Ten Paths of the Master - Chapter 39

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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 39. Fear and Fury
When the disciple hesitated, Myo Jin of the White Snake Eight Kings felt a surge of rage.
‘Worse than a dog, this one.’
Perhaps it was made worse by the pride the old master had shown.
“This won’t do. You should just die.”
The moment Myo Jin raised his hand, a woman with silver ornaments in her hair rose abruptly from among the watching White Snake Seven Kings.
“Wait!”
The woman halted Myo Jin, the leader of the Baeksa Eight Kings, in his tracks.
Remarkably, Myo Jin withdrew without a trace of displeasure at her interruption.
The woman with silver ornaments in her hair—Myo Hwa of the Poison Sect—stepped forward with a knowing smile.
Against the swaying dark indigo robes of the Miao clan, adorned with silver jewelry, her seductive form was immediately apparent.
Her long black hair was loosely bound with a single silver thread, shimmering with vitality at every movement.
The lithe grace of her sensual figure, each step carefully placed, held an almost hypnotic allure.
Standing before the beautiful youth, Myo Hwa spoke.
“I’m Myo Hwa. What’s your name?”
“…Dan Yeop.”
“What a fitting name you have. Listen well to what I’m about to say. I’m offering you a chance. Swear that you will serve me all your life, and kiss my feet. Then you’ll live. I’ll even give your master over there an antidote. What do you say? A good offer, isn’t it? Oh, of course, from now on you’ll have to live with me, your master—I mean, your owner.”
Dan Yeop stared at the woman with bewildered eyes.
The man said he would kill him, and the woman said he should become her servant.
“If you refuse?”
In an instant, frost descended over Myo Hwa’s smiling face.
“You die. So, what will it be?”
“I refuse.”
“Then die.”
With those words, Myo Hwa descended upon Dan Yeop like a thunderbolt.
Her hooked fingers reached for his throat.
Dan Yeop deflected her hand with Gi Mun’s Falling Flower Mountain Water.
Crack! Crack! Crack—!
Though the destructive power was diminished by the gentle nature of the technique, it was sufficient to block Myo Hwa’s assault.
Seeing the delicate Dan Yeop ward off her attack, Myo Hwa’s face twisted with malice.
“Die!”
With a shout, both her hands shot forward like lightning.
It was the White Snake Venom Exhalation, the signature technique of Myo Hwa of the Poison Sect.
Dan Yeop parried one hand with improvisation.
But the other hand slipped past deftly toward his jaw.
Dan Yeop’s eyes widened in horror at the sight of Myo Hwa’s “white hand.”
For an instant, time seemed to stop.
Before the terror of the latent “white hand,” Dan Yeop’s thoughts froze.
As Dan Yeop stiffened like a statue, Myo Hwa seized the opportunity and locked her grip around his throat.
Then she cried out triumphantly.
“I told you I’d kill you!”
“Gah!”
As his windpipe constricted, Dan Yeop barely recovered his senses.
What wrong had he committed?
Did his mother want him dead, and the woman from Baeksa Valley as well?
He didn’t understand.
Now that he thought of it, Captain Baek Jin-gang had also apologized for no fault of his own.
Suddenly, his final conversation with Dan Bul Wi surfaced in his mind.
—…I told you. If you want to live, what must you do?
—Kill, sir……
—Yes, that’s the kind of world it is……
That’s the kind of world it is!
Dan Bul Wi’s voice thundered in his ears like a tempest.
‘That’s right. That’s what the world was….’
From his lower belly, resentment surged like molten lava.
“Gaaaaah!”
As he screamed with veins bursting in his neck, Myo Hwa’s fingers were suddenly knocked away.
“Hah!”
With a sharp exhalation, Dan Yeop drove his fist forward.
Heaven Heavy Earth Momentum, the First Form of the Tian Zhong Fist.
Bang!
With a sound like a drum beaten taut, Myo Hwa flew backward in a tumble.
Crashing down alongside the table, she couldn’t get up.
The moment Jeon Ho saw it, he came rushing at Dan Yeop like a man possessed.
The Curved Blade bore down on Dan Yeop relentlessly, not giving him a moment to breathe.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sparks erupted between Dan Yeop and Jeon Ho.
But that wasn’t all.
With a sharp burst, crimson smoke enveloped Dan Yeop.
Myo Jin had moved his hand at some point.
Even facing certain death, Dan Yeop held his ground with grim determination.
Rage churning inside him, he had surrendered to fury.
He had become, quite literally, a berserker.
Because he had lived his whole life suppressing himself, his rebound was fiercer than any typhoon.
As Dan Yeop proved harder to finish than expected, the other masters began hurling Flying Blades at him.
Ju Ru had become a battleground between the Baeksa Eight Kings and Dan Yeop.
As time wore on, Dan Yeop found himself pushed into an ever-tighter corner.
There were limits to how long one could hold one’s breath and fight in Toxic Smoke.
For someone with so little real combat experience, the fact that he’d lasted this long was a miracle.
‘If I hold on much longer, I’ll die.’
The moment that thought struck him, Dan Yeop mobilized his Internal Energy.
In an instant, a luminous thread spiraled upward and was sucked into the sky.
Flash!
For one moment, Dan Yeop’s eyes transformed.
“Breath!”
Dan Yeop’s face twisted as he suddenly inhaled the breath he’d been holding.
‘Is it poison?’
The moment he breathed, his lungs ignited as if on fire—hot and raw with pain.
He drove the toxic Qi to one side using Tai Yi Qi.
From all directions, Curved Blades and Flying Blades came screaming at him without pause.
Clang! Clang! Ting! Clang! Chime!
He batted the Curved Blades and Flying Blades away diligently, reading the terrain around him.
Seeing Dan Bul Wi collapsed, his heart twisted.
‘Tsk! Old man, you should’ve been more careful with yourself. What glory could Ha O Mun possibly hope to gain from this?’
Seeing no enforcers from the Inspection Bureau around, it seemed he’d wandered out alone.
Having assessed the situation, Dan Yeop stepped back and drew the Horizontal Saber horizontally before him in a wide arc.
It was the Jin Tian Di Saber Method Third Form—Horizontal Sweep Mountain Cut.
True to its grand name of “sweeping horizontally to sever the mountain,” the Saber Energy unfurled in a half-moon shape, slicing through the Curved Blades with clean, ringing strikes.
Clang-crash. Thud. Clang-boom.
The masters from Baeksa Valley, disarmed in a single stroke, stumbled backward in alarm.
A gasp escaped Myo Jin’s lips.
“Hm! Saber Energy?”
His face hardened into stone.
Of course, this wasn’t his first time seeing Saber Energy.
There were several martial artists in Nam Un City’s jianghu who wielded it.
But every Saber Energy he’d seen before extended barely a foot or so.
Even that much was enough to rank among the top handful in Nam Un City.
Yet the half-moon Saber Energy just now had to be at least ten feet across.
True, he counted among the top ten in Nam Un City—but only when it came to the Poison Technique.
And now he was facing an opponent against whom even poison barely worked?
And fighting someone of such caliber at that?
This would not do.
He quickly changed his stance.
“Wait! Friend! We agreed to discourage fighting and pursue negotiation. Let us end this clash here and speak as men. Your master may be poisoned, but my younger brother lies gravely wounded too.”
Dan Yeop answered in a flat tone.
“Show your sincerity first. If I like what I see, then I’ll hear you out.”
“I offer you an Antidote.”
Myo Jin drew a small vial from his robe, about the span of a hand.
“It will cure the poisoning of both your friend and you.”
Dan Yeop extended the Horizontal Saber, and Myo Jin placed the Jade Vial on the flat of the blade.
Dan Yeop retrieved the Horizontal Saber and immediately had Dan Bul Wi drink the contents of the Jade Vial.
With a groan, Dan Bul Wi’s eyes opened.
Only then did Dan Yeop’s rigid expression soften.
“Master, you’ll catch a chill sleeping on cold stone.”
“Which Dan Yeop are you?”
“The sluggish one, sir.”
“Ha, I thought as much.”
It wasn’t that he doubted the sluggish Dan Yeop—rather, their martial prowess had grown too similar to dismiss the achievement outright.
Before mastering the Jin San Da Saber Method, Dan Yeop had held the advantage; now they’d returned to an even match.
How could the sluggish Dan Yeop have possibly subdued the opponent he himself had faced?
Dan Yeop confirmed Dan Bul Wi’s recovery and drank the antidote himself.
Moments later, the three of them—Dan Bul Wi, Dan Yeop, and Myo Jin—sat facing one another.
Dan Bul Wi spoke first.
“Tell me whether Seol Gyeong Moon lives.”
“He lives, sir.”
Myo Jin dared not speak to Dan Bul Wi with disrespect.
Not only was Dan Bul Wi more than a decade his senior, but more importantly, he was Dan Yeop’s master.
“Where is he?”
“He is in Baeksa Valley. I will send him back to Mong Taek this evening.”
“What is the meaning of this?”
“That is…….”
The matter was larger in scope than expected.
Hwa Ryeong Valley held dominion over Hwa Ryeong Province and had long managed the Baekjoo Nubang.
But recently, the Cheong Ran Mun—a major faction from Nam Un City—had moved into Hwa Ryeong Province.
It was the Cheong Ran Mun that had commissioned those in Baeksa Valley to kidnap the Tae Hwa Merchant Group.
“They ordered the Baekjoo Nubang and the Tae Hwa Merchant Group to be coerced into severing ties with Hwa Ryeong Valley. Then the Cheong Ran Mun planned to step in as their representative.”
“What were they planning to do with the abducted merchants?”
“Once the matter was concluded, they intended to dispose of them then.”
“Murder and extermination, in other words.”
“Those in Jang An City may find it hard to understand, but in Baek Wol Kingdom, most conduct business this way. In this world, such things are simply…….”
Myo Jin hesitated, gauging the expressions of Dan Bul Wi and Dan Yeop.
Yet Dan Bul Wi, belonging to the A Mun, showed no sign of reproach.
The A Mun’s methods of operation differed little from those of Baeksa Valley.
There was good reason the A Mun earned the label of Heterodox Sect.
Dan Bul Wi and Dan Yeop took the antidote from the investigation team and left Ju Ru.
***
Ninth hour of the evening.
Mong Taek.
Myo Jin kept his word.
Seol Gyeong Moon and his party, vanished without trace two months prior, had returned to the residence.
The inner chambers.
Three figures sat facing one another in a room lit by oil lamps.
Seol Gyeong Moon of the Tae Hwa Merchant Group, Dan Bul Wi, and Dan Yeop.
“I’m grateful. Without you, I’d surely be dead by now.”
At Seol Gyeong Moon’s words, Dan Bul Wi laughed and replied.
“Don’t mention it.”
“I mean it. The guest house at Go San Jang is yours from now on.”
“But how much longer do you intend to help the Merchant Group? For Yeon Hui’s sake, wouldn’t it be better to settle down now?”
“I’ve learned that lesson painfully this time. When I thought of dying and leaving only Yeon Hui behind, I felt such regret. I’ve decided I’ll have nothing more to do with the Merchant Group’s affairs. Once the proprietor hears of what happened, he won’t trouble me again. But you’ve taken a disciple, haven’t you?”
“I’m blessed with an exceptional one.”
Seol Gyeong Moon examined Dan Yeop from head to toe, thoughtfully.
“Young Dan, how old are you this year?”
“Eighteen, sir.”
“Excellent, excellent. A perfect match for our Yeon Hui.”
Then Dan Bul Wi interjected.
“Perfect match nothing. From what I’ve seen, they’re like brother and sister. And this one here—he’s cultivating the Dong Zi Gong.”
“Dong Zi Gong? Does the Ha O Mun possess such a technique?”
“Of course not. But this fellow insists he must maintain his purity. He must have seen something strange somewhere.”
Dan Bul Wi had never spoken of it aloud, but he’d come to believe that Dan Yeop had read about Dong Zi Gong in the Byeong Ma Chong’s Western Library.
For it made no sense that a youth in his prime, with that face, would maintain his purity otherwise.
“Tsk! So that’s how it came to be. Forget what I said, Dan Yeop. And you’re welcome to use the annex whenever you please. In fact, there’s no reason you couldn’t move in there permanently.”
“I couldn’t, sir. There’s a risk that factional disputes might bring trouble to Seol Gyeong Moon. It’s better for me to remain apart, for everyone’s sake.”
If a member of Ha O Mun took up residence at Go San Jang, it would raise questions among the locals.
Moreover, if Ha O Mun’s enemies caught wind of it, Go San Jang could be razed to the ground in an instant.
Maintaining a measured distance and infrequent visits served them both far better.
“I understand your meaning. Still, you’ve saved my life — you’re my benefactor. If ever you need anything, tell me. I’ll empty my entire fortune to help you.”
“Your words alone are more than enough. Please, share what you’ve both been meaning to discuss. I’ll retire now and rest.”
Dan Yeop performed a formal bow to Dan Bul Wi and Seol Gyeong Moon, then withdrew quietly.

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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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