Murim Login - Chapter 347

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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 347
The Underground Prison of the Sichuan Tang Sect was dark and damp, carrying with it something that sent a chill down one’s spine.
Perhaps it was only natural. Countless souls had met their end within these walls since the Underground Prison’s creation.
“Would you care for something to drink?”
In that sense, the old man now offering me a worn gourd flask was little different from the ferryman of the afterlife himself.
I briefly pondered how many lives this diminutive, hunchbacked elder had claimed before responding.
“No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself, then.”
Gulp, gulp.
Gung Elder tilted the flask to his lips and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. The tattered fabric was stained with what appeared to be blood—dark crimson streaks that seemed ready to crumble away.
“Ahh, that hits the spot.”
The pungent aroma of strong liquor mingled with the metallic stench of blood that permeated the corridor, lingering at the tip of my nose.
Drinking on duty—at the Taewon Jin Family, that would warrant a written reprimand. But here in the Sichuan Tang Sect’s Underground Prison, such rules apparently didn’t apply.
“I’ve heard you’re quite the renowned successor in the Martial World.”
It was clear who he was addressing. Chung Poong and Dang Sa-dok had disappeared somewhere long ago, while Divine Physician and Moon-kyung were busy purifying the Underground Prison to transform it into a treatment chamber.
I reluctantly answered.
“Renowned is a stretch. I just have a bit of a reputation.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard. Being the Fire King’s successor, you could probably piss on the Nine Major Sects and One Alliance’s signboard and get away with it.”
Gung Elder flashed a grin, revealing teeth completely rotted away.
“Yet here you are, locked away in this place.”
“What do you mean, ‘locked away’?”
“The man who pissed on the Nine Major Sects and One Alliance’s signboard. It was probably the Kunlun Sect’s, if I recall correctly.”
“…There really are all kinds of people in this world.”
“Heh heh. He was once a notable demon lord of the Demon Cult. Now he’s just bound to a torture rack, bleeding out his life. You must have seen him on your way in?”
“I’m not sure.”
The Underground Prison of the Sichuan Tang Sect had a labyrinthine structure, winding and complex. From what I’d observed on the way in, there were dozens of cells and roughly a dozen prisoners confined within.
‘That man who supposedly pissed on the Kunlun Sect’s signboard was probably one of them.’
They were all paying the price for their misdeeds. I felt not a shred of sympathy for any of them.
Or rather, I didn’t have the luxury of sparing such thoughts.
‘I didn’t expect to be this anxious.’
Ever since entering the Underground Prison, an unsettling unease had refused to leave me.
It was the same feeling I’d had years ago when Mother went into surgery—sitting alone in a quiet corridor, waiting for the outcome.
‘It’ll go well. It has to go well.’
As I murmured those words to myself, the firmly sealed door of the cell swung open, and roughly a dozen servants carrying various cleaning tools came rushing out.
I turned to the one person who appeared last.
“Is it finished?”
Divine Physician nodded with a bright expression.
Between the two of us, the Underground Prison visible behind him had been transformed into quite a respectable treatment chamber.
“It’s not yet at a level I’d call satisfactory, but it has the basic appearance of one now.”
“Then….”
“Indeed. We begin now.”
At last, all preparations were complete.
The various medicinal ingredients crafted from twenty-four rare herbs excavated from Han Bing Ji were already in my possession, and the treatment chamber had been prepared. Only one thing remained.
“You’ve all worked tirelessly. Would you mind stepping aside for a moment?”
At my words, the members of the Sichuan Tang Sect, including Gung Elder, moved away. I waited for them to disappear before reaching into my robes.
‘Inventory open. Summon.’
A hard sensation filled my empty palm. I handed the Ring of Ten Thousand Poisons, which I had kept for safety reasons, to Divine Physician.
Divine Physician slipped the ring onto his finger and gestured as he stepped into the Underground Prison.
“Shall we move the patient?”
I unfastened the carrying frame from my shoulders. A small figure emerged, accompanied by the faintest whisper of breath.
“This way.”
I stepped into the Underground Prison, cradling Jeok Cheon-gang in my arms. The floor had been cleaned, yet the stench—not entirely vanished—still lingered at the edge of my senses.
But such things mattered little. His weight, light as a feather, made my chest ache with an inexplicable ache.
‘He has grown far weaker.’
More than a month and a half had passed since I departed the Martial Alliance in Hanan and began this journey.
Though I had found Divine Physician and entrusted him with the treatment far faster than anticipated, Jeok Cheon-gang grew frailer with each passing day.
Softly.
I carefully laid him upon the smooth, white stone prepared at the center.
It was something called Han Bing Ji—a cold stone that Dang Sa-dok had specially provided—and Divine Physician had said it would greatly aid Jeok Cheon-gang’s recovery.
“He sleeps peacefully.”
Jeok Cheon-gang’s face, though gaunt, held a certain serenity.
I gazed intently at his visage, lined with age and marked by age spots.
Memories of our first meeting and all the moments since flickered before my eyes.
‘An amusing fellow, indeed.’
‘The more I see him, the more enigmatic he becomes. Which sect does he belong to?’
I clearly remembered that ill-tempered old man I had encountered a year ago at Jang Tae-bo’s residence.
‘The roof is worn. Rain leaks through.’
I also remembered a certain master, shedding tears of regret over a leaking roof, unable to save a cherished disciple he had treasured like blood kin.
‘If you kill that one, you die too.’
‘I entrusted the sacred treasure of the Yeolhwa Sect to that girl.’
‘I shall pass all that I have to you.’
From Shanxi to Hanan, from Hanan to Anhui, and through that year on Jiuhua Mountain—I remember every moment we shared.
Jeok Cheon-gang led me beyond the Taewon Jin Family, and I followed him into the vast realm of the world. We were always together.
‘How is it? Was I not right?’
‘Right about what?’
‘Heavenly Fire Divine Technique. Was it not magnificent?’
His face and voice, smiling faintly even as he coughed blood, came to mind.
On a night when the moon shone brilliantly, even that one gruff word he had deliberately offered.
‘Do not call me master. Call me Old Master Noya.’
“Old Master Noya.”
I call out, but no answer comes back.
I know this, yet I call anyway—not because I hope he will hear me, but because there are things I wish to say to him.
“Do you know that?”
You don’t know, you fool!
A voice that seemed to echo from nowhere drew a bitter laugh from my lips. I gripped Jeok Cheon-gang’s weathered hand firmly and whispered.
“I have always wanted to call you Master.”
I cannot say when it began. But at some point, I came to understand.
He was my master, and I was his disciple.
We both held the bond of master and student in our hearts.
“Young Master Jin. The time has come.”
At the Divine Physician’s words, I tore my gaze from Jeok Cheon-gang’s face.
Then, with a composed expression, I bowed respectfully to the elderly Physician and his young apprentice.
“Please take good care of my Master.”
The two responded with empty hands.
“I will do my utmost.”
“I too shall assist the Master and do everything within my power.”
Yes, that is enough. Man proposes, heaven disposes.
I have done all that a man can do; the rest lies in the hands of fate.
God, Buddha, Allah, the Jade Emperor.
‘Whoever you are, if you help just this once, I will never forget.’
I do not believe in gods, but I believe there exists an omniscient being above the heavens.
As I offered a brief prayer to him whose face and name I do not know, the Divine Physician opened his mouth with a grave expression.
“Remember this. A fortnight. A fortnight. Until then, no one must approach him.”
What if more than a fortnight passes?
I swallowed the words that lingered on my tongue. Now there was nothing to do but trust these two. There was only one thing I could say now.
“I will stake my life on holding the line. Against anyone.”
* * *
“Is that all?”
The Middle-aged Guard looked down at the man with vacant eyes.
With limbs twisted grotesquely and skin flayed raw, the man—now a creature of blood—gasped in a voice no louder than an ant’s.
“I… I have already told you everything I know…”
“The most important thing is missing, is it not.”
“I do not know. I truly do not know.”
Tears of blood flowed from his one remaining eye, and his trouser legs, already soaked in blood, grew damp with urine.
The man expelled a trembling voice.
“Please… please kill me now…”
The Middle-aged Guard, who had been staring at the man’s pupils that seemed ready to extinguish at any moment, clicked his tongue.
“It appears to be the truth, then.”
The man had already endured unimaginable torture for half a day.
Had he begged for his life, there might have been room for doubt, but now that the word “death” had escaped his lips, there was no choice but to accept it.
No one had ever lied before the Middle-aged Guard.
Save for one man—Dok Wang Dang Sa-mun.
“I witnessed your half-day’s display of spirit. Now, rest.”
A whistle of wind, then a dull thud.
With a gust, blood-soaked hair whipped backward. The man whose brow had been pierced by a flick of the fingers exhaled his last breath with a peaceful expression.
The Middle-aged Guard gazed down at the corpse of the man who had served as a branch member of the Sichuan Tang Sect and operative of the Green Shadow Squad, then extended his hand.
A deafening boom.
A pit one zhang deep materialized with the sound.
The five corpses scattered about were then stacked neatly into the pit and covered with earth—the entire process took mere moments.
“The Green Shadow Squad… those flies have attached themselves.”
The Middle-aged Guard’s gaze, muttered low, turned toward the winding ridge beyond. Westward—toward the Sichuan Tang Sect.
I should have killed him when Dang Sa-dok first emerged.
A miscalculation. Dok Wang’s resistance had proven far more formidable than anticipated, consuming considerable time to expel the poison, and I had lost an arm in the process.
The Emei Sect and Qingcheng Sect might be manageable, but the Sichuan Tang Sect was vigilant and fortified. Even for one such as I, advancing alone with a missing arm would be folly.
Yet this merely extends my lifeline by a few more days. The outcome will not change.
I have long since grasped every movement unfolding in Sichuan.
Emei, Qingcheng, and Tang Sect—the three tigers crouching in Sichuan. All preparations to hunt them are complete.
Now… it is time to summon the hunters.
A sharp whistle of movement.
The Middle-aged Guard glided forward. Each step erased distance; the landscape blurred past.
At last, his footsteps ceased at a cliff nestled deep within the mountains.
“This is the place.”
Without hesitation, the Middle-aged Guard reached out and pressed against the cliff face.
A resonant hum.
The cliff crumbled away.
Or rather, space itself warped. The weathered stone and rock, eroded by countless years, vanished, revealing the hollow cavern that had been concealed beneath.
The Qimen Formation of the sorcerers—it never ceased to astound me.
Yet compared to what lay ahead, this was but a trifle.
Step, step, step.
At the heart of the cavern, shrouded in oppressive darkness, the Middle-aged Guard stood upon the center of the strange pattern carved into the floor and summoned his inner force.
The moment the blood-red haze erupting from his entire body touched the pattern—
“Heavenly Master!”
A brilliant flash.
With the Middle-aged Guard’s cry, the pattern blazed with light. An indescribable black radiance—dark yet luminous—flooded the cavern.
And in the space where the light faded, thunder-like roars filled the void.
“We greet the Western Heavenly Demon Lord!”
“We greet the Demon Lord!”
Vacant eyes and blade-sharp auras. Hundreds of tiger hunters clad in pitch-black robes.
As the Middle-aged Guard—the Western Heavenly Demon Lord—gazed upon them, a faint smile graced his lips.

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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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