The Third Son of the Zhuge Clan is a Returned Martial God - Chapter 01

========== CHAPTER 1 ==========

========== CHAPTER 1: SEVEN YEARS ==========

Hunan Province, the prestigious Jin Clan estate.

Screams erupted from all over the manor, which was engulfed in a sea of fire. A path of blood was being carved out across the grounds.

An attack by unknown assailants.

The Jin Clan, one of the six great prestigious clans of the Murim world, was currently…

In a crisis as precarious as a candle in the wind.

High up on a pavilion.

Jin Cheong-un, the head of the Jin Clan, was looking down at the scene while pressing his hand against a stab wound in his abdomen.

However, the blood leaking between his fingers showed no sign of stopping.

“You must go, Ja-seong-ah. To that place.”

“I cannot.”

I stood there with my arms hanging limp, wearing clothes embroidered with the ‘Jin’ character that symbolized the Jin Clan.

Blood dripping from the edge of my sword soaked the ground.

“Can you not hear the voices of the family, of our kin calling out?”

“Clan Head…”

A collateral relative who entered the Jin Clan and inherited the ‘Jin’ surname.

That is me, Jin Ja-seong.

“The Jin Clan is already finished.”

My voice was low and sunken, as if devoid of emotion.

At those words, Jin Cheong-un’s pupils trembled slightly, as if he were speechless.

Countless faces flashed by.

The faces of the Jin Clan people I had shared meals with for ten years.

“Has their identity been confirmed? Is it the Sado Alliance? Or perhaps… the Outer Lands?”

Experts composed of the elite levels of an Alliance or Union.

A question about the culprits who swallowed the Jin Clan whole.

When I returned from the front lines of the Righteous-Demonic War, everything was already over.

“Nothing has been confirmed.”

Clan Head Jin moved his hand, which had been blocking the wound in his abdomen, slowly. Then, blood poured endlessly from the gap.

“Has no one come from the Murim Alliance yet?”

To the question of whether reinforcements had arrived, I shook my head instead of answering. That was enough, and Jin Cheong-un slowly nodded with a lonely look in his eyes.

Three hours since the bloodbath began.

Even after that much time, the Righteous Murim had not made any response.

“In the end, it has come to this.”

“…”

His voice sank even lower.

“Do you remember? When you first entered the family, you were just a child. And you picked up a sword right away. There was no way you could have had a choice.”

They took me in, a nobody, seeing only my talent.

I learned the Jin Clan’s martial arts, and Jin Cheong-un recommended me to the Murim Alliance.

As my martial arts achievements rose and I accumulated merits, I was finally being called the ‘Sword of the Murim Alliance’.

“That day, I do not regret taking you in. You have fulfilled your duty.”

“Clan Head…”

His gaze turned below the pavilion. Into the middle of the sea of blood, where thick smoke and screams were intertwined.

“Yet, whenever I see your face, I feel sorry. I have made you stain your hands with too much blood…”

The sword is not meant for thinking.

Although I had lived following orders for years, my life as a leader in the Murim Alliance was far from righteousness.

I had destroyed dozens of Black Path sects with these hands.

“I thought I would be able to see with my own two eyes you standing tall in the Murim world beyond the Jin Clan. That is what I regret most.”

I was speechless.

In the midst of his life’s flame flickering out, he was worried about me.

Is this a kind of pity?

It must be no different from my own feelings, unable to properly face his blood-stained face.

“Ja-seong-ah.”

“Yes, Clan Head. Please speak.”

“Leave the Jin Clan. If you are alone, escape is possible. You still have much to do, do you not?”

He is telling me to run away.

To leave behind the lord I served all my life, and to turn my back on the family that shares the same surname.

“I cannot do that.”

“Ja-seong-ah, forget the Jin Clan and the Murim Alliance, and live your own life.”

“I cannot. You must come with me…”

As I bowed my body to prostrate before him, Clan Head Jin lifted his hand with difficulty and grabbed the back of my hand.

My throat choked up at the touch, which had already turned cold.

“I am already done for. So go. And you must survive, and follow your own path…”

Unable to finish his words, he passed away without even being able to close his eyes.

The hand that had been folded over fell powerlessly.

Gritting my teeth, I slowly reached out and closed his eyes. After barely raising my body with trembling legs, I bowed my head deeply.

“You have worked hard, Clan Head-nim.”

A desperate look seeped into my eyes.

From this moment on, I will not lift my sword by the family’s command, but as a martial artist.

Without time to organize my thoughts, my body moved first.

Familiar corridors and stairs flashed by quickly.

“There!”

The culprits had already reached the Clan Head’s residence.

I raised my sword and jumped toward them.

A fierce battle ensued.

In the midst of it, I checked to find survivors in the estate, but everything before my eyes was already burning and crumbling.

That was when it happened.

-Scary… ugh…

A child’s tearful voice came from the pavilion.

-Shh. Please… you must not cry now, Young Master.

Turning my head, a woman was trembling in a corner of the pavilion, holding a child in her arms.

“Who is there!?”

“L-Leader-nim…”

It was a maid from the inner quarters.

The child in her arms was none other than the Clan Head’s bloodline.

The youngest of the Jin Clan.

“Mu-yeon-ah. You were alive…”

The legitimate heir of the family is alive.

As a faint but clear hope sprouted, strength returned to the hand holding the sword.

“Let’s go. We must get out of here.”

“Yes.”

Dozens, hundreds of black shadows swarmed in relentlessly.

‘I must go. I must save this child at all costs and continue the lineage of the Jin Clan.’

By the time my whole body was stained with blood.

I escaped through the back gate of the estate with the child and the maid.

I immediately entered the forest path and ran, hacking through the way.

“Huff. Huff. Where are we going now?”

“I intend to cross the Yangtze River and go to Hubei.”

Hubei Province. If we go there, there is definitely someone who will help us. Just as I was moving quickly along a secluded path with that thought.

Thud.

My footsteps stopped.

The maid following behind me makes a puzzled expression.

“Leader-nim, what is the matter…?”

But my gaze was fixed forward and did not move at all.

‘The number is about ten. Three of them are definitely experts.’

My internal energy was already bottomed out, and my body had long since reached its limit.

I looked at the face of the child held in the maid’s arms. A pretty child with fair skin, even though he was a boy.

“Even if I die, I will make sure to save you.”

That is the only repayment I can make to the Clan Head who took me in. I immediately took out a pouch of silver from my bosom and handed it to the maid.

“Go that way. Head toward the Jegal Clan from there.”

“Yes? What does that mean…”

“Quickly! There is no time to explain.”

“Ah, yes!”

The maid immediately ran out, pushing through the bushes.

At that moment, a sound cutting through the air was heard, and a hidden weapon was embedded in the maid’s back.

“Argh!”

The maid fell with a death cry.

“Damn it!”

I kicked off the ground without a moment’s hesitation. At the edge of my vision, Jin Mu-yeon, the youngest of the Jin Clan, who had been in the maid’s arms, was captured.

“Mu-yeon-ah!”

“Uncle…”

The voice of a young child who couldn’t even pronounce words properly was almost like crying.

At that moment, a group of people appeared from behind the trees.

Black-clad men, all of them exuding an extraordinary aura.

They were definitely part of the group that attacked the Jin Clan estate.

“Who are you? Who are you to attack the Jin Clan?”

There was no sign or precursor of the culprits.

Even the Murim Alliance, which had eyes and ears all over the Central Plains, hadn’t noticed anything.

“Us?”

One of the black-clad men stepped forward and tilted his head.

“You wouldn’t know even if I told you, would you?”

Unlike his sloppy attitude, the energy exuding from him was definitely that of a super-expert.

I raised my sword and aimed it at him.

Cold sweat flowed down my forehead.

“Shut up and answer my question.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be bad for one guy to know before he dies.”

The eyes revealed between the masks flashed.

As I met his ferocious, beast-like gaze, the blood flowing through me seemed to turn cold.

“Heuk-myeong.”

Although I have been in and out of the Murim Alliance and know the information of countless forces, it is a name I have never heard in my life.

“Heuk-myeong…? Could it be that you belong to the Sado Alliance?”

“Yeah, that’s the reaction. That face that knows nothing even after being told.”

An annoyed sneer.

“Why do you think the Jin Clan Head, who had already reached a high realm, died so helplessly? Because his martial prowess was lacking? Or just because he was ambushed?”

The moment the Clan Head was mentioned, one fact flashed through my mind.

“No way!”

“Jin Cheong-un was ambushed by a Breeding Assassin we had planted in the Jin Clan. It’s truly pitiful that you didn’t even know that.”

The Clan Head’s last command not to even think about revenge.

I finally realized the meaning of those words.

A member of the family had betrayed them.

“Heuk-myeong, Breeding Assassin…”

As I muttered, the black-clad man continued.

“That aside, is that child the bloodline of the Jin Clan?”

As the youngest of the Jin Clan was mentioned, my eyes turned cold.

“He is just a three-year-old child. Do not have vain thoughts.”

“Judging by your eyes, I guess he is the legitimate heir. If so…”

Before the order was even finished, the black-clad men behind him moved.

I stepped back slightly and hid Mu-yeon behind my back.

‘If things stay like this, the Jin Clan’s lineage will be cut off here.’

It means I have to strike down those culprits even if my life ends.

“Your spirit is good, but how long can you hold out with a body that is dying?”

A fight broke out in an instant.

Although I was alone, I was a Leader who led the White Guard Unit, the vanguard of the Murim Alliance.

Every time I swung my sword, blades were deflected and soared, and two or three black-clad men fell.

‘A little more…’

However, having exhausted most of my internal energy coming here. Not even a moment passed before my body stopped listening to me.

At that moment, a long spear flew in and pierced my thigh.

Chwa-ak!

As my movements slowed, swords flew in from all sides and pierced my whole body.

“Argh.”

The moment the breath I was barely holding onto was cut off.

The flame of will that had been burning along the sword went out.

“Huff. Huff.”

While I was kneeling, leaning my body on the sword stuck in the ground, the black-clad man from earlier slowly approached me.

“Seeing that you learned such an absurd, destructive sword technique, you must have been that famous White Guard Leader of the Murim Alliance. It’s truly amazing, just like the rumors. I might have missed you if it had been ten more years.”

“…”

I didn’t even have the strength left to answer.

The world is dyed red with the blood flowing down my forehead.

At the edge of my vision was Mu-yeon, who had collapsed on the floor and burst into tears.

“Mu-yeon-ah…”

I called his name with a trembling voice, but it didn’t reach the child.

In the end, I couldn’t change anything.

Neither the Clan Head’s last command, nor Mu-yeon’s life.

The iron-scraping voice of the black-clad leader was heard.

“Since you showed a pretty decent martial spirit, I will send you off without pain as a reward. Do you have any last words?”

I squeezed out my remaining strength and shouted at the top of my lungs.

“Even if I die and become a vengeful spirit wandering the Nine Springs, I will surely find you and tear you to pieces. Do not forget. My name is Jin Ja-seong-.”

Chwa-ak!

The black-clad man’s sword slashed.

My severed head rolled on the ground.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

I saw a fountain of blood spurt out and my body, having lost its master, fall forward.

And soon, my vision went dark.