Nine of the Twelve Zodiac Kings, and even Hwanyeo, the Illusion King’s twin.
Thus, ten of the Twelve Zodiac Kings had been revived. The puppets had been made so vividly that it truly seemed as though they had come back to life.
But their minds had not returned perfectly as well. The memories and instincts of the battles they had been fighting just before their deaths had returned first, leaving them bewildered by the present situation.
Then, when they discovered Geom Mugeuk standing before them, their hatred exploded. And at the same time, they felt a conflicting emotion.
Fear.
The final moments of their deaths came back to them, and terror surged in. Even if they had not been struck down by Geom Mugeuk directly, Geom Mugeuk had been present at every one of their deaths.
At that moment, when fear floated like a plague and began spreading from one to another, the music that had been resounding grew softer and settled low.
Boom! Boom! Boom-boom!
The sound of drums mingled with the performance. The music changed as though a living person were watching this scene. And this music had power.
Like the drums of a battlefield, it drove away the fear the Twelve Zodiac Kings had felt.
Then their innate auras began to flow out.
The red energy streaming in the Blood King’s eyes was exactly the same energy he had possessed when he was alive. The Dark King was the same. The black energy surrounding the carriage was truly eerie, and the Illusion King’s aura was bizarre.
And that aura was even more powerful than what they had possessed before.
Boom-boom-boom!
The lively music was bolstering their momentum.
The one who shouted through the drumbeats was the Fighting King.
“Geom Mugeuk!”
The reason the Fighting King showed a particularly stronger hostility was simple.
Because he had died twice.
Once, while fighting the Leader of the Evil Dao Alliance, Baek Jagang, he had escaped at the moment of crisis, but had nearly died from the Poison King’s poison.
He had treated the poison through several great arts and returned again with the Dark King.
And then he had died again to Geom Mugeuk and Geugak Soma.
“If you die this time, it’ll be your third!”
At Geom Mugeuk’s provocation, the Fighting King could not restrain himself and shot forward.
Swaaaak.
The Fighting King flew in and thrust out his fist. As if he had truly been revived, he displayed the martial arts of that time exactly as they had been. It was even a blow properly imbued with inner force.
But Geom Mugeuk had reached a level different from when he had fought him then. He had become faster and stronger.
Whoosh! Whooosh! Woong!
Geom Mugeuk dodged the Fighting King’s fists as they flew in swiftly, and his own fist struck the Fighting King in the chest.
Thud!
The Fighting King slid backward. He had been struck cleanly, but he was fine.
“Why is he so hard?”
He looked like a person on the outside, but his bones were made of metal. And it was no ordinary iron.
“So it’s a puppet you made.”
The Iron King frowned.
“A puppet? In your eyes, does that look like nothing more than a puppet?”
Yes, he had every right to be proud.
“It is my masterpiece.”
The Soul-Calling Song that summoned souls was extraordinary as well, but he had created a vessel that could contain those souls without any side effects or sense of incongruity whatsoever.
The Twelve Zodiac Kings all walked forward at once.
Their auras contained terrifying killing intent. And it was not one, but ten.
Swaaaaaaaaa!
Their momentum was so tremendous that Taesu stumbled backward and fell on his backside. Jihan tried to endure until the end, but he could not withstand it and retreated to the rear wall. Even though the two Demon Venerables had raised their inner power to block it for them, that was all he could manage.
Amid that horrific aura whipping through the air, Pung, the warrior of the Evil Dao Alliance, had this thought.
Later, if he survived and returned to the Evil Dao Alliance, would the Alliance Leader truly believe his report?
A report that dead masters had been revived.
Judging from how things were going, they seemed to be figures on the same level as the master who had wielded twin blades and died earlier. Ten such masters had been revived.
And they were not the only danger.
Clank, clank, clank, clank.
The walls and ceiling on all sides opened. Inside them were hundreds of holes. They were mechanisms that launched powerful hidden weapons. The holes were so densely packed that if they were fired all at once, there would be nowhere to dodge.
Since they were mechanisms made by the Iron King, their power would be beyond description.
The Iron King opened the front of his garment. A lump of metal of unknown purpose was attached to his heart.
“The moment my heart stops, every mechanism will activate. Then no one in this space will survive.”
He did not underestimate Geom Mugeuk’s abilities.
“Yes, perhaps you, Young Cult Leader, who has mastered the Nine Flames Demonic Art, might survive. But everyone else will die.”
Those words sounded like a warning not to use the Nine Flames Demonic Art recklessly.
Geom Mugeuk slowly walked over and looked into a hole in the wall. Without the slightest fear, he peered into the place from which something seemed ready to shoot out at any moment.
“It’s too dark to see anything.”
At Geom Mugeuk’s composure, the Iron King also refused to be outdone and put on an air of ease.
He, too, fearlessly approached Geom Mugeuk. It was as if he were saying, If you’re so confident, try killing me, proving that his words were no mere threat.
“There are things inside that a human’s protective astral qi cannot block. Shall we test it?”
Even though he had come close enough for his neck to be severed if Geom Mugeuk swung his sword, he showed no fear.
The Iron King looked at Jihan and Taesu and said,
“You said you’d protect them, didn’t you?”
“Of course I have to protect them.”
The Iron King laughed. He was certain that even Geom Mugeuk could never handle this situation while protecting them.
“To think you won’t abandon such weaklings. This is a hell of your own making.”
At the Iron King’s words, Geom Mugeuk answered calmly.
“The hell you imagine and the hell I imagine seem to be different.”
When Geom Mugeuk turned his head, his eyes met Jihan’s, who stood behind him.
“I’m sorry, because of us.”
Jihan was furious at his own weakness. At a time like this, even if he could not help Geom Mugeuk and fight alongside him, he at least should not have become a weakness. The thought that he was becoming a burden wounded his pride, and he felt sorry as well. They themselves were forming one axis of this hell.
Then Geom Mugeuk, leaning his back outright against those terrifying mechanisms, spoke unexpected words.
“If I look back and you’re not standing there, then this place will truly be hell.”
When Jihan looked at him as if asking what he meant, Geom Mugeuk gazed up at the tightly sealed ceiling.
There, too, countless holes from mechanical devices were packed densely.
“The sky outside right now must be wide open and clear.”
He looked up at the ceiling with a deep gaze, as if he were looking at the sky beyond it.
“I have to kill people I once killed before, again, in this underground chamber beneath a lake. If you weren’t here, this place would be my hell.”
Was the gently flowing melody refusing to allow an attack? Even though Geom Mugeuk had his back turned and was conversing with Jihan, the Twelve Zodiac Kings did not rush in. The music was clearly communicating with them.
Geom Mugeuk continued speaking to Jihan.
“Fighting only for yourself, and fighting alone at that. If you keep walking through days like that, one day you may end up becoming a killing sword. Devoured by loneliness.”
Those words reached the Sword King’s heart most deeply. For he had spent most of his life fighting alone.
“There’s no need to be moved because I’m protecting you. This is a choice for my own sake. Fighting for myself is too hard, but fighting for you is less hard. It’s the same when training. So there’s no need to be moved by this selfishness, and no need to feel sorry.”
Jihan had a feeling he would never be able to forget Geom Mugeuk’s appearance in this moment. The moment when, with his back against mechanisms that were said to be impossible to block with a human’s protective astral qi, and with those terrifying Twelve Zodiac Kings behind him, he had said such words to him.
“I still don’t understand why you’re so good to me.”
“Aren’t you also a sword that has fought alone for a long time?”
“!”
From the moment he had been entrusted to his master so that he could live well by using his talent for scent. Yes, his life had been one of living alone, and he had been a sword that fought only for himself.
What more needed to be said when the path he had to walk was being shown to him? Jihan bowed respectfully and said,
“You give off such a wonderful fragrance, Young Cult Leader.”
“Of course. It is only proper to say that a leader always gives off a pleasant fragrance.”
When Geom Mugeuk was about to turn around, there was someone else who felt sorry.
“I’m sorry.”
It was the Sword King. His eyes had sunk coldly. Geom Mugeuk could feel it. He was truly angry.
“This happened because of me.”
He had been used thoroughly.
The Dark Palace Lord had known exactly how he would act. At the thought that he had been played by him, the Sword King could not restrain his anger.
“You should be thanked instead.”
“For what?”
“Thanks to you, I confirmed just how much Brother Ak cares for me, didn’t I?”
Geom Mugeuk formally greeted him.
“Thank you for saving me.”
“I didn’t save you.”
“You already did.”
It was no different from having already saved him. The moment he killed the Sound King, he had offered up his own life.
“When I meet that woman who likes Brother Ak, I’ll be sure to tell her about today. That the man she likes is this magnificent.”
He knew those words were being said to comfort him, but even knowing that, they made him feel better.
“You’re busy, comforting your subordinate and comforting me.”
Turning toward the Twelve Zodiac Kings, Geom Mugeuk said,
“There is one more person to comfort—no, one more soul to comfort.”
Geom Mugeuk’s gaze turned toward the Wood King.
“It may have been only a moment ago for you, but it has been a very long time.”
In their previous battle, Geom Mugeuk had tried to resolve the matter without killing him somehow. He had dreamed of revenge because he had misunderstood that the Murim Alliance Leader had annihilated his family.
He, too, was a man with many sins, but at the very least, Geom Mugeuk wanted to tell him this.
“I confirmed that it was not the deed of the Murim Alliance Leader.”
In his previous fight with Hwa Yulcheong, he had discovered that those behind all this had been involved in the destruction of the Mokcheon family.
At those words, the Wood King’s eyes wavered. He recalled the moment just before his death when Geom Mugeuk had struggled to save him. He could feel that Geom Mugeuk had not been lying then, nor was he lying now.
“The one who plotted that matter will eventually die by my hand, so now release your long-held resentment and misunderstanding.”
The Wood King said nothing, but Geom Mugeuk felt that the look in his eyes had eased.
Srrrk.
The Wood King’s eyes closed.
By his own will, his soul tried to leave this place.
Right then.
The music resounding around them grew even louder. Like the wail of ghosts, the notes tore and rose high. It was trying to stop his soul from leaving.
“Stop.”
Geom Mugeuk spoke in a low voice, as if warning. When those words, carrying demonic energy, rang out, the music stopped for an instant, then instead grew even louder.
“I told you to stop!”
Geom Mugeuk’s demonic energy poured out toward the Twelve Zodiac Kings.
Whoooooong.
As if a violent gale were whipping through, the bodies of the Twelve Zodiac Kings fluttered fiercely in the demonic energy.
And when the surging demonic energy ceased, the Wood King’s soul was gone. It was as though it had ridden the wind and flown far away.
The Wood King, his eyes closed, no longer moved, and the expression he wore at the end held a smile.
“In your next life, may you live neither a life of killing nor a life of being killed.”
The Blood Heaven Saber Demon, who had been listening to those words, could tell that Geom Mugeuk had spoken them sincerely.
Perhaps that was the life Geom Mugeuk himself wished for. He was a fellow who wanted to live laughing, chattering, and joking around. Yes, the person most uncomfortable in this place was likely the strongest among them.
Geom Mugeuk walked forward and looked at the Iron King. His gaze was cold and solemn.
“You people have plotted all manner of schemes and conspiracies until now. But calling back those who are already dead was the one thing you should never have done. If you couldn’t win no matter what you did in reality, you should have given up like martial artists. Lived running an ironworks. Lived as musicians.”
As if it were listening to Geom Mugeuk’s answer, the sound of the music turned grotesque.
At that moment, the Sword King walked out from behind him.
“They aren’t people who will understand no matter how much you talk. I know that well.”
Riiip.
He tore a long strip from the hem of his clothes. Then he tied up his loosened hair tightly again. And he took off the shoes hanging at his waist and put them on.
Then he stepped forward alone and looked at those lined up before him.
Until he met Geom Mugeuk, he himself had been one of them. He had even been one who occupied the very top among them. At least, the Dark Palace Lord had treated him that way.
“You’ve all had plenty of complaints about me, haven’t you?”
In particular, cold killing intent flickered in the Saber King’s eyes.
Then a cold voice came from behind.
“I told you that if we met again, I’d kill you again.”
The Blood Heaven Saber Demon slowly walked forward and stood beside the Sword King. He had not stepped forward because of the Saber King.
At first, he had found the Sword King displeasing, but he genuinely felt grateful that the Sword King had willingly sacrificed himself for Geom Mugeuk. He could not let him fight alone.
“For someone who uses a scrap of a sword, you’ve got spirit.”
Ilhwa Sword Venerable also stepped forward. The reason she did so was out of respect for the Sword King as a martial artist who used the sword.
“Older Brother, if you keep doing that, one day you’ll make a mistake in front of the Cult Leader.”
“Don’t say such things, even as a joke.”
The Sword King looked at the two people standing on either side of him and bowed his head slightly. He had not expected these two to step forward for his sake.
The three of them drew their sword and sabers at the same time.
Then a disgruntled voice came from behind them.
“No, why are my wings unfolding over there?”
An expression of helpless disbelief crossed the three of their faces. Truly, to try to make people laugh even at a moment like this.
“Why are only the three of you acting solemn and cool? Why are only the three of you pretending to be close without me? I’m going to fight too. Brother Ak, move aside. That’s my place.”
Of course, no one looked back, and no one answered.
The Iron King, watching them, felt Geom Mugeuk’s composure as an insult.
“Young Cult Leader, your arrogance will drive everyone to their deaths.”
When Geom Mugeuk looked back at the Iron King, all playfulness had vanished from his face.
“We had a difference of opinion about hell, didn’t we? I think I’ve seen enough of your hell…”
With eyes so cold it was hard to believe that such jokes could have come from that face,
“Now behold my hell.”
Snap.