Murim Login - Chapter 685

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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 685
Screeeech! Boom!
The cyan-white radiance flooded my entire vision.
With the deafening explosion that announced the end of all things, the aged body traced an arc through the air before crashing through a massive boulder and embedding itself within.
Crack!
My vision swam in crimson haze, and the sounds reaching my ears felt distant, as though echoing from hundreds of leagues away.
Yet somehow, even in this state, my consciousness remained crystalline and sharp.
Like a candle burning most brilliantly in its final moment.
‘The light returning, the gaze turning back.’
Four characters flashed across the Great Snow Ghost’s mind, and in that same instant, something scalding flowed down his throat.
Cough.
Crimson blood drenched the lower half of my body. As I stared blankly at it—fragments of viscera mixed within—a thought crystallized. No, it was certainty.
A certainty that would never waver again.
‘It is finished. All of it.’
Paradoxically, humans confirm their own existence through pain.
Yet even now, as the Burning Yang Technique shredded every blood vessel in my body and my flesh and bone crumbled to dust, I felt no agony.
Only one emotion remained.
Fear.
Fear of the death descending upon me, and fear of the figure drawing closer through my blood-soaked vision.
“Jin… Tae-kyung.”
A whimper escaped between trembling lips.
But the dying elder’s call received no answer.
Or rather, an answer was impossible to give.
Drip. Thud.
With each forward step, blood fell in scattered droplets. His form swayed as though about to collapse, his eyes growing dim.
Yet he—Jin Tae-kyung—was undeniably still alive.
His beloved blade still embedded near the ribs, he advanced toward the Great Snow Ghost, repelling even the encroaching death itself.
‘What is this…?’
The Great Snow Ghost’s trembling was not born of death and cold alone.
He was truly afraid, and yet, he wondered.
They were both forged from the same flesh and blood, yet how could that young monster still stand on two feet? What had made Jin Tae-kyung and him so different in this moment?
‘Where did it go wrong? What failed?’
Nearly fifty years had passed since I left my hometown alone, abandoning blood relatives, subordinates, and friends.
I created new martial techniques to overcome the limits imposed upon me, and I devoted my entire life to perfecting my art, walking the razor’s edge between death countless times.
The righteous path? I never cared for such shallow words spouted by hypocrites.
I had to survive by any means, and to return home, I needed to become strong enough that no one could ignore me.
Without that singular obsession, I would never have grasped the hand extended by Dark Heaven decades ago.
‘When the Heavenly Master descends upon this land, all that you desire shall be realized.’
‘All that I… desire?’
‘Yes, if you wish it.’
The Great Snow Ghost believed those words. He had pledged his loyalty to Dark Heaven and, following the Nantian Demon Empress’s command, had taken in a successor not written in his fate and personally taught him the forbidden martial arts he had created.
Waiting for ‘that day’ which would come someday.
But how could it be?
“That I, an old man like me, should die by your hand. Why!”
As the Great Snow Ghost lifted his head with that wrung-out cry, he could see it—a pair of eyes still burning with unextinguished flames.
Soon after, a faint voice pierced his ears.
“Because I have a reason.”
“What?”
“A reason to survive no matter what, a reason that sometimes demands I face even death itself.”
“…!”
“That’s the greatest difference.”
Jin Tae-kyung answered softly and reached out with trembling hands. His blood-soaked grip seized the spear lodged in his chest.
Squelch. Thud-thud-thud.
As the spearhead slowly withdrew, blood flowed out and scattered across the Great Snow Ghost’s face.
At the sight of Jin Tae-kyung convulsing in terrible agony, the Great Snow Ghost laughed as if he had lost his mind.
“Follow me soon. I will be waiting in the afterlife.”
Whoosh.
Instead of an answer, the wavering spear tip touched his throat. Jin Tae-kyung muttered in an exhausted voice.
“Bastard. Go find your parents.”
And that was the end.
Thrust.
The cold sensation of the blade piercing his throat.
In that slowed time where everything had frozen, the Great Snow Ghost gazed at the world slowly darkening around him.
Too brief a moment to look back on all the hundred-odd years that had passed.
Damn it.
Along with the curse he could not fully utter, the old demon who had dominated an era tumbled into deep darkness.
* * *
No one can survive having their throat pierced by a spear blade.
Even if that person possessed decades upon decades of yin-cold energy as a supreme master, or was a Demon Master who had lived for nearly a century, that fact does not change.
Just as it is now.
Thrust.
The transparent spear blade pierced his throat, and that was the end.
The supreme master once called the Great Snow Ghost no longer exists.
I stared blankly down at the corpse, its eyes wide open and frozen, and let out a single groan.
“…Ah.”
It’s over. Finally.
The moment I grasped reality along with that thought filling my mind, the world tilted.
Slip.
No, it was my body that was tilting.
I tried to endure somehow, but it was beyond my control. The spear shaft slipped from my weakening grip as the last shred of strength drained away.
Thud.
My vision swam. The pain and exhaustion I’d momentarily forgotten came rushing back like a tidal wave, crushing my entire body beneath its weight.
I collapsed where I stood, gasping for breath as I stared up into the void.
–
[Lv.155 Great Snow Ghost]
has been defeated!
– Massive experience gained!
– Massive fame gained!
That was all.
Through my blurred vision, the holographic window displayed three notifications. None of them announced a level up, and the system remained silent.
And I…
‘If this were a hidden camera show, it wouldn’t even be funny.’
With that absurd thought, I simply laughed. For no particular reason, my lips—cracked and parched with blood—curved upward, and a hollow chuckle escaped.
Damn it. A hidden camera show, of all things.
‘Right. That’s how it is.’
How much longer could I endure in this condition?
An hour? Perhaps half an hour?
‘Mu Ya-ho. I suppose I should be grateful that bastard at least escaped alive.’
It was strange.
Even though the last hope I’d been clinging to had crumbled away, my heart remained calm—so calm it surprised even me.
Perhaps I had… already sensed it dimly from the beginning.
‘Fortune doesn’t come knocking twice in a row.’
The level up I’d gained from defeating the Black Hand Fist Demon was essentially a gamble.
Without seeing the exact experience values, I could only guess.
Ah, this should be enough for a level up.
Or perhaps this won’t be enough. That’s all I could do.
Unfortunately, this time it was the latter.
The Great Snow Ghost left behind massive experience as the system indicated, but it fell short of the combined experience I’d gained on the journey to Poison Blood Land and what the Black Hand Fist Demon had provided.
Or perhaps the threshold required for leveling up had increased due to the fortune that had come before.
The conclusion I reached was simple.
My first gamble succeeded, and my second gamble failed. As if it were destiny itself, predetermined from the very beginning.
‘Damn destiny.’
Yes, destiny.
I’d hated that word for a long time.
While it could be used positively, I’d always thought of it as a two-character phrase that lumped together every miserable thing that happened in this world.
Sometimes, certain events in life are far too cruel and hopeless to be dismissed as mere destiny.
Like a memory from a certain day, kept hidden in a corner of my heart.
‘Ahem. Excuse me, Driver Kim?’
‘Oh, yes. Vice Principal. But what brings this up so suddenly…?’
‘Well, I’m sorry to interrupt class. Could we talk outside for a moment?’
Even now, thinking back on it, that scene felt like a frame from some cheap black-and-white film.
First scene. A bald vice-principal appeared with a theatrical cough, then left alongside my homeroom teacher.
Second scene. Through the glass pane in the classroom door, I could see my homeroom teacher’s bewildered expression gradually hardening.
And third scene. Upon returning to the classroom, my homeroom teacher fell silent for a moment before calling out a student’s name.
“Tae-kyung. Could you step outside for a moment?”
That was how I went from being an extra to becoming the protagonist of the film.
No—I had never wanted to be a protagonist in the first place, so it would have been better if all of it had merely been a scene from a movie.
If it had been, I would have beaten the screenwriter and director who concocted this dog-awful story half to death just to get them to call “NG.”
But life is a one-take affair.
With each moment, each choice, the story flows around me at its center.
Until that point, I had never once given serious thought to life itself, but only when I saw my Father covered in white cloth did I finally understand.
The cause: a Monster Wave. The result: crushed to death.
Because of those two damned characters called “fate,” my Father’s story had ended, and now mine was beginning.
“…Cough.”
Splatter. Drip, drip, drip.
But I refused to write my story’s final scene as dying while collapsed on this cold ground, bleeding out in the Seven Voids.
I also declined the ending credits rolling with soft background music, listing the names of family, friends, and colleagues.
I still had… a chance to defy this cursed fate.
A third opportunity to stake my life—soon to scatter as ash—once more on the table.
‘I want to live.’
A single thought that filled my mind completely.
Literally. I refused to die like this. There were still so many things I needed to do, so many people I had left behind.
Ugh.
I squeezed out the last of my strength and bit my tongue hard. The sharp pain brought my darkening vision and consciousness back into focus, if only slightly.
Now. This was the moment. I spread my trembling hands and mentally commanded myself.
‘Inventory open. Summon.’
Whoosh.
A cool yet gentle sensation transmitted through my palm. Simultaneously, a contradictory system notification pierced my ears.
Ding.
–
[Water Dragon’s Original Purity]
has been successfully summoned.
Beep!
–
[Water Dragon’s Original Purity]
contains an immense energy that differs fundamentally from ordinary elixirs. Exercise extreme caution when consuming!
– Your
[Blazing Yang Vessel]
and
[Water Dragon’s Original Purity]
This form is in direct opposition to the essence of water! Exercise extreme caution!
I know. I’m aware this is madness.
What I’m attempting now is a lunatic’s gambit—a reversal of the Yin-Yang Five Elements theory that forms the foundation of most inner cultivation techniques.
Pouring water onto fire. It’s like trying to evolve a Lizard into a Blastoise.
But.
‘There’s no time.’
Now is not the moment to quibble over opposing forces and such trivialities. Whether I cough blood and die in a moment, or burst from the power contained within the Primordial Essence, the end result is the same—death.
I must stake my life on the latter, however slender the thread of possibility.
Gag.
Spitting up another surge of blood, I squeezed what little strength remained and forced my upper body upright.
Then, enduring the sensation of my body crumbling apart, I crossed my legs in meditation and gazed upward one final time.
Damn it, look at those dark clouds. Of all times, the sky had to be this bleak.
Night or not, this hardly seemed like an auspicious day to die.
No one watching. No one to offer me a final cigarette. Not that I’d smoke it anyway.
Sigh.
Instead of smoke, trembling breath scattered into the darkness.
The dimming of my vision wasn’t solely because night had fallen so deep.
I was dying. Rapidly, in this very moment.
The time for my final gamble had arrived at my doorstep.
‘Right now.’
I brought my convulsing hand to my lips.
And then I swallowed the azure pearl—pure, yet dangerously immense with power.
Or rather, I tried to.
Before a sudden chill descended upon me from nowhere.
Screeeech!
What was that?
As every hair on my body stood on end, I froze like a statue. In that same instant, a single word flashed through my mind.
‘Enemy!’
But I was wrong. Something had brushed against me, yet I still lived. The next moment, a thunderous roar echoed from afar, obliterating my confusion entirely.
–
Roooaaarrr!
“…!”
I thought he’d fled. I’d even been grateful that at least he survived.
‘He came back. In the end.’
Though my vision was hazy, the brilliant white form gleaming through the darkness was unmistakable.
As was the silhouette of two figures riding upon Baek Ho as he charged toward me like the wind.
Hyuk-ung. And Yo-hee.
Recognizing the faces of the man and woman drawing rapidly closer, I suddenly recalled a Quest I’d momentarily forgotten.
I stared blankly at the sky and muttered.
“I told you. This is a cursed day to die.”
Ding!
–
Mission
: Yo-hee Found (Complete).
– Quest,
[Show Me Your Devoted Heart]
has been successfully completed!
– You have acquired a substantial amount of experience!
– You have acquired a substantial amount of renown!
– Level Up!
I feel it.
Death scattering before my eyes. The warm embrace enveloping my wounded and exhausted body.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Beneath a sky laden with dark clouds, I heard the crystalline chime of bells ringing out, and I slowly closed my eyes.
Whoosh.
In place of the invisible moonlight, the tide of slumber that crashed down upon me was stronger than any enemy I had ever faced.

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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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