Chronicles of the Martial God’s Return - Chapter 150

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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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“Hack!”
What in the world was happening?
Jeok Mu-seong, coughing blood, couldn’t gather his wits about the scene unfolding before him. When had the garden landscape changed, and how had he ended up with his face pressed into the ground?
The pain was so disorienting that his brow furrowed involuntarily. Even though he’d instinctively thrown up his Protective Strong Qi, it shattered in an instant.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Dan Woo-hyun’s foot drove deep into his abdomen.
Jeok Mu-seong was sent sliding backward, and for a moment he felt his breath catch. All the air in his lungs expelled at once—he couldn’t breathe at all.
His face flushed crimson.
“Grrgh…….”
“I told you not to draw it.”
At the voice, he raised his eyes to meet his opponent’s gaze.
A composed expression.
Eyes that looked down upon a man.
An arrogant bearing.
These things grated against Jeok Mu-seong, one of the Five Supremes.
Jeok Mu-seong slowly pushed himself to his feet.
Enduring the pain, he gradually steadied his breathing.
“Impressive skill.”
“Hah…….”
Jeok Mu-seong wiped the blood from his lips, his composure somewhat recovered. Not that the pain was gone. He’d also come to realize his opponent’s true strength exceeded what he’d imagined.
So at first, he’d been careless. But not now.
Who was he, after all?
He was one of the Five Supremes—king of the Heterodox Sect.
He harbored not a shred of thought that he might lose.
Slowly, he channeled force into his blade and mastered his mind.
The mocking expression of his opponent barely registered in his vision.
“Don’t think the same trick will work twice.”
“Is that so.”
Still, this one displeased him.
Though Jeok Mu-seong’s presence dominated the space around them, the man merely stood motionless, smiling. Like an adult watching a child’s antics.
He charged forward.
Waiting or studying his opponent didn’t suit his nature. Driving each blow with full force, pressing relentlessly—this was the tactic that had forged the Jeok Mu-seong of today.
And his opponent wasn’t even holding a blade.
A martial artist who favored fists and feet would naturally be at a disadvantage against one who wielded a sword. The Sword Force of a martial artist who’d reached the Entrance Level possessed a sharpness that could cleave even diamond stone in two.
Thus, one who relied mainly on fists and feet was somewhat disadvantaged.
Slash-slash-slash!
The sword, swung with vicious speed, moved so fast the blade itself barely registered. Yet something felt wrong—he caught it immediately.
‘He’s dodging!’
He’d already thrown more than five moves.
Even Namgung Cheon or Sa Do-hak, he’d have wagered, couldn’t evade them all. Yet the blade fell short of Dan Woo-hyun’s face, as though the sword had suddenly grown too short.
Grinding his teeth, he took a step forward—
Bang!
An unexpected surge of force sent him sliding backward.
“Gasp……!”
“Not bad. Your Swordsmanship is comparable to Namgung Cheon’s—hardly lacking.”
The words stoked his fury even more.
Jeok Mu-seong ground his teeth, regained his balance, and planted himself on the ground. His eyes, fixed on his opponent, blazed with the heat of murderous intent.
“I’ll kill you. You bastard!”
He unleashed a sharp killing intent and tremendous momentum. Being toyed with, his trampled pride, this was the first time in his life, walking the Martial Way, that he’d endured such a thing.
Were the duel even remotely evenly matched, his spirit wouldn’t flag.
But the fight unfolding was utterly one-sided. As one who stood at the rank of the Five Supremes, Jeok Mu-seong couldn’t gracefully accept any of this.
“Fine spirit you have.”
“You bastard! All mouth, aren’t you!”
The scoff from Dan Woo-hyun’s lips burrowed into his ears once more. Each time he heard it, a killing intent welled up as though his mind might snap.
This was unacceptable!
A second lapse in focus!
No—he’d simply fallen for the opponent’s mockery.
He tried to steady himself with such thoughts.
Otherwise, he feared he would lose his mind entirely.
“Now I understand. Why neither Namgung Cheon nor Sa Do-hak bothers to strike at the Sapa. Looking at you, you’re utterly worthless.”
“Y-you… this bastard…!”
“The Five Supremes? You clawed your way up with that strength?”
Every word rang with sincerity.
His eyes, his expression, each syllable that fell from his lips carved deep into Jeok Mu-seong’s chest. Whenever the Orthodox-Unorthodox Faction War erupted, the Sapa had never won. Not once.
The Sapa-Demon Faction War was no different.
Even when Late Stage Masters clashed among themselves, victories for the Sapa were vanishingly rare. Thus many spoke of the Sapa as the weakest of the three factions—a whisper that had driven Jeok Mu-seong to assault Shushan in the first place, if only to prove them wrong.
Jeok Mu-seong knew this truth as well as anyone, yet he was the one called the King of the Sapa, the man who despised hearing it more than all others.
His rage burned hotter still. His teeth gnashed.
“Crude as a wandering swordsman, acting no better than a common bandit. And a mind to match the most depraved—do you call such a thing a martial artist?”
“Hmph! Your tongue runs free only for now!”
“Moreover…”
Dan Woo-hyun murmured a single phrase and casually shifted his weight forward.
Bang!
The earth split violently beneath him, and dirt exploded skyward. The very ground trembled as though struck by an earthquake.
Jeok Mu-seong lost his footing in an instant.
What was happening before his eyes?
The moment his eyes widened in shock—
Crack-crack-crack!
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Stones hurtled toward him like hidden projectiles, hammering his entire body. For but a brief moment, the impact was violent enough to lift him clean off the ground.
Jeok Mu-seong crashed down and tumbled down the slope, groaning. The rocks embedded in the earth and the trees that stood motionless had become weapons, torturing him mercilessly.
“Ghhhhh…!”
Facedown, he writhed in agony.
The opponent’s strength was overwhelmingly, unmistakably real.
No mercy shown. No carelessness. He’d maintained maximum vigilance, had fought to kill, yet nothing worked—despair washed over him in waves.
He couldn’t win.
The moment that truth crystallized—
Fear flooded toward the man before him.
Fear?
Him? Jeok Mu-seong?
Born the Sapa’s finest talent, risen to his station through tireless effort. His mental fortitude matched his strength; experience and skill backed every move.
And yet—
Whoosh!
Hearing Dan Woo-hyun’s footsteps draw near, Jeok Mu-seong swung his blade. The horizontal cut was so fast that sound arrived only after the strike—a technique of pure speed.
“Ghhhhh…!”
But what unfolded before his eyes left Jeok Mu-seong speechless once more. The opponent had blocked the swung blade with his foot. Even Sword Force—which cleaved through diamond stone without effort—proved useless.
Where Dan Woo-hyun’s foot made contact, the Martial Power simply scattered.
How was such a thing even possible?
Nothing worked.
All the experience he’d accumulated, all his cunning, all that overwhelming strength—
Jeok Mu-seong’s mind, which had gazed down upon others in complacent triumph, crumbled in an instant like a sandcastle, shattering and scattering to dust.
His hair hung in disarray.
His entire body was caked with earth and blood. Though he still gripped his blade, fear made his hands tremble uncontrollably, and his eyes swam as though the ground itself were shaking.
“Are you afraid?”
At Dan Woo-hyun’s quietly spoken words, Jeok Mu-seong’s body jerked with a shudder.
With each step forward his opponent took, he retreated one step back.
The violent momentum he’d displayed moments before had evaporated entirely. All that filled Jeok Mu-seong’s mind was a desperate longing to escape this place.
“Pathetic. Did you draw your blade without such resolve?”
“Hngh…!”
Resolve?
He’d had none.
Perhaps he’d harbored it as a Late Stage Master. But Jeok Mu-seong, who bore the name of the Five Supremes—the apex of the Sapa—had drawn his blade only to cut, only to kill his enemy. Never once had he imagined suffering defeat himself.
That was the position of the strong.
And now Jeok Mu-seong had become the weak.
“Wh-what… what manner of man are you! Who… who exactly are you…!”
“You need not know.”
Dan Woo-hyun stepped forward with a contemptuous smile, closing the distance further.
“Damn it all!”
Jeok Mu-seong retreated two paces, then suddenly bolted forward in a frenzy. In all his years, he doubted he had ever run this fast.
“Huff! Huff!”
He ran. Faster and faster.
Squeezing every last shred of strength from his body, his eyes fixed ahead.
He had to put distance between himself and that monster—any distance at all. He felt it in his bones: this was no opponent to face. Survival demanded desperate flight.
He couldn’t face him again.
He couldn’t even bear to hear that voice.
‘I’ll never set foot near Ak-yang again—never!’
He clenched his teeth with that vow burning in his mind.

“Hahahaha!”
Sa Do-hak arrived at the battleground and couldn’t stop laughing. He had just witnessed one of the Five Supremes—the highest master of the Heterodox Sect itself—fleeing like a dog with its tail between its legs.
One of the Five Supremes. The strongest of the Sapa.
Watching him bolt in panic was nothing short of magnificent.
Even Namgung Cheon couldn’t help but smile slightly at the corners of his mouth.
He held back from laughing as heartily as Sa Do-hak, whether to preserve some dignity or for another reason altogether.
“Hehehehe! Oh, I’m dying!”
“Ahem! Stop this laughter! What’s so amusing about it?”
“That bastard. Khahaha!”
As the laughter kept erupting, even Namgung Cheon turned away, his shoulders shaking with mirth. The spectacle before them was simply too absurd to contain.
Dan Woo-hyun’s expression itself betrayed a certain bewilderment.
He hadn’t expected someone of such caliber to resort to flight. So despite watching him run, he hadn’t given chase.
The absurdity of it all had even drained away his murderous intent.
“Interesting… was his name Jeok Mu-seong?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“I’ve seen many in my time, but never one like him.”
Dan Woo-hyun let a soft laugh escape.
Life was like that sometimes—full of the expected and the utterly unforeseen. Sometimes things happened that you’d never imagine happening, and this was precisely one of those moments.
The greatest master of the Sapa… running for his life?
The fact kept drawing laughter from Dan Woo-hyun.
“With this, the Sapa side will lie low for a while.”
Unless Jeok Mu-seong was a fool, he wouldn’t attack recklessly again. He would need information about his opponent, and by now he must have realized that his current strength fell far short of what was needed to face Dan Woo-hyun.
So only one thing remained.
He turned his gaze westward.
‘What’s he up to now?’
Dan Woo-hyun thought of the man who posed the greatest problem of all, and his brow furrowed.

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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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