Better Kill or Be Killed (1)
Again and again, a wave of nausea rose in Dang So-so’s throat, and she clamped a hand over her mouth with all her strength.
So cruel…
She couldn’t bear to look at the scene before her. Before she could even force back the urge to vomit, it was hard enough simply to hold back the tears pressing at the corners of her eyes.
Another hand caught the one she had left hanging helplessly at her side and squeezed hard. Dang So-so looked up to find Yu I-seol staring down at her with a rigid face.
"Are you all right…?"
"…"
As always, Yu I-seol’s expression was almost unreadable.
And yet Dang So-so could tell. Beneath that seemingly blank face, cold anger was smoldering.
The shock was no less severe for the others of the Mount Hua Sword Array.
"Sahyeong."
"…"
Even Yoon Jong, who was usually so quick to answer Jo Geol as though it were the most natural thing in the world, couldn’t find the words this time.
They had seen the Demonic Sect in the North Sea before. They had felt, in their bones, just how fanatical those people were, just how cruel they could be. But… this was the first time they had laid eyes on the aftermath of that cruelty with their own two eyes.
Crack.
Yoon Jong clenched his fist. His knuckles had gone white. Blood welled at his bitten lip.
Jo Geol, staring helplessly at him, finally lowered his head without saying anything more.
There was far too much death here.
The life of a martial artist was one lived on the edge of a blade; they were all too familiar with death. And yet even to them, the weight of the dead piled up here was suffocating.
Grrrind.
Baek Cheon ground his teeth. His bloodshot eyes made plain the fury roiling through him.
"How could they…"
He couldn’t finish. His whole body trembled like a sapling in a storm, not from fear but because he could no longer contain the rage boiling up from within.
"How could they do something like this…"
Even if every single thing in sight had been living people instead of corpses, it would still have been a crowd worth marveling at. But all those people lay strewn about in pitiful ruin, their lives cut short—how could anyone look at this and not be enraged?
But what drove Baek Cheon to a rage he could no longer endure wasn’t simply the number of dead here.
It was the manner of their death.
"A human being…"
Baek Cheon spoke through clenched teeth.
"…even toward an enemy’s corpse, one is supposed to show the bare minimum of respect."
Even in a war between factions that could not share the same sky, even if they fought each other to the death, no one would butcher the bodies this thoroughly and leave them to rot in the open like this.
If it wasn’t a battlefield where survival itself took precedence over everything else, then at the very least, one was supposed to bury the dead. That was the minimum courtesy.
That was humanity. That was decency.
No—
Even those who knew nothing of decency would never so brazenly display such indecency beneath the heavens for all to see.
But here, there was nothing of the sort.
No sympathy or pity, no hesitation, no minimum courtesy toward other human beings, no final shred of something one ought to preserve simply because one was human. None of it existed here.
And that was what made Baek Cheon unable to bear it.
Jo Geol muttered so softly it was almost inaudible.
"They’re people…"
It was an uncharacteristically strained voice from someone who was usually all brightness and noise.
"How can people do this to people…? How can anyone do something like this? How…"
Just as everyone was about to fall into a heavy silence at those words, a low chuckle broke through the air.
Jo Geol turned toward the sound. Jang Il-so was covering his mouth as he laughed, as though struggling to hold it in.
At once, Jo Geol’s temper flared.
"What’s so… what the hell is so funny?"
"Oh, no, no."
Jang Il-so shook his head.
"It’s just that, as expected of righteous young masters, you can so seriously spout such ridiculous things."
"What?"
"It isn’t that one wonders how people can do such things."
Something eerie crept across Jang Il-so’s face.
"People do such things because they are people. Only people do such things."
"…"
"That is what it means to be human. Remember that clearly, young master."
Jo Geol’s face twisted horribly.
He felt as though something heavy was pressing down on him, but he still bared his teeth in a sneer.
"For someone saying that, your face sure looks bad too. What, does even you get angry when you see something like this? Turns out even evil bastards can be bothered by it, huh?"
After he finished, he swallowed hard. He had snapped in the heat of the moment, but standing alone against Jang Il-so was still a hard thing to do.
Yet Jang Il-so’s response was, unexpectedly, perfectly calm.
"How obvious. Of course I’m angry."
"…What?"
Jo Geol’s eyes widened slightly. He had never imagined Jang Il-so would answer that way.
Jang Il-so turned his head and looked at the mountain of corpses. His expression had grown so cold it was almost chilling.
"I have no intention of saying something as banal as ‘people have died.’ People die eventually anyway."
"…"
"What makes me angry is that these were mine."
Jang Il-so lifted a hand and gripped his own face. Through the gaps between his fingers, his eyes gleamed with a frightening light.
"The right to kill those within my territory belongs to me alone. And yet… these filthy maggots, crawling out from who knows where, had the nerve to…"
He murmured the words in a low voice and ground his teeth.
Cheong Myeong shot him a cold look.
"You probably didn’t even care about them, and now that they’ve been taken from you, your guts are twisting up?"
"Naturally."
Jang Il-so glared at Cheong Myeong.
"Just because they were toys I left lying around doesn’t mean someone else gets to break them as they please. Even if I had no interest in them, they were still mine."
"…You’re just a damn child."
"And what exactly is wrong with that?"
Mockery glimmered in Jang Il-so’s eyes.
"Adults are nothing more than children who’ve become unable to say what they want because they care too much about appearances. I’m merely a little more honest about my desires."
Jang Il-so looked straight at Cheong Myeong and gave a soft, mocking laugh.
"Unlike someone else."
Cheong Myeong shook his head. He had no desire to keep trading barbs with Jang Il-so. The sight before them had twisted his guts as well.
It was familiar.
It would be unfamiliar and shocking to them, but to Cheong Myeong, it was only familiar.
Which was exactly why it felt even filthier. It was as if that wretched past had come alive again right before his eyes.
Baek Cheon, staring at a slender hand sticking out from the corpse pile, could no longer force himself to look and turned away.
"Don’t look away."
But at that moment, Cheong Myeong’s cold voice pierced Baek Cheon’s ears without mercy.
"This is a world where the Demonic Sect is ascendant."
"…"
"It’s only Hangzhou for now. But if the Demonic Sect devours the whole Central Plains, this is what you’ll see everywhere."
They needed to know.
Why they had to fight so desperately.
Why the ancestors of old had to throw away even the thought of what came next and sacrifice their own lives to stop them.
"So we have to stop them here."
Just as Cheong Myeong bit down on his lip, a group of people came rapidly toward them from the distance.
"Sahyeong!"
"…I know."
The disciples of Mount Hua watched them with a subtle tension. One glance was enough to tell they weren’t few in number—no, they were a frightening number of people.
Enemies?
Almost unconsciously, everyone’s hands moved to their swords.
But at that moment, the Gold Tower Elder, who had been silent until now, stepped forward and greeted the approaching group.
"I greet the Sect Leader!"
As the distance closed, several of the strangers at the front dropped to their knees and paid their respects to the Gold Tower Elder.
"How is the situation?"
"They are still deep inside Hangzhou."
"I see."
"However."
"Hmm?"
The man giving the report lifted his head. His eyes were faintly shaking.
"Over the last few days, unidentified people have been appearing and joining them one by one. Their number has reached as many as three hundred."
The Gold Tower Elder’s face stiffened.
"Three hundred?"
"Yes!"
His mind began to spin rapidly.
It had been the Bishop who had destroyed the Black Ghost Fort, but the Demonic Sect members around that Bishop had all carried an air that was anything but ordinary.
Three hundred more of those people?
The situation inside Hangzhou was effectively unknown. So, taking into account the possibility that a fair number of Demonic Sect members were already present, he had brought every available soldier from the Black Ghost Fort…
"This is beyond expectations."
He had never imagined more reinforcements would join them.
No, if he thought about it even a little sensibly, wasn’t it obvious? If they intended to use this place as a bridgehead, then reinforcement was only natural.
The fact that he had overlooked that meant the Gold Tower Elder had not maintained his composure as he should have.
Quick-minded as he was, the Gold Tower Elder was also a man quick to acknowledge his own mistakes. After sweeping his eyes over the five hundred soldiers gathered before him, he turned to Jang Il-so.
"…It seems there’s been a problem, Alliance Lord."
"A problem?"
"The enemy numbers are larger than initially estimated."
"Hmm. So?"
"…I think it would be better to withdraw for now. They’re not enemies we can simply rush in and deal with."
At those words, Jang Il-so’s eyes curved into a strange smile.
"How disappointing. I’d thought that even though you lost an arm, the Gold Tower Elder wouldn’t have turned into such a coward."
"I am being as coldly rational as possible."
The Gold Tower Elder bared his teeth as he growled.
"The Alliance Lord says such bold things because you haven’t yet faced that monster. Honestly, even if everyone here rushed it together, I’m not sure we’d be able to take that thing down. If the ‘blade’ you spoke of doesn’t cut well, we may be the ones cut down instead."
Jang Il-so frowned slightly.
It was impossible to tell whether that was because he was disappointed in the Gold Tower Elder or because he was actually taking his words seriously.
The Gold Tower Elder looked Jang Il-so straight in the eye and said,
"You only have one life. Even the most meticulous preparation can never be too much."
Just as Jang Il-so was about to answer,
"You’re spouting some awfully carefree nonsense."
A frigid voice shut his mouth. Jang Il-so’s mouth twitched as he turned to Cheong Myeong.
"And what exactly are you trying to say now?"
"You still don’t understand. You still don’t get it."
"…"
"What place this is. Who we’re dealing with."
That was when it happened.
Jang Il-so’s gaze, fixed on Cheong Myeong, slowly shifted back to where it belonged. His eyes came to rest on the ground littered with corpses, and somewhere beyond it.
Cheong Myeong’s clear voice rang out.
"Listen carefully, you stupid evil bastards."
His face, so cold until now, was slowly overtaken by a savage smile.
"That there is the Demonic Sect. From the moment you face them, you’ve only got one choice. Either die. Or…"
The voice thick with killing intent sounded all the more ominous. Cheong Myeong looked like some scarred beast standing there.
"Kill them."
And then, where Jang Il-so was staring, a black mass appeared.
The fanatics of the Demonic Sect, carrying an aura so ominous it made the fingertips tingle, were surging toward them.
With a darkness so thick it seemed to cover the eastern sky.