Chapter 319: Chapter 319
“Huh…… huh?! Losing strength? Hmm?!”
Every time the sword clashed against his in a taunting manner, a sharp jolt shot through his hand.
Eun-ho cried out in frustration.
“I’m at my limit!”
His Eldest Senior Brother sneered.
“So? You’re at your limit, so you want to die?”
SCRAPE—
The Red Radiance Sword grazed past his collar and sliced through the fabric.
A small sting told him the cut had been deliberately made just deep enough.
‘Damn this man!’
He’d taken two Spiritual Pills during the break and reached the stage of fully mature Moving Circulation, but there were still limits.
Jin So-un seemed to know exactly where those limits lay, using precise control of intensity to drive them to the very brink of total exhaustion.
“Haa, haa── haa.”
“Damn it.”
Sa-ryeon was drained, and so were Geum-pyo and Dong-ryong—every one of them pushed to their absolute breaking point.
“Th-thinking of running again?”
The flat of the lightly raised sword turned crimson.
SHRIEEEEEEK──
An ominous scream of unknown origin, accompanied by killing intent that crushed the entire body—it felt as though his soul might leave him.
That alone was nearly fatal, yet Jin So-un swung his sword without mercy.
SHHHHRRRK
The blade brimming with killing intent fanned into dozens of arcs, constricting all four of them.
They knew the Eldest Senior Brother would never actually kill them, but their bodies instinctively sensed the terror of death.
“AAAAAH!”
Eun-ho screamed at the top of his lungs and flung his sword forward, launching himself ahead.
He’d learned it through countless duels.
Running was never the answer.
The most terrifying moment was precisely when you needed to charge forward.
That was always the right answer.
Just as the Eldest Senior Brother always had.
He scraped the very bottom of his qi center and activated Moving Circulation.
His total inner arts were so meager that the Great Heaven Sword Art was out of the question.
All he could use was the Minor Heaven Sword Art—and only its simplest forms at that.
‘I can’t…… block everything anyway.’
So he dodged only the most critical blows with the least movement possible.
Offering flesh and bone to the enemy, to take their heart.
That was the only way to survive in this moment.
SCRAPE─
The instant he finally evaded the Red Radiance Sword and thought he’d reached Jin So-un’s body—
“And what do you plan to do, coming alone?”
Jin So-un, as if he’d been waiting, lifted his foot and kicked Eun-ho away.
THWACK!
SKREEEEE—
Sent flying three jang, Eun-ho slammed face-first into the ground.
‘Please, someone follow up……’
He desperately begged the remaining three.
THWACK! THWACK-THWACK!
SKREEEEE— SKREEEEE— SKREEEEE—
‘I haven’t even finished my last words yet……’
All three came flying after him.
“Tsk, collapsing after just that…… Think you’d have the luxury of quitting on a battlefield? If you’re out of inner arts, fight with stamina. If you’re out of stamina, fight with sheer spite.”
Easy for him to say—anyone listening would think he’d spent decades on the battlefield.
Eun-ho was brimming with complaints, but he kept his mouth firmly shut.
He’d already tried voicing his grievances two hours ago, and that mad…… no, the Eldest Senior Brother had said, “Still got energy left, I see,” and continued the sparring.
He’d learned the wisdom of keeping quiet even when you had something to say.
“Tsk, you have one quarter-hour. Recover.”
Jin So-un had already disappeared inside the building.
The Taeul Sect disciples didn’t rise from the ground even after he left.
“Haah……”
“J-just kill me.”
They truly couldn’t move a muscle.
They couldn’t finish their qi circulation in a quarter-hour anyway.
All they could do was run Moving Circulation while resting as much as possible.
‘Haah…… what’s the point of all this?’
Lying on his back running Moving Circulation, self-pity gnawed at Eun-ho. He rolled his eyes to look at Sa-ryeon.
“Senior Sister, do you happen to know why the Eldest Senior Brother is doing this?”
He’d noticed Sa-ryeon’s hardened expression for the past two days.
Something had happened between the two of them.
But seeing her tight-lipped silence and stony face, he hadn’t dared to ask.
Now it was different.
If this went on for a few more days, he might become the first student in Academy history to die during training.
“……”
He couldn’t afford to die as a vengeful ghost who never even made it to the Murim Alliance.
Eun-ho pressed again.
“Senior Sister, we’re all going to die at this rate. No—I’m already dead. I’m fighting tooth and nail just to save Geum-pyo and Dong-ryong……”
“The Eldest Senior Brother……”
At last, Eun-ho’s wheedling broke Sa-ryeon’s silence.
“……is worried about us, I think.”
Worried? While driving them to the brink of death?
“He’s worried that when he’s not around, we won’t be able to protect ourselves.”
“……”
Eun-ho’s scrunched-up expression went slack in an instant.
Geum-pyo and Dong-ryong, who’d been staring blankly into space, snapped their eyes wide and looked at Sa-ryeon.
“He’s worried that the people who hate him will hate and torment us instead.”
Sa-ryeon raised her head and looked at the younger disciples.
Something like sorrow bled through the hardened mask of her face.
“That’s what he’s worried about.”
He’d been certain all his strength was spent.
Certainly he had no breath left to draw.
GRIND.
His jaw clenched hard, teeth grinding together.
The rage that had been directed at the Eldest Senior Brother now turned inward as hostility aimed at himself.
‘Am I just a burden again?’
It had been the same after the Iron Sword Sect, and again when they’d heard they were taking the Regular Exam.
The man who shouldered far too much alone—he’d felt sorry for him, wanted to lighten his load even a little.
But no matter how hard he tried, the weight on those shoulders never lessened.
Worse—he’d realized that he himself had become part of the weight being carried, and the self-loathing had been crushing.
He’d thought he’d grown at least a little on the journey here. But he…… they…… hadn’t grown at all.
“It’s because of the Instructor incident, isn’t it?”
Eun-ho’s voice had gone cold. Sa-ryeon gave a small nod.
Eun-ho growled.
“We don’t care. Low grades, discrimination—none of that matters to us.”
“……”
Sa-ryeon looked at Eun-ho with that same sad expression.
“What if it doesn’t end at the Academy?”
“……”
“What if it continues in the Murim Alliance? What if we’re scattered? What if we have to obey a superior’s orders? Could you still not care then?”
The sad words cut deep into the Gold-Silver-Copper Brothers’ hearts.
Together in a Sword Formation, they feared nothing. But individually, they ranked only around the middle of the Academy.
The gap would only widen in the Murim Alliance.
Without a sect’s protection, how much could they truly protect themselves?
“Damn it…… damn it, damn it, damn it!”
The person most agonized right now had to be the Eldest Senior Brother, who’d made enemies of the Instructors.
And in the midst of all that, what worried him most was—
[Don’t worry.]
Not himself, but them.
That knowledge set Eun-ho’s fury ablaze like a volcano.
THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD.
His bare fists struck the marble floor until they were soaked in blood.
As fragile as they themselves were.
“……”
The wounds were deep, but no one tried to stop him.
They all felt the same way he did.
Then.
THUD, THUD, THUD.
A group of figures strode into the training ground.
Sa-ryeon rose to her feet.
“Hm?”
This was Jin So-un’s private training ground.
No one else should have been able to enter.
Sa-ryeon stood and took in the faces of the newcomers, then let out a quiet groan.
“……Mmm.”
They were none other than the newly appointed Instructors and Training Masters.
At the very front stood a man with a sallow complexion and eyes wide with fury.
“I was told Jin So-un is here?”
While Sa-ryeon hesitated at the Instructor’s question—
Eun-ho, who hadn’t even properly wiped the blood from his hands, rose and stepped in front of Sa-ryeon.
“This is the Academy Representative’s private training ground. Please leave.”
“……And who are you?”
The Instructor’s brow furrowed deeply at Eun-ho’s words.
As if to say: why is the likes of you blocking my path?
What burned Eun-ho even more fiercely was knowing he posed no real threat to any of them.
“If you wish to speak with the Academy Representative, please schedule an appointment and meet at the Representative’s office. This is the Representative’s private dormitory.”
“I asked who you are…… And the dormitory is also an Academy facility. Is there any Academy facility an Instructor cannot enter?”
The fact that he couldn’t enforce even the most basic courtesy—that he couldn’t make the other side feel even a flicker of threat—was heartbreakingly frustrating.
So he steeled his gaze all the harder and spoke.
“No matter how much authority an Instructor holds, you have no right to enter a student’s private living space uninvited. Especially a sensitive facility like a training ground.”
The Instructor’s faces darkened with displeasure at Eun-ho’s icy tone.
“I’ve asked three times now who you are. Do you intend to ignore an Instructor’s question? Do you want to be expelled too?”
Expelled…… too?
His heart plummeted.
The Eldest Senior Brother had done nothing wrong.
So there was no reason for him to be expelled.
And yet—the way the Instructor spoke, as if Jin So-un’s expulsion were already decided, made his heart quake.
‘This is what the Eldest Senior Brother was worried about……’
Being swayed by a single word, shaken by the smallest gesture—that kind of frailty.
Eun-ho forced a smirk onto his face.
A fake expression, imitating someone he’d always watched.
But if he didn’t do at least this much, he felt he’d turn tail and run.
Just as that person always had, he affected an air of leisure and spoke in a mocking lilt.
“Expulsion for not answering a question…… was there perhaps a new Academy regulation I missed during the break?”
“……”
A small crack appeared on the other man’s face.
He’d only been mimicking, yet somehow it seemed to work.
“Was this approved by the Education Pavilion? Expelling Regular Exam entrants that easily? Or is this a regulation you Instructors just made up on the spot?”
The small crack grew wider, and through it surged the emotion they’d been carefully concealing.
“You impudent little……!”
“Oh, did I say something wrong? Or perhaps—”
It was a wondrous thing. As the other man erupted in blazing fury, Eun-ho found himself maintaining a colder rationality than ever before.
“Perhaps I hit a nerve and you’re flustered? Hmm…… you were foolish enough to provoke our Eldest Senior Brother and got wrecked for it, and you still haven’t learned?”
“……!”
The man clamped his mouth shut, unable to form a retort.
Eun-ho had been groping his way forward by instinct alone, and by sheer luck he’d struck a nerve.
While Eun-ho silently cheered his small victory—
Fire lit in the other man’s eyes.
CREAK.
By the time Eun-ho sensed something wrong and raised his head, the Instructor had already drawn his sword.
“A mere disciple of a third-rate sect…… you dare disrespect me twice over?”
His killing intent was nothing compared to Jin So-un’s, but it was sharp enough.
A suffocating, cloying pressure of qi wrapped around his entire body.
His reason apparently gone, the Instructor advanced, and his colleagues tried to hold him back, but—
“Let go!! If I don’t take that brat’s head today, I’ll drop dead myself!”
He came at Eun-ho with genuine intent, as if he truly had nothing left to lose.
‘Damn it all……’
If he’d had even a scrap of inner arts left, he might have at least tried to run. But right now, simply standing upright was taking everything he had.
And Sa-ryeon and the Brothers behind him were too far away to help in time.
The Orthodox Path might be more restrained than the Black Path, but in the end, martial artists were martial artists.
When they lost control of their rage, this was the result.
Eun-ho tried to raise his sword to defend himself, but the prediction that he’d take serious injury at minimum flashed through his mind.
And then.
“That’s enough. Hall Master No Jin-ha. Have you no shame before the name of Qingcheng Sect?”
At the languid voice, the Instructor—who’d been charging in with eyes practically rolled back—froze mid-step.
“……What crazy bastard dares invoke Qingcheng……!”
No Jin-ha’s snarl cut off abruptly.
At the end of his gaze—
“Honestly…… so obnoxiously loud.”
A man in scholar’s robes was approaching at a leisurely pace, hands clasped behind his back.
Eun-ho tilted his head.
‘Who’s that?’
Unkempt hair, a gaunt frame bordering on skeletal. Not a trace of inner arts to be felt.
A man who looked utterly out of place at the Murim Academy slowly walked up to the tip of No Jin-ha’s blade.
“You going to move this or what?”
“……”
“He’ll stab me at this rate. Well?”
“……N-no, sir.”
The man who’d been frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog just moments ago had tucked his tail and retreated.
Who was this man?
“Did the Eighth Hall Master of the White Tiger Pavilion really come all the way to the Academy just to kill a student?”
“……This is none of your concern, Department Head.”
“Oh, now, what a hurtful thing to say…… I’m the one who stamped your transfer papers, after all……”
It was bizarre.
The man clearly hadn’t trained in martial arts at all.
If anything, he looked more frail than an average man. Yet at his words, No Jin-ha turned pale.
“Seeing that you transferred here for personal reasons……”
The man glanced around at his leisure, then smiled pleasantly at No Jin-ha.
“I suppose you have no more attachment to the Eighth Hall?”
“Th-that’s not……!!!”
“Did you think you could kill a student and go back to your Hall? You think I’d allow that?”
“……I-it wasn’t like that.”
No Jin-ha answered, fully cowed.
“The hell it wasn’t. You clearly have no more interest in your Murim Alliance career, judging by what you just did.”
“N-no, absolutely not.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
The scholar-robed man nodded, then waved his hand dismissively as if shooing a fly.
“Then get going.”
“……But.”
Then he threw a friendly arm around Eun-ho’s shoulders.
“This young man is right, isn’t he? This is the Academy Representative’s private training ground. Instructors can’t enter, and shouldn’t.”
“……”
No Jin-ha’s eyes shook violently.
Caught between retreating and pressing further, he seemed locked in internal conflict.
At last, he forced out a single sentence.
“……I wish to speak with Jin So-un.”
But the scholar-robed man cut him off without a second thought.
“Schedule that separately. You didn’t have an appointment today, did you?”
“……”
No Jin-ha and the Instructors behind him seemed lukewarm about leaving.
They feared the man, but he also appeared to be someone who couldn’t physically force them to do anything.
“No matter how high your rank, you have no authority to order us……”
“Come to think of it, the White Tiger Pavilion Master was begging me to increase their budget…… Funny, I was just thinking White Tiger’s spending has been pretty reckless lately. Maybe it’s time for an audit……”
“We’ll be going now.”
“Hm?”
“……We’ll schedule a proper appointment next time.”
They were leaving? Just like that? After all that commotion?
Eun-ho was dumbfounded.
The scholar-robed man waved his hand dismissively again.
“Good thinking. Off you go!”
No Jin-ha, who had bowed politely to the man, shot Eun-ho a murderous glare before whipping around and walking away.
Once the Instructors had left, the man addressed as “Department Head” lifted his arm from Eun-ho’s shoulder and asked.
“So-un’s inside, right?”
Eun-ho, still staring blankly at the man, asked cautiously.
“……Who are you?”
“Hm? I’m the kind of person who can visit So-un without an appointment.”
“No, what I’m asking is…… what do you do that lets you command those people like that?”
The man blinked in surprise at Eun-ho’s question, then broke into a laugh.
“Hm? Ah! Hahaha. So that’s what you were curious about?”
“If it’s not too presumptuous…… might I ask your epithet?”
Eun-ho swallowed dryly without realizing it.
Not the faintest trace of inner arts emanated from the man.
Could he perhaps be an absolute master, undetectable to someone of Eun-ho’s level?
But.
“I haven’t trained in martial arts.”
The answer was unexpected.
“What? Then why did they…… Could it be your sect or clan that’s extraordinary?”
An Eighth Hall Master of the White Tiger Pavilion and a member of Qingcheng Sect—a position that could bring down birds in flight.
Yet such a man had swallowed his own emotions and retreated at a few words from someone with no martial arts whatsoever.
It was almost impossible to believe.
The man studied Eun-ho’s bewildered face, then smiled faintly.
“Well, it’s because I’m Mantongbu Department Head Maeng Ju-won.”
“Mantongbu…… Department Head……”
Eun-ho rolled the title around in his mouth, then raised his head to look the man squarely in the eye.
“If you reach that position…… you gain that kind of power even without martial arts?”
“Heh…… Backgrounds and brute force aren’t the only forms of power in this world, are they?”
The Department Head said this, gave Eun-ho’s shoulder a pat, and headed inside.
Watching Maeng Ju-won’s retreating back, Eun-ho thought.
‘Fucking……’
Perhaps this man held the answer he’d been searching for.
‘Cool.’