So? Did Someone Force You to Become the Heavenly Demon?

Once the rally came to an end, the fifty-thousand-strong army began its march north.

Since more than half of them were reservists who hadn't even been properly trained, mounting a defensive stand at Lanzhou might have seemed like the more sensible choice at a glance.

But the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult was in no position to simply hunker down in Lanzhou and wait it out.

If they hid behind Lanzhou's walls while the Western Military Command just bypassed them to strike elsewhere, things would get troublesome in all sorts of ways.

In particular, if those bastards seized control of the route connecting Xinjiang and Lanzhou or the route connecting Lanzhou and Shaanxi, it could easily turn into a disaster where every line of supply was cut clean off.

But since they couldn't very well lead men who weren't even an elite force in a siege assault, they intended to settle things in one massive battle.

Maybe it was because the bulk of the army was just reservists, but a nerve-wracking tension hung heavy in the air as they marched.

All of a sudden, Baek Un-hak pulled out a pipa and began to play.

It was hard to tell if his playing was so good because he was a master of the Realm of Truth or just because he was the Head of the Baek Family—a clan of drama queens who lived for the spotlight—his performance was flawless.

He even pumped his qi into the instrument so the melody flowing from the pipa could be heard clearly by soldiers standing dozens of meters away.

That melody was one familiar to most of the people gathered there.

As if confirming the expectations of the soldiers who were enjoying the tune, Baek Woon-hak began to sing.

"Through the dark of night, through the pitch-black night, we set out in search of the dawn."

Without missing a beat, the men who had come out to fight for the Cult sang the next line back at him.

"O’ Heavenly Demon, we shall thank you. For giving us light."

It was a hymn whose lyrics had been rewritten to fit the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, the Song of Light, also known as Siloam.

Thrilled by the crowd's enthusiastic response, Baek Un-hak played his pipa with even greater passion.

By that point, he didn't even need to bother singing himself anymore.

When the nearby soldiers heard his playing and started singing the hymn, their voices carried the song all the way to the back of the lines until the entire army was singing along.

His performance continued without pause, soon transitioning into the next song.

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored."

“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat…”

“His truth is marching on!”

Marching perfectly in time with the beat, the soldiers roared back.

“Glo~ ry! Glory! O’ Divine Cult!!”

“Glo~ ry! Glory! O’ Divine Cult!!”

Their thundering voices shook the air, echoing for miles in every direction.

Positioned in the center of the army, the Provincial Military Commander looked dizzy as he whipped his head around to look at his soldiers.

'What part of this looks like a rebel army?'

No matter how he looked at it, the scene felt less like an act of high treason and more like an army marching on a crusade.

But his confusion didn't last long. 

Rather than putting a stop to Baek Un-hak's playing, the Provincial Military Commander simply let out a small sigh and brushed it off with a wry smile.

‘This is probably better than making them feel like traitors.’

It was hard to argue with the results; the men who had been shaking in their boots a minute ago were now marching with fire in their eyes.

It was a massive morale boost that his speech couldn't hold a candle to.

Driven by the hymns, the army's march continued straight through the next day.

As the sun began to set, they set up a temporary camp for the night and then resumed their march early the following morning.

Tak Ju-gang, a man who had somehow ended up assigned to the role of a shield bearer, was also marching while belting out the hymns as loudly as he could.

His faith in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult was genuine.

He had believed in them even back when they had been active under the name of the Maitreya Luminous Cult, but his faith had only grown deeper as of late.

When the cruelty of the Mount Hua Sect had left his son gravely injured and stripped him of every last possession, the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult had returned, driven the Mount Hua Sect out, and healed his son.

From that day, he swore he’d gladly give up his life to repay that debt.

At least, that's what he was telling himself when he first marched out of Lanzhou.

But the further north they got, the more a knot of pure dread started twisting in his gut.

He was scared out of his mind.

‘No! I'd gladly die for these people! They protected my boy!’

Every time his fear tried to convince him to run, he just screamed the lyrics louder to drown it out.

He didn’t know how long he had been blindly marching and singing like that.

Thump.

Lost in his own daze, he accidentally bumped his head against the back of the man standing in front of him.

Confused, he leaned to the side and stood on his tiptoes to see what was going on.

And there, far in the distance, he saw something.

People.

Northern Gansu is a region situated adjacent to the nomads’ territory. It featured a large and flat plain with no mountains or canyons in sight.

Because of that, he could see the figures of the enemy army approaching from a distance with his naked eyes.

What's more, since Tak Ju-gang had been assigned as a shield-bearer, he had a front-row seat to the incoming army. 

Just seeing their sheer numbers from far away made him nervously swallow hard.

Gulp.

Was the sound of gulping always this loud?

As that question crossed his mind, Tak Ju-gang belatedly realized something. The men around him were swallowing dry mouthfuls just the same as he was.

'So I wasn't the only one who was scared.'

The instant he registered that fact, the hand gripping his shield began to tremble violently.

Suddenly, he was incredibly thankful that his background as a reservist placed him in the back rows of the shield unit.

'Should I… run?'

Just as an even greater temptation to flee washed over him, the familiar sound of the pipa reached his ears.

Almost instantly, the voices of his comrades singing hymns began to ring out from all around him once again.

The fear that had shaken him so hard had begun to subside.

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored."

“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat…”

As he sang the hymn along with the others to push down his fear, a thought rose to the surface.

'To deliver judgement? Me?’

His brain was screaming at him that he was about to step into a bloodbath, but his legs just kept moving on according to the beat of the hymn. 

He wasn't marching into a mental battle anymore, but for the real one.

kept marching toward the enemy for what felt like an eternity while singing the hymns the whole time.

The army that had looked so distant a few minutes ago was now uncomfortably close.

'Holy shit….'

Their numbers were staggering.

The Western Military Command’s eighty-thousand-strong grand army, the men responsible for guarding the empire's northwestern borders, was standing before them.

Eighty thousand seems like a small number for an army tasked with defending the entire northwestern frontier of the vast Central Plains, but that was just the active border patrol units that happened to be stationed nearby.

The Western Military Command was primarily responsible for defending three provinces and one prefecture in the northwest.

Those are Gansu, Shaanxi, Qinghai, and Ningxia.

That meant if a real war broke out and they recalled all their scattered troops and drafted local militias, that eighty-thousand-strong army would instantly balloon into a three-hundred-thousand-man juggernaut.

The only saving grace was that reinforcements from the three provinces and one prefecture that were supposed to join the Western Army Commandery hadn't arrived yet.

That was exactly why Il-mok and the Provincial Military Commander had decided to ditch the idea of a siege and take the fight to them.

If they just hid behind Lanzhou’s walls while the enemy waited for reinforcements, their only outcome would be getting crushed by the sheer number that the Western Military Command possessed.

Not that any of that grand strategy mattered to Tak Ju-gang; to him, the current eighty thousand troops felt like an unfathomably massive wall.

But even while fear gripped his entire being, his damn legs just kept marching him forward to the beat of the hymns.

'P-please, st-stop.'

As if the heavens had answered his desperate prayers, a grand drumbeat suddenly echoed out, and the soldiers ahead of him began to halt their march one by one.

Tak Ju-gang was so terrified that he felt like the enemy was breathing right down his neck. 

In reality, there was still a kilometer separating the two armies.

They were so far apart that even if they started firing cannons and volleys of arrows, it would result in nothing but wasting resources.

Just then, the drums hammered out another rhythm, and the men around him began moving off to the side.

Following their lead, he stepped aside just in time to watch the formation part and let a small group of people walk straight past them toward the front lines.

'The Incarnation of Maitreya?'

It was the young man he was now supposed to call Young Master Il-mok. Behind him were his maids and the Provincial Military Commander.

Each of them rode out from the formation on horseback and advanced until they came to a halt at roughly the midpoint between the two armies.

Drawing on his Qi, the Provincial Military Commander unleashed a booming shout that echoed across the entire battlefield.

"The army’s purpose is to protect the empire! So why is His Excellency pointing his blades at the citizens?!"

A murmur seemed to ripple through the enemy ranks at the Provincial Military Commander's accusation, but another shout answered him a moment later.

"It is also the duty of the military to punish treason!!!"

Maybe it was because Tak Ju-gang was up near the front, even though the shout had come from the middle of the enemy formation, he could hear that voice without much trouble.

"So you're telling me the military's true calling is taking orders from eunuchs who don't give a damn about the people?!"

The Provincial Military Commander and the enemy Commander went at each other with shouts laden with internal energy.

Then a shrill cry cut into their conversation.

"You insolent dog!! How dare a mere Provincial Commander insult His Excellency!!"

The Provincial Military Commander immediately seized on the outburst.

"Behold the sheer arrogance of that eunuch, His Excellency! What you are following are not the orders of His Majesty the Emperor! They are without a doubt the orders of that wicked Supreme Eunuch!!"

Listening to the argument from the rear, Tak Ju-gang nodded to himself.

'Th-that's right. This is all because those eunuch bastards are r-ruining the country! That's why I-I came h-here.'

But why wasn't it working? Even while he mentally repeated those excuses on a loop, his arms and legs wouldn't stop shaking.

‘W-What is a nobody like m-me even going to change out here?’

Hoping to calm himself down, Tak Ju-gang glanced around, only for his stomach to drop even further.

Every single man around him looked as tense as he was.

The moment the hymns had stopped, the fear that had been suppressed beneath the madness called faith began to swallow them up.

"Those wicked eunuchs are treating the nation like a playground while they rob and slaughter our people!"

Right now, the Provincial Military Commander's booming voice was the only thing keeping the army from completely breaking down.

‘Y-Yeah. W-We're the good guys here. The e-eunuchs are the bad guys! S-So please, just switch s-sides already!’

Unfortunately, the enemy commander wasn't in a charitable mood.

"No amount of words will change what you’ve done! You actually joined hands with the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, a group branded as terrorists over two centuries ago! Do you really think begging an outside faction for help is going to bring peace?!"

Without even giving the Provincial Military Commander a chance to argue back, the Western Military Commander roared his final order.

"What are you standing around for!? Wipe out every last one of those traitorous dogs!!"

Instantly, a deafening wave of war drums and horns blasted from the enemy camp.

The enemy army began moving as one toward them in formation.

"Charge!!"

The enemy ranks suddenly split open, and cavalry units came pouring out from everywhere to charge at them.

"Cut down the traitor Yang Gwang!"

The mounted generals led the terrifying charge, gunning straight for the Provincial Military Commander.

Death was bearing down on them.

The fanatics who were drunk on their faith finally snapped out of their trance at that sight.

Their entire bodies went paralyzed with terror.

'Pl-please, move!!'

Tak Ju-gang wanted to run so badly he thought he'd lose his mind, and yet his feet wouldn't budge.

While he stood there glued to the ground, just waiting for the cavalry to run him over, a strange sound came to his ears.

"Huh?"

Drawn by the sound, Tak Ju-gang looked to the front.

'Why…?'

There, he saw Young Master Il-mok along with his maids and the Provincial Military Commander standing still as if they didn’t see the enemies marching onto them.

‘D-Did they freeze up out of f-fear too?’

Just as that absurd thought crossed his mind, Young Master Il-mok, who had been standing rooted to the spot, stretched both hands forward.

Following the path of his extended arms, something resembling a floating orb drifted out and moved forward.

'A Taiji?'

There was something oddly leisurely about the sight.

It was clearly something that was ill-suited to an atmosphere where death was about to swallow them whole, but Tak Ju-gang found his gaze caught on it for some reason.

And the moment the enemy cavalry finally arrived right in front of Young Master Il-mok and his party—

"Be extinguished."

Il-mok's quiet voice slipped into his ears.

BZZZT-CRACKLE!!

The sound of thousands of birds taking flight all at once rang out and then—

BOOOOOM!!!!

A blinding flash of white light swallowed the whole world.

Overwhelmed by the intense explosion and blinding flash, Tak Ju-gang frantically slapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.

Maybe it was because he was standing pretty far back from ground zero, but he managed to pry his eyes open just a few seconds later.

"Ah…?"

He didn't make that sound.

It was a sound let out by someone among those around him and Tak Ju-gang found himself in agreement with it.

Just a second ago, an army of death had been barreling across that exact spot on the battlefield.

Now, there was literally nothing there.

Only Young Master Il-mok and his party stood there, alive and breathing.

The hundreds of cavalrymen who had been charging at them had already turned to ash and vanished.

Gulp.

Tak Ju-gang swallowed dryly without thinking.

His heart was hammering against his ribs so hard it felt like it was going to explode.

But he wasn't scared anymore.

'Aaaaah….'

He was in awe of having witnessed a god descending upon the battlefield.

Young Master Il-mok had summoned the light, and the world had been overturned.

That was the Light.

The Light that would extinguish evil and open a brand new world.

This was a fight in which a god marched at their side.

'With a god by our side, what is there to fear?'

This was a war that could not possibly be lost.

"All forces."

The voice with which the god called out to them released the shackles of fear that had been clutching at the limbs of His little lambs.

"Charge."

The moment Young Master Il-mok's order fell—

"The Heavenly Demon Descends!!"

"Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!!!"

The fifty thousand soldiers, who had been trembling in terror just moments before, had instantly transformed into holy knights marching into a sacred war.

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