The Cause of How Things Turned Out This Way
"Somebody help! It's a ghost!"
When the anomalous being appeared, I casually hurled a formless sword and roughly cut it down.
"Look at that figure! She's the Queen of Darkness herself! It's a disaster-level ghost!"
Yet the people pointed at me—the one who had helped them—and trembled in terror.
'I'm not a disaster-level ghost. I have no intention of harming any of you.'
"Do not presume to judge this one's existence so carelessly. Only then shall I refrain from extinguishing your insignificant lives."
I tried to explain myself, but the incomprehensible speech filter twisted my words into something completely different from my true intentions.
'Please just listen to me! How many times do I have to say I'm not? Have you all lost your minds?'
"Do you dare talk back to this one? After ignoring my commands so many times, it seems the moment has come for that trivial mind of yours to vanish."
"She's going to kill us all! Run!"
Once again my words came out wrong, and the crowd fled in panic.
'...Fuck.'
How did things end up like this?
I, Mu Yeonghui, who had suddenly been mistaken for a disaster-level ghost, recalled the past events that had caused all of this.
"So this is where you were hiding. I have searched for you for ten long years!"
"...Who are you?"
At the edge of a sheer cliff.
In the front yard of a small thatched hut, completely cut off from the mundane world, a group had gathered.
Dozens of martial artists radiating murderous intent stood in formation, led by a man wearing golden silk robes.
The man glared at the person who had stepped out of the hut and spoke, his eyes burning with hostility. The owner of the hut appeared to be an ordinary commoner.
A plain village man in shabby hemp clothes, fiddling with a fishing rod.
But the man in the golden silk robes knew that this appearance was nothing more than a disguise.
"Don't tell me you've forgotten Sama Hon? Mu Yeonghui!"
The Supreme King, Sama Hon.
Once the leader of the tyrannical faction that sought to conquer all of Murim.
The sect master of the Paewang Sect and an absolute powerhouse who had vanished without a trace ten years ago.
Such an expert had suddenly appeared, pouring killing intent toward the villager with ice-cold eyes.
The terrifying aura crushed down on his entire body, but the villager did not move a single inch.
It was only natural.
Because this villager was the current strongest under the heavens in Murim.
The Invincible One, Mu Yeonghui!
The living legend and hero of Murim who was said to have gone into seclusion.
The very person who had crushed the Paewang Sect ten years ago and toppled Sama Hon's empire.
"I still remember it clearly."
Sama Hon spoke in a voice thick with resentment.
"The moment ten years ago when you suddenly appeared and shattered all my ambitions. The moment my loyal subordinates were torn apart by your hands. The moment I suffered a miserable defeat and could do nothing but flee!"
"..."
"After that day, I sustained this wretched life with the single obsession of taking revenge on you. And yet you claim you don't even know who I am?"
"..."
Mu Yeonghui stared silently at Sama Hon as the man poured out his heated words, then walked toward him.
He tapped the ground a few times with the fishing rod in his hand and spoke.
"Yeah."
"What did you say?!"
"The Heavenly Demon, the Blood Demon, the Lord of the North Sea Palace, the leader of the Beggars' Sect... I've killed so many who came at me with pointless grudges. Plenty of them swore revenge and showed up here."
Mu Yeonghui pointed at the cliff with a bored expression.
"Just recently the next Heavenly Demon came looking for revenge for his predecessor, so I simply threw him off over there. In a situation like this, why would I need to remember every single one of you? You're all just another loser who ended up defeated by my hand."
"...You bastard!!!"
Having received the worst possible mockery, Sama Hon erupted with energy across his entire body.
The rage of a single human shook the entire cliff.
"Heh heh, still as arrogant as ever! But will you be able to maintain that arrogance even after learning that I too have reached the Profound Realm?!"
Sama Hon shouted desperately as he revealed the shocking truth.
He had reached the same absolute realm that only Mu Yeonghui had attained in the last several decades.
"I trained every single day, coughing up blood with the sole desire to kill you. Thanks to that, I finally broke through the Harmonious Realm and reached the Profound Realm. My subordinates have also all reached the transcendent level after long years of training!"
Taking their master's words as a signal, the dozens of surviving Paewang Sect members cloaked their weapons in concentrated energy.
Concentrated energy—the mark of the transcendent realm that only sect leaders of major factions could usually achieve.
"Mu Yeonghui, no matter how strong you are, you cannot possibly handle one equal expert and dozens of transcendent masters. I will show you now—the true Supreme King Art that I have honed solely to defeat you!"
Sama Hon, having reached the Profound Realm, charged toward Mu Yeonghui along with his dozens of transcendent subordinates.
It was a force effectively equal to the entire Murim world!
A tremendous roar that seemed to shake heaven and earth echoed across the wilderness.
And seven minutes later.
The front yard of the thatched hut had turned into hell. Instead of the scent of fresh wind, the air was thick with the smell of blood.
It was the blood spilled by the transcendent experts who had once boasted of ruling the world.
Among their mangled and torn corpses, Sama Hon lay in a miserable heap.
"Cough...!"
Sama Hon tried to stand, but he could not.
The martial arts he had been so proud of after reaching the Profound Realm had been utterly dismantled.
His dantian was shattered, and every meridian in his body had burst.
Having become a cripple, Sama Hon looked at the figure standing before him with blurry vision.
Mu Yeonghui stood there arrogantly, not a single hair out of place.
He had faced a Profound Realm expert and dozens of transcendent masters,
annihilated them all,
and remained completely unscathed.
"This can't be... It shouldn't be possible.... You are clearly also in the Profound Realm!!"
Sama Hon denied reality.
If Mu Yeonghui had reached a higher realm it would have been understandable, but he was certain the man was still in the Profound Realm.
And yet he had killed another Profound Realm expert and all those other powerhouses while remaining in the same realm.
"Such a monstrous thing.... Just what are you? Are you even human? What in the world have we been fighting all this time...."
Sama Hon's final question trailed off without an answer and faded away.
The second Profound Realm expert.
It was the hollow end of a man who could have become another legend of Murim.
"..."
Mu Yeonghui looked down at the dead Sama Hon and the dozens of Paewang Sect warriors. After staring at them expressionlessly for a long time,
"Fuck!"
he suddenly spat out a curse.
"Fuck, fuck, what the hell is this mess? How long is it going to take to clean all this up, damn it!"
Looking at the blood-soaked yard full of corpses, Mu Yeonghui shouted in frustration.
It was a sight completely lacking the dignity of an absolute master, but for him this was far more familiar.
Because Mu Yeonghui had originally been an ordinary person from modern Earth, not a martial artist or absolute master at all.
"I must have been crazy. I must have been out of my mind to do something so useless like showing up in Murim!"
Forty years ago.
Mu Yeonghui had suddenly been transported to the Murim world for unknown reasons.
It was an absurd and frustrating situation, but the one fortunate thing was that the place he had been sent to was what people called a 'fated encounter.'
Sinbihyang.
It was a hidden sanctuary where like-minded martial artists lived together regardless of their original affiliations.
The reclusive masters of Sinbihyang had shown great interest in Mu Yeonghui, who had fallen from the sky.
"Young man, you truly came from another world?"
"How fascinating!"
"What if we taught martial arts to someone from another world?"
Could a human from another world learn martial arts?
This interesting topic stimulated the curiosity of the old men who had been living in boredom without any hobbies.
"This is incredible! I've never seen such perfect bones in my life. Your aptitude is no joke!"
"Is that so?"
"Is it because you're from another world? Your aptitude is almost inhuman! If you master all our arts, you will undoubtedly become the strongest under the heavens!"
"No, I'm not really interested in..."
"Shut up and just learn it. You have nowhere else to go anyway, right? If you learn our arts, we'll at least provide you with food and shelter."
"...Yes."
With nowhere to go, Mu Yeonghui had no option to refuse the old men's request. He ended up learning martial arts under their coercion.
"Oh, you really got stronger?"
But once he started learning, his mind changed. Discovering that he truly possessed genius aptitude and achieved rapid progress, he began to feel like testing his skills.
"With my current level, couldn't I make a name for myself in Murim?"
He went out into the world on a sudden impulse, but it was clearly a mistake.
The Murim world was not a place where common sense applied at all.
At first it was fine.
He felt a thrilling pleasure while gaining fame by displaying his overwhelming martial prowess.
"Wow, you are truly amazing, Great Hero!"
"Mu Yeonghui the Great Hero is undoubtedly the strongest under the heavens!"
"Haha, you flatter me."
But gradually the situation became strange.
"Our Blood Cult only drank the blood of a few thousand civilians to achieve blood purification, yet you destroyed our entire sect!"
"Even if my child committed murder, robbery, and rape as casually as eating meals, how dare you break all the limbs of the young palace lord of the North Sea Ice Palace? I will never forgive you!"
"Even though you saved my life, saved my family, helped me meet my current wife, and even assisted during her childbirth, I feel inferior because of you. Take this—my Heavenly Demon Divine Art!"
"You are the enemy who seduced the emperor, corrupted the nation, and killed my master, the leader of the Beggars' Sect who engaged in corruption! I have searched for you for ten years to capture you!"
The villains he had subjugated while traveling the world.
Their associates persistently came after him seeking revenge.
No matter how many he killed, it never ended.
"If you're going to die, just die already! Accept it and move on!"
Stalkers who tracked him down no matter how much he hid, even following him into seclusion.
No matter how strong he was, there were simply too many enemies.
And every single one of them was a supreme expert, so he could not endure it.
In the end, Mu Yeonghui raised the white flag.
"...I can't do this anymore. I'll return no matter what it takes!"
Looking down at Sama Hon's corpse, Mu Yeonghui made up his mind.
He could no longer stand this den of lunatics, so he decided to leave Murim behind.
While traveling through Murim, he had searched for a way to return.
Then he came up with a groundbreaking method.
"They say that if you become a Daoist immortal and achieve feather ascension, you can go to the immortal realm, right? If that's a form of dimensional travel, then I just need to change the destination from the immortal realm to modern Earth during the ascension. That means I can go back!"
Using feather ascension as a return ticket!
It was an idea so ingenious it bordered on insanity.
Named Dimensional Transfer via Ascension.
Even as a Profound Realm expert, he could not do it alone. It was a secret technique he had barely completed with the help of his masters from Sinbihyang.
However,
'There might be side effects, so I've been putting it off until now.'
There was no way such a ridiculous method could be safe.
The masters of Sinbihyang had warned him.
"Do you understand? This is not its original purpose. The probability is extremely low, but something abnormal might occur."
"Your body might be reconstructed in a place other than the immortal realm, causing your appearance to change drastically or creating defects in your body."
Their unusually heavy warning was not something Mu Yeonghui could ignore.
That was why he had been hesitating until now, wondering whether to use it or not.
Sama Hon's visit had completely made up his mind.
"Let's go. Before someone else comes looking for revenge."
Mu Yeonghui went inside the house and packed his belongings.
He gathered the valuables in the house that he had kept to use after returning to the modern world, and even searched the bodies of the dead Paewang Sect experts to collect anything that could be turned into money.
'What could possibly go wrong? They said the probability was extremely low.'
With such optimistic thoughts, he performed the feather ascension.
And then.
Having become a woman, she found herself standing among strange monsters and people holding guns.
...Huh?