Chronicles of the Martial God’s Return - Chapter 94

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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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“Sigh…….”
That afternoon.
Dan So-mi sat slumped on the veranda, her face crumpled with distress.
After all that effort making the porridge, he’d vomited every last bit of it.
Worse still, he’d passed out cold.
His eyes had rolled back so far that only the whites showed—people were already casting looks suggesting she’d poisoned the food.
Young Dan So-mi felt as though her heart was being torn to shreds.
“But So-mi felt fine…….”
Right. She felt fine.
Truly fine.
So why had he gotten sick?
Because the food tasted that bad.
Would she give up over something like this?
If she couldn’t cook, she could help in other ways.
Sitting beside a patient and tending to them—that was something she could manage easily enough.
Dan So-mi pushed herself up without hesitation.
In that same instant, she caught furtive movements from various corners.
Jang Sam-tae had turned his head away, Kwon Mu-jin had bolted toward the Training Ground, and Dan Woo-hyun was leisurely sipping wine while gazing at the sky.
What about Namgung Cheon?
He was nowhere to be seen.
Dan So-mi rose quietly, dusted the dirt from her clothes with little pats, and made her way back toward the Separate Building. She pushed open the heavy door and headed toward Sa Do-hak’s quarters.
‘It’s so big!’
She’d been feeling it for some time now, but this estate really was enormous.
The adults probably didn’t find it overwhelming, but for Dan So-mi, it was almost too vast.
She was already smaller and more slight than other children her age. No matter where she went, people never mistook her for eight years old—most assumed she was only five.
So for this little girl, the estate was far too sprawling.
Still, she pressed forward with determination.
Before long, she’d reached Sa Do-hak’s room.
No sound came from within. To think—he passed out cold from eating just one bowl? The man must be far weaker than his years suggested.
Dan So-mi eased the door open carefully.
With a soft creak, the interior came partially into view.
Sa Do-hak lay quietly on the bed. He seemed to be breathing, but showed no sign of waking.
‘Perfect!’
Dan So-mi slipped inside carefully. To care for a patient, after all, one had to stay close by. Besides, she’d already looked after Kwon Mu-jin and Namgung Cheon before, so this should be manageable.
Creeping forward like a cat, she dragged a chair over and positioned it at the bedside, then sat. As she watched him breathing quietly, an odd feeling of unease crept over her.
‘He has so much beard.’
Yes, it was the beard.
The bristle covering his entire face hadn’t been trimmed—it was quite unkempt and disheveled. Without it, he might have looked rather dignified, but she couldn’t understand why he didn’t just shave it.
Namgung Cheon had a beard too, of course.
But he kept his neatly groomed and it never grew wild like this, so Namgung Cheon’s beard gave him an air of refinement instead—almost like that of an immortal sage.
“Hmm-.”
Dan So-mi swallowed a small sound and looked around.
Was there anything here that could trim this beard? If she cleaned it up nicely, he’d probably be quite grateful when he woke.
With that thought, she glanced about the room.
Then something caught her eye.
A small short sword.
She’d never seen such a thing at home, so it must belong to this middle-aged man. Dan So-mi reached out and grasped it.
It was her first time holding a real blade, and the feel of it was entirely unfamiliar.
Small as it was, she could sense its weight.
Carefully, she drew it and began to trim the beard.
“Ah……?”
But the blade was sharpened to an almost troubling degree.
She’d barely pressed it against him, yet instead of grooming, great chunks of beard were sliced clean away.
Before long, the sides had become uneven. Cold sweat beading on her forehead, Dan So-mi now trimmed the left side to match.
She needed to make them look at least somewhat balanced.
“…….”
As Dan So-mi carefully moved the short sword, she froze for an instant—in her attempt to cut more carefully, another large tuft had been sheared away.
“……What do I do?”
This was a predicament.
A serious one, at that.
No matter how many times she tried different cuts, the proportions wouldn’t align properly—and with each attempt, the situation only grew more dire.
Swallowing a small groan, Dan So-mi deliberated. Most of the beard was already gone, and any further trimming seemed impossible from the start.
If she kept fiddling with it now, she’d slip into a point of no return.
Dan So-mi carefully set down the short sword and rose from her seat.
Then she clapped her hands sharply and broke into a bright smile.
“Right, now that I think about it, Father and I were supposed to go to Market Street today.”
Dan So-mi stood casually and slipped out of the room at an unhurried pace.

“Still hasn’t woken, that old man?”
“Oh, he woke—but Dan Woo-hyun knocked him back out again.”
A low groan escaped him.
Namgung Cheon broke into a cold sweat.
Though it looked as though Sa Do-hak had simply passed out from eating Dan So-mi’s porridge, it was unmistakably Dan Woo-hyun’s doing.
The moment Sa Do-hak began eating, Dan Woo-hyun had struck his abdomen, forcing him to retch violently. The shock had emptied him completely, and he’d collapsed.
‘Against Sa Do-hak himself, of all people.’
Namgung Cheon let out a hollow, incredulous laugh.
He was strong.
Genuinely, formidably strong.
Had Dan Woo-hyun not lost his Internal Energy, Namgung Cheon would have desperately wanted to test himself against him.
Not from any arrogant need to prove himself superior, but from a burning curiosity to see exactly how much his own strength would matter in such a clash.
Then, recalling Dan Woo-hyun’s method once more, Namgung Cheon let out a quiet chuckle.
He’d definitely meant to humiliate him.
To eat porridge made by a child, and then—in front of a rival not unlike himself and a complete stranger—to retch and faint like a common wretch? For one called the Fifth Immortal under Heaven, there could be no greater shame.
‘And wrapped up with a dose of payback for that earlier attack too.’
Namgung Cheon shook his head slowly.
In a way, he mused, Dan Woo-hyun might be the most wickedly clever person in this entire estate.
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
A tremendous cry suddenly pierced the air.
Startled, Namgung Cheon rushed toward the source of the sound, his heart hammering.
Had enemies breached the estate?
Or had some other catastrophe erupted?
Yet as he looked around, there was no sign of invasion—no trace of hostile presence.
The area around the Separate Building remained eerily quiet.
And besides, who was staying within?
One called the very pinnacle of the Demonic Sect.
If enemies had attacked, he would simply turn them away; whatever befell, he could dissolve the crisis in an instant.
Namgung Cheon pushed open the Separate Building’s door with a puzzled expression. Inside, he heard continuous groans—and this was where Sa Do-hak was lodged.
Namgung Cheon exhaled softly and stepped inside.
“What on earth—”
“Nnnngh……”
Words died in Namgung Cheon’s throat.
Sa Do-hak was unquestionably there. But his beard—the one he’d worn with such pride, cultivated for decades—had been hacked at in jagged, grotesque chunks.
What remained bore no resemblance to Sa Do-hak at all.
Namgung Cheon turned his gaze away.
“Pfft!”
Laughter burst forth.
The sight of that ragged beard was too much; he couldn’t suppress his mirth. The trembling form of his long-standing rival was almost surreal to behold.
“Pffft! Y-you…… your f-face……why does it l-look like that……?”
“AAAAAGH! That’s what I want to know!”
Sa Do-hak thrashed about violently.
A beard cultivated for decades. He’d taken such pains with it, invested such effort to shape it into this magnificent form.
What in the world had happened while he lay unconscious? How had his beard simply vanished?
Could it be that the porridge the child had given him contained some unknown toxin, one that had caused his beard to fall out in chunks?
“C-cut off……?”
Following this train of thought, Sa Do-hak looked at a mirror again. The bare patches where his beard had been appeared to have been sliced cleanly with something sharp.
He furrowed his brow and looked away.
There lay a short sword.
He drew the blade and examined it. Only a few wisps remained, but there were certainly hairs—bristles he could only assume were from a beard.
Which meant one thing: someone had cut his beard.
Snap!
“Who in blazes would dare lay hands on me!”
Namgung Cheon turned to regard it, shaking his head.
He could narrow it down to one person.
The figure who’d emerged from the Separate Building just before he and Dan Woo-hyun headed to Market Street—and from the desperate haste of his movements, it seemed he’d done something deliberately, not by accident.
So the culprit was exactly whom he’d suspected.
“Come now. That beard was hardly flattering to begin with. Simply shave it all off and be done with it.”
“Is this a joke? Do you have any idea how long I’ve spent cultivating this beard, the effort I’ve poured into it, and now you spout such nonsense?”
“Hah—but it’s just hair. Why take offense?”
“Then let me cut yours off this instant.”
His temperament remained as volatile as ever.
Sa Do-hak, fury reaching a boiling point, seized his blade and lashed out in a sudden arc. A sharp, lethal stroke that threatened to halve Namgung Cheon’s beard came flashing through the air.
But Namgung Cheon met it with a metallic clang.
Somehow he too now held a sword, deflecting the incoming blade while backing away step by step. His internal force hadn’t yet fully returned, and the difference in power showed plainly.
“Heh, you blocked it?”
“Ha—look here. What business do you have with a feeble old man?”
“I’m going to scrape that beard clean off your face!”
Namgung Cheon retreated another pace, laughing with genuine bewilderment.
But the man was serious. Deadly serious.
‘This is rather troublesome.’
The absence of Dan Woo-hyun was deeply unfortunate.
For now, his only recourse was to flee with all his might.

“…….”
“Ah…….”
Dan So-mi stared straight ahead, utterly speechless. She couldn’t even fathom which words to speak first.
The moment she’d arrived at the Estate, the sight before her eyes was simply beyond belief.
“How did it come to this?”
The Estate lay ravaged as though hit by cannon fire. Rubble scattered everywhere, walls toppled, the surrounding fence reduced to ruin.
It seemed impossible that human strength alone could wreak such havoc—yet watching the destruction unfold before her very eyes, she had no choice but to accept that this was indeed the work of men.
A tremendous boom continued to echo across the grounds, with no sign of stopping.
Within the Estate, Jang Sam-tae and Kwon Mu-jin fled in abject desperation, while one of the Separate Buildings had already crumbled into mere rubble.
Even the main hall had been devastated beyond recognition. One could only marvel at how thoroughly it had been demolished.
“You little beast! Get over here!”
“P-please… stop! This isn’t my doing!”
The chaos showed no sign of abating.
Sa Do-hak, who pursued relentlessly and unleashed Blade Aura without mercy, was formidable enough—but Namgung Cheon, whose internal force had scarcely returned, was somehow managing to evade the onslaught.
Perhaps, as rivals who’d faced each other for so long, he understood his opponent’s techniques well enough to anticipate them?
Though admittedly, his appearance was hardly presentable for such an engagement.
While Dan So-mi stood frozen in astonishment, Dan Woo-hyun let out a soft sigh and strode deliberately into the Estate.
He crossed over the shattered fence and stepped inside, then fixed his gaze quietly upon Sa Do-hak’s face.
In that instant.
A chill swept through.
The Estate fell still as if all things—even the wind itself, even the very air—had sunk beneath the surface.
The two figures locked in pursuit froze mid-action, sensing the change.
Every eye turned toward Dan Woo-hyun.
“M-Master…! Gasp…! P-please… save us…!”
Jang Sam-tae, seized by terror, rushed forward and clung to Dan Woo-hyun. The gravity of what was unfolding in this Estate had become utterly clear.
He’d come perilously close to losing his life.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Standing with the weeping Jang Sam-tae at his side, Dan Woo-hyun’s voice spread through the Estate with ponderous weight.
It fell upon every ear like the utterance of some ravenous demon, devouring the very spirit from their souls.

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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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