Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 1231

‘Enemies?’ Yoon Jong whispered, his eyes scanning the quiet forest. The trees were tall and still, but danger could be hiding anywhere.

What should they do if anyone saw the Heavenly Union Alliance?

If they were commoners, they might be able to keep their mouths shut with kind words. But what if they were members of the Four Evil Sects or remnants of the Demonic Cult?

‘Exterminate them!’ The thought flashed through his mind. His hands clenched into fists, ready to fight.

It was then.

“What is it?” Yoon Jong asked, his voice still tense.

Jo Gul pointed excitedly. “Over there! See it?”

Yoon Jong frowned, looking where Jo Gul pointed. “What? I don’t see anything.”

Jo Gul sighed loudly. “*This*! Can’t you see *this*?” He hurried over and pointed right at the ground.

Yoon Jong’s face relaxed a little, but he was still annoyed. “You made me jump! What is so important?”

What Jo Gul had found wasn’t a person, but a sword buried in the ground, with only its hilt sticking out.

“Isn’t it amazing? It must be a hundred years old, but the sword is still here.”

Jo Gul grabbed the hilt of the sword stuck in the ground and pulled. But it didn’t come out as easily as he thought, and he frowned.

“What’s it caught on… Ugh!”

“Hey, it’ll break if you do that!”

“No, I think it’ll come out if I just try a little more…”

The moment Jo Gul put more strength into the hand holding the sword, the ground around it stirred, and something large rose abruptly from the earth.

“Huh?”

“…What is this?”

Everyone stared blankly at the scene.

Silence fell.

What appeared were not treasures, but a pile of rust and decay. Twisted swords, broken spears, and bent blades, all stuck together with earth. They were like bones themselves, brown and crumbling. And mixed in with the metal were real bones, small and white against the dark dirt.

“What kind of weapons are these?”

Jo Gul scratched the back of his head with an awkward expression. He fleetingly thought that they might be weapons that had been stored here and forgotten, and then he lowered his gaze.

The moment he saw the pit from which the weapons had been pulled, his face hardened.

“Uh…”

Yoon Jong asked with a slightly agitated voice.

“What is it now!”

“Senior Brother, here…”

“What?”

Yoon Jong approached and looked down at the dreadful pit in the ground, following Jo Gul’s gaze. Yoon Jong’s reaction was not much different from Jo Gul’s.

“This…”

Yoon Jong, letting out a groan-like voice, reached out his hand. And he carefully began to dig around the pit.

Not deeper, but wider.

Those who had been watching, not knowing what he was doing and not understanding the situation, soon understood the meaning of his actions. A heavy silence descended.

As the pit widened, it became clearly visible.

Weapons buried under layers of dirt accumulated over time in a not-so-deep place, and scattered around them, pieces of human bones.

No matter how wide they dug, new weapons and bones continued to appear.

“Oh no…” Tang Soso gasped, her face pale. Yoo Iseol, usually so calm, gripped Tang Soso’s shoulder tightly, her own eyes wide with shock.

After digging around for a long time, Yoon Jong’s hands finally stopped.

It was because he realized that there was no end to digging in this way. He couldn’t even guess how much more he would have to dig to find all the bones here.

Yoon Jong looked around the area he had dug with a dazed expression.

The wide pit, large enough for ten people to enter, was densely filled with weapons and bones.

“Here is…”

As soon as the scene before his eyes was properly recognized, goosebumps rose up his spine.

Until a little while ago, he could only see the green fields and the sharply rising peaks. If he hadn’t known that it was the Demonic Cult’s base, he might have thought it was an incredibly peaceful and tranquil place.

But now that he knew what kind of scene was hidden beneath this soil and indifferent green grass, he could no longer look at this place with the same sentiment as before.

Everyone was speechless.

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

“What on earth…”

“There must have been a battle.”

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

“To be exact, it’s probably one of those places. It’s nothing new, is it? This is the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, after all.”

Those short words pierced everyone’s hearts.

The Ten Thousand Great Mountains. The place where the final battle took place. The place where the decisive match between the Orthodox Sect and the Demonic Cult was held. And the place where the final suicide squad to behead the Heavenly Demon was martyred.

Yes. It was the Ten Thousand Great Mountains.

“Even so…”

Amidst everyone’s solemnity, Yoon Jong broke the silence and said through gritted teeth.

“Shouldn’t we have at least collected the remains?”

“…”

“Those buried here aren’t just members of the Demonic Cult… These people… These people fought to protect the world…”

“Who?”

“What?”

But Chung Myung’s tone was still indifferent.

“I might be dead tomorrow myself. Do you think I have time to collect the bones of those who died long ago? Tomorrow, I might be lying on top of them.”

“But even after the war ended…”

“Are you going to collect thousands, tens of thousands of bodies one by one and take them all the way to Gangbuk?”

“…”

“If they had the mind to do that, they wouldn’t have made it so chaotic. You seem to have forgotten, but the Demonic Cult wasn’t eradicated. They retreated because they lost the Heavenly Demon. If they had tried to completely eradicate those remaining bastards, the world would have been ruined instead. The Jianghu was the one that pulled back and retreated as soon as the Heavenly Demon died.”

“Then, even belatedly…”

“Well.” Chung Myung sneered.

“If they had been in a position to do so, they might have done it.”

He could roughly guess.

Immediately after the Heavenly Demon died, they wouldn’t have been able to enter the Ten Thousand Great Mountains. The Demonic Cult members, filled with poison, would have been running wild. Didn’t those bastards even advance to Shanxi with that momentum?

Moreover, even if they weren’t as completely ruined as Mount Hua, the other sects had also suffered damage close to annihilation. They were too busy reorganizing, so it wouldn’t have been easy to send people back to Gangnam to collect the bodies.

As they took care of urgent matters first and postponed it day after day, the bodies would have rotted away, and later it would have become impossible to collect them even if they wanted to.

“Even so…”

“Think about what is possible, Senior Brother.” Chung Myung cut him off with a cold voice, as if he was fed up.

“Ten Thousand Great Mountains, Ten Thousand Great Mountains, but the Ten Thousand Great Mountains aren’t just one mountain. It’s a vast mountain range stretching five hundred miles, including the east of Guangdong, the west of Guangxi, and even Guizhou above it.”

“…”

“And during that long war, battles took place throughout this entire mountain range. No, battles took place not only in the mountain range but everywhere in the world. But are you going to search this entire mountain range to collect a few bodies? A mountain range where remnants of the Demonic Cult might still be holding out?”

Yoon Jong bit his lip. Chung Myung asked.

“Is it possible?”

In the end, Yoon Jong answered with a difficult sigh.

“It would be difficult.”

Chung Myung added indifferently.

“It’s easy for those who haven’t experienced it to say from behind that they should have done this, they should have done that. But it’s not like those who actually experienced it wanted to give up. There was no other way.”

Yoon Jong said nothing. He understood it in his head, but he couldn’t accept it in his heart.

A cold feeling went through Yoon Jong. He thought of the proud stories of Mount Hua’s heroes. But they were not all remembered in grand tombs. Many were lost and forgotten, just like these bones.

He then realized something anew. Of the Mount Hua’s ancestors he was so proud of, only one body had belatedly returned to Mount Hua.

The bodies of the others were buried so indifferently in this distant land. Without returning to the place they had left.

Who could dare to blame anyone for this?

Mount Hua itself hadn’t even dared to collect the remains of its ancestors. No, they had even forgotten that they should have done so in the first place.

Who could he blame now? Who could he resent?

“Then, at least these people…”

He was about to say that they should at least hold a memorial service for them, but Chung Myung cut him off and said as if throwing it away.

“Bury them again.”

Yoon Jong stared at Chung Myung, his eyes wide with disbelief and anger. ‘Bury them *again*?’ he repeated, his voice shaking.

It was impossible to search the entire mountain to collect the remaining bodies. But wasn’t it the duty of a human being to at least collect the bodies that had already been dug up?

But Chung Myung showed no particular reaction even in front of his gaze.

“A corpse is just a corpse. A dead body, nothing more, nothing less.”

“…”

“Wouldn’t it be absurd if a living person died trying to collect the bones of a dead person? We don’t have time for that, so just bury them again roughly. We need to get to Hainan quickly.”

“Chung Myung!”

“Senior Brother.” Then, Chung Myung said in a subdued voice.

“Don’t look down on people.”

“…”

“Do you think those who died here came without knowing they would end up like this?”

Yoon Jong bit his lip.

“They knew it would end up like this anyway. That’s why they fought. Do you think those who died here fought expecting to be treated with great respect?”

A bitter smile crossed Chung Myung’s face. A faint taste of blood lingered in his mouth.

That’s how it was back then. Even when a comrade died right next to him, he couldn’t even cover them with dirt. Even knowing that they would be torn apart by wild animals and rot in the rain and wind, he had no choice but to leave them alone.

But he had never once felt sorry.

Because he, too, would soon fall in the place where his comrade had fallen, and he would rot in the same way.

So, why should he feel sorry?

That’s how it was back then. *Uselessly* feeling sorry for the dead wouldn’t help anyone.

Chung Myung turned his head away altogether.

Thinking about the past would lead to sentimentality. Now was not the time to indulge in sentimentality. What was important to him was not the past that had already passed, but the present.

He shouldn’t pity those who had died. Everyone had fulfilled their mission and fallen asleep until the very last moment. Rather, the one who should be pitied was Chung Myung, who was being dragged back into this hell even after finishing his role.

So…

“I don’t have time to waste in a place like this.” Chung Myung shook his head.

“Keep your sentiments to a minimum. Unless you really want to see this kind of sight vividly again.”

It was then that Chung Myung was about to indifferently cover the soil again.

“Ch, Chung Myung…” Jo Gul’s trembling voice was heard.

And at that moment, Chung Myung sensed it. That it would be better not to hear the words that would follow.

But Jo Gul’s voice relentlessly pierced his ears.

“Here…”

Chung Myung turned his gaze. He checked the place Jo Gul was pointing at and saw it.

A rusty sword, stuck at an angle.

Yoon Jong and Yoo Iseol turned to see what Jo Gul was pointing at. They followed his shaking finger and then they saw it too. A small, faded mark on the hilt of the rusty sword. A plum blossom. The symbol of Mount Hua.

At the end of the hilt of the old thing, which was so worn that it was hard to even call it a sword anymore, was engraved…

“It’s a plum blossom sword…”

A small plum blossom pattern.