Chapter 1

I Obtained Guan Yu’s Martial Arts

Gwan Hwi (1)

There were many great families in the world who owed their prosperity to having excellent ancestors.

The Luoyang Cao Family, descended from Cao Mengde.

The Nanjing Sun Family, descended from Sun Zhongmo.

The Sichuan Yu Family, descended from Liu Xuande.

And there were also the Hahoe Family, the Gongsun Family, and many others.

They were all families that still enjoyed their prosperity thanks to having outstanding ancestors.

Every time Gwan Hwi of the Gwan Family saw those people, his stomach twisted with envy.

‘They sure have ridiculously good luck.’

In fact, if one only considered the greatness of their ancestors, the Gwan Family was by no means inferior.

Among the ancestors of the Gwan Family was Guan Yunchang, a legendary general who was counted among the greatest warriors of his era.

Guan Yu, Yunchang—the general who could face ten thousand enemies.

The peerless general who swept across the world astride a single Red Hare.

Guan Yunchang was the man who was acknowledged by all under heaven as having reached the pinnacle of martial prowess.

‘He really was an incredible man. Except for one enormous flaw.’

While everyone else regarded Guan Yunchang as the greatest, Gwan Hwi, a descendant of the Gwan Family, had plenty of complaints.

No.

To be precise, he had one enormous complaint.

‘Why the hell didn’t he leave behind a martial arts manual…?!’

That complaint was about the lack of a secret manual.

Unlike the other generals who had made their mark during the Three Kingdoms era, Gwan Hwi’s ancestor had left behind neither a martial arts manual nor any martial formulas.

‘Sigh. Ancestor, this is why I’m going through all this suffering right now.’

A martial family without a martial arts manual was like a red-bean bun without red-bean filling.

The family that had once conquered an entire city and been known as the Gwan Clan had now dwindled into a small family in a remote region.

A family on the verge of extinction, with fewer than ten members remaining.

That was the Gwan Estate.

And the young patriarch of that family was Gwan Hwi.

A newly twenty-year-old third-rate martial artist.

And an experimental subject, Subject Five, who had signed a contract with the Black Path in order to save his family.

Hisss—

Gwan Hwi plunged his overheated head into a bucket of water.

Steam rose from the surface of the water.

It was caused by the heat poison that had permeated his head coming into contact with the cold water.

“Hoo.”

After expelling the poisonous energy of the Heatfire Poison, Gwan Hwi sat down in a chair with an exhausted expression.

‘I’m tired.’

Living as the head of a family was more difficult than he had expected.

Especially when that family was on the verge of ruin because of debt.

“Good work.”

Garam, the pharmacist of the Poison Refinery Hall, handed Gwan Hwi one silver nyang.

It was the payment Gwan Hwi had earned today as an experimental subject.

“What? Why is it only this much?”

Seeing Gwan Hwi’s dissatisfied expression, Garam shrugged.

“It was an easy poison. It wasn’t a deadly poison today, was it?”

“…Damn it.”

Gwan Hwi glared irritably at Garam, clenched the silver coin in his hand, and walked outside.

“Haa.”

As the cold winter wind struck his face, Gwan Hwi let out a deep sigh.

It had already been a year since he had become an experimental subject for those people of the Black Path.

One would think he should have gotten used to it by now, but having all sorts of vicious poisons injected into his body every time was still difficult and exhausting.

By now, you were probably wondering something.

Why would Gwan Hwi, the head of a White Path family, willingly become an experimental subject for people of the Black Path?

‘Money, of course.’

A considerable amount of money was required to lead a family, and even more money was needed to revive a family that was going bankrupt.

Gwan Hwi had joined hands with the Poison Refinery Hall of the Black Path to pay off the debt for which the Gwan Estate had been mortgaged.

In exchange for allowing them to use him as a poison test subject, he received payment for every experiment.

‘I’d rather make money some other way if I could, but… there’s no other option.’

There were many ways for a martial artist to earn money.

Duels, righteous missions, escort work, protecting caravans, and so on.

But there was virtually no way for a third-rate martial artist to make money.

The world was not kind enough to give work to a third-rate martial artist.

As the patriarch of the Gwan Estate, whose only remaining martial arts were a mediocre basic cultivation technique and a basic fist technique, the only work available to Gwan Hwi was manual labor.

But the pittance earned from such work could not even cover the interest on his debt, let alone repay the debt itself.

That was why Gwan Hwi had joined hands with the Black Path and become an experimental subject.

It was the only way he could repay the debt during his generation.

‘At the very least, I won’t pass the debt on to the next generation.’

Inherited debt dragged people into a pit of despair and filled them with frustration.

Even if it meant sacrificing himself, Gwan Hwi did not want to leave that burden to the next generation of the Gwan Family.

Well, it wasn’t as if there was likely to be a next generation anymore.

‘At least I’m lucky to have a sturdy body.’

Whether it was fortune or misfortune, Gwan Hwi possessed innate physical strength.

With twice the strength and stamina of ordinary people, he had remained perfectly fine despite consuming every kind of poison imaginable for an entire year.

Meanwhile, all the other test subjects had either died or become incapable of continuing the experiments.

Gwan Hwi’s physical strength had been famous since he was young.

At the age of five, he had crushed pebbles lying on the ground with his bare hand.

At ten, he could chop through wood with the edge of his hand.

“So what? I don’t have any martial arts.”

Even innate physical strength could not truly shine without martial arts to cultivate and refine it.

No matter how strong someone was, there was no martial artist foolish enough to stand still and get hit by a slow, carelessly thrown punch.

“Sigh.”

Gwan Hwi stopped in front of the main gate of the Gwan Clan Estate with a sigh.

The old main gate and walls that looked ready to collapse made the word “clan” seem almost laughable.

Inside the estate, grass had grown as high as a person’s knees, while the martial arts hall that had once been crowded with family members was now filled with nothing but spiderwebs.

It looked like a symbol of a ruined family.

‘Clan? More like a defeated family.’

Gwan Hwi gave a self-deprecating smile as he looked at the state of his family, which was on the verge of complete ruin.

Bang!—

As if answering his laughter, the family plaque fell to the ground at his feet.

“This damn bullshit.”

---

The next morning.

As soon as daylight broke, Gwan Hwi headed toward the Poison Refinery Hall.

To pay off his debt quickly, he had to become an experimental subject again today.

“You’re here.”

When he entered the familiar underground facility, Garam, the pharmacist, greeted him.

“I’m here.”

“Did you have any aftereffects yesterday? I made that one specially, so the effects should have lasted quite a while.”

“Hmm. I didn’t notice anything.”

“…”

Garam’s face twisted, his pride wounded by Gwan Hwi’s answer.

‘Does this bastard think he’s some kind of master poison specialist from the Five Poison Sect?’

Garam was merely a second-rate Black Path martial artist, yet he acted as though he were someone important.

He was the kind of idiot who didn’t know his own place.

Gwan Hwi had plenty of curses he wanted to throw at him, but he swallowed them along with his saliva.

There was no benefit in picking a fight with the employer who was paying him.

“Think carefully. The effects must have been pretty strong, right? It should have been a poison nearly on par with the Five Poison Sect’s.”

‘Tsk.’

Gwan Hwi clicked his tongue inwardly and nodded.

He decided to humor the idiot.

‘It was pretty good.’

“You’re talking bullshit. How can a third-rate Black Path bastard like you possibly compare yourself to the Five Poison Sect?”

“…What?”

Oops.

Gwan Hwi slapped his forehead.

He had accidentally said what he was thinking instead of what he had intended to say.

He had never made mistakes like this before, but lately he had begun making them more and more often.

‘Is it a side effect of the poison?’

“You bastard. What did you just say…?”

“I’m sorry. The poison made me say something strange.”

“…I’ll let it go this once. Be careful.”

Garam glared at Gwan Hwi with a vicious expression.

Judging from those eyes, it didn’t seem like he had truly forgiven him.

“Eat this. Today’s poison.”

Garam handed him a white poison bottle about two finger joints in size.

“Hmm.”

Without much thought, Gwan Hwi opened the bottle with a familiar motion and drank the poison.

“Ghk!”

Everything before Gwan Hwi’s eyes suddenly turned pitch black.

It was as if someone had poured ink over his eyes. He could not see anything, and his head began spinning.

“Oh? Looks like this one has some effect.”

“What the hell is this…!”

He had consumed all kinds of poisons over the past year, but he had never experienced anything like this.

His internal organs seemed to contract as though someone were squeezing them with their bare hands, and the pain was so intense that even breathing became difficult.

“This is a new Dream Illusion Medicine I made. I paid a fortune to purchase the formula from a poison specialist who came from the Five Poison Sect. Heh heh.”

“Cough!”

Gwan Hwi staggered as he coughed violently.

His vision spun so badly that he could not walk properly, and eventually he fell to his knees.

—Descendant.

A strange voice he had never heard before echoed inside his hazy mind.

—Descendant. Can you hear my voice?

“…?”

Gwan Hwi was confused.

What is this? Is this the effect of the Dream Illusion Medicine?

At first, he thought he was hearing voices because his senses had become hazy.

Then the pain came again.

A terrible pain, as though his internal organs were being twisted, spread throughout his entire body.

His breathing became constricted, and his vision turned completely black.

“Guh!”

He wondered if he was going to die like this.

‘I can’t… die like this.’

Just as his vision was about to go completely dark from the unbearable pain, worse than torture—

Flash!—

His vision turned pure white, and the entire world around him changed.

.

.

.

“…?”

Gwan Hwi looked around in utter confusion.

A completely white landscape unfolded before his eyes.

There was no sky or ground.

An endless white space stretched in every direction, leaving him speechless.

“W-What is this?!”

For a moment, he wondered if he had died.

But the sensations throughout his entire body were far too vivid.

He was even breathing normally, and every one of his senses felt crystal clear.

‘What on earth is this place?’

Gwan Hwi took a light breath and regained his composure.

It was an inexplicable and bizarre situation, but his naturally calm temperament quickly restored his peace of mind.

“Hmm?”

As Gwan Hwi looked around, his gaze turned toward one side.

At the center of the space, a middle-aged man was sitting cross-legged with his back perfectly straight.

He had rigid, jujube-colored skin, powerful muscles, and an enormous physique.

He also possessed a long, glossy beard that flowed down like a black waterfall.

It was such a magnificent beard that anyone who saw it would instinctively admire it.

“To think you would suffer from such a small amount of poison. How disappointing, descendant.”

“What?”

Gwan Hwi tilted his head at the middle-aged man, who had casually spoken to him informally despite meeting him for the first time.

“Who are you to speak informally to me the moment we meet?”

“…As my descendant, you cannot even recognize your own ancestor?”

“…?!”

Gwan Hwi’s pupils shook violently.

No way…

That magnificent beard.

The jujube-colored skin.

And that enormous physique, symbolizing his innate physical strength.

As far as Gwan Hwi knew, there was only one ancestor who possessed such an appearance.

“G-Guan Yunchang?”

Seeing Gwan Hwi’s astonishment, the man calmly lowered his hand.

Whack!—

A six-sided wooden club suddenly appeared from somewhere and struck Gwan Hwi directly on the head.

“You must not speak informally.”

“G-General Yunchang?! Master Guan?!”

“…Just call me General.”

“Y-You’re really Guan… I mean, General Guan?”

“That is correct.”

“N-No, wait. How is this possible? Have I died?”

Gwan Hwi’s face twisted as he assumed that the mysterious white space was the afterlife.

He was furious at the thought of dying before he had even finished paying off his family’s debt.

“You are not dead.”

“Oh, really?”

Relief immediately brightened Gwan Hwi’s expression.

“Then what is this place?”

“It is the space that connects Heaven and Earth. The Middle Heaven.”

“Oh, I see.”

Gwan Hwi calmly nodded.

Guan Yu found his reaction interesting.

‘Ho.’

Normally, someone placed in such a situation would be shocked, panic, or become confused.

But the descendant before him had only been slightly surprised and was already as calm as though he had simply gone out for a stroll around the neighborhood.

‘He possesses a bold temperament.’

Guan Yu nodded slightly in satisfaction.

He liked that the young man possessed the temperament a general should have.

“But how did this suddenly happen?”

Gwan Hwi tilted his head in confusion.

He had seen so many absurd things happen in life that he simply accepted this as yet another one.

But he could not understand why it had happened.

Why had an ancestor who had shown little concern for his family while alive suddenly appeared before him?

“It may have happened suddenly for you, but not for me. I have been watching you continuously all this time.”

“You’ve been watching me?”

Guan Yu stroked his black waterfall-like beard and nodded.

“Yes. I wanted to meet you all this time, but the barrier between the living and the dead was too great for me to reach you.”

“Then now…”

“The energy of the poison opened the gate to your soul. Thanks to that, I gained the opportunity to meet you.”

“Huh.”

A hollow laugh escaped Gwan Hwi.

Ironically, the deadly poison of the Five Poison Sect that had nearly killed him had created a connection between him and the greatest general in his family’s history.

“You’re quite impressive for someone from this era. But it is disappointing that you made such a fuss over a mere poison.”

“What?”

“In my time, when we needed to remove poison that had penetrated into our marrow, we would scrape our bones with a knife while playing Go.”

“…”

Isn’t that just insane?

Gwan Hwi was too dumbfounded to speak.

“To think a descendant of mine would complain about a mere poison. Tsk.”

“General, that isn’t fair. The poison I consumed was a deadly poison made by the Five Poison Sect. The poison you suffered from was just an ordinary poison applied to an arrow, wasn’t it?”

“…”

This time, Guan Yu was speechless.

He had never imagined that his descendant would actually compare the potency of the poisons.

And, unfortunately, the young man was not wrong.

Poisons back in Guan Yu’s era had not been nearly as sophisticated as those of the present day.

‘This brat…’

Unable to find a response, Guan Yu resorted to a technique frequently used by souls in the Middle Heaven whenever they were cornered.

Changing the subject.

“Anyway, although I am somewhat disappointed, there is nothing that can be done. As your ancestor, I shall pass my martial arts on to you. Receive them with gratitude.”

“Why are you suddenly changing the subject… Huh?”

Gwan Hwi wondered if he had heard correctly.

After the hallucinations and suddenly arriving in this strange place, he thought his ears had finally gone crazy.

‘I must have heard wrong.’

There was no way.

His family was on the verge of extinction because it did not possess even one proper martial art, and Gwan Hwi was desperately struggling to revive it.

In such a situation, there was no way Heaven would suddenly bless him by giving him the martial arts of his ancestor.

Especially not the martial arts of Guan Yunchang, the legendary general known as an enemy of ten thousand.

“W-What did you say?”

“Do not make me repeat myself.”

After clicking his tongue once, Guan Yu spoke loudly again.

“I shall pass on to you, my descendant, the martial art that contains my entire life—Heavenly Extremity Cloud-Destroying Saber, Cheongeuk Unmyeoldo (天極雲滅刀).”

“…!!”

Gwan Hwi’s arms and legs began to tremble.

His body was quivering from the overwhelming shock and joy.

“F-Fuuuuuuuuuck!”