Return of the God of War - Chapter 31

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 31. Let me give it a try.
Whoosh.
Clang!
Pi Yang-cheon drew the Black Night Sword from its sheath and hurled it toward Muk Yeo-jin.
Muk Yeo-jin caught it reflexively, his eyes widening with surprise as he looked at his master.
“You’re giving it back to me?”
“The blade’s nature has changed. Just a few days together, and it seems the sword has taken a liking to you.”
Muk Yeo-jin smirked.
Was that truly the reason?
It was surely Pi Yang-cheon’s way of expressing something.
‘Don’t forget that you are my disciple now.’ Perhaps that was what he meant.
Either way.
The important thing was that the Black Night Sword had returned to his hands once more.
Shing.
Muk Yeo-jin slowly unsheathed the Black Night Sword.
The blade caught the moonlight, gleaming with a soft luster.
In that reflection, his own face smiled back at him.
‘Good to see you again, you stubborn thing.’
Then a doubt suddenly occurred to him.
“But what of you, Master? Finding another blade of this caliber won’t be easy, surely?”
Pi Yang-cheon snorted.
“If a son leaves home, do I take in a new one? My remaining years, I shall savor alone with my wife.”
He meant he would wield only the White Moon Sword from now on.
Muk Yeo-jin tilted his head quizzically.
The master’s martial art was rooted in the Dual Sword Technique.
If he used only one blade, wouldn’t he become only half a martial master?
As if reading Muk Yeo-jin’s doubt, Pi Yang-cheon furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes.
“Disciple, it seems you’re entertaining a very disrespectful thought. Your expression suggests you think there’s nothing to learn from a master who uses but one sword. Or am I mistaken?”
Muk Yeo-jin scratched the back of his head and replied.
“No, it’s not quite that severe. Only a perfectly reasonable suspicion that you might be at a disadvantage, that’s all.”
“Hah!”
Pi Yang-cheon let out an exasperated sigh.
He slowly drew the White Moon Sword and assumed an upper-level stance.
“I’ve noticed before that you have a tendency to greatly underestimate your master.”
Crackle-crackle-crackle.
At once, a thick Combat Aura erupted from Pi Yang-cheon’s entire body.
A fierce wave of energy spread in all directions, pressing the air down heavily.
A ruthless Fox Smile curved at the corners of his mouth.
“Take your stance, disciple.”
The edge of the White Moon Sword slowly pointed toward Muk Yeo-jin.
“Today, I shall open your narrow eyes to the world.”
* * *
Around the Yin Hour, when even the insects had fallen into deep sleep.
Muk Yeo-jin trudged toward his quarters in disheveled condition.
After a full two hours of sparring with Pi Yang-cheon, he had barely escaped the master’s grip.
He had been struck so many times that not a single part of his body was free from pain.
Though he had called it instruction, it was clearly a thrashing.
Surely it was revenge for the way he had gotten under the master’s skin these past days.
“Such a petty old man. I’m going to die from the pain.”
The ache in his bones suggested the soreness would persist for several days at least.
Still.
There was good reason for his decision to wield only the White Moon Sword.
‘There was never any need to use two blades in the first place.’
The Ultimate Combat Divine Sword.
That was the technique Pi Yang-cheon had displayed before him.
He could see it immediately.
Its root was not swordplay at all.
It was the Unarmed Combat Technique.
He had simply been channeling it through this one blade all along.
So whether it was the Dual Sword Technique, or sword and saber combined, or sword and fist, or bare hands alone—the specific type and form of the weapon mattered little.
Wielding two swords was itself a deception, a feint designed to obscure his true intent.
An opponent mesmerized by that illusion would, in the critical moment, find themselves impaled on the hidden move he kept in reserve—gasping their last breath.
Yes, behind that sly, smiling face, hundreds of vipers were surely coiled and waiting.
Though they had taken on a master-student relationship, there was good reason to watch and wait before placing complete trust in him.
Still.
The Ultimate Combat Divine Sword he had demonstrated was undoubtedly worthy of being called supreme martial art.
“Was it like this?”
Shwing. Shwing.
Bathed in the light of the moonlit night, Muk Yeo-jin began to wield the Black Night Sword.
The Ultimate Combat Divine Sword forms that Pi Yang-cheon had shown him numbered five in total.
Each stance was packed with such exquisite and rigorous technique that his eyes widened with each execution.
Shwing.
Muk Yeo-jin unfurled his blade practice again and again, recalling Pi Yang-cheon’s movements.
When he first attempted the form, the sword path stuttered and fractured, the blade’s tip wandering astray from its intended course.
But on the second, third, and fourth repetitions, flow finally began to seep into the sword path.
By the eighth attempt, he had created variation within the form; by the twelfth, he had finally instilled rigidity into it.
“Phew.”
Click.
Steadying his breathing, Muk Yeo-jin sheathed the Black Night Sword.
“This is my limit for now.”
Compared to the sword Pi Yang-cheon had wielded, he had only managed to recreate perhaps half of it.
To truly manifest the flawless Ultimate Combat Divine Sword he had been shown, he would need to invest far more time in understanding the very roots of this technique.
“It’s difficult.”
Clearly, this was no ordinary martial master who had once held the position of Lord of the Sword Palace.
He shook his head with a rueful smile.
“I still have a long way to go. A very long way.”
With that self-deprecating sigh, Muk Yeo-jin slowly made his way toward his quarters.
But.
Had Pi Yang-cheon witnessed this moment, he surely would have collapsed in shock.
Muk Yeo-jin had just now.
Broken through to the Third Stage Realm.
Of the Five Stages of the Ultimate Combat Divine Sword.
This was a realm Pi Yang-cheon himself had only achieved five years after receiving instruction in the technique from his own master.
* * *
Muk Yeo-jin had barely reached his quarters when he was about to enter the Sleeping Quarters.
From the distant Training Grounds came the sound of movement.
Who could be training at this late hour?
Seized by curiosity, Muk Yeo-jin quietly made his way toward the Training Grounds.
And there he discovered an unexpected figure.
A woman, drenched in sweat, wielding a wooden practice sword.
“Mother?”
She was none other than his mother, Namgung Ryung-ryung.
“Hmm? Is that you, Yeo-jin?”
“You were still training at this late hour?”
“I was just about to head in, actually.”
Namgung Ryung-ryung set down the wooden practice sword on its rack.
In that instant, Muk Yeo-jin’s eyes widened.
“A heavy sword?”
From the mere sound of setting it down, the weight was unmistakable.
Namgung Ryung-ryung let out a small sound of admiration.
“You have a keen eye. That’s right. I asked the blacksmith to insert an iron core inside this one.”
The swordplay his mother practiced had always been concentrated on speed and flow.
So her personal sword was lighter than most blades, and her practice wooden sword had always reflected those same qualities.
But now she was training with a heavy sword?
“Is there a particular reason you’re training with such a weapon?”
Namgung Ryung-ryung answered as if it were nothing of consequence.
“My skill seems to have plateaued lately. I’m experimenting with various methods to overcome it.”
Such training methods were typically employed by those who had not yet established their own Martial Path.
But Namgung Ryung-ryung was already a master who had perfected her own Sword Way.
The fact that she was deliberately stepping away from the path she had walked and treading a different road entirely.
There could be only one meaning to it.
She was anxious.
Something was driving Namgung Ryung-ryung to the brink.
From the way she wielded a sword that didn’t fit her grip, her palms had split open, blood dripping steadily onto the ground.
Muk Yeo-jin furrowed his brow.
“…… Why do you push yourself so hard?”
Yet from his mother’s lips came words he had never anticipated.
“I am to be a Palace Lord. I cannot afford to be called weak wherever I go, can I?”
At those words, Muk Yeo-jin’s eyes widened.
The news that Pi Yang-cheon had stepped down had not yet spread.
For a moment, his mother’s words made no sense to him.
“You said the master would never surrender the Sword Palace seat…… So why……?”
Namgung Ryung-ryung drew a quiet breath and shook her head.
“My mind thought it impossible. But…….”
Then she looked at Muk Yeo-jin with a faint smile.
“When my only son tells me what he will become, how can a mother ignore it? Even if my son insists that an Earth Dragon is an Azure Dragon, shouldn’t a mother believe him?”
In that instant, his chest swelled with emotion.
His mother’s words meant that even if the whole world doubted Muk Yeo-jin, she alone would believe in him.
Namgung Ryung-ryung’s gaze then turned to the Black Night Sword hanging at his waist.
“So your words rang true after all.”
Muk Yeo-jin spoke in a playful tone to conceal the surge of emotion welling up inside him.
“Indeed. You will soon be the Sword Palace Lord—are you ready, Mother?”
“Of course I am not.”
Namgung Ryung-ryung turned and made her way toward the Sleeping Quarters.
“But…… I will try. My son has opened the path before me, and I cannot refuse to walk it.”
* * *
Days later.
News that Sword Palace Lord Pi Yang-cheon had stepped down from his post turned Sado Heaven upside down.
The impact spread rapidly not only through the headquarters but across the surrounding regions.
As a result, taverns throughout Guangxi found themselves in an unexpected rush of business.
During what would normally have been a quiet hour, the inn was already packed to bursting.
People of all kinds gathered in small groups, drinking, and their conversation was, as if rehearsed, united around a single topic.
“Have you heard? The Sword Palace Lord has stepped down from his position.”
A middle-aged martial artist spoke in a low voice, his tone still colored with disbelief.
“Yes, I’ve heard. But given his age, it’s not entirely surprising, is it?”
Another martial artist answered indifferently.
This was true enough—Pi Yang-cheon was no spring chicken.
It was indeed time for him to hand over his seat to the next generation and retire.
Yet the man who had first brought up the matter clicked his tongue.
“If that were all, would there be such an uproar? Do you know who he nominated as his successor?”
“Who?”
The man raised his cup to his lips, took a long drink to wet his throat, and opened his mouth.
“Nothing less than the daughter of the Namgung Family.”
“…… What?!”
The man who heard this was taken aback.
Under ordinary circumstances, such a loud outburst in a tavern would have drawn sharp glances, but today was an exception.
Similar cries and gasps were erupting from all directions.
The man gulped down another mouthful of wine and spoke again.
“Namgung Family…… Could you mean the Heavenly Lord’s fifth consort?”
“Yes! Namgung Ryung-ryung! That very woman!”
“Ah…….”
Righteous sect.
Moreover, one of the Seven Great Martial Families—the very backbone of the Martial Alliance—bearing the Namgung name.
And now such a woman was to become the Palace Lord of Sado Heaven…….
“Does such a thing make sense?”
“There is no precedent. No one knows how it will unfold.”
The Sado Six Palaces had always maintained a fiercely independent character even within the headquarters’ internal factions.
Unless there were exceptional circumstances, neither outsiders nor even the military commissariat and inspectorate dared to meddle—it was a forbidden realm.
Naturally, the selection of a successor Palace Lord fell entirely to the current Palace Lord’s discretion.
Yet Pi Yang-cheon’s nomination of Namgung Ryung-ryung was an extraordinarily unprecedented occurrence.
It meant that no matter who stepped forward or what logic they wielded, it would no longer seem strange.
But the shocking news did not end there.
“The Sword Palace Master—well, the former Master now that he’s retired—took the youngest prince as his disciple, or so I hear.”
……
The youngest prince.
Muk Yeo-jin.
There was no one who did not know he was the son of Namgung Ryung-ryung, the woman at the center of all this talk.
The man who had been listening quietly swallowed hard, muttering under his breath.
“This is no different than a straightforward declaration of support for the Lady of Namgung.”
The emergence of this New Star shattered in a single blow the delicate balance of power that had held Sado Heaven in its tense grip.
“……It’s a storm. Soon a vicious storm will sweep through Gangnam.”
The man listening to him shared that assessment deeply.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————