Return of the God of War - Chapter 81

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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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Chapter 81. Can I be satisfied with that?
Whoooosh!
Mere saplings, unable to withstand the wind pressure, were ripped from their roots and hurled into the air.
The sight of towering trees over thirty feet high floating through empty space was utterly surreal.
But that was merely the beginning.
Bang!
Each time a volley of crimson-hued Violent Sword Qi collided with the black blade wrapped in shadow, the earth inverted and the sky wailed.
The terrain itself threatened to transform from the shockwaves alone—how could any human body, much less one bearing them head-on, possibly endure such force?
An ordinary person’s bones would have shattered, pulverized to dust and scattered on the wind.
Yet here stood a swordsman absorbing that terrible power single-handedly.
Bang!
Crash!
His black silk Jangpo was already torn to tatters, little more than rags, but Muk Yeojin’s gaze remained unwavering, fixed straight ahead.
He even took another step forward.
Screeeeeech!
Did he understand that the sword qi being unleashed was kindled by his own life force itself?
The screaming sound of the Violent Sword Qi tearing through the air was so horrific it evoked the legend of the Bone-Scraping Song.
Bang!
“Ugh…!”
A rivulet of blood traced down from the corner of his mouth.
There was no strength left to wipe it away with his sleeve.
A dozen more streaks of sword qi erupted toward him simultaneously, as if to shred his entire body.
Bang!
A shock that seemed to shake his five organs and six bowels.
Withstanding the sword force of Demonic Swordsmen steeped in Violent power could not be described merely as “difficult.”
But the real problem lay elsewhere.
Baek Yupae, who had drawn close in an instant, reached out his hand.
The forearm that had been severed away.
In its place, a new arm formed of ice surged forth.
It was a crystalline manifestation of frigid air, shaped and hardened by his overwhelming internal power.
Wheeeeeee!
A bitterly cold yin force arrived, comparable to the harsh winter of the Northern Sea.
He planted both legs firmly and countered the freezing power with the Great Wall’s technique.
Kwooooooom!
A thunderous roar unlike any before erupted.
“Gack!”
Though he endured with his life on the line, Muk Yeojin was forced to retreat five paces.
In that brief opening.
Two of the Demonic Swordsmen broke through his defense line and charged forward.
Muk Yeojin did not turn his eyes.
‘They will hold the line.’
He tore a shred from his ragged Jangpo and bound his wrist and sword hilt tightly.
‘Those creatures—Yang Hui will stop them.’
So he would focus only on the enemy directly before him.
Closing the distance, he unleashed the Thousand Lock Single Flash in rapid succession.
Five streaks of sword qi bisected the bodies of the Demonic Swordsmen.
But they had already transcended the category of human.
Even as their lower halves fell away, the remaining torsos wrung out their remaining life force and expelled sword qi.
Kwooooom!
Blood surged up from deep within him.
Muk Yeojin gritted his teeth.
‘Half a quarter-hour…’
It might take far longer than he’d imagined.
Yet Muk Yeojin did not retreat.
If he could only endure this treacherous battlefield, as always.
He believed that she would lower the rope of hope from the far end of heaven.
With nothing but that faith, Muk Yeojin threw himself once more into the torrent of power bearing down like an avalanche from the Great Snow Mountain.
* * *
The brow of Yeo Mujul, who had maintained composure throughout, creased for the first time.
His gaze turned forward.
The effects of the Violent Elixir were nothing short of extraordinary.
A single Demonic Swordsman of negligible note was radiating a force capable of slaughtering even masters at their peak.
There was no need to elaborate further on how grotesque that power had become.
And yet.
“……Hmm.”
Dozens of martial artists, engulfed in that violent surge, threw themselves at him—only to fail to break through a single man.
A swordsman who couldn’t have been more than in his twenties, at that.
Yeo Mujul’s eyes narrowed.
‘A true monster.’
He was living proof of what could rightly be called a One-Man Great Wall.
Even Yeo Mujul found himself compelled to admiration despite himself.
‘But that doesn’t mean victory is swinging his way.’
He was simply holding on with stubborn tenacity.
The momentum belonged entirely to their side.
It was praiseworthy that his spirit hadn’t broken, but the limit was evident nonetheless.
Then what was the purpose?
What was he defending so fiercely?
That was when it happened.
Another figure entered Yeo Mujul’s field of vision.
Cheon Hwarin.
There, in the midst of battle, she sat at ease in a cross-legged position, drawing up her Cultivation.
Yeo Mujul’s eyes hardened.
‘Cultivation now? Has she lost her mind?’
Even if that swordsman was barely holding on through technique bordering on the miraculous, half a moment was his absolute limit.
To think he could overturn this hopeless battlefield through Cultivation in such a narrow window was fantasy that defied all reason.
‘But…….’
Now that his carefully laid plans had crumbled to nothing in their hands.
An ominous premonition coiled in the shadows of his mind, sending a chill down his spine.
‘I would have preferred to dissect her alive, but there’s no helping it.’
There was no reason to tolerate a variable.
He moved at once.
Whisper.
He swept to the left in a wide arc, his footwork concealed and fluid.
Muk Yeojin had no time to breathe—pressed on all sides by Demonic Swordsmen and Baek Yupae’s relentless onslaught.
Yang Hui was in the same predicament.
He was desperately trying to intercept the Demonic Swordsmen that kept pouring through.
In other words, neither of them had the attention to spare for Yeo Mujul’s movements.
Cheon Hwarin was utterly defenseless.
This was different from the charade they’d staged in the Azure Sea cave to deceive Muk Yeojin.
At this moment, an ordinary commoner wielding a blade could sever her life thread.
“This—damn it!”
Yang Hui caught on too late; Yeo Mujul was already upon Cheon Hwarin.
In the next instant, he hurled his dagger forward with a lethal smile.
Squelch!
“Ugh!”
A strangled gasp tore free.
The dagger’s blade sank three inches deep into the abdomen.
But something was wrong.
Cheon Hwarin, who should have collapsed and bled out, remained focused on her Cultivation as though nothing had happened.
Instead, blood was being shed by someone else entirely.
“You wretch!”
It was Yeo Cheong.
Yeo Mujul ground his teeth.
“Yeo Cheong! Gah!”
Yang Hui desperately tried to break free, but the triple assault of the Demonic Swordsmen pinned him in place.
And.
Muk Yeojin wrung out his last reserves of stamina and power, barely deflecting the ceaseless storm of attacks.
Fighting dozens of Demonic Swordsmen and Baek Yupae, Muk Yeojin couldn’t even spare a glance at what was happening behind him.
Yeo Cheong’s small hand gripped the dagger buried deep in her abdomen.
Bright crimson blood seeped between her fingers.
“Gasp… gasp…!”
Her breathing came in ragged, desperate bursts, her shoulders heaving with each strangled exhalation.
Her face had turned ashen, her eyes growing dimmer by the moment.
Yet still she did not fall.
The corner of Yeo Mujul’s mouth twisted upward.
“Good. Beloved sister, let me send you first.”
As he began to conjure the Black Death Claw in his palm—
An unexpected expression bloomed across Yeo Cheong’s face.
Her eyes were clearly swimming in agony, yet her lips curled into a smile.
“Ugh… brother. This round… I believe I’ve won.”
Yeo Mujul’s brow twitched.
“What?”
That was the moment.
Woom!
Space itself resounded.
In that same instant, the very air grew heavy.
Even the breath drawn into the lungs tasted foul and thick, a strangling pressure that seized the entire body.
Yeo Mujul’s frame locked rigid.
And then he saw it.
A Bizarre Strength Divine Spirit, radiating crimson power, finally opening its eyes.
‘…What in heaven is that?’
Yeo Mujul, grasping the situation in an instant, let out a bitter laugh and turned his gaze upon his sister.
“You wretched woman…”
Those were the last words Yeo Mujul would ever speak in this life.
Crash!
“Gahhh!”
The titan’s overwhelming force struck his torso with direct, devastating impact.
Bang!
His body hurled upward, flying dozens of paces before slamming into a stone wall.
His skull burst apart like an overripe melon.
A past life.
The sordid, pitiful end of one who had aided in the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people.
* * *
‘What… was I even doing?’
Muk Yeojin’s condition had long since crossed the threshold into the abnormal.
His body had already exceeded its limits, and his cultivation energy had dried up long ago.
What barely kept him standing now was willpower alone.
But even that willpower was beginning to flicker toward its end.
With each breath, he felt he was drawing in sand rather than air, and a darkness like spilled ink kept creeping across his vision.
His consciousness flickered—snapping off and on again in irregular intervals.
Bang!
The reflexive deflection of incoming sword force jolted his fading awareness back to sharp clarity.
‘…Yes. I am fighting.’
As consciousness returned, so too did sensation.
And at the same time.
Muk Yeojin understood.
Death was already at his doorstep.
‘Was it a mistake to rush headlong into Baek Yu Estate without preparation?’
Perhaps it was.
Even now, when he had not yet refined the Mudao to a degree with which he himself could be satisfied.
That decision to confront the Yuan Yin Cult directly may have been a fatal miscalculation.
Had he waited with greater caution, biding his time, this situation would never have arisen.
Of course, countless innocent lives would have been lost in the interim…
But was that not an unavoidable sacrifice?
If he were to name it, Muk Yeojin harbored a grand ambition that transcended mere Central Realm Protection—nothing less than Heavenly Protection itself.
In pursuit of that aim, the loss of hundreds or thousands of common folk was but a speck of dust, too trivial to matter.
To sacrifice the small for the greater good—was this not something practiced across all times and lands?
And yet.
At the very moment he held such thoughts, Muk Yeojin found himself laughing bitterly within.
‘…Could I truly accept that?’
Sacrifice, and sacrifice again.
Abandon the small things, close your eyes, turn away……
Could a victory won that way truly be called victory?
Was it the banner I would choose—I who reversed time itself to return for revenge?
Could I truly—
could I truly face my past self,
Meng Ak,
Zhang Ping,
Baek Yeomin,
and claim victory before them all?
Could I say so with pride?
‘Not a chance.’
Even if everyone else understood.
She would not.
She would never, ever forgive it.
Because of that—
even if I could go back to before setting foot in Baek Yu Estate, before learning who stood behind the Violent Elixir,
Muk Yeojin would make the same choice now.
And—
in the end, it was the right one.
Clang.
The Black Night Sword slipped from Muk Yeojin’s grip.
Not from weakness.
He had released it himself.
There was no reason to hold a sword anymore.
The moment his mind cleared, it was already over.
Through blurred vision, she stood before him.
The woman who had reduced Baek Yupae and his Demonic Swordsmen to dust with a single move.
The title that martial artists of Jeongdo would one day invoke with reverence.
Crimson Blood Heavenly Empress.
She had taken one step further still.
Cheon Hwarin, now standing at the threshold of the Extreme Demon Realm, emanated a chilling aura of demonic power as she faced him.

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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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