North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 100

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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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100. Embedded in the Heart

Early dawn.
Aelak and his company moved eastward in silence.
On the field path where mist rose to the knee, only the heavy clop of hoofbeats broke the stillness.
Aelak sat rigid in the saddle, his gaze fixed forward.
On his chest, near the scar tissue, a single dried bloodstain.
After sending the old master’s head flying, the promised first blood had marked him.

Cheok Mu-young, who had joined Aelak’s company, fell back slightly in their formation.
“Will you come with us?”
He could not refuse Serian’s invitation. Indeed, the words had barely left her lips before he fell into step.
“Since you’ve confirmed you’ve killed a man from the Central Plains, I cannot guide you. But to report accurately to the Murim Alliance… I will travel with you.”
“That’s all we ask. Just report truthfully. We don’t want unnecessary conflict between the North Sea and the Central Plains.”
“If something seems wrong, I may have to draw my blade.”
“We’re not children, are we? We all do as our conscience demands.”
For Cheok Mu-young, it was a companionship he could not refuse.

He studied Aelak’s profile relentlessly.
Not the face of one who had finished his revenge. No sense of relief, no cooling anger—not the visage of a murderer who had slaughtered an entire household, but rather the dry expression of someone just beginning, barely fastening the first button.
Cheok Mu-young felt sweat seeping into his grip on the reins.
Eight of them. Did he truly intend to kill them all?
And at the pinnacle stood his father.
Aelak against his father. The North Sea Warrior against the Supreme Sword of the Central Plains.
‘Blood runs thicker than water, whatever the reason. I need to know more—as much as I can.’

The company rode for several more days until they reached a small village.
They unpacked their supplies at an inn.
As Serian organized the luggage in the courtyard, she drew near Aelak and whispered softly.
“Now that you’ve settled the First Blood, you must feel like you can breathe a little easier.”
Aelak did not even glance at her, his words terse.
“It’s only one.”
Serian stared at him.
“Only one? Taking even a single step is a great thing.”
“Taking a step doesn’t mean you’ve arrived.”
Serian opened her mouth to speak, but Aelak drew a line by fixing his gaze on the eastern sky.
“There is no time to rest. It only ends when I see it through to the end.”
Serian fell silent.
Even after tearing through the First Blood, Aelak’s Kill List had not diminished at all. Until all eight names were crossed off, he would not know sleep.
Not a trace of vengeance’s satisfaction showed.
If anything… a matter-of-factness that he had killed those deserving of death? A ruthlessness? The grim tenacity of a hound that, once it has sunk its teeth into the rope, will not release it of its own accord.
That was what Aelak emanated.

Cheok Mu-young stood too far away to hear the two of them speak. Yet he could sense that this ash-eyed man was consumed, almost feverish, with a single purpose.
A predator who, once he had chosen his prey, would never let it escape.
Just the thought made Cheok Mu-young’s throat tighten.

At midday, warm spring sunlight poured down on the village.
Cheok Mu-young sat wedged in a corner of the inn, watching his sister and the northerners laugh and carry on with undisguised displeasure.
Cheok Ha-rin had grown quite friendly with the northerners; she was giggling as she fingered the Ice Chain coiled around Garkan’s forearm.
“This heavy thing really flies from human hands?”
“It doesn’t just fly far. Wrap it once around someone’s ankle, and even the greatest master under heaven will land on their backside.”
Garkan let the Ice Chain jingle casually in his palm as he added without much feeling:
“Back home, we use this to hunt bears. You ever seen an arctic bear? Huge as a mountain.”
“A bear? A bear as big as a person?”
“There are monsters twice the size of men all over the place. If you saw one, you’d faint from shock.”
“Ha ha ha! Me?”
Cheok Ha-rin clapped her hands and dissolved into laughter, her bright voice carrying across the courtyard and striking Cheok Mu-young’s ear like a physical blow.
His father’s warning lodged in his mind like a dagger.
‘If you see him, avoid him at all costs.’
He’d been told to avoid—and yet his sister was cheerfully throwing herself straight into the tiger’s jaws.
Cheok Mu-young’s hand moved to his sword unbidden, then froze.
His thoughts crystallized as ice formed in his chest.
The creature wasn’t simply wandering. At the end of this eastward path lay another death—a certainty.
Je-gal Chan’s killer, moving to the next name on the list.
And that name would be his father’s. It was inevitable.
To walk willingly into those claws like his sister was madness.
‘I have to get her out of here. Now.’
Cheok Mu-young looked at his sister.

That night, Cheok Mu-young found his way to her room.
They sat across the lamplight, and his face had shed all warmth.
“Ha-rin. Pack what you need. We’re leaving.”
Cheok Ha-rin’s eyes widened.
“Back to Cheon Geom Mun. Je-gal was Father’s sworn brother—a man of honor brought down by barbarians from the North. You need to leave at first light.”
But Cheok Ha-rin did not nod.
“I understand how grave this is. I know how much Uncle Je-gal loved me. His death grieves me deeply.”
“Then why do you laugh and prattle like you haven’t a care in the world?”
“Answer me one question. Does the Seol-ryeon-gwa I took have any connection to these people?”
“No.”
“Then I have the right to ask them myself.”
“You what?”
“I’m not a fool, brother. My mind is in turmoil too. There are strange things here—things that need clarification.”
“What sort of clarification—”
“Brother. For now, you do what you must do. I have something I truly need to understand. I swear to you—I will do nothing that brings harm to Cheon Geom Mun or Father.”
Her eyes flickered toward the hallway, toward the rooms where the northern warriors slept.
A glance, fleeting as a heartbeat.
But Cheok Mu-young caught the weight of it instantly.
His sister harbored questions about the Seol-ryeon-gwa.
Whatever had prompted it, she meant to investigate—and he’d thought her innocent of worldly craft. She was the Greatest Sword Under Heaven’s daughter, after all.
‘Father. What have you done…’
Everything was slipping into a current he could no longer grasp.
Cheok Mu-young’s fingers, which had been fidgeting with the lamp, went rigid.
His breath caught.
Finally, Cheok Mu-young played his last card.
He withdrew a crumpled letter from his coat.
A summons from his father.
A sealed order that had passed from his father to the sect leader, then to the masked messenger, and finally to Cheok Mu-young in absolute secrecy.
“Father sent this. An absolute command—return home at once.”
This time, it was Cheok Ha-rin’s hands that stiffened.
She had always revered her father’s words as law. When he forbade, she never questioned; when he commanded, she obeyed without protest. Never once had she defied him.
The lamp flickered in the suffocating silence of the room.
Cheok Ha-rin unfolded the letter with trembling fingers.
Her father’s handwriting—severe and commanding.
Any other time, she would have begun packing before she’d finished reading. But when she lowered the paper, she did not release it. The thin sheet quivered in her grip.
At last, Cheok Ha-rin shook her head.
“No.”
And added, coldly:
“There is something I must confirm here. Something truly vital.”
Cheok Mu-young’s eyes went wide as saucers.
Defy their father’s command? He had never imagined such a thing possible.
“Fine. What is it you need to confirm? If I can answer it—”
“My first question. Can you answer it? Where did the Seol-ryeon-gwa come from? Does it have nothing to do with these people? Why did Uncle Je-gal die?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I must confirm—”
“By defying Father’s orders?”
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation—not a pout, not defiance, but something far more troubling. It was the first time Cheok Mu-young had seen his sister’s eyes gleam with such bone-chilling resolve.
He couldn’t begin to fathom what lay at the root of that obsession, the kind that would make her defy even their father’s command.
And yet those unwavering eyes kept flicking toward the space beyond the wall.
The room where the gray-eyed demons dwelt in silence.
‘Could it be…’
Cheok Mu-young’s thoughts turned to the Seol-ryeon-gwa that his sister had mentioned twice.
What effect did the Seol-ryeon-gwa’s cold aura have? Why was she being drawn so deeply into the northerners’ orbit?
Cheok Mu-young never did find the answer. But one thing became abundantly clear: his sister’s resolve was absolutely unshakeable.
“Ha-rin, promise me one thing.”
“Yes.”
“When I tell you to come back next time… you’ll come back no matter what.”
Cheok Ha-rin looked steadily at her brother.
Worry flickered in her gaze, concern written in every line of her eyes.
She answered him.
“Yes. I will. I promise.”

Even after returning to her room, Cheok Ha-rin couldn’t still the wild hammering of her heart.
It had begun days ago—a terrible sensation of invisible chains drawing taut in the center of her chest, pulling her toward something she couldn’t name.
She’d wondered if the Cold Damage Disease from her childhood had returned, but that ailment had been completely cured since she’d taken the Seol-ryeon-gwa.
This wasn’t pain. It was a maddening, overwhelming pull.
At the end of those chains that dragged her forward, there was always a man.
A predator with gray eyes.
The sinister cold aura that emanated whenever he drew near.
And yet, impossibly, his killing intent didn’t frighten her. It should have been foreign, should have terrified her—but instead it felt eerily familiar.
As if branded into her from a past life, that coldness was etched deep into her bones.
She couldn’t explain why.
When he crossed the courtyard, her eyes followed as if under a spell. When water boiled, she wanted to serve it to him first.
She couldn’t even logically explain to herself why he had become her priority.
If, as her brother warned, they were truly after their father’s life?
The thought made her heart lurch violently. Yet even in that moment, she couldn’t distinguish whether the pounding was for her father’s safety or for those gray eyes.
Cheok Ha-rin pressed her hand to her chest.
The trembling didn’t stop. It felt as though something had driven a stake through her, pinning her to this place.
She began to understand why her brother had wanted to flee so desperately.
But her feet wouldn’t move.
Some mysterious, terrible stigma gripped her ankle far more forcefully than any command from her father.
Cheok Ha-rin stepped out into the corridor as if in a trance.

Late into the night.
Ha-rin walked alone out to the fields beyond the village.
The inn’s lights faded behind her, and endless darkness unfurled. A cold night wind, tinged with the scent of grass, brushed her cheek. It was a northern wind.
She lifted her gaze toward the northern sky.
Stars fell like an infinite rain across the night expanse, stretching endlessly toward the North.
For her, who had lived her whole life like a sheltered flower behind garden walls, it was a strange and terrible land she had only heard whispered about.
Yet the moment she turned her eyes toward it, the crushing pain in her chest began to ease, as if by miracle. As if she had come home.
Ha-rin felt her body lean inexorably in that direction.
Those gray eyes and the cold aura that cut to the bone.
That terrible stigma which had somehow burrowed deep into her very soul.
Not understanding the nature of the emotions stirring within her, she found herself unable to look away from the northern night sky.

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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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