Although skirmishes were still breaking out here and there, most of the soldiers were simply staring at Dong Bong-su's back. The same was true for Li Zi-song. He slowly rode his horse over and dismounted beside Timur Khan's corpse.
Thud.
Li Zi-song picked up Timur Khan's ear that had fallen to the ground.
"The Ear Ghost has abandoned the ear...."
That was enough for him to understand Dong Bong-su's intent.
Thwack.
Li Zi-song cut off Timur Khan's head, picked it up, and climbed onto the castle wall.
Then he held it high so that all the soldiers who had entered the city could see, and shouted.
"Timur Khan is dead! Meaningless resistance will no longer be tolerated! Everyone drop your weapons and surrender, and your lives will be spared!"
With that, the long and tedious war came to an end.
Li Zi-song now turned his head outside the castle.
Dong Bong-su was still pushing through the path the soldiers had made, slowly moving away from Guisui.
Li Zi-song shouted loudly toward Dong Bong-su.
"Where are you going?"
Dong Bong-su pulled the reins and stopped Kaiji. However, he didn't turn his head.
"The Central Plains."
His manner of speech had been curt from the beginning, but now it was outright half-severed. Nevertheless, Li Zi-song smiled.
Whoosh.
Something left his hand and flew toward Dong Bong-su's back.
Thwack.
Without even turning his head, Dong Bong-su reached back and caught it. When he received it, it was one ear with a splendid ring-shaped earring attached.
"Take it. I'll keep the other one. If by chance I return to the Imperial Court and secure a position, wouldn't it help you a little?"
"...."
Dong Bong-su didn't answer and put Timur Khan's ear into his Inventory.
That was enough to satisfy Li Zi-song.
"Farewell."
Kaiji began moving again. Then soon it galloped away, cutting through the earth soaked in blood and disappearing far to the southeast.
"Is it alright to let him go like that?"
Before he knew it, Adjutant Dang was standing behind Li Zi-song.
"He's the one who harvested the Northern Plains alone. Do you have a way to capture him?"
Adjutant Dang couldn't give any answer. He already knew it too. That he was someone who absolutely couldn't be caught, and shouldn't be caught either.
Li Zi-song gazed in the direction Dong Bong-su had disappeared, smacked his lips for a moment, then opened his mouth.
"A storm of blood will blow through the Central Plains."
A cold wind blew, and the sharp scent of blood stung the noses of Li Zi-song and Adjutant Dang.
This world is New Murim Online—within a game yet not within a game.
Even here, enlightenment comes suddenly. And it fell upon Dong Bong-su's head. Like how an apple suddenly fell on Newton's head—whether that was real or fabricated by people of later generations didn't matter.
1
***
New Murim Online 9th Law: The system recognizes appropriate targets (still requires further research) as Spirit Creatures. For a player to tame a target as a Spirit Creature, they must fulfill certain conditions designated by the system.
Tamed Spirit Creatures have separate Status Windows, Equipment Windows, etc., and 60% of the experience points they earn are attributed to the player's experience points.
Spirit Creatures can recover health by consuming food.
※Everything about this law is not fixed or certain.
***
Rumors are fast.
They're even faster because they have many legs. Sometimes horses, other times people, and in some cases birds become the legs of rumors.
A rumor originating from the north struck the entire nation.
Timur Khan of the Northern Plains is dead. Guisui had fallen.
That was the core content of the rumor.
Timur Khan was a great hero of the Northern Plains and an extremely powerful master. His death delivered no small shock not only to the government and common people, but also to the martial artists of the Martial World.
And.
A story about one man was also attached as a footnote to that rumor and spread.
A man riding a wolf that flies through the sky. A man who severs enemy throats like an evil demon. A man who commands dozens of swords like his own limbs. Also, a genius strategist.
All of it was rumors pointing to one particular man. But it was soon buried among other rumors.
Because it didn't make sense.
How could a wolf fly through the sky, and how could a person with only two hands freely wield dozens of swords?
Everything was dismissed as a story fabricated by soldiers to praise Li Zi-song, the Commander of the Northern Expeditionary Force and Datong Military Command.
The rumor....
In the end, ended as a rumor, and soon public attention was withdrawn from the north.
Originally, the lifespan of a rumor lasts only until the next rumor circulates. As a new stimulating rumor began spreading through the Martial World, the rumor from the north quietly died down.
[The Murim Alliance is holding a martial arts tournament!]
[The Murim Alliance Leader is selecting young masters under thirty years old to create a new military organization!]
Normally, the Murim Alliance is merely a symbolic organization of the Orthodox Faction.
However, when the Central Plains is invaded by foreign forces, it becomes the true center of the Orthodox Faction.
Now was precisely that time. Heavenly Demon Castle was constantly invading the borders of the Central Plains, and the Hall of Gathering Evil was extending its reach to various places throughout the Central Plains.
Therefore, the current Murim Alliance Leader, Hyeoncheon Jinin, was in some ways the Lord of the Martial World. The fact that he was holding a martial arts tournament and gathering young masters was an important event that would determine the direction of the next generation of the Martial World.
The Martial World was abuzz with this matter, and Eulji-tae, the Breaking Heaven Hegemon Blade who was Hyeoncheon Jinin's right-hand man, was returning to Zhengzhou after completing a special mission related to this matter.
Together with one person who weighed on his mind....
***
Sanmen Gorge.
A gorge where Yu, the founder of the ancient Xia Kingdom, split a mountain with an axe and divided the river's flow into three using Ghost Stone and Divine Stone.
Since ancient times, this place has been famous for having the strongest currents in the Yellow River. The banks on both sides of the forty meters wide river are steep cliffs, and the river is divided into three by Renmen, a peninsula protruding from the north bank, and two islands in the middle of the river—Shenmen Island and Guimen Island—creating tremendous rapids.
Because of this, there has always been the joke that once you cross this place, you've passed half of the Yellow River.
However, no matter how treacherous it was, it was difficult to go from Xi'an to Zhengzhou without passing through here, so many boats always passed through this place.
People could use another tributary of the Yellow River to the south, but that route was roundabout in many ways compared to passing through Sanmen Gorge, so people would often risk the danger and pass through here.
Swoooosh—
Even now, one boat carrying three people was rapidly passing through Sanmen Gorge via Shenmen, between Shenmen Island and Guimen Island.
One person was moving two oars here and there, riding the currents—the oarsman. The other two had their arms crossed and were just watching, so they must be passengers of this boat.
One middle-aged passenger in gray robes with a cold impression.
And one passenger with long bangs hanging down to his chin, making it difficult to gauge his appearance. However, judging from his slender physique and the glimpses of his sharp, wrinkle-free jawline, he was a young man.
The middle-aged man in gray robes was staring intently at the young man's back inside the mercilessly rocking boat. With the boatman at the very back and the young man at the very front, his position was in the middle of the boat.
The middle-aged man in gray robes, Eulji-tae, was curious about the young man sitting in front.
The young man was extremely taciturn.
In this Murim, there are two types of people who don't speak.
The strong and the weak.
The strong don't speak because they're strong, and the weak don't speak because they're weak. Not because they can't speak, but because there's no need.
The strong don't particularly need to speak because those around them handle everything even without them speaking, and the weak don't need to speak because they just need to do work as instructed.
But he couldn't get any sense of which type the young man in front was.
Was he strong? Was he weak?
To fulfill the Soldier Eccentric's request, he had waited for him at the Eight Directions Armory for over a month. Even when hordes from the Northern Plains invaded and shook the entire Datong Military Command, Eulji-tae didn't hide and waited for the young man.
Some time after that, the young man finally came, and they met.
Since conversing with him at that time, the young man still hasn't spoken.
'Where is he?'
'If you're looking for the Elder, he's in Zhengzhou.'
'Zhengzhou?'
'Right now, he's at the Murim Alliance. To meet him, you'll have to go to Zhengzhou.'
'I understand.'
That was all.
When leaving Datong and coming to Hejin, and when boarding a boat at Hejin and coming here to Sanmen Gorge, the young man remained silent. Who exactly the 'Elder' was, why he went to Zhengzhou, why he had to follow him.
Even though Eulji-tae hadn't told him anything, the young man remained quiet.
Judging only by atmosphere, the young man was definitely on the strong side. However, the energy emanating from his body was insignificant, and his Sun Point (where the end of the eyebrow and the end of the eye corner meet in a hollow) was flat. In other words, he had almost no internal power and had never learned mental cultivation methods.
These were conditions that prevented him from being strong. There's a limit to the level that can be achieved with external energy arts alone.
The young man should be weak eight or nine times out of ten. If not that, then he was a different kind of strong person accomplished in other fields, or perhaps a hidden eccentric who had reached the realm of returning to simplicity and truth.
The Yangtze River flowing alongside splashed rapidly, pushing forward the water ahead and scattering in all directions, landing even on his knees. Eulji-tae thought that possibility was slim, but suddenly wished that the young man in front would be like the rear current of this Yangtze River.
The current Martial World was chaotic and difficult. Heavenly Demon Castle was greatly rampaging, and the Hall of Gathering Evil was also expanding its influence here and there throughout the Central Plains based on enormous financial resources. On the other hand, the Murim Alliance and the Orthodox Faction side had merely been damaged and diminished.
New young blood. Such things were needed. Moreover, though not many knew it yet, somewhere someone born under the Full Star of Extreme Yin Star of Heavenly Calamity must be operating in the shadows.
Much blood had been shed over the past few years, but much more blood would still have to flow before peace would return to the Martial World.