Chronicles of the Martial God’s Return - Chapter 12

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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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Jang Sam-tae had lost his parents as a child and become an orphan, but he had a younger sister two years his junior.
Though the family was so poor they couldn’t always afford meals, and she wore rags instead of proper clothes, he was content.
He poured everything into raising her, and once he’d found her a respectable husband and seen her married off, he’d thought then he could finally live for himself.
But trouble came within a few short years.
Jang Sam-tae had harbored a talent for theft since childhood, and he felt no guilt taking what belonged to others—all he wanted was to give his sister fine things.
One day, he stole a garment.
Merchants who rarely ventured into his neighborhood had arrived with a considerable stock of valuable clothing.
There was so much that one piece wouldn’t even be missed, and his hand moved without hesitation; in the end, he committed the theft.
He couldn’t wear it immediately.
If any of the merchants spotted him in it, he’d be caught at once. He made her promise not to wear it outside, then hid it away.
Yet perhaps it was his sister’s fate that she eventually found the garment and wore it out regardless.
When she didn’t return even as the night grew late, he went searching. He combed the entire neighborhood, calling her name, but heard nothing.
He found her eventually.
In a narrow alley with no sign of another soul, sprawled across the ground.
Her clothes had been torn away, and her entire body was covered in bruises.
It wasn’t one man who’d done this—it looked as though several grown men had kicked her repeatedly. Blood had dried at her mouth and nose.
From that moment, he hated the child.
Because she wouldn’t listen to him.
But he couldn’t bear to see her die again because of him.
So he shielded Hwa So-mi all the more fiercely, taking the men’s kicks with his whole body.
“Hhgh! Look at this bastard’s toughness!”
“Shows how much the kid matters to him, doesn’t it? Drag her out. I’ll carve the flesh from her piece by piece right in front of his eyes.”
“Argh! You goddamn dogs! What are you trying to do to her… hack!”
He thrashed and screamed, striking at the men’s hands as they tried to wrench Hwa So-mi away. But their kicks came again, sweeping across his face.
Crack!
For a moment, the pain was enough to knock him backward.
“Sir!”
Hwa So-mi’s cry reached his ears.
Through blurred vision, he watched as the girl struggled in one man’s grasp, then—unable to break free—sank her teeth into his forearm.
“Aaaagh!”
The man roared, and his hand flashed across Hwa So-mi’s cheek.
She crumpled to the ground like a sheet of paper. But instead of crying, she pushed herself up with stubborn composure.
She seemed to swallow the pain without a sound.
The child planted herself in front of Jang Sam-tae, spreading her arms wide.
Her cheeks were swollen and livid, a sight that broke his heart.
She trembled from head to foot, yet she didn’t retreat.
Even as she watched the man approach, knife in hand.
“Run…… Run away!”
“No!”
“Run, you foolish girl!”
“No!”
“Please, go! You’ll die too if you stay!”
But Hwa So-mi would not obey. Still trembling, she stood her ground. Then she turned and smiled faintly at Jang Sam-tae.
“If you die, how will we eat? And besides…… this is because of So-mi!”
“…… Damn it…….”
He was bewildered, but there was no time to stay down.
The man had closed in and was already raising his blade toward Hwa So-mi.
Whoosh—!
“Argh!”
Crash-bang—!
Jang Sam-tae threw himself forward, seized Hwa So-mi, and brought them both to the ground. The blade whistled past, grazing his shoulder.
“Ha ha! Look at these two, will you? Playing games?”
The men laughed cruelly from all sides.
A thief and a simple-minded girl-child.
To them, it was just a pitiful farce.
Unlike them, Jang Sam-tae now understood the truth: they genuinely intended to kill Hwa So-mi.
If he hadn’t thrown himself forward, blood would be fountaining through the air by now. The thought alone made his teeth clench.
But even so—to try to kill a child.
“There’s no need to kill the girl!”
“Everyone connected to him will die anyway. What’s one child among them?”
“Madmen…….”
As Jang Sam-tae glared at them, grinding his teeth.
The man’s blade rose. He meant to skewer both of them at once.
A cruel smile played at the corner of the man’s mouth.
But then.
“Ugh!?”
Something was wrong.
His arm wouldn’t move—as if it had turned to stone.
Suddenly his entire body began to shake.
Cold sweat poured without stopping.
He forced his eyes to turn, though they resisted.
The others around him were the same.
As if time itself had stopped, they stood rigid and pale, no one able to open their mouth.
Whiiiing!
A chill wind swept through.
It cooled the heated body to ice, seeming ready to freeze even the flowing blood.
The very air entering his lungs had changed. With each breath, as if he’d inhaled a blade, his chest stabbed with agony.
‘What on earth is this?’
While fear made him tremble.
Pat-pat-pat—
The sound of footsteps reached his ears.
Every eye fixed on one spot. The heads that had hung paralyzed began to turn.
As their stiff necks moved, they swallowed dry and their eyes wavered.
A man appeared.
Expressionless as he approached, he seemed to carry a Ghostly Aura, his eyes blazing with the crimson glow of Crimson Flame.
An incomprehensible force emanated from around the man.
It was as though an Asura had descended into the mortal world.
Tremor—tremor—
The shaking of his body would not cease.
Not even a whimper of fear could escape.
“A mess indeed.”
The man now standing before Jang Sam-tae and Hwa So-mi muttered softly.
Jang Sam-tae recognized at once who was exerting this crushing weight upon them.
Dan Woo-hyeon.
There was no doubt—it was Dan Woo-hyeon.
“I… I… Young Master…”
Even speaking was a struggle. He had known Dan Woo-hyeon was formidable, but he had never imagined such overwhelming presence emanating from him.
He was on an entirely different level from any Murim master Jang Sam-tae had encountered before.
Could this truly be human?
“If you cannot rise, then die alongside them, Jang Sam-tae.”
The meaning behind those words was clear. Dan Woo-hyeon was commanding him to take Hwa So-mi and leave this place.
If he could not manage it, that would mean he was no longer useful, and Dan Woo-hyeon would bury him with the rest—so Jang Sam-tae forced himself to his feet.
Wounds and fear were nothing.
He had to stand.
He had to run.
No matter what, he had to get Hwa So-mi away.
He dragged his body upright and hoisted the unconscious Hwa So-mi onto his back. Each movement was torture, but he gritted his teeth and endured.
He bowed his head low.
“Go.”
At the cold command from Dan Woo-hyeon that followed, he snapped to attention and bolted forward. No one barred his path.
Though they gripped their blades, the will to swing them had broken, and with eyes drained of color, they stared only at Dan Woo-hyeon.
Leaving that sight behind, Jang Sam-tae threw himself into motion.
Then Dan Woo-hyeon’s voice spread outward.
“You will not die pretty deaths.”

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Jang Sam-tae ran forward, tears streaming down his face.
He never imagined he could be this weak. He prided himself on his Light Martial Arts, didn’t he? But all he knew was theft and quick movement—he couldn’t even protect a single small child.
The memory haunted him as he ran.
A child of barely seven years old. The way she had stood her ground, refusing to step back, determined to shield him. Her temperament was utterly unlike that of his dead brother, yet he felt an unbidden guilt, an unexpected tenderness toward her.
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”
Jang Sam-tae wept.
Tears fell from eyes he’d thought long since dried. The thought that another child might have perished because of him—that nearly happened—kept the sobs coming.
What good was it to be skilled at theft?
When he couldn’t protect a single child at his side.
What made him any better than her?
He thrashed against his own weakness, tears flowing freely.
Perhaps that was what made it all the more precious.
Before long, Jang Sam-tae reached the Jang Estate.
He pushed through the gate and stepped inside to find the space empty and cavernous.
A grand estate for only three inhabitants—imposing in its scale, yet that much more desolate.
Yet as soon as his feet crossed the threshold, a warm presence seemed to seep through his entire body.
He moved forward with a sigh of relief.
He entered the room and laid Hwa So-mi on the bed first.
He traced her swollen, crimson cheek with a frown.
“Fool that you are… Why did you have to step forward? Why not just run?”
Just then, Hwa So-mi’s eyes trembled slightly.
She opened them slowly and looked directly at Jang Sam-tae.
Then she glanced around, taking in her surroundings, and smiled softly.
“Are we home?”
“Yes, you foolish thing. We’re home.”
“Hehe. Are you alright?”
“You’re the one who should worry me.”
“So-mi is fine. I didn’t die, you see. I knew you would protect me.”
Where did such certainty come from?
The man who could do nothing but run away—the very notion that he could protect anyone seemed absurd. Yet this child seemed genuinely unaware of that truth.
Had Dan Woo-hyeon not appeared when he did, she truly would have died. Whether she understood this or not, she wore an expression of complete innocence and faith.
Jang Sam-tae found himself swallowing hard.
“Don’t ever do that again. Your own life matters more than anyone else’s.”
“No, it doesn’t. We’re family, aren’t we? That’s why So-mi will always do the same. I never want to live through that kind of loss again.”
Hwa So-mi’s eyes glistened with tears. The faces of her dead parents loomed in her mind.
The eyes of her mother and father, fading as they died at the hands of the Armor Platoon, remained vivid in her memory.
The screams of the villagers as they were slaughtered. The blood.
These horrors lingered as a nightmare she could not forget, gripping her by the ankle.
That was why she could not ignore the death of another.
Perhaps for that very reason, she had fought so fiercely to keep Jang Sam-tae safe.
Jang Sam-tae exhaled a long sigh and reached out to gently stroke her hair.
“Hehe.”
The touch seemed to please her; Hwa So-mi laughed again.
She was truly a strange child.
Yet her warmth was genuine and sincere.
At last, Jang Sam-tae had found a reason to remain in the Jang Estate.
“Yes, I will protect you. I promise.”

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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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