Chronicles of the Martial God’s Return - Chapter 164

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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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Thud!
“Ugh—hack!”
Ak Cheon-jin, the Bunta Master of Hao Mun’s Ak-yang branch, doubled over and collapsed to the floor, clutching his abdomen.
His ragged gasps and whimpers of agony were almost pitiful to witness.
He desperately wished someone—anyone—would step forward and end this nightmare, but his subordinates lay scattered across the ground, not a single one moving. The carnage surrounding him suggested it was the work of a lone attacker, which seemed almost impossible.
“Nngh…”
“I’ve known for some time that you trade in information—buy and sell it. But there are certain things that should never have reached the market. You should have understood that.”
Ak Cheon-jin forced his breathing to steady, his mind racing.
He struggled to recall whose information he’d sold recently.
So many people passed through this place that the specifics blurred together.
Buying and selling information was routine for Hao Mun—so routine he’d never imagined it could invite this kind of retaliation.
After all, he never traded in information that seemed likely to cause serious trouble.
“Hack—cough! W-who… who are you?”
He rasped the words between violent coughs, his gaze fixed on Dan Woo-hyun.
He hadn’t even known a master of this caliber existed in Ak-yang.
“So you sold information about someone yet don’t even know who that person is. Not much of an intelligence broker, are you?”
“Ungh…”
Dan Woo-hyun’s derision made Ak Cheon-jin flinch. The gathering of intelligence was work he delegated to his subordinates and the courtesans in his employ.
While he ordered them to sell it, they brought the information to him without his needing to remember faces—save for those powerful enough to matter.
His laziness had become his poison. Shame colored Ak Cheon-jin’s face crimson.
“Chumu Family.”
“!?”
Only then did Ak Cheon-jin grasp who he was dealing with.
A year ago, a sprawling estate had suddenly taken root near Ak-yang.
Someone had inscribed “Honam Danga” on its gate, and Ak Cheon-jin had suspected for some time that they were the ones resolving the various incidents that occurred in Ak-yang.
Unable to gather detailed intelligence, he’d grown nearly resigned to ignorance and had passed only vague scraps of what he knew to the Chumu Family.
‘That’s what brought this down on me?’
But there was an unfairness to it.
“I—I did sell it, but it was nothing of real value, I swear!”
“I’m sure.”
Dan Woo-hyun nodded.
Whether the information was significant hardly mattered.
What troubled him was that their affairs had reached someone else’s ears at all.
It was as if someone had been peering into his own courtyard—and nothing could be more offensive than that.
“There is one way you can live.”
For Ak Cheon-jin, standing at death’s threshold, these words glowed like a beacon of hope.
Life flickered back into his pallid, half-dead face in an instant.
His head bobbed desperately, hunger for survival breaking through his paralysis.
“Anything! Anything you ask—information, women, courtesans, whatever you need, I’ll provide!”
“I don’t need any of that.”
Dan Woo-hyun fixed him with an unwavering stare.
For a moment, Ak Cheon-jin felt himself being pulled into darkness.
His mind clouded, vertigo seized him, and his skin crawled with a terror that gripped his very core.
He wanted to look away, but his body had lost all strength—even that simple act was beyond him.
“Where is the master of Hao Mun?”
“Hiii—eek!”
The color drained from Ak Cheon-jin’s face.
The man before him was of the Celestial Realm—more terrifying than death itself.
Yet the master of Hao Mun was his benefactor, his savior, and in a way far more to be feared than Dan Woo-hyun.
Hao Mun’s reach extended across all the Central Plains—there was nowhere their gaze could not penetrate.
If it became known that he had betrayed them, living would be worse than death.
“I—I truly don’t know! I really don’t!”
“The master of Hao Mun conceals his whereabouts quite well, or so they say. Still, I thought someone of your position would know…”
The sound of dry swallowing echoed in the silence.
Ak Cheon-jin’s eyes darted frantically as he held his breath.
Hao Mun’s annual income was staggering, and their skill at gathering intelligence ranked among the top three in all the Central Plains, which meant that many powers sought the master’s identity.
Consequently, the master remained perpetually concealed, and even high-ranking members of Hao Mun could not contact him directly.
“I really… don’t….”
“Ak-yang is one of the finest resorts in the Central Plains. Every year, countless people come to see Dongting Lake, and it brings in substantial revenue.”
“Ugh…!”
“Naturally, there’s much to manage, and given the enormous sums of money involved, the Hao Mun leader would need someone trustworthy to oversee it all.”
Ak Cheon-jin’s body trembled violently.
This wasn’t something that could be resolved by simply claiming ignorance.
It seemed Dan Woo-hyun had come knowing everything about their circumstances from the start.
Dan Woo-hyun’s hand shot forward and seized Ak Cheon-jin’s face.
The instant his hand made contact, a surge of shock ran through his entire body—as though he’d been struck by lightning.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“I’ll ask again. Where is he? The Hao Mun leader.”
Dan Woo-hyun’s cold words fell like thunder on his ears.

***

“Aaaahhhhh!”
“Ahhhh!”
“P-please… save me…!”
At the entrance to Ak-yang, at the Gaebang Bunta
The wails echoing from that place made the beggars hold their breath and cower. Not one of them dared venture close enough to see what was happening.
The screams alone painted the scene as pure hell.
“Heh, well now….”
Namgung Cheon, masked with the Gentleman’s Sword mask, clicked his tongue and surveyed his surroundings.
The beggars gathered here numbered roughly two hundred. It looked as though they’d assembled everyone not only from Ak-yang itself but from the surrounding counties as well.
Of course they’d all be present—he’d deliberately struck during their meeting time, after all.
As he looked upon the fallen forms, a strange exhilaration mingled with his distaste.
Namgung Cheon muttered to himself several times, ‘I should show restraint…,’ but the surging blood of a martial artist did not die easily.
“Hah… hah… hah….”
Then a man who appeared to be the Bunta Master raised his staff, breathing heavily.
Despite witnessing Namgung Cheon’s power—enough to decimate nearly a hundred of his disciples—he bore no look of surrender in his eyes, a testament to the conviction he carried.
“Who in the blazes are you to commit such outrages! Do you know what place this is!”
“I already knew what the Gaebang is when I came.”
“Tch…!”
Knowing that and still coming meant he was confident in his abilities.
Having felled more than half of his two hundred disciples and not even catching his breath, such a man had every right to be.
“Yet a mere three-generation master stands as the Bunta Master… Has the Gaebang fallen to nothing but a name?”
“How dare you insult the Gaebang!”
Namgung Cheon smiled as he watched the Bunta Master cry out in fury.
“The Tagu Formation—”
The instant he began to unfold the Tagu Formation, said to rival even the White Lotus Formation of Shaolin, Namgung Cheon’s form vanished in a blur, appearing instantly before him.
Crack!
“Gahhhhh!”
Without time to think, a hand shot out and seized him by the throat.
“Be grateful I came here. Otherwise, you’d all be dead.”
He whispered into the Bunta Master’s ear as he gasped for breath.
“Let this be a warning—should you sell information about the Honam Danga even once more, it won’t end like this.”
The Bunta Master understood at last.
Over… over something so trivial, he’d destroyed an entire Bunta branch of the Gaebang?
He wanted to cry out that it was unbelievable, but gazing at the mask worn by the man before him, he was forced to accept the terrible reality.

***

An old man in a black mask walked leisurely down the street.
The moment he stepped into a quiet alley where no one seemed likely to venture, he felt gazes converging upon him from all directions.
The old man—Sa Do-hak—ignored those eyes and entered a small inn tucked away in the alley.
Inside, there was a fortune teller and what appeared to be the proprietor, both of whom looked up at Sa Do-hak with eyes that gleamed brightly.
“Welcome—”
One of the fortune tellers hurried forward to bow, but in that very instant, a flash of light cut through the air.
Whoosh!
The fortune teller’s head split clean in half and flew away.
It all unfolded in a heartbeat, too swift for anyone to fully comprehend.
As blood bloomed into the air, the master of the house lurched upright and drew a sword he’d hidden beneath the floorboards.
Screech!
But before the blade could clear its sheath, his neck was severed.
“Tsk, tsk… Your killing intent shows too plainly. You should mask it when you’re smiling, you fool.”
Sa Do-hak clicked his tongue, his gaze fixed on Jeom So-i.
A flying dagger lay in the fallen man’s hand.
He’d meant to lure them in with feigned carelessness, then strike with the poisoned blade in a single, lethal motion.
Swish-swish-swish!
“Who dares!”
Assassins emerged from the shadows, their voices sharp with alarm.
Had they known where they were, they would never have acted so boldly.
One might stir up trouble in the Murim Alliance, but in Salak—no one would dare such a thing.
Salak was legendary for pursuing vengeance more ruthlessly than the Sachuan Dang Family itself, repaying grudges many times over.
Sa Do-hak surveyed them methodically.
One, two, three—he counted, and when he reached twenty, he stopped.
“Fewer than I expected. It would have been more entertaining if even Sal Hwang were here.”
“Monster! You truly court death with mad abandon!”
“Your noise offends me. Stop spouting unfunny words and come. It’s been long since I tasted blood—my fingers itch for it.”
Behind the mask, Sa Do-hak’s face twisted into a grotesque smile.
This was no ordinary place—this was Salak.
To touch this ground meant one thing.
War with Salak itself.
Dan Woo-hyun had sent him here knowing exactly that.
“After all, it’s your own fault. You broke into someone’s home uninvited and tried to murder them.”
Perhaps it didn’t need to go this far, but Dan Woo-hyun intended to use this opportunity to uproot every threat.
Every danger that might harm them—or more precisely, harm Dan So-mi.
As of today, Salak’s branch in Ak-yang would cease to exist.
That was what Dan Woo-hyun had decreed, and Sa Do-hak had answered the call.
None would escape their fate.
Sa Do-hak slung his sword across his shoulder and turned his head.
Demonic energy roiled from his body.
“Come then. Let’s see what you’re made of. Haha!”
His grotesque laughter echoed as the demonic energy spread outward like a raging tide.

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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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