Chapter 367
Chapter 367
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 367
Chapter Title: The Myth of the Martial God Ends
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Jin Do-ha's complexion turned pale.
The hand holding his sword trembled faintly. He hadn't collapsed yet, but that was all.
The myth of the Martial God ended here.
Not letting go of the sword in his hand until the moment of death, not falling down—that was the best he could do.
Blood surged up from his chest. He didn't clutch at his chest or struggle desperately to survive.
From that sight, Soo-hyuk could tell.
That Jin Do-ha had contemplated this moment long ago. Perhaps even when he had come to the guest hall where Soo-hyuk was staying.
"My anxiety... was you."
Was it because he thought these were his final words?
He uttered something completely unexpected.
"Watching you grow so quickly, at some point I started thinking. That everything I've built might amount to nothing."
Soo-hyuk recalled words he had heard long ago while drinking with him.
"Everything turns to bubbles. Everything I've accomplished, just like this alcohol flowing down my throat, becomes nothing."
"Was this Murim world your alcohol?"
He had expected an obvious yes, but Jin Do-ha shook his head.
"No. Alliance Leader is just a bothersome position. What's so great about it?"
In fact, even while still active, Jin Do-ha had passed his position to Namgung Hwa-young and stepped back. Of course, he had continued to control the Murim Alliance from behind the scenes afterward, but if he truly coveted the seat, he wouldn't have needed to do that.
"All positions are mere means. Power, money, fame, authority. Positions become the means to achieve those ends."
"Then why would someone who knows that do something like this?"
"I needed it too. Those means."
As if he felt he had no time left, Jin Do-ha poured out his words without pause.
"I wanted to catch my brother with everything I've achieved."
Jin Do-ha's brother.
The Heavenly Demon, Jin Ha-ryeong.
He had always sought to capture the Heavenly Demon. Even when the Heavenly Demon became the terror of Murim and the tower, Jin Do-ha never feared him.
Executing the Heavenly Demon with his own hands. That was the only goal he pursued.
"The day I heard my brother had become the Heavenly Demon, I resolved myself. That I had to correct the wrong with my own hands."
The moment he said "I," fire blazed in Jin Do-ha's eyes. As if it were his sacred mission.
"Was it that important? What does it matter if you catch him, or I do, or even a stray dog does?"
"At first, I thought the same. But it wasn't."
Gazing up at the sky, Jin Do-ha reminisced about that day.
"Do you know what I was thinking the day you defeated my brother in the showdown?"
Soo-hyuk shook his head. That day had been special for him too, but he had no way of knowing what was in Jin Do-ha's mind.
Turning back to Soo-hyuk, Jin Do-ha continued with a chilling expression utterly unlike the smile he had worn that day.
"I need to kill that bastard first."
Clearly, that day Jin Do-ha had smiled and said he was truly happy, proud, that Soo-hyuk was their hope.
Yet beneath it, he had been sharpening a blade like this.
"It felt like you had taken everything from me. Like you had my heart in your grasp—it made me anxious, driven mad. Do you understand?"
"No. Not at all."
Soo-hyuk looked at him with pity.
"Don't act like you had some grand sense of mission."
"Sense of mission?"
"In your head, there was only the Jin Do-ha who would one day defeat the Heavenly Demon. A righteous hero who slays a demon despite being blood brothers. Not some lunatic lost in delusion."
Soo-hyuk added in a voice neither cold nor hot, utterly flat.
"To begin with, it wasn't yours to take. Talking about it being stolen is laughable."
"I admit it."
Unexpectedly, Jin Do-ha nodded readily.
"You're right. There's no one destined to catch the Heavenly Demon. I was just too obsessed, deluded into thinking that. What started as correcting a wrong led me astray."
"Regretting it now, on your deathbed?"
"Regret? Does this look like regret to you?"
Jin Do-ha burst into laughter. Even with such wounds, he laughed loudly enough to surprise anyone.
"It's just a pity, a pity. Knowing that, I should have gone all the way. To end up like this."
To the end, there was no remorse or reflection. He had charged down a single path, using any means necessary.
"Sorry to you all. If I had to point to your fault, it's only that you crossed my path."
"Is that something worth calling a fault?"
"Oh dear. Did I misspeak again? Should I apologize?"
For a moment, Soo-hyuk felt his insides twist. But soon, the knot unraveled smoothly.
In his final moments, Jin Do-ha's choice was to mock Soo-hyuk. As if saying, "This is all because of you."
Soo-hyuk spoke without turning his head.
"...This is the kind of guy your little brother is."
At those words, Jin Do-ha flinched in shock.
Soo-hyuk wasn't speaking to him. Slowly, Jin Do-ha turned his head.
His eyes widened as if they might tear.
Someone stood in the ruins turned to wasteland by their battle. So close it was impossible to believe he hadn't noticed the approach, yet Jin Do-ha's jaw trembled at the sight.
"Brother... nim."
After decades? The last time he had called him "hyung-nim."
Perhaps a whim before death. Maybe he attached great meaning to those words.
But.
"It's been a while since I stepped outside."
The Heavenly Demon's gaze wasn't on Jin Do-ha. He addressed Soo-hyuk, standing face-to-face with him.
"Are you usable again now?"
"Here to check?"
"It was too noisy on my way by."
As if. In this vast land, to coincidentally meet at such a dramatic moment—the excuse lacked sincerity.
There was one reason the Heavenly Demon appeared now. To let them know he had been watching all along.
"Yeah, right."
Soo-hyuk's gaze shifted back to Jin Do-ha. He wore an expression as if the world had crumbled.
He had called the Heavenly Demon "hyung-nim" again after decades. His face was deathly pale from blood loss, and he was dying.
Even then, the Heavenly Demon never glanced at him. His interest was solely on Soo-hyuk.
Jin Do-ha felt something collapse inside his chest.
He had worried about this moment for so long.
The moment everything he had was denied and taken away. The moment the meaning he had given it all crumbled entirely, becoming worthless like urine overflowing from the alcohol he had drunk.
How to describe it?
He had never known in his lifetime, but Soo-hyuk, watching from right beside him, knew the essence immediately.
"Inferiority complex."
Jin Do-ha's eyes shook.
"Inferiority toward the Heavenly Demon. Toward your brother. Lacking confidence to surpass him as a martial artist or Player, you used other things. Insisting they were your achievements, thus your power."
"I... felt an inferiority complex?"
Jin Do-ha's eyes trembled violently.
Gazing at the Heavenly Demon who still ignored him, Jin Do-ha went berserk.
"Uwaaaah!"
Color briefly returned to his deathly pale face. With a hand that could barely hold the sword, he swung it.
Flowing White Heart Sword.
The very technique he had used on Soo-hyuk moments ago. It was the move he had honed specifically to defeat the Heavenly Demon.
But meeting the Heavenly Demon right before death wasn't some final stroke of luck.
Thud-.
Jin Do-ha's sword touched weakly. Even with the blade against his back, the Heavenly Demon didn't turn, ignoring him still.
The sword merely touched.
The full-force swing left no wound on the Heavenly Demon's body.
As a martial artist, Jin Do-ha had occasionally imagined his end—perhaps screaming in agony or shedding tears. He had vowed to meet it with composure and dignity.
But in this moment, Jin Do-ha laughed hollowly.
Feeling everything he had achieved turn to ash.
And at that instant.
Slash-.
Soo-hyuk's sword severed Jin Do-ha's neck.
The former Murim Alliance Leader and Martial God of Murim.
His death was this pathetic. The severed head rolled across the ground.
Looking at Jin Do-ha's head rolling on the ground, Soo-hyuk said,
"Hope you're happy with the end you hated most."
Saying it coldly, Soo-hyuk turned back to the Heavenly Demon.
He was looking at Jin Do-ha's severed head rolling on the ground.
"Thanks to you, this guy's end was even more miserable. Grateful to me, but..."
"Don't mind it."
The Heavenly Demon seemed to attach no meaning to Jin Do-ha's death at all.
Soo-hyuk gazed at the Heavenly Demon for a moment. When he first appeared, Soo-hyuk had naturally assumed it was for Jin Do-ha.
No matter how much he pretended otherwise, they were brothers. The only blood kin sharing his blood. He couldn't just watch his brother die, or so he thought.
But if not.
"Did you come to fight me, by any chance?"
Between the demon realm and the human realm.
A red dragon took to the skies of the place commonly called the Middle Realm.
The monsters inhabiting the Middle Realm looked up. Some that caught the scent of dragon flesh glistened their eyes and swallowed hard.
But only for a moment.
Grrr-.
Seeing the mage riding atop the dragon's head, the monsters lowered their heads again.
Their survival instincts were spot on. In truth, on the way here, fearless monsters that charged to hunt the dragon had all been roasted by the mage.
The mage was Hailz.
She had scoured the Middle Realm like this. Riding Vulcanus, flying nonstop for over a month already.
How much time passed?
Kyaaah-!
Vulcanus roared at one spot and began circling.
"There?"
Hailz asked, and Vulcanus roared once more.
It looked like an empty forest, but Hailz could see it. The artificial flow of mana permeating the forest.
A magical device to conceal something. Moreover, a barrier prevented monsters from entering freely.
Hailz's staff glowed. Then, a cave midway up the mountain appeared in her eyes.
"Found it."
Kyaaah-!
Vulcanus headed toward the cave.
The cave entrance was wide. Wide enough for a dragon to enter.
As Hailz walked the pitch-black cave with Vulcanus, where not a speck of light entered, she grumbled.
"Old man Lord, how long are you going to sleep? If you moved your hideout, you should have told me, right?"
Krr-.
Vulcanus kept quiet. Neither yes nor no—just a neutral growl. Hailz widened her eyes.
"You, siding with your big boss, huh? Why? Scared of that old geezer?"
This time, no response at all. Hailz sighed in exasperation and quickened her pace.
She had flown here searching for the Dragon Lord. It should have been easier to meet him before, but his sudden relocation caused issues.
Thanks to that, Hailz had suffered considerably finding the Dragon Lord's hideout. Finding it—anyone else's but the Dragon Lord's—was no easy task.
"When I see him, I'll pluck out his nose hairs first..."
As she entered the cave full of vigor.
"......"
Deep into the dark cave, Hailz suddenly stopped.
In her eyes appeared a massive dragon quietly crouched in the darkness. It seemed asleep at a glance, but appearances weren't what mattered.
As a grand mage, she could see beyond the visible, to the greater essence.
So she knew.
That this massive dragon before her, appearing asleep, had long ago ceased breathing.
"...Lord?"
What she had found was the Dragon Lord's corpse.