Return of the God of War - Chapter 37

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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 37. No Different.
“Tee-hee-hee.”
“Oh my, sir warrior, don’t be like that.”
“Come now, won’t you come over here? Ha ha ha!”
The women’s coquettish voices carried clearly beyond the threshold.
Hye Rangyeong’s face, which had been reaching for the door, twisted into an ugly grimace.
‘How dare they…… summon me to this wretched Pleasure House?’
In times past, she would never have set foot in such a filthy place.
But now she was in no position to be choosy.
She could not afford the luxury of pride.
She seized the door handle as though to snap it in two, then shoved the door open.
Bang!
Inside, three courtesans with their robes carelessly undone sat laughing upon the lap of a burly man.
Startled, the courtesans opened their eyes wide and stared toward the entrance.
Hye Rangyeong spoke, her gaze cold as winter frost.
“Get out. All of you.”
Bewildered, the courtesans hesitated, glancing at one another.
Watching them, the corners of Hye Rangyeong’s mouth slowly rose.
“Dare you ignore me? I should grind every last one of those painted faces to dust and scatter you as beggar fodder before you come to your senses.”
The words that fell from the lips of an outwardly demure middle-aged woman carried a viciousness few would have believed possible.
Then the burly man in the room burst into rough laughter.
“Kha ha ha! You girls, do you know who that is? If you want to live, get out of here, now!”
At his words, the three courtesans smacked their lips in regret.
A customer with such generosity was rare.
Ordinarily, they would have pressed themselves against him once more, half in jest, half in earnest.
But here in Heukdo, survival in the courtesan trade depended most of all on reading the room.
And Choseon, Gwibee, and Sogun—the three courtesans of Hwaoeru—had already spent ten years in this profession.
Their instincts, honed to a razor’s edge, whispered urgently.
If they did not leave this room at once, they might truly die.
The three women hurriedly tied their robes and slipped from the chamber.
One of them, crossing the threshold, whispered carefully.
“Sir warrior, please do call on us again…….”
Thump.
As the door closed, the room fell into sudden silence.
Gye Osu, his face marked by crude cunning, grinned up at Hye Rangyeong from below.
“What an honor to meet you.”
Hye Rangyeong suppressed the bile rising in her throat and seated herself across from him.
“Why did you wish to see me.”
“Heh heh, there’s no need for formality. Are we not in the same boat now? I thought it only fitting that fellow travelers measure their blades against each other. Ha ha ha.”
As he spoke, Gye Osu’s gaze descended deliberately, running from top to bottom.
The blatant mockery in his manner and words made Hye Rangyeong’s eyes grow sharp as ice.
At her reaction, Gye Osu chuckled.
“It seems our lady does not care for levity. Kch kch kch. And the gifts you sent—I received them most gratefully.”
At those words, Hye Rangyeong’s jaw clenched.
She had stripped bare even the wealth remaining in her ancestral home to meet his demands.
If, by some misfortune, Gye Osu lost at the martial contest before the Geomgung Palace, everything would be finished.
And yet the tournament was barely a fortnight away, and here sat this fool drinking and carousing—seeing him like this made her feel as though a thousand fires burned in her chest.
“If you wish to keep that filthy mouth moving much longer, you’ll need to win at the tournament. But seeing you so idle, I suppose you’re feeling confident.”
Gye Osu burst into raucous laughter.
“Confident? Kha ha ha. Against whom? Namgung Ryeongryeong? Kch hul, she couldn’t land a single blade against my sword technique before and was defeated. And my blade has reached a realm incomparable to what it was then. Look forward to it. At the tournament grounds a fortnight hence, I shall toy with her most thoroughly. Kch hul hul.”
As Gye Osu laughed and cackled, Hye Rangyeong’s lips too curled upward.
But her eyes held not a shred of amusement.
‘So it must be. Or else…… I will tear your limbs from your body and toss them to the dogs.’
* * *
At that same moment, Muk Yeojin was seeing off Namgung Ryeongryeong.
“Then…… I shall look forward to seeing my mother again.”
At his words, Namgung Ryeongryeong narrowed her brows slightly and chided him.
“Spare me the dramatics. Anyone listening might think I’m embarking on a thousand-league journey beyond the borderlands.”
The truth was, she was now headed only to a small pavilion behind the Residence.
By distance alone, calling it a farewell seemed almost embarrassing.
But.
If the reason for seeking Mogok is Closed-door Cultivation, that changes everything.
Namgung Ryeongryeong had chosen seclusion to fully absorb the Seonryeong Shingwa.
When she emerged from Mogok days later after completing her training, the woman before him would surely be someone entirely different from who she was now.
In that sense, Muk Yeojin’s concern for his mother was genuine—as if she were embarking on a grueling pilgrimage spanning ten thousand leagues.
“Above all, you must always place Mother’s health as your first priority.”
“And you—try to keep yourself in one piece, will you? Every time you step outside the house, you come back covered in scrapes. This is maddening.”
“I will do better.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Both of them burst into laughter at once.
Namgung Ryeongryeong then turned toward Mogok.
“Then… let’s meet again in a fortnight.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Muk Yeojin, who had been gazing at Mogok for a while, turned as well.
“Then I entrust you with this, Gam Mo.”
Gam Mo, his long sword secured at his waist, nodded with solemn dignity.
“Have no fear, sir. I, Gam Mo, swear that even if the world crumbles to dust, I shall defend this place where you dwell with my life.”
Muk Yeojin, knowing those words to be no empty vow, gave a light nod and departed.
After a moment’s thought, he directed his steps toward Seongamsan, the mountain he had been climbing daily of late.
‘Still, for Mother to see through my acquisition of the Seonryeong Shingwa so instantly…’
He had to admit once more that clumsy deceptions held no purchase before his mother.
Yet even so, she had refrained from asking precisely how he had come by the spiritual elixir.
In a manner of speaking, that restraint was the fruit of his own careful arrangement.
‘It was wise to let her see me exchanging correspondence with outsiders.’
Muk Yeojin had deliberately allowed his mother to witness him conducting communications with a figure from outside Sadocheon.
Thanks to this, Namgung Ryeongryeong had concluded that her son had forged connections with an external intelligence network.
She had drawn the conclusion that this acquisition of the Seonryeong Shingwa was similarly connected to that arrangement.
Of course, she was not entirely convinced.
A lingering unease remained somewhere in her heart, yet she had ultimately said nothing.
It was proof of how deeply Namgung Ryeongryeong trusted her son.
As Muk Yeojin reached the summit of Seongamsan, a familiar presence greeted him first.
It was Cheongbi—a massive blue hawk of imposing bearing perched atop a rounded boulder.
As he had done in Biryeondong, Muk Yeojin had been training here lately with Cheongbi.
Cheongbi’s eyes gleamed.
It felt like the bird was asking, ‘Shall we have another go at it today?’
“I’d like to, but not today.”
“Shriek!”
“Frightened now, are you? Want me to pluck all your feathers out again?”
“Shriek shriek!”
At the bird’s provocation, Muk Yeojin began to assume a fighting stance as usual, but then released the tension from his body.
“No, not today. Instead, I have one favor to ask—stand guard for me, will you?”
With that, Muk Yeojin drew the Mokgap from his robe.
It was the one remaining Seonryeong Shingwa after giving one to Namgung Ryeongryeong.
He intended to consume it today, and he could think of no better protector than Cheongbi.
“Shriek…”
Cheongbi, seemingly disappointed, ruffled his wings before settling onto a branch that overlooked the entire area.
Muk Yeojin smiled faintly.
“Thank you, Cheongbi.”
With a dependable guardian in place, there was now nothing to worry about.
Muk Yeojin dropped to the ground and immediately tossed the Seonryeong Shingwa into his mouth.
Whoosh.
The elixir dissolved the moment it touched his tongue, and at once an overwhelming medicinal potency flooded through his entire body.
It was a surge of power that matched or exceeded the Baeksu Shingdan he had consumed in Biryeondong.
Yet though their size was comparable, the nature of their energies was fundamentally different.
In a sense, this was only natural.
The Baeksu Shingdan was a spiritual elixir artificially refined by Yakseon, a master apothecary.
By contrast, the Seonryeong Shingwa was, in its truest sense, a supreme spiritual treasure born of nature itself.
It was the very essence of the great cosmos—permitted by heaven, nurtured by earth, and ripened by the passage of ages.
Muk Yeojin closed his eyes gently and slowly felt the power of the Seonryeong Shingwa coursing through his body.
That vital force—now like the sky, now like wind, now like waves—flowed along his meridians, spreading outward to every corner of his being.
It was the very moment when Muk Yeojin was about to guide the energy according to the sacred formula of the Changgung Daeyeon Jingyeol.
The energy exchange with the Seonryeong Shingwa began to show unexpected movement.
It wasn’t rejecting absorption like the Baeksu Shingdan would.
Rather, the opposite.
The Seonryeong Shingwa was seeping into the Changgung Ki without the slightest resistance, as if it had been one with him from the very beginning.
Muk Yeojin’s face twisted slightly.
‘I need to understand why. Phenomena without cause will surely bring trouble later.’
Such is the way of all things in this world.
Achievement beyond effort always has a reason, and to overlook it and move forward is to invite disaster down the line.
It was precisely this that prevented him from being entirely overjoyed, despite the opportunity to obtain the Seonryeong Shingwa without expending a single ounce of effort.
Muk Yeojin examined the Seonryeong Shingwa with extreme care, as one might handle an infant.
And then, immediately—
‘So that was it.’
He had found the answer.
‘They were not different.’
The essence of the Seonryeong Shingwa and his own essence were not different.
The Seonryeong Shingwa was part of nature itself.
Nature is a world in which part is whole and whole is part.
Humans, too, are but one fragment of nature.
Since they were never different from the beginning, there was no resistance to the energy’s absorption.
Only then did a faint smile trace across Muk Yeojin’s lips.
No longer needing to guard against it, he released the reins and allowed the Seonryeong Shingwa’s energy to roam freely.
That natural energy coursed swiftly through every meridian of his body.
As naturally as could be.
It merged with the Changgung Ki that had been coiled within his Danjeon.
There was no shockwave, no vibration, no pain.
Quietly, slowly, yet unmistakably, the energy in his Danjeon began to expand explosively.
A pale blue current rippled through his entire body.
At that moment, Muk Yeojin slowly opened his eyes.
In his irises danced the gentle undulation of blue light.
But this was mere illusion.
Beneath that serenity, he concealed a savage tempest that could overturn the very seas.
At last, he had achieved it.
The Grand Mastery of the Changgung Daeyeon Jingyeol.
* * *
Thus a fortnight passed.
The day of the Geomgung Palace succession trials had arrived.
Yet the atmosphere at the Residence was fraught with anxiety.
Muk Yeojin, who had arrived early in the morning, asked:
“Director Gam, what is it that has everything in such disorder?”
Gam Mo answered with a pallid complexion.
“It’s… it’s that the Senior Master shows no sign of emerging from Mogok.”
It meant that Namgung Ryeongryeong’s Closed-door Cultivation had not yet come to an end.
Could something have happened to his mother?
Muk Yeojin immediately expanded his Gi Gam to investigate.
And was reassured.
Fortunately, his mother’s vitality remained unchanged.
But.
‘Then why is she taking so long?’
It had taken him barely two hours to absorb all of the Seonryeong Shingwa.
There was no reason his mother should be any different.
……
Muk Yeojin, who had been contemplating, abruptly turned his body with casual indifference.
“There’s nothing to be done. I cannot interrupt my mother’s Daegong.”
“Then are you abandoning the position of Palace Master?”
At Gam Mo’s question, Muk Yeojin smiled.
Why ask something so obvious?
Presently, Muk Yeojin walked alone.

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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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