Return of the God of War - Chapter 68

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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 68. He’s too good to die like this.
Among the officials of the Woneum Sect, there is an eccentric known as Maseon.
A special elixir he had refined.
Gwangpokdan.
On the surface, it was merely an efficacious medicinal pill.
But the moment one heard the flute music of a specific frequency.
The consumer’s internal energy would surge several times over in an instant, and simultaneously transform them into a raging beast bereft of reason.
The decisive evidence of this lay right before him.
‘Those dark blue pupils. Jeok Mu-wol.’
In the midst of that chaos where blood ran like rivers and corpses piled like mountains.
Remembering the blood battle against that Jeok Mu-wol and the fanatics of the Woneum Sect still made his teeth clench.
Muk Yeojin barely suppressed the murderous intent erupting from him like a volcano.
‘The Woneum Sect has a tail here. In this place.’
He quickly swept his gaze across his surroundings.
But there were too many people.
Finding the conspirator among this crowd was practically impossible.
And then.
Boom!
Muk Byeongho’s state was far from normal.
He was unleashing internal energy so violently it bordered on destruction.
Yet its flow was irregular, and his body seemed unable to withstand it.
‘This is different from any berserker symptoms I know of.’
To use a metaphor, Muk Byeongho was now burning the flame of internal energy using his very life force as kindling.
By the looks of it, left alone he would exhaust himself and perish of his own accord.
At this point, Muk Yeojin began to understand how matters stood.
‘It’s incomplete. And someone is testing this incomplete Gwangpokdan through Muk Byeongho.’
If he could discover who had given the elixir to Muk Byeongho, he could seize the Woneum Sect’s tail.
A ghostly flame flickered in Muk Yeojin’s eyes.
‘Prepare yourself, Maseon. This time around, I’ll sever your life twenty years earlier.’
But before that.
He stilled his mind and focused his gaze once more on Muk Byeongho.
‘What to do with this one.’
There was no point asking who gave the elixir to someone in a state of lost reason—he couldn’t answer.
Besides.
‘He’s too good to die so pathetically.’
Exhale.
With a sharp breath.
Whoosh.
As Muk Yeojin’s feet moved in an extraordinary pattern, his form surged forward in an instant.
Sanwangmu was not merely external martial technique—it encompassed the movements of beasts in their totality.
Naturally, there existed body methods and footwork beyond basic combat.
This was the first step.
Yeolpyo Step.
The leopard is the king of hunters, unmatched by any beast on earth in explosive acceleration.
Living up to its name.
Whiiiish!
Leaping thirty paces in a single bound, Muk Yeojin brought the Black Night Sword down.
Crash!
The weapons of the two collided, sending forth genuine sparks.
‘Ugh!’
Muk Yeojin’s brow twitched.
A searing pain raced up his arm, seeming to shake his five organs and six bowels.
Muk Byeongho was now in a state stripped of reason.
He merely blocked instinctively against whoever attacked him.
Soon a wild flurry of cuts and slashes—no technique, no form—rained down upon Muk Yeojin.
Ordinarily, such attacks could never have threatened him.
But now.
‘The internal energy surged by the Gwangpokdan exceeds my own at this moment.’
Yet if killing were his aim, he would face no difficulty.
He need only strike through the countless openings to pierce his sword through the vital acupoints and be done.
But Muk Yeojin’s aim was not to kill—it was to subdue.
And to drive out the Gwangpokdan’s energy that dominated the man’s body, he had to pierce through that vicious barrage of strikes and press inward.
There was no getting around how thorny the situation had become.
Muk Yeojin tightened his grip on the Black Night Sword, pouring more force into his right hand.
‘No time to hesitate. His body is already collapsing under the strain of the berserker state.’
Fortunately, the hardened frame perfected by Sanwangmu and the naturally triggered Geugwonho Divine Technique were filling the gaps in his internal energy.
Bang! Bang!
Crack!
Muk Yeojin pressed forward relentlessly, each step of the Yeolpyo Step delivering a flurry of attacks.
“Gaaaahhh!”
Muk Byeongho roared in kind, swinging the Broad Blade with savage intensity.
Whoosh! Bang!
The sound of cleaving air, explosive impacts, friction, and shattering echoes scattered in all directions.
The shockwaves of internal energy released where the Black Night Sword and Broad Blade collided were felt even in the spectator stands.
“How… how is such speed even possible?”
The crowd could not help but marvel at Muk Yeojin’s almost supernatural footwork.
“Yet his opponent is formidable as well. To have concealed such power all this time…”
The spectators had no way of knowing Muk Byeongho’s true condition.
To their eyes, it appeared only that he was revealing the strength he had kept hidden all along.
Of course, a few true martial masters, including Pi Yangcheon, had sensed something amiss.
But that was all.
As long as the match had not ended.
Everything occurring on the Tournament Stage belonged to those two alone.
Unless one of them conceded, no third party could intervene.
Among the crowd, however, there was one figure observing the Tournament Stage with a gaze distinct from the others’.
It was Muk Geon.
He narrowed his eyes and murmured to himself.
‘Hmm. The berserker effect proceeds as anticipated, but at this rate his body will collapse before long. Perhaps I need to adjust the concentration in the third filtration phase.’
If so, he would need to endure dozens—or even hundreds—of trials and errors all over again.
But it mattered not.
There was no shortage of ‘materials’ for the Gwangpokdan.
However long it took, whatever the cost.
‘Once that is perfected…’
Muk Geon’s gaze swept past Muk Hyeonam seated beside him, then slowly traced across the entire assembly.
A cruel smile twisted his lips.
‘Every last one of you will kneel beneath my feet.’
Meanwhile, on the Tournament Stage, the duel between swordsman and blade-wielder was drawing toward its conclusion.
More than a hundred exchanges had passed.
Muk Byeongho’s momentum had visibly waned from its initial berserker peak.
By contrast, Muk Yeojin had conserved his strength throughout.
And now.
He poured every ounce of remaining power into the Black Night Sword and unleashed it.
Boom!
The Broad Blade went flying, torn from Muk Byeongho’s grip by the force of the impact.
In the same instant, his entire front stood exposed and defenseless.
This was the moment Muk Yeojin had waited for.
He drove forward through the opening with a swift Yeolpyo Step.
And then.
Muk Yeojin drew his left hand into a tight fist.
‘This is going to hurt.’
Thud!
His foot drove hard into the ground, anchoring himself.
Planting a devastating True Stance, he rotated his left fist—laden with internal energy—from his waist and drove it forward.
Sanwangmu, the Beast King’s Dance.
A single punch from the Wild Beast King at his apex erupted from Muk Yeojin’s fist.
The fifth technique of Sanwangmu.
Tuhoesoe Fist.
A complete Force Release born from the rebound of the True Stance, Cangqiong Qi, and the rotational force of the Tuhoesoe Fist compounded together.
Thwack!
His fist drove straight into the Juque Acupoint on Muk Byeongho’s chest.
But this is far from the end.
A deep, resonant hum.
In the same instant as the strike, he unleashed the subtlety of the Intruding Force, driving his Naegong in one breath toward the Juque Acupoint.
It was the moment when Muk Yeojin’s concentration reached its absolute peak.
‘If I pour even a fraction more power into this, even if he survives, this wretch will never rise again as a martial artist.’
Then what difference is that from death?
A deep, resonant hum!
In the span of a single blink—a mere heartbeat—yet Muk Yeojin felt as though that moment stretched into eternity.
And then.
Crack-crack-crack!
The sound of vital energy twisting echoed through the arena with brutal clarity.
“Gah-gah-gah-ahhh!”
Muk Byeongho vomited a mouthful of dark crimson blood.
‘It’s done. Success.’
He had sustained catastrophic internal injuries that would require months of recovery.
But there was no choice.
Without going this far, there would have been no way to purge the toxin residue from the Gwangpokdan that lingered in Muk Byeongho’s body.
Clang!
The Broad Blade clattered to the ground, and Muk Byeongho’s body crumpled helplessly.
Thud.
Muk Yeojin caught him before he fell.
The deep azure that had flooded Muk Byeongho’s eyes was gradually giving way, returning bit by bit to their natural hue.
Muk Yeojin clicked his tongue softly.
Upon closer inspection, Muk Byeongho’s condition was far worse than anticipated.
He needed a physician’s care immediately.
But.
At least his life was preserved, and the vital meridians remained intact.
By that measure, Muk Byeongho could count himself fortunate—touched by heaven’s grace.
He was teetering on the edge of consciousness, barely holding on.
‘I wish I could let him rest at once.’
Yet there remained one crucial matter that could not be postponed.
Muk Yeojin leaned close to Muk Byeongho’s ear, his voice dropping to barely a whisper.
It carried a razor’s edge.
“Who is it? Who gave that cursed poison to you?”
……
Muk Byeongho was in no state to comprehend why such a question was being asked.
His mind was half gone.
He could only answer by reflex.
The voice that emerged was as faint and thin as the wingbeat of an insect.
Yet Muk Yeojin heard it clearly.
Moments later, Muk Byeongho lost consciousness completely.
Muk Yeojin nodded quietly once, then cried out at the top of his voice.
“Physician! Summon a physician at once!”
In that instant, a man rushed from the spectator’s gallery.
It was Muk Geon.
Behind him came Hye Rangyeong, her face drained of color, and Pi Yangcheon.
“Muk Geon.”
“Let me see.”
Muk Geon’s maternal lineage was the Baekyu Medical Family, the finest physicians in all the Cheonha.
He himself was a prodigy among healers, the youngest to gain renown among the master physicians.
He quickly felt for Muk Byeongho’s pulse.
But at once, Muk Geon’s expression twisted like that of a demon.
It was not because Muk Byeongho’s wounds were severe.
‘The Berserker Energy… it’s gone?’
How could this be?
It was true that if the body sustained damage beyond the point of function, the berserker state could dissipate.
Yet even so, traces of the Berserker Energy should remain within the body, especially at the Juque Acupoint, which served as its host.
But not a single shred of the Berserker Energy lingered in Muk Byeongho’s body.
In all his years of studying the Gwangpokdan, this was utterly unprecedented.
‘What on earth….’
Meanwhile, as Muk Geon held the pulse with a rigid expression, unable to continue speaking, all who had rushed over fell silent in kind.
Pi Yangcheon asked carefully.
“What troubles you, young master? Is Byeongho’s condition very grave?”
Hye Rangyeong was already weeping.
“No… no… Brother, Byeongho…”
Muk Geon quickly smoothed his features and shook his head.
“It is nothing fatal, I assure you. His internal injuries are severe from forcing his Internal Energy beyond measure, but his life is not in danger. Please take him to the medical quarters. I will administer what treatment I can along the way.”
“Very well!”
Pi Yangcheon hoisted Muk Byeongho onto his back in one fluid motion and rushed from the Tournament Stage.
Muk Geon and Hye Rangyeong followed close behind.
And moments later, the arbiter’s booming voice rang out across the arena.
“The champion of this Cheolheol Arena tournament is Sado’s pride! Muk Yeojin of the Woneum Sect!”
A roar of acclaim erupted from every quarter.
Yet Muk Yeojin, the victor himself, did not respond to the cheers.
His eyes had grown cold and distant, following only the retreating figures of Pi Yangcheon’s party as they departed the arena.
In his gaze burned the predatory gleam of a hunter tracking its prey.

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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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