"No… no… no…" Kai screamed as he forcefully shoved himself from the heap of the ancient bamboo cluster.

His breaths came in gags, as the sharp, broken parts of the bamboo screeched across his waist, arms, and face as he dashed forward, paddling his arms in the air.

The more he moved past a broken bamboo, the more the world narrowed in his vision, forcing him to crumple on the ground.

But no matter how hard he—his body—slammed on the ground, he jolted up with brute force.

Reaching seven meters away from where Clara had knelt, he saw a wide smile tear on Wang's face as he tightened his grip on the sword's handle.

The more the sword moved down, the more Kai's vision tinted. And the moment he closed in, a freezing cold wind snaked through his spine, as a slashing sound echoed.

In that moment, the movements of the bamboo, the grins, the air, and the leaves spinning at his front all turned red as blood from the chopped and wailing head spun toward his direction.

"NO…!" Kai's legs became rigid, forcing him to collapse and stab his knees into the tip of the sharp, dwarf, broken bamboo.

Memories of him and Clara flared in his eyes so intense it forced his eyes to shut.

…

A deafening laughter tore out of Kang's bloodied mouth. "See how death is," he grinned, then moved three steps toward Marcus.

Grabbing the golden sword from Marcus, Kang walked toward the boy that had knelt down and was not moving.

Kang raised the golden sword above the boy's head. "Let's see how you behave after becoming one of them."

Cool air whistled through the bamboos at the front of the ancient one Kai crushed into earlier, snaking through the stalks and letting the leaves rain.

At the verge of getting stabbed by the golden sword in the head, the memories faded and turned into the face of his mother.

Kai grabbed the tip of the sword, which was just at his hair level, then pulled it from Kang's fist, and shoved it in his chest.

As the blade of the sword moved from Kang's inner skin, a dying breeze erupted from Kang's mouth when he saw a blazing red and blue light erupting from the boy's eyes.

And when the sword pierced through Kang's spine and appeared at his back, Jim, Wang, and Marcus's mouths forgot how to close.

Falling on the boy's shoulder, Kai could feel how Kang's heart hummed until it stopped.

Kai pulled the golden sword from Kang's chest, shoved it in his head, cracking his skull, then pulled it out.

Kai stood there, his chest heaving and the ragged breathing increased. And when he saw the sickening green veins appearing on Kang's body, Kai moved a step back, then sliced the sword at Kang's head, breaking the head and cutting the brain into two.

When the half head and brain flipped in the air and slammed in the dwarf bamboo the boy had stabbed his knees in earlier, Marcus's eyes reddened, then opened wide.

"BRAT!" he screamed, then dashed forward toward Kai at great speed.

Marcus sliced the blade of the sword at the kid's neck, but it got blocked with the golden sword. He swung himself sideways, spiralled the sword for the kid's waist, which also got blocked.

For countless strikes, Kai's arms moved, parading the strike that would have splattered him into two, without moving a single step.

The sky above changed, turning dark as the sun gave way for the moon to shine.

When the moon appeared, a loud scream tore through the bamboo forest, as the trembling golden sword, gripped tightly in Kai's arms, stabbed Marcus at the right-hand side.

"Fu..ck you, KID!" Marcus screamed as he loosened his grip on the handle of the sword, then stumbled back.

Panting heavily, he placed his left arm over the wound and smiled.

Behind them, Jim pulled out a black bottle from the pocket on his trousers, and then moved forward toward the bleeding Marcus.

"Take this to prevent you from turning into a zombie," Jim said, extending the two-inch bottle to Marcus.

"Huh," Marcus grabbed the bottle hastily, and poured the black liquid into his mouth.

Marcus's face tensed as the liquid snaked through his throat. He turned a sharp gaze at the boy kneeling beside the chopped head of Clara, then smiled.

"I've seen your weakness," he smiled, bent down, and grabbed the sword he loosened his hand on and stretched it to the boy.

"Hey, kid." Marcus shouted, and when the boy's attention moved to him, he stabbed the sword into the headless body he stood beside and grinned.

Blood oozed out of the reddened skin on the neck, splashing on the ground, and on the stalks of the bamboo trees.

…

Meanwhile, inside the temple, as the moon's rays shone on the bloodied ground, metal parts of guns resting in them glittered, but got kicked when two people moved past them.

As the armed personnel's boot slipped and fell on the bloodied ground, the zombified monk threw itself on the guy, pierced its sharp teeth into the guy's neck.

A dying scream tore out of the armed personnel's throat as the blood oozed out of his neck and chest. When the zombified monk shoved its fingernails into the dying man's chest, a loud scream tore out, shaking the walls of the temple.

From the vast distance, where the endless staircase leading to the Shadow Cult's territory was, a man with white hair appeared, climbing the staircase.

His black and white cloak wailed in the night air as he stopped at the top of the stairs. He inhaled once, twice, but on the third time, he closed his eyes and shook his head.

When Yung Mai cracked his eyes open, he placed his steps in a soundless movement, shoved his way through the crowded zombified monks.

He grabbed, kicked, and broke the bones of the zombies one after another in a lightning movement.

Within a minute, almost all the countless zombified monks crowding his path at the side of the W Guan were floating in the air.

The moment he took two steps forward, all the seventy floating zombies slammed on the ground and blasted like balloons filled with water.

Green ichor and tiny parts of human skin splashed on the ground, the walls, and coated the air with a sickening taste.

When Yung Mai reached the path leading to the temple's main entrance, he sighed, "huh," then brushed his palms on his face.

"What's going on here?" he whispered when he saw men holding guns and firing at another huge number of zombified monks.

Yung Mai took only two minutes to close in with the men standing thirty meters away from where he stood at first.

And within those two minutes, all the affected monks and armed personnel received a kick, a punch, and were sent flying above him, beside him, and at his side.

The moment a blur bashed through the unaffected armed personnel, one fat, tummy guy's face tensed as he spotted a human with white hair move past him like a ghost.

And when he tilted his gaze and gun back to his front, he gagged. At his front, thousands of tiny human flesh spiralled in the air like torn feathers.

…

Meanwhile, outside the entrance, a sharp pain swelled through Yung Mai's chest as he saw a boy he had brought to join the Radiant Palm cult two years back, lying on the ground, dead.

He slowed his steps, stopped, and bent down beside the corpse of the boy whose head was smashed and splattered under a cart.

"Rest well, Jimmy." Yung Mai tilted his gaze to the stars in the sky and gasped as memories of him and the boy reeled in his mind.

A few minutes after the memories entered, a metal-to-metal sound struck Yung Mai's ears, forcing him to tilt his gaze at the bamboo forest.

And at the far distance, he saw two people, one slightly younger and the other older, fighting vigorously.

Yung Mai's jaw tensed as he moved toward the direction the men were fighting.

…

As the sword held tightly under Kai's right arm trembled and fell, Marcus pierced the huge blade of his sword into Kai's wounded shoulder, slicing it into two parts.

At that moment, Kai, who had now loosened his grip on the golden sword, slammed his knees heavily on the ground and gagged blood.

Little by little, his vision turned into a haze of black and glittering white light that spiralled like dust.

The moment his vision turned black, Kai's body slammed on the ground, but his ears could still hear the noise around him.

"…should we leave him here or take him to Gorg City?"

"…what we wanted was for him to die, so there's no need if he's dead."

"…wait, I can see someone coming. OH NO! Run before that man reaches here."

"…why? Can't you handle him like you handled the rest?"

"…if I can, I wouldn't have commanded you to run, RUN, NOW!"

As boots slammed the ground hastily, a different but familiar vibration shoved its way into Kai, but a minute after feeling the vibration, a cold wind moved across Kai's body, leaving him dead.

When Yung Mai reached a few meters before he exited the bamboo forest, he saw Jim chasing after two men holding swords.

"Jim!" Yung Mai stretched his arm forward and shouted, "let them go."

The moment Jim knew his plan had worked, he injured himself on the shoulder, before turning toward Yung Mai's direction.

And when Jim stopped by Yung Mai and Kai's body, he screamed, "Oh no, KAI!"

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