Return of the God of War - Chapter 53

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

Chapter 53. A Genius Recognizes Another Genius
A short while later.
Muk Yeojin had parted ways with Gwiyeong at the entrance to Jangbaeho and was now making his way back to his quarters alone.
As he unfolded his Gyeongong, he came to a halt in a wide clearing between sparse grasses where few people ventured.
Someone had blocked his path.
A proud black panther radiating an aura sharp as a blade’s edge.
It was Cheon Hwarin.
“What exactly are you?”
Muk Yeojin stripped away his Inpi Myeonggu.
“Young Master. You already know—why ask? I am Muk Yeojin, the youngest son of the Sado Lord of Sadocheon.”
“Your face is as expressionless as an iron plate forged from eternal cold steel.”
Cheon Hwarin drew up her energy.
In that instant, a pressure suffused his entire body so intense he could almost mistake it for the very air gaining weight.
“I won’t ask twice. Why did you approach Gwiyeong?”
Muk Yeojin already knew that Cheon Hwarin had been watching from a distance.
‘It seems she didn’t catch the conversation between Gwiyeong and me.’
Hmm… what to do about this…
Muk Yeojin pondered for a moment.
In truth, he could have easily cleared up her misunderstanding with a suitable excuse without telling her what actually happened.
But in this moment, a powerful emotion surged within him.
It was competitiveness.
A duel with a true powerhouse.
Not long ago, within Hwansi Gongjin.
After pouring out all the lethal intent he’d been holding back against the beasts, Muk Yeojin had been thirsting for an opponent capable of receiving his full strength.
‘If it’s her, I can without hesitation unfold all my martial prowess.’
Barring any unexpected turn, he would face her in the finals of the Cheolheol Arena anyway.
But.
Shring.
He drew the Heukya Geom that had been concealed beneath his Jangpo.
He thought this place would be more convenient for both of them than somewhere with many eyes.
Muk Yeojin raised his blade and took the middle stance.
“If you defeat me, Young Master, I’ll tell you.”
A smile curved across Cheon Hwarin’s lips.
“Now that’s something pleasant to hear.”
Boom-boom-boom-boom.
Soon the beast within Cheon Hwarin began to reveal its true form.
As the Hyeolcheon Daerasin Gong surged through her entire body, a blood-red haze rose up.
When the crimson Hyeolcheon energy poured into Cheon Hwarin’s Daeseok Bu, a dazzling axe aura swept away the twilight of night.
“I won’t kill you. But let me strike you until you’re at death’s door.”
Tss-tss-tss-tss.
In that instant, a clear, cool energy filled the space and drove back Cheon Hwarin’s fighting spirit.
It was Muk Yeojin’s Cangqiong Qi, elevated to Daeseong.
Muk Yeojin smiled coldly.
“With such a half-hearted resolve, you won’t be able to pierce my blade.”
At his aura far fiercer than expected, Cheon Hwarin’s brow twitched.
Her eyes, gripping the Daeseok Bu, blazed with intensity.
“Arrogant bastard!”
Thud-thud-thud!
Cheon Hwarin surged forward in an instant.
Her footwork was passionate yet stable, without the slightest tremor.
The Daeseok Bu drew a crescent arc as it flew at Muk Yeojin’s ribs.
Crash-boom!
As the Daeseok Bu and Heukya Geom collided, an explosive sound erupted through the air.
The Heukya Geom was neither as weightless as a flexible sword, nor was it a solid blade of pure iron like a heavy sword.
The Daeseok Bu, by contrast, was a weapon that could be counted among the heaviest of heavy arms—an extreme heavy weapon.
Yet even after receiving such a blow, Muk Yeojin’s form didn’t budge an inch.
What this signified was that in this single exchange, his comprehensive martial force—combining inner and outer power—had surpassed hers.
Cheon Hwarin’s expression stiffened slightly.
Her pride was wounded.
She had never imagined there would be anyone among her peers who could block her strike so casually.
But soon his hardened face gave way to a broad smile.
Cheon Hwarin, too, had harbored that same thirst—the desire to lock hands with a worthy rival.
Swish-swish-swish-swish-swish.
The bamboo leaves scattered beneath Cheon Hwarin’s feet spiraled upward in a whirlwind.
Muk Yeojin’s eyes darkened further.
‘The probing exchange is over. Now it truly begins.’
As her Hyeolcheon Qi, which had reached the stage of Daeseong among the Sibibseong, flared into extreme cultivation, her pupils began to glow with a faint crimson light.
“Tell me if you think you’re going to die.”
Bang!
Cheon Hwarin struck the ground as she spoke.
Though it was merely a simple step-off and not a devastating stomp channeling all her force downward, the earth trembled in response.
Her speed was of an entirely different order than before.
Yet Muk Yeojin’s eyes tracked her form with perfect precision in this moment.
Screech!
The Geuktu Singeom First Form: Cheonswae Ilseom unfurled.
A single flash of sword light seemed poised to cleave her in two.
Boom!
When it collided with the Daeseok Bu, which streamed crimson Hyeolcheon Qi in thick torrents, the blade energy of Cheonswae scattered like dust.
Crash!
Cheon Hwarin’s feet churned the ground once more.
No thought of evasion or retreat crossed her mind.
Only the relentless advance of a single-point breakthrough.
A peerless footwork that tramples ten thousand demons beneath her feet.
The Cheonma Gunnim Bo.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.
The Geokwon Hoshin Ki, which spread throughout her entire body, resonated with the staggering momentum as the merciless barrage of the Daeseok Bu crashed down upon him.
Muk Yeojin couldn’t help but marvel internally.
‘Damn. Even as a child, barely dry behind the ears, she was still ferociously talented. This Cheon Hwarin!’
His right hand moved.
The Geuktu Singeom Third Form: Yuha Toddo.
If the foundation of the Geuktu Singeom’s First Form was Speed, and its Second Form was Change, then the Third Form was none other than Yielding.
Clang-crash!
The rippling waves of blade energy that surged from the tip of the Heukya Geom twisted the axe’s trajectory.
Cheon Hwarin’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
‘He’s deflecting?’
Her own axe art, the Munyeom Bu, with its Hwangcheon Nakdo technique, was a barrage of successive strikes that shattered boulders with a single blow, each one unleashing tremendous power without respite.
The greater the force of impact, the more the recoil should transfer through her hands—yet she felt none of that.
It was as if cutting through water itself, a hollow, slippery sensation.
Prickle-prickle-prickle.
For the first time in her life, Cheon Hwarin understood what it meant for the fine hairs on one’s skin to stand on end.
The vast inner strength required to sustain that ceaseless, unbroken stream of blade energy.
The exquisite swordplay that slipped aside even axe strikes powerful enough to bisect a body, executing each deflection without the slightest margin for error.
But most of all.
Those eyes—cold as the gaze of the dead, unwavering even as the relentless succession of blows rained down upon him.
Cheon Hwarin could not help but acknowledge it.
‘A monster.’
Though they had only exchanged a few forms.
It was clear.
The man before her, Muk Yeojin, was a martial artist who possessed the same caliber of talent that she did.
Crash!
Boom! Bang!
Each time the Daeseok Bu and Heukya Geom collided, brilliant sparks scattered in all directions.
Their fierce exchange had already surpassed two hundred blows.
In this moment, a strange emotion—one she had never felt before in her life—was beginning to bloom within Cheon Hwarin’s chest.
There were many strong ones.
Even within the Cheonma Singyeyo, there were still martial artists more powerful than her.
In her bouts against them, Cheon Hwarin had always given her all.
But.
She swore that never once—not a single time—had she fought with her whole heart, her entire being committed.
Because she had always seen it.
Even if she lost now, years hence she would surely triumph—of that she was certain.
In a fight grounded in such conviction, her mind remained steady.
But now.
Before this man called Muk Yeojin, for the first time in her life, certainty eluded her.
‘Can I truly win?’
Neither belief in victory nor fear of defeat took root in her.
Only an ending she could not see.
And Cheon Hwarin finally understood what she was feeling in this moment.
‘This is inferiority.’
Those who fall into feelings of inferiority and defeat usually grow angry or despair.
Their pride crumbles, their will breaks.
But in this instant.
Cheon Hwarin was smiling.
How could she not rejoice?
For the first time in her life, she had met an opponent worthy of her total, unrestrained power.
She was throwing open the bolts she had barred upon the chamber of Martial Arts and stepping inside for the first time.
Muk Yeojin’s brow furrowed sharply.
He could see her growing intoxicated with Mugong.
Her eyes lost focus, her energy settling and deepening.
‘Mua?!’
An awakening had come suddenly in the midst of combat?
He couldn’t even laugh.
Cheonmu Jiche.
It was no mere phrase to call it a gift from heaven.
But that wasn’t the problem now.
Hiss!
Boom!
“Ugh!”
As Muk Yeojin blocked the returning Daeseok Bu, a flash of dismay crossed his eyes.
It was a strike of an entirely different caliber than all that had come before.
By entering the state of Mua, she was unleashing the totality of her power.
More than that—she was beginning to rupture at its extreme the latent potential she herself had never known she possessed.
And moreover.
Every technique she wielded had transformed into deadly killing forms.
Slash!
A line of blood traced across Muk Yeojin’s neck.
Had his reaction been even a heartbeat slower, his throat would have been severed.
His Geokwon Hoshin Ki seemed to cry out.
Withdraw from this place at once.
Muk Yeojin bit his lip.
‘I know that, damn it. But…’
If the warrior who had entered Mua were anyone other than Cheon Hwarin, he would have fled without a second glance.
Yet the experience of falling into Mua was never common.
For a martial artist, it could be called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of fate.
And perhaps in all of Joongyeon, only one man.
Only Muk Yeojin, who knew every Mugong she wielded, every small habit and quirk.
Only he could intervene in Cheon Hwarin’s Mua and guide her Martial Arts to an even greater height.
Muk Yeojin gripped his sword hilt tighter.
‘I’m just doing some other bastard’s work for him…’
But.
Whoooosh!
Soon a gale erupted across his entire frame.
‘Since that man is Cheon Hwarin.’
I’ll give her a proper, satisfying beating.
Zing!
The extreme Cangqiong Qi surged forward through the Heukya Geom.
The blade, containing power beyond its limits, could not withstand the pressure, and threads of Qi spilled out in cascading streams.
Sword threads.
He too was unleashing his full strength in this moment.
Muk Yeojin’s clear eyes blazed with light.
“Wait—I’m going!”
* * *
Rustle.
Cheon Hwarin’s eyes snapped open.
She knew at once, without thought, what had happened.
‘I fell into the State of No-Self.’
The landscape around her was devastation incarnate—a chaos beyond all measure.
The ground had been overturned as if struck by artillery, and the trees lay uprooted, their roots torn bare, as though a typhoon had passed through and claimed everything in its path.
“I really did rage like a madwoman. But where is he?”
Muk Yeojin.
They had been locked in combat mere moments ago—she was certain of it.
Yet he was nowhere to be found.
Cheon Hwarin closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts.
While she’d been lost in that state.
The memories were fragmentary, dreamlike, surfaces that flickered and faded—but they were there.
In those hazy recollections, Muk Yeojin had been fighting her—fighting the version of her lost in that trance.
And there was no doubt about it.
He had done it to guide her back.
‘Why?’
Why would he help her at all?
From a larger perspective, she was the heir of Cheonma Singyeyo, and he was a candidate for succession within Sadocheon—they were enemies, plain and simple.
From a narrower view, nothing in the events of these past few days gave him the slightest reason to show her any kindness.
And beyond that.
―Argh! This wretched sister! I’ll repay this debt a hundredfold—no, a thousandfold! Wait, hold on! That’s not even right! State of No-Self or not, get up this instant!!!
“…Why does he call me sister?”
According to her intelligence, Muk Yeojin had been born a year before her.
Yet even as she turned the question over in her mind again and again, Cheon Hwarin could not arrive at an answer.

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