Murim Login - Chapter 255

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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 255
Crash!
Jeok Cheon-gang sprang from his seat as if launched by a spring, oblivious to the chair clattering behind him.
Every fiber of my senses converged upon a single person—Jong Ri-chu.
“This is…”
In a moment so fleeting it barely existed, I felt it unmistakably.
A wave of qi energy radiating from Jong Ri-chu. It was so overwhelmingly formidable that it made one’s eyes snap wide open.
“Return to Simplicity and Embrace Authenticity… He was concealing his power.”
Dharma King Hung-do’s murmur was pure astonishment itself.
Return to Simplicity and Embrace Authenticity—a realm where one appears ordinary despite mastering martial arts. The protruding solar plexus point recedes, and one gains perfect control over one’s aura.
And to achieve such a state, one must have stepped beyond the realm of perfection itself.
Into the Transcendent realm—granted only to the greatest martial masters.
“A young brat at Transcendent mastery? Have you all lost your minds? Does that even make sense?”
Byuk Ryuk Do-wang’s sharp words drew headshakes from both Hung-do and Jeok Cheon-gang.
“Amitabha. Then, Patron Peng, how do you propose to explain this situation?”
“He has reached the realm of Return to Simplicity and Embrace Authenticity. And thoroughly enough to deceive even our eyes.”
The people at the head table, who had been listening to the three men’s exchange, fell silent with gaping mouths.
Jong Ri-chu—who had barely scraped through from the preliminaries until now. No wonder he had earned the mocking epithet of “the fortunate swordsman.”
But that was no longer the case.
The aura that had emanated from that fortunate young martial artist in that brief moment was potent enough to send shivers down the spines of the patriarchs of the Nine Major Sects and One Alliance and the Five Great Families who ruled the martial world.
“What in the…”
Byuk Ryuk Do-wang trailed off, closing his mouth.
He too was a Transcendent master and one of the Ten Kings. In his heart, he agreed with Jeok Cheon-gang and Hung-do’s assessment, yet he could not easily accept it.
“How can a man not yet thirty become a Transcendent master?”
As Byuk Ryuk Do-wang lamented in a murmur, one man who had been quietly observing the situation suddenly spoke.
“It is possible.”
“What?”
All heads turned in the same direction.
To the questioning gazes, Cheon Myeon Ho-ri Song Ho added a word.
“If it is Reversal of Age and Return to Youth.”
“…!”
As astonishment rippled through the assembly, Song Ho leaned back against his chair. And with eyes grown distant, he fixed his gaze upon Jong Ri-chu.
‘Who are you?’
The greater the question that swelled in my heart, the sharper the pain emanating from that severed edge decades past.
Song Ho now understood. This was no mere coincidence.
Jong Ri-chu was intimately connected to that day when I became a man with a single leg.
‘Reveal your true face.’
In that instant, the referee’s flag shot powerfully toward the sky.
* * *
Whoosh!
Without hesitation, the crimson line swept through the air. Chung Poong, who had been standing motionless with only his eyes blinking, twisted his body too late.
But Jong Ri-chu’s strike was far faster than he had anticipated.
A sharp tearing sound.
A burning pain spread outward from his chest. Blood welled up in crimson droplets from the long gash across his front garment.
The acrid stench of blood assailed his nostrils.
“…Ah.”
Chung Poong stumbled backward, his gaze vacant as he stared at Jong Ri-chu.
The friend—or rather, the one he had believed to be a friend—regarded him with an unsettlingly composed expression.
“A pity. It went in too shallow.”
True to his words, the sword wound was superficial. It had merely grazed the skin, leaving no deeper injury.
Yet the wound Chung Poong had suffered extended far beyond flesh and blood.
“Jo, Jong Ri-chu.”
In all his twenty-two years in the Murim—indeed, in his entire life—this was the first friend he had ever made.
The one who had first extended his hand and suggested they become friends now leveled his blade against him without the slightest hesitation, slashing across his chest.
“Why on earth…?”
“I fail to comprehend your meaning.”
Jong Ri-chu casually wiped the blood from his blade.
“Isn’t this the Murim? Surely you didn’t truly believe that a stranger like me, whom you’d only exchanged a few words with, would be absolutely trustworthy?”
“…!”
“Your expression tells me it’s true. Ha, how have you survived this long with such naïveté? I hear you’re a disciple of the Huashan Sect.”
Jong Ri-chu glanced briefly at the Huashan Sect Master, Cheon Geom Jin-in, seated at the head table, and clicked his tongue.
“Your sect master has taught his disciples poorly. Pathetic.”
At those words, Chung Poong’s tightly sealed lips parted. Unlike before, his voice emerged low and measured, his tone now formal.
“The one who taught me martial arts was my grandfather, not him.”
“Is that so? Whoever he is, he must be a senile old fool. What’s his title?”
“Sword Saint.”
“Sword Saint Mae Jong-hak?”
As Chung Poong nodded, a gasp of astonishment erupted from the spectator stands, which had fallen silent.
There was not a soul in this place who did not know the renown of Sword Saint Mae Jong-hak. His name had long since become a living legend.
Yet here, a disciple of the Sword Saint—who had vanished without trace for generations—had appeared.
And at this very moment, in this very place!
Many gasped in shock, their eyes widening, but Jong Ri-chu alone remained unmoved.
“A disciple of the Sword Saint, then….”
Jong Ri-chu, stroking his smooth jaw in habitual fashion, let out a soft chuckle.
“Then the Sword Saint is nothing special either.”
“…!”
“A child, no matter how strong, is still a child. One mustn’t carelessly leave such a creature by the riverbank. In a moment’s carelessness, they’ll be swept away by the current.”
Chung Poong suddenly recalled a saying his grandfather had repeated like a mantra.
‘Always remember this: the world is vast, and strong men are many. Your martial arts are not yet perfected, so you must always be wary of those who harbor dark intentions.’
Back then, those words had not resonated deeply. Huashan had been peaceful, and the time spent with Mae Jong-hak had been joyful.
Yet from some point onward, his curiosity about the outside world only grew, and he eventually slipped away from his grandfather’s watchful eye to venture beyond those walls.
And then….
‘Ah, so that’s what it meant.’
Now I finally understood the meaning behind those words.
But it pained me that I only grasped it after bleeding from the blade of the first friend I’d ever made.
‘Grandfather.’
Chung Poong gripped the sword hilt with renewed force. The scent of blood that had lingered at the tip of his nose faded, and his mind sharpened.
Shhring.
With the sound of hair standing on end, the pristine white blade emerged into view.
In that same instant, the inner force coiled within his dantian rose like clouds, engulfing his meridians and spreading in billowing waves.
Tssssss!
The distinctive violet aura of the Purple Mist Divine Art bloomed across Chung Poong’s entire body. His eyes, which now held the hue of the setting sun, turned toward Jong Ri-chu.
“You will come to regret this.”
“Then let’s see….”
Jong Ri-chu slung the blade he’d been holding across his shoulder.
“Show me what you’ve got.”
Whoosh!
Chung Poong tilted his head back. Jong Ri-chu’s blade, which grazed past his nose by the thickness of a sheet of paper, was covered not with sword energy but with a thick layer of rust the color of blood.
‘Fast!’
Though I had mastered the supreme eye technique under my grandfather’s tutelage, Jong Ri-chu’s movements surpassed even that.
As an alarm bell rang in my mind, a succession of blade strikes came crashing down like waves.
Slash! Swish swish swish slash!
The blade meant to cleave through my chest bent away in mid-air.
Just when it seemed to thrust, it slashed instead, and when it appeared to slash, an unexpected palm strike suddenly flew toward my shoulder.
Boom!
“Cough!”
Struck on the shoulder by the unexpected palm strike, Chung Poong was sent flying back a dozen paces.
As my body spun like a top through the air and my feet finally touched the ground,
Crash!
The blue stone beneath the Tournament Arena shattered into powder and scattered. Chung Poong surged forward toward Jong Ri-chu even faster than he’d been sent flying.
His blade, streaming violet sword energy in torrents, danced with grace as it bloomed like flower petals.
Shhhhh!
The Plum Blossom Thirty-Six Strikes, reaching its eighth form, scattered from all directions around Jong Ri-chu.
Surrounded by violet sword energy, Jong Ri-chu’s lips suddenly curved upward. It was a smile that seemed out of place in such a desperate situation.
“This is more interesting than I thought.”
Before his words even finished, the blade in his hand moved.
Then a blinding flash and a deafening roar erupted so violently that those watching could barely keep their eyes open.
Crash! Kabooom!
Bursting sword energy and scattering fragments.
As the billowing cloud of dust split apart, a single figure emerged into view.
Chung Poong’s eyes widened to their fullest as he watched Jong Ri-chu stifle a cough behind his hand.
‘This man….’
This time, he saw it clearly. Every movement Jong Ri-chu made to deflect each and every sword strike.
It was none other than his rusted blade that faced dozens of sword strikes capable of piercing steel.
That blade, devoid of even a hint of sword energy, let everything flow past it. It parted all things as naturally as water flowing downstream.
‘How is that even possible?’
Chung Poong was seized by astonishment and, simultaneously, by a strange emotion he had never experienced before.
The thunder of his own heartbeat echoed in his ears, and the hand gripping his sword blade would not move.
In that moment when a bead of sweat that had gathered on his brow rolled down the bridge of his nose and fell with a soft plop.
“Are you afraid?”
Jong Ri-chu’s footsteps were leisurely, as if taking a casual stroll. Chung Poong’s chest sank at the sight of his deep, chilling gaze.
And he realized that the words he had just spoken were the name of this strange emotion.
“…Afraid?”
It was a kind of emotion he had never once experienced before.
Fear—that unfamiliar emotion he had only ever heard spoken of through Grandfather’s lips—now gripped both his body and soul.
‘Poong, do you know what fear is?’
‘Fear? What is that?’
‘It hides deep within everyone’s heart. Your greatest weakness is that you do not know fear.’
Geom-seong Maejong-hak loved his grandson—no blood relation though he was—with profound devotion. He had always gazed upon him with warmth and cared for him day and night.
Just as a beautiful flower blooms in rich soil, Chung Poong had grown into a lovely child.
‘This old man’s fault. It should not have been this way….’
Having received only boundless love, he had learned only how to love.
On the mountain peak where grandfather and grandson dwelt together, there was no arrogance and greed, no jealousy and rage that overflowed in the world beyond. The boy had grown strong without ever knowing how terrifying human malice could be, without ever experiencing what fear truly was.
‘If such a day comes, do not let fear consume you. That is all I can say.’
These were words he had heard the day before Chung Poong secretly fled Lotus Peak.
Perhaps Grandfather had known all along that it would come to this.
But now, facing a master he had never encountered before, Chung Poong found himself retreating without even realizing it.
‘Grandfather, what do I do?’
Step.
With each step Jong Ri-chu took, Chung Poong fell back. And then another step. And another.
At a distance of five paces that never closed, Jong Ri-chu raised his blade.
“This is endless. I had expectations hearing you were the Sword Saint’s disciple, but is this truly all you have?”
“I, I…”
“You must know what it means to lose in the Murim.”
Whoosh.
A phantom-like movement.
Seized by fear, Chung Poong could not react. In the slowed world, only Jong Ri-chu seemed alive and moving.
With his single step, the distance that would not close was erased, and his blade slid forward.
It was the moment the rusted sword edge was about to carve into Chung Poong’s throat.
Screeeech! Clang!
A terrifying wave of force erupted with a deafening boom that made the ears ring.
In that fleeting instant, Jong Ri-chu twisted his blade to deflect the attack, and upon glimpsing the transparent spear blade, he smirked.
“Indeed, I’ve been blessed with a fine companion.”
“Companion is not quite right—more like a benefactor. But then again…”
Jin Tae-kyung spat phlegm to the side as he continued.
“What in the hell are you doing?”

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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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