My Father Is the Number One Under Heaven - Chapter 60

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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 60. The Feeling of Being Drenched in Filth
‘Min, your Yuseoung Nakgeom has reached a pinnacle of mastery. If you continue training the Palmyeong Geombeop steadfastly, within a decade there will be few in all the land capable of matching your swordwork. Of course, among the young generation today, those who can withstand your Yuseoung Nakgeom are already rare.’
He’d said exactly that.
Jo Min felt as though he were dreaming.
His master was not a man prone to idle talk, nor did he speak rashly.
In truth, Jo Min’s Yuseoung Nakgeom landed flawlessly on every opponent he faced.
Every adversary had fallen before it like a leaf caught in autumn wind.
Yet now, standing before his eyes, was a man who had deflected his Yuseoung Nakgeom as though it were a child’s clumsy slash—without the slightest strain.
A mere scholar until just recently!
He showed no signs of struggle whatsoever.
Not even a flicker of effort.
‘This… this can’t be happening!’
Jo Min moved swiftly to unleash the Yuseoung Nakgeom again.
But—
“Hold on! Now it’s my turn!”
Yeo Un-hwi, having closed the distance before Jo Min could react, grinned wickedly and brought the Mok-do down in a simple overhead strike.
It was nothing like the Yuseoung Nakgeom or any refined technique—merely a straightforward downward cut.
Jo Min didn’t realize it, but this was no ordinary slash; it was a foundational strike of the Mujin Do-beop, subtly different in every way.
‘This cursed bastard won’t let up!’
The fact that his opponent had deflected his signature technique only to counter with a simple overhead strike filled Jo Min with frustration and rage.
He felt utterly at the mercy of the other man’s movements.
He didn’t know that every opponent who’d faced him had felt exactly the same.
Yet from the earlier bout, he already understood how dangerous that downward strike could be.
But a simple overhead cut—he could evade that easily enough.
The speed wasn’t particularly impressive, after all.
Except—
Whoooosh.
“…Hagh!”
His breath suddenly caught, as if something had slammed his windpipe shut.
No matter how he tried to move, invisible walls seemed to press in from all sides, trapping him in place.
‘What… what is this?’
Before confusion could even settle—
Whooooom.
What should have been a simple Mok-do descended toward his head at an unhurried pace, yet now it appeared as a massive club, easily the size of an ancient tree.
Absurd, you say? Tell me about it.
He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t move, why his breath came in suffocating gasps, or why that enormous weapon bore down on him like a falling mountain.
There was only one thing left he could do.
Surrender to this crushing pressure, this terror, and scream.
Kueeeeeee!
As the massive Mok-do descended toward what he was certain would be the shattering of his skull, Jo Min could only shriek.
“No, no! Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
His eyes squeezed shut of their own accord.
When no impact followed, he cautiously opened them.
“Let’s end it here.”
Tap.
Yeo Un-hwi’s Mok-do had barely grazed Jo Min’s head.
Thump.
His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
A dark stain bloomed across his breeches.
Thus the match ended.
It was a defeat for the Sarim Dan.
***
“You’ve worked hard.”
“Not at all.”
Baeklang Dae approached Yeo Un-hwi as he descended from the Duel Arena.
Yeo Un-hwi smiled warmly in return.
Peng Do-hwan beamed brightest of them all, his grin stretched so wide it nearly split his face.
His wounds weren’t minor—they’d need proper time to heal—yet unable to contain himself, he’d received only hasty first aid before hurrying back to the arena.
That he could bear the pain spoke well enough of his condition.
Shaking his head as if to say there was no stopping him, Yeo Un-hwi asked:
“Is it really so pleasant?”
“Ha! This isn’t a terror that only I would know about here, is it?”
He too had experienced it at Yeo Un-hwi’s hands.
Almost exactly the same way.
And so Peng Do-hwan knew precisely the pressure and fear that Jo Min must be feeling.
That made him feel good.
So he’d been showing off like that, and in the end came to this state.
Moreover, for a martial artist to lose bladder control during an ordinary duel was a disgrace that would follow him for life.
For a man who was a disciple of the Murim League’s elder and perpetually lauded as a genius, it would be an even deeper humiliation.
That’s why it felt so good.
Utterly delicious, you might say.
He thought this fool deserved even worse.
To be honest, he was disappointed.
That it was ending like this.
But from the atmosphere, it didn’t seem the other side would continue the duel.
And so the duel ended.
Everyone let out a breath of relief.
Shocked by the unexpected and humiliating defeat, the Sarim Dan quietly vanished from the Duel Arena.
“Ha! This will raise the reputation of Baeklang Dae even higher.”
Peng Sejin, who had been watching the duel the entire time, approached.
The retainers and warriors standing beside him stared at Yeo Un-hwi in a daze, their mouths hanging open.
It seemed they were shocked by the tremendous martial prowess Yeo Un-hwi had displayed against Jo Min—a man they’d taken for nothing more than a scholar.
Peng Sejin smiled brightly, regarding Yeo Un-hwi.
“Congratulations on your victory in the duel.”
“It was nothing.”
Naturally, Yeo Un-hwi spoke with respect to Peng Sejin in front of others.
“You’ve defeated a man spoken of as one of the rising talents who will shoulder the burden of the martial world’s future, and yet you say such things?”
Rising talent of the martial world? That bastard?
Well, there was no way to know.
For some reason, Yeo Un-hwi’s expression grew subtle.
“There was something I meant to tell you anyway.”
Yeo Un-hwi’s face turned quite serious as he regarded Peng Sejin.
Peng Sejin’s expression grew puzzled.
***
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Crash! Bang! Crash-crash-crash!
Having changed clothes, Jo Min was overwhelmed by the shock of defeat and the weight of such terrible shame that he raged about the room, smashing everything within reach to pieces.
“Damn it! Damn it! Ahhhhhhh!”
Seeing the fierce gleam in his eyes, no one in the Sarim Dan dared step forward to stop him or open their mouth.
For them, too, it was a shock.
It was too unreal, one might say.
Jo Min’s defeat was something they had never anticipated, never even conceived of.
He was that absolute, that trustworthy a presence within the Sarim Dan.
For such a figure to fall so pathetically, so miserably—there could be no lower point.
No one could find words.
And that very silence only drove Jo Min further into madness.
And so he made his decision.
He would not remain in this place even one moment longer.
“Leave this place at once! Pack your things!”
Having made up his mind swiftly, Jo Min commanded the Sarim Dan members in a low voice.
“Already? We’ve only just arrived, and we’re still exhausted from travel. Even staying just one more day…….”
Whoosh!
One of the members was carelessly opening his mouth when in an instant he was sent flying with a tremendous crash.
Jo Min’s eyes had turned wild and furious.
“From now on, if there’s even one bastard who talks back to me again, I will genuinely kill you. There won’t be a second warning.”
Jo Min, who ordinarily was the type to smile faintly and turn people’s insides out, was now showing an anger so complete that even his own members were seeing him in this state for perhaps the first time.
Even the strange ease he usually carried had abandoned him entirely.
In the end, the Sarim Dan left the Peng Estate quickly.
Shuddering as though they would never set foot in it again.
They did not even offer separate farewell greetings to Peng Mugang, the Clan Patriarch.
They did not know.
They did not know that someone was watching their every move.
***
“…Hell. Damn it. I’m dead tired.”
“Hey. Hey. Keep your voice down. The leader might hear.”
The faces of the Sarim Dan members who had been traveling for some time all bore the same grim expression.
Their countenances were thick with resentment.
Jo Min’s eagerness to leave the Peng Estate at once was, of course, perfectly understandable.
But that was one thing; having sprinted the entire distance to the Peng Estate in a single burst, only to set out again without a chance to recover from the accumulated fatigue, was truly the worst of it.
The state they were in now was naturally different from when they had first arrived at the Peng Estate.
Now it felt doubly, triply harder.
And on top of it all, they had even sparred because of the leader.
Curses and complaints rose naturally from their lips, swelling louder with each step, yet not a soul dared to confront Jo Min openly.
No one knew what might befall them if they spoke out of turn.
In any case, all they wanted was to reach the nearest village and rest as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, Jo Min had remained silent ever since leaving the Peng Estate.
He had no desire to speak.
The memory of defeat was still too vivid, too raw.
Scarcely two hours had passed, so it was perhaps inevitable.
Too little time had elapsed to overcome the shock of such a defeat.
In truth, he wondered if such a terrible defeat could ever be overcome at all.
‘Hell. Damn it. What will my master say when he hears of this?’
He was certain the master would be deeply ashamed of him and furious beyond measure.
‘Sigh…’
This felt like reaching for amusement only to have filth poured over his head.
He should never have touched it in the first place.
But what good would regret do now?
Even if he could turn back time, he and Sarim Dan would almost certainly act the same way.
Suddenly, the face of a man flashed before his mind.
Yeo Un-hwi, leader of Baeklang Dae.
‘What in the world was that man?’
And then the man’s piercing gaze rose vividly before him, and his body trembled.
‘No. No. Don’t think about him anymore.
He didn’t want to think about it anymore.
He would never entangle himself with that man again.
In any case, it felt as though dark clouds—no, ruin itself—had descended upon his bright future.
He thought he should stop at the nearest village and drink himself into oblivion.
It was at that moment.
While everyone’s attention was scattered in different directions, something flew through their path and into their midst.
Tick. Tok-tok. Tick. Roll-roll.
It was a black sphere the size of an adult’s fist.
“Hm? What is this?”
One of the members picked it up.
The moment Jo Min saw it, he let out a sharp cry of alarm.
“Poison Bombs! Throw them away!”
But it was already too late.
Boom!
Hiss-hiss-hiss. Sssssss.
Four or five Poison Bombs burst with small reports, and the smoke inside rapidly spread outward.
“Ugh! P-poison!”
“I can’t… breathe.”
“Everyone, hold your breath! It’s dangerous if you inhale it!”
Jo Min shouted and covered his mouth, but it was already too late.
Already, all of Sarim Dan had breathed in the poison smoke.
He tried belatedly to use Jang-beop to push the smoke aside,
‘Damn it! We’re caught.’
His Internal Energy would not gather.
Who? What kind of fools would dare touch Sarim Dan so brazenly?
Using poison like this!
‘Could it be the Peng Estate? Or somewhere else…?’
Did they know, then, that they had already earned the enmity of countless people?
Oddly enough, nearly every place they hurried to recall was one of the prominent families they had recently visited.
That was when it happened.
A low chuckle.
Those who would answer their unspoken questions appeared before their eyes without delay.
“So you’re the ones. Our targets this time.”
A group in black cloaks fixed their gaze upon the Sarim Dan—poisoned, their faces twisted in urgency—as if watching appetizing prey.
Hideous markings, identical on each of their foreheads, caught the eye.
“The… Demonic Sect?”
At the appearance of these unexpected arrivals, the faces of Jo Min and everyone else in the Sarim Dan drained of color.

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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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