Return of the God of War - Chapter 57

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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 57. How high do you intend to climb?
The Chen Hour—early morning, when the sun had just risen.
Pang-pang-pang!
A punch extended with exhilarating force drummed repeatedly against the empty air.
Without even channeling inner force, the fist wind it generated was truly fierce.
Whiiiish!
Now came the footwork.
The shin, drawn sharp as a blade’s edge, carved through space with a savage arc, tracing a perfect semicircle.
“Hah!”
Thud! Crack-crack-crack!
A barrage of Fist-Foot Combination unleashed alongside a powerful True Foot Technique.
All while iron chains weighing over fifty pounds were wound about both arms and legs.
Yet the movements were so fluid, so natural, that seeing them was almost hard to believe.
Plip.
A fat bead of sweat fell to the ground.
“Ha… ha…”
Between ragged breaths, a faint smile played at the corner of Muk Yeojin’s mouth.
‘At last. Great Mastery.’
The Mountain King Dance—that exclusive art of Meng Ao, sworn brother and lord of Nammanye Beast Palace.
The very technique to which he had devoted more time than almost anything else since his return, he had finally elevated to the realm of Ten-Success Mastery.
The effects of Great Mastery manifested in his body at once.
Most striking was the surge in raw strength.
Power rippled through every fiber, and his muscles had hardened to a density that rivaled diamond.
Crack-crack-crack.
The moment he clenched his fist, the grip strength felt utterly transformed from before.
Now he could crush and heft a boulder the size of a house with bare hands alone.
Beyond that, the acuity of all five senses had sharpened to a degree incomparable to what came before.
The Mountain King Dance was truly what could be called a Divine Art Beyond Compare—a martial skill of such transcendence.
Yet.
‘With the frame I was born with, pushing Mountain King Dance to Extreme Stage is beyond reach.’
Ten-Success Mastery is when the mind fully grasps the technique and the body completes its mastery.
Twelve-Success Mastery, or what is called Extreme Stage, is the realm of perfect unity between martial art and self—the oneness of martial and self.
Muk Yeojin had succeeded in elevating Mountain King Dance to Great Mastery.
But he felt instinctively that he would never reach Extreme Stage.
‘There’s no help for it. Mountain King Dance was built by my sworn brother with only my frame in mind.’
The path of the Mudao he would walk was already a different direction.
From this point forward, he would reduce time spent on external force training and focus on sword work and internal cultivation.
As he was catching his breath,
“Well done.”
A refined voice sounded from behind him.
He turned to find his mother, Nangung Yeongryeong, entering the Training Ground.
“You honor me.”
Nangung Yeongryeong looked him up and down, then nodded approvingly.
“Men continue to grow well into their twenties. Yet you have already forged a body worthy of the name Steel Body—truly befitting one called the Rising Star of Huekdo.”
Muk Yeojin’s lip twitched slightly.
“It seems you’ve taken to teasing your son as your hobby these days.”
A smile blossomed at the corner of Nangung Yeongryeong’s mouth.
“It is rather amusing, I confess.”
Muk Yeojin, who had been giving her a sidelong look, burst into laughter as well.
Nangung Yeongryeong glanced lightly around the Training Ground, then asked suddenly,
“Care to exchange blows with your mother after so long?”
“When the exalted master of Sword Palace of Great Sado himself deigns to teach a technique, how could a humble Rising Star presume to refuse?”
Nangung Yeongryeong shook her head.
“When did you become such a smooth talker…”
She picked a blade from where the weapons were racked.
Not the medium sword she usually trained with, but a Wearing Sword just over three feet in length.
Shing.
The moment she drew the blade, the serene smile that had graced her face vanished in an instant, replaced by utter composure.
Muk Yeojin’s expression hardened reflexively.
Whiiiing.
A cool, knife-like pressure rode naturally upon the wind that stirred around her mother.
‘It seems she has no intention of holding back.’
This was a way only his mother had of acknowledging him not as an amateur, but as a complete martial artist in his own right.
“If you do not give your wholehearted all, you will suffer the shame of forfeiting the semi-final in two days due to injury.”
“Your words, Mother….”
Bang!
The entire Training Ground seemed to shake.
Crack-crack-crack!
The blue-granite floor of the Training Ground fractured like a spider’s web under Muk Yeojin’s devastatingly powerful True Foot Technique.
A spark of something flashed across Nangung Yeongryeong’s eyes.
‘Tremendous force!’
The raw power exploding from that steel-hard body could rightly be called monstrous strength.
“I will bear this in mind!”
Whoosh!
Muk Yeojin charged forward with ferocious intent.
The pressure was like a massive tiger weighing six hundred pounds bearing down upon him.
In that instant, Nangung Yeongryeong felt a strange exhilaration.
That fierce, unbridled spirit.
It stirred memories of life-and-death duels with the renowned masters of her youth—a fighting energy that made her blood sing.
And the one unleashing such a fighting spirit that set her own will ablaze was none other than her own young son.
For the first time in her life, a surge of raw passion welled up in one corner of Nangung Yeongryeong’s heart.
‘Come on, my boy!’
Blue petals of Azure Radiance scattered around her.
At the same moment, Nangung Yeongryeong’s blade carved a crescent moon, cleaving the silence itself.
It was a secret technique of the Sword Palace.
The first form of the Sun-Moon Sword Technique—Cutting Moon.
Bang!!
Steel met steel, and brilliant sparks erupted.
* * *
Boom!
Muk Yeojin’s body was hurled backward through the air.
His form scraped across the floor, tumbling eight more times before finally skidding to a stop.
As Muk Yeojin lifted his head, his eyes burned with fierce light.
‘Where?’
Nowhere on the ground.
She couldn’t have sunk into the earth, so then—
‘Above!’
The moment Muk Yeojin looked up at the sky, he couldn’t help but gasp.
A wild dragon descended from above his head, sword raised to split his crown.
There was no answer to this.
Against a true mortal enemy, he would sacrifice a limb or two and aim for the heart.
But he couldn’t do such a thing in a martial match against his own mother.
In the end, Muk Yeojin threw his Black Night Sword and cried out:
“I yield! I yield! I will reveal the locations of all secret bases. Spare me, please!”
Whoosh!
Nangung Yeongryeong twisted her blade mid-air, changing her posture.
Bang!
The sword grazed Muk Yeojin’s cheek and drove into the floor.
“Hah!”
Thump.
Muk Yeojin collapsed to the floor, drenched in cold sweat.
“So a hundred or so moves is the limit. I still have much to learn before I can match you, Mother.”
As Nangung Yeongryeong gathered her energy, she fell suddenly silent.
‘Only a hundred moves… If the Sword Masters heard this, they would faint in shock.’
Ever since becoming Gungju of the Sword Palace, she had personally instructed Sword Masters of every rank—Heaven, Earth, and Human.
Among those capable of exchanging more than a hundred moves with Nangung Yeongryeong, there were only a handful—excluding the Heavenly Sword Masters themselves.
Her son, barely approaching his prime, was already standing at the same level as those who had spent decades honing their swordsmanship.
“Mm…”
A quiet warmth bloomed within her.
She knew better than to harbor premature expectations about her own child, yet she could not help but let such feelings well up from the depths of her heart.
‘My son. How far up the mountain do you mean to climb?’
Later, picturing her son’s broad shoulders—the figure of one destined to command the realm—Nangung Yeongryeong found herself smiling without quite meaning to.
Thunk.
She set her sheathed sword on the stand and spoke.
“Don’t let your muscles seize up. I won’t have you stumbling in the next match because of carelessness.”
At the mention of the match, Muk Yeojin flinched.
He hesitated for a moment, then ventured to speak.
“About the next opponent, ma’am. What should I do?”
Nangung Yeongryeong’s eyes glinted.
“You knew?”
“Yes, well…”
“With your sense for martial presence, it would be stranger if you hadn’t noticed.”
For a moment, Nangung Yeongryeong gazed into empty space with a troubled expression, then shook her head.
“What do you mean ‘what should I do’? Do you mean to kill him?”
“That isn’t it.”
“He is simply your opponent in a martial match. Face him with your full strength.”
“…I understand.”
Nangung Yeongryeong gazed quietly at her son, offered a slight smile, then turned and walked back to her quarters.
* * *
That night, Muk Yeojin received word from Bu Yeon and made his way to the Fengyun Inn.
A private room on the second floor.
Bu Yeon was waiting for him there.
“Welcome, Lord Muk.”
Bu Yeon’s face had grown noticeably gaunt since they last met.
Deep shadows pooled beneath his eyes, and exhaustion was etched into his features.
Muk Yeojin opened his mouth as if to apologize.
“I fear I’ve imposed an unreasonable burden upon you.”
Bu Yeon waved a hand and shook his head.
“Please don’t say such things. It’s no burden at all. Rather, I’m sorry I couldn’t provide more help.”
His words alone were gratifying.
When Muk Yeojin took his seat, Bu Yeon withdrew a thick sheaf of documents from his robes and handed it over.
“Information regarding the organizational structure and network of Sadocheon’s main branch, as you requested.”
As Muk Yeojin leafed through the papers, he felt inwardly amazed.
He had asked for this investigation barely ten days ago.
Yet the contents of the documents were so vast and detailed that it seemed impossible they had been gathered in such a short span of time.
And yet Bu Yeon wore an apologetic expression.
“I’ve scraped together what I could, but it’s mostly low-level information. If you could spare more time, I and my sources could…”
Muk Yeojin shook his head, cutting him off.
“No. This is more than sufficient. And if we dig any deeper, we risk putting you in danger.”
This was true enough.
Sadocheon’s information control was formidable.
If one grew greedy and left a trail, the consequences would be difficult to manage.
And when he said ‘sufficient,’ it was not merely a courtesy.
Muk Yeojin possessed memories from before his return.
Of course.
In his past life, he had paid no attention to internal affairs of Sadocheon.
So the details he did not know.
Yet he had grasped the outline of the major events.
‘Even if this is only low-level information, if I cross-reference it with the events I remember and extrapolate,’
I should be able to uncover the underlying causality.
Muk Yeojin slowly folded the documents.
Then he fell silent in thought.
‘I harbor no ambition for supreme power, but those around me will never believe that.’
After the Cheolheol Arena and the banquet had concluded, the moment attention on him began to wane, the various factions would make their move in earnest—whether through restraint, temptation, or something else entirely.
That was why this information was invaluable right now.
This bundle of papers would be the opening salvo in the struggle that lay ahead.
Clink.
That concludes the matter of business.
The two men raised their cups as they always did.
A short while later, as Bu Yeon’s intoxication began to take hold, he asked a question.
“But Merchant Lord, who’s our opponent in the semi-final? I’ve been so swamped I haven’t even managed to follow the news properly.”
“A delegate from the Jeongdo Murim League.”
Bu Yeon’s eyes brightened.
“The Murim League participated in this Cheolheol Arena? I thought they only attended the banquet for appearances’ sake, staying out of sight, so why would they suddenly take action?”
Muk Yeojin drained his cup before answering.
“It’s likely because of me.”
“Because of you, Merchant Lord? What do you mean by that?”
Muk Yeojin hesitated for a moment, then spoke.
“My next opponent’s name is Yi Muha—a household retainer of the Nangung Clan.”
Surprise flickered across Bu Yeon’s face.
“Nangung? You don’t mean…?”
“Yes. He’s my uncle’s son—a cousin of mine.”

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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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