Everyone Has a Story
The Jade Heaven Descending Dragon Qi.
It was the Ju family's strongest ultimate technique, and among all the martial arts I had mastered, it reigned at the absolute pinnacle.
The colossal energy was already devouring everything around us without restraint.
Even the wretched demonic energy conjured by Sa-an Gwi-gun was crushed beneath its might, fading into nothing.
The supreme qi of the Ju family surged wildly, swallowing the demonic haze like a dragon rising through the heavens.
“G-Gu, Sword Sovereign!”
Sa-an Gwi-gun recoiled in terror.
The moment he was overpowered in presence, an overwhelming sense of helplessness crashed down on him—one that told him resistance was impossible.
I slowly extended my sword toward him.
The blade trembled violently.
It struggled to endure the immense power of the Jade Heaven Descending Dragon Qi, on the verge of shattering.
“Try to block it.”
One step forward. One sword strike downward.
The fruits of my endless training with Ju Tae-hwi revealed themselves in full.
BOOOOM!
It was as if an earthquake had struck.
The floor crumbled. The entire pavilion shook violently.
Pillars were torn from their roots. Heaven and earth seemed to twist and warp.
“Keuk!”
Sa-an Gwi-gun tried to dodge, but there was no mercy in my blade.
His chest split wide open, gushing a torrent of blood.
Yet this was only the beginning of my sword force.
White Dragon Sword Scripture.
Its first form.
White Dragon Emerges from the Sea.
First Form — White Dragon Emerges from the Sea
A brilliant dragon burst from the tip of my sword.
Scattering sword qi in every direction, the charging dragon slammed straight into Sa-an Gwi-gun.
The cost was devastating. A massive amount of internal energy evaporated in an instant, leaving my mind reeling.
SLASH!
Yet there was ecstasy at the edge of my blade.
Flesh parted. Bones were severed.
I flicked the blood from my sword.
With a single strike, Sa-an Gwi-gun collapsed without even managing to defend himself.
“Keuk… kek…”
He clutched his throat, vomiting blood repeatedly.
A single white dragon had precisely sliced through his neck.
There was power to spare. Overwhelming sword qi blanketed the ground wherever the great dragon had passed.
The vicious demonic energy was shredded to dust, not even a trace remaining.
I took one step forward to approach him.
Thud.
Strength drained from my legs.
Muyoung immediately rushed over and supported me.
Clang.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
This damnable single form… even the most basic stance had completely drained my internal energy.
It looked like I would need to thoroughly revise my martial arts soon.
That was my last thought before my vision went black.
I never had the slightest intention of entering the demonic path.
I simply wanted to live peacefully with my frail mother and ailing father. That would have been enough.
They were kinder and more righteous than anyone. I had vowed to follow their example and live with integrity.
The place we reached was the Zhushan Archipelago.
I must have only heard about it in passing—that it was a prosperous land.
That since it was territory of the Ju family, one of the few righteous powers in the southern martial world, there was nothing to fear.
My parents had been full of hope.
A new beginning.
An ideal chance to start over, leaving behind a mountain of debt.
We barely scraped together the boat fare and set sail.
Just as we had heard, it was a paradise on earth.
The residents were kind.
When they saw we had nothing, they wept and gave us food and clothing.
They even provided us with a house.
If we wanted work, we could labor in the mines whenever we wished.
It was wonderful.
Father worked diligently despite his frail body, earning money.
With it, we bought medicine for Mother and Father. What remained was enough to keep us fed—not luxuriously, but without hunger.
But I realized far too late that the place where everyone had been so kind and warm was not paradise.
It was hell.
I heard what should never have been heard. I saw what should never have been seen.
Black path invaders came once or twice every ten days.
The Ju family’s Jeokryongdae did their best to hold them back, but casualties continued to mount with every attack.
Only later did I learn that every single incident had been orchestrated by the damned Ju family.
The black path warriors had fearlessly coveted the Ju family’s possessions.
That alone should have told me something was wrong.
This was, in a sense, the heart of the Ju family—an incredibly important location.
For black path forces to invade so brazenly? It was no different from openly declaring war.
No sect in the world would touch an opponent’s core production facilities unless they were fully prepared to annihilate them.
Yet these people had done exactly that.
It was only natural.
Because from the very beginning, they were never truly black path warriors.
“We must inform the Ju family.”
Father quietly swallowed his rage.
Mother nodded in agreement.
The Jeokryongdae.
They had rotted from the inside and were disguising themselves as black path raiders, manufacturing incidents.
Unless something truly serious occurred, that fool of a vice-leader would ignore any summons from the family.
They needed sacrifices to keep the illusion alive.
One or two deaths were necessary for the Ju family to believe the area was still under threat.
And unfortunately, it became my mother and father’s turn.
I ran to the leader of the Myo-ak Trading Company, who had come to collect the mined gold.
I told him the warriors here were stealing the gold to line their own pockets and that the Ju family had to be informed.
The leader, Beom Jin, gave a sinister smile.
“Is that so? I’ll take care of it right away. Hehehe. Yes. Such a commendable report deserves recognition. Tell me your name.”
“I… I am Yu-cheong. Jin Yu-cheong.”
It was the first time I had ever given my name to another person.
But…
The foolish me never realized that even the Myo-ak Trading Company was colluding with the Jeokryongdae.
The pirates—no, the guards of the Jeokryongdae and the Myo-ak Trading Company—mercilessly slaughtered my family, who had been chosen as sacrifices.
I later collected the cold corpses of my parents.
I didn’t even think about revenge.
I don’t know how I survived those days.
I was completely isolated. The next sacrifice would likely have been me.
But heaven extended a hand to someone like me.
“Come with me.”
The one who reached out was a young man who appeared to be around my age.
Yet something told me he was no ordinary person.
His skin was pale and flawless.
His shining appearance, as though he had never known hardship, somehow seemed filled with sorrow.
But I could not trust people.
I had come to believe the world was meant to be walked alone.
When I refused, the young man stubbornly kept his hand outstretched.
“I will give you the power to take revenge. What do you say?”
It was an offer I could not refuse.
I didn’t know why he needed me, but what did it matter?
“Let us turn this world upside down… together.”
And so I followed him.
Years later, that stupid old merchant leader couldn’t even remember my name.
I personally… slowly, bit by bit, dismantled everything around him.
“Kek… kekeke…”
It was a grotesque sound—impossible to tell if it was laughter or sobbing.
Muyoung and Yu-ran approached Sa-an Gwi-gun, who lay with his throat deeply slashed.
Blood poured relentlessly from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
His life force was fading.
Yet with his final strength, Sa-an Gwi-gun reached out.
His hand stretched toward his fallen small sword.
When his fingertips finally touched the hilt, he smiled in relief.
It was a smile whose meaning no one could fathom.
“In the end… it comes to this…”
The day I revealed my name, I lived.
And because of that name, I would die.
Death itself did not frighten me. What I regretted was that I could not make Beom Jin suffer before killing him.
Making a sound that was neither laugh nor cry, he used the last of his strength to embrace the sword.
As if the cold touch of steel was his only comfort.
“Hu… huk… keuk.”
Red foam bubbled from between his lips.
Blood from his chest soaked the floor, blooming a single crimson flower.
It was the flower of vengeance he had devoted his entire life to cultivating—and at the same time, the hollow ending that had consumed him.
Embracing the small sword to his chest, he closed his eyes for the last time.
The small sword turned crimson.
It was a deep, bloody red, as though weeping tears of blood.
And then the world went dark.
Muyoung and Yu-ran immediately hoisted Ju Woo-jin onto their backs.
Kiaaaaaak!
Ghostly wails echoed from every direction.
Crack!
Statues that had been rolling across the floor shattered.
A moment later—
BAAAAANG!
The doors exploded outward. Windows shattered.
Countless soulless people appeared and charged at Muyoung and Yu-ran all at once.
“Muyoung, protect the young master.”
Yu-ran drew her sword and shoved Muyoung behind her.
“What about you, Captain?”
At Muyoung’s question, Yu-ran scanned the surroundings with sharp eyes and spoke in a low voice.
“I’ll carve a path.”
“Can you manage alone?”
The number of soulless people was overwhelming.
Worse, they were not ordinary victims.
They were the martial-trained guards of the Myo-ak Trading Company.
It seemed Sa-an Gwi-gun had enveloped the entire area in a formation, transforming them all into soulless puppets.
A terrifying technique—one flick of his finger could steal every soul in the vicinity.
The soulless people did not even scream.
Their eyes were unfocused, drool dripped from their mouths, and their joints were twisted at unnatural angles.
They had once been someone’s father, someone’s son, someone’s mother, sister, or brother.
Now they were nothing more than dolls whose only purpose was murder.
“I have to try.”
Yu-ran smiled fiercely and gripped her sword tightly.
The reality that she had to cut them down was loathsome, but she could not simply turn away.
This was the burden every survivor had to carry.
Drawing on her reserved strength, she charged the front line and cut down the leaders.
Slash!
Blood sprayed in all directions.
No matter how skilled the Myo-ak Trading Company guards were, they could not possibly stand against Yu-ran, who stood at the middle stage of the Peak realm or higher.
“This is already humiliating enough…”
She had abandoned all her duties the moment she heard Ju Woo-jin’s request and rushed here.
This was a filthy incident that had dared to tarnish the honor of the Jeokryongdae—a true disgrace.
And one of her own direct subordinates, a vice-leader, had been involved…
The shock lasted only a moment. She drew her sword and began cutting down the guards without mercy.
These bastards were in on it too.
She had always possessed a ruthless nature.
She had once been considered for the position of great leader.
Why else would the Ju family—known as the family of dragons—have given her the title of Mad Dragon?
Slash! Slice!
There were no screams.
Only the horrifying sounds of flesh being cut and bones being severed.
One breath. One step.
One opponent at a time.
Her sword sliced through the guards with terrifying precision.
“Damn it. I’ll help.”
Holding Ju Woo-jin with one arm, Muyoung extended his sword with the other to cover Yu-ran’s back.
They were not only attacking from the front.
They swarmed over the windows, across the ceiling, along the pillars—flooding in like a black tide.
Muyoung unleashed sword strikes without pause.
Cutting, cutting, and cutting again.
A battlefield without a single scream was almost terrifying.
“Get out of here first. Don’t worry about me. This is Nanchang, isn’t it?”
Yu-ran winked at Muyoung.
She still seemed full of energy.
As she said, this was Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province.
There was no way the Ju family would remain unaware that such an incident had occurred in their own stronghold.
That meant the Ju family’s warriors would soon arrive.
SLAAAAASH!
With a final powerful strike that carved open a path, Yu-ran stepped aside.
“Now!”
At her command, Muyoung had no choice but to run.
His highest priority was protecting Ju Woo-jin.
“I’ll return right away.”
“No need.”
The moment she confirmed Muyoung had left, Yu-ran turned back around.
The endless waves of enemies continued to surge forward.
The smile on Yu-ran’s lips vanished completely.
“I can handle this alone.”
She had no intention of letting a single one of them live.
The massacre born of Yu-ran’s fury had begun.