Return of the God of War - Chapter 41

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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 41. Don’t Rush to Judgment
The air turned biting cold.
As though a hidden blade had flown through the hall and lodged itself in someone’s chest, the silence was so complete that no one dared draw breath.
They say when shock strikes, the tongue freezes still.
This was exactly that moment.
Every eye in the hall turned toward Muk Umyeong.
What his reaction would be, no one could have guessed.
Muk Umyeong gazed silently at Nangung Ryeongryeong.
For those watching, that single instant of silence stretched like an eternity.
Then his eyes shifted to Muk Yeojin, standing at her side.
He too bore the shock of his mother’s declaration written across his face.
Muk Yeojin turned to face his father—Muk Umyeong.
In that moment, father and son’s gazes met across the void.
And then.
‘……!’
Muk Yeojin’s eyes widened as far as they would go.
In the same instant.
Whirrrrr.
A sudden gust of wind spiraled up, and Muk Umyeong’s form vanished like a mirage.
As though no one had ever stood in that place at all.
Muk Yeojin stared at the empty seat where he had been, his expression slack and dazed.
Like a man whose soul had half departed his body.
What pulled him back from that trance was the sound of booming laughter.
“Khrhrhruk! So at last the source of that brazen nerve of yours reveals itself! Well, that was certainly external noise!”
Pi Yangcheon, who had been seated at the head position, suddenly erupted in a gale of laughter.
“What a pity! That would have been such an opportunity to receive his instruction.”
Pi Yangcheon and everyone else interpreted Muk Umyeong’s silent departure as a refusal.
Most were simply relieved that no stern rebuke had fallen upon such disrespect.
Nangung Ryeongryeong herself muttered something about the man’s pettiness.
Muk Yeojin, meanwhile, could only manage an awkward smile.
As the commotion settled and the atmosphere began to clear.
Pi Yangcheon approached Nangung Ryeongryeong.
“My congratulations to you, Lady Nangung. Or should I say—Palace Lord, now?”
Nangung Ryeongryeong straightened herself and bowed formally.
“I owe it all to your kindness, Elder. Without you, I would never have shouldered such a heavy burden.”
“What did this old man do? The victory in the martial contest, the conversion of those stubborn swordsmen—all of it was achieved by your own hand, Palace Lord.”
Pi Yangcheon’s gaze swept across the gathered swordsmen in the hall.
The swordsmen met his look in turn.
In their eyes as they regarded Pi Yangcheon still shone admiration and longing.
“We entrust ourselves to your care, Palace Lord.”
“Rather, it is I who must ask for your support. Please, look after us all.”
Just as the atmosphere seemed ready to warm and brighten.
Thunk!
“Choke!”
A sound of gasping came from the back of the hall.
When eyes turned, Hye Rangyeong was seen driving her great sword straight through Gae Osu’s heart.
Hye Rangyeong’s eyes had gone vacant, lifeless, as she looked toward Nangung Ryeongryeong and Pi Yangcheon.
Without a word, she turned and walked away, her footsteps hollow and deliberate, leaving Geom-gung behind.
……
Pi Yangcheon stared after her retreating silhouette long after it had vanished completely from sight.
* * *
Word that Nangung Ryeongryeong had officially assumed the position of Palace Lord of Geom-gung spread like wildfire.
Many were astonished that the swordsmen, infamous for their sharp and inflexible natures, had bowed their heads before her.
And the news did not remain confined to the Guangxi region where Sadocheon’s main headquarters stood—it rippled outward across all of Zhongyuan.
She came from an orthodox sect, after all.
That a member of the Righteous Martial Alliance’s inner circle, bearing the Nangung name, had become a pillar of Sadocheon made the impact all the greater.
And.
The talk of drinkers and gossips did not center solely on Nangung Ryeongryeong.
They spoke also of Muk Yeojin.
Of the Toxic Heart he had displayed within Geom-gung.
Even as blood spilled from his lips, that demon-like figure pressed forward with unwavering focus—and the name whispered among the sword masters spread like wildfire through the martial world: the Lesser Rakshasa.
Nangung Ryeongryeong, Master of Geom-gung, and Muk Yeojin, the Lesser Rakshasa.
They were the architects of upheaval in the Underworld Path—and in this present moment,
the very figures who shook Zhongyuan itself.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Bang!
The Fist-Palm-Finger-Kick technique lashed out with brutal force, tearing the air itself asunder.
These were the opening forms of the Sanwang Dance—a style that ravaged bones and sinews even when performed with bare hands.
And to that he added the weight and mechanics of the Thousand-Jin Hammer.
His breath climbed toward his throat, sweat pouring freely—there was no way around it.
But this was only the beginning.
Screech!!
The Black Night Sword came alive then, cradling moonlight as it traced a lethal dance through the darkness.
Whatever his standing within Sadocheon now.
Whether they called him the Lesser Rakshasa or not.
Muk Yeojin’s daily practice remained unchanged.
He simply trained, day after relentless day.
And yet.
There was something unmistakably different about him tonight.
Crack! Crack! Bang!
His strikes carried excess force, power bleeding where precision should have lived.
Grace abandoned him; only roughness remained, fracturing the connected sequence of a hundred strikes into stuttering, broken fragments.
Screech! Ting!
The blade fared no better.
The tip trembled without cease, bereft of control,
until the Ultimate Ascension Swordplay—a supreme and ascending art—resembled nothing so much as a third-rate imitation.
Martial skill, in the end, is a mirror of heart and body.
His physical state was beyond reproach.
Then the fault lay elsewhere—in the heart itself.
When the mind grows turbulent, technique falters.
And when one cannot identify that disturbance, nor master it, what arrives is the Heart Demon.
Fortunately for him,
Muk Yeojin knew precisely what was roiling his inner depths.
‘Impatience.’
The thought crystallized within him.
If his mother had not arrived when she did.
If Gae Osu’s illusory blade had found him instead of her—
Could he have shattered it?
Could he have won?
He could not answer, not with certainty.
And that was precisely the problem.
His eyes had perceived it—
the flaws and blind spots woven into the man’s swordwork.
But his body lacked the conditioning to exploit those gaps, and his cultivation fell short of the depth needed to break through.
The conclusion was stark: he could not guarantee victory.
‘Could not guarantee it.’
Which meant it was not impossible.
By his age, such a thought bordered on arrogance.
Gae Osu was, after all, one of the ten greatest swordmasters of the Underworld Path.
And yet.
The fact that he could not guarantee victory over a mere tenth-ranked master of the Underworld Path galled him profoundly.
‘I must grow stronger.’
‘Faster.’
‘Higher.’
He understood the old wisdom: haste makes waste, one must circle back to go forward. The saying had not endured for nothing.
He knew that the heart must burn while the mind stays cool.
But his heart, which should have burned bright, was suffocating beneath some unseen weight.
In the end, the path he chose was to swing his blade like a madman until his body gave way beneath him.
Three hours thus passed.
When Muk Yeojin finally collapsed to the ground—driven beyond all reason in his relentless push—his breathing came in ragged gasps.
“Hah… hah…”
The training was intense enough to bring on vertigo.
But thanks to it, the stuffiness in his chest had lifted considerably.
It was true—when thoughts grew tangled and the mind restless, the body needed to move.
Thump.
Muk Yeojin collapsed onto the grass.
The black night sky overhead was embroidered with clusters of stars.
‘Don’t rush.’
He wasn’t the strongest right now, but he was growing stronger faster than anyone else—that much was certain.
And there was something else, something he could never overlook.
That his own growth alone could not be his focus.
‘The blood matter that will unfold in the future—one man’s martial skill won’t be enough to stop it.’
A single powerful master might win a battle, but not a war.
Which meant he needed foundations and power structures.
That was why he’d created Hongryeon, and why he remained in Sadocheon.
‘If I’d focused only on refining my martial prowess, I’d have left Sadocheon long ago.’
He could have chased the opportunities Cheon Hwarin mentioned, secluded himself in training for five years, ten years, waiting for the day the Woneum Sect rose to power—that would obviously be more efficient.
‘But that can’t be the way.’
He was only one man, and Zhongyuan was vast.
There was no way to prevent tragedies that occurred in places where he wasn’t present.
And if among the victims were his mother, Pyo Yeon, Gam Mo, or any of his sworn siblings…
Then he truly couldn’t bear it.
‘I need a backup plan that protects everyone even in my absence.’
In that sense, his mother’s ascension to the seat of Geom-gung’s master was remarkably encouraging.
Of course, the groundwork for this had all been laid by him.
But if his mother had lacked the capability, she would never have seized that opportunity.
Thinking of her, memories from days past surfaced unbidden.
Her uninhibited words and manner after the martial contest for the master’s seat had ended, directed at Muk Umyeong.
To the god of the Underworld Path, she’d said, “Act like a father, why don’t you.”
A snort of laughter escaped him.
“How has she survived all these years with that temperament?”
According to Gam Mo, that was nothing compared to what she’d been like in the past.
He was beginning to understand why his mother had always been reluctant to speak of old times.
In any case.
“The martial skills of the Third Sadocheon Master…”
That day, Muk Umyeong had made no response to Nangung Ryeongryeong’s unspoken request and simply departed from Geom-gung.
Everyone had taken it as clear refusal.
‘But.’
In that moment, Muk Yeojin’s eyes grew sharp.
“That was definitely Secret Formulas.”
Then.
In an instant, a burst of transmitted sound struck him.
It was unmistakably a Secret Formula of some martial art.
His father had granted his mother’s request for a gift.
Muk Yeojin closed his eyes and turned it over in his mind.
“…Heart Steady as Mountain, Will Solid as Iron.”
The heart must be serene as a mountain.
The will must be firm as steel.
Unmoved by outer turmoil, untroubled by external shock.
The exterior does not flinch even when shaken,
The interior does not shatter even when struck.
The sword draws near yet fear does not arise; the fist falls yet the stance does not yield.
When the blade approaches, one fears not;
When the fist descends, one does not retreat…
Muk Umyeong had compressed thousands of characters of Secret Formulas and, in a single breath, hammered them into Muk Yeojin’s mind using the Flicking-Finger Transfer technique.
Yet Muk Yeojin now,
Recalled every single character as if it were written before his eyes, perfectly preserved in memory.
At first glance, the phrasing seemed borrowed from the Four Books and Three Classics.
But such was always the nature of martial Secret Formulas.
They often wove in meaningless phrases to obscure the true meaning, and deliberately set traps within the text.
Muk Yeojin closed his eyes gently and sank into deep contemplation.
In truth, by conventional standards.
Mastering martial arts through Secret Formulas alone, without a teacher’s guidance, should be impossible.
And yet.
Geniuses are a breed unto themselves.
Beings beyond comprehension.
The Three Sovereigns are such creatures.
Cheon Hwarin is such a creature.
The leaders of the Woneum Sect surely are as well.
And he was no exception.
In this moment, Muk Yeojin’s Enlightenment Nature began to shine.
‘The grand framework laid bare and encompassed—the fundamental patterns within. The forms and structures hidden within it. And the flow of Qi itself.’
He murmured without thinking.
“Protective Art…….”
Protective Art was, by definition, a martial discipline for safeguarding the body.
But the Protective Art that Muk Yeojin had gleaned from the Secret Formulas was no ordinary technique.
“Ultimate Circle Protective Art.”
It was the very art his father had taught him through the Secret Formulas.

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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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