The Ignored Granddaughter of a Murim Family - Chapter 37

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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 37
“…Damn it all.”
Namgung Wan rose to his feet, grinding his teeth, and spat blood once more.
“Senior!”
In the brief collision with Bu Moon-ju, I had sustained internal injuries. Seizing that opening, Bu Moon-ju launched an attack on Byeok Seong-yul.
“Ugh!”
Byeok Seong-yul reflexively blocked the strike, but his sword was sent flying in a single blow. Just as Bu Moon-ju moved to pierce the now-defenseless Byeok Seong-yul’s chest, he suddenly leaped back with a start.
“This is why I should have dealt with the Dang Family woman first.”
A sharp projectile was embedded in the ground where Bu Moon-ju had been standing.
“I couldn’t use poison on her because I was afraid she’d catch on.”
Dang So-yong’s expression hardened as she cried out.
“What on earth are you doing!”
“You don’t need to know!”
Bu Moon-ju twisted his body and attacked Dang So-yong. She was pushed back unilaterally. With someone she needed to protect, Dang So-yong couldn’t afford to move freely.
Her wounds multiplied gradually. There were no fatal injuries yet, but this was because Bu Moon-ju, wary of the Tangmen’s poison techniques, was being extremely cautious.
Yet Dang So-yong knew she wouldn’t last much longer.
That was when Namgung Wan cut in like a thunderbolt. Bu Moon-ju, blocking his blade, recoiled in shock.
“Senior!”
Dang So-yong gasped for breath.
“Tsk, to display such movement even while poisoned by Mountain Ravage Toxin.”
Bu Moon-ju regarded Dang So-yong with wary eyes while standing off against Namgung Wan. Namgung Wan spat out blood-tinged saliva and spoke.
“Go to Ui-gang.”
Ak Jung-hae and Ma Hye-hyang cried out, their blades leveled beside Namgung Wan.
“Dang So-yong, go!”
“Do you think I can!”
The moment Bu Moon-ju shouted, Byeok Seong-yul bolted. And it was a poor decision.
As he turned to flee, Byeok Seong-yul’s back lay completely exposed to Bu Moon-ju.
Bu Moon-ju seized the opportunity without hesitation, sweeping his hand forward. Blood sprayed as Ak Jung-hae cursed and moved to block Bu Moon-ju.
“Jung-hae!”
Even after cutting Ak Jung-hae, Bu Moon-ju did not stop.
In mere steps, just as Bu Moon-ju reached to snap Byeok Seong-yul’s neck, he suddenly twisted his body and unleashed a hand like a tiger’s claw toward empty air.
Clang! A sword gleaming with pale light blocked Bu Moon-ju’s hand.
Clang! Clang-clang-clang! In an instant, they exchanged over ten blows. Under the relentless barrage of attacks, Bu Moon-ju was forced to retreat.
Dang So-yong cried out with joy.
“Senior Ui-gang!”
Baek Li-ui-gang nodded silently and regarded Namgung Wan.
Namgung Wan spoke with irritation.
“…It’s Mountain Ravage Toxin. Everyone except Dang So-yong has been poisoned.”
Baek Li-ui-gang gripped his sword firmly and positioned himself before Bu Moon-ju.
Bu Moon-ju ground his teeth as he spoke.
“How are you even here…!”
“That’s what I should be asking you. I distinctly remember cleaving your face in half back then, yet here you stand alive. It seems heaven shows no mercy.”
“Cheon Gwi-jo!”
Namgung Wan finally exclaimed as recognition dawned. Ak Jung-hae, who had been leaning on Ma Hye-hyang’s support, startled at the name.
“Wasn’t Cheon Gwi-jo supposed to be dead?”
“I thought so too.”
Namgung Wan ground his teeth as he continued.
“I swear I’ve seen a corpse like that somewhere before…”
Cheon Gwi-jo was once a notorious demon who terrorized the Martial World. Namgung Wan had never fought him directly, but he had seen the bodies of countless Martial World practitioners slain by Cheon Gwi-jo’s hand.
Ak Jung-hae spoke as though he couldn’t believe it.
“But his face is perfectly intact.”
“Ak Jung-hae, don’t talk nonsense.”
That was when it happened.
Crack, crunch. A horrifying sound of bone and muscle twisting emanated from Cheon Gwi-jo. His shoulders broadened, his arms lengthened, and his entire frame transformed. It was the Bone-Warping Technique.
Once the transformation finished, Cheon Gwi-jo seized the skin beneath his jaw and tore it away. With a sickening rip, a new face was revealed.
A scar ran across his face from jaw to temple, passing over the bridge of his nose—so grotesque and deep that it was a miracle he had survived it at all.
“…He lived through a wound like that?”
Ak Jung-hae murmured.
In the old Gwi-ju Fortress region, Cheon Gwi-jo had abducted countless children with ghostly precision. The disappearances were so frequent that laughter had vanished from the streets of Gwi-ju Fortress. Even now, nearly a decade later, parents in that region still threatened their weeping children with tales of Cheon Gwi-jo coming to take them away.
Many had attempted to eliminate Cheon Gwi-jo. Yet all had failed against his uncanny ability to move through the dense forests as though they were his own home, and his formidable martial prowess. All had been gravely wounded or slain.
It was Baek Li-ui-gang who had finally stopped Cheon Gwi-jo’s atrocities. In a clash with the barely-twenty Baek Li-ui-gang, Cheon Gwi-jo had suffered a wound so deep his face was nearly split in two. He barely managed to escape.
People naturally assumed Cheon Gwi-jo had died from such a mortal wound. And when he vanished, the fate of all the children he had abducted became forever unknown.
Baek Li-ui-gang asked quietly.
“What happened to the children?”
“You ask as though you don’t know I’m Cheon Gwi-jo?”
“So the illness of the Yeongjonmun Master was your doing too. How long have you been masquerading as Bu Moon-ju?”
Cheon Gwi-jo tossed away the human skin mask he had peeled from his face. The easiest method to craft such a sophisticated human skin mask was to use actual human facial skin.
If that were the case, then Bu Moon-ju had already been…long ago.
The members of the Kirin Society trembled involuntarily at the horrifying implication. Baek Li-ui-gang raised the sword he had let fall and pointed it at Cheon Gwi-jo. Following his lead, Dang So-yong also leveled her blade at the demon.
That was when it happened.
[So-yong.]
It was Baek Li-ui-gang’s voice transmission.
[Can you detoxify Wan?]
Most mountain poisons shared similar foundations. The detoxification methods were not particularly difficult—as long as there was a safe environment to circulate qi and someone to guide the internal energy flow.
But typically, when poisoned, one could not safely circulate qi, which made such poisons particularly troublesome.
[It’s possible. However, I won’t be able to move during the detoxification. That means you’ll have to face Cheon Gwi-jo alone…]
[Don’t worry about that.]
Dang So-yong clenched her fist and lowered the sword she had been pointing at Cheon Gwi-jo.
[Depending on the severity of the poisoning, it shouldn’t take more than one hour at most.]
[Focus on the detoxification.]
Yes!
Dang So-yong and Namgung Wan, their postures aligned as if performing a cultivation technique, immediately began the detoxification process. Ma Hye-hyang and the wounded Ak Jung-hae stood guard around Namgung Wan and Dang So-yong, protecting them as they worked.
The method for detoxifying mountain poison was simple: burn it away with internal energy. Since the poisoned person could not cultivate on their own, they required assistance from others.
However, cultivation techniques fundamentally required a safe environment. If someone with malicious intent interfered, the cultivator would be so vulnerable to qi deviation that it could prove fatal. This was absolutely not something to attempt on a roadside like this.
Yet they showed no concern for their safety.
Cheon Gwi-jo, observing this, twisted his face in contempt. The grotesque scar that split his visage made the expression particularly hideous.
“You dare attempt cultivation in this situation? Ha! How overconfident you’ve become.”
A bluish light shimmered across Baek Li-ui-gang’s blade as a sharp aura pressed down upon the air. Cheon Gwi-jo’s eyes gleamed darkly as he stepped back into a fighting stance.
“Fine then. Today I’ll take your head as my prize!”
Cheon Gwi-jo struck first.
A flash of light pierced forward as Cheon Gwi-jo drove into Baek Li-ui-gang’s space, thrusting his right hand forward. As Baek Li-ui-gang leaped slightly and twisted his body to deflect the strike, Cheon Gwi-jo’s right hand changed trajectory with lightning speed.
Just as the attack seemed impossible to evade, boring toward Baek Li-ui-gang’s ribs, he was no longer there.
Unlike the battle with Namgung Wan, which had been punctuated by ear-splitting impacts, only the sound of wind being cut continued to echo.
The Baek Li Family’s swordsmanship was remarkably quiet and restrained in its movements. To an untrained observer watching the continuous evasions without direct clashes, it would appear that Baek Li-ui-gang was merely struggling to avoid Cheon Gwi-jo’s relentless attacks.
But their clash was gradually moving farther from Namgung Wan and the Kirin Society members. Baek Li-ui-gang was deliberately drawing Cheon Gwi-jo away from this place.
Realizing this, Cheon Gwi-jo’s face contorted.
“Running away like a rat—some things never change!”
….
Baek Li-ui-gang didn’t even twitch an eyebrow at the provocation.
Cheon Gwi-jo, who had been pressing his one-sided assault, suddenly paled and twisted his body. A blade moving so fast it appeared as a single streak of light passed within a hair’s breadth of his throat.
Following through, Baek Li-ui-gang slashed at Cheon Gwi-jo’s exposed ribs.
Cheng! He barely blocked it with his palm, but the momentum sent him skidding backward, his feet carving a straight line across the ground.
Baek Li-ui-gang, his momentum suddenly reversed, pressed his assault without pause. The sound of clashing blades grew increasingly frequent as his sword scattered flashes of light in all directions.
The situation had completely reversed. Now it was Cheon Gwi-jo who struggled to evade Baek Li-ui-gang’s attacks.
Ching! Clang! Both Ma Hye-hyang and Ak Jung-hae gripped their palms with tension as they watched the battle unfold.
As Cheon Gwi-jo found himself increasingly cornered, he gnashed his teeth and suddenly unleashed a wild, power-laden swing. Yet that attack, inexplicably, shattered not Baek Li-ui-gang but a nearby tree, snapping it brutally.
Crack, crunch. The tree, its base half severed, tilted and fell with a heavy thud against another tree. The dense foliage of the falling tree momentarily obscured Baek Li-ui-gang’s vision.
In that instant, Cheon Gwi-jo bolted into the forest.
Unlike Baek Li-ui-gang, Cheon Gwi-jo would be familiar with this forest. One could tell from how he had used it to kill the Yeongjonmun disciples.
“Senior!”
Ma Hye-hyang cried out in protest.
But Baek Li-ui-gang, without hesitation, plunged into the forest after Cheon Gwi-jo. The pitch-black forest, shrouded in darkness, swallowed both shadows.

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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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