Yu Jeong-shin spoke to Yi-gang.

“One thing is for certain. If the Evil Cult resurrects the Evil God, the world will be destroyed.”

“How exactly does that happen?”

“In a single instant everything will change. What has happened and is happening in the world now is trivial by comparison.”

The sky had turned purple and bizarre creatures had come to life and were eating people.

If even such things became nothing, what would true destruction be?

Yu Jeong-shin hesitated for a moment, then spoke.

“The moment the Evil God opens its eyes, every human will meet their death.”

It was a story hard to believe.

How could such a thing be possible?

“If someone dreaming wakes up, what happens to the things in the dream?”

“…They would disappear.”

“Yes, it is the same. If the Evil God opens its eyes, every person in the world will vanish in an instant. You, I, and even those Evil Cult freaks.”

Blink.

It was said that the moment that the Evil God opened its eyes, all people would disappear without a trace.

The mother smiling as she held her newborn.

The drunkard shouting in a pleasure house.

The child being beaten by his drunken father.

All of them would vanish in an instant.

Yi-gang’s face twisted.

“Why is the Evil Cult plotting something like that?”

“…Who knows.”

If everyone died in an instant, why would the Evil Cult go out of its way to scheme such a horrible thing?

Yu Jeong-shin was silent.

“At the same time, war will disappear, slaughter will disappear, and birth and death themselves will disappear.”

For both joy and sorrow are brought about by people.

If all people vanished, nothing would remain.

Yu Jeong-shin gave a wry smile.

“That is why we will stop them. Is that not so?”

The Evil Cult was scheming this even at the cost of their own death.

It was not something that could be done on a whim and then fade away. There had to be some old and sticky motive.

Yet no matter what lofty purpose they held, they had no right to remove humans from this world.

Yi-gang and every other person possessed the right to live on.

As a rightful holder of that right, Yi-gang would stop them from wielding their power.

For that was the duty of those who struggled to live.

“Even without the Evil God’s resurrection, the world is in turmoil. Soon, truly dangerous things will appear.”

“Prepare yourself, we will depart for Changde tomorrow. Since that’s where we will board a ship…”

Yi-gang bowed his head to his master.

The change came about suddenly one day.

It was after people had grown fully used to the purple sky.

The old man had lived under a blue sky for seventy years.

To him the sky was naturally blue, but that was no longer the case from four and a half years ago.

When the sky turned purple, many people shouted that it was a sign that the world would end.

In fact, it had been a sign of ruin. Every year after that brought famine, the Ming fell, and the Shang dynasty began.

Yet even so, the old man was still alive.

Even if the world was doomed, perhaps it did not mean his own doom.

He had finally grown used to the purple sky to the point of finding it ordinary…

“Sangdu’s mother. Wh-what is that?”

The old man’s voice trembled.

The finger pointing at the sky shook the same way, and the woman who looked up at the sky after him trembled as well.

“The moon…”

Even after the sky turned purple, the moon had always been a warm yellow.

“…Is blood red.”

The moon now was a vivid red, as if soaked in blood.

At that eerie sight, the old man who had lived so long seemed to feel unease instinctively.

He slowly backed away and motioned to his daughter-in-law.

“Let’s go inside, let’s go in.”

“Father, that…”

But the daughter-in-law kept staring at the moon as if possessed.

The old man also looked back up at the moon.

“There is something there…”

Indeed, something was there.

A black speck appeared on the red full moon.

He wondered if perhaps a bird were flying in front of it, but the speck suddenly grew.

Something was flying toward them.

It looked like a large wedge.

Or like an arrow or spear as it shot across the sky and plunged down.

To the old man, the whole process seemed to move very slowly.

The wedge-like white object pierced his daughter-in-law’s chest.

She was a good girl.

A girl his good-for-nothing son had brought home as a wife.

She had always been respectful to her father-in-law who had done nothing for her, so he had thought of her like a daughter.

The mouth of his daughter-in-law, who always smiled brightly, fell open. Droplets of blood spurting from it.

The shard of bone that had pierced her chest had flown so hard it stuck deep into the ground and trembled.

The old man instinctively caught his daughter-in-law’s body.

“Ha, haak, hak.”

“N-no, no, no.”

Her breaths were short, as if they would cut off at any moment.

The daughter-in-law let out a short cough, then blood poured from her mouth.

Drip, drip, drip. The amount of blood flowing out grew and soon soaked her jacket.

The old man lifted his daughter-in-law’s body up.

He did not know how such strength had come from his aged body.

“F-fa…ther.”

“Don’t speak. Physician, I’ll take you to the physician.”

There was a gaping hole in her belly, large enough for a finger to go into.

Blood streamed out from there.

“Beom! Y-you brat!”

He called his child, but his son had drunk himself into a deep sleep.

For whatever reason, the old man hoisted his daughter-in-law onto his back.

Perhaps because it was an emergency, a strange strength came forth.

He did not feel the pain in his aching back and knees or in his body at all.

Only the heat of the blood soaking his back and waist was vivid.

“Bear it a little longer.”

He left the house with his daughter-in-law on his back.

This was Xi’an.

The world might have fallen into chaos, but Xi’an was still a flourishing city.

The place where the physician lived was not so far.

Yet the town was already a scene of carnage.

“The physician, where is the physician!”

Panic-stricken screams burst out from all directions.

Many people were covered in blood. Some had shards of bone stuck in their shoulders or thighs.

There were even those dragging someone who was clearly already dead as they looked for a physician.

The only thought filling the old man’s head was that he had to get to the physician quickly.

He ran on with his aged body.

It was when he turned into the alley leading to the physician’s house.

“Hu, huk!”

He quickly pulled his body back behind the alley.

There were things in front of him that were not human.

More precisely, grotesquely large dog-like creatures were tearing people apart.

The old man stealthily stuck his head out and looked at them again.

Hairless creatures with smooth black skin, like wild dogs, were gathered there.

Sharp bone-like shards hung from their tails, dripping blood.

“Y-yokai…!”

It was clear. They were yokai, neither human nor animal.

In the past he would have thought there was no such thing as yokai, but now it was different.

Since the world had changed, yokai-like things had appeared.

Yet those could only be seen in remote mountain regions. Yokai had never shown themselves in the middle of Xi’an.

“Grrr!”

The old man hid at once, but it seemed that the yokai had caught their scent.

The old man held back the scream rising in his throat and ran the other way.

“Woof, woof!”

The yokai charged after him, barking like wild dogs.

He ran with all his might, but how far could an old man whose death was nearer than his life run with his daughter-in-law on his back?

He heard a yokai leap, and it felt like his nape would be bitten any moment.

At that moment, someone appeared ahead.

It was a swordsman who looked even older than the old man.

He swung his sword in an instant.

Skeong.

Even after he cut one yokai in half, the old swordsman’s momentum was tremendous.

The light of the sword flashed a few times.

The domineering force of the Heaven’s Shadow Sword Technique was fully displayed.

Fududuk.

The yokai chasing the old man all became chunks of meat.

“Yokai are rampant on all sides.”

The old swordsman, Baek Do-yeom, muttered thus.

Even after striking the Evil Cult’s branch master, he had not left Xi’an.

He had instead been happily waiting for the Evil Cult’s retaliation, yet what had appeared were not the Evil Cult’s warriors but these yokai.

“Old man, hide yourself and do not come out into the streets.”

“I, I must save my daughter-in-law…”

Even before Baek Do-yeom’s fearsome presence, the old man still spoke his mind.

Baek Do-yeom glanced at the woman on his back, then strode to the physician’s house and flung open the gate.

Inside, the physician was trembling while holding a wooden stick.

“Take this patient.”

“A-aren’t you Elder Baek Do-yeom!”

The physician of Xi’an recognized Baek Do-yeom’s face.

His expression said he had thought the Baek Family had been wiped out.

“The Baek Clan will drive out the yokai. Do not come out of your house.”

“I unde… understand!”

The old man who had carried his daughter-in-law on his back hurried into the physician’s house.

The main gate slammed shut, and the sound of it being barred from inside was heard.

Baek Do-yeom immediately ran toward where screams were coming from.

There, other Baek Clan warriors were present.

Not only that, Yo Yeon-bi and No Shik were there as well.

Those who remained were protecting the people of Xi’an from the yokai.

“Elder.”

Only No Shik’s expression was far from good.

“Something terrible has happened.”

“Is there something worse than the red moon rising and yokai running rampant?”

Naturally, the red moon was visible not only in Xi’an.

The outbreak of yokai was occurring throughout the Central Plains.

It was as if the end of times had come, as if the apocalypse were drawing near.

“Yes. It is worse than that.”

Saying that, No Shik led Baek Do-yeom and the others away.

It was a hill from which the whole view of Xi’an could be seen below.

The direction No Shik pointed to was another hill.

According to legend, it was the royal tomb Emperor Qin Shi Huang had built for himself long ago.

In that untouched mound, a hole had been punched open.

It did not seem to have been dug from the outside, but blown out from within.

“Does that seem like yokai as well?”

“…Huh.”

And from that hole, soldiers made of clay were coming out.

They were clearly the terracotta warriors said to have been packed into Qin Shi Huang’s tomb.

They moved by themselves like living beings and headed toward the markets of Xi’an.

With spears and swords raised, they seemed brimming with killing intent.

“It’s the end of times. It’s truly the end of times.”

The end of times.

As the word said, there was no expression that fit the present situation better.

Baek Do-yeom thought.

Of the secret message he had received not long ago through the Hao Sect.

It was confidential news that Yi-gang and the Azure Forest disciples were heading for the Evil Cult’s main altar.

They said it was the Evil Cult that had made the world like this.

If Yi-gang and his companions punished the Evil Cult.

If that happened, would the world return to the way it had been?

“Or is it already spilt water?”

All he could do was hope that Yi-gang and the others would accomplish it.

“Let’s go down. We need to stop those yokai.”

Those who were alive had no choice but to keep striving to survive.

They ran to stop the yokai and the terracotta warriors.

And near the Changde region, the Yuan River.

The branch flowing from the Yangtze River extended all the way to Yunnan.

However, the current was swift and many stretches were narrow, so it was not an easy river to sail.

On that tributary, three ships, rare to see there, were anchored.

They were ships belonging to the Yangtze Waterway Stronghold.

With the way the world had changed, the distinction between government and bandits had lost its meaning, and among the water bandits of the Yangtze Waterway Stronghold there were righteous men as well.

And the other righteous ones who remained.

The Leader of the Hao Sect.

Baek Seo-ok of the Baek Family.

The swordsmen of Wudang.

The Arhat monks of Shaolin.

They had gathered in secret.

“It is almost time for them to arrive.”

Neung Ji-pyeong, the Baek Clan’s Swift Swallow Squad leader, muttered this as he looked up at the sky.

The red moon hung in the sky here as well.

Those who had survived were waiting under the morning dew.

And soon, the people they had been waiting for appeared.

It was like some ghostly magic.

For an instant, the air in empty space seemed to turn cold.

Then people suddenly appeared out of the empty darkness.

They were the Azure Forest disciples who had come with their bodies hidden by the power of the Eight Trigrams Diagram.

“…Young Master!”

And at their very front stood Yi-gang and Ha Jun.

Neung Ji-pyeong and the Baek Clan warriors went down on one knee and paid their respects.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep