The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 16

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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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Cheonha Jeil Sajae (16)
A Technique Like a First Love
“Do you have a technique that’s like your first love?”
It was a question Dang Cheon blurted out at a drinking session thirteen years ago, when the liquor had him fully flushed and giddy.
“A technique that makes your chest swell just thinking about it. The kind you take out in secret on nights when Ya Un hides the moonlight.”
“Could it be that…”
“Mine is Manchenhwawoji.”
Dang Cheon declared it, as if making an announcement.
“It’s been lost to practice now, so there’s no way to know the oral formula or its form. But I suspect Manchun Hwau is simply a process where countless points gather into lines, and those lines come together to create a plane.”
Whether it was the liquor or the sheer rush of emotion, I remember Dang Cheon’s cheeks blooming red like an apple.
‘They’ve actually made this real?’
It was an incomplete concept that couldn’t even serve as a foundation for martial learning. Riddled with holes, it was a wordplay too flimsy to deserve the name of theory.
Yet it had been systematized. With a brilliant idea and an outrageous formula, they had revived an idea that hadn’t even qualified as theory, nearly to perfection.
Is this really possible?
Dang Cheon, gripping Jin Muok’s shoulder as Jin Muok stood lost in the feast of countless symbols, thrust his face forward.
“Isn’t it incredible?”
Incredible doesn’t begin to describe it. This is martial learning of a different dimension. It’s a groundbreaking idea that overturns every principle and theory that has circulated through the jianghu until now.
And yet it feels familiar. That’s why it feels foreign.
What is this feeling, both unpleasant and strangely familiar?
“Muok! Stop fooling around and come complete Manchenhwawoji with me!”
Chuwaaaaak!
In an instant, sharp intents converged on him!
Countless symbols and countless stares poured down on him, and it was hard to keep his wits, but Jin Muok began sifting through them one by one and putting them in order.
Carefully and painstakingly, like picking the meat off a fish full of bones.
‘Huh?’
There are two senses of foreignness!
The emotional foreignness he had first felt was followed by a sensory foreignness, and Jin Muok’s eyes narrowed.
‘If my reasoning is right!’
Having roughly predicted the source of this foreignness, Jin Muok faced Dang Cheon, who was drifting toward him like a ghost with both hands stretched out in front of him.
“Old Master!”
“Yes! Muok!”
“Never mind Muok, what on earth are all these nonsensical things?”
“N-nonsensical? You said it yourself, this is Manchenhwawoji!”
When Dang Cheon protested, Jin Muok’s eyes went wide.
“I did?”
“Yes! You clearly did!”
“I never called this Manchenhwawoji, though.”
He had only said Manchenhwawoji. He hadn’t said that what was written on this paper was Manchenhwawoji.
A childish wordplay, if ever there was one.
But Dang Cheon, perhaps because his mind wasn’t quite sound, had no room to appreciate this sort of game.
“So you intend to mock me to the very end?”
Dang Cheon lowered his head halfway and clenched his fists, and Jin Muok quietly edged to the side.
“Then there’s no help for it.”
Uuuuuung—.
Dang Cheon’s aura swirled like a storm, but Jin Muok narrowed his eyes and watched the ripples it summoned.
‘Just as expected, Hidden Weapon Old Man!’
Even measured against the Five Emperors, he’s said to fall only half a step short, and Dang Cheon is one of the Seven Great Elders of the Murim Alliance.
When an aura like his is released, how formidable it must be.
“I’ll have to forcibly strip away that ridiculous hide of yours.”
Is this old man really senile?
Just as Jin Muok’s brow twitched, Dang Cheon slowly raised both hands.
“Go!”
Sseeeaaek—.
The moment something scattered from his hands, Jin Muok moved his feet with springy agility.
…First, let me confirm my reasoning.
* * *
“Phew.”
Stepping into the reception room, Dang Jong-o let out a sigh as thick as a squirrel’s tail.
“What’s wrong?”
Byeok Eunsa, savoring his tea, turned his gaze toward him. Dang Jong-o sat down across from him and poured tea into his own cup as well.
Shlurp—.
“The Old Clan Head’s condition, has it not improved at all?”
Nod, nod.
A perfectly sane man sipping his tea while the doll cradled in his arms asks questions in a little girl’s voice. A strange sight indeed.
Dang Jong-o, however, responded calmly, as though such a scene were nothing new to him.
“To see a man who was once like a steel tower brought down so suddenly.”
Dang Jong-o, who had been staring into his teacup while drawing a deep breath, soon changed the subject.
“But what on earth happened? Baekri Unhak seems to have been injured by some mysterious explosion, but how is it that the boy is unharmed…”
“It seems Unhak shielded the little one.”
And with that single remark, that was the end of it.
As the doll of Byeok Eunsa briefly laid out what had happened at Guihwa Ridge, Dang Jong-o stroked the groove beneath his nose with his index finger.
“So the two of them lost consciousness for a full three days from the aftershock of the explosion, you’re saying.”
Narrowing his eyes, Dang Jong-o murmured as though groaning.
“Who on earth would dare pull such a stunt on this Sichuan soil?”
“I wanted to find that out too, so I lay in ambush for three whole days, but all I caught was some pesky gnat, you know?”
Recalling the Gwiju Eighty-Four Villains, the doll of Byeok Eunsa grumbled.
“Anyway, while I was dealing with those bastards, the little brat suddenly poked his head out of the ground and, without a word of explanation, hit me! Because he’s a child, I let my guard down…”
“That child once crushed Namgung Ildo, the captain of the 3rd Mobile Squad of the Murim Alliance.”
When Dang Jong-o cut her off, the little girl doll let out a cold sneer.
“That Namgung Ildo, who barely reaches instructor-level skill and only made squad captain thanks to the Namgung Family’s influence?”
“That’s true enough, but it’s also true that the boy faced twenty-three members of the 3rd Mobile Squad alone, Namgung Ildo included, and drove them all off.”
“What exactly are you trying to say?”
When the little girl doll asked sharply, Dang Jong-o gave a shrug.
“Oh, nothing much.”
And then came Dang Jong-o’s pointed addition.
“Maybe the boy didn’t give his best either, just like you.”
“What? You’re saying that to me, now of all times!”
“Ah, I was only joking. Don’t flare up like that, or I’ll end up looking foolish.”
Just then…
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
A deafening roar sounded outside, and a crowd of people rushed off somewhere.
“Good heavens!”
Planting a hand on the tea table, Dang Jong-o shot up like a spring.
“Something must have happened to the Old Clan Head!”
* * *
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang—!
A deluge of hidden weapons poured toward Jin Muok’s front!
Thwump—!
Naryeo Tagon unfolded once more!
Like a lazy donkey rolling about on the ground, Jin Muok dodged the barrage of hidden weapons by tumbling in place, then sprang briskly to his feet.
“Whoa, whoa.”
Thrusting both hands forward, Jin Muok tried to calm Dang Cheon down.
Of course, his real intention was provocation.
“Even if you’re dissatisfied, let’s talk this out…!”
Shiiiing—!
Another volley of hidden weapons came hurtling in.
Just as he’d intended, Dang Cheon launched more weapons, so Jin Muok shut his mouth and rolled across the ground with all his might.
Pa-bak!
A spectacle of at least several dozen hidden weapons.
Yet Jin Muok could tell. Dang Cheon was releasing no more than two or three at a time, and that was all.
By adjusting their direction and force, he was producing the effect of dozens of weapons from just two or three.
‘The problem isn’t that it’s merely dazzling to look at.’
Though his expression stayed composed, thick beads of sweat trickled steadily down Jin Muok’s back.
‘Every illusion woven into each one of those shifts is just as potent as the real thing.’
Chwarararak!
The shadows of hidden weapons brushed past Jin Muok and slipped by.
This was what they called Amyeong.
And the long trails left behind by the hidden weapons drifted through the air.
As Amyeong and Amjeok intertwined, the surrounding world was gripped in the clutches of hidden weapons.
Seuport—!
With a final shadow-dart arcing across Jin Muok’s cheek and vanishing, thick drops of blood, fat as chicken droppings, dripped from his face.
Drip… drip.
“That hurts, doesn’t it? Hurts like hell, right?”
Goooooh!
Despite his overwhelming presence, Dang Cheon had no qualms about spouting flippant remarks.
He had been strutting about like a little child, but then something seemed to occur to him, and his brow furrowed.
“Hey, you. Did you eat Muok or something?”
Huh?
Now what was that supposed to mean?
“If it were our Muok, he’d have smashed this kind of Amyeong Jeoksu to pieces!”
That was only talk from back in his Northern Gale Sweeping days!
Jin Muok, who had been about to flare up, abruptly stopped in his tracks.
‘Tears…?’
The thing trickling down Dang Cheon’s cheeks as he laughed, cried, and then raged was unmistakably tears.
This was it. This was the emotional incongruity Jin Muok had been feeling.
From a man who had gone wild in senile madness, there should have been frenzy and emptiness, not grief and melancholy.
This didn’t fit the emotional flow at all.
‘What is this?’
Who on earth had dared to make the Dangmun Daeje weep?
Who could possibly squeeze tears from the eyes of Dang Cheon, the Heaven of Sichuan?
“I’ll have my revenge!”
Dang Cheon, who had already stopped crying, stepped forward, scattering a fearsome aura all around him.
“For our Muok’s sake, I’m going to kill you!”
Dang Cheon drew a single hidden weapon from his robes.
“Amyeong Gonghwa.”
Amyeong Gonghwa!
The legendary hidden-weapon art that only three people in the six-hundred-year history of the Tang Clan had ever perfected!
Swoosh-aaaaah!
The moment the name of the technique Amyeong Gonghwa tumbled from Dang Cheon’s lips, Jin Muok’s gaze sharpened like a needle.
Flash!
‘Huh? What’s this?’
The qi that suddenly surged through the arena and enveloped everything was so faint that it looked like frost clinging to a windowpane.
A presence so thin it seemed it might vanish with a single breath.
However faint it might be, this energy did not belong with the Tang Clan.
Because it was Demonic Qi!
So that was the source of the sensory incongruity Jin Muok had felt.
‘How can this be?’
The instant he turned his head in bewilderment, Dang Cheon’s hand fluttered like a willow catkin in the wind.
Sseu—pat!
A single hidden weapon! A single trajectory!
Until now, Dang Cheon had used two or more hidden weapons to block Jin Muok’s positions and routes.
It was the kind of trap where you’re fully aware of it and still walk right into it.
But Jin Muok evaded the instant before the weapons changed course, cutting off Dang Cheon’s attacks at their root.
Perhaps taking that into account, Dang Cheon’s assault this time ignored direction and route, shooting straight ahead in a clean line.
Swoosh-aaaaah!
A seemingly simple, straightforward attack. Surely, once you traced its path, anyone could dodge a hidden weapon like that… or so he had thought.
It devours the directions!
The weapon, which looked as though it were flying in an ordinary way, was gradually swallowing up the directions and paths around it!
‘There’s no room to dodge!’
A technique that blocks every avenue of movement for the opponent with just one hidden weapon.
Yet Jin Muok saw through it. The Amyeong Gonghwa, which flew in along a perfectly honest course, was in truth advancing straight while producing countless transformations.
And so the opponent is stripped not of direction, but of the very space to move in.
‘In that case.’
Kwarung!
As Jin Muok lunged forward like a thunderbolt, the hidden weapon failed to engulf his space and lost its momentum.
“Damn it!”
Bending at the waist and bracing his hands on his knees, Jin Muok gasped for breath.
“No matter how fearsome the old man’s hidden weapons may be, if I seize the directions first, they’ll be utterly useless…”
At that moment, strange sounds rang out from all around them!
Sasak— sa-sa-sak—.
‘Brushwork?’
Jin Muok, realizing what they were doing, lost the words in his mouth.
‘Crazy!’
Grind-grind.
His teeth ground together.
If the hypothesis he had just conjured was true, then it wasn’t Dang Cheon who had lost his mind. It was this place.
‘Let’s see.’
Jin Muok, letting his thoughts swell like a squirrel’s tail, let out a shout and lunged at Dang Cheon.
“…It’s no use, I’m telling you!”
Sssk-sssk-sssk!
The brush moved faster again. And Demonic Qi thickened in the air, settling over everything like fog.
‘Why is Demonic Qi flowing through Tang Clan?’
Though his ruthless methods had earned him the reputation of straddling the line between righteous and wicked, Tang Clan was, without question, a Righteous Path house.
With Demonic Qi seeping into a place like this, it was only natural that Jin Muok would sense something unsettling.
‘So the Demonic Cult is still alive and well!’
They were said to have scattered among the Ten Great Demonic Clans, but that was nothing more than a shell. The Demonic Cult’s strength was undiminished. No, if it could reach into a closed martial household like Tang Clan, it might be stronger than ever before.
‘I see, so that’s how it is.’
Jin Muok’s eyes slid to the lower right, and this time Dang Cheon barked a furious shout.
“Did you think this was over?!”
No, it wouldn’t be. I know the old man’s skill well.
Then again, could the Demonic Qi seeping into Tang Clan be connected to the old man’s dementia?
‘Right. That old man would sooner bury his bones on the battlefield than waste away in bed with dementia and die.’
Jin Muok had wandered the brutal battlefields as a child soldier. With neither skill nor proper weapons, he had survived his harsh boyhood on nothing but the scraps of other people’s favor.
Even his senses and judgment, sharpened to the utmost for the sake of survival, had found Dang Cheon’s sudden dementia hard to accept. But now he understood.
‘Dang Cheon’s dementia is definitely tied to the Demonic Qi!’
And then…
His Manchenhwawoji, which had suddenly taken shape!
Having gathered his thoughts, Jin Muok spun his body around.
‘Old man, I think we need to have a talk.’
At that very moment.
Death lent Dang Cheon’s hand and sliced through the empty air.
Pi—shoo!

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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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