Murim Login - Chapter 654

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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 654
If someone were to ask me whether I could kill three peak masters with a single move, I would nod without much hesitation.
However, if I had to subdue three peak masters with a single move—and if they possessed the nature of assassins—the situation becomes entirely different.
In such cases, suppression through persuasion rather than force is the correct approach. By offering them certainty of survival rather than a painful death through torture, I could prevent them from choosing self-destruction.
But….
Ugh.
My promise had apparently failed to instill confidence in these wretches. Or perhaps their fear of their master ran far deeper still.
Whoosh! Thud!
The finger wind that erupted from my fingertips half a beat too late struck the vital point, but it was already too late to reverse what had been set in motion.
The three bodies, their vital meridians suppressed and rigidly locked, were already collapsing while hemorrhaging from the Seven Voids.
Splash! Catch.
Closing the distance of several zhang in a single breath, I caught the three collapsing figures and laid them gently upon the ground.
Through the masks, thick blood surged and welled up from the corners of their mouths.
“Grrk, cough…!”
Damn it. The situation was dire. No—it was catastrophic.
Severing one’s own heart meridian was equivalent to an explosion occurring within the body.
If the Eight Extraordinary Meridians—the most vital channels in the human body—along with hundreds of acupoints throughout the entire frame were severed and blocked, there was no path to survival.
‘Especially for a martial artist.’
What one might call high risk, high reward.
Through qi cultivation, martial artists gain abilities that transcend the ordinary, but if the heart meridian is severed, it triggers the catastrophic phenomenon known as deviation into madness—a 1+1 disaster event.
Exactly like now.
“Cough. Cough-hack!”
Splurt!
Eyes, nose, mouth. Ears.
From every visible orifice flowed an endless stream of crimson blood and what appeared to be viscera—pale, gelatinous masses.
Even Nam Ho and Tae-san, who had rushed forward in alarm, froze and halted their steps at this horrific spectacle.
“Ugh. Tae-san. I can’t bear to look. It turns my stomach.”
“What, what is this.”
Nam Ho swallowed hard and asked in a subdued voice.
“Can they be saved?”
It was a meaningless question. The situation had already progressed beyond the point of no return.
And before I could even answer, the two figures convulsing throughout their bodies went limp, their heads falling helplessly.
Thud.
A death beyond redemption.
But it was premature to surrender here. I grasped the wrist of the last remaining Masked Figure and channeled my full power through him.
Whoosh.
As the blazing heat of the Solar Yang Qi flowed into his body, I sensed the devastation within—everything in ruins.
Not a single internal organ remained unharmed, and the meridian pathways, which should have been broad and robust befitting a peak master, had crumbled like the stone walls of an abandoned ruin.
‘And on top of that, deviation into madness….’
Even if the greatest Divine Physician under heaven, Moon-kyung himself, were to arrive, there could be no certainty of life or death. Sensing the impossibility of recovery, I clenched my teeth.
I need to find out. No matter what.
Just one name. I only needed to hear the name of the single person who had ordered today’s assault.
I poured my energy without reservation—not to control the Masked Figure’s irreversible rampage, but to kindle one final spark of consciousness.
Thrash, thrash, thrash!
With the intensified surge of energy, the entire body convulsed violently.
Yet like how calm waters return after a fierce storm passes, the Masked Figure, standing at death’s threshold, managed to reclaim a brief moment of clarity and reason.
The final flicker of a dying flame.
This was truly the end. I stared into the Masked Figure’s now-focused eyes and demanded, “Who is it? Speak.”
“Who are you? Speak.”
And in the next moment, as I removed the mask covering his mouth to hear his final answer, I realized that this last attempt and question had been utterly meaningless.
“Cough… huh… heh…”
“…!”
“Grrk… ugh…”
His jaw moved up and down as if trying to speak. But he uttered nothing.
Or rather, it would be more accurate to say he could not.
Over my head, suddenly frozen like stone, came Nam Ho’s anguished curse.
“Vicious bastards. They cut out his tongue…”
His voice trailed off, and the Masked Figure’s final moments were far too brief.
Grrk.
With that death rattle in place of a final testament, his eyes went vacant. From his gaping mouth, the severed tongue—which had been moving as if to speak—hung limp.
And as I stood watching him finally meet death in silence, I let loose the curse I had been holding back.
“…Damn it all.”
I had known these were no ordinary men, but I never imagined his tongue had been cut out.
There was a reason they had made no sound except screams from beginning to end. Or rather, they could not have, even if they wanted to.
“Hmm, the others are the same. Looking at how the tongue stumps have healed, it seems this was done long ago.”
Nam Ho, true to his nature as a Shadow Pavilion operative, quickly assessed the corpses and spoke in a low voice.
“These men… they’re all from the Southern Wilderness.”
“No Han Chinese among them?”
“Not a single one. Their clothing is uniform, so we can’t even determine which tribe they belong to.”
The most reliable way to distinguish the Southern Wilderness peoples is through their clothing and eating habits. But with all of them dressed in black garments and masked, it was impossible to discern.
Besides, the physical differences between Han Chinese and the Southern Wilderness peoples were so subtle that identifying their specific tribe on sight was practically nonsensical.
“…Damn it.”
Nam Ho regarded me with deeply sunken eyes as I exhaled a curse mixed with a sigh.
“During your coercion of these men, you mentioned three great tribal chiefs as suspected candidates for Hyung Soo. Then… was it Hyuk-ung who sent the letter?”
I looked at Nam Ho with startled eyes, and that was answer enough.
“So that’s how it is.”
“Old Master Nam, how did you…?”
“Baek Sang and Yo-hee are certainly figures worthy of being mentioned as candidates for Hyung Soo. But Hyuk-ung is different. When you think about it, there was only one reason you would have recalled him in such a situation.”
Nam Ho finished speaking in a composed yet cold tone, then opened his mouth once more.
“Was it him?”
“Yes.”
I nodded and continued speaking.
“I was waiting for you at the location mentioned in the letter.”
“So you chose to hide in the forest rather than behind the boulder. But even with such crowds, someone of Hyuk-ung’s build would have stood out. Are you saying he came in person?”
“He had mastered the Bone Shrinking Technique. At first, I didn’t anticipate it was Hyuk-ung either.”
“Hmph, the Bone Shrinking Technique. So there was far more to this man than met the eye. Everyone was completely fooled. Then again, if he were truly as the world knew him to be, he wouldn’t have sent you that letter in the first place.”
Nam Ho muttered as if speaking to himself, then continued with a grave expression.
“Go on.”
Though my account of Hyuk-ung was brief, its implications were far too significant to dismiss lightly.
Nam Ho, who had listened to the entire sequence of events with his lips pressed firmly shut, now furrowed his already wrinkled brow even deeper.
“A situation as tangled as a beggar’s rags.”
I agreed entirely. Though an incident had occurred, it was nearly impossible to narrow down the suspects.
Baek Sang, Yo-hee, Hyuk-ung—none of them could be excluded from suspicion. And looming behind today’s attack was the shadow of Dark Heaven itself.
‘Just from the fact that they severed the Heart Meridian rather than using poison, I can deduce the truth.’
Given the nature of the Southern Wilderness, obtaining a lethal toxin capable of swift suicide was far too easy. One need only venture into the grasslands beyond the Outer Palace to find countless venomous creatures.
Yet the Masked Figures had chosen to sever their own Heart Meridians instead.
Severing the Heart Meridian was a death far more agonizing than swift and easy poisoning—a path of suffering multiplied many times over.
I could only conclude that they already possessed knowledge of this method.
‘The Antidote to All Poisons. Dark Heaven must already know that I possess it.’
Dark Heaven had sent the Blood Lord to orchestrate the Shaolin Blood Massacre, and from the Western Heavenly Demon Army in Sichuan, they had sought to plunder the sacred treasures of the Emei Sect and the Sichuan Tang Family.
They had deployed masters of supreme skill comparable to—or perhaps even rivaling—the Ten Kings, and elite forces that might stand alongside the Three Stars, all for those treasures.
‘Yet even after the Sichuan Blood Sect incident concluded, the Sichuan Tang Family suffered no further calamity.’
Though the Sichuan Tang Family had sustained grievous losses in their battle against the Western Heavenly Demon Army—more severe than any other faction in Sichuan—the follow-up strike from Dark Heaven that everyone had feared never came.
And I had deduced that the decisive reason for this restraint was the presence or absence of the Antidote to All Poisons.
‘So instead of poison, they severed the Heart Meridian to eliminate even the slimmest possibility.’
Suddenly, a bead of cold sweat trickled down my spine.
My enemies were watching my every move, yet I remained blind to the identity of whoever lurked in the darkness.
The very fact that such an attack had occurred within the Inner Palace of the Southern Beast Palace—the very heart of the Southern Wilderness—was threat enough.
“When did the attack begin?”
Nam Ho answered my question in a heavy voice.
“I awoke from sleep partway through, so I cannot say with certainty, but it seems the incident erupted less than half an hour after you departed. Curious about the commotion, I went to investigate and found chaos outside. Sa Ma-pyo was fighting while covered in blood.”
Nam Ho gestured toward the fallen Sa Ma-pyo, his eyes clouded with concern.
“But is he alright? He seemed to have lost considerable blood while fighting them.”
“I’ve already stemmed the bleeding, so he should be fine. Upon examination, there were no immediately life-threatening wounds visible, and most of the blood appears to be from the enemies he defeated.”
Tae-san, who had gathered the corpses and arranged them in one place before returning, blinked his large eyes.
“Lord, is it true? Is the Master alright?”
“Yes. He merely collapsed from exhaustion.”
Hearing the answer he desired, a thin film of moisture gathered in Tae-san’s eyes.
“Hic. Tae-san was worried. If Master had died, Tae-san wouldn’t have eaten meat for three years. Hic.”
“….”
“….”
I had heard of the three-year mourning period, but this was my first time encountering a mourning practice that involved abstaining from meat for three years. At that rate, he would become the strongest vegan in all of Murim.
I swallowed the words rising in my throat and patted his shoulder—broad as the Ural Mountains.
“There, there. You’ve suffered enough.”
“Hngh. Tae-san. I used so much strength, I’m hungry now.”
“…Ah, yes.”
Should I just punch him once?
But as I was caught in that profound contemplation, countless presences began drawing closer from the distance, accompanied by torchlight.
And with them came the familiar roar of a great beast.
– Kraaaaaang!
Whoosh whoosh whoosh! Thud!
A silver silhouette gleamed unmistakably through the darkness, reaching the clearing first.
Ya-ryul Mok’s face, perched atop Baek Ho’s back, was rigid as a wooden puppet.
“…You’re late.”
I replied calmly.
“Yes, late. It’s unbelievable that something like this could happen in the Inner Palace.”
Collapsed pavilions and pools of blood scattered everywhere. And corpses piled upon the ground.
Ya-ryul Mok’s lips pressed tight before he spoke.
“The patrol warriors were dead. I only learned of it half a watch ago. And….”
In the next moment, hearing what Ya-ryul Mok said next, I could only doubt my own ears.
“Hyuk-ung and Yo-hee. Both clan leaders have vanished.”
…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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