1297 — Is There A Place To Rest On This Land? (2)

“Aaaaah! You Justice faction bastard!”

“Dieeeee!”

A lightning-fast sword strike flew into the throat of the one who had rolled his eyes and rushed forward.

Shreek!

The strong cut left only a small tearing sound. It was a quiet noise that made the cutting of flesh and bone, the separation of head and body, seem insignificant.

Shreek shreek!

At last the blade that had cut the heart flowed on and sliced the opponent’s elbow and wrist tendons. A person can still move for a short while even after their heart is cut.

How many have advanced, thinking the heart was cut and safe, only to die from a blade in the back?

He does not think with his head.

Experience layered like paint onto instinct at the tip of the sword and fingertips naturally guides the blade.

Fwaaash!

As soon as he spotted another enemy screaming and rushing in, Chung Myung’s sword reacted before his head did.

Kraag!

For the first time, Chung Myung, who had until now cut in a single motion, hesitated. He stared at the sword stuck in the enemy’s throat.

“Guh… gurgle… gurgle…”

Above it he saw the enemy’s half-closed eyes, about to go out completely. Fear rippled within them.

As if he instinctively sensed his imminent end.

The fear-filled gaze quickly turned into resentment. Chung Myung tightened his wrist and pulled out the embedded sword.

Kagagak!

The blade scraped bone as it was pulled free. Blood spurted like a fountain.

“Ugh…”

The convulsing enemy collapsed face-first to the ground. His barely open eyes held nothing. Vacant, clouded eyes reflected the world hollowly.

Chung Myung glanced indifferently at the fallen man and looked down at his sword.

Dark Fragrant Plum Blossom Sword.

The blade wasn’t damaged. It had simply been dulled by the oil smeared from the enemy’s body. The oil, accumulated subtly from cut after cut, layered upon the blade—like the resentment piled up on him.

If he were his old self, he’d have acted before the sword dulled like this, but his senses hadn’t returned that far yet.

Fwaaash!

A surge of internal qi with the Dark Fragrant Plum Blossom Sword blew the oil off the blade in an instant. Chung Myung raised his head and watched ahead.

The forest before him looked ordinary, but it was no longer the one people knew. The fresh scent of grass was overwhelmed by a thick reek of blood, and the quiet ground that should have held insect chirps was riled by harsh screams.

In this foul space, where a killing intent bites the skin and the stench of blood lingers, Chung Myung felt an inevitable familiarity.

That fact suddenly disgusted him.

‘How much farther do we have to go?’

The heaviness that began in his hand spread through his body. Perhaps from the exhaustion of internal qi, the world seemed to cloud over. Familiar, but a sensation that could never remain comfortably known.

Chung Myung gritted his teeth.

The Demonic Cult was nearly an elite force. Each of their strengths far surpassed ordinary martial fighters of the Central Plains. And among that elite, the high priests whose ranks could be counted on one hand struck awe into the heavens and shook the earth.

But this battle was different from the clashes with the Demonic Cult he had faced in the past.

No matter how many he cut, it did not end.

Individually they were not strong. From Chung Myung’s perspective, they were almost pitiably weak. If it weren’t for Southern Island Sect leading them, if the Heavenly Friends Alliance could have moved alone, they would have already broken through more than half of this Southern Lands.

But those insignificant bastards surged like swarms of mosquitoes.

They were not like the Demonic Cult, charging without regard for life. They had no fanaticism or will to martyr themselves for their faith.

Trembling with fear, utterly terrified and at a loss, they still screamed and charged. Cutting down such people and sending their heads flying was a different kind of filthy act from what he’d experienced before.

“Huff…”

Chung Myung exhaled deeply and turned his gaze back.

Those who had taken the Way were still relentlessly rushing at the Southern Island Sect. Unlike at the start, Southern Island’s disciples now seemed to understand at their cores what battle was and what it meant to fight with their lives on the line; they did not retreat. They stood and fought.

“Aaaaaaah!”

Warm blood splattered on the face of Southern Island’s disciple who had driven a sword into an enemy’s chest. On the face soaked crimson, all that was clearly visible were his contorted eyes and tightly clenched teeth.

The justice of the association, and perhaps a grand ambition.

Would what they sought to gain on this land really be with those people? Did they know how they appeared to others?

War is like a vicious abyss, pushing all the shining things a person holds into deep darkness, to depths where a hand cannot reach.

And what remains are emotions touching the most primal instincts—survival urges and hatred.

“Diiiiieeee!”

Swords were repeatedly thrust into bodies whose breaths had already ceased from pierced chests.

It wasn’t only because there wasn’t the capacity to calmly check the enemy’s condition. Even if the enemy’s neck had been severed, those blades would have still flown in and plunged into the dead body.

It was an expression of hatred, or of fear.

The things that kept humans from becoming mere beasts gradually sank deeper.

Humans who once debated principles fight as beasts possessed by evil. Those who once gladly shared food with the unfortunate now stab knives into bodies that are already corpses and howl.

This was the battlefield Chung Myung knew.

“Aagh!”

“Sahyung!”

Everyone has their own justice, everyone a stance. But here, all of that is meaningless.

The moment an enemy’s blade is lodged in my body or my comrade bleeds from it, reason loses its strength.

“You sons of dogs! I’ll kill you all!”

Only malice remained, expanding without end.

Malice that won’t be relieved unless a blade is plunged into the opponent’s heart… no, malice that won’t be relieved even after the blade is plunged.

“Aaaaaah!”

One of the Southern Island’s disciples screamed and charged, driving his beloved sword hard into an enemy’s neck.

The sword that pierced the throat pushed through the nape and jutted out blood-soaked.

Murder is something no one should easily become accustomed to. Yet after committing murder with his own hand moments ago, there was no hesitation or guilt in his eyes.

Instead he pushed the sword in harder and harder, moving forward, screaming on.

“Young warrior!”

Yoon Jong reached out and grabbed the man’s shoulder.

“Let go of me!”

As the man shook him off and tried to move forward, Yoon Jong tightened his grip on the shoulder. Hit by a sudden pain, the man spun to glare at Yoon Jong with murderous intent.

Yoon Jong met that murderous look head-on and shouted without flinching.

“Calm down! If you get excited you’ll die!”

“Ugh…”

The man bit his lip and looked away. He saw the sahyung lying and bleeding. Only then did his hands start to tremble violently.

“Sa-sahyung! Are you alright?”

“Ugh…”

“Physician! Physician, over here! Here someone is dying! Here!”

“Calm down! You won’t die from this much!”

“Hae-won died that way too! You said he wouldn’t die!”

At that outburst, those nearby fell silent.

“How can I believe it… how could I believe that…”

Clutching the fallen sahyung’s sleeve and sobbing, he shouted again in a fit of hysteria.

“Physician! Physician…!”

“I am already here, stop looking!”

Tang Soso, soaked in blood, rushed over and immediately examined the situation, dousing the open wound with hemostatic powder as if pouring it. Her movements were calm and quick.

“Here! Grab here. We need to stop the bleeding! Hold tight so not a drop of blood gets through!”

“Yes!”

Tang Soso gritted her teeth.

‘He’s lost too much blood.’

No tears came. Or rather, none came anymore. The tears to be shed had already been shed.

She was not used to death either. She’d seen patients who came to the Tang Family die before. But this was almost the first time she had experienced so many people who had been perfectly fine suddenly dying rapidly, and being unable to do anything as a doctor.

Too many deaths struck in too short a time for anyone to grow accustomed. Even if few could be calm over their comrades’ deaths, in this situation where patients and their surrounding people alike looked to only her, the burden inevitably grew heavier.

It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t stop the oncoming deaths. Tang Soso knew that too. But understanding with the head does not mean the heart accepts it.

Tang Soso felt… as if all these deaths were entirely her fault.

“Press hard, damn it!”

“Yes! Yes! Understood!”

She ground her teeth and applied adhesive to the wound. Normally she’d have sewn it closed, but there was no time. A specially made adhesive from the Tang Family would prevent the wound from reopening for a while.

For now they would just stop the bleeding; detailed treatment would have to wait.

“Okay! Move him inward!”

“Yes!”

Those nearby finally breathed easier and lifted the fallen man.

‘This is not good…’

Tang Soso’s face darkened sharply.

A life had been barely saved, but this added one more wounded. The more incapacitated wounded there are, the slower the movement becomes. Fewer can fight, and more people are needed to carry the wounded which increases.

A single death simply removes one combatant, but these injured inevitably consume more manpower.

It’s a vicious cycle. The more wounded, the slower the breakthrough, and the more people will be blocking the way.

Meanwhile, the main force of the Ten Thousand People Clan would be approaching step by step.

“Soso, are you okay…”

Shraaak!

“W-what is that!”

Jo Gul, who had been worrying, startled and looked at Tang Soso. A trickle of blood ran from her split lip.

What truly shocked Jo Gul was that the one who had slapped her own cheek and split her lip was none other than Tang Soso herself.

“Why, why would you do that?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“What…”

“I’m okay. I’ve come to my senses—my head must have gone strange for a moment, having thoughts like that.”

Jo Gul couldn’t bring himself to ask what ‘those thoughts’ were. Anyone would be at a loss for words looking at Tang Soso’s expression.

Moreover, this was no time to calmly ask such things.

“We should go.”

“Yeah, we must.”

Jo Gul nodded and clenched his teeth.

How many cuts had there been?

How many had they killed?

And when on earth will this road end?

With battle continuing without respite, his nerves had become so sharpened they felt like they were stabbing into his brain.

At that moment, Jo Gul flinched hard. Feeling something approaching from the front, he suddenly let out a loud shout.

“They’re coming! They’re not easy!”

No sooner had he finished than a group clad in red uniforms burst from the thick brush, pouring out like wolves surging on a deer.