Return of the God of War - Chapter 84

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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 84. Was That the Best Choice?
Muk Yeojin poured all his concentration into managing his internal injuries through ordinary circulation of qi.
To endure the potency of the Geumhwan Saedok-dan, at least minimal recovery was necessary.
Half a day passed in this manner.
Though far from perfect, he had managed to restore his body to a workable state.
There was no time to delay further.
“Exhale.”
Muk Yeojin carefully withdrew the Geumhwan-dan from his neck pouch.
The Geumhwan-dan was actually smaller than ordinary medicinal pills.
Without hesitation, he pushed the Geumhwan Saedok-dan into his mouth.
The moment it touched his tongue, the dissolving pill’s qi began to surge violently through his body.
‘Ugh.’
The first sensation to reach Muk Yeojin was pain.
The Geumhwan Saedok-dan was both poison and panacea.
The Geumhwan-dan’s qi circulating through his interior faithfully fulfilled its role as poison first.
In an instant, cold sweat poured from every pore of his body.
‘What terrifying toxicity.’
Across both his past and present lives, he had encountered various poisons and toxic plants, but never one this lethal.
Oooooom.
The Lotus Wheel, sensing the toxic qi within his body, immediately began Purification.
Hisssss.
The dark spots covering the surface of the Lotus Wheel expanded at frightening speed.
Muk Yeojin felt a flicker of unease.
What if the toxicity exceeded the Lotus Wheel’s detoxification capacity?
But fortunately.
His other steadfast ally, the Lotus Wheel, stubbornly overcame the Geumhwan Saedok-dan’s vicious poison.
It had neutralized all the toxic qi.
Whoosh.
The Lotus Wheel, its dark spots nearly covering half its surface.
‘You’ve been through so much.’
So that his efforts would not fade unrecognized.
Muk Yeojin gathered all his consciousness and drew upon his Mental Power.
Soon, the tremendous medicinal qi of the Geumhwan Saedok-dan, hidden behind the vicious poison, began to reveal its full majesty.
He immediately recited the secret formulas of the Changgung Daeyeon Jingyeol, storing the medicinal qi in his Danjeon.
Indeed, the Geumhwan Saedok-dan.
Its efficacy was extraordinary enough to earn the title of supreme panacea across the ages.
To what extent, one might ask?
He had merely gathered one mass of the medicinal qi circulating through his body and pushed it into his Danjeon.
Yet with just that.
His Cangqiong Qi, which had been at Tenth Star Great Completion, leaped instantly to Twelfth Star Extreme Completion.
He could easily convert the remaining medicinal qi into Cangqiong Qi to further increase his internal force.
But Muk Yeojin found himself troubled in this moment.
‘Was that truly the best course?’
A task that Muk Yeojin had harbored recently.
It was the transformation of his Heart Method.
Changgung Daeyeon Jingyeol.
It was undoubtedly a supreme Heart Method without peer in all the realm.
But as his mother had once said.
Being a Heart Method that upheld Moderation and the Middle Path.
While it could establish a solid foundation.
It fell somewhat short of building a towering spire.
Muk Yeojin could sense it instinctively.
Just now.
Upon achieving Twelfth Star Cangqiong Qi, all the foundations that could be laid had been established.
Then wasn’t this the moment to seek transformation?
Not merely some ordinary strong one.
To become an Absolute Sovereign as he had declared.
Wasn’t this the moment to begin stacking stone upon stone to reach that distant, towering sky?
Upon calm deliberation, it was a question without room for doubt.
‘I will transform.’
Laying a foundation and building a tower are two different endeavors entirely—different techniques, different tools.
The moment he resolved.
Muk Yeojin ceased reciting the Heart Method incantations of Cangqiong Qi and began intoning another instead.
A Heart Method he had created himself before his return.
Jeokgon-gi.
He had abandoned it in this life on account of its dense killing intent and numerous scattered flaws.
In favor of studying the Cangqiong Qi instead.
He did not regret that choice.
By the standard of martial completion alone, Cangqiong was an incomparably superior Heart Method—there was no question of comparison.
And yet.
‘What suits me better is not Cangqiong, but Jeokgon.’
He had come to understand this only recently.
Muk Yeojin knew himself well.
‘I am neither a Daoist sage nor an immortal.’
When necessity demanded it, he could be cruel and selfish without hesitation.
One who would choose the Tyrant Path without reservation the instant circumstances demanded it.
‘That is who I am.’
Against such a nature, the Cangqiong Qi was far too gentle.
But he had no intention now of erasing Cangqiong entirely and replacing it with Jeokgon-gi.
‘That would merely return me to who I was before the return.’
This life’s Muk Yeojin had to ascend to heights his former self had never reached.
To achieve that, he would need to forge a new path—not one laid out by another.
And so his resolution was this.
‘To achieve unity.’
Adding the stability of Cangqiong to Jeokgon.
Filling Cangqiong with the ferocity of Jeokgon.
Fusing two Heart Methods of wholly different origins and natures.
Even a dullard with but the barest inkling of martial study would recoil at the absurdity of such a thing.
‘But it must be done.’
If he could not overcome trials of this magnitude, how could he possibly surmount the hellish tribulations that awaited him ahead?
Now, having encountered this opportunity in the form of the Geumhwan Saedok-dan, there was no telling when—if ever—he would have another chance.
‘When opportunity arrives, one must seize it.’
Whooooooosh.
At Muk Yeojin’s call, the Jeokgon-gi that had slumbered for so long opened its eyes.
‘It has been long, you bastard.’
The awakened Jeokgon-gi faltered in confusion.
It found itself staring not at the blood-red sky it had always known, but at a vast expanse of bright azure.
But that shock was short-lived.
Shrieeeeek!
The red Qi of Jeokgon-gi began to smother the blue sky.
Yet the Cangqiong Qi had no intention of yielding either.
For the Cangqiong Qi at the Twelfth Star Extreme Completion outmatched the Jeokgon-gi by a vast margin.
Boom-crash-crash-crash!
Soon the blue and red Qi intertwined, locked in a violent struggle to devour one another.
Cold sweat poured from every pore of Muk Yeojin’s body like rain.
Each collision of the two Qi brought a pain so intense that his insides churned and he nearly lost consciousness.
Muk Yeojin gritted his teeth.
‘What in the hell are these bastards trying to do—kill their master?’
Muk Yeojin seized the power of the Geumhwan Saedok-dan that spiraled through his interior and plunged into the fray.
The moment a third will intervened, both Cangqiong and Jeokgon-gi faltered.
Yet remarkably.
In the next instant, Muk Yeojin faced an entirely unexpected turn.
Does the saying not go: the enemy of my enemy is my ally?
The Jeokgon-gi and Cangqiong, having watched and waited, now joined forces—pushing back the golden Qi of the Geumhwan Saedok-dan rather than yielding to it.
Veins stood out starkly across Muk Yeojin’s brow.
‘Have these insolent wretches lost their minds?’
At once he snarled, rolling up both sleeves.
‘Bite the hand that feeds you? Fine—today I’ll teach you some discipline.’
Crash-boom-crash-crash-crash!
With ferocious momentum, three distinct Qi collided like a raging cyclone.
A chaotic melee of Three Qi, tangled and twisted like a mud-pit brawl.
Luminous currents swept across Muk Yeojin’s entire frame, striking and being struck in endless succession.
If these wretched forces even brushed against a Death Point, he might plunge straight into Qi Deviation.
‘That’s the one way I cannot go!’
Muk Yeojin fought with all his might to keep the currents from straying down that forbidden path, wielding nothing but the most minimal control.
Whoooooosh!
Perhaps the forces recognized his desperate effort.
Remarkably, even as they clawed at one another, the currents flowed along the intact Main Meridian.
Within the chaos, a new order was taking shape.
Soon the energies spiraled through the Conception and Governing Vessels, converged back into the Danjeon, and completed One Complete Cycle.
And so a wonder began to unfold within Muk Yeojin.
Whoosh.
Before he even knew it.
His body lifted into the void.
Whoooooosh.
With each revolution of Qi around his frame, wounds in flesh healed over, and contusions and lacerations scattered across his body vanished as though washed away.
Crack-crack-crack.
Bones twisted back into alignment.
His body transformed into a perfect vessel, now capable of holding only martial prowess alone.
By a method no one in all the martial world had ever attempted, he now reached toward a new Gyeongji.
In that instant, Muk Yeojin’s face—contorted by agony—became utterly serene.
The true master.
The three currents, having accepted their new sovereign, fell silent as well.
Whiiiiing.
Soon the Qi moved at Muk Yeojin’s will.
The blue Cangqiong.
The crimson Jeokgon-gi.
The golden Geumhwan-dan.
Each distinct force began quietly to embrace the others, fusing as one.
They intertwined and permeated, each filling the voids of the others.
And finally.
Zing!
The three forces merged entirely into a single hue.
Where three colors converged, a new murky grey light was born.
The Ink-colored Qi, newly born from the fusion of the Three Origins.
Flash.
As Muk Yeojin’s eyes opened at last, his pupils shimmered with a power as vast as the ocean itself.
A peerless Heart Method to gaze upon all Cheonha from beneath his feet.
The birth of the Muk Cheon Hyeon Won Gong.
* * *
Muk Yeojin’s eyes opened.
Softly.
His suspended body descended gradually through the air.
“The Choguk Realm……?!”
A voice laden with astonishment came from beside him.
As Muk Yeojin turned his head, there stood Cheon Hwarin.
Her eyes held disbelief as she spoke again.
“You’ve just now ascended to the Choguk Gyeongji?”
Muk Yeojin, who had been observing his own body for a moment, shook his head.
“I’m afraid I fall short by about one step.”
Moments ago, Muk Yeojin had climbed at least five stages at once.
Somewhere between those five stages.
The Wuji Realm Gyeongji.
The Wuji Realm exists.
To claim he had reached the Choguk would be to overstate his progress.
And so the Gyeongji upon which Muk Yeojin now stood was the Wuji Realm.
‘But.’
Muk Yeojin was certain of one thing.
It was merely a matter of time to bridge that final gap.
‘No more than half a year, even if it takes that long.’
Within it, he had attained a complete state of the Choguk Realm.
‘I can reach that peak—the one I touched in my past life.’
Even he hadn’t imagined achieving such growth in a single leap.
Meanwhile, Cheon Hwarin felt utterly deflated.
A single step short meant nearly there—which was almost the same as having arrived.
‘The Choguk Realm, no less.’
She had always believed herself to lag behind Muk Yeojin by a measure.
When she entered the Extreme Demon stage, she’d thought herself finally ahead.
But this madman had suddenly sprinted off toward a horizon so distant she could barely see it.
She could see it, yes. But it was so far away.
So far that he appeared no larger than a grain of millet.
‘And yet…….’
Why was that?
When the man she had acknowledged achieved such heights, she found the feeling strangely pleasant.
What emotion this was, even she couldn’t easily name.
Still, envy and jealousy didn’t simply vanish in a single breath.
Cheon Hwarin’s brow darkened, and she spoke.
“Give it back. My elixir.”
Muk Yeojin chuckled softly.
“I’ll return it with something far better later.”
“Like hell you will.”
Cheon Hwarin clicked her tongue and turned away.
* * *
Four days had passed since Yang Hui’s departure.
In temporal measure, some twenty-six Double Hours had elapsed.
Muk Yeojin, seated in the great hall, shook his head.
He hadn’t expected this visitor to arrive before the dawn sun even showed its face.
“This man seems to need no sleep at all.”
“That’s how it is when you grow old—sleep becomes a luxury you can’t afford.”
Cheon Hwarin replied evenly, her hand resting on the armrest of the stone seat.
Both their gazes turned toward the figure that had appeared.
A man of dignified bearing, white-haired and white-robed, in his middle years.
Na Pyeonggi, the White-Headed Patriarch of Heaven’s Twelve Seats, had revealed himself.

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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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