His teeth ground together, threatening to shatter. His fists were clenched so tightly his nails drew blood from his palms. A tremor wracked his body, a convulsion of pure, uncontrollable rage—the kind of fury that could bleach a man’s hair white. Red. The world had turned red. A scarlet wash bled over his vision, staining everything it touched. The once-lush green of the mountain peak was now slick with gore, its vibrant life scoured away in a single, hellish day. Death. Only death remained. And for what? Park Jin-hyuk’s hand clawed at the hilt of the sword buried in his shoulder. With a wet, grating sound, he tore the splintered remains of the White Lotus Sword free. His left arm was a memory, the shredded sleeve of his robe flapping empty in the wind. Though his legs were intact, they refused to obey him. A gaping wound, wide as an infant’s head, had been torn through his abdomen. But Park Jin-hyuk felt none of it. The agony of his body was a distant whisper compared to the storm raging in his heart. “…Sahyung Lee Kang-min.” His gaze fell upon the body of Lee Kang-min of Mount Wol Sect, sprawled in the mud. Death had left his eyes wide open, staring sightlessly at a sky he could no longer see. Why was it so unfair? “Sajae…” The bisected torso of Park Gong lay nearby. “Sajils…” Everyone was dead. All of Mount Wol’s finest, who had sworn to climb this mountain together, to defend their home, to see their sect’s name celebrated across the land—all of them were gone. Gone to a place with no return. And their Sajils, their loyal juniors, had followed them into that silence. Park Jin-hyuk’s jaw tightened. They would call this a noble sacrifice. A just and glorious end. But who would dare praise this? Who would dare call this butcher’s bill glory!? His eyes found the source of it all, the architect of his bottomless rage. The leader of the Blood Demon Sect, the one they called the Blood Demon. To see the man sitting cross-legged amidst the sea of gore… it was bizarre. Even in this hellscape of his own making, the Blood Demon looked utterly serene. No, that wasn’t right. He was a pincushion of steel—dozens of swords jutted from his body, two spears transfixed his gut. Their lives, every last one, had been spent to bring this monster down. This was the result: the final, desperate charge of the world’s elite against the Blood Demon had ended in mutual annihilation. Was this enough? Could the dead finally rest? No. They couldn’t. And even if they could, Park Jin-hyuk wouldn't. It took every last shred of his will to keep the white-hot rage from burning away his mind. The Blood Demon’s pale, vacant eyes fluttered open, staring up at the vast blue sky. “…Mount Wol Sect,” he breathed. The name was sacred, a brand on Park Jin-hyuk’s very soul. To hear it from that mouth was a defilement. “Unfortunate, isn’t it, disciple of Mount Wol? If you were to survive this, you could boast of your great deeds.” “…Shut your filthy mouth.” “You should be proud. So many gave their lives so that your sword could finally reach me.” “Shut up!” The words alone were enough to make his stomach heave. “Truly unfortunate.” The Blood Demon was dying. Even he, the greatest monster of his age, could not survive a shattered danjeon and ruined organs. This calm was nothing but terminal lucidity, the final flicker of a dying candle. But why? How could a dying man be so… calm? Hyeolma was an enigma to the very end. “Give me one more day, and I would have ascended, become a true Blood Demon. But this, too… is fate.” Park Jin-hyuk’s hand tightened on the broken sword he’d pulled from his own flesh, its sharp edges biting deep into his palm. One step. Then another. At the end of the long, terrible war, he staggered towards the Blood Demon. “Remember this, disciple of Mount Wol,” Hyeolma said, his eyes empty of all emotion as Park Jin-hyuk closed the distance. “This is not the end. The Magyo will return, and when that day comes, the world will fall to them. The Magyo can never be stoppe—” A flash of steel. The Blood Demon’s head tumbled to the ground. Park Jin-hyuk brought his heel down, crushing the skull under his boot, silencing the dead, staring eyes forever. “It’s over…” The war was finished. The world would call this a victory. But Park Jin-hyuk knew the truth. There was no victory here. There were no winners. His strength finally gave out. He collapsed to his knees, feeling the cold certainty of his own death creeping in. Park Jin-hyuk lifted his head, his gaze finding the sky. After all this slaughter, it remained a placid, indifferent blue. What would become of Mount Wol Sect? Everyone who had climbed this mountain was dead. Any survivors from the larger war were surely on their last breath. No sect had sacrificed more. No sect had lost more. “Sahyung Lee Kang-min… I told you.” He could almost hear the man’s gentle chiding. Don’t pour your entire soul into every task. And now look. Mount Wol Sect was buried on this gods-forsaken mountain. The disciples had followed their masters to the grave. All that was left were the children, too young to even understand what they had lost. And regret. A bitter, useless regret. Had it meant anything? All the blood shed by the disciples of Mount Wol… was it all for nothing? “I don’t know anymore, Sahyung…” Park Jin-hyuk’s body gave out, and he toppled onto his side. The pure white of his robes, stained dark with his own blood, splayed out before him. For a moment, his blurring vision caught the emblem over his heart: the five-petaled plum blossom. A lonely end. No one to witness it. The great White Lotus Sword Saint of Mount Wol Sect was dying alone in the dirt, like a stray dog. “…But your deaths were better than this,” he whispered to the ghosts of his brothers. “Because you had someone to weep for you.” Park Jin-hyuk wept for them now. I’m sorry, Sahyung Lee Kang-min. The world began to fade, the edges of his vision turning black. If only he had trained a little harder, could he have saved just one more person? If he had paid more attention to his masters’ scolding? If he had mastered the true Mount Wol Sword, and not just the White Lotus Sword? He had promised himself he would have no regrets. But in the end, regret was all he had left. And worry. A deep, aching worry for his home. Plum blossoms must fall to welcome the spring… but what if spring never came for Mount Wol…? The thirteenth disciple of the Great Mount Wol Sect, the White Lotus Sword Saint, Park Jin-hyuk, slayer of the Blood Demon at the summit of the Black Wind Mountains of the Blood Demon Sect, closed his eyes and drifted into an endless sleep. This brief, bloody tale was all that remained of him.

Chapter 2: Only Death Remained