The Fortunate Sword God of the Zhuge Clan - Chapter 1

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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 1.
Three thousand, six hundred and forty-nine days since the war began.
And another ten years and two hours had passed.
Just one year and two hours remained until it would be a full decade.
“Heh… when I think of it that way… cough!”
It truly had been long.
The old man who spat black blood smiled bitterly.
Fifty-eight years old.
Not a young age, certainly.
Yet the old man’s appearance suggested he was far older still.
Time had always been unkind to Jekal Muhun.
“Military Strategist, are you well? This is grave. Are we not yet at our destination?”
The young man following behind Muhun steadied him with a worried expression.
“Hah… I’m fine. If I close my eyes here, I fear I won’t even rest easy in death.”
At Muhun’s joke, the young man let out a soft laugh.
“Indeed, if you were to stumble here, even the lions wouldn’t find your ghost.”
The young man gazed down the path they had climbed and let out a small exclamation of wonder.
“I’ve always wondered why Huashan Mountain became the holy site of Daoism rather than this highest peak. Perhaps it’s simply because no one could ever reach it.”
That much was certain.
Taebek Mountain, the tallest peak in the Qinling Mountain Range that lay in Shaanxi.
Living up to its renown, the sheer cliffs of thousands of feet were perilous to anyone, whether old like Muhun or not.
“Though such thoughts may occur, it would be troublesome if the Alliance Leader were to voice them.”
“I was the Alliance Leader—what of it? It’s the current one who needs to be careful.”
The former Murim Alliance Leader, Namgung Seoryong, laughed good-naturedly.
Despite being three years older than Muhun, Seoryong’s appearance, having reached the stage of Huanggu Tuotai, seemed scarcely past thirty.
Because of his sharp, finely-featured face that seemed untouched by time, the fluttering of his left sleeve in the wind drew all the more attention.
The left arm he had lost on the battlefield six months prior.
Seeing that empty flutter, Muhun felt a wave of guilt wash over him.
That battle had taken place under his own judgment as the chief strategist of the Murim Alliance.
Feeling Muhun’s gaze, Seoryong offered a wry smile.
“Strategist, I’ve told you many times—this arm was lost due to my own inadequacy. You have no reason to feel guilty.”
“Had I not judged that battle to be winnable, it would never have happened.”
“I didn’t know I could lose either. Who would have known? At the time, I thought I was the finest under heaven.”
“Assessing the enemy’s strength is also the strategist’s duty. At that moment, I was the worst of strategists.”
At Muhun’s words, Seoryong shook his head firmly.
“Without you, we wouldn’t have held out this long.”
Seoryong looked up at the sky with a rueful expression.
“Who else could have endured against the Imperial Palace for so long?”
That was true.
A war that had stretched across nearly ten years.
This was no mere conflict within the Jianghu.
It was the Great Ming’s ruler who had broken the Principle of Non-Interference and drawn their blade against the martial world.
A war in which the Imperial Palace had staked everything against all of the Jianghu.
It had begun with the Imperial Palace’s surprise assault.
Their pretext was that the martial world had plotted rebellion.
Yet even the Unorthodox Faction had cared only for their own interests, never harboring thoughts of overthrowing the dynasty.
If Muhun had to guess, perhaps the Imperial Palace had feared that the Jianghu, experiencing fewer conflicts between Righteous and Unorthodox factions than ever before, might unite and harbor different ambitions?
He could not be certain.
How could Muhun possibly know the thoughts of that Zhu bastard?
Though the Jianghu had been thrown into chaos by the unexpected assault, the power of the Righteous Coalition, united under Seoryong, was formidable.
While a collective force could not defeat an army, individual martial masters far exceeded any single soldier.
Muhun had fully utilized the capabilities of the martial artists to bring the war with the Imperial Palace to a stalemate.
Thus, for nearly ten years, the tides of war had ebbed and flowed in endless cycles.
And in the final battle in which Muhun served as strategist, the Righteous Coalition was defeated.
The greatest cause of their defeat was that the Murim Alliance Leader Namgung Seoryong had lost in single combat against General Sang Yeo.
With the defeat of the Alliance Leader who had been called the finest under heaven, the Coalition’s morale shattered entirely.
The army’s morale, by contrast, soared to new heights, and the battle against them was decided in an instant.
The stalemate transformed in a heartbeat, and the Righteous Coalition now stood at the very brink of annihilation.
“Had I ordered a withdrawal sooner, we might have retreated in somewhat better order, rather than coming to this.”
“And yet you stepped down from your post as strategist, taking responsibility.”
“From the start, I was ill-suited to hold such a position—one meant for men who do more than sit behind a desk.”
Cough!
Muhun spat out blood-tinged phlegm and continued speaking.
“…Truly, I have lived a fortunate life.”
Muhun believed this sincerely.
Born with Jeolmaekjeung, he had been congenitally unable to cultivate inner power.
More than martial power, even daily life brought constant pain.
And yet he considered himself blessed.
His family had loved him.
Being the second son of the Jekal Family—one of the Five Great Families, pillars of the Orthodox faction in the Jianghu—had spared him nothing but want.
And as if to compensate for his inability to learn martial power, Muhun’s mind had been extraordinary.
He forgot nothing he had seen once; his calculations were flawless, and his creativity was remarkable.
It was this gift that caught Seoryong’s eye in childhood, and despite his inability to master martial power, he had risen to become the Chief Strategist of the Murim Alliance.
“Having received so much from the Jianghu, is it not right that I give something back?”
Muhun smiled, wiping blood from his lips.
“That’s not false, but it’s hardly reason enough for you to vanish.”
Seoryong’s expression grew pained.
“There is no reason for you to drag that broken body up a cliff and sacrifice your life employing a Forbidden Technique.”
At Seoryong’s words, Muhun let out a fractured laugh.
From his nearly ruined vocal cords came a strange, grinding sound.
“I wondered when you would bring that up.”
Muhun turned from the man’s remaining arm and met his eyes.
“You’re not wrong. If only the Alliance Lord had survived that battle.”
Yes. That day, Namgung Seoryong had died.
Even in defeat, even having lost an arm, he had sacrificed himself to cover the retreat of the remaining warriors.
In other words, the Seoryong before him now was no illusion—merely a phantom visible only to Muhun’s eyes.
“My only regret is that I did not witness his final moments with my own eyes.”
Muhun, lacking martial power, could not have been there.
He had heard only that Seoryong remained a model of virtue to the Orthodox faction until the very end.
That was all—mere hearsay.
“What’s so fine about witnessing a friend’s last moments?”
The phantom wearing Seoryong’s form answered calmly.
“Can we truly call ourselves friends if we share only good times together?”
Muhun replied thus, then turned and walked slowly onward.
“Even if I am false, my wish for your happiness is real.”
“I know. That is the sort of man you are, Alliance Lord.”
Muhun did not stop walking as he spoke.
Standing still felt like a waste of what little time remained.
“Alliance Lord, do you know why I spent my entire life investigating and searching for Spirit Medicines and Secret Martial Manuals?”
At Muhun’s question, Seoryong’s phantom lifted a shoulder.
“To strengthen the Alliance’s power, surely? It certainly helped me greatly.”
“On the surface, yes. But the truth was different.”
Muhun spoke in an even tone.
“I envied you, Alliance Lord, and the Alliance’s warriors. Or rather, I was never satisfied with what you achieved.”
At Muhun’s words, Seoryong’s phantom blinked in surprise.
“Well now, that’s quite sudden. What left you so dissatisfied?”
“The purpose behind locating and uncovering those countless Spirit Medicines and Secret Martial Manuals—it was vicarious satisfaction for myself.”
Muhun paused mid-step, then bent to gather pebbles from the ground.
He threw them down carelessly, scattering them in irregular patterns across the earth.
“This Spirit Medicine will produce this effect, and this martial art combined with that one will yield such results. With these expectations in mind, I passed them along to the Alliance’s warriors.”
“Hmm. Did those effects not manifest as you predicted?”
“No. The direction was as I expected. They simply fell short of my aspirations.”
Muhun walked precisely five more paces, then gathered pebbles again.
And scattered them irregularly, as before.
“So envy took root in me. I thought that if I could have learned martial power, I could have achieved far greater results with those same resources.”
Seoryong’s phantom considered this for a moment, then nodded slowly.
“You well might have.”
At those words, Muhun halted briefly, his shoulders shifting as if to speak.
But then he moved on in silence, saying nothing.
Even as Seoryong’s phantom threw out a few more words, Muhun did not answer.
Muhun opened his mouth again precisely after ascending ten more zhang.
“The precision is remarkable—I was hoping to have a proper conversation, but a phantom remains just a phantom, after all.”
“Hm?”
As he spoke, Muhun scattered pebbles once more, just as he had before.
“!…What is this?”
In the same moment Muhun acted, Seoryong’s phantom began to grow increasingly transparent.
“The Alliance Lord… Seoryong was indeed a man worthy of being called a great hero, but—”
Muhun gazed at the fading phantom with eyes tinged by loneliness.
“When it comes to martial power, he was utterly unyielding, never once heeding my words.”
At Muhun’s words, Seoryong’s phantom fell silent for a moment, then offered a faint smile.
“Indeed, you are different.”
With those words, Seoryong’s phantom vanished completely.
The refreshing smile he wore at the end bore a striking resemblance to Seoryong as he had been in life.
“Hah… Cough!”
Muhun spat out blood mingled with a sigh and resumed his ascent.
‘To subject someone to this seven times—the Ancestor clearly had a difficult temperament.’
Seoryong’s phantom was neither a ghost nor a manifestation born from Muhun’s fractured mind.
It was a phenomenon created by an apparatus left behind by the Ancestor of the Jekal Family—Jekal Muhoo.
That mythical being’s legacy.
There existed a place where a Secret Transmission known only to the direct bloodline of the Jekal Family resided: Chilseong-won.
For those who set their path toward that place on Buk-doo Peak of Taebek Mountain, a trial awaited.
Its purpose: to summon figures connected to the seven events the visitor most regretted, compelling them to abandon their ascent.
These phantoms were extraordinarily vivid.
So much so that even Muhun, possessed of the Perfect Memory Ability, had momentarily lost his bearings.
When his father appeared as the third phantom, tears had flowed from his eyes unbidden.
The method to dispel them was equally formidable.
Among the pebbles scattered across the cliff face, he had to locate those positioned at coordinates corresponding to the sixty-four hexagrams of the Eight Trigrams and scatter them.
While his mind was clouded by the phantom, he had to match both the precise distance and exact number.
It was dubious whether it had been designed to be solved or merely to torment, yet Muhun had succeeded.
The phantom of Seoryong he had just dispelled was none other than the seventh and final trial.
Muhun’s last failure—his most bitter regret.
Muhun furrowed his brow and glanced skyward.
‘Though it should not be passable by just anyone, must you truly test your descendants so harshly?’
The Ancestor, Jekal Muhoo, had left detailed records regarding Chilseong-won.
Yet beyond that, no information about the place existed anywhere.
Though its location was clearly documented, this was because every descendant save Muhun, who possessed the Perfect Memory Ability, had failed to overcome the apparatus.
Muhun, who had been staring at the sky with blunt resentment, suddenly posed a question to himself.
‘…Or is it that the descendants simply could not measure up to the Ancestor’s standards?’
As expected, no answer descended from the heavens.
The sun, now sinking westward, only reminded Muhun that his remaining time grew short.
Should darkness fall completely, an aging invalid with no martial power would never reach Chilseong-won.
Muhun clicked his tongue softly and hastened his pace.
***
Fortunately, Muhun was able to reach Chilseong-won before night fell completely.
Remarkably, the stone edifice crowned by a rounded dome boasted a surface so smooth one could only wonder how it had been wrought.
Beneath it, precisely at the center point, a semicircular opening seemed to declare itself the entrance.
Without hesitation, Muhun approached the opening.
A thick stone gate, carved to perfection, blocked his path.
Muhun reached toward the circular plate at the gate’s center.
The plate, inscribed with twenty-four cardinal directions in meticulous detail, bore a handle shaped like a dragon coiled at rest.
‘Not a single word of guidance written anywhere—the man truly was self-absorbed.’
Muhun’s expression twisted at the Ancestor’s arrangement once more, yet Jekal Muhoo had been exactly such a man.
The General Star of the Big Dipper, said to have fallen on the day the Ancestor passed from this world.
When Muhun turned the disk so that star’s direction pointed toward the dragon’s mouth, the stone gate swung open with a tremendous sound.
Without hesitation, Muhun stepped inside.
Since its creation by the Ancestor Jekal Muhoo, no other footstep had ever touched this place—the sanctuary of the Jekal Family’s Secret Transmission.
On this day, in this place, Muhun would overturn the fate heaven itself had ordained.
Jekal Family Destined Encounter Sword Spirit
Author:
Kim Yi-rak
Publisher:
Story Zak
Publication Registration:
No. 2020-000069
Address:
Suite 1807, Tower A, Halla One&One Tower, 101 Gasan Digital 2-ro, Geumcheon-gu, Seoul
Phone:
02-2101-2077
Fax:
02-2101-2078
Email:
[email protected]
UCI:
G720:N+A342-20260318232
Publication Date:
April 10, 2026

Copyright © Kim Yi-rak, 2026.

This e-book is protected by copyright law.

This e-book has been published under agreement between the publisher and author, and unauthorized reproduction, duplication, distribution, or sharing without written consent from both parties is prohibited.

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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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