I Shouldn't Have Joined the Martial Arts Alliance - Chapter 35

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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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Foolishly Entering the Murim Alliance — Episode 35
Before the witch stood Baekri Hyeon, Baekri Hyang, and Baekri Gajin, all three offering their most exquisitely formal bows.
They dared not give her any excuse to act.
“We are honored to make your acquaintance. The Baekri Clan——”
“I don’t want to hear that garbage. Answer only what I ask. Understood?”
‘Damn this woman!’
“……Yes, of course.”
“Does anyone know why I’ve called you here?”
How could they know what only the one who had suddenly halted the carriage knew?
Of course no hands rose. They could only read her expression, searching for any hint of her mood.
“I see. Quite right. Always the same in Kangho, isn’t it? Does one need a reason to die? The moment you set foot in Kangho, you must always be prepared to die at any instant. Isn’t that so?”
Baekri Hyeon, his sister, and his cousin all felt their faces tighten involuntarily.
The word death had tumbled from the witch’s lips.
In other words, wasn’t this clear proof that the witch was thinking of killing them right here, right now?
“What do you mean by that, ma’am?”
At least he had to know why she’d suddenly appeared and was causing this chaos.
“This is why I hate the Righteous Faction bastards. At least the Evil Faction bastards—if they’ve done something wrong, no matter what the reason—they know to kneel before the strong and beg for their lives. But you lot? You don’t even think of doing that, do you?”
His insides churned with fury. His instinct screamed to draw his sword and drive it through her throat, but he wasn’t her match, and that impotence maddened him to the point of agony.
“I don’t understand——”
“Right. You wouldn’t. You righteous bastards think what you do is justice, while what others do is deception, scheme, and conspiracy.”
Baekri Hyeon couldn’t help but push back against such words.
“The Evil Faction does far worse, or so we’re told.”
“Oho? Is that so? Yes, it is. But listen here. At least the Evil Faction bastards announce it openly—’I’m an Evil Faction bastard’—and wear it on their sleeves. The Evil Faction plays by the rules of evil, honest about what they are. But you lot? No. You masquerade as righteous, play innocent, trumpet your noble principles, all while scheming every filthy thing imaginable behind closed doors. Just like you’re doing. The Righteous Faction isn’t righteous at all—it’s become too much like the Evil Faction. So in a way, you righteous bastards are clever. I’ll grant you that. There’s no need to cling to just one principle.”
“What in the world are you——”
“Normally, with trash like you, I’d just kill you and be done with it. But today, my mouth’s been itching to explain myself. In short, you’re lucky today.”
The words carried absolute certainty of death.
His teeth ground together.
‘Damn it all!’
‘Why?!’
‘What possible reason could there be?!’
If the witch killed them here, they were as good as dead.
Could they fight back?
They could try, perhaps. But it would come to nothing but their futile thrashing—he could see that much clearly.
Yet he drew his sword anyway.
Shing.
Baekri Hyeon. Baekri Hyang. Baekri Gajin. All three.
Alarmed by the sight, their guardsmen rushed forward and positioned themselves before their masters, drawing their blades.
“Where do you——”
Whoosh.
The necks of four guardsmen flew clean off in an instant, spurting crimson blood.
“If you’re so eager to die that you rush forward like that, it would be cruel not to oblige. That’s the only mercy I can show you. Don’t you think?”
“……”
Baekri Hyeon, Baekri Hyang, and Baekri Gajin all trembled as they gripped their swords.
They hadn’t seen it.
They hadn’t seen how their four guardsmen were cut down.
For the first time in their lives, they had witnessed an Absolute Master’s blade drawn before their eyes. Yet they had not seen it.
It was too wondrous, but they had no luxury to savor the experience.
“Why no answer? This irritates me. Fine. I understand. Oh yes, I was supposed to tell you the reason, wasn’t I? That’s right. You used the Yin-Yang Poison on someone from Dok Wang’s clan, didn’t you?”
She had heard it directly from Dok Wang himself.
‘How could she possibly……’
He tried his utmost to maintain composure, but his face betrayed him despite his efforts.
“You should have stopped there. You could have completed your task as you wished and left unscathed. But you made one mistake—you laid hands on my son.”
What nonsense was this?
“……We have never done any such——”
“Ah, really now. Fine. Look at my face. And think of the Sunyeong Branch.”
‘Ah……that man. They do resemble each other……’
Baekri Hyang realized it first.
If they had been together, she would have recognized him. But why would she have noticed?
It was absurd enough that the witch, the supreme lord of the Evil Faction, had a son. But why in the world was that son stationed at the Murim Alliance branch?
And so they felt the injustice of it all.
The injustice of it threatened to tear her mind apart.
‘……This……that bastard…….’
Next came Baekri Hyeon. Then Baekri Gajin.
Why? How?
No matter how many questions she asked herself, no matter how she tried to understand, it made no sense.
“Ha ha ha. So you’re finally catching on? Now do you understand? Why you’re all dying by my hand?”
She couldn’t bring herself to nod in agreement. The moment she did, death would surely follow.
‘What am I supposed to do…….’
This was too absurd, wasn’t it?
The thought that she had planted that son of hers there specifically to kill them—it was preposterous, yet the notion refused to leave her mind.
And.
She wondered if she should actually kneel and beg for her life. But begging seemed unlikely to move her to mercy.
‘……No.’
At least some shred of dignity had to be preserved.
That was when it happened.
A flash.
Her vision burst white.
Jang Ryeo, the supreme leader of the Evil Sect, smiled brilliantly.
“I took some care with avenging my son. Well then, farewell.”
With that, Jang Ryeo vanished from the spot. In the blink of an eye, she had disappeared from sight.
An Absolute Master was truly different.
But…….
“She just……left.”
Hadn’t she said she would kill them?
“……What was that?”
She couldn’t fathom why Jang Ryeo had simply departed like that.
But something had flashed, hadn’t it? She hadn’t seen it clearly, but it seemed as though the witch’s blade had passed through the air.
Baekri Hyeon, Baekri Hyang, and Baekri Gajin bowed their heads to check whether their bodies bore any wounds.
The moment they lowered their heads, the world suddenly began to spin. As if they were rolling forward.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
The reason the world seemed to be spinning round and round…….
They would never know.
Because the heads of Baekri Hyeon, Baekri Hyang, and Baekri Gajin had fallen to the floor and were rolling about.
With both eyes still wide open.
* * *
Before sunrise, they had to clear away the corpses scattered throughout the branch grounds.
Once the bodies were disposed of and the blood hastily wiped clean, the sun began to rise.
Everyone was relieved to be alive rather than dead…….
But the fact that no one could say who had killed the assassins, or why, left them bewildered and on edge.
Survival didn’t feel like an ending; it felt like only a temporary reprieve before something else came for their lives tonight.
In short, they couldn’t rest easy. They passed the following days in a state of anxious dread.
Then news struck Sichuan Province like a thunderbolt.
The Evil Sect’s supreme leader, the witch, had killed the secondary patriarch of the Baekri Clan and three of his direct heirs. Whenever people gathered, that was all they spoke of.
They speculated whether a great war between the Righteous and Evil Factions might break out.
“What do you think, sir? Will there really be war?”
“I don’t think so. It was just that witch acting alone. But why would she do such a thing?”
“It is strange, isn’t it?”
“Strange indeed.”
“We were so worried the witch would come for our youngest, but why did she kill them instead?”
“Did she kill them in place of our youngest?”
“Even you can see that doesn’t make sense, can’t you?”
“……That’s true.”
“But who really were the ones who killed all those assassins? Sir.”
“How many times must I tell you? Heaven watched over us.”
“Ah. A ghost came to help us?”
“When did I say anything about a ghost? You really are something else.”
“Didn’t our youngest say it? That a Supreme Master had come. Wasn’t that right?”
“Yes. At first, I thought it was the patriarch himself who had come.”
“An unknown Supreme Master helped us? No—saved us? Why? For what reason?”
“This is driving me insane.”
Someone had slaughtered the assassins and saved the Sunyeong Branch, while the Witch had abruptly murdered the direct descendants of the Baekri Clan.
Didn’t it feel like something vast still remained unsettled?
“Seriously, is heaven itself helping us?”
There was no other way such things could unfold.
“Alright, enough talk. Come on, get that meat roasting! Everyone drink up, stretch your legs, and get some proper sleep. We’re all going to die someday anyway—what’s the use of all this worry?”
“Tch. But you’re happy the captain’s alive.”
“When did I say I wasn’t? Now get to grilling that meat, will you!”
“Seems like you’re really pleased about it. Your voice is ringing clear as a bell.”
Everyone laughed.
Relief at being alive, and the sense that now, finally, they could truly rest easy.
The meat was perfectly cooked, and the wine cups overflowed.
Jang Hyein, speaking as captain, said:
“Come now, everyone—raise your cups.”
All eleven of them lifted their cups with vigor, their eyes bright as the wine that filled them.
“You’ve all worked so hard these past weeks. I think we’ve learned a great deal from this ordeal. Our martial arts have grown as much as we’ve suffered. We’ve advanced. We’ll keep advancing. Let’s continue on as we have been—trusting each other, fighting together. And when we do, heaven will aid us again, won’t it?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. Then everyone drink and—”
Suddenly Sa Urin cut off Jang Hyein’s words.
“Wait a moment.”
Jang Hyein and the others turned sharp looks toward Sa Urin.
“What now?”
“Why?”
“Someone’s coming this way.”
“……Again?”
“……Hell.”
“……Really?”
“……How many?”
“Just one.”
“One? That’s nothing to worry about.”
“Could it be someone from the Dang family?”
Sa Urin shook his head.
The aura felt almost indistinguishable from an ordinary commoner, yet those footsteps—light as if barely grazing the earth—unmistakably belonged to a supreme master.
He’d felt a similar aura before, one like a babe’s.
“No. It’s someone like Master Dok Wang…….”
“You just said it wasn’t the Dang family.”
“Not Master Dok Wang himself—a Supreme Master on the same level as Master Dok Wang…….”
“……What?”
“Come on. Where in Sichuan would there be a supreme master equal to Dok Wang?”
“……There is one.”
“Who?”
“The……Witch.”
“Ah.”
Right.
The Witch, supreme authority of the Evil Sect, was in Sichuan Province. Moreover, hadn’t she already killed the young lord of the Baekri Clan, his sister, and his cousin?
Was that not enough for her?
“Damn it!”
“Surely she’s not after the youngest…….”
“Flee. Now. Go!”
Even Sa Urin seemed bewildered.
What kind of cruel fate kept hunting them down like this?
“……Will fleeing even help now?”
“……True.”
How could one escape from the grasp of an Absolute Master?
If running and hiding were options, they should have done so long ago.
“What do we do? How?”
“Just stay as you are. If anyone acts rashly, they’ll end up on the road to the underworld.”
“……Still…….”
“Let me try to handle this.”
“How?”
“……Any way at all.”
At that moment, the gates of the Sunyeong Branch swung open.
As expected, Jang Ryeo, the supreme mistress of the Evil Sect, revealed herself. Then she broke into a brilliant smile.
“Hello. It’s been so long, Urin.”
So long?
Wasn’t “so long” something you said when a considerable time had passed since you’d seen someone close to you—a friend, or family?
It was becoming clear.
That witch really was insane.

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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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