Murim Login - Chapter 262

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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 262
What awaited us upon our arrival, having exerted ourselves to the utmost, was a sight so horrific that one could scarcely bear to witness it with open eyes.
Corpses, pools of blood, severed limbs abandoned by their owners….
If the landscape of Shaolin Temple that I had witnessed a year ago was a beautiful paradise, then what now unfolded before my eyes was nothing less than hell itself.
‘These insane bastards.’
It was clear they had slaughtered indiscriminately—civilians and martial artists alike, without distinction.
Beyond the Masked Figures locked in combat with Shaolin’s monks, I glimpsed an elderly man with a crimson beard.
“The Fire King…!”
I kept my gaze fixed upon the old man as I spoke.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“And the monk pinned beneath him?”
“Heung-cheon. Dharma King Hung-do’s youngest disciple. He has grown considerably in the time we have been apart.”
“…Indeed.”
He appeared to be well past seventy—how much he had aged.
In that moment of speechlessness, the old man’s blazing gaze swept across us.
“Is it only you?”
Jeok Cheon-gang answered in an indifferent tone.
“What if it is?”
“Heheheh, at last this old man has found the place to die.”
“No matter how empty your head might be, speak correctly. It is not a place to die, but a place to kill. And that includes you and all your ilk.”
The old man’s eyebrows twitched.
“Gwang-o. Nothing has changed about you.”
“Nothing has changed? Have we ever crossed paths before?”
“I glimpsed you from afar once. It has been a lifelong regret that we never tested our skills against each other.”
“What is your name?”
“Yeom-ho! The Tiger of the Southern Wilderness—that is who I am!”
“The Yin-Yang Twin Ghosts? Excellent. Since there should be another, we need not bother with capture—we can simply kill you.”
Jeok Cheon-gang clicked his tongue.
“Still, you are remarkably fortunate. You turned back before reaching the River of Three Paths.”
“Is that so?”
Fire blazed forth from Yeom-ho’s eyes. Simultaneously, his fist—rough and solid as stone—became suffused with fist force.
Though I had anticipated it, this old man was indeed a supreme master. Moreover, one who had cultivated the same burning yang qi as we possessed.
“You arrived far sooner than I had heard… but it changes nothing regardless.”
Sooner than he had heard?
In that instant, a thought flashed through my mind—how had Yeom-ho received such information so swiftly?
‘Even if he used carrier pigeons, we should have been faster.’
Yet I had no time to dwell upon the mystery. Yeom-ho seized Heung-cheon’s head as though to crush it.
Blood streamed from the lips of the elderly monk, now drenched entirely in crimson.
“Cough, cough.”
“Do you wish to keep this monk alive?”
“….”
I felt tension coil through Jeok Cheon-gang’s body.
Yeom-ho and I stood thirty paces apart. No matter how formidable Jeok Cheon-gang was, any reckless advance would result in Heung-cheon’s head shattering like tofu.
“Put him down this instant.”
Beneath that measured voice, I sensed a fury churning like molten lava. Yeom-ho laughed with a twisted grin.
“Dharma King, I hear you share deep ties with that bald-headed fool. Did he perhaps ask you to perform his last rites as he died?”
“Hongdao was a sage of the highest order, more virtuous than any. Your filthy mouth has no right to speak his name.”
“Dead is dead regardless. By now, he must be crossing the River of Three Paths, no?”
Jeok Cheon-gang’s eyes, cold and penetrating, fixed upon Yeom-ho as he parted his lips.
“Continue, then.”
“What?”
“I said continue. Do you truly believe you can shake me with such trivial provocations?”
“You… you accursed old demon.”
Yeom-ho’s face flushed crimson as he shook Heung-cheon’s head violently.
“You care nothing if this monk dies!”
“I do not.”
“What… what?”
“It is regrettable that I cannot save him, but what Hongdao asked of me was not his last rites—it was Shaolin.”
Whoooosh!
In that instant, tremendous martial force gathered within Jeok Cheon-gang’s palm. Taking swift form, it shot forth like an arrow.
Not toward Yeom-ho, but toward the Masked Figures who wielded their blades without pause.
BOOM!
The concentrated torrent of power unleashed from Jeok Cheon-gang’s hand pierced directly through their ranks. Like a ravenous fire dragon, it thrashed and consumed everything it touched, incinerating all in its path.
Crackle!
For the first time, emotion flickered across the vacant eyes revealed above the masks.
Fear and agony.
“Ahhhhh!”
“Noooooo!”
Horrific screams erupted as flames surged skyward.
Dozens of figures staggered and fled, their bodies ablaze. Dozens more lay motionless, their breath already extinguished.
Stunned by the sight, the remaining Masked Figures found themselves assailed by the monks’ staffs and swords from all directions.
“The battle is not over!”
“Drive out the villains!”
Swish! Clang!
Jeok Cheon-gang, who had reversed their desperate predicament in a single stroke, fixed a chilling gaze upon Yeom-ho.
“If you mean to kill him, do it. Otherwise, release him gently. Stop playing the fox when you are merely a bear.”
“You… you wretched old dog!”
Screech!
Yeom-ho played the fox to the bitter end. He hurled Heung-cheon toward us, then surged forward in close pursuit.
His intention to use Heung-cheon’s body as a shield and exploit the openings was transparent to read.
– You handle Heung-cheon.
A single thread of transmission pierced my ear.
Jeok Cheon-gang and I kicked off the ground without hesitation, four silhouettes shooting toward each other.
I received Heung-cheon’s body, while Jeok Cheon-gang leaped over him and attacked the hidden fox—no, bear—behind him.
CRASH!
I surrendered myself to the wind pressure that swept through with the terrifying collision.
Sliding back some twenty paces, I laid Heung-cheon down in a nearby grass thicket. Then I rushed toward the two supreme masters exchanging fierce attacks.
Of course, it was not Yeom-ho, who was merely laughing and watching.
“You!”
Whirrr, thud!
My knee rang out as it blocked a leg thick as a log.
But that was all.
Supreme and transcendent. It was a gap that no fortune could bridge, yet I was blessed not with fortune but with destiny.
The destiny of the System.
‘He is manageable.’
One-on-one would be impossible, but Yeom-ho was already struggling against Jeok Cheon-gang.
This old man’s only mistake was grossly underestimating my existence.
“Your dentures are confiscated for four months.”
At my smirking face, Yeom-ho’s face flushed red as if it would burst.
“You green little brat!”
“You sallow old geezer!”
ROARRR!
Yeom-ho, shaking off Jeok Cheon-gang, charged forward with a howl.
“I’ll kill you first!”
SCREEEECH!
A punch of unparalleled ferocity. Taking such a concentrated strike barehanded would not leave me unscathed.
I stepped back and drew the Baek Yeom from my back, swinging it.
BOOM!
The fist stopped with a thunderous sound. Yeom-ho’s eyes widened like lanterns.
“Ten-Thousand Year Cold Iron?”
“Indeed, expensive weapons are always the best. Wouldn’t you agree, old one?”
Jeok Cheon-gang did not answer. Instead, his fist, stained cyan-white, was already flying toward Yeom-ho.
CRASH!
The earth trembled with the sound. Two fists met precisely, yet one man’s knuckles were crushed and blackened with soot.
Yeom-ho muttered with a vacant expression.
“How… how is this possible?”
“Did you think all who learned the Flame Scripture were the same?”
An indifferent voice. Yet in Jeok Cheon-gang’s eyes burned molten fire.
A heat incomparable to the mere flames of Yeom-ho radiated from his entire being, pressing down upon all directions.
Yeom-ho let out a groan-like murmur.
“The Fire King….”
“Indeed. I am the eighteenth successor of the Yeolhwa Sect, Fire King Red Sky River.”
“This is absurd… Cough!”
I lunged toward Yeom-ho, spewing blood as he attempted to flee.
“There is no escape.”
Crack!
My foot came down with tremendous force, shattering his instep and driving deep into the earth. Blood sprayed from between Yeom-ho’s teeth as he cried out in agony.
In the next instant, two streaks of brilliant light pierced through his trembling abdomen.
Shriek!
The power differed by the gulf in cultivation, yet the technique bore the same name.
‘Extinguishing Flame Divine Fist.’
Boom!
The protective inner force that had wrapped his entire body like iron armor shattered. A fountain of blood erupted from Yeom-ho’s gaping mouth.
“Gaaahhh!”
Though both were supreme masters, the difference between them was vast.
Jeok Cheon-gang gazed down at Yeom-ho, who gasped for breath with severe internal injuries, his eyes cold as winter frost.
“Your fortune ends here.”
“Cough. Wait, just wait a moment.”
“There is neither reason nor time for that.”
“I will tell you everything! Yes, that’s right! Dark Heaven! Everything about Dark Heaven….”
“Did I not warn you? Do not play the fox.”
Whoosh, thud!
There was not a shred of hesitation in Jeok Cheon-gang’s hand. Yeom-ho’s headless body swayed before collapsing into a pool of blood.
I wiped the blood from my face and spoke.
“Would it not have been better to keep him alive?”
“One does not entrust important secrets to a beast as dull as a bear.”
“Still….”
“The bear is dead. Now we must catch the fox.”
Jeok Cheon-gang turned his head, speaking words of unclear meaning. An old man stood rigid some hundred paces away, staring down at us.
In his hand he held a short staff that gleamed with a verdant light.
“The Jade Emerald Staff!”
“Yin Ghost Han-su. Next is that one.”
In the next instant, as if he understood those words, Han-su’s form shot forward at dazzling speed.
* * *
Whoosh!
Han-su unleashed his movement technique with all his strength. Behind him, he felt two auras drawing closer, bit by bit, ever so slightly.
‘Damn it!’
He recognized it at first glance. Fire King Red Sky River.
He had not anticipated that such a monster—counted among the foremost of the Ten Kings—would arrive so swiftly.
‘Who is this other young man?’
The question flickered through my mind, but I dismissed it just as quickly.
The identity of that boy was irrelevant. What mattered was that Yeom-ho, who possessed martial prowess equal to my own, had fallen by their hands.
‘Fool. To challenge the Fire King instead of Byuk Ryuk Do-wang.’
We had first met during the Great Tournament decades ago and walked together all these years, but we were not sworn brothers bound by oath. Han-su had no intention of dying alongside Yeom-ho on the same day and hour.
‘Just a little further. Just a little more!’
The mission was complete. The Jade Flame Seal in my grip was proof of that. If I could reach the designated location and make contact with ‘him’… I would surely survive.
‘He’ was a master even the Fire King could not overcome.
‘If it comes to that, Yeom-ho, I swear I will avenge you.’
As Han-su’s grip tightened around the Jade Flame Seal, his face hardened like stone.
‘This is…!’
Another aura drawing closer from the distance. This time, not from behind—from ahead.
At first, I thought it might be reinforcements from the Orthodox Martial Arts World, but the aura I sensed was only one. Its momentum was not particularly strong.
‘Damn it. Things are falling apart.’
If I were delayed even for a moment, the Fire King could catch me.
Han-su bit his lips hard and, mustering every last ounce of strength, burst through the undergrowth.
“Ah!”
A cry of exultation, a face flooded with joy.
No emotion could compare to the relief of having survived the brink of death.
Han-su called out to ‘him’ with a voice brimming with joy.
“Blood Lord!”
* * *
Jeok Cheon-gang and I stopped in our tracks simultaneously, as if bound by an unspoken agreement.
Han-su, transformed from a desperate fugitive into a confident predator, stood waiting for us.
“There they are! Fire King, that old man and that boy killed Yeom-ho!”
No—Han-su was no predator. He was merely a fox borrowing the tiger’s might, a creature of false bravado.
The true predator stood quietly beside Han-su. I sensed nothing from him, which was strange, and all the more dangerous for it.
But Jeok Cheon-gang was different. His face rigid, he asked coldly.
“Who are you?”
“Your enemy.”
The Young Man smiled faintly and continued.
“The enemy who killed your most precious friend.”
…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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