humans but as Jiangshi. No one knew how this happened. There was no manpower to research it, nor was there time. Everyone was overwhelmed just trying to preserve their lives while avoiding the Jiangshi.
Now the undead legion, having become an army of hundreds of thousands, invaded Beiping. Just as the Imperial Army crumbled like grains of sand, the Imperial Palace crumbled like a sand castle.
Thus the Imperial Dynasty of the Central Plains fell so simply and so helplessly.