Chronicles of the Martial God’s Return - Chapter 124

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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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“What… what in heaven’s name is unfolding before my eyes……”
Go Dam-jin stood trembling, his voice gone. The man who had stepped forward just before the one called the Gentleman Swordsman fell. His overwhelming martial prowess was beyond all description.
But it was far more than that.
Many guards still remained in the hall.
Either way, it seemed nearly impossible to bring down Moyong Hyuk-mun without dealing with them first.
Yet he rose.
The man in the black mask.
Standing, he seized the sword lying on the ground and began to swing it. One stroke, then another. With each arc of his blade, they fell without exception. A single clean motion each time.
Renowned masters of the Nine Schools and One House, men who had never flinched no matter how many times they hurled themselves at their foe—they crumpled like tofu sliced cleanly through, littering the floor.
“Where… where have such masters come from!”
Jang Heo, an elder of the Kunlun Sect, could not steady the tremor in his voice. The spectacle unfolding before them was simply overwhelming and miraculous.
What magnified their astonishment even more was this:
The man facing Moyong Hyuk-mun.
He appeared to be barely thirty years old, and yet he handled the Sword Saint Moyong Hyuk-mun—who had gained greater power than before—as effortlessly as one would handle a child.
Crash!
“Ughhh!”
Moyong Hyuk-mun coughed blood and fell to his knees.
The Sword Path he extended crumbled without fail. The Movement Technique beneath his feet proved useless. Everything he had wielded and honed through sweat and toil since childhood—all of it—became like a midday dream, exerting no influence whatsoever upon the man before him.
How could such a thing be?
Not even the Sword Emperor of all creation could accomplish this!
“Impossible!”
Moyong Hyuk-mun shot to his feet and swung his blade with savage fury. His wild, frenzied strikes lacked the poise of one called a Sword Saint.
They were merely cuts, nothing more—desperate attempts to wound the man before him.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
And so everything he threw forward felt hollow.
Ennui flickered across Dan Woo-hyun’s face as he parried.
“Monotonous. Tedious, really.”
With those words, he drove his sword forward with terrible force.
Bang!
The moment blade met blade, a catastrophic surge of power erupted. Moyong Hyuk-mun’s body lifted like a feather, his ascent almost pitiful to witness.
Crash!
He was driven deep into the interior of the Alliance Master Hall.
From outside, his form could no longer be seen at all. Those watching stood speechless, their breath caught in their throats as they confronted the overwhelming force on display.
“Father!”
It was then that Moyong Gwan-cheon snapped back to awareness, crying out and bolting into the Alliance Master Hall. His father the Sword Saint—the man who held the highest place, who was always a figure of reverence and aspiration.
That father was now being trampled before his eyes.
He refused to believe this was real.
He wanted to wake from this dream, yet somehow it would not break.
Moyong Gwan-cheon’s entire body shook violently.
What was happening?
He rushed into the hall and found his father—huddled alone in a corner, groaning. The moment he ran forward to help him up—
Whack!
“Gack!”
Moyong Hyuk-mun’s fist drove into Moyong Gwan-cheon’s chest. His body flew backward, tumbling outside the hall as it crashed against stone.
Slice!
“Ahhhhhhhhh!”
A terrible scream. Blood erupted.
What had happened?
Moyong Gwan-cheon’s eyes remained wide even as comprehension eluded him. His father’s arm had been severed. Blood sprayed. A terrible cry tore the air.
Step… step…
And with it came the footfalls of death, drawing ever closer.
“Who taught you that?”
“Hah… hrk-hrk-hrk, do… do I look like I’d tell you?”
Dan Woo-hyun looked down at Moyong Hyuk-mun with cold indifference. He spoke no words, and his expression remained unreadable—which only deepened the dread.
Yet there was no fear in Moyong Hyuk-mun’s eyes.
What he felt was something entirely different from the terror consuming Moyong Gwan-cheon.
A resolve to kill his opponent.
Eyes bloodshot with fury, he spat those words aloud—and the moment his Internal Power erupted without mercy, he lunged forward, sword in hand.
“Die. You wretch!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The entire Alliance Master Hall shuddered under the force of the blast. As though indifferent to who might be inside or what the aftermath would bring, Moyong Hyuk-mun was consumed entirely by killing intent.
Yet.
“Aaahhhhgh!”
Through the crude explosion of power, Dan Woo-hyun’s blade slipped with cunning precision, carving deep into Moyong Hyuk-mun’s leg, shoulder, and waist.
The moment of the strike was impossible to perceive.
Moyong Hyuk-mun stumbled backward, his teeth grinding audibly.
Impossible.
Impossible.
He had only just ascended to a height where he could look down upon all things, transcending even the Sword Emperor. And now this wretch appears from nowhere—what is he?
He looks down upon me.
I cannot accept this.
He must die.
He must die.
If only this fool were dead, all would be at peace. As in the past—holding a woman close, commanding those beneath me like slaves, wielding absolute power to move the entire Martial World of the Central Plains with a single finger. The power to…
“Gwan…Gwan-cheon?”
At the edge of Moyong Hyuk-mun’s vision, as his teeth ground and fury poured forth, he glimpsed something. The form of his son—who moments ago had wept at his father’s side.
But why was he lying down?
Why was he coughing blood?
Why did he not stir at all?
Trembling violently, Moyong Hyuk-mun drew near his son. He reached out and felt for his pulse. Finding not the slightest flutter, his expression shifted moment by moment.
“You… you…”
Namgung Cheon, who had quietly entered, could not conceal his shock. It was the son he had treated most harshly. Yet there could be no denying the truth.
As Namgung Cheon had raised Namgung So-hye with stern discipline, so Moyong Hyuk-mun had raised his son to become an even stronger warrior—and thus had never offered him a single tender word.
And yet, with each passing day, Moyong Gwan-cheon had not ceased to depend upon his father—and each time, Moyong Hyuk-mun had only grown more callous.
How could such a thing be called anything but denial of love?
Because he had harbored love for his son—precisely because of that love—Namgung Cheon dreaded what his death would mean for Moyong Hyuk-mun.
“Rise… wake up! What are you doing?”
Moyong Hyuk-mun’s trembling voice broke forth.
But still Moyong Gwan-cheon gave no answer, and not even the slightest tremor passed through his fingers.
“Why! Why has it come to this!”
Crash!
A roar burst from Moyong Hyuk-mun’s throat.
Each wailing word that tore from him assaulted the ears with brutal force.
“Foolish. You killed your own son with your own hands and didn’t even know.”
“What… what did you say?! I… I killed him?”
Moyong Hyuk-mun stared at Dan Woo-hyun with a strange expression. He raked through his memory, piece by piece, holding that scornful face in his gaze.
A moment ago—the strike he had unleashed to attack Dan Woo-hyun.
Without a thought, it had swept across all around him, and in that carelessness, he had hewn down even Moyong Gwan-cheon. A single sword stroke aimed at nothing but the death of his opponent—he had not spared a thought for anyone nearby.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!”
A shriek tore from Moyong Hyuk-mun.
His eyes blazed anew as he hurled his rage toward Dan Woo-hyun.
“Whether to call you foolish or a dolt…”

Rain falls.
It pours down as though to extinguish a burning flame. The one who grips the blade, the one who has fallen, those who merely stand and watch in numb silence.
All alike, drenched by the rain, burned that scene into their eyes.
Crash!
“Ungh!”
The Sword Saint of all under heaven.
Moyong Hyuk-mun.
Though his strength may not reach that of the Five Emperors, the fact that he is among the foremost warriors of the Central Plains remains unchanged.
Once he had stood at the very peak of the Orthodox Martial Sect, an object of reverence to all martial artists. Yet in the eyes of those who now beheld him lay a mingled anguish and affection.
The anger that the Righteous Martial Way had been shaken by this fall.
A grief at witnessing one they had once revered crumble so wretchedly before their eyes.
“Hah… hah…”
With eyes blazing red, he glared at Dan Woo-hyun. The blade in his grip—though it bore the name of a Renowned Sword—was chipped and broken to a pitiful degree, and the Sword Saint’s form was no better.
His mouth bled and swelled grotesquely.
Blood streamed down without cease, showing no sign of stopping. His tangled hair, matted with blood and dirt, looked worse than a beggar’s, and his White Robe—torn, slashed, frayed—hung from him like his dignity itself.
Yet Moyong Hyuk-mun came on.
Unwilling to accept that there existed another being he could never defeat, he gnashed his teeth and wielded his blade, thrusting his pride forward.
But whether struck down with force or swung with finesse,
his opponent’s sword left him helpless.
Clang!
Dan Woo-hyun parried it lightly and shoved him back. Despite his wealth of Internal Energy and experience, Moyong Hyuk-mun’s body was driven backward almost absurdly, his balance lost.
Without missing the moment, Dan Woo-hyun lashed out with his foot as though wielding a whip.
Crack!
“Ugh!”
Moyong Hyuk-mun’s face took the blow; blood sprayed as he flew backward. It was a fight so utterly one-sided one could scarcely believe the Sword Saint stood before them.
Even Namgung Cheon, watching, squeezed his eyes shut.
“Stop…! Stop it!”
Staring at his unconscious comrade without so much as a twitch, Namgung Cheon could bear it no longer. He had lost his arm. He had lost his son.
And now he was being utterly crushed before all these people.
His pride itself lay trampled in the dirt.
What more was there to gain by tormenting him?
The resentment knotted in his heart could never be fully unraveled.
“You won’t kill him?”
Dan Woo-hyun, sword loosely in hand, gazed down at the fallen Moyong Hyuk-mun. Namgung Cheon’s plea to stop seemed to strike him as strange.
But Namgung Cheon shook his head.
“Please… go. Leave.”
“…You’ll regret this.”
Why did those words carry such weight? The narrow, piercing gaze Dan Woo-hyun fixed upon the unconscious man made it seem he desired Moyong Hyuk-mun’s death.
Yet what more could be done?
Everything was already lost.
“I… will release him.”
A small, bitter laugh escaped somewhere.
It was the mockery of Sadohak from behind. Though he understood it well enough, Namgung Cheon had no choice but to make this choice. He too had lost nearly everything, yet so had the other.
But Namgung Cheon still had family. He still had the people of the estate. Moyong Hyuk-mun, by contrast, had lost everything from beginning to end, and there was no reclaiming it.
It had already been far too cruel.
“Let me… take him and his son’s remains.”
Dan Woo-hyun regarded Namgung Cheon in silence. Seeing an expression that suggested he would not listen to anything more, Dan Woo-hyun drew a long breath, as if resigned.
“So be it.”

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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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