Return of the God of War - Chapter 30

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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 30. Whether It Makes Sense or Not.
A long moment of silence stretched between them.
The Geom-gung Master reached up to touch his ear, as though doubting what he’d just heard.
“I think my ears deceived me. What did you just say, Young Master Yeojin? Say it again.”
Muk Yeojin met the Geom-gung Master’s gaze without wavering and repeated himself word for word.
“I’m asking you to place my mother in the position of Master of Geom-gung.”
“Master? My position? Your mother?”
“Yes. There is no surer way to prove your faith in me than this, is there?”
Heavy silence fell once more.
The Geom-gung Master’s eyes shifted toward Namgung Ryeong-ryeong.
Even she, the very subject of the proposal, could not hide her shock.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted, yet no sound escaped her.
It was absurdity incarnate.
Soon the Geom-gung Master let out a hollow laugh.
But it did not last long.
The smile faded from his face, and an old anger descended there, growing darker by the moment until his mouth twisted into a sneer.
“To speak such utter nonsense. I praise you and praise you, and now you grow arrogant enough to reach for the very heavens.”
Whoom!
A fierce and cutting Qi erupted from the Geom-gung Master’s body like a geyser.
Sharp as frost-edged blades, it swept through the room and began to tear the space itself asunder.
“Yeojin!”
Namgung Ryeong-ryeong rushed to his side and raised her own Qi to meet his.
Boom!
The collision of their energies shook the entire chamber as if an earthquake had struck.
Two whales crashing against each other—that was the image it conjured.
And caught between them, the shrimp who had started it all—Muk Yeojin—wore an expression of perfect calm.
“Whether my request makes sense or not rests entirely with you, Master.”
“What did you say?”
The Geom-gung Master’s eyebrows shot up.
“You said so yourself—that you wanted to give wings to a tiger cub like me and see how far I could fly.”
“And what does that have to do with this?”
“For me to grow into those wings, you need not remain seated in the position of Master of Geom-gung. Rather, it would be far more useful if you withdrew from the front and lent me your hand in the shadows. If your true reason for taking me as a disciple is indeed this, then my request makes perfect sense.”
The Geom-gung Master’s Qi surged with renewed ferocity, and a keen light flashed in his eyes.
Yet Muk Yeojin paid it no heed, meeting his gaze directly as he continued.
“But if your reason for taking me as a disciple is merely to pretend to give me wings, while you parasitically ride upon my back—if you mean to tear away my wings at the opportune moment and attach them to yourself—then your understanding would be correct. My request would make no sense to you whatsoever.”
In his past life, Pi Yang-cheon, the martial artist who had been the Geom-gung Master, was a man remarkably distant from the words “power” and “ambition.”
But who could be certain?
Perhaps that spark had died in his later years. Perhaps in those days he simply never had the opportunity to fan it into flame.
So Muk Yeojin posed this question now.
Master, is it possible that your reason for taking me as a disciple is rooted in some hidden, burning ambition you’ve concealed?
“You…… dare……”
A maelstrom of emotions swirled in the Geom-gung Master’s eyes.
Rage and bewilderment, suspicion and conflict—and something else, tangled and ineffable, lay coiled within.
Unable to contain himself, he suddenly roared.
“I will not give my child to an insolent whelp like you!”
Crack!
The Geom-gung Master’s hand slashed through the air.
The Heuk-ya Sword at Muk Yeojin’s waist flew into his grasp.
The Geok-gong Seap-mul technique—capturing objects from across empty space.
The moment he seized the sword, he spoke no farewell, but hurled himself toward the shattered wall.
In one breath-swift Divine Movement, a blur of wind itself.
Muk Yeojin watched in silence as his form dwindled to a black speck and vanished beyond the horizon, then a faint smile crossed his lips.
He sensed, with something close to certainty, that the Geom-gung Master would accept his demand.
Men who have hidden their desires from the world do not rage when they are seen through.
To do so would be to admit to those very desires.
In that sense, the Geom-gung Master was only lost in confusion for a moment.
Lost in the thought: Is it truly possible that such an ambition has taken root in some corner of my heart?
When Muk Yeojin turned his attention elsewhere, he found his mother staring at him with the expression of one who has lost everything.
Her eyes were brimming with disbelief.
Muk Yeojin gave a soft laugh and shrugged his shoulders.
“First you give it, then you take it back. Acting like some petty old miser…… Isn’t that right?”
* * *
More than a month had passed since the attack on the Geom-gung Master’s quarters.
Both Namgung Ryeong-ryeong and Gam-mo were convinced that the Geom-gung Master would never accede to Muk Yeojin’s demands.
Even Pyo-yeon, who secretly harbored hopes of becoming the master herself, had begun to relinquish those dreams as an entire moon waxed and waned without a single word from the Geom-gung Master.
But there was one person.
Muk Yeojin’s assessment was entirely different.
Where he had initially estimated the odds at perhaps sixty or seventy percent, he now held absolute certainty at one hundred.
‘No news is good news—that old saying was made for exactly this sort of situation.’
Had the Geom-gung Master truly meant to refuse, he would have made some move by now.
Either applying pressure on Muk Yeojin over their fractured relationship, or else returning with some counteroffer to attempt persuasion once more.
But the Geom-gung Master had done nothing at all, even as over a month slipped away.
And what that silence meant was simple.
‘He’s still deliberating.’
The longer his deliberation stretched on, the more events would flow in the direction Muk Yeojin desired.
There was no reason for him to hurry.
Whisper-whisper.
Soft, flowing lines emerged from the brush’s tip as it traced across the snow-white Hwaseon Paper.
Soon the paper bloomed with a small lake bathed in moonlight, fringed by ancient paulownia trees rendered in vivid detail.
Muk Yeojin gazed upon the completed landscape painting and smiled faintly.
‘Even as time has changed so much of who I was in childhood, it seems some things remain constant.’
Painting still brought him joy.
Though, admittedly, wielding a blade brought him far greater joy these days.
Before the return.
The sword had been merely a tool for killing, but now it had become a tool for protection.
With each swing of the blade, he felt as though another person had been added to those he could shield—and that overwhelming sense of purpose was beyond his power to contain.
And yet.
Tonight he had abandoned his evening training and come to the small lakeside within Sado-cheon Headquarters to take up his brush.
The reason was simple: word had finally arrived from Bu-yeon.
‘Has it been only a month since I handed those paintings over to Bu-yeon?’
And yet already the Hongryeon Merchant Guild had begun laying its foundation in earnest.
That achievement rested, of course, on Bu-yeon’s mercantile talent—the same talent that had built the greatest merchant house under heaven in the previous timeline.
But the true engine behind such rapid results was undoubtedly the work of the Moonlight Painting Master.
In other words, Muk Yeojin’s paintings.
Already the name “Moonlight Painting Master” had begun to spread beyond Guangdong, finding its way into the conversations of wealthy magnates across Hunan and Jiangxi.
Recently, it seemed gatherings called Moonlight Discussion Gatherings had occasionally been held in the Hunan region, where people debated the Moonlight Painting Master’s works.
A soft laugh escaped him.
The thought had risen unbidden: might he actually achieve that childhood dream of becoming the greatest painter in the Central Plains?
In any case.
For these reasons, Bu-yeon had sent word asking if more works could be created, and there was no real reason to refuse.
‘All of it will become my strength in the end, and it will become the power to stand against the Weoneum Sect one day.’
He had just finished affixing the artist’s seal reading “Moonlight” to the newly completed painting and was turning to move to another location when it happened.
Soft-thump.
Someone alighted gently onto the grass behind him.
And Muk Yeojin recognized at once who it was.
The visitor had made no effort to conceal their presence.
Nor was he mistaken.
When he turned, there stood the figure he had expected: the Geom-gung Master.
Muk Yeojin bowed respectfully.
“You’ve come, sir.”
“The way you carry yourself—as if you knew I was coming.”
“That couldn’t be. I truly was startled.”
The Geom-gung Master let out a short laugh. His gaze then shifted to the painting.
“Your work?”
“Merely something I sketched as the brush moved.”
“Even to an untrained eye like mine, it’s a magnificent piece.”
“You’re too kind.”
For a moment the Geom-gung Master stood silent, admiring the painting. Then he picked up a stone about the size of his fist.
He stepped beside Muk Yeojin and, without ceremony, tossed it into the lake.
Splash.
The still lake trembled, and a great wave rippled across its surface.
Muk Yeojin sensed, dimly but unmistakably, what lay behind the Geom-gung Master’s sudden gesture.
For the past month, he himself had been hurling stones without mercy into the tranquil lake that dwelt in the other man’s heart.
The Geom-gung Master gazed at the undulating water for a long time.
Muk Yeojin watched him in silence.
Then, all at once, the Geom-gung Master—Pi Yang-cheon—spoke.
“Everything you’ve said is sophistry.”
Muk Yeojin answered with a pleased smile.
“Then what brings you here, Master?”
“……Damn it!”
Clang!
In a sudden motion, Pi Yang-cheon drew the Heuk-ya Sword.
His blade swept toward Muk Yeojin’s neck in a crescent arc.
Shriek!
Yet Muk Yeojin did not move an inch. There was not even the faintest killing intent at the tip of that sword.
As expected.
The sharp blade stopped precisely inches from his face, and the sword wind that followed rushed past his clothes and hair with deliberate violence.
Pi Yang-cheon, glaring at Muk Yeojin, burst with frustration.
“Why did I do that? I could simply ignore whatever this impudent wretch says!”
He fumed for a while, then demanded with blazing eyes.
“Do you know where I’ve just come from?”
Muk Yeojin shrugged and replied.
“I’m no immortal, Master. How would I know?”
“That…… damned mouth of yours…… Ah, Manryeon Palace, you fool!”
Manryeon Palace.
Where Cheonju dwelt.
A glimmer crossed Muk Yeojin’s eyes.
If the Geom-gung Master had indeed visited Manryeon Palace at this moment, there could be only one reason.
“Have you retired from Geom-gung, Master?”
In that instant, a furious energy like an active volcano erupted from his entire frame. He immediately turned toward the center of the lake and swung the Heuk-ya Sword without restraint.
Boom, boom, boom!
Each time his sword strike hit the water’s surface, it exploded with a sound like cannon fire, sending columns of water twenty feet high shooting upward.
At the sight of such awesome power, Muk Yeojin could not suppress his inner admiration.
Only after venting his rage on the hapless lake for a long while did Pi Yang-cheon regain his breath.
Muk Yeojin, watching him intently, spoke one more word.
“Congratulations on your retirement, Master.”
“……Thank you. You cursed disciple.”

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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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