Murim Login - Chapter 469

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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 469
Everyone witnessed it. They could see it.
Between the blackened sky and the fierce, driving rain and wind, a downpour of grotesque boulders and jagged stones cascaded down.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
As a massive boulder struck the water’s surface, a spray of water dozens of feet high erupted upward. From the crumbling cliff, birds robbed of their nests plummeted with sharp cries, while torrential rain and lightning strikes fell without cessation.
And amidst everything collapsing, there was one entity that rose to its feet alone.
Roooaaarrr—!
River water cascaded down like a waterfall across its massive form.
Far below, the humans who had become mere specks gazed upward with trembling eyes at the entity that had finally revealed itself.
It was colossal.
Even that description felt insufficient, yet no other words came to mind.
Everyone’s thoughts were consumed by a single question.
‘What is that?’
Scales gleaming with an ominously beautiful black luster, a body so thick that ten robust men would need to spread their arms wide to encircle it.
As my gaze traveled up its long, sinuous form—which exposed over thirty lengths above the water’s surface—two horns rose above its brow, and beneath them lay eyes that burned with terrible light.
Vertically slit crimson pupils. Between the slowly parting scales, saw-like teeth and a beast’s maw—as if an entire dark cavern had been transplanted—came into view.
– Grrrrr.
At the ominous roar that echoed down from the vast heights above, Je-gal Poong felt a bone-deep chill seep into his very core.
‘What in the world is this….’
Je-gal Poong, hailed as the greatest genius of his family since infancy.
Possessing not only an exceptional mind that never forgot anything once seen, but also an insatiable thirst for knowledge, he had spent his years devouring tens of thousands of books, making the vast knowledge of the world his own.
The river of knowledge Je-gal Poong possessed was endless in breadth and depth.
Or so he had believed.
Until he saw this.
‘This cannot be.’
Fear of the unknown, encountered for the first time in his life.
In that moment, Je-gal Poong realized that all the knowledge and information he had accumulated until now had become worthless bubbles.
The fact that fragments of countless legends and myths he had dismissed as nonsense now stood before his very eyes.
‘Could it be… that those absurd tales were actually true?’
Je-gal Poong had firmly believed in the power of the knowledge he possessed.
Before being a martial artist of the Murim, he was the master of the Je-gal Family, a prestigious and renowned clan, and he had wielded verified information and knowledge to protect his numerous household members and family power.
For someone like him, unverified superstitions were beneath consideration. Believing in phantoms no one had ever witnessed was foolishness.
But someone standing roughly a hundred lengths away from Je-gal Poong was different.
Unlike Je-gal Poong, he was not a family head burdened with the responsibility of protecting his clan, but merely an old boatman who had lived his entire life relying on nothing but his experience and a single ferry boat.
“…!”
The Old Boatman gazed upward with trembling eyes.
The colossal entity standing alone amidst everything crumbling to ruin. Merely witnessing it caused his legs to buckle, and an overwhelming sense of awe and terror that he could not bear pressed down upon his frail shoulders.
A cry he could not manage to voice echoed only within his heart.
‘A, a divine spirit. The guardian deity of Dongting Lake has revealed itself!’
The world overflows with countless superstitions beyond measure. Naturally, Hubei Province was no exception.
Stories passed down from old to young, from that child grown old to another child—tales transmitted mouth to mouth across centuries.
The Old Boatman was no exception.
A native of Hubei Province who had spent his entire life as a boatman, he knew the true identity of that being who called itself a spirit.
The Two-Horned Beast of Dongting Lake, or what was called the Water God Dragon—the true master of Dongting Lake.
‘Ah, ah, ah….’
The Old Boatman trembled violently. His entire body convulsed, seized by an indescribable emotion, and his chest tightened.
It was a feeling only he among those present could experience.
An awe and terror that defied words.
A boatman through and through, he could not believe he had come face to face with the master of Dongting Lake, and the aura emanating from that being suffocated him.
‘The, the spirit has grown angry. All of this happened because the spirit is truly enraged!’
The Old Boatman realized his suspicion was fact.
The countless deaths that had followed one another over the past month. For whatever reason, the spirit was undoubtedly furious.
And eventually, it would inflict the same punishment upon him as the others.
The punishment of death!
He could not die like this. Somehow, he had to appease the spirit’s wrath.
A fractured cry burst from the lips of the Old Boatman, who had been standing as if entranced.
“Spirit, your grace! This humble one bears no sin!”
The silence that had settled over the gathering shattered. The Old Boatman’s cry scattered into the wind and rain.
With the arrival of the colossal being, the others had frozen rigid, and before anyone could stop him, the Old Boatman bolted toward the water’s edge on trembling legs.
“Spirit, I beseech you—!”
Patter, splash!
The moment the Old Boatman’s worn straw sandals touched the waters of Dongting Lake.
Whoosh.
In a world slowed to a crawl, a pair of enormous eyes turned toward the Old Boatman.
The Old Boatman’s form reflected in those vertically slit, blood-red pupils. The gaze of that creature, having perceived the infinitesimal and insignificant existence of a human, burned crimson.
Shwoooosh!
A chilling aura flowed from the massive form, spanning some thirty zhang, and shot outward in all directions.
Birds that had taken flight lost their strength and plummeted; thousands of fish fleeing from the depths of Dongting Lake’s waters flipped belly-up and bobbed to the surface.
An aura as vast as the creature’s body itself, reeking of death.
Not merely insects, but even humans could not survive in its presence.
Before that invisible aura could even touch him, the Old Boatman’s entire body had already turned to stone.
His mouth hung open vacantly, his eyes wide with terror. Just as his pupils, seized by fear, were about to roll back white.
Slash! Thud-thud-thud!
With a sharp cutting sound, the Old Boatman’s form crumbled where he stood.
A young man caught his aged body gently and lifted his gaze toward the colossal being.
“Hey, you damn eel bastard.”
– …!
At the voice that rang out clearly, the colossal being’s pupils dilated sharply.
Different.
Every human on the ground was frozen in shock and terror, but this young human was different. He felt no shock, no trembling fear.
Unknown fear stems from encountering an incomprehensible existence.
Yet this young man seemed liberated from all of it. Rather than fearless, he appeared almost accustomed to it. Just like now.
“Eyes not wide open?”
With those casual words from Young Man Jin Tae-kyung, a flash of light tore across space.
Screeeech! Crack!
* * *
When I first laid eyes on that creature, only one thought crossed my mind.
‘Am I seeing things?’
I had no choice but to think so. A monster I’d seen countless times before suddenly materialized right before my eyes—not in the Modern World, but in the Murim itself.
If it were merely an illustration inserted into a fantasy novel, I wouldn’t be so troubled, but unfortunately, its source was the [Monster Encyclopedia]—a comprehensive work completed over decades by countless scholars and Hunters who participated in the Cataclysm.
‘Surely not.’
Though my Hunter career had mostly involved battling low-tier monsters like goblins, the sections I’d reviewed most frequently in the [Monster Encyclopedia] were those cataloging the highest-tier monsters.
And this creature occupied a prominent place among them.
‘…A Sea Serpent.’
As its name suggested, the Sea Serpent was a marine monster.
In the early days of the Cataclysm, the Sea Serpent announced its existence to the world by sinking an American carrier strike group, then mysteriously vanished shortly after the Cataclysm began.
No, let me correct that. At least, it had until just moments ago.
‘A Sea Serpent in the Murim. What in the world is….’
As I stood frozen in astonishment, I noticed something amiss.
‘Wait, something’s different.’
In the Modern World where I was born and raised, the Sea Serpent was no mythological fiction.
It was one of the highest-tier monsters serving Demon King Asmodeus and a primary culprit behind humanity’s gravest suffering.
Naturally, high-definition photographs capturing the Sea Serpent in its entirety existed, along with preserved video records of combat encounters.
Yet the creature now revealed before my eyes differed markedly from the Sea Serpent depicted in the [Monster Encyclopedia].
‘The Sea Serpent resembles a sea snake, but this one looks far more like an Eastern dragon.’
Upon closer inspection, the distinction became clear. The body’s proportions and length, even the facial structure—all bore subtle differences.
Between these two similar yet different creatures, there existed one crucial commonality….
Whoooosh!
That very thing. A savage aura inherent only to monsters, fundamentally different from what Murim practitioners called killing intent.
‘Fear.’
Fear was precisely what the word meant—terror and dread.
Every monster possessed it, but the higher the tier, the more devastating its potency.
It bound the opponent’s body in terror and dread, shattering their spirit.
‘Yes, just like the Dongjeong Fisherman Elder.’
The scattered puzzle pieces in my mind suddenly aligned.
The Dongjeong Fisherman Elder’s seemingly unhinged state. Those clear eyes that only returned after all his strength had drained away.
‘He definitely encountered this creature before us.’
Even for a supreme master of extraordinary martial prowess and unshakeable mental fortitude, the terror of encountering the unknown for the first time transcends imagination.
In fact, when dealing with Fear, an S-rank Hunter would prove far more capable than even the supreme masters of the Murim.
And….
‘I’m in the same boat.’
Ding.
– You have
[resisted Fear]
!
– A powerful spirit overcomes terror!
Crack, thud!
The moment I pressed the vital point, I caught the Old Boatman’s crumbling body in my arms.
One second. No, even half that delay, and this pitiful old man might have gone mad from Fear or simply perished.
I lifted my gaze toward the towering colossal form looming in the distance.
‘Damn it. Disgustingly massive.’
I’d never faced a Sea Serpent before, but this creature was undoubtedly formidable.
It didn’t collapse even after taking a spear I’d launched with every ounce of my strength.
Thud!
With a thunderous impact, the massive body spanning some thirty zhang swayed slightly.
Witnessing what seemed like a small mountain shifting, I clenched my teeth.
‘I couldn’t pierce the scales.’
I could tell just from the sound. Even though I’d hurled an iron spear from my inventory with all my might, it hadn’t inflicted significant damage.
Had I used the White Flame forged from ten-thousand-year-old cold iron, I could have dealt a more decisive blow… but attempting a one-shot kill would be foolish.
What mattered most was moving before that tremendous monster snapped out of its confusion.
I turned my head and drew qi from my dantian with a deep breath.
“Chung Poong! Hyuk Moo-jin! Gung Ki-bang!”
“Hah!”
“Hup!”
A roar so massive it was hard to believe it came from my mouth erupted forth, and the three figures who’d been frozen like statues flinched.
Actually, not three—two.
Unlike Gung Ki-bang and Hyuk Moo-jin, whose eyes had gone half-vacant, Chung Poong stared at me with a startled expression.
“Goodness! What is it, benefactor?”
“…?”
What in the world was this man?
Freezing at the sight of such a creature was natural. I was an exception, having grown up grinding through monsters relentlessly in the Modern World, but Chung Poong was unmistakably someone raised in the Murim. For him to overcome Fear so easily was nothing short of remarkable.
“Chung Poong. Are you truly all right?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I’m saying, that thing over there…”
“Oh, right! I was genuinely startled!”
Chung Poong spread both arms wide and shouted vehemently.
“It’s huge! Really huge! I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire life!”
“….”
My assessment had been too hasty. Chung Poong was simply a fool from the start.

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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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