I Shouldn't Have Joined the Martial Arts Alliance - Chapter 101

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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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Chapter 101 — Pointlessly Entering the Murim Alliance
“Your name.”
The Witch Jang Ryeo, Sa U-rin, the former Murim Alliance Leader Hyeon-wi and Chu-yeop, and finally the Head of Jang Family stood before the middle-aged man of Cheon Hoon Mun.
The middle-aged man of Cheon Hoon Mun, dragged into the Underground Prison beneath the Jang Family Manor, was bound tightly in thick iron chains.
And yet the middle-aged man was perfectly at ease. He had complete confidence that he would not yield to such crude torture.
“My name hardly seems to matter. And isn’t this whole picture rather amusing?”
It was nothing short of ridiculous.
He himself was a master of the martial world. Torture applied to a master?
Generally, torture does not work well on masters. Least of all on martial artists who have reached the pinnacle of supreme mastery.
The cultivation of martial artists is always accompanied by pain. Their flesh is torn in battles with enemies, their blood spills freely — this is commonplace. How then could such crude torture possibly break a martial artist’s will?
Of course, there exist martial artists on whom torture does work. They are the ones who never had what it took to walk the path of a master in the first place.
So what the middle-aged man of Cheon Hoon Mun said was true — this was nothing but a waste of time.
Yet surely the Witch Jang Ryeo, the former Murim Alliance Leader, Chu-yeop, and the Head of Jang Family could not be ignorant of such a thing.
They were doing this purely because Sa U-rin wanted it.
That was why Sa U-rin was now the one directing this exercise that was not torture.
“Just answer the questions I ask. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”
“Haha. How absurd.”
Surely this green boy standing before him had seized his blood vessels, hadn’t he?
Even the Witch, lord of Sa Pa, had failed to seize them.
And that was not all.
Surely the words “Honyeon” had flowed from that boy’s lips. That meant he knew about Honyeon, didn’t it?
How?
The middle-aged man too was now burning with questions. He was the one bound to the chair, yet he was nearly driven to madness wanting to ask this green boy standing before him so many things.
So he spoke.
“What if we do this instead?”
“Speak.”
“We take turns asking. One question each.”
It was exactly as Sa U-rin had anticipated.
He had predicted that people from Cheon Hoon Mun would be intensely curious about Sa U-rin’s existence.
It had been the same during the Xueyu Fang incident.
“Fine. But I ask first.”
“Given my position, I have no choice. Very well.”
Dragged here and bound in chains as I am.
So Sa U-rin asked first.
“Where is Cheon Hoon Mun located?”
“Ah, asking something I cannot answer is pointless. Think harder. Ask me something I can actually answer.”
He had thrown out the question on a whim, but as expected, it got him nowhere. Yet through this useless question, he did learn one thing.
That Cheon Hoon Mun was an organization that settled in one place and stayed there. If they had wandered from place to place, constantly changing locations, the middle-aged man would not have answered with such confidence, would he?
“All right. Then — is Cheon Hoon Mun the Invisible Hand?”
The corners of the middle-aged man’s mouth lifted.
“You could say we’re a part of it.”
“So it’s as I thought. There’s another force besides you lot.”
It was exactly as he had expected.
Over all those long years, to move the Gangho as one pleased, like kneading dough, would have been impossible with just one organization.
Of course, many would have thought the same. Not just Sa U-rin.
“One question per turn.”
“That wasn’t a question. It was merely thinking aloud.”
“Then let’s say it was. Now it’s my turn. Did you master Honyeon?”
“I did.”
‘How……’
How was that even possible?
The son of the Witch could not be from Cheon Hoon Mun.
The middle-aged man was struggling not to show his alarm.
Yet his curiosity about the green boy before him — the Witch’s son — only grew stronger.
“……I see. Now it’s your turn.”
Sa U-rin wanted to ask what the true body of the Invisible Hand was — what kind of organization it really was — now that Cheon Hoon Mun had revealed itself as merely a part of it.
But as the middle-aged man had said, he needed to ask something answerable.
Knowing that the middle-aged man would not reveal the true body of the Invisible Hand, Sa U-rin changed his question.
“When did Cheon Hoon Mun first come into existence?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
No one from Cheon Hoon Mun knows it.
“I’ve heard that Cheon Hoon Mun has existed since the moment humanity came into being in this world.”
That was true.
Cheon Hoon Mun began to exist at the very moment that human beings came into existence in this world.
It’s only unknown because it was never recorded.
“That’s too vague.”
“Your question was vague. My turn now. How did you learn Honyeon?”
“My father gave me the Honyeon Art Scripture to learn.”
“What?! You mean there’s another copy of the Honyeon Art Scripture?!”
“Did you forget? One question at a time.”
‘Damn it all.’
“……I see.”
Truthfully, the middle-aged man didn’t need to do this at all. He already knew he wouldn’t survive this place. If that was the case, there was no reason to answer questions and reveal secrets about Cheon Hoon Mun.
One reason, though.
He was far too curious.
He’d always known that no one outside Cheon Hoon Mun’s disciples knew Honyeon.
He’d grown up learning it that way his entire life.
But then someone who knew Honyeon appeared before his eyes, and had even mastered it?
So he was curious. He wanted to know. Desperately, even.
“Now it’s my turn. Are there people like So Seol-ru among the Demonic Cult as well?”
Since they existed within the Sa Pa, it was natural to assume that people like So Seol-ru would also exist within the righteous sects.
But what if—what if the Demonic Cult also had an existence like So Seol-ru?
“……They do.”
“I see.”
They were spread throughout all of Gangho. This was grave news. It raised questions about what Cheon Hoon Mun was truly planning.
The reason for his curiosity was this:
If an organization could manipulate Gangho to this degree, wouldn’t it have been easier to simply conquer Gangho outright?
Why hadn’t they done so?
It only frustrated him further—a question only Cheon Hoon Mun could answer.
The middle-aged man threw another question at Sa U-rin.
“Where was the Honyeon Art Scripture that your father managed to get his hands on?”
“That’s two questions in one, but I’ll tell you anyway. This is something I’ve never told anyone else. You’re lucky today.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“You’re hurting my feelings. Then I’ll answer just one of them.”
“……No. Tell me everything.”
“Good. I like it when people are so obedient. I’m human too, after all—easily swayed by emotion.”
It was a lie.
Sa U-rin was someone who was never swayed by emotion. He’d only fabricated those words to unsettle the middle-aged man bound in chains.
“My father was once part of the Melma Squad under the Murim Alliance. When he left the Alliance, he took with him a scripture he’d noticed before in the Murim Alliance Archive. That was the Honyeon Art Scripture.”
“……It was in the Murim Alliance? Is that truly a fact? Or are you just making something up?”
“Do you look like you’re doubting me right now?”
“I’m not!”
“Then neither am I. It seems like you don’t believe me, so let me give you one more detail. The Honyeon Art Scripture was covered in dust in the Murim Alliance Archive. For several hundred years.”
“So…….”
“It had been left abandoned all that time. Proof that no one cared about this martial art called Honyeon.”
“……I see.”
As Sa U-rin’s explanation continued, the middle-aged man found himself convinced.
To ordinary martial artists, Honyeon would have been beneath consideration. It would have been a martial art they could never even attempt.
“My turn now.”
It was Sa U-rin’s turn.
“How many people in Cheon Hoon Mun have mastered the Extinction Divine Seal?”
“Ask a question I can answer.”
“Even this much can’t be answered?”
Sa U-rin had posed the question knowing it would likely be difficult to answer. But through this question, he aimed to extract something else.
“I cannot answer that.”
“Then it seems we’ll have to stop our exchange here.”
At that, the middle-aged man began to struggle desperately.
“……Ask a different question! We can’t stop here!”
“No. I hold the right to ask questions. I can at least decide when to stop.”
“Damn it! Fine. I can’t tell you how many have mastered the Extinction Divine Seal, but I can tell you something else.”
“Tell me.”
“In Cheon Hoon Mun, everyone has the opportunity to learn the Extinction Divine Seal. But not everyone can master it.”
“Why not?”
“……Because only those who can sense the Primordial Force can learn it.”
“So there are those who can’t master it no matter how hard they try. Or rather—only an extremely small number in Cheon Hoon Mun itself can learn it.”
In the end, simply sensing Honyeon didn’t mean everyone could master the Extinction Divine Seal. And now it was certain.
Sa U-rin’s Honyeon was a force very close to the Primordial Force itself.
“……So then, who exactly taught you the Honyeon Art?”
“Me? I learned it myself.”
In other words, no one had taught him. There was no one in his circle who had mastered the Honyeon Art, and no one who knew anything about it.
“……That’s absurd!”
From what the man knew, the Honyeon Art was absolutely not something one could do like that.
No matter how well one sensed the Primordial Force, to feel Honyeon through the Heart Observation Method required a guide—someone to show the way along the path of Honyeon.
This was absolute. No one could master the Honyeon Art alone.
In all of Cheon Hoon Mun’s long history, there had never been such a person. So to the middle-aged man, Sa U-rin’s words were lies.
Utterly preposterous ones.
“I said it clearly. Everything I’m telling you is the truth.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Believing or not believing is your business, not mine.”
“Damn it! That’s enough!”
“Then so be it.”
The middle-aged man’s face hardened.
“……Wait, no! But is it really true?”
“I told you—believing is your concern. I’m simply telling you what is.”
“……Curse it.”
A boy barely old enough to shave kept spouting impossible things—how could one possibly believe him?
And yet, didn’t it feel as though it might be true?
“So you really did master the Honyeon Art alone?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“……How? How did you master it?”
Without a guide, no less.
“Didn’t you say one question at a time?”
“……Ah, yes. Go ahead with your question. Hurry.”
The middle-aged man was completely beside himself now.
As if he’d been waiting for this, Sa U-rin drew his sword—the Hwa Ryong Sword—from its scabbard.
“Do you know anything about this blade?”
This was one of the things Sa U-rin most wanted to know.
The Hwa Ryong Sword seemed to harbor an enormous secret. The events at Hyeol-u Hall pointed to this, and he had felt how the martial artists of Cheon Hoon Mun at the time had struggled because of this very blade.
And more importantly, the sword seemed to have awakened since that day.
It felt to him as though something within the Hwa Ryong Sword had broken free from its shell and come alive.
So he asked the middle-aged man—threw the question that he truly wanted answered.

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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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