Return of the God of War - Chapter 75

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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 75. He would be the last to close the gates of hell behind him.
“GAAAAHHHHH!”
The death cry of the third of the Blood-Eating Three Evils, now armless.
That anguished shriek tore through the deep mountain silence like a blade.
Flap-flap-flap.
Mountain birds startled from their sleep scattered into the sky in panic.
The eyes of Moo Pyeong, the first of the Blood-Eating Three Evils, darkened with tension.
‘An ambush.’
It was hardly a new occurrence.
The name Blood-Eating Three Evils—they had earned it in blood.
To gain that epithet, the three of them had wrung tears of blood from countless eyes.
There were easily hundreds of men who would happily tear them apart, if one was being generous with the count.
It meant enemies had marked them as prey countless times over.
For the Blood-Eating Three Evils, ambushes and shadow schemes were simply routine.
All they needed to do was draw their blades and assume a defensive stance at a moment’s notice.
Yet Moo Pyeong didn’t move a single finger in this moment.
He couldn’t have.
Cold sweat oozed from every pore along his spine.
‘These bastards… what in the world…’
Moo Pyeong’s gaze fixed forward.
A young scholar-type wielding a Black Treasure Sword.
And beside him, a beautiful woman gripping a Heavy Halberd of such brutal proportions it seemed drawn from nightmares itself.
By appearance alone, they were barely past their prime—mere youths.
‘But what is this dense, suffocating killing intent that pours from them?’
Especially from the man.
The woman’s killing intent was vast and terrible, but his was in a different category altogether.
If the woman’s intent was a swamp, the man’s was something like an abyss.
Moo Pyeong himself came from a military background, having faced the ruthless northern tribes.
He had walked countless battlefields, crossed the Line of Death more times than could be counted.
Yet even for him, killing intent this chilling was truly unprecedented.
It was like being watched by some vast, hungry beast that had been starving since ancient times.
Moo Pyeong felt his palms grow slick with sweat.
‘Monsters. Impossible ones at that…’
Then it came.
Muk Yeojin’s cold voice cut through the tense silence with a desolate ring.
“Cut off your own arms and kneel. Then I’ll spare your lives.”
Asking warriors whose very bodies were their livelihood to sever their arms.
It was preposterous.
Yet Moo Pyeong found himself grimly weighing that impossible choice between despair and death.
But the second one’s thinking ran differently.
Whoosh!
The second man’s body erupted forward with terrible speed.
But as he deployed his Agile Footwork, his trajectory didn’t aim at Muk Yeojin or Cheon Hwarin.
Instead, his body hurtled toward the young girl who had been held captive by the third.
The second was sharp-eyed.
He had long since recognized that both figures before him were no ordinary opponents.
There’s an old saying about measuring long and short by comparing them, but if the Blood-Eating Three Evils had lived by such honesty, they would have been registered in the Records of the Dead long ago.
‘These bastards threw themselves into this to save the child.’
Light flashed in the second man’s eyes.
‘Then there’s only one way.’
If he could seize the child now, it would all be settled.
‘Take the child hostage and carve out an escape.’
That was the second man’s judgment.
But regrettably, that choice was the worst of all possible moves.
“No! Stop!”
Moo Pyeong’s shout rang out.
But it was already too late.
A third figure appeared before the second as if conjured by ghostly Divine Movement, blocking his path.
It was Yang Hwi.
Yang Hwi’s eyes had turned cold and hard as ice.
Crack-crack-crack-crack!
The Twin Ring Short Blades in his grip spiraled through the air and flew toward his opponent.
The second man’s eyes widened.
‘This—what—!’
He too hastily drew his Broad Blade upward, intercepting Yang Hwi’s strike.
Clang!
Their blades met.
The recoil transmitted through the short blade seemed far less formidable than he’d anticipated.
For a moment, the second man felt relief wash over him.
‘Good. Just some rank amateur. I’ll cut him down in one breath and be done with it.’
But that relief lasted only an instant.
The next moment, the second man was genuinely terrified.
Yang Hwi’s short blade retracted.
And immediately, another blade drove forward.
Even considering the technique alone, this second strike posed no particular threat.
The problem lay in its speed.
The linked speed of that first strike, the second, the third—it defied all reason.
So swift that the twin blades in his hands left trailing afterimages in their wake.
In the end, it looked as though eight short blades were simultaneously cleaving through empty space.
The singular short-blade technique from the Heavenly Outside Divine Throw method.
The Flying Fang Linked Ring Blade.
Even following it with one’s eyes was impossible before any question of strength arose.
Crack-crack-crack-crack!
Screech! Slash!
“Ahhhhh!”
A span of time so brief that one blink would have missed it entirely.
In that fleeting instant, twenty-eight deep lacerations bloomed across his entire body.
Splash.
Blood erupted like a fountain as the second man’s limbs went limp in an instant.
His Four Limb Meridians had been severed completely.
Thud.
He collapsed to the ground, foaming at the mouth, unable to bear the agony.
Cheon Hwarin, standing to one side, watched the scene with utter indifference.
She shook her head slowly, clicking her tongue.
“For someone called Baekdo to wield such cruelty in his hands—call it what it is: not Divine Throw, but the Reaper’s Touch.”
Yang Hwi clamped his mouth shut.
He was at a loss for words.
He conceded that his short-blade technique carried an intense killing intent.
But for this woman—who had severed a living man’s arm without so much as a blink—to say such a thing was beyond absurd.
‘If she weren’t the daughter of the Demon Lord, I’d just—’
But before the thought could fully form,
Cheon Hwarin’s eyes flashed.
“Something to say?”
A handful of words.
Yet the oppressive weight behind them was utterly lethal.
Yang Hwi’s spine went cold and he started visibly.
“What? Ha, no, nothing. Hahahaha,”
He forced out a laugh and shambled backward several paces.
‘Just—nothing at all.’
If he’d actually lunged at her just then, that towering woman would have likely split him clean in two.
In the end, there was only one thing he could do.
Scratch his head and offer an awkward smile.
That was all.
Muk Yeojin let out a short, quiet laugh.
It seemed foolish, but if anything, it was Yang Hwi’s true talent.
A survival instinct.
It was undoubtedly the reason he’d managed to escape from the cruel machinations of the Woneum Church so many dozens and hundreds of times.
Muk Yeojin then turned his gaze elsewhere.
Now only one remained.
Moo Pyeong.
Two brothers who had walked together for decades had been rendered crippled before his eyes.
No—both of them had already lost far too much blood.
In their current state, even the Great Luo Immortal himself could not save them.
It would have been no surprise if Moo Pyeong had lost his reason and rushed forward, yet this was the choice he made in that moment.
Splurt!
Blood sprayed across the ground.
Thud.
Without hesitation, Moo Pyeong severed his own right upper arm and dropped to his knees.
The way he swiftly pressed down on the vital points to stem the bleeding spoke volumes of his desperate will to live.
Muk Yeojin stared at Moo Pyeong.
“How do you plan to face your brothers in the afterlife?”
Moo Pyeong lifted his head.
His expression carried not a trace of shame.
He answered in a steady voice.
“I don’t believe in such superstitions as the afterlife or hell.”
Muk Yeojin twisted the corner of his mouth in a cold sneer.
“Of course you don’t want to believe.”
His voice dropped low and chilling.
“All the innocent people you’ve slaughtered by your own hands without number—if you truly believed that the crimes you committed in this life would be paid for in hell, I imagine the fear alone would rob you of sleep night after night.”
Moo Pyeong fell silent for a moment, then looked up at Muk Yeojin.
“……Isn’t that equally true of you? A man cannot harbor such killing intent simply from murdering one or two people.”
Surprisingly, Muk Yeojin nodded readily.
“A fair point.”
Muk Yeojin harbored no illusion that he would reach heaven.
In his previous life, he had taken countless lives with his own hands.
And in this life.
He intended to claim far more lives through his own actions.
For such a man to hope for heaven would surely be the height of hypocrisy.
Muk Yeojin smiled brightly.
“So go ahead to the afterlife and wait for me there.”
“……?”
Go first?
In that instant, Moo Pyeong’s eyes widened.
“You coward! You said you’d spare—”
Thump.
Muk Yeojin, who had surged forward with the Thermal Palm Technique, drove his sword through Moo Pyeong’s heart.
He whispered softly, for only Moo Pyeong’s ears to hear.
“I’ll live on, shamefully and basely…… and send every criminal like you to the afterlife before I finally close hell’s gate behind me and step inside.”
Splash!
As Muk Yeojin drew the Black Night Sword, Moo Pyeong began his long journey to the realm of the dead.
Cruelly, it was Moo Pyeong—who had struggled most desperately to survive—who became the first of the Blood-Eating Three Evils to pass into death.
Of course, the other two would soon follow him.
Cheon Hwarin gazed down at Moo Pyeong’s blood-soaked corpse and spoke calmly.
“The despair that comes after giving someone hope of survival…… is hundreds of times, perhaps infinitely more cruel. That one must have fallen into the deepest despair of his entire life in his final moment.”
At those words, Muk Yeojin turned his head and locked eyes with Cheon Hwarin.
“I didn’t know you had such a cruel streak.”
Muk Yeojin shrugged.
“Well, it wasn’t quite such a profound observation on my part.”
Meanwhile, Yang Hwi was trembling in a corner.
‘That brutal demon…… he really is the son of a sect leader.’
Yang Hwi alternated his gaze between the two of them.
Regardless of how this played out, one thing became painfully clear.
Absolutely.
He would never, ever cross these two again.
Then Cheon Hwarin turned her gaze toward the supply cart.
Inside were nearly a dozen children, including the girl they had rescued.
“But if you kill all three of them, how do you plan to learn the cart’s final destination?”
“There’s still one more person to question.”
“One more? ……Ah.”
Now Cheon Hwarin understood as well.
Now that he thought about it, there was a single coachman driving the carriage.
Even through all this chaos, the man hadn’t made so much as a sound—and he was still huddled in the driver’s seat.
He’d been so quiet that even Cheon Hwarin had momentarily forgotten he existed.
Muk Yeojin approached him slowly.
“Listen here—”
The moment he opened his mouth, Muk Yeojin stopped.
The coachman’s throat.
A long, deep laceration was carved across it—unmistakable.
‘They cut his vocal cords.’
Muk Yeojin’s eyes darkened.
It could have been an accident, or there could be another explanation.
But his instinct was speaking clearly.
‘This is the work of the Woneum Church.’
Those bastards would stop at nothing to achieve their ends.
In his past life, he’d seen them do this countless times—abduct common folk, work them, then blind their eyes and sever their vocal cords to keep them silent.
Muk Yeojin’s hands trembled.
‘I won’t grind them fine enough to be satisfied. These wretches will not die easy.’
Muk Yeojin exhaled long and turned his gaze back to the coachman.
The emotion in the man’s eyes was pure, suffocating terror.
This sudden situation would be nothing but fear itself to him.
Muk Yeojin made his voice as gentle as possible and pointed toward Yang Hwi. “Do you see that man over there? He is the firstborn son of the Buk Cheon Yang Family.”
“Do you see that man over there? He is the eldest son of the Buk Cheon Yang Family.”
A Martial Family of Baekdo, counted among the finest in Sadocheon and Junggyeong.
At the mention of the Buk Cheon Yang Family, the coachman’s trembling eased slightly.
Baekdo, Huekdo, Mado.
Different organizations flying different banners, but ultimately they were human collectives.
To martial artists sufficiently steeped in the Jianghu, the three factions held little distinction.
But common folk were different.
To them, the Baekdo Righteous Faction was still Good, while the Heukdo Sect and Mado were Evil.
In a moment like this, talking about Sadocheon or the Cheonma Divine Church would do nothing to help.
Yang Hwi, sensing Muk Yeojin’s intent, stepped forward.
“I am Yang Hwi, eldest son of the Buk Cheon Yang Family. From this moment forward, the safety of you and these children rests upon the honor of our house. Please, take comfort.”
Yang Hwi’s steady voice was more than enough to instill trust in both the coachman and the children.
Only then did the girl who had sparked this whole ordeal burst into tears.
The tension had broken.
“Waaahhh!”
The child suddenly ran toward Cheon Hwarin and threw her arms around her.
From that moment, all the children loaded in the carriage rushed toward Cheon Hwarin in a wave.
“There, there. You’re safe now. Come, let’s go home.”
Cheon Hwarin, unexpectedly, smiled like a celestial being and gently stroked the children’s hair.
Muk Yeojin felt a genuine smile rise within him at the sight.
‘So this side of her existed all along. How strange that I’m only noticing it now.’
Even Yang Hwi looked at her with eyes that wondered if this was truly the woman who’d been so harsh to him.
“I thought you were a demon through and through, but looking at you smile like that… they don’t call you Demon Blossom for nothing.”
At Yang Hwi’s murmur, Muk Yeojin nodded in agreement.
Once the situation had settled somewhat, Yang Hwi carefully asked the coachman a question.
“Where was this carriage heading?”
The coachman did not answer easily.
Hesitation filled his eyes.
He was surely afraid of the villains’ retaliation.
But there was no time to waste.
Muk Yeojin stepped forward quietly.
Then he spoke in a firm voice.
“These children are not the only ones. Countless other children have been taken to that place. To save them, we need your help. Your lives and theirs—we will protect them with certainty. I ask you to lend us your strength.”
A moment of silence hung in the air.
Then resolve flickered into the coachman’s wavering eyes.
It was not concern for his own safety that moved him, but Muk Yeojin’s unwavering determination to save the children.
He raised his hand and began to trace something in the empty air.
……
Sign language.
A flash of recognition crossed Muk Yeojin’s eyes.
‘Sign language.’
He didn’t know how to read it himself.
But fortunately, it seemed Yang Hwi possessed some knowledge of it.
Truly, the man proved useful in all manner of ways.
He quickly began to decipher the signs.
“So, so the destination of this carriage is… Baek—!”
In that instant, Yang Hwi’s expression shifted noticeably.
The next moment, Yang Hwi turned to Muk Yeojin and spoke softly.
“It’s the… Baek Yu-ui Family…….”
The Baek Yu-ui Family.
The fifth branch of the Lord of Sadocheon himself.
Muk Geon’s maternal family.

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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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