Murim School Record - Chapter 40

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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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Episode 40: What Must Come Will Come (2)

The two men nodded in agreement.
“It would have to be that way.”
“So right now it’s going to be an enormous headache.”
Jong-bae spoke quietly then.
“We haven’t found a clever stratagem to compensate for raw strength. However exceptional one’s talent, martial arts takes time to master—and now that you’ve been appointed Junior Housemaster, we can’t just circle endlessly on the periphery. These matters need to be resolved swiftly to have any real effect.”
“You still haven’t thought of a cunning scheme that satisfies you?”
All three men turned their gaze toward Yi Mo-baek.
Yi Mo-baek simply kept extending his fists and drawing them back, over and over.

Their destination was Jinling.
Zhongshan rose mystical as a screen around them, while the deep-blue Zhenhuai River wound through the city in languid coils.

Night mist settles on the Zhenhuai’s cold waters
Moonlight falls pale across the sand
This night we sleep in a boat on the Zhenhuai, while across the river stand nothing but taverns
The singing girls know not that this was once Zhen
Nor carry in their songs the melancholy of a fallen lord
They sing their songs of ruin from the far bank.

It was a poem by the poet Du Mok, titled “A Night Spent on the Zhenhuai.”
As dusk fell, mist began to roll in.
When the mist rising from the Zhenhuai’s surface had silently seized the narrow streets of Jinling, the carriage appeared.
A single carriage was moving along the road that ran beside the Zhenhuai.
It was a carriage of the Jiksan Escort Company, marked with a mountain character on a crimson flag.
The destination lay some thirty li ahead.
They had arranged to hand over the cargo and spend the night at the Fengxia Tower inn, from which the Zhenhuai could be seen.
“Splendid!”
“Magnificent.”
The escort workers marveled as they gazed at the surroundings where lights were beginning to ignite.
The river was growing more brilliant.
In particular, the countless red lanterns hung from the riverside pavilions seemed to shatter upon the water’s surface, creating dazzling bursts of light.
Yi Mo-baek too could not fix his gaze in one place.
Little wonder the ancients said that gazing upon the resplendent night of the Zhenhuai was like watching the stars descend from heaven, only to rise again with the dawn.

‘Ambush.’

A sudden transmission through the air.
There was only one reason to attack an escort company’s carriage.
The value of the cargo.
There would be no reason to hire an escort for something worthless.
Once seized and sold on the market, the goods would fetch a considerable sum.
The critical factor now was the location of the attack.
Not on some desolate mountain path, nor across any treacherous wasteland—but in the heart of Jinling, thick with people, moving along the Zhenhuai’s riverbank, no one had anticipated an assault here.
Including Yi Mo-baek, all the escorts had let their attention be drawn away by the spectacular night view of the Zhenhuai.
Splash!
Figures burst from the water; a strolling passerby turned attacker; a riverside food vendor suddenly swung with ferocious intent.
“Hngh!”
Yi Mo-baek launched himself upward from his horse.
There were three attackers.
Thud-thud-thud!
The horse beneath him cried out once before collapsing, blood pouring from its mouth.
Whish!
A whip lashed out toward the man who had charged from the front.
Crack!
The man before him swung his sword down at the whip coming toward him as if to sever it.
Crack!
The whip did not break. Instead, the sword shattered.
It was not because the whip was special.
The force behind the whip was overwhelmingly strong—enough to shatter an opponent’s blade—and this was the result.
Snap!
The whip wrapped around the man’s neck, and Yi Mo-baek pulled hard.
Crack!
Under the violent tug, the man’s head severed from his body.
“Fight!”
Someone shouted, and tourists swarmed toward them in moments.
Whoosh!
This time the whip swept to the right.
A man burst forth from the water.
Having witnessed his comrade’s head fly off, the man unleashed his sword with all his strength.
But Yi Mo-baek’s target was not him.
The whip’s strike to the right was meant to delay and draw him out—a calculated feint.
Yi Mo-baek pivoted left like lightning, closing the distance.
Whoosh!
“Huh—”
The man on the left thrust his sword forward with a start at Yi Mo-baek’s approach.
Smack!
Yi Mo-baek’s left fist struck the blade, and as the man staggered from the impact, Yi Mo-baek’s right fist drove into his face.
Shatter!
The man’s face came apart into fragments and vanished.
The man on the right froze.
It was a result he had not anticipated at all.
Glance.
Yi Mo-baek turned to look at the Escorts.
They were losing ground.
But he did not worry greatly.
In the opening moments of any ambush, the ambushed side always found themselves at a disadvantage.
He could see no Escort in immediate mortal peril who needed urgent aid.
He looked toward Suk Ji-un.
Among the Escorts, his martial arts were the weakest.
Yet his effort in martial training of late had reached a level of tearing flesh and grinding bone.

‘You wish to follow me?’
‘Yes, Escort Chief. I have never once thought I would end my life as merely an Escort.’
‘Then what kind of life do you wish to live?’
‘Every man should shake the world once, should he not? Surely you are not mocking me for saying so.’
‘I am not one to mock another’s dreams.’
‘I have been training in martial arts with great passion of late.’
‘That alone is not enough. Strive harder. Train until the moment you think you might die from exhaustion.’

Suk Ji-un devoted himself entirely to martial training, save for the hours spent on escort runs.
He poured himself into it so completely that those around him said he had gone mad.

‘The gifted cannot match those who toil.’

One day, entering Suk Ji-un’s room, Yi Mo-baek found these words written on the wall.
Slash!
As Yi Mo-baek’s gaze turned, the man on the right panicked.
Whoosh!
Yi Mo-baek glided forward.
No—he was walking, but so swiftly he seemed to be skimming across ice.
Bang-bang!
The man brought his sword down with all his might against Yi Mo-baek’s relentless advance.
Thud-thud-thud!
Yi Mo-baek’s fists did not dodge the man’s blade.
A head-on collision.
A sharp gasp of air.
The man choked out a scream as the wind was driven from his lungs.
A dagger-sharp Counter-blast force pierced through the blade and shattered his entire body.
His vision blurred as his body convulsed beyond control, a murderous impact tearing through him.
Crack!
He couldn’t even scream.
He came apart like shattered glass.
The man’s face was crushed completely, and his body flew into the river.

Blood seeped through the torn black cloth where the blade had cut deep.
Suk Ji-un was being forced back.
Yet there was no trace of urgency or trembling in his expression.
Truth be told, he was thoroughly drunk on exhilaration.
The men before him now were no weaker than those he’d faced at Changsha Ridge—if anything, they were stronger.
Holding his ground for more than ten seconds against two such formidable opponents without being badly shaken had filled him with confidence.
His efforts were bearing fruit right here and now, and this proof of progress sent his spirits soaring. His competitive fire burned hot, and the fight itself became a joy.
A sword sang out.
The man on the left thrust his blade forward.
At the same moment, the man on the right slashed at Suk Ji-un’s ribs.
Simultaneous attacks from both sides.
Suk Ji-un’s brow furrowed.
A Synchronized Strike with no time gap at all—that was the hardest to counter.
No matter how many attackers there were, human action always produced slight intervals between strikes.
Those intervals were infinitesimal, yet to the defender they were yawning chasms.
But when one man moved with such precision, as if pouring forth a single stream of force, it meant they had spent countless hours in Combined Practice, hand-to-hand.
A year or two of ordinary Combined Practice could never produce such perfect synchronization.
A critical moment.
Crunch!
But the man on the right, who had been slashing at his waist, suddenly scattered.
More precisely, his face shattered into fragments and vanished.
Thud!
The body without a face dropped at Suk Ji-un’s feet.
Suk Ji-un’s head snapped up in alarm, only to find Yi Mo-baek standing beside him.
“Confident now?”
“Yes, sir.”
Steel rang.
Suk Ji-un thrust back toward the oncoming blade.
There was no reason to retreat.
With no distracting obstacles or other opponents to worry about, he could focus entirely on the last man standing.
“Let’s see what you’re really made of.”
Suk Ji-un knocked aside the incoming blade.
A high, sharp clang.
Both blades sprang apart, rebounding left and right from the force of impact.
Suk Ji-un’s rebound angle was tighter.
A tighter angle meant the distance to strike the man’s body again was closer.
Swift and sharp.
Suk Ji-un quickly gathered his rebounding blade and drove it deep into the man’s left shoulder.
A wet, heavy puncture.
Blood poured.
The man’s blade likewise found Suk Ji-un’s left shoulder.
But Suk Ji-un had struck first.
That meant the man’s blade, driven into already-wounded flesh, had lost much of its force.
Deeper still.
Suk Ji-un drove his blade further in, and the point emerged from the far side of the man’s shoulder.
The man’s blade, meanwhile, lodged shallowly in Suk Ji-un’s shoulder and stopped.
A choking gasp.
Suk Ji-un wrenched the embedded blade downward with all his strength.
A tearing crack.
The man’s left arm, along with part of his shoulder, was severed clean away.
Stagger—
The sudden loss of his arm threw his body off balance, and he lurched helplessly.
Slash—
Suk Ji-un did not relent.
He drove his blade into the staggering man’s throat a second time.
“Gah—
The man’s eyes bulged wide, his mouth hanging open.
Gurgle, gurgle—
His breathing, already ragged from the brutal fight, grew choked and twisted into a strange metallic sound.
Choke, choke—
The blade had pierced his windpipe; he could no longer draw breath.
Smirk—
Suk Ji-un smiled.
“I am Suk Ji-un.”
He introduced himself as he withdrew the blade.
As the sword came free, blood cascaded down the man’s neck, and though he staggered to keep from falling, he ultimately tumbled into the waters of the Zhenhuai River and vanished.

There was nothing finer than a victory drawn without spilling a single drop of one’s own blood.
Yet in the Jianghu, such fights were rare.
A supreme master would never find themselves in a brawl with some novice barely past the gatehouse.
They had all been deceived.
Or more precisely—they had let their guard slip.
The ambush, launched in that fleeting moment when their minds were intoxicated by the river’s glittering nightscape, was tactically flawless.
An ambush’s success or failure hinges on the choice of ground.
Certainly, the martial skill of the fighters mattered, but so too did where they chose to conceal themselves and how long they could wait.
In that respect, the ambush position was perfect.
Moreover, those who planned it seemed to have accounted for the martial abilities of the Jiksan Escort Company’s escorts.
Yet the enemy had overlooked one crucial fact.
Whatever might be said of other escort companies, Yi Mo-baek’s own escort detail consisted entirely of seasoned wanderers who had spent years traversing the Jianghu.
Jong-bae in particular, along with Na Sul-man and Bo Hae-man, never revealed their full strength unless death itself came knocking.
By temperament, they were utterly savage.
That they had been cast out and kicked away their own school spoke volumes about their nature.
They possessed a vicious streak that would crash headlong into any opponent without regard for rank or station.
The survival instinct they had honed wandering the Jianghu was not raw power, but rather the art of measuring how much of their strength to reveal against any given foe.

Seven Revealed, Three Hidden—

they deployed seven portions of their skill without hesitation.
But they held three portions in reserve, hoarded against the hour of death.
When that final third was unleashed in a moment of mortal peril, it was enough to send an enemy screaming into the abyss—or to pluck themselves back from the brink.
Crack—
Yi Mo-baek’s fists thundered in rapid succession.
The five newly arrived escorts had been pushed back, but he hurled himself into their midst and unleashed a storm of devastating blows.
The ambushers who caught his fists never even had time to scream before they were hurled into the Zhenhuai River, becoming water ghosts.
Boats carrying poets and scholars who had come to savor the river’s night beauty crowded toward the banks, all of them drawn to witness the spectacle of battle.
Land and water alike brimmed with onlookers.

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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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