Martial God of the Sun and Moon - Chapter 137

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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 137
This is dangerous.
Muyong Ji sensed it instinctively and leaped upward, pushing off the ground without even looking back.
Dokgo Myeong drew a deep breath and gathered his thoughts.
‘Get a grip. Focus on the chase. I’m not thinking straight.’
Dokgo Myeong squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head vigorously.
Yet when I opened my eyes again, I was already pursuing Muyong Ji.
She fled rapidly, crying out in desperation, and on her back I noticed a wound that didn’t exist in my memories.
A scar as if scorched by flame.
It looked exactly like the kind of wound the Heavenly Flame Strike would leave.
‘Did I do that? When?’
It felt as though the middle of my memory had been severed. This was a first for me.
But that wasn’t the end of the problem.
Like spilled ink spreading, roughly half my vision was stained with phantoms of the battlefield. Only the other half showed the real world.
Dokgo Myeong’s lips trembled.
‘Please. Anything but this.’
I chased after Muyong Ji in utter confusion.
Soon she fell into the fierce battle between the Assassins and our allies, crying out desperately.
“Hold them back! Just ten breaths of distance!”
That was the moment.
The Assassins fighting our allies suddenly turned their heads and rushed toward me.
A Black-Robed Man in night clothes, a farmer possessed by Ak-i, a Woodcutter with a pleasant face, a courtesan in archery garb, a woman wearing only an empty cloth bundle without a child….
Had they controlled the upper dantian of the Assassins through the power of superior blood techniques?
They all swung their weapons at me in unison.
‘Move.’
I wrapped myself in the Heavenly Flame technique and struck them down.
Whoosh!
A mist of blood erupted.
Suddenly the scent of blood smelled sweet, and I found myself laughing, when abruptly that blood clumped together and a human face burst forth, its mouth gaping wide.
“Brother! Hey! You bastard!”
It was none other than Dokgo Ak.
“Little brother!”
“Are you alright?”
Dokgo Myeong was startled upon seeing them.
They too were overlaid with the forms of their past lives.
Dokgo Ak, sneering like an executioner.
Namgung Sohwa, her neck severed.
Cheolmu-baek, a sword piercing his chest.
Dokgo Myeong sighed.
‘Ah, these few were my only light, yet as my heart darkens, they too approach me as shadows.’
Dokgo Myeong drew a deep breath.
Then he spoke with measured calm.
“No, I’ve fallen into demonic obsession. It seems I’ve succumbed to Entering Demons Through Obsession.”
“What? What are you saying? Does Entering Demons Through Obsession happen that easily?”
“I’m holding onto my sanity through transcendent mental fortitude. But all three of you—get your faces out of my sight. It’s unbearable.”
“…!”
In that instant, everyone felt their spines turn to ice.
Dokgo Myeong’s pupils dilated progressively, and murky black energy rippled forth, beginning to stain the whites of his eyes.
“Wait. Something feels wrong.”
“Little Cooperator! Your eyes right now…!”
“I’m counting on you to handle things from here. Now’s the time for all of you to earn your keep. Understood? Ah, and look after Seok-du too. Take care of yourselves as well.”
Kwaaaa!
As Dokgo Myeong shoved his companions aside and kicked off the ground, the surrounding landscape blurred into streaks and rushed backward.
Suddenly his vision blurred as though his eyes had grown parched.
When he opened his eyes after squeezing them shut, Dokgo Myeong was startled.
From one end of the earth to the other stretched a mountain of corpses and sea of blood. A battlefield unfolded before his eyes.
Dokgo Myeong sighed heavily.
“So I’m forced to witness this living hell once more.”
Then it happened.
The change erupted abruptly.
Surge!
An unidentifiable energy surged up from his dantian.
Though he had expended considerable inner force, an immense and mysterious quantity of martial power erupted forth, spreading throughout his entire body.
‘Is this Ascension?’
It was not.
An unfamiliar energy, its hue as black as pitch.
Strange and ominous, yet overwhelmingly powerful.
Kwaaaaaang!
The moment his feet touched ground, the earth split with a crack and an explosion erupted.
As he kicked off again, a torrent of earth and stone surged up behind him like an avalanche.
Suddenly Dokgo Myeong recalled the tale of Cheonra Majon, who had fallen into Entering Demons Through Obsession and committed terrible atrocities.
‘Could it be that I’m becoming like that right now?’
This was an experience he’d never had even in his past life.
Ah, Master. You cursed old fool.
If martial arts had this aspect, you should have taught me about it.
“Get a grip. This isn’t my Cheonoe Gyeong. It shouldn’t reach this point, should it? First, I’ll pummel that old bastard, and once I deal with those hiding in the village….”
As he muttered like a madman, his sanity seemed to return somewhat.
Then it happened.
Something else shot up, blocking his path.
The moment Dokgo Myeong raised his hand to brush it aside, his body froze.
‘Children?’
Young. No, mere children.
At best, twelve or thirteen? If they’d been starved, perhaps fifteen.
Three of them—boys and girls alike.
All three charged forward with eyes rolled back, radiating the aura of blood techniques.
Dokgo Myeong laughed like a madman, his voice hollow and unhinged.
“Ah, truly endless entertainment.”
Whoooosh!
Dokgo Myeong swept them away with a surge of force, as if brushing aside dust.
I watched the unconscious children fly through the air, caught safely by Namgung Sohwa with her severed neck, Cheolmu-baek with the blade embedded in his chest, and Dokgo Ak, who mocked me like a madman.
After that moment.
Uuuuuuung!
Dokgo Myeong’s eyes turned completely black.
A darkness that seemed to blend every color in existence surged from his lower dantian to his upper dantian, consuming everything in pitch-black shadow.
Then, Muyong Ji’s voice reached me.
“You… you… this monster…”
I felt the aura of Explosive Blood Technique.
Dokgo Myeong turned toward her, his mouth splitting into a grotesque grin.
* * *
Muyong Ji unleashed the Explosive Blood Technique.
It was the secret art of the Black Blood Demon Technique—burning one’s latent potential. Having resorted to this final measure, she possessed both the confidence to survive and the confidence to kill Dokgo Myeong.
Until just now, that is.
‘What is that?’
A single strike.
Immediately after Dokgo Myeong’s energy pathways transformed, he thrust a fist wrapped in black true energy forward.
Kwaaaang!
With one punch, the Explosive Blood Technique’s aura crumbled like a sandcastle.
Then Dokgo Myeong’s foot lifted.
Muyong Ji urgently deployed her footwork to evade.
Crackle-crunch!
Where she’d stood, his kick struck the ground, shattering it like an eggshell as dust erupted upward.
Muyong Ji gasped in horror, muttering.
“This… this… what kind of monster…”
She couldn’t finish her words.
Whoosh!
The center of the rising dust burst open as Dokgo Myeong charged through.
Muyong Ji drew her blade in panic.
Swish! Clang!
Dokgo Myeong lightly evaded in mid-air, extending his right hand to seize Muyong Ji’s sleeve.
“No, this can’t be!”
Muyong Ji’s arm was suddenly wrenched forward.
Dokgo Myeong’s hand blade descended upon that outstretched limb.
Crack!
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Muyong Ji’s mouth gaped open as she screamed.
Dokgo Myeong released her sleeve and lifted his foot, sweeping it across her ribs.
Boom!
With a thunderous crash, Muyong Ji flew through the air, smashing through something before crashing down.
It was the wall.
Battered senseless, she had been hurled all the way back to where the manor once stood.
Even as Muyong Ji collapsed to the ground, her head thrashed about frantically.
‘What is this? Wasn’t it Demonic Cultivation Deviation? Could it be a triggered technique like Explosive Blood Force? Or perhaps he’s drawing upon Innate Qi…’
Muyong Ji bit her already bloodied lips once more.
Crunch!
Dokgo Myeong crushed the debris of the wall beneath his feet as he approached slowly.
Chill!
The corners of Muyong Ji’s eyes trembled.
It felt as though cold blood was spreading from her heart throughout her entire body. Her whole frame seemed to freeze, and if she could, she would have torn her own heart out.
Thud!
Dokgo Myeong took a step forward.
How could a man’s footsteps sound so thunderous?
Thud.
Thud.
The footsteps continued.
With each step, an unidentifiable wave of energy erupted, and her spirit felt constricted.
Though his pace was clearly slow, Muyong Ji could not bring herself to flee.
Thump!
Finally, Dokgo Myeong stood before her.
She remained frozen, unable to even shift her hips, looking up at his shadowed face.
“Am I the strange one?”
Muyong Ji’s eyes widened.
Though he appeared to have lost his reason, Dokgo Myeong was speaking.
“Is it Gangho that’s strange? Or am I? Answer me. Did I ask for something so grand? Is it truly so difficult to simply live like a human being?”
Dokgo Myeong spoke in an emotionless voice.
“I’m not asking you to be virtuous. If you want to steal, steal. If you want to beat someone, beat them. If you want to kill, kill. This is Gangho, after all. But there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Why do you live this way, wearing a human mask from birth?”
Muyong Ji collapsed forward and seized Dokgo Myeong’s pant leg.
“I understand. I comprehend. Please, spare me. I was wrong.”
“….”
“I’m a victim too. I know no other way of living. As you say, we exist in Gangho, do we not? If you spare me, I swear I shall reform and live as a true human until my dying breath.”
“When I look at you all.”
Dokgo Myeong did not respond to her pleas for mercy, instead gazing into the distance as he spoke.
“There were Black-Robed Men dressed in night clothes, but most were ordinary folk—farmers, woodcutters, fishermen, scholars. Nothing seemed unusual about it. Assassins typically adopt such disguises to blend seamlessly into society.”
“But something seemed off about that?”
“About them?”
“About them?”
“Those who were brainwashed and tortured into slavery. Those clothes represent who they were before their abduction. It’s meant to make them remember their former lives and suffer all the more, isn’t it?”
Dokgo Myeong looked down at Muyong Ji.
“Those who succumbed to torture and brainwashing became Assassins. Those who refused were killed.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying. I truly don’t.”
“There were children.”
“What?”
“Little ones. There were children. Three of them, no less. Fifteen? Twelve? How old were they?”
….
Muyong Ji released a deep sigh.
Fear had vanished from her expression. She opened her mouth with an expressionless face.
“The eldest was fifteen, the girl was thirteen, and the youngest was ten.”
“I see.”
“You know as well as I do. The younger they are, the more effective the brainwashing, and the more useful they become as Assassins. Every place that raises Assassins and cultivates killers does the same. I was no exception.”
A sigh escaped involuntarily from between his teeth.
Now the identity of the Black-Robed Men became clear. They were these children grown into adulthood. They possessed no will and no past. That was why they could only wear black robes.
Dokgo Myeong had never truly cared whether the evil sects ran rampant or the world fell into chaos.
He only needed them to stay out of his sight and leave his people untouched.
Yet the reason Dokgo Myeong had fallen into this madness was.
‘Among those Assassins, I was there too. Seok-du was there. Sohwa was there. Mu-baek was there. My comrades from the Bloodfiend Corps would have been there as well.’
Dokgo Myeong spoke as he looked at Muyong Ji’s face, now completely devoid of fear.
“Answer me one last question.”
“Speak. Dokgo Myeong.”
“Am I the strange one?”
Muyong Ji’s eyes widened slightly before she nodded calmly.
“Yes. You are the strange one.”
“Very well. I understand.”
Dokgo Myeong clenched his fists.
The world was still pitch black.
No, it seemed to have grown even darker than before.
Toward that darkness, Dokgo Myeong swung his fists like a madman.
BOOM!
An explosive sound erupted.
Dokgo Myeong continued to swing his fists.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
At this point, he could no longer tell what his fists were striking.
That was when it happened.
Clang! Crack!
Something blocked my fist.
Dokgo Myeong tilted his head in confusion, then stepped aside slightly and threw another punch.
Screeeech!
A sound like metal being struck rang out.
Dokgo Myeong listened intently.
“…Stop it a bit…! This is insane… like this…!”
“…Ugh!”
Voices.
Voices.
More voices.
As the ringing in my ears gradually faded, I heard someone’s voice.
“Young Master. Please restrain yourself.”
“Come to your senses! Really!”
“Damn it, you madman!”
“Is this the fight you meant to show me?”
Dokgo Myeong’s body froze.

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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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