Obtaining Heavenly Demon Martial Arts in the Magic Era - Chapter 21

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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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21
“Unnnngh…”
The groans of janitors sprawled across the floor.
There was nothing pitiful about it—only a symphony of revulsion.
The Leader’s face was a ruin. His eye sockets and nose had caved in catastrophically, crushed as if by a hammer. From the thin gasps escaping his lips, he was still conscious—barely. The Gauntlet on his wrist, however, had reached its limit. The degraded Mana Stone lay in fragments, its light extinguished.
Do Hyun approached the man and executed the Heupseong Daebeop at its extremity—the same method he’d used on Park Seung Yun, the small janitor.
“Gggk—gaaaaaah!”
With a final death rattle as his Mana Core was torn from his body, he lost consciousness entirely. Only after Do Hyun confirmed the three rings that had orbited in perfect balance around his heart collapsing as they lost their axis did he move on to his next target.
The last one was a barrier mage.
“W-wait a moment—”
His formations had been destroyed by the Heavenly Demon’s Overlord Scripture from the start, leaving him out of combat. Indeed, his face remained unmarked.
“Wait? No such thing.”
Crack.
A merciless hand drove the man’s head into the floor. Impartially, Do Hyun shaped him into the same form as his comrades.
Whooooosh—
As Do Hyun drained the barrier mage’s Mana as well, the Nae Gong filling his Danjeon was so abundant it seemed impossible he’d just fought a brutal battle.
The janitors lay side by side, unconscious.
Their Mana Cores had been ruthlessly destroyed by the Heupseong Daebeop. Once called elite, these mages were now hollow shells, incapable of conjuring even the crudest incantations. They had fallen into the very state they despised: No-Mana.
Yet Do Hyun’s hunger remained unsatisfied. Deep in his chest, a scorching killing intent writhed fiercely, and his eyes burned colder than a blizzard. How many innocent lives had bled because of these men? Hired assassins who gorged themselves on others’ deaths. The thought crystallized into one inevitable conclusion.
Do Hyun clenched his fist and drew his Nae Gong to its limit. With the Immaek Tadong optimizing his energy circulation, he needed only to focus his will for wisps of blue mist to bloom at his fingertips—the Gwon Sa, a technique only transcendent martial masters could wield.
Do Hyun meant to sever their final breath with that blue energy gathering in his hand. Their deaths would be an offering to the fallen innocent, a warning written in blood for Jang Ki Han.
In the moment his hand—wreathed in blue energy—was about to snuff out their last thread of life—
“Do Hyun.”
Gwak Cheol’s voice.
Do Hyun spun around in shock to find the man who’d been lying motionless standing upright.
Though hardly in good condition.
Leaning against a pillar, barely supporting his own weight, Gwak Cheol looked fragile as a candle before the wind.
“Just stay down! You’re in no state to stand!”
As Do Hyun rushed to steady him, Gwak Cheol called his name once more.
“Do Hyun.”
Do Hyun felt the weight behind it—more than mere address.
Reproval. Encouragement. Consolation… and—
Do Hyun stared into Gwak Cheol’s eyes in disbelief.
The fierce, wolf-like gleam in them trembled faintly, steeped in complex emotion.
The final feeling was apology.
Who are you, really?
“Why do you look at me like that?”
He’d seen that gaze before—on the day his grandfather Cheon Woo Hyuk had bequeathed everything and resolved to die, those solemn eyes calling to his grandson.
Meanwhile, Gwak Cheol was seeing in Do Hyun the projection of a man from long ago.
A man who never yielded before any opponent, radiating overwhelming dominance. Merciless to his enemies, offering them not a shred of mercy. Yet boundlessly warm to those who were his.
Cheon Song Gyeong… his oldest companion, his only lord. Do Hyun was cast in the exact image of his father, pressed from the same mold.
[Iron… my son at least… should live ordinary…]
The final words of Cheon Song Gyeong, whom Gwak Cheol had served, still echoed in his ears.
‘My lord… the world does not flow according to your wishes, it seems. After all, your bloodline treads the same thorny path you once walked. Should we call this fate?’
A bittersweet and prideful smile crossed Gwak Cheol’s lips.
‘You have grown so well.’
For all these years, he had waited for the day he might repay his debt to the Cheon family. But honoring Cheon Song Gyeong’s wish for an ordinary life, he could not intervene in Do Hyun’s path. His only offering had been the secret monthly stipend he sent to Cheon Woo Hyuk.
But at last, the moment had come to burn the final ember he’d suppressed. Perhaps this too was a destiny that had found him.
Gwak Cheol’s eyes blazed with resolve. He pushed off from the pillar and took a step toward Do Hyun.
“Listen well, boy. We don’t have time. From now on, I’m transferring all my Nae Gong to you.”
“…!”
Do Hyun’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected this.
“Prepare yourself for the Bone-Cleaving Marrow-Washing. You’ve done it once, so you know. Now I’ll scrape your bones and wash your marrow clean.”
Gwak Cheol’s declaration was absolute. There was no hesitation in his words.
“While the technique unfolds, you must not lose focus for a single instant. That way, not a drop will be wasted, and it will all be transmitted whole.”
“No. I refuse. I don’t want to lose someone like this again. Just live. Don’t give up. Endure. And teach me more.”
Gwak Cheol seized Do Hyun’s shoulders, speaking with renewed urgency.
“Sit. Listen!”
His grip held a crushing force that seemed impossible from a man who’d teetered on death’s edge moments before.
“Hhgh…!”
Gwak Cheol forced Do Hyun to sit, and spoke.
“We martial artists have passed on in this way since ancient times. Do not see this as sorrow. Rejoice. Do not feel burdened because another’s will now rests upon your shoulders. Hold it with gratitude. That is the respect owed to those who entrusted their hopes to you.”
Gwak Cheol added gruffly, deliberately furrowing his brow.
“And I am exhausted now. Please, just sit still. I want to finish this quickly and rest deeply.”
Only then did Do Hyun release the tension that had been coiled so tightly through his body.
Drip.
Hot tears began to flow down Do Hyun’s cheeks, which had been so parched that not a drop of blood would fall if pricked. Gwak Cheol, seeing those tears, feigned ignorance and crossed his legs behind Do Hyun’s back.
Gwak Cheol sat behind Do Hyun as if he had noticed nothing.
Soon the old man’s palms pressed firmly against Do Hyun’s Mingmen point.
Whooooosh—!
In an instant, tremendous heat surged through his entire body like a tempest.
It was the essence of a Nogosu who had devoted a lifetime to martial arts—the accumulated life’s work of Gwak Cheol, the Master of the Gaebang Seoul Branch.
“Ngh…!”
Do Hyun barely stifled the moan that burst from his lips.
He bit back the scream that threatened to escape. Gwak Cheol’s Nae Gong was not merely a matter of capacity. It carried overwhelming mass and momentum—like a colossal tidal wave smashing through a narrow channel. Even the Taeheo Honyeon Simgong, called the supreme heart technique in all the lands, cried out against that ferocious influx.
The force of the Nae Gong grew fiercer with each passing moment.
Just when he thought it would end, an even more powerful surge crashed through.
The vast accumulation of Nae Gong filled his Danjeon until it seemed ready to burst, forcing its way in with brutal insistence.
Crack—crackle.
His Danjeon swelled as if it would tear.
One Gapja, then another.
Over two Gapja worth of Gwak Cheol’s deep and formidable Nae Gong ravaged through Do Hyun’s Gi Gyeong Pal Maek like a tempest.
And that was not all.
The Nae Gong, overwhelming its vessel’s limits, began to carve new pathways of its own.
‘That path… the Dokmaek, the channel running alongside the Immaek…!’
A titanic wave crashed against the Hyeol Ro of the Dokmaek, which until now had stood as immovable as a great mountain.
“Keep your mind sharp!”
All of this was Gwak Cheol’s meticulous design. He was guiding the overflow of Nae Gong with precision, intending to complete the opening of all of Do Hyun’s remaining meridians. His seasoned judgment was precise. Before two centuries’ worth of accumulated power, the fragile barrier of the Dokmaek crumbled hopelessly.
“Ahhhhgh!”
Do Hyun’s entire body convulsed with pain so intense it felt like shattering. Bones crushed, muscles torn.
Yet at the apex of that agony, a sensation wholly new burst into bloom.
With the Imdok Yang Maek opened, all the impurities within his body were forced outward through the skin with blackened blood, and from his Danjeon arose an energy incomparably purer and more potent than before.
Hwan Gol Tal Tae.
Crrack—crack.
The ancient, accumulated dead skin that had covered him for so long shattered like porcelain and fell away. The absolute pinnacle all martial artists in the world desire—the miraculous moment of transcendence when one sheds the limits of mortality and ascends to the superhuman. In place of the discarded husk, Do Hyun’s new flesh emerged, pure and flawless as jade.
A body transformed into the optimal form for embodying the Way of Martial Arts.
Hwan Gol Tal Tae was the process of forcibly attuning the body to the state of Cheonmujiché.
What is Cheonmujiché?
The perfect vessel for embodying the principles of Martial Arts.
Do Hyun was now experiencing with his entire being the true value of what Cheonmujiché meant.
Each subtle muscle tremor became distinct and clear. His sensitivity to Gi expanded tenfold, every sensory organ synchronized at its peak, and his very perception of the world transformed.
Whoooosh—
At this moment, Do Hyun had obtained both the Cheonmujiché body and the realm of Chojolgjeong.
As proof, a transparent, wavering Gi rose above his fist like heat shimmer.
A pure crystallization of Nae Gong, entirely different in dimension from the black Mana of before.
An intangible force that only the highest masters of Chojolgjeong could wield.
It was Gwon Gang.
“Hah… hah…”
Before Do Hyun’s labored breathing, Gwak Cheol’s body crumpled gently downward. His face, having given everything, looked like a lifeless wax figure. Do Hyun cradled his body and laid him carefully to rest.
“Take… my Samdan Bong.”
Gwak Cheol mustered his last strength, pointing with a trembling finger at the titanium Samdan Bong that lay on the ground.
“And… go to Yongsan Station. There… everything you seek is…”
His words trailed off unfinished as Gwak Cheol’s gaze became fixed on empty space.
“Everything is…”
As Gwak Cheol’s pupils rapidly dilated and lost focus, the meaningless words hung once more from his lips. His eyes remained suspended in that void, gazing as if greeting someone who had come to meet him from beyond. After that, his heaving chest stilled and his faintly trembling lips fell into eternal silence.
The pulse of life ceased completely.
It was the end of Gwak Cheol, Master of the Gaebang Seoul Branch.
Silence flowed through the space.
Do Hyun carefully took the Samdan Bong from Gwak Cheol’s hand. The cold, weighty sensation traveled through his palm to his heart. Do Hyun did not feel the Samdan Bong as a mere weapon. It was the trace of a man’s life and his final legacy.
From somewhere, a sound of weeping could be heard. As Do Hyun turned, members of the Gaebang Seoul Branch began to emerge one by one. They all knelt before Gwak Cheol’s broken body and wept silently. Their tears transcended mere sorrow—they were the deep lamentation of those who had lost their hero. Their cries of grief filled the cold Underground Space, and so the night wore on.
It was a night cruel and endlessly long.

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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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