Chapter 157
Chapter 157
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 157
Chapter Title: Third-Rate Martial Family Becomes World's Best
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Namgung Cheon-hu had grown up hearing the same words without fail since childhood—no, since the moment he was born.
"Cheon-hu. You must make the name of our Vast Heaven Namgung shine."
"The weight of the Namgung name rests on the shoulders of the young master. It must be a heavy burden, but you have to endure it."
"Cheon-hu. Live up to your name—roar your ambitions toward the heavens!"
He was the eldest son of the Namgung Clan, bearing the expectations of every family member.
He was also a genius whose exceptional talent made everyone believe without a doubt that he would fulfill those hopes.
...That was until his younger brother, Namgung Cheon-yeong, was born.
'If only I hadn't been blessed with such talent.'
Then he wouldn't have had to shoulder everyone's expectations as a child.
He wouldn't have dreamed of becoming the head of the Namgung Clan and making its name renowned.
'They raised me like that, groomed me like that. How could they abandon me now?'
That dream had twisted into a warped desire.
And anything twisted inevitably rots.
It had festered, turned pitch-black, and become filthy and slimy.
He was confident he wouldn't hesitate at anything to achieve that desire.
Even if it went against the natural order and defied heaven's mandate.
Still, a sudden thought crossed his mind.
'When... did I start harboring these feelings?'
Regardless of the question, his mouth opened. His lips moved, spilling words.
Words were tools for communicating with others. But when they poured out from someone alone, it was a soliloquy.
True to its name, it was a flame burning fiercely within his mind, turning his brain to white ash.
"I'll kill you. I will definitely kill you. Cheon-yeong. My brother. Baek Yang-hui. How could you do that? Father. How could you do this to me? Heavens, why? Defile it—yes, defile it. Even if it gets stained black as long as I can grasp it. The Vast Heaven Sword Squadron... Namgung Clan. Tang Clan. They all need to be dealt with."
No more questions arose.
His brain was already burning white-hot, using itself as firewood.
'There are far too many things blocking my path. How dare they.'
The Tang family, mere tools slipping their leashes and trying to bite their master.
His younger brother Namgung Cheon-yeong, born much later yet brazenly coveting what was his.
And Baek Yang-hui.
"Baek Yang-hui. Baek Yang-hui. Baek Yang-hui. Baek Yang-hui...!"
The flames in his mind blazed even fiercer.
They showed no sign of dying out, even if they left piles of white ash.
Yet strangely, the flames were black.
Was it because the emotions fueling them were pitch-black?
'I'll kill you. I will definitely kill you, Baek Yang-hui.'
A pitch-black emotion worthy of being called utter darkness.
The root of that rotten, corrupted feeling was Baek Yang-hui.
Baek Yang-hui, who had a younger brother with talent equal to his own.
Unlike him, Baek Yang-hui embraced that brother.
Namgung Cheon-hu feared Namgung Cheon-yeong.
He hated the younger brother who held only respect and affection for his elder, yet monstrously shattered everything the older brother had built with his own talent.
'Hate? Have I hated Cheon-yeong?'
-What else but hate could make one wish someone didn't exist in this world?
Yes, he hated him. He had always hated him.
In contrast, Yang-hui had spoken of his own younger brother like this:
"My proud and lovely little brother."
The reason he could proudly cherish a brother with outstanding talent.
It was talent.
An overwhelming talent that Namgung Cheon-hu himself hadn't been born with.
A distant talent that even surpassed the monstrous Namgung Cheon-yeong, so far beyond that it was invisible to ordinary eyes like his.
'I have to kill him.'
He would become the head of the Namgung family, and from there, seize the world.
Thus, he had to crush every budding giant—not just Namgung Cheon-yeong and Baek Yang-hui, but all the great trees in the world.
Even if it meant borrowing the hands of vile unorthodox sects.
'If I can kill them, my whole body can be stained black.'
Originally, Namgung Cheon-hu's plan had been to make contact with the Hyungsan Sect, leak information through them, and position the Namgung Clan as the main force in subjugating the western unorthodox factions.
He had abandoned that initial plan the moment he witnessed the gap between himself and Baek Yang-hui.
Because he desperately wanted to kill Baek Yang-hui.
So he had decided to stain both hands black.
But.
That too had been thwarted by Baek Yang-hui's unexpected moves.
The bastard had even set up a board where Namgung and Hyungsan would inevitably destroy each other.
He had lost half of the precious Vast Heaven Sword Squadron members who were meant to become his limbs in the future.
'Fine, I'll admit it. You win, Baek Yang-hui.'
But at the very last moment, the Baek family would meet its destruction.
Even if his entire body was stained black, he would make it so.
As these thoughts swirled, Namgung Cheon-hu suddenly froze.
'But... can I become the head of the Great Namgung while drenched in filth?'
The Vast Heaven Sword Clan, the Great Namgung. A renowned orthodox sword sect acknowledged by all under heaven.
It was no place for a blackened soul to claim lordship.
To become the head of Namgung, he had to distance himself from the darkness.
-All crows under heaven have black wings.
-Do they shame their blackness?
-Stained hands? Not enough.
No. Crows do not find their innate blackness shameful.
-How could one be ashamed of what they were born with?
Yes, that was it.
He wasn't stained black. He was born black.
In that moment of realization, Namgung Cheon-hu felt ecstasy.
'What does it matter if my body is defiled pitch-black? I can just cover it with pristine white robes.'
Humans were such beings, weren't they?
Vulgar creatures who judged others by their clothes and treated them accordingly.
-Yes, that's it!
-Be true to your desires! Follow your nature!
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ A presence intruded while he was circulating his qi in meditation, causing him to open his eyes.
It wasn't A-du or Jeon Seol-ha lounging in the room as usual—it was Chui-dal.
"Brother."
"Yeah. Find anything out?"
"Just a bit? Didn't I tell you this little brother isn't the old Chui-dal anymore?"
Yang-hui whistled.
No matter how confident Yeo Hyeok had been, sending a first-rate low-level martial artist into a den crawling with peak experts had him worried.
Yet here he was, speaking with such confidence—he must have uncovered a lot.
'The world is vast, and the martial world is full of wonders.'
A first-rate martial artist evading the eyes of peak experts with advanced concealment techniques?
Even if it was thanks to the superiority of the Divine Thrower's meridians, it was blatantly abnormal.
'This is why you can't let your guard down.'
Even peak experts could lose to first-rate martial artists depending on the uniqueness or compatibility of their arts.
Yang-hui himself had won against a peak expert back when he was merely first-rate.
"Spill it. If the intel's good, I'll promote you to Ten Ri Chui-dal."
Chui-dal scowled fiercely.
"A first-rate guy sneaks into a lair full of peak experts, pulls off a brilliant operation, and comes out, and all I get is ten ri? Brother, what kind of standards are those?"
"Chui-dal."
"Yeah?"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
Yang-hui's hand shot out like lightning.
Chui-dal had indeed changed a lot and even tried to dodge,
but...
Smack!
"Aaaagh!"
"You punk. Forgot that dodging makes it hurt twice as much?"
"Aaaagh! It's not twice! Aagh! This is at least ten times worse!"
Even Chui-dal, who had endured the agonies of the Asura Hell Great Law, couldn't help screaming from Yang-hui's knuckle rap.
It was clearly just a knuckle rap, yet his entire head rang like a bell.
In other words,
"Heh. You're not the only one who's leveled up. I mixed in some sound art principles."
"Who the hell puts that into a knuckle rap?!"
"Me."
"..."
Jeon Seol-ha chimed in with a face full of subtle superiority.
"Senior brother, isn't that too harsh for your junior? You've never laid a hand on me, your junior sister."
Chui-dal cried out in outrage.
"What?! Lady Seol-ha, is that true?!"
"Yep. I've never been hit once."
'Hmm. Not quite. I remember giving her a knuckle rap or two.'
With Yang-hui's memory capable of reciting a wanderer's tabloid word-for-word from his past life,
his recollection was undoubtedly correct.
But saying so now would turn Jeon Seol-ha's face demonic.
"Brother! This is discrimination! Why hit only me when we're both little brothers?!"
"Jealous? Go become a peerless beauty then."
"Sexism! How can someone of your stature discriminate like this?!"
"No, it's not sexism—it's ugly vs. pretty discrimination. Who told you to look like an ugly otter?"
Chui-dal wore an expression like he might explode from frustration.
'I don't look like an ugly otter, you jerk of a brother!'
Not to toot his own horn, but Chui-dal objectively had neat, handsome features.
His brother just teased him by saying he looked like an ugly otter for no reason.
"You look pretty dissatisfied. Seol-ha, give him a peek."
"Yes, sir!"
Jeon Seol-ha, who usually avoided showing her face,
flipped back her veil without hesitation this time.
She even smiled brightly.
"..."
Chui-dal stared blankly at Jeon Seol-ha's bare face.
It was a beauty he could never get used to, no matter how many times he saw it.
"Any complaints?"
"...None, sir."
That was how Yang-hui squashed Chui-dal's rebellion.
"Ahaha, senior brother."
"Hm? What?"
"You've never let it slip before, but it seems even you rate my beauty highly deep down."
"High? If you're a junior sister, you're the world's number one beauty."
"Really?"
Jeon Seol-ha grinned broadly.
"Ah, take it back. That grin makes you fall short of world's best."
"Hey!"
"Minus points for speech too. What world's best beauty reacts so crudely?"
'I toned down 'screw you' to 'hey' because it's you, senior brother.'
She'd ditched her bad habits herself, and now he complained about it?
This was why people needed self-awareness.
'Well... still feels good. Hehe.'
Actually, it felt more than good—it was genuinely heartwarming.
No matter how well she knew her own peerless beauty, praise from someone who'd been stone-faced about it all this time lifted her spirits sky-high.
"Little brother Chui-dal, ignore the nonsense from senior brother and tell us what you found. We need to discuss countermeasures urgently."
"This is family business—how can an outsider like you boss me around?"
"Tsk. Keep nitpicking, and I'll tell your dad."
Uncle Jeon Seon was the biggest pushover dad Yang-hui knew.
And he already owed the man plenty.
"Chui-dal, enough chit-chat. Spill it."
"Chit-chat? Me? I did?"
"Hey now. Playtime's over."
Yang-hui grew serious and continued.
"Rough guess: it'll be a surprise attack, right?"
"Spot on. How'd you know?"
"Talked it over with the little scholar."
Putting their heads together, they'd concluded the Namgung bastards had no choice but a raid to shake the Baek family.
There were other paths, but they were too treacherous or wouldn't inflict much damage.
"As you said, brother, Hyungsan Sect and Namgung Clan plan to strike the main manor."
He got the briefing.
"Three days from now, with two hundred troops to annihilate the main house."
"Two hundred isn't that many, so they probably have quite a few peak experts."
"Likely."
Now that they knew the enemy's numbers, the Baek family had two options.
Hurry back the forces returning from Gildju to bolster defenses,
or face the unorthodox scum with their current strength and crush them.
"Objectively, the main house's current forces can't win against them. You know that too, brother."
"Yeah. Purely on strength, sure."
But.
Yang-hui grinned at Jeon Seol-ha.
"Ready, Seol-ha?"
Jeon Seol-ha rolled up her sleeves, flexing her fair arm with taut muscle.
"Of course, senior brother."