Murim Login - Chapter 417

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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 417
I wasn’t ignorant of the truth. I was simply waiting.
Waiting for the moment they bared their fangs.
“Rather than that… it’s certainty.”
“Certainty?”
“Yes.”
Before I could stop myself, the corners of my mouth lifted. I finally spoke the words I’d been suppressing countless times, over and over.
“You bastards care more about the back of my head than you do about the Arch Lich. That’s the kind of certainty I’m talking about.”
“…!”
「…!」
The moment the brief masquerade came to an end.
Thud.
Lee Jung-yong’s footsteps ahead of me halted.
Whoosh!
A piercing wind erupted from behind. Three currents of air tearing toward the vital points across my entire body.
I didn’t need to turn around to see it. Where the dagger leaving Wu Hei-xing’s hand was headed. And what I needed to do.
Swish, swish, swish!
Three daggers aimed at my neck, spine, and right arm passed through empty air, failing to find their mark.
‘No, that’s not it.’
Perhaps thanks to my senses pushed to their absolute limit. Everything moved slowly and with crystalline clarity.
As I extended my hand, I caught the hilt of the dagger grazing past my right arm. Simultaneously, I twisted my waist and whipped my arm out like lightning.
Screeeech!
「Hah!」
Wu Hei-xing, who had been rushing toward me, hastily swung his sword.
Boom!
A dull, thunderous sound accompanied his body being driven backward. As Wu Hei-xing, his expression twisted, moved to charge again, a low voice stopped him.
“Enough.”
「Teacher Lee. Why would you…!」
“He’s not an opponent you can handle. Wait a moment.”
Lee Jung-yong, who had restrained Wu Hei-xing, fixed me with an impassive gaze.
“Your perception is quite sharp.”
At his abruptly changed tone, I let out a short laugh.
“An old man spouting obvious platitudes. If I lacked this much perception, I’d have been dead long ago.”
“Since when have you known?”
I answered without hesitation.
“From the moment we first met.”
That day I stormed into the Myeongdong Guild alone. Lee Jung-yong and I had already taken positions at an irreconcilable impasse.
It was decided from the moment that bastard Park Ji-hoon had the Black Hunters sever both of Kkokjeong’s arms.
“If you’re going to claim that was merely your subordinates’ excessive loyalty, then roll up that white-coated tongue of yours and shove it down your throat.”
“That cannot be. I merely regret it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Your future spent sniffing incense behind a folding screen?”
Lee Jung-yong shook his head.
“No. I actually took quite a liking to you.”
“Then you shouldn’t have cut off one of my men’s arm.”
“It was a light warning. I wanted to teach Choi Min-woo a lesson, you see. Back then, Jin Tae-kyung was hardly a significant concern.”
“And now?”
Lee Jung-yong answered with a gentle smile.
“I came here personally. Does that answer your question?”
“That’s more than enough.”
I leaned my back against the crumbling concrete debris, letting White Flame hang diagonally at my side.
Wu Hei-xing on my left. Lee Jung-yong on my right. Each separated by roughly ten meters—a distance that could vanish in a single heartbeat.
“Still, this is unexpected. I thought you’d at least wait until after dealing with the Arch Lich before making your move.”
「Puhaha! You stupid bread bastard!」
Wu Hei-xing suddenly interjected with a snicker.
Just days ago, this creature couldn’t even meet my gaze properly—now he declared himself with unbridled arrogance.
「You’re the one fighting the Arch Lich. Jin Tae-kyung.」
“What nonsense… Oh.”
A thought flashed through my mind, and despite myself, a hollow laugh escaped.
I’d suspected as much, but this was truly magnificent. Our minds operated on entirely different wavelengths.
“Damn, look at these bastards’ scheming. It’s beyond imagination.”
「Now do you understand? What situation you’re in?」
“So… you never intended to fight the Arch Lich at all?”
Wu Hei-xing’s lips curled upward as he spoke.
「Why should I take such risks?」
“…!”
「Today’s battle will be recorded as a defeat. And at the very top of the casualty list, your name will be written. I’ve already prepared your epitaph.」
Wu Hei-xing spread his arms like a theatrical actor.
「A bread from Korea, slain by the Arch Lich. How’s that for an epitaph?」
Even after his words ended, I blinked blankly for a long moment, unable to find a response. My mind felt vacant, and a chill that wrapped around my entire body refused to fade.
Because of his vile scheme?
No. In my hollow mind, a single question Wu Hei-xing had posed kept echoing endlessly.
‘Why should I take such risks?’
It felt like a blow to the back of my head. Simultaneously, the countless deaths I’d witnessed over the past month and the grotesquely mutilated corpses flashed before my eyes.
Young parents who held their small children close, hoping they might somehow survive, meeting their end in that embrace.
Elderly who couldn’t flee due to their infirmities, torn apart. A pregnant woman clutching her swollen belly, drawing her final breath.
And…
‘On the day I became a Hunter, I swore an oath. That I would fight monsters until my last breath. That oath remains valid.’
Lei Fei, who fulfilled his duty until the very end, and the five hundred Public Security Armed Forces Hunters who rose from death itself to charge gloriously forward.
Choi Team Leader and Shao Shen, who bound their hands and sword hilts with cloth, determined to face their end while taking down one more monster.
‘So then. Why did they all take such risks? Damn fools.’
Their faces flashed before my eyes, one after another. My chest burned as if I’d swallowed a ball of fire, and hot breath escaped my lips.
After taking a deep breath, I fixed my gaze on one of them.
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Are you thinking the same way as that bastard?”
“No. Not at all. He fears the Arch Lich, but….”
Lee Jung-yong continued smoothly.
“I’ve seized an opportunity. The longer this war drags on, the more profit I’ll reap.”
After a moment of silence, I nodded slightly.
“I see. So that’s how it is.”
I pushed myself away from the concrete rubble. Molten heat surged through my limbs and meridians like lava, coursing through hundreds of pathways. Blue flames flickered along the spearhead of the White Flame Spear I gripped in my hand.
“Let me ask you one thing.”
“Anything.”
“Bastard number one and bastard number two. I just came up with your epitaphs—do you like them?”
「…!」
“…Heh.”
Wu Hei-xing’s face twisted grotesquely, and in the next instant, Lee Jung-yong’s eyes—which had been fixed on me—curved like crescents.
Whoooosh!
Blinding flashes erupted from both sides.
* * *
Lee Jung-yong had already steeled his resolve.
‘No room for carelessness. I must kill him by any means necessary.’
A lion gives its all even when catching a rabbit. How much more so when hunting a wolf like Jin Tae-kyung—the lion must unleash its full strength.
No matter how much Lee Jung-yong considered himself a lion, he could not ignore the fangs of a wolf.
Shwik!
In a single step, in a fraction of a second, Lee Jung-yong closed the distance of more than ten meters, his hand blurring.
A longsword, already drawn from its scabbard, transformed into blinding light and shot forward.
Directly at Jin Tae-kyung.
Whoooosh!
This was Lee Jung-yong’s true strike—one never seen anywhere else in this war, delivered with complete sincerity.
Moreover, Wu Hei-xing was also joining the assault. Though far inferior compared to Jin Tae-kyung, he remained an S-rank Hunter who wielded an aura blade—a fact that hadn’t changed.
「Die!」
The moment Wu Hei-xing roared with bloodshot eyes, Lee Jung-yong could see it clearly.
Jin Tae-kyung’s movement—smooth as if gliding. The spearhead wrapped in blue flames.
Crash!
Two swords and one spear collided.
A tremendous wave of energy erupted with a deafening sound that shook the surroundings, toppling buildings and reducing concrete to powder.
Boom! Boom-boom-boom!
A scene as if a bombardment had occurred.
The ground caved in, and a massive tremor swept across a radius of several hundred meters.
But this was merely the beginning of everything that would follow.
Shwiiiiing!
Dozens, hundreds of lines carved through the air. Lee Jung-yong’s blade moved at a speed barely perceptible to the eye, slashing at me relentlessly.
Or so I was certain would happen.
Until I drove my palm, wreathed in flames, into Wu Hei-xing’s chest and sent him flying, before sweeping my spear downward.
Whoooosh! Fuuuuuung!
Superheated air ignited, consuming the atmosphere itself.
My spear’s blade, which had devoured both the thick fog that had consumed the entire city and the moisture summoned by the weather, came slashing diagonally across Lee Jung-yong’s entire body with ferocious momentum.
It resembled nothing so much as a dragon’s claw descending from the heavens.
‘What in the—’
Lee Jung-yong’s brow furrowed.
My spear blade was erasing the aura he had scattered as it surged forward.
The tremendous heat stole his breath, and his body went rigid.
The young man before him, not yet thirty, was not the person Lee Jung-yong had known.
‘How did he reach this level in such a short time—!’
Yet despite his shock at my prowess far exceeding his expectations, Lee Jung-yong himself was a superhuman who surpassed even other S-rank Hunters.
In an instant, he tilted his blade to block my spear.
Kwaaang!
My spear was faster and stronger than Lee Jung-yong had anticipated. But the same held true for him.
Shink, shwiiiiing!
Within time fractured into infinitesimal moments, spear and blade tangled and clashed. Lightning-bright flashes and deafening booms erupted without pause.
Cackack—pressing down on Lee Jung-yong’s blade with my spear, I extended my hand.
Just before my palm, infused with the heat of the Flame Divine Form, could strike his chest, Lee Jung-yong’s fist shot forward like lightning, meeting my hand.
Pwooom—!
With the sound of compressed air rupturing, we both staggered backward as if by mutual agreement.
And for Lee Jung-yong, the result was nothing short of astonishment.
While he had retreated two steps, I had fallen back only one.
‘I was… pushed back?’
Lee Jung-yong had accumulated vast quantities of energy over countless years.
Yet a mere man in his late twenties had forced him to retreat.
The transformation that had occurred in just over a month was utterly beyond belief.
‘That’s not all.’
Power and speed with no discernible limit. Movement… everything was astounding. Indescribably so.
Just as it was now.
Fuuuung! Shwik!
Lee Jung-yong turned his head. The spear blade that had grazed past by mere inches changed direction in mid-air.
Skreeeek!
A sensation like being burned by fire, and droplets of blood scattering in a spray.
For the first time in ages, Lee Jung-yong felt the sensation of pain as he swung his blade.
Kwang!
Two spear blades met head-on, and through the transparent steel, I could see the young man’s eyes burning with intensity.
From between his lips, which had remained firmly sealed throughout, a cold voice emerged.
“You’re done for.”
The moment Lee Jung-yong heard Jin Tae-kyung’s chilling words, he suddenly realized he needed to correct his earlier assessment.
‘A lion.’
He had been wrong. Jin Tae-kyung was not a wolf—he was a lion.
A powerful young male lion capable of dethroning the aging patriarch who had ruled the pride for so long, destined to become the new king.
Crack! Boom!
The old lion was sent flying by an irresistible force.
And as Lee Jung-yong flipped his body in mid-air and landed on the ground, the first thing he witnessed was the young lion gripping Wu Hei-xing’s throat—the one who had attempted the ambush.
「Gasp! My, my father is with the Crown Prince Faction…!」
“I don’t care.”
「If you spare me, I swear I’ll repay you! Hack! Please, I beg you.」
“Me? Spare you, who tried to kill me?”
A reddish gleam flashed in my eyes toward Wu Hei-xing.
Then came words I’d heard before from somewhere.
“Why should I take such a risk?”
「…!」
Crack!

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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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