The Wizard Who Endured the World of Murim - Chapter 18

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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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Surviving in the Martial Realm as a Mage: Episode 18
The Assassination Squad Leader of the Namgung Family.
Song Gwang-sik, the Bright Moon Swordsman, was lost in thought.
Reflecting quietly on his life thus far, he realized he had never been particularly fortunate.
No matter what he undertook, crisis always seemed to find him.
To overcome it, he’d had to crawl through absolute hell, bleeding and broken.
Yet somehow, by pushing through each ordeal, he’d managed to survive.
His reputation had improved, and loyal subordinates had gathered around him.
Now, as a member of the Namgung Family, he held a respectable position and performed his duties with honor.
Good comrades. A good background and environment.
The street orphan with nothing had somehow come to hold undeserved glory in both hands without hesitation.
But.
Roooaaarrr―!
All of it meant nothing if he didn’t survive.
The witch before his eyes.
The young girl from the Mansizong had crossed countless death lines until now.
She was a monster capable of reducing Song Gwang-sik’s entire career—a career that had allowed him to laugh through ordinary crises—to dust.
And facing such a monster, Song Gwang-sik was now fleeing with desperate speed.
“You must survive alone, Lord.”
The insolent junior who constantly eyed his position. Na Han-il, the Storm Swordsman.
The cocky deputy commander of the Assassination Squad.
That man had stayed behind with his subordinates.
“That thing we used to joke about before. Now’s the time to do it. That’s all there is to it. So get your head straight, Lord.”
This bastard was still being insolent even now.
How dare he question the grave decision the Lord had made?
I couldn’t understand why he kept resisting until the very end.
“Damn it, Gwang-sik! Please get your head together! We’re too slow to escape anyway, you know that better than anyone!”
This was strange.
I had no memory of allowing such informal speech.
I normally didn’t curse much at all.
But now curses erupted naturally from my core.
Song Gwang-sik clenched his teeth and tore through the forest at a maddening pace.
In truth, Song Gwang-sik had already assessed the situation coldly in his mind.
The moment he faced that nameless monster from the Mansizong.
For even one of them to survive, there was no other way.
But Song Gwang-sik had wanted to be the one who stayed behind.
“Damn it, Gwang-sik! You’re the fastest here. Who doesn’t know that? Are you just going to let our people die pointlessly here? Someone needs to report back to the family. So from now on, grit your teeth and run. Please, I’m begging you. Just listen to me this once, okay?”
Now that I think about it, Na Han-il.
I’d spent over ten years bickering with this man.
An orphan like myself, yet possessing a venom for survival that burned bright.
From the day he first transferred into the Chussal Division until now, he had always been the one to handle tasks with sharp efficiency.
When had such a man become so capable?
I should have gradually stepped back and handed him the position.
It seemed I had been too greedy.
If he had been the Lord, wouldn’t we have avoided this crisis from the start?
“Damn it all!”
Pushed to the brink of desperation.
Every pathetic thought imaginable flooded through my mind.
Song Gwang-sik, the Bright Moon Swordmaster, tore through his thigh and calf muscles as he sprinted forward.
Blood vessels burst, his eyes turning crimson as he fixed his gaze solely ahead.
He desperately ignored the screams and explosions erupting from behind.
* * *
I found it strange that there was no obstruction in the corridor.
I should have sensed something was wrong then.
Ding—
Along with the distant sound of a bell, Ilhyang saw
purple thorny flowers blooming profusely, wrapping around a certain area—their form not entirely concrete, yet unmistakably present—and found himself whistling like a fool without realizing it.
A boundary divided inside from outside.
And it covered quite a vast range.
‘Magic circles are fundamentally about dividing boundaries.’
A mage’s method of imposing their own laws upon this vast world.
That is precisely what a magic circle is.
Within a magic circle, one can twist the rules of the world.
And within it, a mage’s will or mental image could be manifested into reality.
Whether a massive fireball or a massive block of ice.
Whatever was created within the magic circle could exert sufficient physical force.
However, once the boundary of the magic circle is crossed, its power rapidly diminishes.
The world resists the mage’s will.
But there are slight exceptions.
‘A 4-Circle mage.’
From the 4-Circle onward, they were true mages.
Beings capable of realizing their power and will to some extent beyond the boundary line.
I had thought such beings might exist in this world as well.
Since there were traces of magic, however primitive.
But actually sensing the rich aroma of magic, my excitement was extraordinary.
‘Closer.’
Ilhyang actually approached the magic circle slowly.
Inside the magic circle, the purple thorny flowers were swirling, tearing apart the people within.
Ilhyang gazed at the White-haired Girl at its center and slowly extended his hand.
‘This is the boundary line.’
The boundary of the Magic Circle.
Where inside and outside blurred together.
I slowly raised my hand toward that murky threshold.
Then.
Ssssshhhhk―
As if plunging my hand into quivering pudding.
My forearm sank deep inside.
My legs remained clearly outside the Magic Circle, yet both my arms vividly sensed the opposing mage’s Magic Circle.
‘Quite pungent.’
A sharp, acrid scent brushed against my nostrils.
I found myself with eyes slightly unfocused.
Licking my lips with the tip of my tongue.
As if I’d touched something laced with poison.
My entire forearm submerged in the Magic Circle tingled madly.
And moment by moment.
The mage’s emotional currents. That turbulent flow.
Surged wildly and vividly against my senses.
This was a kind of emotion I recognized.
‘Rage.’
And vengeance.
I felt the opponent drowning in emotional turmoil.
Because of that.
Despite the gap between us as mages, I’d found an opening to intervene from outside.
And if I could intervene from outside to inside?
‘I could land a blow.’
Truth be told, this was largely that brat’s fault.
Appearing before me with such an alluring form, tempting me like this.
So this was entirely the Kid’s doing for provoking my curiosity.
What I was about to show.
Was merely a form of instruction from one who’d come of age.
This was like a tax.
One that must be paid to become a true mage.
A kind of growing pain, perhaps?
Of course, survival was necessary for growth.
‘But could they survive?’
I quietly read the fierce currents within the Young Girl’s Magic Circle.
Then, matching that turbulent flow, I subtly released my poison.
So cunningly the opponent wouldn’t notice.
Had the opponent’s cultivation been higher, or possessed more experience.
This clumsy method would have been utterly ineffective.
Fortunately.
‘You are still far too inexperienced and ignorant.’
What a pitiful creature.
In the world of mages, the inexperienced had to die.
In the world of mages, ignorance itself was a capital offense.
The opponent was so preoccupied with other matters that he remained completely oblivious to Ilhyang’s covert approach.
Naturally, he could not perceive the techniques Ilhyang had deployed either.
Crackle—
“Die! All of you, die! How dare you touch my brother! Insignificant criminals daring to—!”
The White-haired Girl’s unbound white hair rose strand by strand toward the heavens.
Tears of blood streamed from her eyes.
The formation array the girl had unleashed now.
A magical circle spanning roughly thirty zhang—approximately one hundred meters—bore the name:
‘Zihua Naraku Kyokujin-zu.’
A field of violet thorns of death.
This was one of the three legendary formation arrays that the Mansizong proudly boasted to the world.
And near the epicenter of the vortex-like formation array raging forth.
There lay members of the Namgung Family Assassination Unit, being ground to shreds like rags by the thorn flowers.
‘By now, the Lord must have escaped, surely?’
Though they wished to end their lives immediately.
They had to endure somehow, even as half-minced flesh.
So that they could.
Buy the Lord more time to flee from this monster.
As the assassination squad members stood back-to-back with one another.
Feeling death draw ever closer with crystalline clarity.
Thud—
Suddenly, the swirling formation array came to a halt.
Was this merely a moment to catch their breath?
The next attack would surely be truly horrific.
As they all braced themselves mentally.
A piercing scream erupted from the White-haired Girl’s lips.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
Whoooosh—
Suddenly, the girl’s body began to burn.
As if molten lava had been poured upon her.
Flames roaring from within, boiling upward.
The poison Ilhyang had planted.
Incinerated the girl’s dantian.
And was now consuming her entire body in flames.
She thrashed and writhed in all directions, desperate to escape the inferno, but the flames showed no sign of extinguishing.
“What in the world….”
The deputy commander of the Chussal Division.
Na Han-il stared ahead with eyes grotesquely swollen and weeping fluid.
There, before him.
The girl who had seemed like a demon mere moments ago was now screaming, thrashing across the ground in desperate attempts to extinguish the flames consuming her body.
While everyone else stood frozen in bewilderment.
Na Han-il moved without hesitation.
He swept the broken blade he held in his hand in a crescent arc.
Shing—
The swordsmanship he had cultivated over countless years did not betray him in this crucial moment.
At last, the screams pouring from that Mansizong creature’s mouth fell silent.
“Ha… hahah! Hahaha!”
Her neck had been severed.
Even if they were Jiangshi, they could not move with a severed neck.
Whether that creature had originally been a living being or not, I could not say.
‘Now it was truly dead.’
Just as hope of survival flickered in Na Han-il’s eyes.
Something that had not been there before caught his attention.
“Well, it seems she’s finally dead.”
“…!”
A young boy.
Ilhyang—the Chussal Division’s original surveillance target.
He was staring down at the girl’s corpse with a deeply disappointed expression.

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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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