Murim Alliance. It was an organization established by the Nine Great Schools which were hailed as the most prestigious groups in m
Murim. Their purpose was clear, it was for the peace and well-being of the entirety of Murim.
However, as the time passed, their purpose had also shifted. Why? Thinking back on the matter, it seems that it had started when the power of the Kunlun Sect—which could be said to be the beginning of mugong in Murim—became huge.
In Murim Alliance Headquarters, all the elders had assembled to answer the call from the Murim Lord. Murim Military Advisor looked at the elders without saying anything. It was clear that they had come after hearing the same news as him, or they were just trying to manage their facial expressions. Perhaps, if the emotions they feel were the same as him, it would be ‘blissful’.
The military advisor looked around slowly before his eyes finally laid at the man who was sitting in the farthest corner. Although the official leader of the Murim Alliance was the Namgoong family, that man was in fact the Supreme Leader of Kunlun, the most powerful sect amongst all sects present at this meeting.
In the past, there was a time when the powers of the Cheonma Sect and the Kunlun Sect clashed violently. It was because the power of Kunlun Sect had gradually waned in the passing times, and had been pushed back by other sects who had absorbed numerous genius talents from the ‘other world’.
The Kunlun Sect must adhere to tradition. With such a will, they hardly accepted people from another world. Thanks to that, their position in the Murim Alliance gradually diminished, and at the time, no one found it very strange.
Perhaps, because of that very reason, the Experts of the Kunlun Sect provoked the Cheonma Sect even more strongly. But the truth is, no one knew their exact reason except for the fact that the Kunlun Sect excessively stimulated the ‘fear’ of the people of the Cheonma Sect.
The Murim Alliance could not understand their actions and did not even try to understand them. Then one day, when a competition was held…
People of Murim realized.
‘Kunlun Sect’s martial arts have become stronger!’
Why? Because when it comes to mugong, even the warriors of Murim who come from Earth—who were born with innate strength and talent—were no match to Kunlun Sect. However, it did not simply stop there, the mugong of the Kunlun Sect had also developed at an overwhelming speed.
The Kunlun Sect, which had developed rapidly, was finally able to drive the Cheonma Sect to the corner. However, it didn’t end there. When Seol Jungyeon finally appeared on the battlefield, the war situation was completely turned upside down.
With the power she held, she truly deserved to be called as the strongest under heaven.
None of those who had witnessed the sword dance of the Supreme Cheonma—which was said to resemble a lotus flower—survived. No one in the whole world dared to stand straight in her presence or even meet her eyes.
Supreme Cheonma truly showed no mercy to those who had touched her people. And by the request of Kunlun Sect, the Murim Alliance urgently dispatched their forces. Unfortunately, it was already too late. When Cheonma Sect crossed the Baek Mountain and came to Murim, the whole world had to bow down under her feet.
Then, at that moment. Supreme Dharma appeared.
‘The bad past came to mind.’
Namgoong Min frowned. The man had said that he enforced ‘justice’, and swept away the Cheonma Sect as he branded them as ‘evil’. Did he really know what was going on behind the scenes? The fact that the Cheonma Sect was the only existence capable of suppressing the Kunlun Sect, who had been working all sorts of tactics to monopolize Murim.
With Supreme Dharma’s intervention, Supreme Cheonma disappeared without a trace along with the Cheonma Sect, and after that, the momentum of the Kunlun Sect began to rise once again to taint the Murim Alliance with their own colour.
No one could stop them.
Despite their equal skill, for some reason, the Experts of the Murim Alliance were always caught up in fear that could not be understood by simply making eye contact with the Expert from Kunlun Sect, making it difficult for them to move. Their martial arts seemed to contain a mysterious power that could move people’s emotions.
It was impossible to fight against their irresistible power. Fortunately, not long ago, Cheonma Sect had been resurrected by someone, albeit their influence spread pretty slowly thanks to the fact that they were fighting against Kunlun Sect and it still could not prevent Murim from being completely stained by Kunlun Sect.
And in the midst of the Kunlun Sect’s encroachment to the Murim Alliance, a sudden news appeared.
‘The Supreme Cheonma, Seol Jungyeon has returned.’
It was really good news that gave hope to all people of Murim.
“From now on, we will examine the authenticity of the news of Supreme Cheonma’s return.”
When the Military Advisor, Namgoong Min finally broke his silence, the elders nodded their heads. But deep down, everyone knows it. The news of her return was a real one. And, the Murim Alliance would not block the progress of the Supreme Cheonma.
He rather thought that it would be better if Supreme Cheonma ran wild and destroyed herself together with the Kunlun Sect.
* * *
“It was too dangerous.”
I expressed my concern seriously to Seol Jungyeon. To reveal herself in a place where the eyes and ears of all the powers of Murim gathered was simply ridiculous. Even when she was someone from the Magyo, She currently had little power aside from her own power, what will happen once people from Murim Alliance come to her?
But at my words, Noonim just faintly smiled and shook her head.
“It’s okay. The Murim Alliance will not stop me.”
“And why is that?”
No matter how strong Noonim is, Murim Alliance was not one guy who would sit still and suffer because they also had their pride.
“Well… Would it be easier to understand if I say it was because of political reasons?”
“Hmmm.”
I hummed. If it’s a political reason, the cliché of the martial arts world came to my mind. Murim Alliance was a gathering of political factions that was created By Nine Great Schools. It was a group that acted like a police force in Murim which always said something like ‘Young people these days…’ or ‘Why are you in politics if you scream that loud when your pride gets scratched a little?’
Anyway, that was the Murim Alliance I knew. In fact, in most martial arts novels, Murim Alliance was a group that wasn’t really a big deal. They were always the one who ended up shutting their mouth in front of the strong even when they hated them so much.
“I think they want me to stop the Kunlun Sect.” Noonim’s brief explanation followed, and I nodded with a firm expression.
‘Supreme Dharma, he was worse than I thought.’
Perhaps, if there were ‘readers’ in the world of『Turns out my Dad is The Supreme Dharma』 they would have never known about the truth that people of Cheonma Sect weren’t really the bad guys. The fact is, the Kunlun Sect was the first to attack them, but then, they were purged just because Supreme Dharma labelled them as evil.
“Hmmmm… the more I listen, the more I become certain that the power of the demon is interfering with Kunlun Sect.”
“Ugh… Just what demon appeared in the Martial Arts world? It’s not even a fusion martial art genre, it’s just a jjamppong martial arts genre.” Taylor grumbled.
“The steak you are eating right now doesn’t make sense in the martial arts world too, right?”
Taylor just shrugged at my words before dumping a piece of steak with a fork and munched on it. It doesn’t seem like she had any particular intention to keep her dignity or manners when she’s with her close friend.
“With all evidence from Earth and Murim, it is safe to say the demon hiding in the Kunlun Sect was stimulating human emotions such as ‘fear’ and ‘anger’. The Kunlun Sect then incorporates the demon’s power into their martial arts, so it has a powerful power.”
Perhaps the power of the demon is the ability to ‘draw out one’s own anger to amplify their power’ and ‘to stimulate the fear of others and weaken their power’. It is such a simple power, but it is a difficult one to respond to for humans who are always dominated by emotions.
“Anyway, no matter how strong we are, the three of us can’t fight against the entirety of Kunlun Sect.”
In general, in the world of Murim, the content of mana (essence) in the air was extremely scarce. It was to the extent that it takes 60 years of constant training for ordinary people to build up the strength of their body and become a peak rank Expert. Well, there are exceptional cases like ‘Warrior of Murim from Earth’.
However, even if those peak rank Expert’s ability was only on par with A rank superhuman, they had never ignored their experience and control. The evidence of their superiority had been proven by Celeste who had shown people from Earth that Murim swordsmanship was capable of dealing with superhumans with higher energy than herself.
There will be hundreds of such peak rank experts in the Kunlun Sect, and there will be more than a hundred high-peak experts. In addition, Jang Moon-in, the lord of Kunlun Sect, was a Hwakyung expert, and in Murim, there was a technique called ‘jinbeop’, and when many people join forces, the synergy of it would become several-fold stronger.
(N: Hwakyung is equal to an SS rank, Seol Jungyeon is one rank higher than those guys which is Hyunkyung/SSS, as for Supreme Dharma, he’s pretty much 1 tier higher than SSS rank/Shinhwakyung)
In other words, the odds of a head-on collision are close to zero.
But… Noonim just smiled softly.
“Is there truly just the three of us?”
Saying that, Noonim took out the envelope she had received from Shadow Group. Inside it was information on ‘Cheonma Sect’. No matter how transparently they disclosed information transactions, there were times when customers wanted the information to be exchanged privately. In that case, only the fact that a transaction took place will be known but no one will know what kind of information was exchanged.
It was the case for the information related to the Cheonma Sect. To be honest, there was no need to do it, but it seems that Noonim was reluctant to give information to other sects about the Cheonma Sect explicitly.
“According to their information, the child who used to be my disciple is the one who re-established the Cheonma Sect.”
The girl’s name was Baek So-hwi. Unlike Noonim, she was a woman who used a very wild swordsmanship. She was so talented with swords that she had reached the realm of Hwakyung in her twenties and surprised the entire Murim.
Oddly enough, all members of the current Cheonma Sect are all women. But despite that, it was said that there were already 50 peak rank Experts and 10 high peak Experts within the sect, so it was easy to see just how quickly she was building the power of the Cheonma Sect ‘according to her beliefs’.
Noonim just said, ‘She’s been working hard.’ But I felt a bit uneasy.
“That child will also welcome me.”
“Isn’t that obvious? In Murim, the relationship between a teacher and a disciple is stronger than blood!”
Noonim and Taylor excitedly chatted as they prepared to leave quickly. Taylor seemed to be quite excited at the thought of seeing the famous Cheonma Sect—which she only read in novels—for the first time while Noonim was excited because she would return to her hometown she had been longing for. But me, I was rather calm and just fiddled with the letter ‘about the Murim Alliance’ I had received from Shadow Group. Since it was a transparent information exchange, there were no sensitive issues being traded. It was just a brief description of how the Murim Alliance works…
That alone was of great help to me. It allowed me to understand to some extent the power balance of this world and the composition of the story, because it was information that I could use as much as I could.
“You know… Noonim.”
“Hm?”
“Are you planning to fight the Kunlun Sect with the power of Cheonma Sect on your back?”
“That’s right.”
It was, of course, an obvious plan. But I wondered if it was really necessary.
“Noonim, what do you think about the Murim Alliance?”
After thinking about it for a while, Noonim slowly shared her true thoughts.
“They are stupid old people. They are a group that would do anything just to get a piece of gold for themselves.”
With those words, I could understand the feelings Noonim had for the Murim Alliance.
It was true that Murim Alliance was originally a ‘gathering’ formed by the Nine Great Schools, and although they seem to exist for the sake of the Murim’s order, in fact, they were people who did not hesitate to do anything dirty for their own benefit.
With that in mind, I thought that maybe there might be a way to overcome this situation with some ease, without getting blood in Noonim’s and Taylor’s hands.
As usual, it was a pretty dirty method, but it was quite easy to pull off as well as have a high chance of success.
“Come on, let’s go. I am looking forward to seeing just how much that child has grown.”
But at Noonim’s pleasant smile, I only shut my mouth and nodded. Because the plan I came up with was only to ensure the safety of the three of us.
For that reason, even if it’s for my Noonim, I had to meet the woman called ‘Baek So-hwi’, the current head of the Cheonma Sect.
‘But somehow, I feel that if I meet her, I will be stabbed in the back…’
It was such a ridiculous idea, but my ‘intuition’ which was honed from my experience was warning me. Moreover, it was a talent which I was most grateful towards since it allowed me to survive the hell called Hell Gate for three years, so I couldn’t simply brush the idea aside.