Requiem for Kunlun

Kunlun.

A Daoist sword sect that raised its halls upon the eternal snows of Qinghai, honing the blade with the biting north wind for a companion. The sect that stood closest of all to the Demonic Cult — the first to draw steel every time those fiends stirred. Driven to the very threshold of annihilation time and again, yet never once abandoning its mountain home. Cultivators who refined their Dao in the frigid snow-wind, entrusting purity and righteousness to a single blade.

And so, Kunlun had no man without courage, no man without iron resolve, and no man who would swallow humiliation and bow his head.

Kunlun's warriors had always taken that truth as their pride. Not only the orthodox murim — even the unorthodox path could not deny the unbending integrity of Kunlun.

…And yet.

What was it all for?

A bitter smile twisted across the lips of Yun Cheon — the First Sword of Kunlun, the man called the Cloud Dragon.

When intelligence arrived that the Demonic Cult would soon rise, Yun Cheon had rushed to the Martial Alliance alongside his disciples. But the Alliance… did nothing.

"We understand Kunlun's plea, of course — but the Alliance requires conclusive proof before it can commit to action…."

"Furthermore, even granting that we send forces, precisely how many men each sect would contribute remains under deliberation…."

Ten full days. Under the banner of deliberation, they let his warnings wash over them like rain off stone, while time more precious than gold drained away without mercy.

And then, an urgent dispatch reached his hands.

Gnawing his lips raw, Yun Cheon left his disciple one final request.

"If they turn their backs on Kunlun in the end… lean on those hypocrites no longer. Bide your time, and plan for the days to come. You… will be Kunlun's hope."

Seven days and seven nights without a moment's rest had carried him to this point. And what spread out before his eyes at last was not the beloved face of Kunlun.

It was a living hell.

Halls engulfed in flame. Sword scars that had written a history in blood. And the cold, stiffened corpses of his sworn brothers. Nothing but the pitiful traces of a desperate last resistance greeted him.

"…My disciple!"

The disciple who had begged for instruction ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with his clumsy swordwork — Senior Brother! How on earth can anyone's blade move that fast? — lay crumpled at his feet, eyes frozen wide open.

"…Senior Brother!"

The senior brother who had pressed wine on him with a face full of mischief — Yun Cheon! The moonlight's fine tonight. Stop swinging that sword for once and drink with me. — was dead, everything above the waist simply gone.

"——!"

What tore itself from Yun Cheon's throat was not the sound of a human being. It was a dragon's shriek of grief, howled up at the heavens.

Shrring—

As though resonating with its master's sorrow, the sword slid from its sheath with a cold, keening cry.

"If any disciple of Kunlun still draws breath, speak now! I, Yun Cheon, First Sword of Kunlun, have returned!"

But the only answer to his cry came from the Demonic Cult itself. Across every corner of Kunlun Mountain, a black-swarmed mass writhed like cockroaches crawling from a drowned nest.

"Good… then come to me, you demon cult hounds!"

From Yun Cheon's hand, the sword arts of Kunlun unfurled — crimson as spilled blood, a requiem for the dead. The Taiqing Sword, born to be clear and immaculate, danced a mad waltz of slaughter.

Fury clouded his vision, but the tip of the blade never wavered. With the spirit of a man flogging himself onward, Yun Cheon drove his failing body past every limit.

This sword dance is a sentence of judgment…!

Sword qi in the shape of a roaring dragon — the Great Void Dragon-Slaying Sword — bellowed across the mountainside.

Sshk—! Shaaak—!

In the wake of each searing flash came silence, and after the silence, fountains of red. Every time the blade rose, heads soared into the empty air in sheaves. Not one among them could receive even a single stroke.

One sword, one kill.

No — one sword, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠certain death.

Fountains of blood erupted on all sides. Cut them down, and still the black tide never thinned. Fell one, and two came howling; fell two, and four closed in to surround him. Such was the army of the Demonic Cult.

And yet here, now, that black wave was being cleaved apart, red and rended, before a single lone swordsman.

"Th… that's impossible! That's a Daoist priest?"

"Th… there he is! The First Sword of Kunlun…!"

"A… a Hall Lord-grade expert, felled by a single stroke…?"

The cultists shuffled backward, step by instinctive step.

"Do not retreat! It is one man and one man only!"

Worse still, Yun Cheon had crossed more than a thousand li in a single day — from the Martial Alliance in Luoyang all the way to Kunlun Mountain in Qinghai. The once-bottomless true qi of his dantian lay bared to the dregs, and even the residual force channelled into his blade was drying to nothing.

"Filthy vermin… just how many of you crawled out of your nest?"

One by one, sword wounds accumulated across his body, blood seeping through black robes.

"Haa… haa…."

By the time his dantian stood utterly empty, Yun Cheon was staggering his way up to the Taiqing Hall of Kunlun.

There he found the body of his Sect Leader — torn apart so savagely that hardly a whole limb remained. And even in that final moment, the old man's fist had been clenched white-knuckled around a tattered jade pendant, the sacred relic of Kunlun.

Yun ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Cheon, no. You must endure! For Kunlun!

The face of the man who had pleaded with him until his last breath rose before his eyes. But Yun Cheon shook his head.

"Sect Leader…! Enduring and waiting was never the answer. We should never have trusted the Alliance — rotted through with complacency as it was!"

He gently closed the Sect Leader's staring eyes and tucked the jade pendant away against his chest.

"…I will follow you soon. Once I've cut down as many of these demon cult hounds as this body allows."

Zhiiik—.

He tore strips from his robe and lashed the sword hilt fast to his palm, then walked out of the Taiqing Hall. The black tide of the cult was already crashing around it like a tsunami.

There is no path of retreat….

Gripping his fading consciousness with both hands, Yun Cheon cut through the cultists and climbed toward Cheonjon Peak — the highest summit of Kunlun. The holy ground where the Sect Leaders of every generation had passed away in seated meditation, where all who had gone before him lay sleeping. Because he wished to look upon Kunlun one last time, in the place where everything he had lost now rested.

So this is where it ends….

His true-origin qi spent down to the final thread, the moment his knees finally buckled—

A single thread of pure, crystalline light streamed out from the jade pendant against his chest. And in the same instant, a voice unlike any he had ever heard pierced through his dimming mind.

…After thousands of years. So this is how the history of Kunlun comes to its end.

Before his eyes, an old man robed in azure Daoist vestments materialized out of the mist. Was this a phantom conjured by a dying mind?

No phantom, Disciple of Kunlun who bears the sacred relic… I am the Immortal who has watched over Kunlun as it perished. And your own life, too, is draining away….

Deep sorrow and helplessness were woven through the Immortal's voice.

"…Juni— my… Kun… lun's senior…."

There is no need to force words out. I can read your thoughts. That you could drag such a ruined body all the way to this place… admirable, truly.

At those words, a single flame of hope kindled in Yun Cheon's guttering heart.

Could it be…? Honored Immortal, is there… some way to stop Kunlun's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠annihilation…?

But the Immortal shook his head with grim finality.

Kunlun's fate has already fallen. There is no way to turn back its destruction….

A despairing verdict.

Yet the Immortal's words did not end there.

However… one path remains. If you do not fear to be stained by the Demonic Path itself!

For Kunlun's sake, I would do anything! What is that path?

So long as the Demonic Cult coils around these mountains, Kunlun's annihilation cannot be undone. Therefore you must enter the very heart of the cult — and tear it down from within.

…My life already hangs by a thread. How could I infiltrate the cult and bring down its walls?

That… I shall see to myself. What you must accomplish is no mere infiltration… The law the cult worships above all — the Strong Prey on the Weak! Follow that law to its conclusion, and climb to the very summit of the Demonic Path.

…You are telling a disciple of Kunlun to become the Heavenly Demon?

Precisely that. Become the Heavenly Demon, and shatter the cult from within!

Become the Heavenly Demon, and crush the Demonic Path from the inside?

What a magnificent vengeance it would be, to merely imagine it.

The only thing that weighed on his heart was that he, a Daoist of Kunlun, would walk the road of the demonic. But then his master's roar rang through his skull as though it were sounding beside him once more.

Kunlun Never Forgets Grudges!

Kunlun is the foremost sword sect under heaven.

And the sword of Kunlun never forgets a single debt of vengeance.

His master's teaching.

Our brothers and sisters died believing, without a shred of doubt, that the Alliance's relief force would come. But the Alliance never so much as marched….

To forget the sworn kin who perished between the cult's invasion and the Alliance's cold indifference — that, and nothing else, would be the true betrayal.

How could I forget such a grudge, even in death….

Resolved, Yun Cheon bowed his head.

Then that is what I shall do.

Good. There is no time left — go now, and see your will fulfilled…!

His consciousness was sinking fast, but a strange smile played at the corner of Yun Cheon's mouth.

The Immortal's figure dissolved into a flood of light and poured itself into him. At the same instant, his awareness was swallowed, dragged down into a darkness without end.

"Tch. The wretches they brought in this time are all half-dead shams. Dying outright just from swallowing a dose of Loneliness."

Beyond the haze of his fading senses, the careless voices of men bored their way into his ears — and with them came a suffocating wave of agony.

"Khh… khhagh!"

Yun Cheon opened his eyes in a place he did not know.

"Huh? This one — his breath was cut clean off, I'm sure of it."

"Clinging to life after all, is he? Toss him in the infirmary for now."

Before the words had even finished falling, someone hoisted him up and slung him over a shoulder like a sack of grain.

Straining his eyes to a narrow slit, Yun Cheon peered past the shoulder that carried him. What met his gaze was a body clothed in filth-crusted rags, every bone joint jutting stark against the skin.

…What on earth has happened?

This was not the body of Yun Cheon, the First Sword of Kunlun.

In the same instant, a headache that felt as though his skull would split apart came crashing in, and with it, alien memories flooded his mind.

The memories of a nameless orphan who had crawled the back alleys of the world, without even a name to call his own.

What… what monstrous jest is this supposed to be?

Wrestling his blurred vision into focus, he surveyed his surroundings over the shoulder of the man carrying him. A sinister cavern. Grotesque murals on the walls. And in the distance, faintly visible — an enormous crimson banner.

An alien, nightmarish emblem was stitched across that banner.

That emblem…!

The very sigil he had seen until he was sick of it, on the hems of every cultist he had cut down in the moments before his death.

The symbol of the Heavenly Demon.

For a heartbeat, his mind froze solid.

Don't tell me… the Immortal's words actually came to pass?

He had been told it would be no simple infiltration — but this went far, far beyond anything he had imagined.

Yun Cheon had been reborn in the very heart of the Demonic Cult.

A hollow laugh burst out of him before he could stop it.

…Thrown into the demon's den from the very first step, am I?