Chapter 3

Chapter 3: A Second Chance

...Moyong Cheonhwi definitely cut off my head.

My hand instinctively moved toward my neck.

Smooth skin.

Warmth.

There was no blood.

No wound.

My neck was perfectly intact.

"Haa..."

I took a deep breath.

Cold air entered deep into my lungs.

It was the complete opposite of the burning breath I had felt inside the Myriad Tribulation Flame right before dying.

Don't tell me... this is some kind of hallucination people see right before death?

I blankly looked around.

Faint dawn light entered through gaps in an old ceiling.

A warm smell I hadn't experienced in a very long time touched my nose.

Straw.

Wooden flooring.

Everything was so familiar.

And painfully nostalgic.

This was the final place where I had lived something resembling a normal human life before the Righteous Alliance kidnapped me.

The Kunlun Sect.

More precisely, this was the Event Hall located in the most remote part of the sect.

It was where low-ranking workers responsible for chores such as cleaning and cooking lived.

It was also the place where I had first opened my eyes after reincarnating into the martial world.

...What's going on? Why am I here?

Burning flesh.

Moyong Cheonhwi's cold eyes.

My head falling from my shoulders.

That hellish moment when everything disappeared within the Myriad Tribulation Flame was still perfectly clear in my memory.

And yet...

instead of opening my eyes inside burning hell...

I had awakened on the bed where I slept in my youth.

As I looked around in confusion, my eyes happened to land on a mirror hanging beside the bed.

And reflected inside it...

was my fifteen-year-old self.

I looked exactly as I had on the day I first reincarnated into this world.

Was everything that happened... just one long dream?

No.

Impossible.

It had been far too horrific.

Far too painful.

Thirty years inside the Shadow Corps.

Days of burning flesh and shattered souls.

How could all of that have been a dream?

I remained still for a long moment, calming my breathing and processing the reality before me.

Eventually...

I reached one conclusion.

There's no doubt.

I've returned to the day I first reincarnated into the martial world.

Regression.

There was no other explanation.

Since I had already experienced reincarnation once, the situation itself wasn't especially confusing.

Rather than feeling confused...

my entire body trembled with overwhelming joy.

My heart began pounding.

But it wasn't simply because I had been given another chance at life.

There was only one true reason my heart was beating this violently.

I can take revenge.

I had been given another chance to point my blade of vengeance toward those who had trampled my life and destroyed thousands of innocent lives.

Moyong Cheonhwi.

The Righteous Alliance.

The instant those names appeared in my mind, something hot surged from deep within my chest.

It was a flame that would never disappear.

A fire of absolute hatred that even the Myriad Tribulation Flame had failed to consume.

Revenge and hatred became fuel that made me feel truly alive.

It was the sharp sensation of life that only someone who remembered hell could understand.

Then...

"Mujin! What are you doing?! Hurry up and move!"

A voice momentarily cooled the flames of hatred inside me.

I instinctively turned my head.

A boy stood there.

"I said get up already! We're really going to be late!"

The young boy urgently shaking me was Lee Sogwang.

He was the same age as me.

A friend who had shared hardship with me while we worked together in the Event Hall.

Sogwang.

I hadn't seen that face for more than thirty years after being kidnapped by the Righteous Alliance.

The fifteen-year-old boy who had remained only in my memories...

was standing before me exactly as I remembered him.

His innocent expression.

His familiar eyes.

The moment I saw his face, something tightened painfully inside my chest.

The day I was driven out of the Kunlun Sect... this guy cried so hard.

Old memories rushed into me.

My throat tightened.

"...Sogwang...."

"Huh? What is it, Mujin?"

"It's... good to see you again."

"What? What's gotten into you all of a sudden? Are you still half asleep? Why are you being so creepy?"

Instead of answering, I suddenly pulled Sogwang into a hug.

"I really missed you, you bastard."

"Hey! What's wrong with you?! Did you have some crazy nightmare or something? Anyway, if you're awake, hurry up! We need to get to the Martial Training Hall."

Unlike me, who was drowning in emotion, Sogwang urgently grabbed my arm and tried pulling me away.

"If you keep wasting time, we're going to get punished! Come on!"

"Punished?"

"Yeah! Today is the day we clean the Martial Training Hall. If the senior brothers catch us arriving late, we're dead!"

A memory from the past immediately played inside my head.

Cleaning the Martial Training Hall...

Then this really is the first day of my reincarnated life.

The Martial Training Hall.

Once every month, the Kunlun Sect gave basic martial instruction there to the low-ranking workers serving the sect.

Those who eat the grain of this mountain gate should receive Kunlun's teachings equally.

Thanks to the noble ideals of a previous Sect Leader, even Event Hall workers who weren't formal disciples were allowed to experience martial arts.

Of course, all they taught were simple internal breathing methods and basic techniques like the Six Harmonies Palm.

But for people of such low status, people who normally had almost no chance of ever learning martial arts...

even that much was a precious blessing.

That was why the Martial Training Hall was always crowded on the first day of every month.

Martial arts....

I suddenly remembered the excitement I had felt when I first realized I had reincarnated into the martial world.

When I learned that the place where my reincarnated life had begun was none other than the Kunlun Sect, one of the Nine Great Sects...

I had been thrilled beyond words.

Before reincarnating into the martial world, I had been nothing more than a struggling D-rank Hunter in the Unified Republic of Korea.

Back then, the only pleasure in my exhausting life had been reading web novels.

As a low-ranking Hunter barely earning enough to survive, the glamorous lives of web-novel protagonists had given me a way to escape reality.

There was one novel in particular that I had been obsessed with for a long time.

An F-Rank Hunter Reincarnates as the Strongest Martial Artist Under Heaven.

The title explained almost everything.

It was a typical mass-produced fantasy novel about the weakest Hunter accidentally reincarnating into the martial world and using a status-window ability to monopolize every fortuitous encounter until he became the strongest.

I had especially loved fantasy novels about people turning their lives around.

So when I realized that reincarnation, something I had only seen in fiction, had happened to me in real life...

it wasn't hard to imagine how high my expectations had been.

Fortuitous encounters.

Martial arts.

Peerless masters.

And maybe even a harem...

Ahem.

Anyway...

I had been convinced that such a dreamlike future was waiting for me.

...Of course, I realized on the very first day that my life was already screwed.

Shockingly enough, after reincarnating into the martial world, I discovered that my new body had absolutely no talent for martial arts.

I struggled even with the basic breathing method taught to strengthen the bodies of Event Hall workers.

Haa... Why are you still unable to move beyond the basics? Heaven must have given you hands meant to hold a broom, not a sword.

I could still clearly remember the sigh of the young Kunlun Taoist who taught me back then.

But I've regressed this time.

Maybe things will be different now.

Holding on to a tiny bit of hope, I focused on my dantian.

Nothing.

My expectations were immediately crushed.

There was no sensation whatsoever inside my dantian.

In other words...

I had no internal energy.

Come on.

Shouldn't I at least inherit the internal energy I had before regressing?

During my time as a test subject, I eventually managed to obtain internal energy.

It came from the Death-Stealing Pill, a medicine that increased internal energy by consuming the user's lifespan.

But right now...

my dantian contained nothing.

So even after regression, I'm still stuck with this talentless body that has no connection to martial arts.

I needed to take revenge on the bastards of the Righteous Alliance who had destroyed my previous life.

But with a body like this...

How?

Disappointment briefly washed over me.

But I quickly pulled myself together.

No.

There is a way.

I have information about the future.

The Shadow Corps that kidnapped me had been a secret organization operating from the darkness of the Righteous Alliance.

One of its duties was collecting information about major events throughout the martial world.

After surviving in the Shadow Corps for more than thirty years, I inevitably heard information about all sorts of events.

That included news about powerful elixirs and supreme martial-art manuals that would be discovered in the future.

If I use what I know, I can find a way to take revenge on Moyong Cheonhwi and the Righteous Alliance.

As I strengthened my resolve...

Sogwang had already dragged me all the way to the Martial Training Hall.

I never thought I'd come back here again....

As soon as I entered the training ground, strange emotions washed over me.

This was where I had first encountered martial arts after reincarnating.

It was where I had been thrilled by the possibility of learning martial arts...

and where I had fallen into despair after discovering just how terrible my talent truly was.

That damned Taoist said it, didn't he?

That I was destined to spend my entire life holding a broom instead of practicing martial arts.

The cruel words of the Martial Training Hall instructor still rang in my ears.

Just thinking about meeting that foul-mouthed Taoist again gave me a headache.

Anyway, whenever lessons were held at the Martial Training Hall, the place had to be thoroughly cleaned before dawn.

And naturally...

that work fell to the youngest members of the Event Hall.

"Mujin, hurry up and take a broom! We need to finish before it's too late."

Sogwang looked around nervously and offered me one of the two brooms in his hands.

I instinctively reached for it.

Then...

"Oh? Look at these bastards. You haven't even started cleaning yet?"

An unpleasant, thuggish voice reached my ears.

I turned around.

Around ten boys were swaggering toward us.

They deliberately twisted their expressions as if trying to intimidate us.

Ah.

Those bastards were here too.

They were boys around our age who also lived in the Event Hall.

Arrogant punks who bullied Sogwang and me simply because they had joined the Event Hall a few months earlier.

"What are you doing? If you see your senior brothers, shouldn't you bow first and show some respect? Huh?"

Wang Dusik, the leader of the group, spoke arrogantly.

Despite being nothing more than another worker doing the same chores as us, he had somehow heard the term somewhere and forced us to call him "Senior Brother."

Senior Brother, my ass.

The idea of workers calling one another senior and junior disciples was ridiculous.

Of course, Wang Dusik had a reason for acting so confidently.

Despite his rough and ignorant appearance, Wang Dusik possessed some talent for martial arts.

Among all the Event Hall workers who came to the Martial Training Hall, he was the only one capable of performing anything resembling proper martial arts.

He was still nothing more than a third-rate beginner.

But compared to the old me, who hadn't been able to learn martial arts at all...

the difference had been like heaven and earth.

That was why I had silently endured Wang Dusik's bullying in the past.

Cleaning days had been no different.

Normally, everyone was supposed to divide the Martial Training Hall into sections and clean together.

But Wang Dusik's group always forced Sogwang and me to clean their sections as well.

"What? Why aren't you answering? Do your senior brothers' words mean nothing to you?"

"N-No. I'm sorry we're late."

Sogwang repeatedly lowered his head.

"There. Now you understand."

"Idiots only move after someone shouts at them."

Wang Dusik's group laughed maliciously.

I silently watched them.

Then several of them turned toward me.

"Han Mujin, why aren't you answering? Did you suddenly go deaf?"

"Look at him holding his head up like that. This won't do. Maybe we should teach our rude junior brother some manners."

They laughed and rotated their arms.

The gesture was clearly meant to threaten me.

Look at these little bastards.

I almost laughed.

In my previous life, I had lived in fear of trash like this.

Back then, I had been frightened by the mysterious martial arts Wang Dusik had learned.

Their bodies were also noticeably larger than mine.

But now?

Give me a fucking break.

You brats haven't even lost the baby fat from your faces. Who do you think you're threatening?

What kind of life had I lived before regressing?

I had survived for decades in the underground facilities of the Righteous Alliance.

Every night, countless people were carried out as corpses.

Martial artists and assassins secretly trained by the Shadow Corps had used me as a living combat dummy.

Sometimes I was stabbed hundreds of times in a single day.

The number of times blades and palm techniques had cut and shattered my body had long surpassed tens of thousands.

Do you little bastards know what it feels like to have a blade buried in your stomach?

Do you even know what death smells like?

I had endured killing intent from martial artists so powerful that simply standing beside them made ordinary people's legs tremble.

There was no way a group of children like Wang Dusik's gang could frighten me.

All I could do was laugh.

It's embarrassing.

Even if it happened in my previous life, I can't believe I was afraid of trash like this.

In truth, Wang Dusik was the only person among them who knew even basic martial arts.

The rest simply threw punches like ignorant street thugs.

I slowly shook my head.

"What? Has this bastard gone crazy? How dare you act like that in front of your senior brothers!"

"Senior Brother Dusik, I think we need to teach this rude bastard a lesson."

One of them stepped forward.

He was usually Wang Dusik's right-hand man.

"Han Mujin, today I'll teach you exactly how a junior brother should behave."

The moment he finished speaking, his fist flew toward me.

Slow.

The motion was unbelievably crude.

I had accumulated tens of thousands of life-or-death combat experiences against the Shadow Corps' assassins.

There was no way I would be hit by the fist of a clueless little thug like this.

I lightly twisted my upper body.

His right fist cut through empty air.

"H-Huh?"

He looked startled.

He clearly hadn't expected his attack to miss.

There was no reason for me to waste the opening.

"Bite down hard. This is going to hurt quite a bit."

My right fist buried itself deep in the center of his abdomen.

Thud.

His body folded in half before collapsing to the ground.

"Urgh... cough...."

Foam appeared around his mouth.

I looked down at him.

"I hit the Wijeong Acupoint directly. You'd better prepare to piss blood for a while."

There were said to be 108 vital points throughout the human body.

I had already mastered knowledge of them.

It was practical knowledge carved directly into my body after being subjected to the Shadow Corps' human experiments every single day.

I turned toward Wang Dusik's stunned group.

"All right. Who's next?"

"Who else wants to teach me the proper manners between senior and junior brothers?"

"Y-You bastard...."

Their earlier confidence disappeared.

Their faces were filled with confusion.

They might have been bigger than me, but they were still immature kids.

Someone they thought was strong had just collapsed after one punch.

Of course they hesitated.

Not everyone was frightened, though.

"Looks like our rude little junior brother learned a trick somewhere."

"Too bad it won't work on me."

Wang Dusik stepped forward.

Even after watching his friend collapse, his pace remained calm.

Wang Dusik might actually be troublesome.

Before entering the Kunlun Sect's Event Hall, Wang Dusik had apparently spent several years living at a small countryside martial school.

Because of that, he knew a few basic martial techniques and possessed a tiny amount of internal energy.

Wang Dusik had basic martial knowledge and internal energy.

I, Han Mujin...

had neither.

The situation clearly favored him.

That remained true even with all the combat experience from my previous life.

Still...

I couldn't retreat.

If I lower my head to trash like this, nothing about my life will ever change.

Moyong Cheonhwi.

The current greatest martial artist under heaven.

The Righteous Alliance.

The strongest force in the martial world.

I had sworn revenge against monsters like them.

And I was supposed to shrink back before a street thug like Wang Dusik?

Impossible.

He's probably learned nothing more than something like the Six Harmonies Palm.

I'm not running away from that.

So what if I didn't have internal energy?

I would make up the difference with experience.

I looked directly at Wang Dusik.

"What are you doing?"

"Are you going to keep talking forever? I thought you were going to teach me how a junior brother should behave."

"You disrespectful bastard... Fine. I'll teach you properly, just like you wanted!"

Wang Dusik charged at me with clenched teeth.

His eyes burned with hostility.

"Han Mujin, don't think you're walking out of here on your own two feet today."

His shoulder moved.

His right arm came crashing down toward me in a wide arc.

I recognized the movement.

As expected.

Six Harmonies Palm.

I already knew the forms of the Six Harmonies Palm.

I moved far backward and avoided Wang Dusik's palm strike.

"You bastard! You dodged that?"

Angered that his first attack failed, he rushed forward even more aggressively.

His fists, reinforced with internal energy, attacked every opening he could find.

He was clearly trying to finish me.

This was dangerous.

Knowing the forms of the Six Harmonies Palm and dodging attacks infused with internal energy were completely different things.

If even one of his fists hit me properly...

I would go down.

But...

I easily avoided Wang Dusik's continuous attacks.

"You damn rat! Let's see how long you can keep running!"

Wang Dusik furiously swung both arms.

Palm strikes exploded one after another.

Every fist contained internal energy.

At my current level, these attacks should have been almost impossible to avoid.

And yet...

What the hell?

Why is he so... slow?

Wang Dusik's fists looked as if they were moving in slow motion.

And it wasn't merely his punches.

The sweat running down his face.

Even the faint flow of air around him.

Every one of my senses, including sight and hearing, clearly captured all of Wang Dusik's movements.

This felt too different to dismiss as nothing more than combat experience from my previous life.

Is Wang Dusik's martial arts level simply that low?

Whatever the reason...

one thing was clear.

The Wang Dusik standing in front of me right now...

I can toy with this guy.

I calmly dodged his palm techniques and smiled to myself.

Looks like one more bastard will be pissing blood today.