Into the Blades
The Heavenly Demon's granddaughter—the Holy Maiden of the Demonic Cult who had long guarded the Hundred Flowers—was returning home.
More precisely, only a single palm, burning red, had made it back.
"We've come quite deep. From here on, stay alert for contact with Demonic Cultists."
At Captain Jang Jin's warning, we pulled our black hoods low over our faces.
Disguised and dressed to pass as members of the Dark Spirit Corps, our Murim Alliance rescue party was moving through Demonic Cult territory. We were racing along a rugged mountain path at high speed when it happened.
Clang-clang-clang—!
Kyaaaagh—!
From far off, the lingering echoes of a fierce, desperate battle began to carry toward us.
The moment he realized combat had broken out ahead, Captain Jang Jin climbed to high ground, scouted the scene beyond, and relayed everything in his field of vision exactly as he saw it.
"Oh-ho—it's the party we've been looking for. Jeok Unyeop's group! I can see Moyong Cheonghye, Lady Dang Yeohye, and Young Hero Namgung Jin as well!"
The whole way here we had been afraid they might already be captives under torture, or cold corpses. Hearing they were still alive, we let out a collective breath of relief.
"Oppa… thank goodness."
But the relief lasted only a moment. Captain Jang Jin's next words put us right back on edge.
"The situation is extremely bad, though…! Damn it—they've already been completely surrounded by the Dark Spirit Corps!"
Surrounded without a single gap, under attack from every direction. The four of them were back-to-back, barely holding on—but with more than a few true experts mixed among the enemy, they could collapse at any second.
"Then we have to go help them right now!"
At the news that her brother's life was in danger, Namgung Sohye nearly leapt out of her skin, demanding to know why we weren't already charging in.
"Get a grip. The encirclement is all but finished. Charging in there would only raise the body count from four to eight."
If they had still been on the run, we could have joined them, fought together, and forced a breakout. But with their flight already stopped and the ring closed tight around them, it would be nothing more than smashing a few more eggs against a rock.
"Die! You bastards…!"
From far away came the same fierce, desperate noise of battle. Dang Yeohye's sharp, ringing voice rode the mountain path all the way to us.
Even with death hovering right in front of her eyes, that tiny woman was forcing her courage to a boil and standing against the enemy.
Hearing it, something rose hard and hot inside my own chest.
Clang-clang-clang—!
"Kyah! What are you doing?! Tear the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden to pieces!"
And that something also brushed against Moyong Cheongjin, the other presence mixed into me.
He had resented her and grieved over her—but even so, he apparently could not stand to watch his own blood sister be ripped apart before his eyes.
"The enemy… at least three hundred. I can sense more than a few auras at Peak Realm or higher. If we go in, far from pulling off a rescue, the odds are high we'll die ourselves."
Even if by some miracle we cut every last one of them down, time would slip away and our position would be exposed. A net like the Heavenly Net would spread, and the noose would slowly tighten around our throats.
Either burn up in a single blaze and die at once, or be forced into a war of attrition and die slowly while fighting with everything you had.
In the end it was a binary choice—words forged from the hard experience of the Concord Unit's captain.
"So after coming all this way, we just pull back?"
"Then we just leave them like that?!"
Namgung Sohye and I shouted at the same time.
When our voices overlapped, she looked at me as if surprised. Jo Harang beside us simply nodded, as if she had expected nothing less.
"Yeah. I figured you'd say that if it was you, Mujin."
Eliminate Evil, Save the Good. She said she rather liked that attitude of mine—the way I would leap into certain death if it meant destroying the wicked.
The Purple Micro Star herself looked at me with warm approval, as if acknowledging it.
Captain Jang Jin glanced back and forth between us with a look of pure disbelief.
"Hey, why are you making me out to be the villain here…? I'm just describing the situation. I volunteered for this with more than a little resolve of my own!"
He had mustered real courage to step forward—only to get stuck between a pack of lunatics and cast as the coward. He looked thoroughly aggrieved.
"Then let's charge the battlefield and add our blades."
So I goaded him one more time. Captain Jang Jin was a Transcendental Peak Realm martial artist who had weathered every storm imaginable. In a situation like this, we needed every sword we could get.
"Well… about that…"
He stared down at the Demon Extermination Unit party being ground apart by revolving attacks while the ring closed around them.
In truth, that was the thinking of a normal person—his "brother," or anyone not driven by a star. Inefficient. A dog's death. Thoughts like that had to be circling in his head.
So as a man with a star jammed into his skull, I took it upon myself to wake him up.
"Captain Jang Jin. Are you scared? If so, you're free to go back alone."
The magic word that summons infinite courage in any man: chicken.
The provocation hit dead center. His anxious expression twisted into pure outrage in an instant.
"Are you joking?! This body that wouldn't retreat even when the Blood Cult came swarming…! What are the rest of you doing? Hurry up and charge in to add your strength!"
At the words we had been waiting for, Namgung Sohye and Jo Harang both grinned.
Jo Harang tapped my shoulder as if to say, well done.
"The Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, Dang Yeohye, Namgung Jin, and even Captain Jeok Unyeop—not a single one of them is someone who should die meaninglessly here!"
Muttering that, she drew from her back the enormous greatsaber that looked ready to split a log in a single stroke.
"Oppa, Namgung Sohye is on her way!"
The first to charge out was Namgung Sohye.
We crushed our presence flat, slipped into the noisy enemy rear, and struck them all at once like a hammer.
Kwaaang!
Wrapped in overwhelming Force, the Hell Demon-Slaying Staff smashed down into the heart of the enemy formation.
"Noona!"
At the sight of my sister covered in blood, the cry tore out of me before I could stop it.
There is a saying: Mountain of Blades, Forest of Swords.
An idiom for a mountain made of blades and a forest made of swords—also meaning steel running wild in every direction.
Usually it describes how dangerous and treacherous the political climate of the Central Plains can be. But in this moment it felt as if the entire mountain had been overturned into blades, all of them pouring down on us at once.
"H-from the rear! Enemies!"
"Central Plains! Central Plains bastards!"
"Tear those sons of bitches apart too!"
Clang-clang-clang!
Blades claimed every direction, thrusting and slashing from all sides.
With only two hands and two feet, a normal person would have fallen helplessly here. But we were Central Plains masters who could wield Force and shatter steel.
Shwaaak—!
"Aaagh!"
"Gyaaak!"
Namgung Sohye's Boundless Azure Firmament Sword Art carved through the enemy like a single gust of wind.
Red killing intent and blue trajectories surged together as she harvested death. Whenever she sliced through the air like a ray of light, Dark Spirit Corps members sprayed blood and screams and bounced away in every direction.
"Hup!"
Kwaaang!
And at the very front, Purple Micro Star Jo Harang advanced like a war chariot, mowing the enemy down in clumps with her greatsaber.
Swords and spears rose to block her path—but before sheer mass and the saber Force that split steel like tofu, they could only be cleaved and torn apart.
"What are you doing?! I said tear those bastards to pieces!"
When that massive greatsaber split the enemy ranks as if cleaving a mountain, a man who looked to be the Dark Spirit Corps captain raged in the middle of their formation, screaming himself hoarse.
In the meantime I swung my long staff in a frenzy, batting away anyone who came near and carving a path toward Moyong Cheonghye's group.
Tadadak! Pupupuk!
The essence of Hwang Geolgae's Dog Beating Staff Technique, made for thrashing mad dogs. The staff tip, wrapped in thick pure-white Force, swept through chests and shoulders, weaving freely through the enemy.
The instant they touched the staff Force, blades shattered and spearheads snapped. The enemy was swept away helplessly before our advance like a tempest.
After fighting with everything we had, we finally came face to face with Moyong Cheonghye's party.
"…Noona!"
At my urgent cry, two women looked this way at once.
"Mu—Mujin! What are you doing here?!"
"You crazy bastard! Do you even know where this is?!"
Their eyes went wide, then beyond wide into pure shock.
I had run all the way into the middle of this death trap to save them, and instead of a thank-you both of them were furious, demanding to know what the hell I thought I was doing.
"Honestly—you could at least say thank you!"
Crack!
I shifted the weight at the staff tip and smashed the chest of a black-clad man charging from the opposite side as I shouted it.
"My sworn little brother comes here to die, and who exactly is supposed to welcome that…!"
Dang Yeohye extended her poison-tempered nails long and growled at the enemy.
Still a woman with one hell of a temper. The aura and presence pouring from that small body seemed to dominate the battlefield all by themselves.
"Captain of the Demon Extermination Unit—good to see you still in one piece!"
And Captain Jang Jin of the Concord Unit joined up with Jeok Unyeop, who was covered in blood as he batted flying weapons aside.
"Captain Jang Jin. To think a coward like you would come all the way out here. Tomorrow the sun will rise in the west…!"
He tossed the joke half in gladness and half in disbelief.
"Hey! Not cowardly—call it rational!"
The two martial unit captains joined forces at once, ceaselessly carving through Demonic Cultists charging from every side.
"Oppa! Oppa! Namgung Sohye is here!"
The Namgung siblings seemed to have reunited as well, deep in the distant heart of the enemy ranks.
After nimbly working her thin, sharp sword to cut one Demonic Cultist's throat, Namgung Sohye ran toward Namgung Jin with a bright, blood-soaked face.
"This is insane—Sohye, what are you doing here?!"
Mid-beheading an enemy, Namgung Jin was horrified at the sight of his little sister who had chased him all the way to the edge of hell.
"What do you think? I came to save you, Oppa!"
Apparently, when you cherish someone like family, the normal reaction is to ask why they came.
But thinking that made me wonder—why had Vice Captain Moyong Cheonghye given me that pained look earlier?
She clearly shouldn't know who I really was.
"These Central Plains rats… Fine. Since you're all gathered in one place, I'll wipe the whole lot of you out at once!"
Seeing us regain our momentum with four reinforcements, the Dark Spirit Corps captain's rage—after losing so many of his men—pierced the heavens.
At his order to advance again, the Dark Spirit Corps members, burning with vengeance, reformed their ranks like fanatics.
Everywhere through the mountain range, fresh blood already ran like rivers. Severed limbs and chopped corpses tumbled about like a painting of hell.
The survivors were all soaked in red gore, panting roughly as they glared at one another as if ready to kill.
"No—I'll spare a few of you. I'll leave you barely clinging to life and make certain you become the spark for the Orthodox-Demonic Great War!"
The horrific living hell unfolding here would now be spread across the Central Plains.
That, he said, was the will of the newly ascended Ming Cult Leader—in other words, the Heavenly Demon.
"We're in trouble."
One more reason we absolutely had to make it back alive had just appeared.
If the whole world became a battlefield, the Blood Cult would seize the chaos to expand aggressively and put down roots in the Central Plains.
The fragile peace of the Central Plains would shatter. With the Heavenly Killing Star absent, evil would run even more rampant and throw the world into chaos.
Nice… so you said you'd take responsibility…?
As if she knew I felt even a shred of responsibility while rejecting the Heavenly Killing Star's destiny, Salsung wriggled her fingers and snickered.
"Young Hero Dan Mujin. It's been a while."
Namgung Jin's voice rang out beside me.
Even covered in blood, his jade-like eyes seemed to shine. This era's perfect hero—in character and family both—smiled at me.
"Somehow I always seem to meet you only in these life-or-death moments when we stand against evil."
I gave a bitter smile at how thoroughly he seemed to enjoy the situation.
This guy wasn't right in the head either.
"Young Hero Namgung Jin—someone will remember that we fought valiantly and fell in the enemy ranks, and spread it as a heroic tale, right?"
If it was going to be a heroic end, it ought to come with matching memory from posterity, shouldn't it?
But I soon realized I had chosen the wrong conversation partner.
"That will be difficult. Only a very few know of our deeds, and even those will be treated as confidential. It will be a righteous yet lonely death."
"…"
Normally when you have to prepare for death, people at least spin a white lie about how the whole Central Plains will remember you, right?
I shot a look at Namgung Jin's handsome face beside me as if I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"You're a real cold bastard, you know that."
"…?!"
His eyes went round at the sudden drop into informal speech.
But when you might die any second, what did manners matter?
Already the wave of Demonic Cultists was surrounding us without a gap and closing the distance.
"Come on, you black bastards!"
Vivid staff Force coiled around the Hell Demon-Slaying Staff.
We began running straight toward the pouring Demonic Cultists.