Chapter 403: Chapter 403

‘Where is this?’

They say that when death approaches, a person reflects on their life in a brief span of time—was that what this was?

“……Hmm.”

But if so, the pace of repetition was remarkably slow. No—it felt as if it had stopped entirely.

“This place……is?”

A tent he’d never seen before. Terrain maps and operation plans spread across the floor. A cot haphazardly lashed together with wood and cord, topped with a worn blanket.

Among those unfamiliar objects, Dam Ak spotted a familiar insignia.

‘……Murim Alliance.’

He remembered being pulled off the cliff by Jin So-un’s hand…… Had he been dragged to the Murim Alliance while unconscious?

After organizing his thoughts, Dam Ak straightened his back. If he was going to die anyway, then dying without shame was the mark of a man of honor.

But that steely resolve crumbled the moment he stepped out of the tent.

“GYAAAAGH!”

A ghastly scream rising from deep in the gut.

“Just…… just kill me!!!”

Fearing that the companions who’d come with him might be undergoing torture, Dam Ak quickened his pace.

“What are you doing! Just take me inst——”

But the words died in his throat.

“Wh-What in the world……”

Countless wounded. People strewn across the ground like discarded objects, unable even to climb onto the makeshift cots. Skulls cracked open, arms severed, legs cut off, blood streaming from eyes. Those begging to be saved and crying out in pain were outnumbered by those screaming to be killed because they could no longer endure the agony.

“A ph-physician…… where is the physician……”

He searched for a physician who would have left patients in such a state, but every direction he turned revealed only more casualties. How many were there? More people lay on the ground screaming than the number of Black Path martial artists who had attended the Black Thought Alliance’s founding ceremony.

GRAB.

Just then, someone seized Dam Ak’s clothes.

“Pl-Please…… please…… kill me.”

A Murim Alliance warrior was clutching the Grand Strategist of the Black Thought Alliance, fervently begging for death.

Before he could even process the absurdity of it, Dam Ak quickly knelt down.

“Where does it hurt?”

“Please…… please kill……”

But the Murim Alliance warrior who had been pleading so desperately rolled his eyes back and expired on the spot. Dam Ak hastily raised his hand to call for a physician, then quietly lowered it. The physicians were already pouring every ounce of their strength into emergency treatment of the most critical patients.

‘Where on earth is this?’

The warmth and humidity he felt made it certain this was not Hubei Province. Then had he been moved somewhere else in that brief time?

To grasp the situation, Dam Ak moved on. But he hadn’t taken more than a few steps before his entire body froze like a stone statue.

BZZZZZ—

Countless flies swarmed through the space reeking of decomposition, laying eggs everywhere. In the heat, maggots already hatched from the eggs were feeding on the rotting corpses. The problem was that those hundreds of decaying corpses belonged to martial artists.

“……Hah, hah, hah.”

He had read and reread accounts of wartime atrocities in records hundreds of times over, but nothing could compare to the raw sensation of it unfolding vividly before his eyes.

The horrific, wretched carnage made Dam Ak feel fear for the first time in his life. A man who appeared to be a Murim Alliance member rushed over to him, but there wasn’t even a moment to pay attention.

“Grand Strategist! Are you all right?”

And what was this, now? A Murim Alliance warrior was carefully supporting him and calling him Grand Strategist.

‘Grand Strategist……?’

It wasn’t technically wrong, but the man’s attitude was clearly abnormal. He was the Black Thought Alliance’s Grand Strategist. Even when visiting the Murim Alliance as an official envoy before the pursuit, the Murim Alliance warriors had regarded him with open hostility.

“Are you hurt somewhere? A physician…… I’ll get a physician……”

And now, in the middle of all this, they were calling a Murim Alliance physician for him?

“No, I’m fine.”

“Are you truly all right?”

“……”

Dam Ak was about to answer when his eyes met a rotting corpse again. Nausea surged up before he could suppress it.

“RETCH……”

Instead of leaving, the Murim Alliance warrior kindly patted his back and even handed him water at the end. After barely wetting his lips and swallowing down the bile, Dam Ak asked.

“How…… how many have died?”

“Let me think…… roughly eight hundred, I’d say.”

“Eight hundred……people……? Are you saying that many people died during the escape…… Don’t tell me—has the war already started?”

The warrior muttered to himself, ‘How long ago did the war start……’ then looked at Dam Ak with a puzzled expression.

“That many? What do you mean? Weren’t you asking about the casualties from this battle alone?”

“……”

“If you’re counting everyone who’s died since the Great Righteous-Demonic War began…… whew. Just calculating it is horrifying enough.”

“The Great Righteous-Demonic War……? Then what happened to the Black Thought Alliance?”

“Hm? What’s the Black Thought Alliance?”

He didn’t know the Black Thought Alliance. Then what was the reason they’d called him Grand Strategist……?

“Then who are you fighting?”

“Who else? Those goddamn Demonic Cult bastards.”

‘Everything has changed.’

By his estimation, the Black Thought Alliance didn’t exist, and he had somehow become the Murim Alliance’s Grand Strategist.

But none of that mattered.

If the gap between the Murim Alliance and the Demonic Cult was this severe…… if they were being overwhelmed this devastatingly, then why were they still fighting? What reason could there possibly be to endure these sacrifices?

Another wave of vile nausea rose, but he forced it down.

“Jegal So-myeong…… where is he?”

Jegal So-myeong was no ordinary man. He had not risen to the position of Grand Strategist merely on the strength of his family or his own martial prowess. No matter how outstanding Dam Ak considered himself, there was no way he could have displaced Jegal So-myeong from the Murim Alliance Grand Strategist’s seat.

But the warrior’s expression shifted oddly.

“If you mean the former Grand Strategist…… wasn’t he assassinated before the Great Righteous-Demonic War……?”

His head spun. Where was he? It was too vivid to be a dream and too inconsistent with everything he knew to be reality.

And in that moment, a person flashed through his mind.

“The Black Flame Dragon……! Where is the Black Flame Dragon?”

“The Black…… what? What kind of epithet is that?”

“The Black Flame Dragon doesn’t…… exist either?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Dam Ak walked again. The warrior tried to support him and bring him back to the tent, but he shook off the hand and strode through the encampment. Searching for a familiar face in a place where he knew no one.

The vast encampment was dotted with countless tents, and corpses still warm lay scattered haphazardly around them.

The living stood in long lines to receive a steamed potato and a fistful of millet rice, then crouched beside the dead and ate.

Everywhere he turned, the wounded existed—and some were treating their own injuries.

‘What…… what…… what is this carnage……?’

He couldn’t comprehend it. Just how fierce a war were they waging? Throughout history, when a dynasty’s mandate of heaven expired, the era closed quietly. Wars had occurred in the process, certainly, but never this atrocious.

So for what reason were these people fighting such a brutal war?

He’d even forgotten that he’d woken up as a stranger in a strange place; he could only feel distant despair at the carnage before his eyes.

And there was something else strange.

“Grand Strategist! Have you eaten?”

“Grand Strategist! Thank you! We survived thanks to you!”

“Grand Strategist! Please keep it up like this time. Compared to those son of bit—anyway, compared to before, fighting has gotten so much easier.”

“I’ll fight even harder from now on. Please carry out as bold an operation as you see fit!”

At every turn, every person he passed looked up to him with renewed resolve. There were more wounded than uninjured. Plenty still had a long way to go before their treatment was done. Yet every time they saw him, they shouted that they wanted to fight more.

‘For what reason?’

He’d been told eight hundred had died in this battle alone. And yet, why did they think they’d fought a satisfying battle?

Driven by this incomprehensible absurdity, Dam Ak’s steps quickened further and further. Dodging corpses, dodging people, walking and walking until he’d walked so long he no longer knew how his legs moved. Then, at last, he encountered the first familiar face.

“Young Master Jin……!”

A man walking bowlegged, loosening the drawstring of his trousers. He was unmistakably the Jin So-un Dam Ak knew.

But.

‘He’s different…….’

Black Flame Dragon Jin So-un…… He was a giant. A solid physique and formidable spirit. Even though he was clearly restraining his energy, an endless, immeasurable force roiled within. His gaze was piercing, and the smile at the corner of his lips never faded no matter the hardship. A giant whom none could easily approach.

But the Jin So-un before him now?

“G-Grand Strategist?”

Wavering eyes, hands fumbling to retie his trouser cord, posture frozen stiff. A cheap iron sword at his waist and unkempt, tangled hair.

He was not the Jin So-un Dam Ak knew. Not the giant who had shone alone, overwhelming all around him.

“Young Mast——”

Dam Ak pressed his lips shut. Now he could be certain. He had come to an entirely different world.

“……”

Whether this was the butterfly dream that Zhuangzi had dreamed, or whether he’d slipped into someone’s memories, he couldn’t say—but it was certain this was not the world he’d lived in.

‘This man is not the Black Flame Dragon I know, either.’

And yet, was it because he’d found a familiar face? Without realizing it, Dam Ak spoke to the man. He threw out the question that had been circling his mind the entire walk.

“Do you…… do you also…… want to keep fighting?”

“……Huh?”

Unlike the Jin So-un he knew, this one stood there blank-faced and dumbfounded.

“All I’ve seen on my way here are rotting corpses and endless despair. Even a war waged between nations staking their survival would not be this wretched.”

The question he’d had ever since accepting the position of Black Thought Alliance Grand Strategist. The question he’d been unable to resolve even through fierce conflict with the Murim Alliance. And the doubt that had crystallized into sharp clarity after arriving in this strange place.

“Is the murim always like this?”

The reason for the murim’s struggles—a reason he could never empathize with, even after choosing to live among them.

“Is the murim truly a place where people throw their lives away for such futile reasons, where they fight for such futile causes?”

And the reason for living that he himself had to find.

“What is everyone doing this for?”

The man still stared at him with that vacant expression. Dam Ak found himself laughable. What good would it do to ask such a thing of this man?

But in that moment—the wavering in Jin So-un’s eyes calmed. His slouching posture straightened. The man before him was clearly not the Jin So-un he knew. And yet, this man—who had been so wretched, so unremarkable—was somehow becoming…… becoming a giant.

“The murim…… is exactly such a place.”

“A place where you fight futile fights and die? How beastly.”

“……There is a reason for our struggle.”

“A reason for the struggle?”

Something tickled at the crown of his mind. As though he could seize the tail end of the answer he’d been searching for so long. He had no idea why he’d come to this unfamiliar place, but this very moment might be the one that could resolve the question he’d agonized over his entire life.

“What do you mea——”

But at the same time, a haze descended over Dam Ak’s mind. He knew instinctively. It was time to wake from the dream.

‘I n-need…… to hear the answer.’

Jin So-un, who hadn’t even been able to look at him properly, finally raised his gaze.

And slowly opened his mouth.

“The reason we want to fight until we die—no, even after death—is……”

***

Fuuuuuck……. I seriously, seriously almost died.

Who would’ve thought the current in the stream running below Despair Valley would be that strong?

One wrong move and I’d have been swept along by the torrent, carried down the great river all the way to the sea.

“Wow, I actually survived this……”

As expected, all that diligent chivalrous conduct and dedication to cultivating the murim’s righteous spirit paid off in ways like this. Hoo. Truly admirable, Jin So-un.

After confirming my own body was intact, I laid Dam Ak on the riverbank and checked under his nose—he wasn’t breathing.

“Fuck!!!”

I quickly stimulated his acupoints to drain the water.

GURGLE, GURGLE.

After expelling all the water lodged in his throat, I checked under his nose again—thankfully, he was breathing.

Good heavens, I’d kept Dam Ak alive through the Righteous Path Association’s schemes only to nearly lose him here.

Anyway, where the hell had we ended up? According to the map, following the gorge downstream should connect to Jagwi. Of course, there were two waterways, so if I’d taken the wrong one, we’d be heading back toward the Hwanggang River.

“Hmm, judging by the sun’s position, it’s not the Hwanggang.”

“……Then is this the underworld?”

“Shit, you scared me!”

A voice came from below, and Dam Ak, his face deathly pale, was painfully pushing himself upright.

“……Fortunately, this is still the land of the living, where one can roll in a dung heap.”

“Your jokes are getting less funny by the day, Young Master Jin.”

He sat up and surveyed the area. Then he murmured quietly, ‘No corpses, as expected…….’

After standing blankly for a moment, he looked at me with a calm gaze.

I’d expected him to throw a fit about why I’d done something like this. He was surprisingly composed, though.

“……Were the guards sacrificed?”

Or not. Was he in shock?

“Nothing’s confirmed yet, so don’t kill them off already.”

“They went forward, and behind the smoke, we went down the cliff—well, fell. If fortune favors us, they’ll be the only ones who die.”

“Our surviving is also a matter of fortune.”

Despite my words, Dam Ak’s expression remained stiff.

“It’s clear who the bait was.”

“We’re not fishhooks. There’s no need to jump to conclusions.”

“Are you trying to save face with words even you don’t believe?”

Just because he spoke calmly didn’t mean I couldn’t sense his anger. But even if I told him the guards had agreed to this beforehand, would he accept that? Still, the only thing I could tell him right now was this.

“It was their choice.”

“Their choice……”

He furrowed his brow, as if trying to recall something.

“Are you saying they chose…… death?”

Would it help to tell him there was a chance they weren’t dead? I shook my head. Flimsy comfort like that wouldn’t work on someone like him.

“It’s the same as the choice you made, Strategist Dam.”

Dam Ak faltered for a moment at my words. Then he stared at me for a long while with a complicated look.

“……You really aren’t ‘him,’ are you?”

What was this man suddenly going on about? I was pretty sure I’d drained all the water…….

“No, perhaps you might be ‘him’ after all…… if the course of your life diverged……”

What? Did he seriously hit his head on something in Despair Valley? Why was he muttering incomprehensible things?

“What are you talking about?”

“……Nothing. Just that, as I expected, the sight of Young Master Jin trembling before me and pissing his trousers wouldn’t suit you at all.”

What on earth was he saying? Even at my most pathetic in the previous life, I’d never wet myself in front of this man.

“Did you really hit your head? That’s odd. There’s no blood, though?”

“……”

Dam Ak fell silent for a time. Then, with that same complicated gaze, he stared at me for what felt like an eternity.

After a long silence had blanketed the space, he carefully parted his lips.

“Young Master Jin. You already knew who I was before we met at the Black Thought Alliance, didn’t you?”