Murim Login - Chapter 240

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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 240
Smoke rose from the Old Master’s seven energy centers.
It was heat-infused qi dense enough to see with the naked eye, and it circulated endlessly around the old man’s small frame in an unbroken cycle.
And then.
A soft whooshing sound.
Five rings rose one after another above the head of the cross-legged Old Master.
Some were blue and red, others black and white.
When the final yellow ring took shape, the five-colored rings of the Five Directions were complete.
Five Qi Converging to Origin—the legendary realm all martial artists dreamed of. The small-framed Old Master, Red Sky River, suddenly opened his eyes.
“Come in.”
The door swung open before the words had even finished falling.
A young man in tattered clothes strode in without hesitation, as if he owned the place, and glanced around.
“Weren’t you in the middle of cultivating your qi?”
“How could I concentrate when some fool keeps loitering outside the door?”
“Fair point. I should’ve just come in and watched the spectacle.”
“It’s not a spectacle—it’s Five Qi Converging to Origin.”
“What’s the difference? As long as we understand each other.”
Red Sky River studied the young man, Jin Tae-kyung, intently.
“Where have you been?”
“You know—I went to see the Clan Lord Nam-goong Yong.”
“The Namgung Clan Lord. Ah yes, that’s right.”
Red Sky River hummed thoughtfully and asked.
“What did he say?”
“Oh, that.”
Jin Tae-kyung stretched and continued.
“The banquet’s been canceled.”
“The banquet’s been canceled? What do you mean?”
“Well, apparently Chang Cheon Geom-wang has gone into seclusion?”
“Seclusion?”
“He supposedly had a sudden minor enlightenment or something. Anyway, that’s how it turned out.”
“An enlightenment, you say…”
Red Sky River nodded slowly.
“How peculiar.”
Jin Tae-kyung, who had been stroking his thick beard with his fingers, paused.
“What is?”
“Chang Cheon Geom-wang has waited twenty years for this day. Yet of all times, this happens today—how could that not be peculiar?”
“…Maybe he was getting a bit anxious about actually facing you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Come on, I’ve got it figured out. You’re just overthinking things, aren’t you?”
“You think so?”
“Yes. Completely.”
Jeok Cheon-gang watched in silence as Jin Tae-kyung nodded vigorously.
“Why, why would you do that?”
“Just because.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘just because’!”
“Do I need your permission just to look at your face once?”
“Portrait rights, don’t you know about portrait rights?”
“I don’t. Now shut your mouth before I use portrait fees as an excuse to step on your head.”
“Yes, sir.”
But the silence didn’t last long. Jin Tae-kyung cautiously gauged my mood before speaking again.
“Hey, Old Master.”
“What.”
“This situation worked out well, didn’t it?”
“Well or poorly, it matters little. We’ve merely postponed the inevitable.”
“Still, we’ve bought ourselves time.”
“Do you think I would lose?”
Jin Tae-kyung hastily waved his hands.
“That’s not what I meant. In our current circumstances, even victory wouldn’t truly be victory.”
Even victory wouldn’t truly be victory…
I murmured those words to myself.
He was right. Had this duel taken place, regardless of the outcome, I would have suffered grievously.
Chang Cheon Geom-wang was an opponent requiring my full strength.
Should I sustain internal injuries in such a fierce confrontation with him, the barely balanced harmony of my essence, energy, and spirit would crumble.
“Old Master?”
I lifted my head from my thoughts. Jin Tae-kyung was gazing at me with worried eyes.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Do I need permission to call out to you as well?”
“What a tedious fellow you are.”
Normally I would have struck him on the head, but today I decided to make an exception.
I rose from my seat with a faint smile.
“Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“Hanan.”
The Seongnae Daeyeon. Even now, the greatest masters of the martial world must be converging upon Hanan.
Having journeyed through four seasons, we had traveled a long and winding path.
“The Namgung Clan has no reason to detain us, and we have no reason to remain. Departure is only natural.”
“Leaving is fine, but couldn’t we at least soak in some hot water to clean up? I’m so filthy that my body feels heavy.”
“It’s far too late for such talk. Don’t pretend to be refined now, you wretch. Go outside and collect some travel funds. Even uninvited guests deserve that much.”
“Wow, now you’re making me extort money.”
“What did you say!”
“I’m leaving. Let’s go.”
Jin Tae-kyung departed from the pavilion with a grumble, unaware of what was happening behind him.
That Jeok Cheon-gang was watching him in silence.
Watching the shackles hastily sealed with force and the cleanly severed edge of his sleeve.
The Old Master, whose gaze had been following the young man’s receding figure, muttered softly.
“…That brat. Acting without being told.”
His cunning gray eyes swept across a distant small mountain far away.
A faint cloud of dust was scattering above the ridge covered in verdant green.
* * *
The clear sun disappeared beyond the mountains, and darkness descended.
Standing motionless while the mountain wind brushed through the trees, the Old Master, Chang Cheon Geom-wang Namgung Cheon, suddenly opened his mouth.
“Who is that child?”
Nam-goong Yong, the patriarch of the Namgung Clan who stood quietly behind Chang Cheon Geom-wang, answered.
“He is Jin Tae-kyung of the Taewon Jin Family in Shanxi.”
“The Taewon Jin Family?”
“Yes.”
“So a hidden dragon was crouching in the borderlands.”
“The Fire King embraced that hidden dragon.”
“That’s wrong.”
Chang Cheon Geom-wang shook his head.
“The Fire King is not the one who embraced the hidden dragon. Rather, he himself became the pearl that guides the dragon.”
“…!”
Nam-goong Yong could not hide his astonishment. Though their relationship was said to be barren, he knew well what kind of man his father was.
Among other things, he was a man of few words and exceedingly stingy in his praise of others.
Yet from such a man’s lips came the words “hidden dragon.” The Fire King Red Sky River, whose name shook the heavens, had himself become the pearl that guides the dragon.
‘A man who never once praised even his own grandson….’
Along with a sense of regret came curiosity.
“Is that what you mean to say?”
To Nam-goong Yong’s cautious question, Chang Cheon Geom-wang did not answer. Instead, he posed an unexpected question.
“How far have you progressed in the Emperor’s Sword Form?”
“…I have yet to overcome the wall of the third tier.”
“At your age, this father had mastered the Emperor’s Sword Form up to the seventh tier. It must have been around that time. When the world began calling me the Sword King.”
“I am ashamed.”
His answer carried embarrassment, but Chang Cheon Geom-wang paid it no mind.
For this was not a rebuke meant for a son now in his sixties.
“Twenty years ago, when my martial prowess reached the eighth tier, I suddenly wondered. I wanted to test my sword.”
“….”
Nam-goong Yong bowed his head in silence. What followed was a fact he knew all too well.
The clash between the Fire King and the Sword King. The victor of that earth-shaking duel between two supreme masters was the Fire King.
“During my secluded training, I faced countless towering walls. As I struck and pounded endlessly, at last the wall crumbled.”
“If you do…!”
“I’ve merely crossed one wall. I have yet to achieve complete mastery.”
“I am humbled!”
Nam-goong Yong trembled as he performed a deep bow to his father.
The Emperor’s Sword Form was the beginning and end of the dozens of martial techniques that existed within the Namgung Clan.
Throughout the clan’s history, only the founding patriarch had achieved complete mastery of the Emperor’s Sword Form.
Chang Cheon Geom-wang, true to his nature as a great warrior, had reached nine-tenths mastery of the Emperor’s Sword Form in approximately a hundred years.
“Humbled, indeed.”
Yet Chang Cheon Geom-wang’s expression remained composed—or rather, it seemed almost hollow.
“Then let me ask you this. Could you withstand three strikes of the Emperor’s Sword Form as I wield it?”
“How could I possibly…? Surely not?”
Nam-goong Yong’s eyes widened to the size of lanterns as he watched his father nod quietly.
Something that should not exist, something that could not exist.
Yet his father had confirmed it.
That someone had withstood the Emperor’s Sword Form unleashed by none other than Chang Cheon Geom-wang himself.
Even Nam-goong Yong, who rarely lost his composure, found his voice trembling.
“B-but he is merely twenty-two years old.”
“Yes, twenty-two. With a Heavenly Martial Body and Fire King Red Sky River as his master.”
Chang Cheon Geom-wang lifted his gaze to the dark night sky above.
For long years, he had lived under the name of Namgung from the moment he first came into this world. He had carried the two characters of “Chang Cheon” in his heart and mastered a sword that resembled that name.
But today, he had encountered a dragon soaring above the heavens.
‘I thought one strike would suffice.’
I had drawn my sword with the intention of correcting his manners thoroughly, pouring my full power into that first strike.
Then came three strikes, and then six.
But….
‘Three strikes. It’s over, isn’t it? Thank you for the lesson.’
The young man had simply shouldered his iron staff and departed.
What remained in his wake was a single sword path—hundreds of trees and boulders cleaved in two, and the mournful cries of birds suddenly left homeless.
‘A sleeping dragon. A sleeping dragon indeed.’
Chang Cheon Geom-wang, who had been murmuring only this single phrase in his heart, finally spoke.
“Have they departed?”
Nam-goong Yong, who had barely regained his senses, answered.
“Yes. They left five hours ago.”
“Where are they headed?”
“To Hanan. They intend to participate in the Seongnae Daeyeon, which opens in a month.”
“The Seongnae Daeyeon?”
Chang Cheon Geom-wang let out a hollow laugh.
“Tell your son this clearly. In this Seongnae Daeyeon, he must not reveal his name.”
* * *
The Black Mountain Stronghold was a bandit organization situated at one of the major crossroads connecting Hanan and Anhui.
Heuk Jong-pil, the leader of Black Mountain Stronghold, was an illiterate former butcher, yet he was both a born plunderer and a master who had honed his martial techniques to perfection.
Thanks to this, he could command over three hundred subordinates and conduct himself like a king.
‘But in the end, the Green Forest Alliance bleeds us dry every month.’
No matter how skilled Heuk Jong-pil was, he could never stand against the Green Forest Alliance.
The only reason Black Mountain Stronghold had grown to its current size was because he paid forty percent of his monthly profits to the Green Forest Alliance and received various forms of support in return.
For instance, the high-grade intelligence his subordinate had just brought him.
“Boss, a messenger from the Green Forest Alliance’s main headquarters has arrived! Here….”
Smack!
“You idiot, don’t you know I can’t read? Read it aloud!”
“It’s about goods the Geumwa Trading Company is transporting and their route. They should arrive within two days.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“Sir?”
“Call everyone! All the men!”
The Seongnae Daeyeon was an important event for both martial artists and bandits alike.
Heuk Jong-pil gathered all three hundred of his subordinates and set up an ambush along the path the Geumwa Trading Company would take.
‘Just let one big prize fall into our hands. Just one.’
Even a single top-grade cat’s eye stone would leave them with substantial profit after paying tribute to the Green Forest Alliance.
Feeding and arming over three hundred strong men was no trivial matter.
“They should be arriving soon… Why haven’t the scouts I sent returned?”
“I’m not sure. I sent them an hour ago, but there’s been no word.”
“Damn it, dealing with these incompetent fools is exhausting. My body is exhausted.”
In the next instant, Heuk Jong-pil’s complaining body went rigid.
With trembling hands, he pointed toward something approaching at tremendous speed from the darkness in the distance.
“… What the hell is that?”
“I… I’m not sure either.”
Whoooosh!
Two silhouettes, one large and one small. In their wake, a long trail of crimson energy lingered like the tail of a meteor shower.
‘A… a ghost?’
It was then that Heuk Jong-pil, crouching in the grass, witnessed this spectacle.
The two silhouettes, moving at an unbelievably fast speed along the mountain road, suddenly came to a halt, and then he heard the sound of their conversation.
“Why are you meddling?”
“It bothers me. Those two lurking around earlier seem to be part of the same group.”
“We’re going to be late at this rate, you fool.”
“No matter how late we are, it’s right that whoever sees trash first should clean it up.”
“How dare you talk back to me like that….”
“These bastards always end up setting fires in the mountains.”
“Damn it! Go break their limbs.”
“Yes, sir.”
Heuk Jong-pil, who had been listening intently to their conversation, suddenly opened his eyes wide.
“W-we’re doomed! Everyone—!”
But his cry was cut short.
Whoosh!
A brief whistle of wind. Then a large hand draped familiarly across my shoulder.
“All of you, what—?”

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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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