The corpse pit had never been meant to release anyone. Its walls were carved smooth from years of neglect and corrosion, slick with layers of filth and dried blood that turned every attempt at escape into a slow surrender. Jin Mu-Hyuk pressed his palm against the stone and felt the Murim Dominator System unfold the world for him, mapping every fracture hidden beneath the surface, every weakness that the eye could not perceive.The corpse pit had never been meant to release anyone. Its walls were carved smooth from years of neglect and corrosion, slick with layers of filth and dried blood that turned every attempt at escape into a slow surrender. Jin Mu-Hyuk pressed his palm against the stone and felt the Murim Dominator System unfold the world for him, mapping every fracture hidden beneath the surface, every weakness that the eye could not perceive.
[Environmental Analysis Complete]
[Optimal Ascent Path Calculated – Success Probability: 93.4%][Optimal Ascent Path Calculated – Success Probability: 93.4%]
His fingers sank into the wall, crushing stone as if it were compacted soil. The strength surging through his Tyrant Meridian Frame was not wild or unstable; it was precise, as though his body had always been meant to function this way and had only now remembered how.
Behind him, Yoo Seol-Ah pushed herself upright with trembling arms. Her eyes followed him in disbelief as he began his ascent, each movement perfectly aligned, every breath steady despite the shattered world she had watched him fall from only hours earlier.
"Mu-Hyuk… they destroyed your cultivation. You were—" Her voice faltered, fear replacing words. "How are you even standing?"
"Stay behind me," he replied, not turning back.
The words carried weight beyond sound.
[Mental Domination – Passive Synchronization Established]
Her racing pulse slowed without her realizing why.
At the rim of the pit, two guards were arguing beneath flickering torchlight, unaware that the thing they believed to be dead had already measured them.
"I heard something move," one said nervously.
"You're hearing ghosts," the other scoffed. "Nothing climbs out of that place."
Mu-Hyuk emerged from the darkness, his hand closing around the first man's wrist before the scream could leave his throat. The system fed him angles, force distribution, the precise timing required to collapse resistance in a single sequence of motion.
[Threat Eliminated]
[Tyrant Frame Synchronization: 12% → 18%]
The second guard stumbled backward, staring at him as though seeing a revenant clawing its way from the underworld.
"You were supposed to be broken," he whispered.
Mu-Hyuk advanced, the torchlight reflecting coldly in his eyes. The fear in the man's stance made his next mistake inevitable.
Yoo Seol-Ah climbed out minutes later, supported by the remnants of stone Mu-Hyuk had torn loose. Her gaze lingered on the fallen guards, then returned to him with something more complex than terror — a fragile mixture of awe and dread.
"What are you now?" she asked quietly.
Mu-Hyuk looked past her, toward the illuminated halls of the Azure Sun Sect rising beyond the trees, serene and untouched, as though they had not cast dozens of lives into the dark that evening.
"I'm what corrects their mistakes."
[Concealment Authority Activated]
[Host removed from Sect Detection Grid]
The presence of the Murim Dominator System wrapped around him, erasing his existence from the spiritual lattice that protected the sect.
Mu-Hyuk picked up a fallen sword and slid it into his grip with practiced familiarity.
"They think they threw away trash today," he said.
Yoo Seol-Ah shivered.
He turned toward the forest path leading away from the ravine, already moving.
"Soon, they'll realize they discarded the thing that kept them safe."