Chapter 1884 – Return of The Mount Hua Sect

Chapter 1884. You Can Do It. (4) ❀ ❀ ❀

The fierce momentum of the Red Dogs, who had been charging without hesitation, suddenly dropped. Yoon Jong did not miss this change.

‘What happened?’

With the Red Dogs surging right before his eyes, he couldn’t check exactly what had occurred. However, it was certain that something had happened further back.

Yoon Jong swiftly slashed his sword across the air. The Red Dogs, who had been rushing in with their eyes rolled back, also seemed to realize the situation had changed and hesitated, stepping back.

“Phew.”

Only then did Yoon Jong exhale the breath he had been holding back.

‘That was dangerous.’

If not for this fleeting respite, they might have collapsed far faster than expected. Though it was only enough time for a few breaths at most, to him now, it was like sweet dew flowing into a parched mouth after a month without water.

Yoon Jong cast a sideways glance at Baek Cheon.

“Sasuk, do you know what’s happening?”

Baek Cheon clenched his teeth slightly and remained silent for a moment before speaking.

“Right now, this comes first. We need to end it here. So something like this never happens again.”

So that people like those of Diancang will never appear again.

Swallowing down the rest of his words, Baek Cheon raised his sword.

“Yoon Jong-ah.”

“Yes, Sasuk.”

“….Let’s finish this quickly and return to Mount Hua. I miss the main sect.”

At those words, Yoon Jong smiled faintly.

“I feel the same, Sasuk. When this is over, I won’t take a single step outside the mountain gates for a while.”

Yoon Jong and Baek Cheon burst into laughter at the same time.

The crisis was not over yet. They might still lose their lives here. But just mentioning the main sect was enough to make them smile even in this situation.

Baek Cheon gripped Cheong Myeong’s shoulder tightly.

‘We’ll go back together.’

For now, that was enough.

Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong’s swords charged toward the oncoming Red Dogs with all their might. From their sword tips, sword qi in the shape of Mount Hua’s plum blossoms bloomed in full.

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“Keuhk!”

A low groan escaped. Though he suppressed the scream to the end, that sound, betraying a trace of pain, pierced into the ears of the Blood Palace Lord.

‘Damn it!’

The Blood Palace Lord’s face twisted at the shift in momentum. Upon hearing of Jang Ilso’s defeat, the orthodox bastards were now fighting as if the battle had only just begun. And they were already people who should have been utterly exhausted.

“Cult Leader!”

One of the palace warriors called out urgently to him.

“Cult Leader, do we keep fighting like this?”

The Blood Palace Lord’s expression hardened. There was a deep, undeniable despair in the warrior’s voice.

Jang Ilso’s defeat was a variable he had never considered.

No matter how strong the Mount Hua Chivalrous Sword was, the opponent was Jang Ilso. No one could have imagined that that Jang Ilso would lose to that young brat.

“C-cult Leader!”

Slash!

The Blood Palace Lord swung his hand like lightning. The head of the warrior who had pressed him separated from his body and flew into the air.

“…Noisy.”

The other palace warriors, who were about to cry out in shock, closed their mouths and bowed their heads low.

Without even glancing at them, the Blood Palace Lord grasped his own face. The sensation of the bandages under his fingers suddenly felt unbearably irritating. That was how taut his nerves were.

‘Chances of victory?’

None.

With Jang Ilso down, there was no point in assessing the remaining strength. Even if the Evil Tyrant Alliance was an unprecedented unorthodox faction whose reputation would go down in Kangho history…

‘The evil sect is just the evil sect, after all.’

Without their leader, there was no reason for anyone to risk their lives fighting. Once news spread that Jang Ilso had fallen, even those resisting with the last of their will would all throw down their weapons and flee.

‘If that damn Paegun had beaten that brat, the opposite would be happening now!’

The Blood Palace Lord ground his teeth in fury.

Betting the cult’s fate on Jang Ilso had been the fatal mistake.

In the past, he would have turned and fled without a backward glance at this point. He had no loyalty worth continuing a fight that had nothing to gain.

“Cult Leader, why do you hesitate? This is their fight…”

“Shut up. Before I tear your mouth apart.”

“….”

But now, the Blood Palace Lord could not so easily make that choice.

Because the Bishop of the Demonic Cult might be watching all of this.

Cold sweat ran down his back. Would that man allow the Blood Palace to withdraw here?

No. Absolutely not.

Someone like him, who treats people as less than insects, might crush every last one of them without leaving even a single ant alive, just because they acted against his will. And not only those here, but even the palace warriors left behind in Cheonghae.

He was more than capable of it. Was there any place that knew better than the Blood Palace just how vicious the Bishop of the Demonic Cult were?

“A-at this rate, we’ll be annihilated!”

“….”

The problem was, staying here offered no solution either. If they lost the palace lord and their elite here, the already ruined Blood Palace would not even be able to continue existing.

Either way, the only path left for the Blood Palace was destruction. If not that, then a fate of becoming a slave to the Bishop, begging for scraps of mercy.

The Blood Palace Lord bit his lower lip until it bled.

“For now…”

Just as he was about to speak, the Blood Palace Lord flinched and turned his head.

“Wait.”

He remembered, there might be a measure here to gauge the situation on this side.

The Blood Palace Lord narrowed his eyes to slits and glared toward the black mass in the distance.

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Clang!

Jo Geol’s sword clashed with demonic cultivator’s hand and was knocked back.

There was no sign of frustration on Jo Geol’s face. Instead, he thrust his sword even faster than before, pressing the attack, the corners of his mouth lifting.

“This isn’t quite the momentum you had before, is it?”

“….”

Even at this blatant taunt, the demonic cultivator only looked at Jo Geol with emotionless eyes.

Strictly speaking, Jo Geol was wrong. The demonic cultivators’ momentum hadn’t changed at all. They were allies of the Evil Tyrant Alliance, but they were not part of it. Jang Ilso’s defeat was no reason for them to be shaken.

The ones who had changed were actually Jo Geol and the swordsmen of Mount Hua. Cheong Myeong’s victory had breathed strength into them.

“Even if you regret it, it’s too late now.”

Jo Geol charged at the demonic cultivator again with ferocity.

Claang!

The sword and the demonic cultivator’s pitch-black hand clashed once again. Almost at the same time, Jo Geol’s sword pushed the hand aside and stabbed into the demonic cultivator’s shoulder.

Slash!

Blood spurted from the torn shoulder. Even if it was a demonic cultivator, their blood was no different from that of ordinary people.

“Grrk.”

Even with a sword embedded in their shoulder, the demonic cultivator didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow and swung their claw toward Jo Geol. Retrieving his sword, Jo Geol leapt back like a bird and landed.

“That won’t be enough.”

A look of confidence flickered on his face. Just a little more… just a little…

It was then.

“….Huh?”

Jo Geol’s body suddenly swayed.

“Huh? Wh-What?”

Losing his balance, he collapsed to the ground. Bewildered, he stared blankly at his own legs.

‘Poison?’

No, it wasn’t that.

He was simply exhausted. He had already been at his limit for some time. The tension he had been maintaining, stretched taut like a string, snapped the moment he thought he had regained the upper hand.

“T-This…”

Jo Geol drove his sword into the ground. He had to stand up somehow. He knew he still had to fight to hold them back.

But no matter how hard he tried, his legs wouldn’t respond. With a pale, drained face, Jo Geol glared at the demonic cultivator.

If they attacked now…?

The demonic cultivator, perhaps sensing Jo Geol’s condition, fixed him with sharp gazes. Just as a look of dismay crossed Jo Geol’s face, one of the demonic cultivators suddenly turned their eyes toward somewhere far away.

Staring at that place, the demonic cultivator spoke without inflection.

“We’re leaving.”

“…What?”

Jo Geol could only be bewildered.

And what followed left him even more confused. At that dry statement, the demonic cultivators all turned their bodies in unison, without a shred of hesitation or lingering attachment.

The sight, so devoid of anything human, sent a chill down Jo Geol’s spine.

“Stop! You bastards!”

Jo Geol shouted reflexively. One of the demonic cultivators glanced back at him. Still, there wasn’t a trace of emotion or expression on their face.

Jo Geol ground his teeth.

“Who said you could leave? Who’s letting you go?”

The demonic cultivator looked at him with eyes empty of any feeling and slowly opened their mouth. Their voice was like crumpling a sheet of water-soaked paper.

“Our orders were to follow that one’s command.”

Their gaze shifted to the body of Jang Ilso, now obscured from sight by the Red Dogs surrounding it.

“With the one giving orders gone, we leave. That’s all.”

“What kind of bullshit…! You think you can just walk away after doing this?”

The demonic cultivator didn’t answer. As if it hadn’t heard him at all, it simply resumed walking away.

“Stop, you son of a bitch!”

Jo Geol tried to rise in a burst of anger but swayed and collapsed again.

“Geol-ah!”

His fellow disciples rushed to support him.

“Are you all right?”

Instead of answering, Jo Geol clutched his knees. No matter how much he tried, the trembling in them would not stop. He had completely run out of strength.

“Damn it…”

“Calm yourself.”

Someone from Baek generation disciples, gripping his shoulder, glared at the demonic cultivators with a tense expression before asking.

“What should we do? We can still chase them.”

Jo Geol’s tightly pressed lips trembled. The demonic cultivators leaving the battlefield weren’t moving fast. If they wanted to catch up, they could.

They should pursue them immediately. They couldn’t just let the ones who had killed so many go free. It was the obvious thing to do.

But in the end, Jo Geol couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“No… That’s not it, Sasuk.”

They could chase them, but it would mean taking on heavy losses.

He no longer had the strength to fight at the front, and he couldn’t drive the others into a slaughterhouse in his place. Enduring this humiliation now was solely because he was too weak.

Jo Geol clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“For now… for now, let’s just let them go.”

“Geol-ah.”

“….Please. Let’s do that.”

At Jo Geol’s words, the swordsmen of Mount Hua eventually nodded. They all knew that the one here who most wanted to chase those demonic cultivators was Jo Geol. And if even Jo Geol was bowing his head to ask this, their personal rage had to be set aside for now.

Clench.

Jo Geol gripped the ground as if trying to crush it.

He knew. Sometimes, instead of letting emotions take over, one had to sharpen their reason. Sometimes, patience was more important than anything else.

But the price of growth was unbearably bitter. Almost chewing his lips to shreds, Jo Geol fixed the retreating demonic cultivators with the gaze of a predator.

“The next time we meet… it will never end like this.”

It was both a resolution and an oath carved into his very bones.

Next Chapter

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