Sword Peak, Mountain Breaker
The War Department of the Luoyang Sword Family.
One of the two greatest pillars of the Luoyang Sword Family, known as the foremost house under heaven.
Martial force.
It had existed since the dawn of all things, and so it was the most primal of powers — primitive, even. Yet it transcended eras and borders alike, the most absolute force of all.
And now the War Department — the pride and pure essence of the Luoyang Sword Family’s martial might — was on the move.
It was advancing.
Why… why did no one tell me the Sword Family’s War Department had taken the field…?
Standing by the window of a lavish pavilion, Dowager Madam Ouyang watched the warriors of the Luoyang Sword Family march down the avenue and felt as though her soul might leave her body.
That sight is impossible to miss! An army! An army is marching out of the main house, and no one breathed a word…?
The power brokers she had half-forced into her schemes.
Those who had stepped forward of their own will.
Those who had maintained friendly ties with her for years.
Not a single one of them had sent her so much as a warning.
…Could it be?
Her survival instinct whipped her mind into overdrive, and even in the midst of this disaster she deduced the answer.
…Is there no one left who would still bother to inform me of the main house’s situation?
The picture assembled itself clearly in her head.
The Supreme Operations Committee must have decided to intervene.
The War Department must have received that order.
Those who sensed the tide had already turned would have rushed to sever every last thread binding them to her.
And those who had been too deeply involved to cut free would already have been seized — or fled.
In the present situation, she had no allies left.
But…!
The sound of grinding teeth rang out. Crushed gums tore, and a thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
Not yet. Not yet…!
She spun around and shouted at the leaders of the Six-Man Council.
“All of you, get out there and stop them! Whatever it takes, buy me ti—”
Her words never reached their end.
The only people left in the room were those who had originally belonged to the Luoyang Sword Family — her own loyal subordinates.
The heads of the Six-Man Council had already slipped away.
“W-we’re sorry! While our attention was fixed outside, they all escaped!”
Her subordinates bowed their heads toward her.
“…No.”
For a moment Dowager Madam Ouyang’s face went blank with emptiness. Then she composed herself and shook her head.
“Perhaps it’s for the best.”
She turned back toward the avenue.
“Whether they surrender or not, those people know better than anyone that the main house’s War Department will never let them live.”
What she could see right now was only the warriors marching down the main road.
But the Sword Family’s War Department would never execute a military operation so carelessly.
“They’ll throw every last scrap of strength they’ve been holding in reserve — just for a chance to get out of this alive.”
As she spoke, she bit down on her own fingernail.
Think. Think…!
She turned her mind over and over.
Even if the Supreme Operations Committee has moved, they couldn’t possibly have dealt with every last member of the Yeon bloodline at once. If I can still make contact with them…
Obsession and stubborn self-will.
Those were the twin forces that drove her more than anything else.
Even backed into the tightest of corners, she refused to stop thinking — and into that stubborn field of vision came the sight of underworld forces, one after another, beginning their charge toward the War Department’s advance.
Good. That at least buys me a little time.
Or so she believed, in that moment.
“They’re nothing but flesh and hide — mere humans!”
The charge captain of an underworld outfit, gripping a grotesque weapon, raced at the very front of the rush and roared.
“If you want to get out of this alive, kill as many of them as you can!”
Officers from other organizations threw themselves into the charge as well.
This was no time to quibble over which faction belonged to whom.
“You bastards! Even a rat bites when it’s cornered, doesn’t it?!”
They shouted at the Black Path martial artists who were still hesitating.
“Are you less than rats?! Are you just going to sit there pissing yourselves and trembling until you offer up your necks?!”
The words of a man who knew the underworld’s nature down to the bone landed with perfect force.
Fighting spirit flared again in the Black Path martial artists who had survived the brutal back alleys of Luoyang by pure viciousness and grit.
“Fuck it! You only die once, not twice!”
“Let’s die together, damn it — let’s die!”
“If I can gut even one Sword Family warrior before I drop, I’ll be able to swagger in hell!”
Even if their opponents were Sword Family warriors — even if they were the War Department itself — these men were martial artists with internal energy of their own.
And once the fire caught, even those who had been edging backward were sucked into the charge as if drawn by a current.
“Uwaaaaaaah—!”
They became a crashing wave and swept down the avenue.
“Uwaaaaaaah!”
With a battle cry that shook the streets, Black Path martial artists and underworld gang members fused into a single mass and came surging forward.
But there was not the faintest change in the expressions of the War Department warriors.
Not a single step of their marching formation fell out of line.
“Your orders, sir?”
At his adjutant’s question, Elder Yeom — who stood at the very head of the column — said nothing. He simply reached back and closed his hand around the hilt of the greatsword on his back.
Understanding the command, the adjutant clenched a fist, raised his voice, and thundered like a lightning bolt.
“Unit — halt!”
The moment the order fell, the warriors stopped in perfect unison, feet striking as one.
Discipline that cold and lethal would have cowed most men on the spot.
“Kill them!”
“Fuck!”
Instead, the underworld throng packing the avenue only poured on more speed.
“Hnn…”
Elder Yeom drew the greatsword from his back and drew a long, thin breath.
His air was utterly calm.
Standing in the brightening light of the eastern dawn, holding the gold-gleaming greatsword upright before his eyes, he was stillness itself — a stark contrast to the underworld forces charging toward him in a frenzy.
“Hnnn—”
The low, measured intake of breath.
And with every stride the enemy closed, the greatsword rose another fraction higher.
To the warriors watching from behind Elder Yeom, the entire world seemed to slow.
“U—wa—aa—aah—!”
The underworld charge captain at the very front dove in under Elder Yeom’s upraised greatsword.
Sword Peak Mountain Breaker? What of it?!
His grotesque weapon stretched long toward Elder Yeom’s heart.
Longer still.
Longer. Longer.
And yet, for some reason — no matter how hard he drove the weapon with every shred of internal force he possessed, no matter how far he thrust — the blue-gleaming edge never reached Elder Yeom.
“…?!”
In that brief flicker of confusion in the charge captain’s eyes, Elder Yeom’s perfect high guard was complete. The greatsword he held aloft reached its apex.
“Hup!”
A short shout of qi.
The greatsword came down at a speed the eye could not follow and split the charge captain’s body cleanly from crown to sole.
And before the severed halves of the charge captain’s body could even part with a wet crack —
Mount Tai came down.
The weapon of the underworld officer charging in right behind the charge captain clattered to the ground.
“…?”
He thought only his weapon had fallen.
Then came a grinding crunch.
With a sound like every bone in his body shattering at once, his own skull was crushed flat against the paving stones.
He wanted to lift his head and rise, but it felt as though Mount Tai itself were pressing down on him.
“……”
He wanted to scream, but his lungs had been crushed flat under the pressure; not even a gasp of empty air would come out.
With his head twisted sideways against the ground, his eyes took in the scene around him.
Everyone who had charged with him like a wave was pressed into the earth exactly as he was.
No screams.
No sound at all.
It was as if the ground had been their destination from the very beginning of the charge.
Crunch.
Crack.
Unnatural noises reached him.
His body was being steadily crushed into the hard paving stones of the avenue.
And even those solid flagstones were splitting and cracking under pressure beyond imagination.
Crunch.
That was as far as he saw and thought.
Once the skull was pulverized and the entire body crushed to paste, a corpse could see nothing and think nothing at all.
“Hooo…”
The sound of Elder Yeom slowly releasing the breath he had drawn, as he lifted the greatsword he had brought down.
The War Department warriors’ senses — which had felt as though they were trapped in slowed time — returned to normal.
The flagstones of the avenue had cracked, shattered, and sunk.
And everyone who had come charging like a wave across them lay crushed to death.
Killed by pressure in a single stroke.
“Incredible.”
The word of admiration slipped unbidden from the adjutant’s lips as he stood behind Elder Yeom, having witnessed the entire scene with perfect clarity.
“So this is—”
He was about to marvel at the ultimate technique of Elder Yeom, one of the Luoyang Sword Family’s representative chief warriors — but the words never finished.
Rumble—!
A roar of sound and a deep tremor.
The surrounding pavilions began to collapse one after another in a continuous cascade.
They had already endured a minor earthquake from the clash between Amcheonjonza and Geum-jil.
Then, subjected to the immense pressure of Elder Yeom’s ultimate technique, they could no longer hold and began to give way.
Craaaash—!
A vast cloud of dust and earth billowed so thickly that the warriors reflexively shut their eyes and shielded their faces.
At last the wind rose and swept the dust away.
Several pavilions along the avenue had completely collapsed. Dozens more stood half-ruined.
“Hooo—”
And in the midst of it all stood Elder Yeom, returned to the same stance as at the beginning, the sword held upright before his body.
The secret art of Sword Peak Mountain Breaker.
Speed and weight — forces that should have been mortal opposites — driven to their extremes until all streams return to a single source.
It was a sight that proved the name “the art that topples mountains” was not the slightest exaggeration.
And that was why he was called Sword Peak Mountain Breaker.
“Hm.”
Even after expending a vast amount of internal energy, Elder Yeom showed not the least sign of fatigue. He raised his greatsword and pointed it straight ahead.
Far down the avenue, beyond the range of the Mountain-Breaking Art, countless underworld fighters still remained.
They formed a human sea as they tried to retreat and escape the Valley of Sin.
But they no longer had the battle cries or the fighting spirit of a moment before.
The strength was draining from the hands that gripped their weapons.
“The enemy’s edge is broken.”
At that low voice, the War Department warriors snapped back to themselves and seized the hilts of their swords.
“Slaughter them all.”
“Loyalty!”
What martial artist, having witnessed such an extraordinary realm of the sword, could keep their chest from boiling over?
As one, the War Department warriors drew their blades and charged down the avenue with overwhelming force.
At the center of that wave, Elder Yeom stood tall after sheathing his greatsword. His gaze turned toward the far end of the street.
His eyes met those of Dowager Madam Ouyang, who stood by the window of the luxurious pavilion in the distance.
A deathly pale face. Pupils wide and trembling.
The time she had wanted to buy in order to salvage the situation had been erased by a single stroke from Yeom Gwak-chu, Sword Peak Mountain Breaker —
in less than a single breath.
Into the ears of the utterly dazed woman flew Elder Yeom’s voice transmission, clear as a blade.
At the bone-chilling killing intent carried in that transmission, Dowager Madam Ouyang collapsed where she stood.