Murim School Record - Chapter 42

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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 42: Those Who Live, Live (1)

A murderous rebound rushes through his arm, shaking his entire body violently.
Hack!
Turbulent inner qi spills from his mouth.
Splatter, splatter, splat!
Yi Mo-baek, barely managing to steady himself, felt his eyes widen.

‘A different world entirely.’

Never had he faced such a master.
Brutal. Savage.
Despite his serious external injuries, everything crumbles in a single breath.
The shock was mutual.
His Black Flame Hand—
with this single palm technique he had dominated the known world and eventually became one of the Five Wonders of the Realm.
The old man’s epithet was the Black Flame Demon: Jong Ri-gun.
“Excellent!”
Jong Ri-gun charged like a tiger.
Moving with such speed that contact alone seemed capable of shattering ordinary stone.
Whoosh!
Black hands again—but subtly different from moments before.
Flames.
Black heat wavering like heat shimmer from his palms.
The most perfect Black Flame Hand.
There is no evading this.
The Fire Shadow Evasion exists, but it shows its true power only when the body is sound.
Even in a healthy state, this situation offers no escape.
That would be running to save only himself—unthinkable.
And without knowing the true caliber of his opponent’s body technique, there is no guarantee of success.
Boom!
He poured all his strength into a palm strike.
Ring!
The world turned white before his eyes, his entire body seared as if plunged into flame.
Drip, drip, drip!
Blood spilled from his lips against his will.
Yi Mo-baek pressed hard against his eyes, fighting to anchor his trembling vision.
“Gack!”
“Ahhhhhhh~”
A scream jolted his mind awake.
A voice he knew well.
Barely steadying himself, Yi Mo-baek glanced sideways.
Corpses.
The escorts who had traveled with him until moments ago lay dead on the ground.
“I won’t die. I won’t die.”
That cry belonged to Suk Ji-un.
His own way of placing self-hypnosis to summon forth even greater fighting spirit.
“Whoosh!”
Someone sucked in empty air.
But he did not turn back, for Jong Ri-gun was already gathering his killing force before him.
Then a voice came from a distance.
“Head Yi, though our time was brief, it brought me joy.”
Yi Mo-baek recognized it.
Jong Bae.
The three had been companions, though he had naturally assumed the role of eldest.
“This… this can’t be.”
A bewildered voice rang out—one he had never heard before.
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but I have to drag at least one of them back. Wouldn’t you say?”
It appeared that Jong Bae had gone down together with his opponent.
Whoosh!
In a flash of lightning.
Impossibly fast.
But Yi Mo-baek couldn’t respond in time.
Before his fist was even half-extended, a black palm struck his chest.
Crack!
“Ugh!”
The short warrior’s scream tore from his throat as he spat blood and flew backward.
Yi Mo-baek vanished into the darkness, and the dying wails of the last Escorts erupted.
Ahh!
Ugh!
Every last one was dead.
Not a single Escort remained alive.
In the distance, the Carriage carrying Cargo and the horses the Escorts had ridden were grazing on grass.
The men checked for survivors.
Thud!
Some of them drove their blades into the chests of the already-dead, just to be certain.
“Elder?”
Nothing.
Then one of the men spoke.
“He went that way. Where that escort leader flew.”
It meant Yi Mo-baek had been pursued in that direction.
The men paid no attention to the Cargo or the horses, as though they were beneath notice.
Blue eyes glinted between the trees.
Wild beasts were beginning to gather, drawn by the scent of blood.

A pair of eyes pierced the darkness.
Those burning, torch-like eyes swept across the tangled forest as though searching the daylit earth.
His hearing, too, was trained upon the sounds around him.
He was not dead.
Of course, he was certainly on the brink of death.
Jong Ri-gun’s eyes flared brighter still.
He could see the surroundings as clearly as in daylight.
So long as the man lived, his pulse would beat — and his ears would never miss such a thing.
Moreover, with blood spilled, the reek of iron would rise — and his nose would never forgive such a scent going undetected.
Yet there was neither scent nor the sound of a pulse.
Still, he could not accept that the man was truly dead.
Even if he were dead, he had to see it with his own eyes to be certain.
Swish!
Whishhh!
He scanned the area even silencing his own footfalls, but Yi Mo-baek was nowhere to be seen.

‘Could he have used the Turtle Breath Grand Method?’

The Turtle Breath Grand Method.
A master of pure Inner Power could achieve a state as the legendary turtle living a thousand years — where breath and pulse alike cease, and the body remains utterly still.
If Yi Mo-baek had deployed the Turtle Breath Grand Method, he could never be found.
But Jong Ri-gun shook his head firmly.
The Turtle Breath Grand Method was a technique only the most elite masters could execute, and it required Secret Transmissions to master.
Jong Ri-gun shook his head again.
The Turtle Breath Grand Method was impossible.
He himself had not yet reached the level required to perform it.
Wheee-eek!
He blew a sharp whistle, infused with Inner Power.
Moments later, the men appeared — the subordinates who had just fought fiercely against the Escorts.
A few familiar faces were missing.
A cornered rat fighting for its life will wound even a cat if it lunges with its teeth bared, after all.
“Scatter and find him.”
“Yes!”
The men answered and disappeared into the darkness.
Jong Ri-gun also vanished to search for Yi Mo-baek.

Among the corpses, something stirred.
All of them were dead escorts.
A finger twitched, and the face pressed into the earth shifted slightly to one side.
Shhh—
The head moved with agonizing slowness, so gradual that even a careful eye could scarcely detect the motion.
The forest fell silent, and the grazing horses cried out in alarm.
Deliberation layered upon deliberation.
Horses became visible to the southeast.
The reek of blood burrowed into the nostrils, and the forest beasts circled just beyond reach, not yet bold enough to close in.

‘Where is the escort captain?’

Suk Ji-un, still lying prone, drew several more careful breaths before beginning to push himself upward.

Yi Mo-baek’s affection for Suk Ji-un was extraordinary.
He would seek out the training grounds where the young man practiced martial arts, pointing out errors without hesitation and correcting his stance without complaint.
When their thoughts diverged, they would debate on the spot and arrive at sound conclusions.
There was no arbitrary dominance simply because he held a higher station.
And then Yi Mo-baek had taught him a remarkable martial technique.

‘What is this?’
‘Concealment,’ Yi Mo-baek had said.

The Life-Death Seal, transmitted by a master of the Divided Light Swift Sword.
It was not merely a single move.
The Life-Death Seal contained within it many skills an assassin must master, and the Concealment aspect taught one to hide the body itself when facing dire peril.
He had trained sporadically, but it was far too difficult.
Now he had barely graduated beyond the beginning stages, but it was enough to escape the sight of ordinary men.
He lay motionless, as though his breath had stopped entirely.
When the man performing the confirmation kill thrust his blade toward the shoulder and passed by without lingering, Suk Ji-un knew he had succeeded.
Shhh—
The Earth Dragon Crawl.
He moved forward like a dried earthworm too long exposed to light, writhing inch by inch.
He had to avoid disturbing the forest, careful not to brush against any tree.
Though his body moved through their sight, they could not feel the presence of a passing man—the horses eating grass showed no alarm, no wariness in their eyes.

Nothing.

Though they searched thoroughly, Yi Mo-baek was nowhere to be found.
The men in black gathered, and Jong Ri-gun’s expression darkened.
Not a tiger, but the wolf pack was sufficient for their purposes.
A wounded crimson wolf.
Though small in frame, it craved blood more than any other wolf species.
Dwarfed beside the gray wolves that roamed snowy mountains and the black wolves that wandered arid deserts where water was scarce and stone cliffs rose high, this crimson wolf seemed insignificant.
Yet it was the most vicious and relentless, and it would never forgive a hunter who pursued it.
“One last time. We search once more.”
They dispersed again.
After perhaps a third of an hour had passed, the men regrouped, returning empty-handed once more.
“If he had taken the Elder’s Black Flame Hand directly, survival would be impossible.”
One of the men spoke.
There was a suggestion in his words to abandon the search.
Jong Ri-gun gazed into the dark forest for a long moment.
All at once, a corner of life lifts before him.
Destiny exists.
It cannot be seized or blocked by any force.
Water flows where it must; when the wind blows, branches sway.
To have searched this thoroughly and still not found Yi Mo-baek meant one thing: they would not meet again.
He had searched as far as searching could take him.
Some things simply cannot be done.
Yet in his life, what was meant to happen had always come to pass with surprising ease.

‘If this is the fate that binds us both, what is there to do against it?’

Though he steeled himself in his heart that Yi Mo-baek must be dead, the absence of a corpse left him strangely unsettled.
“Let’s go!”
The party hurled themselves forward and vanished into the forest.
And so the forest fell quiet once more.
Yet around a Clearing some distance away, beasts continued to prowl and circle.
Bodies lay there—prey that should have drawn them in at once to feed their hunger, yet they held back.
Something made them hesitate, kept them wary and uncertain.
There was a reason for their caution.
Whoosh!
After all had departed and considerable time had passed, a figure emerged from the darkness.
It was Jong Ri-gun.
He swept the forest with a keen, measuring gaze.
The beasts had not come because of the human scent that poured from Jong Ri-gun’s body.
After standing there for some time, Jong Ri-gun seemed to abandon the search, hurling himself into the darkness and vanishing.
Thud-thud-thud!
Only then did the beasts begin their rush toward the bodies in the Clearing.

It was a boulder.
The boulder blinked.

‘That cunning old fox.’

The boulder ground its teeth in fury.
There was no way to tell the difference.
Yi Mo-baek, transformed into perfect stone, did not rush to alter his form.
He had unfurled the Hidden character seal of the Life-Death Seal.
The Hidden character seal was so masterful it could elude even the senses of the Wu Ji Sa Gun, called the Shadow of Moyong Cheon.
It differed from the Turtle Breath Grand Method.
The Turtle Breath Grand Method required Inner Power of exceptional depth to sustain it, but the Hidden character seal demanded nothing of Inner Power at all.
Assassins are those who step outside the tradition of orthodox martial arts.
Mastery of blade technique or palm form alone does not make a superior assassin.
Of course, one’s formal martial skills must be honed, yet approaching the target demands many other arts.
Of all the skills an assassin must possess, if one were to name the most vital, it would be the Concealment Art.
To hide.
Not merely to crouch behind a tree or use a boulder as cover, or squeeze beneath a floorboard.
To become the table, to become the stone, to become a single white flower blooming in the garden and exhale its fragrance.
More than this—to bloom as a lotus in a muddy pond, roots deep in filth.
When one transforms into a seamless part of the surrounding world, when every detail shifts and merges, assassination succeeds.
Insects and birds would nest upon his shoulders—such was the godlike mastery of Fragrant Quick Blade’s concealment arts.
“Ugh!”
The moment stone became flesh, Yi Mo-baek spat blood.
At first, he had tried to move.
When that proved fruitless, Jong Ri-gun shifted tactics—from search to waiting game.
Knowing Yi Mo-baek’s condition was dire, he simply waited.
If the man still lived, he would move, and movement would eventually betray his position.
Without outside aid or healing, grave wounds meant death—and Jong Ri-gun had squandered more than half a watch on this gambit.
Though Yi Mo-baek’s breath had not ceased, Jong Ri-gun’s strategy had worked devastatingly well.
Yi Mo-baek knew his life hung by a thread.
Yet he could not simply collapse and wait for death to claim him.
He staggered forward, pushing through the underbrush.
After a few more steps, Yi Mo-baek emerged into a small clearing—and froze.
It didn’t flee at the scent of humans.
Once a beast had tasted human flesh, it would attack the living as readily as it would prey.

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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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