They had to retreat.
"....So many of the Descent Clan? How in the world....?"
Figuring out what kind of situation this was wasn't important right now. According to lore, many of the Descent Clan fell into this world possessing bizarre abilities. This was nothing short of a direct crisis.
Her body moved before her mind could think. While the tens of thousands of uninvited guests tangled amongst themselves and caused a massive racket, Jin Seon-ah and the three spies suppressed their presence. Clinging to the collapsed debris, they moved along the cliffside at the entrance of the valley.
No one paid any attention to the four figures scaling the wet rock crevices.
Only after prostrating herself against the cliffside did Jin Seon-ah catch the breath she had been holding. The valley came into view all at once again.
"This is a new map! An unreleased zone has opened up! I'm telling you, we're the very first ones here!"
"New map, my ass. What kind of new map implements a realistic smell of wet fish?"
"Record it, record all of it! This is the shot, it's going to be a massive hit!"
"Hey, this is lag, right? I got disconnected, didn't I? I got disconnected and stuck in a weird place, right?"
"Log out first. Log out.....Wow, seriously, it still won't work? Just how the hell do those Pantheon bastards do their jobs, huh?"
"....No, it's worse than that, the menu is literally half-glitched right now?"
"You idiots..... this isn't a game. There's no way this is a game....."
"Crazy. Fuck. It feels too real, shit..... I think we're seriously fucked, shit."
"Stop talking out of your asses, you bastards. If this isn't GOR, then where the hell is it? Huh? Where is it!"
There were those who sat down utterly stupefied, while beside them, others continuously scanned the surroundings with gleaming eyes. Some were crying, some were laughing, and others pushed at the backs of strangers without even knowing what had occurred.
"What has that guy been saying since a moment ago? What language is that?"
"It must be a global integrated event. Even foreign guys are mixed in there."
"If it were an event, a notice would have popped up. Anyone see a notice? .....None, right?"
"Don't chicken out. If Pantheon laid out a stage of this scale, it means the rewards are insane. First come, first served is the answer."
As he quietly observed the entirely incomprehensible pandemonium, one of the spies crept closer while suppressing his voice.
"Unit Commander. At a rough estimate, they number in the thousands.... no, they exceed ten thousand."
"Ten thousand? No."
Jin Seon-ah's eyes remained fixed on the valley.
"There must be at least thirty thousand."
Three months ago, when thousands had flocked here, she had thought the canyon was bursting at the seams, but those thousands were a mere handful compared to the crowd before her eyes now.
Furthermore, that crowd had not walked in through the entrance.
The very topic that martial historians still debated to this day.
Just how exactly do the Descent Clan enter this side?
Whether it was a formation, a sorcery, or some other special method.
However, from the perspective of martial artists who had no way of knowing what it was, they simply called it this:
An anomaly. A bizarre occurrence.
Right now, that very anomaly had manifested on a massive scale at the Superwind Cliff.
"I can't understand a single word of what they're saying. It's not the language of the Great Yue, nor the Northern regions, nor the Southern Barbarians."
"Ignore that."
Jin Seon-ah cut him off.
"Because it merely serves as proof that they came from another place."
"…If you say another place, where do you mean?"
Descent or Karmic Bonds were a type of taboo in the Martial World, so ordinary martial artists had never even heard of them.
The same went for the spies.
"I don't know either."
In truth, because the records left behind by the Descent Clan circulated in secret, a certain amount of knowledge did remain.
However, because they all came from entirely different places, many historians simply referred to it as 'Foreign Realm (I-to),' following the same logic as the term 'anomaly.'
"Then... what should we do now, Unit Commander?"
"For now, watch. See how those things act."
And just as she said, it was captured that the overall atmosphere of the large-scale Descent Clan was shifting in a strange direction.
"Ah, you total cowards, seriously. If this isn't a game, what else is it?"
A guy raised his voice from one side of the crowd. Cackling laughter followed immediately behind him.
"I'm telling you, even if you die, you just respawn! If you don't believe me, should I show you a demonstration?"
The man spun someone around next to him. A strange weapon was held in his hand. It was a chunk of iron too thick to be a sword, yet too short to be a saber.
"Hey, put the blade away. Is this a time to mess around?"
"Messing around? He's just going to wake right back up after I lay him down anyway, so what's the big deal?"
He struck down.
There was nothing that could be called hesitation. There was no glaring gaze, nor any killing intent loading into his shoulders. The blade came down as casually as a step taken to run an errand.
Slash.
Blood splattered.
Spurt.
It was simple.
Along with a flesh-tearing sound like cutting into a thick piece of tenderloin, blood shot up like a fountain along the severed surface.
In the eyes of the Descent Clan—no, the users—that scene embedded itself deeply into their pupils as if playing in slow motion.
"...."
The one who was cut collapsed into the mud, and the one who did the cutting didn't even look down at his own fingertips.
Screams erupted from various parts of the Superwind Cliff.
"Aaaah! Blood..... why is the blood splattering like this!?"
"...…Why isn't he disappearing?"
"No, shit! Why is he just lying there like that!?"
"I-It's a cinematic effect. They said the censorship limits were lifted recently. That's what it is."
"Cinematic effect, my ass..... Touch him. He's still warm. What kind of game is this, dammit!"
"Hey, snap out of it. Open your eyes, hey.... hey ******, you son of a bitch! Wake the fuck up, goddammit!"
The commotion that began around the unintended murder spread outward to its perimeter.
Rapid change, pandemonium, utter chaos.
Regardless, their shift in demeanor was read perfectly. Even though the language couldn't be understood, it was conveyed seamlessly in real-time that the crowd numbering in the tens of thousands was freezing up over a single dead body.
And it could be roughly deduced that the root cause of that reaction was 'blood and a corpse.'
To the eyes of Jin Seon-ah and the spies, there was absolutely nothing new about a person cutting down another person. In the Jianghu, people killed and were killed for far lesser reasons.
What made her expression harden and aroused her interest was, first of all, the face of the man who had cut the person down.
That man had a face that looked as though he didn't even comprehend what he had just done. To think that before killing his opponent just now, he had sliced with a smirk as if cutting a wooden horse, yet after cutting him down, he wore an expression as if he had slaughtered his own only son.
If that was the case...
If you cut a person, they bleed. The entire crowd was weeping and falling into shock over a logic that even a three-year-old child knew. They were shocked because blood flowed, shocked because he collapsed, and shocked because his breath stopped. Furthermore, the fact that they had been playful beforehand, as if such a thing could never happen....
'Does it mean that in your land, people do not bleed when they are cut?'
Does it mean that in your land, they do not die even if their heads are severed?
Just what kind of land is that Foreign Realm?
"That bastard killed someone! If this isn't a game, that's just straight-up murder..."
"Everyone, get away from the guy holding the blade. This place..., it's not a game."
"It is a game! It has to be a game, right!?"
"Shut up. Stop saying such ominous things!"
No… I… thought he would revive… everyone else said so too.
The initial killer retraced his steps awkwardly, pushed back by the gazes surrounding him. The crowd jostled the crowd, and the jostled crowd was pushed back again. Standing thirty thousand strong on the narrow canyon floor, they rotated around one another, crowding together and trampling each other's feet. It was an Asura domain.
Then, at some point.
That Asura domain suddenly quieted down.
Simultaneously with the realization that this situation was reality, everything that had occurred previously flashed through their minds.
The root cause.
Starting from the very center of the crowd deep within the valley, the clamor ceased one by one. As one shut their mouth, the neighbor followed suit, and that silence caught on toward the outside.
"…Hey, inside the valley, that thing is there."
"What is 'that thing'?"
"Ah, you know that guy, that guy."
"..Ah, that....bug."
"Huh? Him..... hey, look at that! That looks like a Kirin. It's a Kirin, right?"
"I told you it is! Look at those five-colored scales and that horn! The red arena field boss."
"Why is a field boss here? Don't tell me.... this really is an event map?"
"Event, my ass. Have you already forgotten how many of us got shredded by that thing? And look next to it, holy shit."
Jin Seon-ah's eyes also extended straight past the crowd where the users were looking.
There were five colors.
What had been dim beyond the sheets of rain took on a clear silhouette. A lion's mane. A horn over a six foot long. A massive frame encompassing the body of a horse covered in five-colored scales.
".....The Kirin."
The ferocious beast that had swallowed thousands. The trigger that had gathered the people of the Martial World to this place three months ago, and the holy beast that had vanished along with the absolute masters on that day.
"It was alive...?"
That fact alone was enough to warrant sending out hundreds of messenger falcons. However, instead of getting excited, Jin Seon-ah quietly observed its surroundings further. Because anyone could see that the current situation was far from ordinary.
Tens of thousands of the Descent Clan. This alone would be the greatest anomaly in the history of the Jianghu...
'Someone is there. Next to the Kirin.'
The Kirin was prostrated.
With its four legs folded and its head with the horn lowered deeply. The holy beast said to be born once in a thousand years—the ferocious beast said to bring about the deaths of tens of thousands, if not millions, if handled incorrectly—was lowering its body at the foot of a single human.
It was a man in black clothing.
"…Wait, who is that standing next to the beast?"
"That's.... the black guy. That bug."
"Bug? What bug?"
"The one that didn't even have an ID or a name tag. The unimplemented one who didn't display a level or anything."
"Unimplemented, bullshit. Does that kind of talk even come out of your mouth in this situation, you moron?"
"Don't you know what he did? He erased the administrators, the GMs, in a single blow."
"We got shredded too... for a last hit. So many times I couldn't even count."
"Last hit? Shut your mouth. That thing isn't something to be raided or not."
"Quiet down. Don't make eye contact. Everyone..., just keep your damn mouths shut."
As the murmuring died away, the eyes of the entire crowd converged solely upon that single nameless man. Their faces were deathly pale.
Even without knowing the language, one could tell that those people feared the man far more than the Kirin.
Jin Seon-ah scrutinized the man.
He was far. It was not a distance from which his exact features could be discerned. Although this Superwind Cliff canyon was said to be narrow, its actual scale was large enough to combine several walled cities.
From here to there must be at least twenty li.
However, she could identify that he was entirely in black. Black robes and black hair. No weapon was visible, and he merely stood within the sheets of rain.
'Who is it?'
Kim Rae-won.
That name surfaced naturally in her mind at that moment. The Sect Leader of the Hero Gate, who was said to have swept exclusively through the unorthodox factions while racing a thousand li.
She didn't know the reason.
She merely had a feeling that it would be so.
According to what she heard from her father, the actual Kim Rae-won had also vanished without a trace from the Jianghu for nearly twenty years.
There was no way to confirm it. Because she did not know his face. However, three of the four who had entered the valley were faces fairly well-known in the Jianghu, and as the leader of an information organization, Jin Seon-ah naturally knew them. Only the Sect Leader of the Hero Gate had never had his face made known to the Jianghu. Of course, a past portrait remained, but from what she heard, the man who returned was vastly different from his previous appearance.
'Then, does that mean he became the final claimant of the Kirin?'
Looking at the Kirin prostrated beside him, the legend could not help but resurface in her mind.
He who tames the Kirin will be followed by the entire world. He who claims its flesh will place the world beneath his feet. He who takes its bones will dye the world in blood.
Right then, a certain sound arrived.
Heh....
It was a low sound, half-buried in the noise of the rain.
Heh-heh-heh-heh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Nonetheless, it was a bizarre laugh that seemed capable of spreading across the entire world.
A single laugh echoed within the breathless valley. Without obstruction or hesitation, allowing it to hit the cliffs and reverberate back.
Jin Seon-ah realized late that her body was pressing even lower against the cliffside. It was an action she had never commanded.
Rainwater flowed down the back of her neck. The rain, which she had never once felt to be cold while enduring it for a month, felt freezing only now.
It was a strange thing. She had just witnessed a sight that made her wonder if the heavens collapsing could be any more terrifying.
Neither the bizarre spectacle of tens of thousands surging from empty ground nor anything else sent a shiver down her spine quite like that laugh.
At the end of the laughter, the man's head turned.
"...."
Their eyes met.
The man's gaze traveled up the cliffside and brushed past a spot on the slope—exactly where she lay prostrated.
She was discovered.....
Her breath caught. The sensation of the three spies freezing beside her was detected. The habit of first calculating an escape route kicked in, and the answer that there was none returned instantly.
She could instinctively tell that if that man set his mind to it, the four atop this slope were as good as dead.
However, nothing happened.
His gaze did not linger. It brushed past her, brushed past the spies, and soon moved on.
Squelch, squelch.
The man took a step.
Bizarrely, the tens of thousands of the Descent Clan parted down the middle just like that.
No one had ordered it, nor had anyone shouted to clear the path. Following the direction the man headed, the crowd split and retreated on its own. Like water parting at the bow of a ship.
It must be instinct.
A primal fear that humans could not help but experience.
At the place where the man came to a stop, a single figure was standing.
Jin Seon-ah finally recognized them.
Scattered here and there within the crowd, there were those who were not soaked by the rain.
Though the streaks of rain poured down, their clothes and hair remained dry. No, saying they were dry was insufficient. Like a reflection cast on pooled rainwater, their silhouettes shimmered as they stood.
Things that were clearly human, yet made one hesitant to call them human.
How should she put it?
Should she say that the flickering made them look like fireflies in human form?
The surrounding Descent Clan members were slinking away from their sides.
The man stood before that single figure.
And then.
Slash.
She did not see him draw a sword. She did not see the flash of a blade pass, nor did she see his arm move. However, the shimmering figure was suddenly divided into two and collapsed, and the man's hand was already lowered.
And the man merely stood before it.
Then, looking down at the dead thing.
He spat out a single phrase whose meaning could not be fathomed.
"Utterly meaningless," he muttered.