Chapter 1230: I Don't Know (Part 5)

'Enemy?'

What should they do if someone saw the Heavenly Comrade Alliance? If they were ordinary people, they might be able to be persuaded peacefully. But what if they belonged to the Evil Tyrant Alliance or the Demonic Sect?

'Silence them!'

They must kill and eliminate them. Power surged through his entire body involuntarily.

That's when it happened.

"...What are you looking at?"

"Over there, over there."

"...What?"

"Ugh!"

Jo Gol, as if frustrated, quickly walked to one side and pointed to something sticking out on the ground.

"This, this! Can't you see it?"

"Th, this..."

Yoon Jong's tense face twisted abruptly.

"I almost lost my liver!"

What Jo Gol discovered was not a person but a buried sword, with only the hilt protruding.

"Isn't it fascinating? It's been a hundred years, and the sword is still here."

Jo Gol tried to pull the sword out of the ground, but it didn't come out as smoothly as he thought, furrowing his brow.

"What's wrong with it, this...Keungcha!"

"Yeah, you might break it like that!"

"No, a little more, and it might come out⋯."

As Jo Gol put more strength into pulling the sword, the ground around it suddenly shook, and something large emerged from the ground.

"Huh?"

"What is this?"

Everyone stared blankly at the scene.

There was a stillness.

It wasn't particularly remarkable. It wasn't as if they had accidentally found a valuable treasure.

What was revealed were just pieces of rusty iron, once swords, knives, or maybe spears, tangled together like a nine-section whip (a weapon made of several pieces of metal joined together to resemble a whip), pulled out all at once.

The weapons, discolored and heavily corroded to the point where their original shapes were hard to discern, seemed to have lost any value as weapons. However, strangely, the gaze of everyone present was captivated by them.

"What kind of weapons are these..."

Jo Gol scratched the back of his head awkwardly. At first glance, Jo Gol had thought that these might have been weapons that had been stored here and then forgotten, and he glanced down.

The moment he saw the pit where the weapon had been pulled out, his face hardened.

"Huh..."

Yoon Jong asked in a slightly tense voice.

"What's wrong again?"

"...Sahyung, here..."

"What?"

Yoon Jong approached Jo Gol and looked down at the pit where something sinister had emerged. Yoon Jong's reaction was not much different from Jo Gol's.

"This..."

Yoon Jong, with a voice that seemed to be groaning, reached out and started carefully digging around the pit.

Not downward but outward, widening the circumference.

Those who had been watching without understanding what he was doing soon grasped the meaning of his actions. A heavy silence fell.

As the pit widened, it became distinctly visible.

In a not-so-deep pit, weapons buried under the dust of time and scattered pieces of bones lay hidden. No matter how much they dug and dug, new weapons and bones constantly revealed themselves.

"...Sago."

As Tang Soso faintly trembled, Yoo Iseol silently grabbed her shoulders. After a while of digging around, Yoon Jong's hand finally stopped. It was because he realized that this wouldn't end, no matter how much he dug. There was no sense of how much more they needed to dig to find all the bones and weapons buried here.

Yoon Jong looked around with a dazed face. The pit, large enough to fit ten people, was scattered with weapons and human bones.

"This is..."

As soon as the scene before their eyes was properly recognized, a shiver ran down their spines. Just a while ago, all they could see were green fields and sharp peaks. Even if they only knew it was the headquarters of the Demonic Sect, they might have thought it was an incredibly peaceful and serene place.

However, now that they knew what lay hidden beneath the earth and seemingly indifferent green grass, they could no longer view this place with the same sentiments as before.

Everyone was speechless.

How many had died here? How many had killed each other in this place?

"What the hell..."

"Probably a battlefield."

An indifferent voice flowed into their ears as they stared blankly at the bones.

"More precisely, it's one of those places. Nothing surprising. This is the Hundred Thousand Mountain, after all."

That short sentence pierced everyone's hearts.

The Hundred Thousand Mountain. The place of the final battle. Where everything between the righteous sects and the Demonic Sect was staked. And where the final desperate struggle to sever the neck of the Heavenly Demon took place.

Yes. It was precisely the Hundred Thousand Mountain.

"No matter what..."

While everyone fell into silence, Yoon Jong, breaking the silence, gritted his teeth and spoke.

"Shouldn't they have at least been tidied up?"

"..."

"What's buried here isn't just the remains of the Demonic Sect, right? These people... These people fought to protect the world..."

"Who?"

"...What?"

"Who will tidy up? Now?"

However, Chung Myung's tone remained resolute.

"In a situation where my head might be chopped off tomorrow, is there any room to tidy up the corpses of those who have already died? Tomorrow, I might be lying on top of them."

"But even after the war ends..." 

"You're going to retrieve thousands or tens of thousands of bodies one by one and take them all the way to Gangbuk?"

"..."

"If there was such an intention, it wouldn't have been such a mess. It seems forgotten, but the Demonic Sect hasn't been exterminated. They retreated after losing the Heavenly Demon. If they had tried to exterminate the remaining ones, it would have ended up ruining Kangho even more. The ones who withdrew as soon as the Heavenly Demon died were the ones from Kangho."

"But even so, maybe later on..."

"Well, who knows."

Chung Myung sneered.

"If the situation had allowed for that, maybe they would have done it."

He roughly guessed.

It wouldn't have been possible to enter the Hundred Thousand Mountain immediately after the death of the Heavenly Demon. The Demonic Sect disciples, driven mad by spite, would have wreaked havoc. Didn't they even use their momentum to advance all the way to Shaanxi?

Moreover, even if they weren't completely destroyed like the Mount Hua Sect, other sects also suffered damage close to annihilation. With no time to regroup, sending people all the way back to Gangnam to collect the corpses wouldn't have been easy.

Hastening through urgent matters and postponing day by day, the corpses would have decayed, and eventually, they would have become beyond salvagable. 

"But no matter what..."

"Don't talk like a fool."

Chung Myung, as if weary, interrupted with a chilly tone.

"Even though it's the Hundred Thousand Mountain, it's not just a single mountain. It's a massive mountain range spanning from the east of Guangdong to the west of Guangxi, including Guizhou above it."

"..."

"And during the long war, battles took place throughout this entire mountain range. No, not only the mountain range but all over the world. Do you think it's possible to search the entire mountain range, let alone the uncertain parts where remnants of Demonic Cult might still be?"

Yoon Jong bit his lip. Chung Myung asked,

"Is it possible?"

Yoon Jong finally, with difficulty, answered,

"...It'd be difficult."

Chung Myung added dismissively,

"It's easy for those who haven't experienced it to stand behind it and say that it should have been like this or that it should have been like that. But those who actually experienced it didn't want to give up. There was just nothing they could do."

Yoon Jong remained silent. While understanding it in his head, he couldn't accept it in his heart.

It was only then that he truly realized. Of the ancestors of the Mount Hua Sect he had been so proud of, only one of their bodies had been belatedly returned to Mount Hua.

The remains of the rest were buried in this distant land.

Unable to return to the place they left.

Who could they blame for this?

"Then, at least these people..."

He was about to say 'Let's at least do our best for them' when Chung Myung cut him off.

"Bury them again."

In a moment of surprise, Yoon Jong looked at Chung Myung. There was a significant amount of anger in his gaze.

Searching for the remains of the dead across the entire mountain range was impossible. However, wasn't it human decency to collect the bodies that have already been dug up?

But even in front of such a gaze from Yoon Jong, Chung Myung showed no reaction.

"Corpses are just corpses. Dead bodies, nothing more, nothing less."

"..."

"Would it not be absurd for someone who went to retrieve the bone fragments of the dead to die themselves? We don't have time for that. Just bury them hastily. We need to head to Southern Island quickly."

"Chung Myung!"

"Sahyung."

At that moment, Cheongmyeong spoke with a calm voice.

"Don't mock these people."

"..."

"Do you think those who died here didn't know they would end up like this? They fought even knowing that. Did those who died here expect to be treated with great respect?"

A bitter smile passed on Chung Myung's face. A faint taste of blood lingered in his mouth.

At that time, it was like that. Even when one of his brothers fell right next to him, he couldn't even cover them with dirt. Knowing that they would soon be torn apart by wild animals and rotted under the wind and rain, he could only leave them alone.

But never once did he feel sorry.

Soon next to where his brothers fell, he too would fall, and they would rot the same way.

So there was no reason to be sorry, was there?

'Useless.'

Chung Myung completely turned his head away.

Thinking about the past would only make him sentimental. Now was not the time for sentimentality. What mattered to him was not the past that had already passed but the present moment.

He shouldn't feel sorry for those who have died. Since everyone completed their mission and fell asleep until the last moment. Rather, the one who should be pitied was Chung Myung, who was being dragged back into this hell again, even after fulfilling his role.

So...

"We don't have time to waste here."

Chung Myung shook his head.

"Keep your emotions in check. If you really don't want to see such a sight vividly again, that is."

When Chung Myung was about to cover the soil again carelessly, a trembling voice came from Jo Gol.

And at that moment, Chung Myung sensed it intuitively. Whatever would follow next, it would be better not to hear it.

But Jo Gol's voice penetrated his ears without mercy.

"Here..."

Chung Myung turned his gaze. What Jo Gol was pointing at made him check. As he confirmed what Jo Geol was pointing at, he exclaimed.

A slanted, rusted sword thrust into the ground.

It was so worn out that it was hard to even call it a sword, and carved at the end of its hilt...

"It's a Plum Blossom Sword..."

...was a small plum blossom pattern.