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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 004
Chapter Title: Heavenly Martial Body
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Heavenly Martial Body.
No one present was ignorant of what those words meant.
Silence fell over the room.
"Is it true?"
Moyong Taese's voice was calm as he asked again.
"It is true."
"Are you absolutely certain?"
Without the slightest hesitation, Yaowang Tang Leader Gam Seoin replied.
"I stake my reputation on it."
"...What kind of heavenly jest is this? I thought he was just a lowly bastard son."
The hand stroking Moyong Taese's beard trembled faintly.
He took a step back.
The room was gripped by shock, but I was the most stunned of all.
During the time I was bound and carried here, I had been vomiting up foul-smelling black blood nonstop.
Moomyeong's words came back to me: my body had been reconstructed using Cheonma's flesh as a foundation.
Moyong Taese pressed a hand weakly to his forehead and spoke.
"A Heavenly Martial Body... What a disaster. I tried so hard to stay neutral, and now this mess. Even if I'd resolved to stain my hands with blood, a Heavenly Martial Body... I nearly destroyed a member who could have been our family's greatest treasure..."
"Eighth Elder."
Gam Seoin clasped his hands together as he spoke.
"No matter how much we value orders from above, if he is truly a member of the Moyong Family, you know what the right choice is."
Moyong Taese's eyes were filled with turmoil.
"I should have refused Lady Yeo's pleas outright. If only I hadn't known anything..."
Moyong Taese's sighs continued.
"To confirm his identity personally before killing him for a cleaner resolution... Who could have foreseen this? What a cruel trick of fate."
Everyone's gazes sank endlessly.
"Very well. Listen up, all of you."
The wavering light in his eyes returned to the deep, hollow gaze from when I first saw him.
His hand rose slowly.
Everyone watched his hand with tense eyes.
His next words would decide everything.
Moyong Taese nodded as if he had made up his mind.
"From this moment, every member of this household—"
***
The Eighth Elder's residence was vast.
Endless walls surrounded a garden paved with white pebbles, filled with profound stillness.
I finished bathing and changed into clean clothes.
Gam Seoin nodded toward me and led the way.
"This way."
The grand estate was deathly quiet.
'Everyone's cleared out of the manor.'
So that's what he meant by issuing an official notice. Not a single servant remained in sight.
The silence was so deep I could hear a speck of dust rolling across the floor.
The door opened, revealing Moyong Taese seated in the place of honor.
"I wonder if I spoke too rashly."
Gam Seoin left those cryptic words behind.
"No, this must be heaven's will as well."
"If that is your decision, Elder."
Gam Seoin bowed his head and withdrew.
The door closed.
Now, only Moyong Taese and I remained in the room.
"Sit."
Moyong Taese lifted a pot from the table and poured tea into cups, one before me and one before himself.
Silence seeped into the room like ink.
'So this is the Moyong Family's Eighth Elder.'
Among everyone I'd met in my life so far, he had to be the greatest master.
In the eyes of the Eighth Elder, I must seem less than a fly.
A tangible surge of internal energy emanated from his body, pressing down on me.
It was a ferocious aura that felt like it was choking my throat.
I gritted my teeth and endured.
"You're not intimidated at all."
A glint of surprise flashed in Moyong Taese's eyes.
"What else is there to do but die? Though I have no intention of going quietly."
My words held no bravado.
Walking a tightrope.
This must be what it felt like to balance on a wire above a stage.
I'd crossed the river.
Now, there was only forward.
"What if I decided to kill you right now, as before? What would you do then?"
Like watching a mouse's futile struggles, Moyong Taese stroked his beard with amusement and asked.
"I don't know. But one thing's certain—I won't just stick out my neck and wait."
"Even if it's meaningless flailing?"
"Even if it's meaningless flailing."
I'd sworn it before my frozen mother's corpse.
I'd chase the sun and burn to death before accepting the fate of a frog devoured by a snake without a fight.
Moyong Taese's expression, with me right before him, seemed endlessly complicated.
"Very well. For now, let's examine your body. Roll up your sleeve."
He took my pulse, felt my skeletal structure, and his face grew even darker.
"No doubt about it. Even I can recognize it at a glance—it's that distinct..."
It bordered on regret.
"Let me ask one thing. Have you ever formally trained in martial arts?"
"No, never formally."
"Why on earth not? With a body like that?"
Gazing at his genuinely puzzled expression, a flicker of anger welled up inside me.
I swallowed it down.
"There was never any opportunity."
Moyong Taese seemed to belatedly realize his slip of the tongue.
He fell silent for a long while.
Steam rose from the teacup before him, scattering into the air and fading away.
"I misspoke."
Moyong Taese said dryly.
The tea had gone ice cold.
"Did you know about the extraordinary body you were born with?"
"No."
It wasn't a lie.
Once Moomyeong took residence in my body, it was reconstructed based on Cheonma's original physique.
There's no way I could know the details of my own body.
Paradoxically, Moyong Taese now understood my body better than I did.
"So you've never even had the chance to build proper internal energy? Even at your age?"
"Yes."
"...Hoo."
Moyong Taese sighed and closed his eyes.
I couldn't guess his thoughts.
I only heard him mutter softly, almost inaudibly.
"To let a treasure like this rot away over petty family squabbles..."
Moyong Taese rubbed his forehead.
There was no pretense in his regret.
As a pure martial artist, setting everything aside, he was genuinely heartbroken that a shining gem had been overlooked.
"Well, now that you know, it's not too late. Gam Seoin saved me from committing a lifelong regret."
Moyong Taese drank the cooled tea, as if his throat was parched.
"Listen well. Though my insight is limited, your body is exceptionally rare, even in the vast martial world."
I focused intently, not wanting to miss a single word.
I couldn't trust anyone.
No one would ever take my side.
It had always been that way, and my only asset was my own body. My skills would be the sole, most powerful means to protect myself going forward.
The path ahead would surely be treacherous.
Before facing such crises, any explanation of my foundational asset—my body—was invaluable, no matter how much.
"Your body is as refined as if you'd undergone marrow cleansing and shedding. All your meridians are pristine, and including the ligaments and tendons, your musculoskeletal structure possesses utmost elasticity. Moreover, since you've never practiced any miscellaneous internal arts, it's utterly pure. Of course, your age is late for starting anew. But... somehow, it will work. Yes, it must be solvable."
His final words felt more like he was reassuring himself than me.
"In the past, I once sought admission as a disciple to various sects, driven solely by my desire to learn martial arts."
I hesitated, then spoke.
"But having grown up without systematic internal energy training from childhood, they said my dantian must already be ossified and turned me away at the gate. So honestly... I'm skeptical about myself."
This was a humiliating memory for me, and I'd debated whether to mention it.
"You sought entry as a disciple and got chased off?"
"Yes. The gatekeeper servant beat me and dragged me out."
"What?!"
Moyong Taese's reaction was explosive.
"Which pathetic sect was it?! I'll wipe them out! A minor sect dares lay hands on a member of the Moyong Family, one of the Five Great Families...!"
Mid-roar, Moyong Taese recalled how he'd tried to kill me moments ago and bit his lip.
"...Right. I have no right to say that. In your eyes now, I must seem utterly worldly. Of course. After trying to kill you, I change my mind upon seeing your talent—what must you think of me..."
"..."
"Once more, I'm sorry for what happened earlier."
I couldn't even resent him for trying to kill me only to shift upon examining my body.
In a way, I was merely a bastard son. Yet the Moyong Family's great elder was apologizing to me sincerely.
"No, I understand. This world divides people by their utility, after all."
"...Yes. If you can say that much."
Moyong Taese gazed bitterly at the steaming teacup.
He placed his hand on the cold teapot.
Faint vapors rose from his fingertips.
In an instant, the energy transferred to the porcelain pot, and it began to boil again.
'Internal energy...?'
My eyes widened at the miracle of heating water with one's internal energy.
Noticing my reaction, Moyong Taese asked calmly.
"Judging by your response, this is the first time you've seen internal energy in action."
"Yes. First time. Did you just heat the water with internal energy?"
The look Moyong Taese gave me was endlessly complex.
Countless expressions flickered across his face in the span of three breaths.
At the end of them all, having somewhat composed himself, he spoke with a faint smile.
"Yes. Things like this... Once you systematically learn martial arts, it'll be nothing. And the doubt you raised from your experiences isn't wrong. But there's no need for despair, because... Your name is Moyong Bi, correct?"
It was the first time.
The first time someone from the Moyong Family had called my real name.
"...Yes."
I didn't know why that alone nearly brought tears to my eyes.
I clenched my teeth and held back.
"Yes. It's true that without cultivating internal energy, the unused dantian hardens with age, making even superior methods far less efficient later. That's not wrong."
"I see."
"But lower efficiency doesn't mean no growth is possible. Moreover, by my judgment, not only is your body exceptional—you possess something else as well."
"..."
The tension I'd slightly loosened pulled taut again.
'No way.'
Had he noticed?
No matter how amicable someone from the orthodox sects acted, there was one fact I had to hide at all costs.
That Cheonma's remnants lingered within my body.
This, above all, I had to conceal.
Moyong Taese was firmly orthodox.
In the martial world, where demonic cults were not just hated but their very existence intolerable, discovering demonic traces in me would mean a sword through my heart, Heavenly Martial Body or not.
I had to hide it, no matter what.
"Moyong Bi, have you ever pondered what makes a genius, as the world calls it?"
Moyong Taese's next words veered off unexpectedly.
"Pardon?"
"I believe three things are required for true genius."
Moyong Taese held up three fingers.
"First is innate physical talent. Without a body suited to realizing all martial arts, there's a clear limit. Next, a background that supports growth appropriately and timely—that's second. Finally, an obsessive thirst and pressure for growth. And most who were called geniuses but fell short..."
Moyong Taese held up one finger emphatically.
"Lacked the third."
"Ah."
"I've lived a long time. I've seen many with innate physical gifts. Many backed by prestigious families. But those with the first two almost always lacked the third. It's natural, in a way. Those with talent and backing can't know the rage, sorrow, and hunger of the talentless. That's why I concluded geniuses are so rare."
Moyong Taese pointed that single finger straight at me.
"You did miss your prime. But aside from that minor flaw, you have everything. Especially those boiling eyes of yours—they're like a starving wildcat, fiercer than a hungry tiger. You'll surely overcome that flaw."
My fists, clenched on my knees, trembled faintly.
I was acknowledged.
By the Eighth Elder of the Moyong Family, one of the Five Great Families—no less than the man who beat me at minor sects.
How could I describe this feeling?
Gazing at my emotional state, Moyong Taese spoke.
"I won't kill you. I'll let you live."
At his declaration, the pulse racing taut as a bowstring suddenly slackened.
"But."
Before that relief could settle, Moyong Taese continued.
"There is one condition."
"A condition?"
Yes, I knew it couldn't end that simply.
Nothing in this world is free.
I swallowed hard.
The next words would be the real crux.
No matter what he said, I resolved not to flinch.
I'd calmly counter, asserting my value.
I wouldn't just bare my neck and wait for the blade.
"One condition."
Moyong Taese said with resolute eyes.
"Moyong Bi, become my disciple."