Murim Login - Chapter 61

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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 61
A deep, resonant hum echoed through the air.
The Grand Elder felt the tremor in the atmosphere. In that same instant, he comprehended the devastating power contained within the spear blade hurtling toward his chest.
‘This is… dangerous.’
A threat to life itself—something I’d felt only a handful of times in all my years. Every hair on my body stood on end, and the world seemed to slow.
A sharp whistle cut through the air.
From the front came Jin Tae-kyung’s spear; from behind, Jin Wi-kyung’s sword. The two brothers’ coordinated assault was perfectly synchronized.
A moment of absolute desperation.
A wave of power surged outward.
The Grand Elder’s internal energy, coiled dormant in his dantian, erupted through every meridian in his body. It breathed vitality into his aged muscles and awakened his blood vessels. Yet the transformation did not end there.
A sharp, cutting sound.
The sword aura that had risen nearly a foot compressed to half its height.
But this was not a diminishment of power—it was a condensation of it. The ethereal sword energy that had wavered like silk now coiled around the entire blade, taking on the form of another sword entirely.
Sword Force.
The mark of transcendents who had broken through the wall of perfection and carved out a greater realm.
Though still incomplete and fragmented, it was unmistakably Sword Force—the crystallization of martial knowledge the Grand Elder had cultivated his entire life.
A grinding sound.
Even the family’s ancestral blade, passed down through generations of the Taewon Jin Family, was severed, its aura still clinging to it. In an instant, Jin Wi-kyung’s energy scattered and his internal organs convulsed. His face drained of all color.
One more strike, and his life would be forfeit.
But the Grand Elder had no time for that.
A sharp crack split the air.
The Grand Elder reached out toward the spear closing in on his chest. His weathered hand, too, was engulfed in a brilliant aura of energy.
This was likewise an incomplete Hand Force, yet it should have been sufficient to halt Jin Tae-kyung’s spear.
Or so it seemed.
A tremendous explosion erupted.
Before the vortex flowing from the spear’s tip could consume him entirely.
* * *
A deathly silence fell over the battlefield. It felt as though every person here—dozens, perhaps everyone on the field—was watching us.
No, not us. Only one person.
“What is this…?”
From the center of countless gazes, the Grand Elder slowly spoke.
“What technique is this?”
I answered.
“One Slash.”
Merely speaking those words brought an overwhelming exhaustion. Every muscle in my body trembled, and not a shred of internal energy remained within me.
But that was all. Unlike with Jo Pil, I didn’t lose consciousness, nor did I collapse in disgrace.
‘My body can handle it now.’
I had grown strong enough to endure the backlash of One Slash, and as I grew stronger, so too did the power of One Slash increase.
The Grand Elder’s current state was proof of that.
“One Slash, One Slash indeed.”
I muttered softly, pressing the blood point on my shoulder.
The bleeding stopped, but that was all. My arm, ground away without a trace by the vortex unleashed by that single slash, would not return.
“I never imagined I’d become one-armed at this age. Heh.”
The Grand Elder laughed hollowly, turning his gaze toward Jin Wi-kyung.
“You have a terrifying younger brother.”
Jin Wi-kyung asked in return, his face ashen.
“Are you afraid of that boy?”
“What of you?”
“I am proud.”
An answer without a moment’s hesitation. A smile bloomed across his pallid features.
“I raised him as a precious jewel, yet he has become steel. That is who Tae-kyung is.”
The Grand Elder gazed intently at that smile.
“You are a capable talent. One worthy of shouldering the future of the Taewon Jin Family.”
“Is that so?”
“However, not quite as much as your younger brothers.”
I could understand Jin Moo-kyung reaching the pinnacle in his youth, but being praised so highly myself felt undeserved….
‘What is he trying to say?’
As if reading my thoughts, the Grand Elder continued.
“Power is something not shared even with blood. When that time comes, will you still be so proud of your younger brothers?”
The atmosphere in the hall turned frigid in an instant.
Those standing at close range with the Grand Elder were all from the Taewon Jin Family. Cautious gazes clung to my cheeks before quietly vanishing.
‘Family head? I have no intention of such things. You fools.’
That was when Jin Wi-kyung spoke.
“So that was it.”
His voice carried both melancholy and relief. The Grand Elder’s brows twitched.
“What do you mean?”
“The reason for your betrayal. The reason today’s events unfolded.”
“…!”
The Grand Elder’s trembling pupils answered in his stead. I exhaled a silent sigh.
‘So that was it after all.’
A succession struggle.
A large puzzle piece had fallen into place. The smaller pieces still searching for their positions were being fitted one by one through their conversation.
“What happened, sir?”
Jin Wi-kyung asked in respectful tones.
It was a transformation so natural that no one present would have noticed.
“Do you know of your grandfather?”
“I have heard nothing. My father never spoke a word of it either.”
“He was a ruthless man. To his children and to his only brother alike. And….”
The Grand Elder chuckled bitterly.
“A petty man. For various reasons, we who were once close brothers gradually grew distant. And then that incident occurred.”
“The Great Demon War.”
“Do you know of the ‘Hundred Thousand Demon Tide’? They came in endless waves. The Martial Alliance was formed, but it was merely a coalition of the Nine Sects and One Clan, each too preoccupied defending their own strongholds.”
It was then that the Grand Elder began to truly make his name known.
He rallied the martial artists of Shanxi Province beneath the Taewon Jin Family banner, and finally drove back the Demon Cult’s forces.
“Right here, in Pal Cheon Hyeop Gorge, the final battle took place.”
His gaze seemed to trace something from the distant past.
“It was a long war. Many died, and everyone was exhausted. Yet there was hope—the hope that we could finally return to our families’ embrace. Three hundred warriors of our death squad shared that same conviction.”
“In the end, you achieved a great victory.”
Three hundred against three thousand. The result: the complete annihilation of the Demon Cult.
It was a magnificent triumph, and the very reason the Grand Elder remained remembered to this day. Everyone believed this fact without question.
At least, until just now.
“There was an ambush.”
What?
“We fought while retreating deep into the gorge, but we were overwhelmed. Even as I wielded my blade like a madman, one question never left my mind.”
The Grand Elder’s voice that followed was chillingly calm.
“How could they have set up an ambush beforehand? My Elder Brother was supposed to be blocking the path to Pal Cheon Hyeop.”
“…!”
A silent shock rippled through the crowd. The color drained entirely from Jin Wi-kyung’s already pallid face.
“The battle raged for half a day. We fought waiting for reinforcements that never came, but it was all in vain. Of the three hundred warriors in our death squad, only eight survived. When I finally returned to the family, I can never forget the expression on my Elder Brother’s face.”
“Is that… truly what happened?”
“Mountains have changed form several times over in the span of years that have passed. Do you think I would have come this far based on mere suspicion?”
Decades of time are more than enough to transform suspicion into certainty. The Grand Elder laughed with hollow resignation.
“My Elder Brother turned the war into an opportunity. I became a hero on the battlefield, but he became the family head. All those who followed me were dead or missing from the battlefield afterward.”
“Then your immediate entry into the Elder Council was also…?”
“It was necessary for peace of mind. It was the only way to preserve the lives of myself and my people.”
My people?
I recalled what he had said earlier. The eight survivors who remained at the end alongside the Grand Elder. It wasn’t difficult to deduce their identities.
‘The Elders and the sect masters of the Sanseo Five Gates.’
The survivors had sworn vengeance—revenge against the family head and the clan that had betrayed them. The Grand Elder’s gaze swept slowly across the assembly.
“It has truly been a long wait.”
The crowd fell into silence. Disbelief, shock, shame. The emotions varied, but no one could speak easily.
Well, except for me, of course.
“That’s a load of bullshit, and you sure can talk.”
“…!”
I can’t help but let out stifled laughter.
I listened to the whole story, but what is this?
“In the end, your goal is just one thing, isn’t it?”
I flicked my thumb toward the Grand Elder.
“Revenge, this and that—what you’re really after is to become this, right?”
“What?”
“Exactly. The Taewon Jin Family and the Hangsan Inspection Bureau. They’re sweeping away everything in their path to swallow up Shanxi Province.”
“You bastard—!”
Did the old man eat locomotive exhaust for breakfast? Oh right, there are no locomotives here.
“Revenge? Fine. All fine and good, but….”
I scratched at my ear as I continued.
“Why are you seeking this revenge now?”
It had been a full forty years ago. Even accounting for the Grand Elder’s age, he’d waited half a lifetime.
“How many of the people who backstabbed you are even alive right now? At least get the timing right on your revenge. And please, I’m begging you—spare me the nonsense about how a gentleman waits ten years for his revenge.”
If waiting ten years made you a gentleman, did that make the Grand Elder who’d waited forty years a saint?
It was nothing but the self-justification of a deranged old man.
“You speak carelessly with that loose mouth of yours.”
“I spoke carelessly. What of it?”
“Do you think you know everything?”
“Do I need to know everything at this point?”
I let out a hollow laugh at such a predictable question and gestured toward the battlefield. A mountain of corpses and a sea of blood—a literal hell on earth spread before us.
“That is….”
The Grand Elder’s cold gaze wavered. But it lasted only an instant.
“I see. What more need be said?”
He muttered self-mockingly and raised his sword.
“Grand Elder.”
Jin Wi-kyung’s lips trembled, but that was all.
A fight where only one side could survive. We’d come too far to turn back now.
“Come then.”
I had no reason to refuse.
“Attack!”
Now it was time to hunt down the wounded beast.
* * *
I remembered the first day I’d seen the Grand Elder. His bearing was dignified and commanding, belying his age. His white beard and whiskers evoked the image of an immortal sage.
Splurch!
Of course, no sage would mercilessly cleave a man in two.
‘Even rotten fish still has its uses, they say.’
Drenched in blood, he swung his blade without pause. Those around him showered him with looks of both reverence and fear.
“A monster….”
Despite losing an arm, the Grand Elder remained formidable. Yet clearly, he was not what he once had been.
‘This is doable.’
No matter how supreme a master the Grand Elder was, the warriors here were also the elite of the Taewon Jin Family. They’d marched through battlefields alongside Jin Wi-kyung and survived encounters with the Grand Elder himself—they were no mere rabble.
Clang clang clang!
The Grand Elder’s complexion darkened as he deflected sword strikes raining down from all sides. In his prime, his sword energy would have severed everything in its path.
His inner force, once an inexhaustible spring, had finally run dry.
And his aged body had reached the limits of its endurance.
Whoooosh.
Wounds began to accumulate across the Grand Elder’s body. Unlike before, most of them were bleeding his own blood.
‘Now!’
I wouldn’t miss this opening. My spear thrust with all my might, tearing away a chunk of flesh from his ribs.
Hiss!
Even as pain wracked his body, the Grand Elder cut down a warrior and charged toward me. With clear intent, his blade carried a faint aura of sword energy.
But….
Screech.
As blood sprayed upward, the sword energy scattered. Jin Wi-kyung emerged from behind the Grand Elder’s staggering form.
“I’d forgotten about you.”
The Grand Elder turned with a contorted face.
“Did Elder Brother teach you to stab men in the back?”
“With our people dying, what does ambush matter?”
“Have you no shame as a martial artist?”
“Before being a martial artist, I am the Young Lord.”
“Young Lord, heh.”
Jin Wi-kyung regarded the Grand Elder with a melancholic expression.
“The tide has already turned.”
“So? Do you mean to offer surrender?”
“Please stop this meaningless fight.”
The flow of battle had long since shifted in our favor. Yet the Black Robed Organization clung to their resistance, and screams and corpses still multiplied.
“Your words ring true. It may indeed be meaningless. But….”
The Grand Elder, who had been staggering, straightened his spine. His eyes suddenly blazed with clarity, and a blade-like aura began to rise from him.
“I’ve come too far to stop now.”
A final death throes?
No, it was far more than that. Suddenly, I recalled someone.
Jo Pil. His final appearance before death overlapped with the Grand Elder before me now.
‘Innate Qi. He’s drawing upon Innate Qi.’
If martial power accumulated through breathing techniques and elixirs was acquired qi, then Innate Qi was the opposite—the very source of the human body, what could be called life force itself.
The Grand Elder was now expending his life itself to wield Innate Qi.
Cough.
The Grand Elder spat blood and raised his blade. As his life rapidly extinguished, his sword blazed with unprecedented brilliance. The moment I witnessed that overwhelming spectacle, a single word escaped my lips unbidden.
“Sword Mastery….”
It was instinct. My heart trembled merely from witnessing it. A terrifying aura far transcending sword energy washed over me.
And.
“Yes, you were here.”
Bloodshot eyes, capillaries bursting throughout, fixed upon me.
Jin Wi-kyung rushed forward desperately to block the Grand Elder.
“No!”
But the Grand Elder had already vanished from that spot. In a single step, he compressed five zhang of distance and brought his blade down upon me.
A deafening whoosh tore through the air.
‘So this is how I die.’
An attack I couldn’t evade, couldn’t block. I was finished. I would die.
But….
‘I won’t go down like this.’
Every muscle in my body tensed with desperate force. The last vestiges of my inner energy surged toward the spear blade—a final, defiant struggle, a tribute to the fierce life I’d fought so hard to live.
“One Slash.”
A piercing metallic shriek erupted.
My final strike, infused with every ounce of remaining strength, exploded outward.

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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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