Return of the God of War - Chapter 59

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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 59. The Object of Righteous Anger.
Muk Yeojin regarded the young swordmaster before him in silence.
‘Yi Muha.’
The son of his mother’s brother, Nangung Kang.
He didn’t know why the boy carried the Yi surname instead of Nangung.
Truthfully, he didn’t care.
Only one thing mattered.
That Yi Muha belonged to the Nangung Clan.
Muk Yeojin harbored no warm feelings toward the Nangung Clan.
Far from it.
‘Mother wouldn’t wish it, so I had no intention of seeking him out to bring him low.’
But if he was going to stand right here and provoke him, that changed everything.
The urge rose in him to show something in this moment.
Just how hollow that name—Nangung of the Eternal Sky—truly was, preserved as it had been by casting aside conscience and righteousness.
Shhring.
Muk Yeojin drew his blade with deliberate slowness.
His eyes held a distinctly different light than in his previous matches.
Killing intent.
A vast and chilling killing intent filled them completely.
‘Extraordinary,’ Yi Muha thought, his breath catching.
He swallowed hard.
Though the boy had merely grasped his sword, the aura radiating from him made his very bones shudder.
He had never felt such a presence, not even from Ho Song Dae-ju Yi Gwang, the seasoned master who had lived beyond the age of sixty.
There was no need to cross blades to understand.
This opponent was utterly beyond his capacity to handle.
Clap.
Without warning, Yi Muha struck his own cheek sharply.
Livid handprints blossomed vividly across his face.
‘Steady yourself, Yi Muha. An opportunity like this will not come twice.’
“Hah.”
His trembling body gradually steadied as he drew a deep breath, composure slowly returning.
In his eyes, nervousness gave way to grim resolve.
‘Interesting.’
Muk Yeojin murmured low appreciation.
Though Yi Muha must surely have felt the vast gap in skill, he showed no sign of his spirit breaking.
Instead, he kindled the flames of his fighting will.
‘His valor, at least, is worthy of acknowledgment.’
But.
That didn’t mean Muk Yeojin intended to match his level.
Tsssssss.
As Cangqiong Qi surged violently through Muk Yeojin’s entire body, a azure shimmer leaked forth.
Shing.
Yi Muha drew his own blade.
Muk Yeojin tensed his back leg, ready to charge at any moment.
Yet in the next instant.
An unexpected move from Yi Muha forced Muk Yeojin to hesitate.
Before he’d even finished setting his stance, Yi Muha suddenly bowed his head.
“Yi Muha, third son of Nangung Kang, patriarch of Sayeongdang of the Nangung Clan, greets his maternal cousin!”
The greeting was far too formal for a younger cousin to offer an elder.
Moreover.
‘Maternal cousin,’ he had said.
Muk Yeojin disliked being addressed as a younger cousin, but the optics of brushing aside courtesy and drawing steel in this situation were poor.
In the end, he forced his lips open and answered curtly.
“…Muk Yeojin.”
Despite his cold demeanor, Yi Muha broke into a broad, beaming smile.
“I eagerly await instruction from you, cousin!”
Muk Yeojin felt the killing intent burning within him deflate helplessly.
‘Perhaps this was what the expression “the wind’s gone out of one’s sails” meant.’
“Let us begin, cousin!”
Muk Yeojin moved his blade forward with a reluctant expression.
The match between the two of them unfolded without major incident.
Strength, swordsmanship, cultivation.
In every aspect, Muk Yeojin held a clear advantage of two or three moves over Yi Muha.
Crack!
Bang!
Boom-crash!
Yi Muha was kept busy flying about the Training Grounds.
He’d rolled across the grounds so thoroughly that his handsome face and neat martial robes were caked in dust, making him look all the more pitiable.
As the overwhelming gap in skill widened, the cheering from the spectators’ gallery grew steadily quieter.
Muk Yeojin meant to demonstrate to Yi Muha in this match the true difference in their levels.
The situation was unfolding smoothly according to his intention.
And yet.
Muk Yeojin’s face, which should have remained unmoved if not smiling, was growing increasingly distorted.
The cause lay in Yi Muha’s strange conduct from the very outset.
Bang!
“Ugh! Cousin, that was truly magnificent swordsmanship!”
Crack!
“Oh! How… how can there be such subtle fist technique?!”
Whistle-whistle! Boom!
“Extraordinary! Truly extraordinary—you’re remarkable, cousin!”
From the moment the match began, Yi Muha had been sending sound transmissions without pause.
But what truly vexed Muk Yeojin lay elsewhere.
As Muk Yeojin pressed forward with unrelenting strikes and retreated several paces, he fixed Yi Muha with a hard stare.
“What is this? What are you doing?”
Muk Yeojin’s sharp sound transmission reached Yi Muha.
“What? Is something wrong, cousin? Has my sound transmission been a hindrance?”
Muk Yeojin’s brow deepened into a frown.
“Stop feigning innocence. You’ve been deploying the Nangung Clan’s sword forms in sequence.”
Indeed. Yi Muha had been executing the match by progressing through the technique forms in order—from the Daeyeonjeomp, the foundational Nangung sword form, to the more advanced Muaejeomp and Biyeonjeomp.
“Ha! To notice that already—truly, cousin, your perception rivals even the Five Senses.”
“Spare me the flattery. Answer the question. Why are you doing this?”
At that, Yi Muha turned his head slightly to look toward the spectators.
His gaze settled on Nangung Yeongryeong, who stood quietly among the crowd.
‘That is… Aunt.’
She bore a more refined grace and a clearer gaze than his father had ever described.
In Nangung Yeongryeong’s eyes as she watched Yi Muha lay a tangle of complex emotion.
After holding her gaze for a moment, Yi Muha turned his head back toward Muk Yeojin.
And his sword traced an elegant arc, extending forth.
The supreme sword technique of the Nangung Clan.
The first form of the Changung Muaejeomp—Opening Heaven.
Bang!
Muk Yeojin naturally received his blade.
Simultaneously, another sound transmission came through.
“The night before I left, Father came to find me.”
His sword shifted, thrusting and withdrawing across high, middle, and low positions at once.
This form—Mancheon.
“That night, Father told me everything. That Aunt was no criminal, merely cast aside by the family. I’d never known until then.”
From Yi Muha’s blade emerged the third form, Mucheon, and the fourth form, Hwangjeon, unfurling in succession.
“Father carries deep guilt toward Aunt. Three years ago, when she asked him to teach cousin her family’s martial arts, he pushed the matter forward despite the Elder Council’s opposition. Yet we managed only to win a single method—the heart meditation. Nothing more.”
Muk Yeojin recalled the moment in Mangdam Hall three years prior, when his mother had handed him a manuscript of the Changung Daeyeonjinjul.
Naturally, his mother had mastered nearly every absolute technique the Nangung Clan possessed.
Yet she had taught him only one—the Cangqiong Qi.
He’d assumed his mother had her reasons and had thought nothing more of it.
‘But that’s what it was.’
She hadn’t chosen not to teach him the other arts—she’d been prevented from doing so.
The clan had permitted only the heart meditation.
In one respect, he found it remarkable.
She could have simply disregarded the clan’s restrictions, cast aside by them as she already was.
But she had not.
She had upheld her integrity to the end.
Muk Yeojin bit down on his lip.
What must his mother have felt, possessing the ability to help her son yet unable to reach out?
The anger that had begun to cool flared back to life.
“Sigh.”
He exhaled slowly, steadying his mind.
At least he understood that this fury should not be directed at the martial artist before him.
Muk Yeojin lifted his gaze, studying Yi Muha intently.
Now it was beginning to make sense—why Yi Muha would go to such lengths.
Yi Muha was using this moment to demonstrate his martial arts directly, transmitting sword techniques to Muk Yeojin.
Yi Muha unfolded the final form of the Changung Muaejeomp, the Yeokcheon, and widened the distance between them.
‘How fortunate, cousin. Your talent reaches toward the heavens themselves, so merely by displaying these techniques, I am certain you will grasp their subtleties.’
At those words, Muk Yeojin’s heart stirred with a peculiar warmth.
Before his thoughts could fully settle, Yi Muha’s sound transmission came again.
‘All the sword forms I have shown thus far were what you should have inherited from the start. And……’
A deep, resonant hum.
In an instant, Yi Muha’s eyes transformed.
The blade he held blazed with a deep blue radiance.
A crushing force descended, spreading endlessly across the space around him.
Crack—crack—crack!
The floor of the Training Grounds where Yi Muha stood shattered in a perfect circle.
Even the renowned hardness of the Cheonggangseok floor could not withstand the pressure of his Qi.
Several observers gasped, their eyes widening in shock.
Among them, Nangung Yeongryeong’s reaction was most pronounced.
“The—the Emperor’s Sword Form!”
Someone’s urgent cry pierced the ears of all present.
Yi Muha’s sound transmission reached them once more.
‘This is what Aunt should have inherited. I hastily learned it before leaving, so I can likely manage it only once—observe well!’
A profound resonance rippled outward.
The blade, now crowned with brilliant blue sword Qi rising three fingers high, sang.
Yi Muha raised the sword overhead, then brought it down toward the ground.
A simple slash.
Yet would one call simple steel a king’s blade?
A true king, with but a single step, unmakes or creates the world itself.
That Stillness Within Motion, bearing the weight of authority and sorrow.
That was the sword of an emperor.
Muk Yeojin watched silently as the blade descended, crushing space beneath it.
‘A true prodigy.’
Though his knowledge of martial arts across the Nangung Clan was not comprehensive, he understood how formidable the Emperor’s Sword Form was.
It was no technique that someone of Yi Muha’s generation should even touch.
Moreover, the Emperor’s Sword Form stood at the pinnacle of orthodox teachings within the Nangung Clan.
Only those of direct bloodline or select successors could hope to receive instruction in such an Absolute Technique.
Yet Yi Muha.
His very name made clear he was not the legitimate heir.
If his claim of learning it just before departure was true, this was undoubtedly an unauthorized act done without the family’s consent.
In other words, Yi Muha was now bearing a terrible price for his actions.
Muk Yeojin’s assessment of such a man was succinct.
‘Stubborn fool.’
In truth, the hidden history between his mother and the Nangung Clan had occurred before Yi Muha was even born.
He could have feigned ignorance, and none would have blamed him.
Yet Yi Muha was accepting the family’s sin as his own.
He sought to atone here, in this moment, on behalf of the clan.
‘There’s no zealot quite like one bound by orthodoxy.’
But.
‘I don’t hate them for it.’
A smile had already begun to bloom at the corners of Muk Yeojin’s mouth.
‘Emperor’s Sword Form, is it? Then I too shall show him something worthy.’
A sharp ring of sound.
Cangqiong Qi poured forth into the Heukyajeomp like a flood, surging from his core.
In moments, threads of brilliant blue Qi began to spiral free from the blade’s edge.
“Sword Qi!!”
A cry of astonishment echoed through the arena once more.
Sword Qi.
A technique that transcended the martial injury caused by weapon force—the singular art of a transcendent martial artist.
An absolute technique unfolded at the tip of Muk Yeojin’s blade, proof that he had drawn one step closer to the Stellar Power known as sword strength.
The Sangdangsae Qi Stance.
An overwhelming powerful strike drawn in a single, seamless motion from upper right to lower left.
The fourth form of the Geuktu Sinjeomp.
Falling Star.
Crack!
The Heukyajeomp, wrapped in Sword Qi, extended toward the Emperor’s blade.
Boom!
A deafening sound of tearing air swept dust across the grounds in all directions.
When the dust settled, the outcome lay bare.
“…….”
The Heukyajeomp hung frozen directly above Yi Muha’s head.
Muk Yeojin withdrew his blade, his gaze fixed on Yi Muha.
Yi Muha, meanwhile, stared down at the sword in his own hand.
Two-thirds of the blade had crumbled to powder—a weapon now stripped of all function.
“Was it an expensive blade?”
“…….”
Yi Muha, who had been gazing blankly at his broken sword, let out a soft laugh at the question.
“My monthly stipend isn’t generous enough to afford an expensive one.”
Sway.
In that instant, Yi Muha’s strength gave way and he began to collapse.
Muk Yeojin reached out and caught him in his arms.
For a moment, Yi Muha’s hand slipped quietly into Muk Yeojin’s embrace.
“The Secret Formula of Emperor’s Sword Form. It seems you and your aunt have little need for it, but my father and I would like you to have it as a gift. I hope you will accept it.”
Muk Yeojin hesitated briefly before nodding in acknowledgment.
“I shall accept it… cousin.”
At those words, Yi Muha’s eyes widened before breaking into a hearty laugh.
Moments later, the referee’s announcement rang through the hall.
“Advancing to the final round: Muk Yeojin!”

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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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