Chronicles of the Martial God’s Return - Chapter 106

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“That’s impressive swordwork, Gun Ja Geom.”
“That bastard’s technique is genuinely fast. Even with one arm, he’s still capable of this?”
As Dan Woo-hyun let out an exclamation of admiration, Sa Do-hak released a long breath.
He felt it—the steady return to his former self.
That swordwork he’d witnessed just moments ago.
Even Sa Do-hak’s eyes couldn’t properly follow it. He’d grown somewhat careless because the man had only one arm, but now it seemed he was slowly reclaiming the bearing of a Sword Emperor.
‘Still far off, though.’
Sa Do-hak let out a quiet chuckle.
He knew he still held the advantage over his opponent.
And that knowledge granted him composure.
“The Shadow Concealment Method—a technique from the extinct Hukdo Society of old. Do you have some connection to it?”
“Ha! As if I’d tell you!”
Namgung Cheon stroked his chin with a swift motion.
Certainly, what unfolded before their eyes was what Sa Do-hak called the Shadow Concealment Method. Yet something about it felt distinctly alien. Even the Inner Power flowing through these men’s bodies had a different character from what they knew.
What could it be?
Just then, Dan Woo-hyun’s voice cut through.
“We only need one or two of them alive to talk.”
“Ha ha ha. Then I should just kill them all, is that it?”
“If you don’t care about finding your family, do as you wish.”
Dan Woo-hyun gave a slight shrug.
He could sense that the murderous intent burning in Namgung Cheon’s heart still hadn’t cooled. The destruction of the Namgung Clan had been a shock to him—a wound that ran deep. Everyone who had a hand in it was his enemy.
“Ha ha ha. I suppose there’s no helping it then.”
Namgung Cheon shook the blood from his blade.
Then he glanced swiftly across the remaining men.
After a brief pause, a smile crossed his face.
“Gun Ja Geom—a rustic old geezer. You’re all destined to die soon anyway, but I’m counting on you.”
“What……”
Gun Ja Geom?
That was a name he’d never heard before.
Or had he? Something about it seemed familiar. And that mask too—now that he thought about it, he’d seen something like it commonly enough on Market Street, hadn’t he?
“You lunatic old fool!”
“Ha ha, an old man’s blade can be rather savage, I see.”
The masked men gritted their teeth and glared.
Old man or not, it didn’t change much.
They’d felt the difference in strength, but they had power of their own. If they thought they’d seen all there was to see from that brief display, they’d be badly mistaken.
The leader—a man of commanding presence—gave a nod to his subordinates.
This wouldn’t be an easy victory.
Even if they killed this senile old geezer here, there were two others sitting at ease behind him—and they seemed to possess equal or greater power.
‘Where did such monsters come from?’
It was said that countless reclusive masters dwelt throughout the Central Plains.
Could these be among them?
Either way, they wouldn’t win easily.
Then.
“Begin.”
He gathered his momentum.
A tremendous force surged up from his Dantian, consuming his entire body. His muscles suddenly swelled to several times their normal size. His Inner Power surged instantly in response.
This was their true blessing.
The power that had brought down the fearsome Namgung Clan.
“Hmm……”
“What… what is that?”
“Ha ha.”
Even Dan Woo-hyun, Sa Do-hak, and Namgung Cheon couldn’t hide their shock. Was such a transformation even possible in a human body? They could feel the increase not only in muscle but in Inner Power as well.
Their eyes burned with what looked like madness, cold and pitiless.
A killing intent radiated from them—the aura of those born solely for slaughter.
“Is that the Body Strengthening Law?”
Dan Woo-hyun grasped its nature at once.
The Body Strengthening Law—
A martial technique practiced by select masters a thousand years ago. One that could instantaneously amplify one’s muscles and inner power, overwhelming an opponent in the process.
He was genuinely surprised such a thing had persisted to this day.
Those capable of wielding the Body Strengthening Law had been among the rarest sorcerous clans in the Central Plains at that time, and because their power was so bizarre and destructive, martial artists from the surrounding regions had converged upon them and exterminated the clan entirely.
Officially, the world believed their bloodline had simply faded, but the truth was simpler: everyone had coveted the Body Strengthening Law for themselves.
“But it’s incomplete.”
Yes, the technique they were displaying was unstable.
A Body Strengthening Law that couldn’t maintain perfect self-awareness was nothing more than a tool for slaughter. Dan Woo-hyun smiled faintly and turned toward Namgung Cheon.
“Can we win?”
“Heh. Who exactly are you asking?”
Namgung Cheon’s eyes opened lazily.
He didn’t know what the Body Strengthening Law was.
But he understood that the martial art unfolding before him was not to be underestimated. If dozens of men simultaneously elevated all their abilities at once, it would pose a genuine threat even to him.
And yet, he calmed his mind with composure.
Hadn’t he overcome crises like this many times since childhood?
Who was he, after all?
The Sword Emperor himself.
“Come then, children. Show yourselves.”
He extended his blade with a gentle grace.
The power contained within it brushed lightly against the wind.
The Namgung Clan, spanning a thousand years of history.
The Unobstructed Heaven Sword always embraced wind and severed clouds. A mind that gazed upward at a clear, open sky—that alone was proof that one wielded the blade correctly.
Stillness.
Clarity suffused him, and he could see the azure heavens.
He wove all of it, measure by measure, into the blade, and held his breath.
It had been so very long.
This feeling.
As though he had returned to his childhood—that time when he was consumed entirely by longing for the strong.
Namgung Cheon gazed at those before him.
Massive figures were rushing forward without restraint.
They were fast.
Incomparably faster than they had been moments before.
And yet.
There it ended.
The Namgung blade does not break.
That is the very essence of Heaven’s Namgung Clan’s sword.
Slash!
In the instant he drew his blade, the entire surroundings erupted in blood. The sight was so miraculous that one couldn’t discern who had been cut, where, or how.
The masked figures, staring endlessly at the spraying blood, collapsed one after another. None could withstand that blade; none could escape its influence.
The thrust could not be dodged, could not be blocked.
“Uaaagh!”
The masked figures fell one by one.
Most seemed to expire on the spot, not stirring even slightly, while a few survivors crawled across the ground like dogs, groaning.
“Gaaaahhh…….”
Their eyes rolled back as their bodies convulsed.
Like dying earthworms writhing in the dirt—their forms were quite amusing to witness. Namgung Cheon gazed down at them with a cold expression.
“You didn’t die, I see.”
“Heh. Didn’t I tell you? This old man’s blade doesn’t shatter so easily.”
“Hmm. But compared to how you once were…….”
“Care to test it?”
“You bastard! Do you have a death wish?”
Sa Do-hak surged to his feet, gripping his blade.
His intention was to instantly crush Namgung Cheon’s arrogance—the man who had so confidently annihilated these fools in one stroke. His demonic aura rose in thick waves.
And with it, Namgung Cheon’s own momentum spread forth.
As it pressed down on all directions, it seemed as though heaven and earth themselves were transforming into catastrophe.
Tremble, tremble.
The masked figure still sprawled upon the ground, unconscious, felt all those auras and trembled. This was no force a human should be capable of generating.
This was truly a natural disaster in human form, wasn’t it?
‘What…… what on earth…….’
Through the haze of fading consciousness, he watched the two figures. To step into that conflict would be to vanish without a trace, he was certain.
It was then.
Thud. Thud.
Footsteps echoed.
Through the fading haze of his vision, he saw a pair of feet stop before him. The figure knelt down, reached out, and grabbed him by the hair, lifting his head.
A face came into view.
The same man who had been sitting a moment before.
An expression of utter indifference met his eyes.
His breath caught.
From a distance, he hadn’t felt it, but this close—it was unmistakable.
This man.
He was something altogether different from those two old ones.
A terror that seized his entire body merely from being looked upon.
Meeting that gaze, he was sucked into an abyss of darkness.
“I have many questions. For now, rest.”
At those words, his consciousness slipped away.

“Aaaaaghhhhh!”
“Quiet.”
Sa Do-hak released his grip and clamped a hand over the masked man’s mouth.
Then he drew back his fist and struck the face brutally, again and again.
Crack! Crack!
With each savage blow, the masked man’s head whipped back and forth. The fight had already drained from his eyes; he no longer even registered the blows.
This place was not far from the Namgung Clan Estate.
No one passed through here, and though the masked men shrieked, no one came to their aid.
And what was this?
Torture was meant to extract confessions—to force the mouth open.
Yet this old man wearing the Ma Cheon Gun mask asked nothing. He simply beat them with gleeful abandon, applying torture for its own sake.
The leader of their group, breathing heavily, forced out words.
“Just… kill me…”
“Funny. A sense of humor, even now.”
Sa Do-hak laughed without amusement and swung his fist again. It wasn’t the most excruciating torture—no fingers being severed, no flesh being flayed away.
But he asked nothing, sought nothing, and never ceased. The relentless violence inflicted a psychological torment almost impossible to endure.
There was no sense that death would come for him.
He wanted escape from the pain.
But he knew it would not come.
That knowledge bore down harder still.
“Ughhhh… please… just kill me…”
His subordinates fared no better.
Death would have been a mercy.
These men seemed intent on breaking their minds entirely.
“Now then. Tell me. Where are the ones who were taken?”
Sa Do-hak spoke casually as he wiped the blood from his hands on the masked men’s robes—a question asked so naturally it might have been gentle.
But when no one answered, only gasps and whimpers escaping them, a thin, mocking chuckle came again.
It was as though he’d expected this all along.
“Seems a bit insufficient. Is this all the great Ma Cheon Gun can manage?”
“Just hold on a second! I’ll handle this myself!”
Sa Do-hak shouted loudly at Dan Woo-hyun. Breaking a man’s mind through carefully modulated violence was extraordinarily difficult work.
And this wasn’t even conventional torture.
Sa Do-hak furrowed his brow.
He grabbed one man by the mouth.
Forced his jaw open wide, then seized the gums with his fingers.
Tear!
“Aaaaaghhhhhhh!”
“Come to think of it, we can afford to lose one of them anyway. Ten fingers and toes—smash the teeth and gums, and maybe that’ll teach him to hold out?”
Sa Do-hak’s smile turned sinister.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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