Murim School Record - Chapter 6

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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 6: The Witch (3)

Yi Mo-baek watched the Golden Dragon Technique shatter like broken glass.

‘We’re outmatched.’

Neither Sae-myeol nor Sae-ryong was weak.
Byeok An-mihee was simply stronger.
The power of her Wall Demon Technique was already legendary.
“Ugh!”
Sae-ryong was different from Sae-myeol.
His martial skill fell short by a notch.
Blood trickled from the corner of Sae-ryong’s mouth as his legs trembled—he looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Neither of them could stand against her.
“Shouldn’t we stop watching and lend them a hand?”
“With our level of Self-Defense Art, though?”
The kitchen workers murmured among themselves.
Yi Mo-baek edged quietly toward Dang Doo-chun.
“Master of the Work Hall.”
“Who do you think will win?”
Dang Doo-chun asked.
“Even if both of them combine their strength, I don’t think they’ll last ten seconds.”
At the mention of ten seconds, Dang Doo-chun’s eyes widened.
“We should evacuate right now.”
“Evacuate?”
“Haven’t you heard the rumors about that woman from Sae-myeol? They say she’s a madwoman who kills without reason.”
“I’ve heard the stories, but surely she wouldn’t target defenseless monks like us?”
“If she were the type to discriminate, would she have earned such a vicious reputation? Our staying here helps no one. By withdrawing, we give Sae-myeol and Sae-ryong a chance to escape, don’t we?”
“A disciple of the Great Shaolin, running?”
Yi Mo-baek laughed quietly.
“What does pride matter when your life is on the line? First we live, then we worry about honor.”
That was when a scream cut through their conversation.
They spun around, and both their eyes went wide.
Sae-ryong sat slumped against a boulder, vomiting blood.
Small lumps mixed in with the steady stream of crimson.
Pieces of his organs.
When organ fragments came out mixed with blood like that, survival was scarcely possible.
“Hah!”
Byeok An-mihee’s palm thrust forward.
It seemed impossible for Sae-ryong to dodge.
Whoosh!
Sae-myeol rushed in desperately and intercepted Byeok An-mihee’s palm strike.
Crack!
Gasp!
There was a vast difference between a hasty defense and a measured killing blow.
Sae-myeol had blocked in desperation; Byeok An-mihee had struck with lethal intent.
When one acts from urgency, they cannot capture form and technique with precision, and thus lose in raw power.
Stagger!
As Sae-myeol lost his footing and swayed, Byeok An-mihee’s palm extended once more.
Snap!
Crack!
To block a vicious attack while teetering without balance was impossible.
By reflex, he raised both palms to meet it, but that was all he could do.
Sae-myeol’s body flew backward and smashed into a thick tree.
After striking the trunk and crumpling to the ground, Sae-myeol lay silent.
Trickle…
Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth—his breathing had stopped.
He appears to be dead.
Crack!
Byeok An-mihee brought her fist down hard against the corpse’s head.
As she rained blows upon the lifeless body like a finishing execution, Yi Mo-baek furrowed his brow.

‘Merciless.’

A dark thought crossed his mind: perhaps today would be the last day of his life.
“Do you want to live, Sae-ryong?”
Byeok An-mihee stood over the gasping monk slumped against the rock, smiling down at him.
“Will you spare me?”
Her eyes widened at the unexpected reply.
“Though I took vows, I am still human. How could I shed the instinct to survive? Better to roll in a dung heap in this life than leave it forever.”
Hohohoho.
Byeok An-mihee threw back her head and laughed.
“Funny.”
In the Martial World, where bizarre deaths and sudden transformations happen daily, never had she heard a Buddhist monk—much less a Shaolin disciple—beg so desperately for his life.
The Shaolin monks she knew were rigid, unyielding.
“Really, that’s hilarious.”
Thud!
In that instant, the unforeseen happened.
Sae-ryong’s fist struck Byeok An-mihee’s standing knee.
A killing blow, aimed at the moment she let her guard slip.
Almost simultaneously, her right hand whipped across his skull.
Aaaagh!
The scream came a heartbeat too late.
Stagger!
Byeok An-mihee reeled.
Her left knee shattered from the desperate, full-force punch Sae-ryong had driven upward with his last strength.
His plea for mercy, his begging to be spared—all of it had been bait to lower her guard.
She had relaxed her vigilance entirely, dropped her awareness.
“The world… the world was always meant to be amusing, I suppose. Homage to the Buddha, Byeok An-mihee.”
Sae-ryong breathed his last.
Keeeeoooow!
Byeok An-mihee stared at her shattered left knee and let out a primal shriek.
She thrashed and writhed in fury, tearing into the corpse with wild, savage strikes.
“Arrgh, arrgh, arrrgh! Tricked by some wretched Buddhist! How infuriating, how vile! I’ll kill every last one of these cursed monks!”
Crack-crack-crack!
Before arriving here, she had already fought fiercely at the Demon-Subduing Lotus Platform at Shaolin Temple and suffered grave internal injuries.
Now, having fallen for a deception, she had sustained a severe fracture to her left knee.
The pale blue of her eyes was swallowed entirely by white.
“I’ll strip the flesh from your bones and string your organs in the sun to dry—and there I’ll hang my robes for all to see!”
She beat the silent corpse like a drum, drawing no response.
Hah-hah-hah!
As her ragged breathing slowed, her head snapped toward the commotion.
A crowd of workers from the kitchen courtyard had gathered.
Flames danced in her eyes.
“Tell me how you wish to die, and I’ll oblige. Speak!”
She pointed to a man standing furthest to the right.
“You! Come here!”
“Why me?”
Leap!
Unable to use her left leg, she vaulted forward on her right, bounding like a frog to land before the man she’d singled out.
The kitchen worker’s face went ashen.
Byeok An-mihee did not hesitate, unleashing a furious palm strike.
“Kheehehehehe!”
Smash!
The lay disciple worker struck full in the chest was sent flying into the forest.
Crash-thud-crash!

A lay disciple worker struck by Byeok An-mihee’s palm strike went running into the forest to find his fallen comrade.
But a moment later, he trudged back out.
“Why do you return alone?”
“He is dead.”
Dang Doo-chun’s gaze fixed on Byeok An-mihee.
“We are lay disciple workers of the kitchen.”
Which meant they knew nothing of martial arts, and had no connection whatsoever to the grievances of the Martial World.
Yet somehow, she had employed lethal techniques—it was a protest.
“Who are you?”
“I am Dang Doo-chun, overseer of the kitchen workers.”
“Do you know what my hobby is?”
“How would I know such a thing?”
“Killing people.”
“Even for something as trivial as taking a life, there must be some fitting reason, surely?”
“And there it is—Shaolin lay workers questioning too. The type of person I despise most are those who ask questions. Fine, I’ll give you a reason.”
She swept her gaze across the six men.
“I simply kill. That is reason enough. If you need another, it’s this: you are Shaolin people. I cannot stand Shaolin. The moment I see a Buddhist monk, I lose all reason.”
Before her words had even finished, she lunged toward Dang Doo-chun.
“I will not spare a single one. You dared break my leg.”
The Wall Demon Technique, swung in fury, was devastating.
Dang Doo-chun’s teeth clenched.
It wasn’t that he knew nothing of martial arts.
Going to market or gathering wild plants, one couldn’t avoid meeting ruffians now and then.
He had picked up a few forms of the Arhat Fist as a matter of Self-Defense Art.
Snap!
He thrust his fist toward Byeok An-mihee’s advancing right hand.
“How amusing!”
Crack!
A sickening crunch.
Dang Doo-chun shrieked and jolted backward.
His wrist was shattered in a single blow.
As she moved to strike again at the writhing Dang Doo-chun, someone cried out.
“Wait!”
Byeok An-mihee drew back her half-extended hand and turned her head.
Yi Mo-baek was approaching.
“And who are you? If you can wait your turn, I’ll be happy to kill you too.”
Yi Mo-baek smiled crookedly.
“I’m impatient by nature.”
Her eyebrow twitched.
Byeok An-mihee’s eyebrow twitched.
“So you wish to die first, then? Very well—I can grant such a desire.”
“Please, calm yourself for a moment, and before that—”
Yi Mo-baek held up his hand to stop her.
He straightened his chest and tightened his throat, trying not to appear cowed, but his mouth had gone dry and his legs trembled without cease.

‘I cannot show fear.’

He had grown up fighting, after all.
So he had some confidence in throwing a punch, but his opponent was a figure from the Martial World.
Not even a third-rate ruffian—someone so formidable she could kill Sae-myeol and Sae-ryong of the Demon-Subduing Lotus Platform of Shaolin Temple without effort.
In only one thing were they equal.

‘Combat is about momentum.’

If he failed now, all the lay workers here—himself included—would die.
“I am Yi Mo-baek, a lay disciple worker of Shaolin. Though I am no martial artist, I have heard much of your formidable reputation—that you are so outstanding it is hard to find your equal beneath Heaven.”
“And?”
He had flattered her enough that her expression should have softened, but Byeok An-mihee only grew colder.

‘Just as rumor said—a truly formidable demon woman.’

Yi Mo-baek lowered his posture further and spoke.
“We know nothing of martial arts. If you mean to kill men of such ignorance, I would dare ask—does it not diminish the reputation of Byeok An-mihee, foremost lady of the Central Plains? Will our blood not tarnish your name?”
“What a fretful one. I care nothing for such things. Now bare your neck, and I’ll be done with it in a single stroke.”
Yi Mo-baek swallowed hard.

‘Completely unmoved. Not even a flicker.’

Utterly intractable.
He’d heard that warriors of the Martial World weighed their opponents before deciding whether to draw their blades.
Those who might stain a master’s reputation—in other words, those not worth the effort—were seldom engaged at all.
“Haha! Very well then. If you must kill us, kill us. But would you do me the courtesy of beginning with me?”
Byeok An-mihee’s eyes widened.
In all her years, she had never met a man who asked to die first.
She had crossed the breadth of the Central Plains—eighteen thousand leagues in every direction—and stained her hands with countless lives, yet never had she encountered one who pleaded to be first.
“Ah, but if the lady would permit, I should like to bid farewell to my companions first.”
A peculiar sort of man.
“Very…very well. I permit it.”
Yi Mo-baek turned to face them.
All eyes fixed upon him.
Every face was pallid with fear, and some stood vacant, minds already surrendered to the fact of their imminent death.
“My friends.”
Yi Mo-baek spoke to them calmly.
“Though the time was short, I have been profoundly happy and content with you all. Today, I shall die, and so shall you. All living things must fade—let us not cower so before death.”
Then he turned his gaze to Dang Doo-chun.
“Dear Dang Doo-chun, I am eternally grateful. Though you complained of your frail health, you would secretly scrape rice crust for me, look after me, feed me with your own hands. That kindness I shall never forget.”
“Mo-baek, it is not yet finished.”
“The most wretched thing in this world is hope itself—they say to hold onto hope when you have none at all. That is what I meant to say.”
“Mmm!”
“This fight—let us not even attempt it. We are already lost.”
“Mo-baek!”
Dang Doo-chun exhaled heavily.
He had spoken as the leader must, but in truth—as Mo-baek said—hope was a luxury they could not afford. Even searched with open eyes, there was none to find.
The monks Sae-myeol and Sae-ryong from the Demon-Subduing Lotus Platform could not match her.
How then could mere lay disciple workers, who did not even know the first character of martial arts, hope to resist?
“We shall meet in the next life.”
Yi Mo-baek turned back.
“Is it done?”
“Yes. You may kill me now.”
Byeok An-mihee studied him with penetrating eyes, then smiled faintly.
“What is your name?”
“Yi Mo-baek.”
“A true man.”
“Please, let it be painless. One stroke, if you will.”
“As you wish.”
Whoosh—
Byeok An-mihee did not hesitate, did not falter.

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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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