Murim Login - Chapter 665

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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 665
Drip. Tap-tap.
The soft sound of water droplets echoed through the silence. I sidestepped the liquid falling from the fractured ceiling of the Underground Prison and gazed into the empty air.
Quest
[Escape from the Southern Wilderness]
You have been imprisoned in the Underground Prison beneath the Southern Beast Palace. This dark, damp, and silent space mirrors your bleak future, does it not? Yet it is too early to surrender to despair.
Two days remain before your execution.
You must escape the Underground Prison within the allotted time.
Whether you survive alone or together with others is entirely your choice, and should you fail, only death awaits.
Yet remember this: if you possess a resolute will and even a glimmer of goodwill, the path to survival shall open.
Rank
: Transcendent
Restriction
: Jin Tae-kyung
Objective
: Escape the Underground Prison before execution (Incomplete)
Reward
: Linked Quest
???
Failure
: Death
The Quest window I had already confirmed countless times.
I stared at the translucent holographic panel with such intensity that my gaze could pierce through it, yet no miracle occurred to change the words written on that final line.
‘Failure means death.’
It was not the first time.
Since stepping into the Murim, I had received such cursed Quests more times than I could count. Of course, at first, I had been utterly bewildered.
‘Back then, I truly thought I would die a dog’s death.’
Though I had fought through countless battles as a Hunter, death had always terrified me.
More precisely, I feared not death itself, but everything I would have to leave behind.
At least if I died in a Gate, my family would receive death insurance. But in the Murim, there was nothing.
Of course, an unbridgeable chasm existed between who I was then and who I am now.
With each crisis I faced, my courage—as if receiving forced Botox injections—grew larger day by day, and my body and spirit hardened in proportion.
But….
‘I’ve never been in a situation like this.’
The reason I had always survived at death’s threshold was simple.
Someone stood beside me to fight, and when I had to face enemies alone, I was prepared to stake my life.
And through desperate struggle and thrashing, I survived.
Clang.
At the very least, never before had I been shackled with such enormous iron weights across my entire body while my martial power was simultaneously sealed.
“…Damn it.”
I muttered softly and closed my eyes. The text written in the Quest description seemed to materialize vividly in the darkness.
[If you possess only a strong will and a single thread of goodness, the gate of life shall open.]
The system occasionally sent me messages—whether hints or nonsense, I could never tell.
In that sense, was this merely encouragement? Or was it a crucial clue revealing how to escape the Underground Prison?
And as I sat there with my eyes closed, lost in contemplation, a liquid fell from the empty space above my head and splattered against the floor, spraying onto the back of my hand.
Splat. Thud.
Too viscous to be mere groundwater, and warm enough to feel disgusting.
I opened my eyes and spoke without even looking up at the ceiling.
“…You crazy bastard. I told you to stop drooling.”
Along with the sound of Tae-san swallowing, his voice came down to me.
“Sorry. I’m just so hungry.”
“That’s exactly why I’m asking—why are you putting your mouth on that hole in the floor? Just sit still.”
“But if I lick it long enough, it’s actually kind of salty.”
“Lick? Lick what?”
“Stone. This place has the best stone flavor.”
“Ah. This is driving me insane.”
“Insane? Is that some kind of sauce?”
This crazy bastard…
I swallowed the curse that had risen to my throat. Getting angry at him now would only drain my energy. Nothing would change.
Besides, Tae-san’s situation wasn’t good either.
Whatever creature he was, his meridians were so thick that pressure point strikes were useless, and with his cultivation sealed and his entire body restrained, there was no way out.
No matter how much of a natural-born strength master Tae-san was, there were no answers in this situation.
“Tae-san. I’m hungry. I want to get out of here soon.”
Listening to his quiet whimpering, a thought suddenly struck me.
That all of this was because of me. A thought I could only call guilt.
“…Hey, Tae-san.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
“I’m sorry. Truly.”
As I spoke and looked up at the ceiling, I saw a pair of large, clear eyes like a calf’s peering through the fist-sized hole.
Eyes full of confusion.
It was something I always thought about, but he possessed a purity of heart that didn’t match his age and size. Like a clean blank slate.
I opened my mouth with a sigh.
“I should have made better judgments. But I didn’t. It was a mistake.”
A painful misjudgment, a bad move in the game of go.
I had confined myself to the Underground Prison to rectify that bad move… but damn it. I still questioned whether that was truly the right choice.
And Tae-san, looking at me with curiosity, answered.
“It’s okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Tae-san is really fine.”
“….”
I kept my mouth shut and shook my head. Tae-san probably didn’t even understand how the current situation was unfolding.
The most pressing fact for him right now was that he was hungry, and the second most pressing was that there was no way to resolve this hunger.
‘Yeah, maybe that’s actually better for him.’
But in the next moment, hearing what came next, I realized something.
Tae-san was far more clever than I had given him credit for.
“Palace Master. You don’t need to apologize to Tae-san.”
“…?”
Startled, I lifted my head and looked toward the ceiling. Tae-san, whose eyes met mine, spoke with careful deliberation.
“I know. That Tae-san is foolish.”
“What?”
“Ever since Tae-san was very young, people mocked him for being foolish, and whenever they were bored, they came and hit him. If Tae-san hadn’t met the Lord… perhaps even now he would be getting beaten and crying every day. Tae-san suffered greatly.”
His demeanor and tone were utterly different from usual. Seeing this unfamiliar side of Tae-san, I widened my eyes as his voice flowed like water into my ears.
“But the Lord was different. Even when Tae-san misspoke, the Lord understood everything, and when Tae-san ate a lot, the Lord would pat his back and tell him to eat slowly. So Tae-san made a vow. To offer his life to the Lord.”
“You….”
“But not long ago, the Lord said something to Tae-san. That Tae-san should trust the Palace Master. That the Palace Master seemed different from the other Orthodox Sect people. Thinking about it now, the Lord’s judgment was right. It was the Palace Master who saved the Lord instead of foolish Tae-san just days ago.”
“…!”
“Tae-san has grown fond of the Hwaryong Pavilion. The small and cute Nam Ho, the sometimes bothersome Hyuk Moo-jin, the fierce Song Il-seom and the beautiful Ju Hwa-ran like a flower. And Tae-san likes the Palace Master second only to the Lord.”
The eyes peering through the hole toward me curved gently.
“Tae-san trusts the Lord, and the Lord trusts the Palace Master. So the Palace Master should trust yourself. You will surely find a way. You always have.”
I stared blankly at Tae-san for a long while after he finished speaking, his childish laughter echoing.
It felt like someone had struck the back of my head with a club.
I never would have expected such words to come from Tae-san of all people.
And I realized that his single remark would become the greatest strength I needed right now.
‘That’s right, when I think about it, there’s always been a way.’
In the Murim, I had lived a life perilously close to death.
Jo Pil. The Grand Elder. The Angry Sword Immortal and the Blood Lord. The Western Heavenly Demon Lord….
Wherever I took a step, danger lay in wait, and each time I would pull out the word ‘death’ hidden in my heart and turn it over in my hands, making a vow.
That I would never die. That I could never perish in this place.
‘Strong will.’
Was part of what was written in the Quest window referring to this kind of resolve? Or perhaps….
‘Something else that resonates with strong will.’
It was at that very moment. Words that Kill Star had spoken to me in Hubei just months ago struck my mind like lightning.
‘Heh. What a monstrous creature. You’ve finally opened the Middle Dantian, so now you can properly control your energy.’
And I had responded then.
‘I can control it now. Don’t you know how much power I have?’
Upon hearing my words, Kill Star simply chuckled without much response, shook his head, and disappeared.
Along with a single remark—that I wouldn’t understand even if he told me now.
But now, I think I’m beginning to understand dimly.
I finally understood why Sal-sung had spoken and acted that way back then.
How ridiculous that arrogant young fool must have appeared to his eyes, boasting about understanding how to manipulate qi with merely a few decades of cultivation.
‘The Three Dantians.’
The three largest and most vital passages within the human body.
Yet the lower dantian was merely a vessel that continuously filled and emptied with cultivated power.
Until now, I had not even grasped half of the mysteries and wonders of the middle dantian.
But now it was different. No—I understood, at least partially.
Moving the middle dantian required not cultivated power, but willpower itself.
‘An unwavering, resolute will.’
The middle dantian had never been a realm of cultivated power—it was a realm of enlightenment.
A mysterious domain that lay half a step beyond even the chosen land where one was no longer bound by the magnitude of one’s power.
A sacred realm that all humans must traverse to ascend from mortality to divinity.
Since martial arts first emerged in this world, countless masters had experienced their own failures and triumphs upon this path.
Some crumbled like withered leaves, while others became giants who left their mark upon this vast and distant history of martial arts.
And today, I had drawn half a step closer to those giants.
Shhhhaaaa.
Following the fingertips that extended as if possessed, the world’s qi hidden and mingled within the atmosphere rippled.
* * *
Baek Sang realized, just as he was about to enter his quarters, that an uninvited guest had arrived before him.
‘This is…’
A faint yet unmistakably familiar aura. It was strange that Baek Sang did not recognize it.
Perhaps the uninvited guest waiting for him had hoped for exactly that.
“You may withdraw.”
The guard warriors who had stepped forward to open the door hesitated at Baek Sang’s words. The gray-haired Guard Captain, who had stood by his side for over thirty years, spoke up.
“My lord. Still…”
“That is enough. Simply maintain vigilance around the perimeter.”
The Guard Captain, who had stared at Baek Sang briefly at his cold tone, dispersed with his subordinates throughout the manor house.
Baek Sang glanced at their retreating forms, then gripped the door handle firmly and pushed it open.
Creak.
Though the night outside was already dark, the interior of the quarters was brightly lit.
Befitting the residence of the patriarch, it was spacious yet remarkably austere, and within it, a single figure awaited Baek Sang.
“You are late. Where have you been?”
Baek Sang answered calmly.
“You already know, do you not, Palace Master?”
A bitter smile formed at the corners of the uninvited guest’s mouth—Beast King Miao Wang’s.

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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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