Return of the God of War - Chapter 5

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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 5: This Is My Path
“…….”
The air in the room hung thick and suffocating.
Sip.
Only the sound of parched lips meeting warm tea broke the silence.
Muk Yeojin gazed at the woman across from him with eyes clouded by conflicting emotion—his mother, Namgung Ryeongryeong.
Namgung Ryeongryeong met his gaze without flinching.
There was a time when Muk Yeojin found these long stretches of silence unbearable whenever he faced his mother.
‘I used to wonder if she had no interest in me at all, or if perhaps my visits displeased her.’
But now he understood.
She was not indifferent—merely cautious to a fault.
‘What should I say to him?’
‘Might he be hurt by some careless remark?’
Such thoughts likely swirled through her mind in this moment.
And there was more: Muk Yeojin had been sent to live in the manor before he could even walk properly.
Mother and son had been parted at the dawn of his life, seeing each other only once a year on his birthday.
Every word she spoke carried the weight of that separation.
Now, Muk Yeojin could find joy even in this prolonged quiet.
Yet he could not waste this reunion, hard-won after more than a decade apart.
He swallowed his surging emotions and opened his mouth.
“It has been too long, Mother.”
Namgung Ryeongryeong stiffened.
There was a deep sorrow in her son’s voice that she could not name.
“……You’ve changed so much. It’s only been a year since we last met.”
This was the first time her son had spoken to her unprompted at their reunion.
And more than that—a strange new scent seemed to cling to him.
Especially this afternoon.
His bearing before the Sadocheon Lord had shaken her to her core.
She, who knew better than anyone that Muk Yeojin possessed a gentle spirit, had found herself doubting whether this was truly her son.
And yet—what mother fails to know her own child?
The boy before her was undeniably her son.
‘It must be my Yeojin.’
Which only deepened her confusion.
What had happened to her son in these intervening months to transform him so utterly?
Meanwhile, Muk Yeojin saw through her thoughts as clearly as glass.
‘There have been many things, Mother.’
In truth, it was not merely a single year—he had been remade from the root through spans of time he could not disclose; and even to his own mother, he could not speak of Regression.
‘I beg your forgiveness. The day will come when I can tell you everything.’
Concealing his heart, Muk Yeojin offered a pleasant smile.
“Children change by the day, Mother. It is only natural.”
Namgung Ryeongryeong’s eyes narrowed.
“Your way of speaking has become quite mature for your years.”
“Ha……surely not, Mother. I am still but a foolish child of twelve, full of dreams.”
“…….”
Muk Yeojin felt the sting of her scrutiny and hastily changed the subject.
“I know—let me paint a portrait of you, as I used to.”
In his younger days, Muk Yeojin would often sketch his mother’s likeness whenever they met.
It had been a ploy to ease the awkwardness between them.
Yet Namgung Ryeongryeong had treasured each drawing as though it were a priceless jewel.
Taking her silence as consent, Muk Yeojin rose gently, opened the door, and spoke to Pyo Yeon, his mother’s attending handmaid.
“Miss Pyo, might you prepare ink and Xuan Paper for me?”
Pyo Yeon’s eyes widened in shock at the threshold.
“Young Master, calling me ‘Miss’? That is far too much! How could you show such honor to someone like me…….”
“Please, Miss Pyo, say no more. In this land where you have no family, you alone have been Mother’s truest companion. It is only right that I address you properly. Is that not so, Mother?”
As Muk Yeojin glanced back, Namgung Ryeongryeong stared at him with wide eyes.
She had come to Guangxi across the Yangtze, utterly alone, bound by a political marriage.
To her, a woman of the Orthodox Faction, Sadocheon was a battlefield where every direction held enemies.
In all the loneliness of her exile, Pyo Yeon had become her sole refuge.
Muk Yeojin still vividly remembered the night before his Regression—when his mother wept for three days and nights upon learning of Pyo Yeon’s death.
‘Have no fear, Mother. I will ensure that no one lays a hand on those precious to you in this life.’
Namgung Ryeongryeong gazed at Muk Yeojin with a blank expression, her eyes filling with pride in her son before she smiled and replied.
“If that is what you wish, then do so.”
In that instant, Pyo Yeon’s face flushed with emotion.
“Miss…”
“Ahem! Pyo Yeon… I have my years, and the title of ‘Miss’ sits poorly with me. Even in front of my son, let us dispense with it.”
At this, Muk Yeojin burst into laughter.
The atmosphere had transformed entirely from before, now warm and genial.
Pyo Yeon swept back into the room, her arms laden with ink, Xuan Paper, and pigments of every hue.
Muk Yeojin noticed her sleeves were damp with moisture, but he pretended not to see.
“When the chance arises later, I shall paint you and your sister together,” Pyo Yeon said with a bright smile.
Pyo Yeon bowed and left the room.
Muk Yeojin fixed the Xuan Paper to a wooden frame, then turned to regard his mother as he composed the composition.
“Mother, turn your head slightly to the left. You are far more striking in profile than head-on.”
At his words, Namgung Ryeongryeong’s eyes narrowed again.
“Are you truly my son? How you speak with such honeyed flattery…”
“Now, now! You mustn’t move. The composition will be spoiled.”
……
Pressed by her son’s urgency, Namgung Ryeongryeong had no choice but to hold her tongue.
Muk Yeojin quickly began his painting before she could speak again.
Swish. Swish.
He arranged his brushes with care, loaded the ink, and traced lines across the blank paper.
‘My brushwork feels stiff — it has been so long since I’ve practiced.’
It had been over ten years since he’d last held a brush, not since the Wonyeomgyo began wreaking bloodshed across the Central Plains.
Yet for all that, Muk Yeojin possessed as much natural talent in painting as he did in the Martial Way.
Even Byeok Myo, the master painter renowned across the Central Plains as one of its three greatest, had envied Muk Yeojin’s skill upon seeing his work.
The brush strokes, awkward at first, soon flowed with grace.
As the painting began to take shape.
Pouring his heart into each stroke, Muk Yeojin was seized by an unexpected thought.
‘Painting and swordplay are remarkably alike.’
Not all who hold the same brush will produce the same stroke.
Not all who trace the same line will harbor the same intent.
So too with the blade.
Each line inscribed on blank paper is singular.
Muk Yeojin began to move his hand as though wielding not a brush, but a small sword.
Vertical strokes were rendered softly; diagonal descents, with crushing weight; turns to the southwest, brief and light; rises to the north, most radiant of all.
How much time had passed in this manner?
In a single moment, Muk Yeojin glimpsed a possibility.
‘If I were to fuse the Sword Technique with the Painting Method… perhaps I could create an entirely new martial art.’
Yet in that same breath, he understood.
It was not yet the time.
‘I would need to reach a higher realm to grasp it.’
Tap.
He set down his brush with quiet care and smiled inwardly.
‘Thinking of martial technique while painting—I suppose I’ve become a true swordsman after all.’
The outline of the portrait had already emerged, capturing his mother’s beauty with uncanny precision.
Muk Yeojin mixed his pigments, layering color upon color, and spoke to his mother with careful indirection.
“I fear I shall not be able to paint for you for some time to come.”
Namgung Ryeongryeong’s brow twitched.
Still holding her head turned diagonally, she asked.
“You mean to set down the brush and take up the blade instead…”
“Yes.”
At her son’s calm affirmation, shadow crossed Namgung Ryeongryeong’s face.
He was brilliant, yes—but in her eyes, he had always been fragile.
Even as recently as last year, he had shown no interest in Martial Study whatsoever, content to sketch and drift through life in idle peace.
Yet that display at midday today—what was it?
Before the Sadocheon Lord and countless Martial Artists.
And why would he suddenly abandon the art he loved and grasp a sword he had long avoided?
How could a person transform so thoroughly, so completely, in so brief a span?
‘Has someone learned of my circumstances and pressured him—threatened him somehow?’

Namgung Ryeongryeong had no choice but to think this way.
She and all the other wives of the Sadocheon Lord were bound together by political marriages.
Because of this, the influence of the wives within Sadocheon naturally became inextricably linked to the standing of their children.
Hye Rangyeong, whose own talents were unremarkable, could conduct herself with such brazen confidence while still young precisely because she had the backing of her daughter Muk Iyeon—a girl of extraordinary ability who had already secured her position as leader of Jeokrangdae.
Namgung Ryeongryeong’s circumstances, by contrast, were the exact reverse.
Already scorned for her Orthodox Faction origins, when rumors began to spread that her own son was a fragile herbivore, the harassment her household servants endured grew worse with each passing day.
Yet Namgung Ryeongryeong was no soft-hearted woman.
She could have fought back if she chose to.
But she could only endure it silently, afraid that her resistance might bring harm to her tender son.
So she could not shake the thought that her son had chosen an unwanted path for her sake.
Namgung Ryeongryeong’s fists clenched.
Unlike herself.
She, who had sworn to heaven that her son would live the life he truly desired, opened her mouth.
“Yeojin, I don’t know what you’ve heard from somewhere, but you don’t have to force yourself down a path you don’t want.”
But.
“That’s not true, Mother.”
Contrary to her expectation, her son’s voice was unexpectedly resolute, and she reflexively turned to meet his gaze.
In that instant, Namgung Ryeongryeong could not help but be startled.
‘My son. How can your eyes, at only twelve years old, hold such desperate resolve? What… what on earth has happened to you?’
Namgung Ryeongryeong never spoke those words aloud.
His calm voice reached her ears once more.
“The reason I walk the Martial Way is neither persuasion nor coercion from another, nor is it a forced decision made for someone else’s sake. It is purely my own choice, made because I desire it, for myself alone.”
Even in that moment, Namgung Ryeongryeong could not fully comprehend her son’s transformation.
But one thing was certain.
Whatever the reason, her son was sincere.
The eyes of one prepared to hurl himself willingly into a storm of bloodshed and chaos.
The very eyes that Namgung Ryeongryeong herself had once possessed.
Her son already bore the eyes of a Martial Artist.
Namgung Ryeongryeong, who had been staring intently at Muk Yeojin, suddenly let out a sharp breath.
“……Blood doesn’t lie, does it.”
“After all, I am still the child of that Sadocheon Lord, am I not?”
Namgung Ryeongryeong shot him a sidelong glance before breaking into a soft laugh.
“That’s a fair point. Then will you give this mother of yours reason to hold her head high from now on?”
“Count on it, Mother. I will make it so that no one in Sadocheon dares utter even a whimper in your presence.”
“Your arrogance rivals that of the greatest masters, yet you’re still far from ready. So today, it’s I who will receive our guest.”
“Pardon? What do you mean by—”
That was when it happened.
With a thunderous crash, a great noise erupted through Muk Yeojin’s quarters.
At the same moment, Namgung Ryeongryeong rose to her feet, adjusting her robes.
“Since my son has decided to change, I too will no longer hold back.”

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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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