A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight - Chapter 1

From time immemorial, it is inherent for men to be born with an animalistic nature. They pursue power and status. They seek the thrill of achieving their goals through their own hands and the joy of dominating others in competition. Over and over, they pursue these things.

Among the powers that men pursue, the most primal and immediate is none other than one’s own martial force.

Violence manifested through the body is the first power one encounters before understanding society and power dynamics in childhood. Not only that, but martial force is the ultimate means to protect oneself in times of crisis. A robust physique and combat skills foster a man’s confidence and self-esteem.

When a person enters puberty in the course of growing up, this desire for martial force escalates exponentially.

During this period, boys get bored with daily life and want to stand out.

Finally, they come to believe that they harbor a mysterious power unknowable to others, and that there is secret knowledge in the hidden side of the world to awaken and wield such power. …In other words, they contract chuunibyo (delusions of grandeur).

As they get older, this chuunibyo usually fades away gradually as they face reality. Looking back on their cringeworthy past selves, they then acquire the social norms of adults and finally recognize the societal power and hierarchy formed by factors other than martial force.

But every so often, there are those for whom it doesn’t get cured, but rather intensifies. Just as people can’t distinguish true nerds by outward appearance alone, there are occasionally those who become adults while harboring a matured case of chuunibyo, despite appearing like an ordinary person on the outside.

Those types immerse themselves in martial arts, the occult, and the like to satisfy their mystical desires. …Unfortunately, in most cases, they end up being deceived by charlatans, fake psychics, quack doctors, cult leaders, pseudoscience believers, and martial arts scammers.

However, among those people, there are bound to be real ones too.

His name was Lee Bum-seok. Born a gifted child, he was precocious with a keen mind that allowed him to learn things quickly. With a robust constitution and agility that classified him as a natural-born “powerful person” or “Injagang,” he was such a man.

When chuunibyo set in, ordinary people usually got frustrated when fantasy clashed with reality, but he was different. The body he believed harbored a “mysterious power” was exceptionally strong, and his innate discernment and dexterity made him believe that if he encountered the “secret knowledge,” he could instantly grasp its principles.

The problem was that such a belief was justifiable to some extent. Not only did he have a degree of spiritual perception, but he had experiences dispelling supernatural phenomena with his inborn vitality alone. With just a line of text or a trivial trace, he had the insight to restore long-lost martial arts or the true nature of spiritual ritual sites.

Under such circumstances, it was ambiguous to dismiss his inclinations as mere chuunibyo. As a result, rather than fading with age, this tendency only further matured and became ingrained in Lee Bum-seok’s life… One could argue that being born too gifted is worth pondering.

In any case, his efforts to flaunt his superiority and pursue power were sincere.

He was a hybrid of the so-called health freak, survivalist, martial arts nerd, and occult maniac. He gritted his teeth and exercised to build his body, devoted himself to acquiring survival skills like handicrafts, and diligently sought out and learned combat techniques from modern and ancient martial arts, as well as close-quarters combat, regardless of style.

Moreover, he studied the myths, legends, philosophies, religions, and taboos of the East and West, hoping to find truth within them.

To be frank, it was close to wasting his life. Martial arts, survival skills – in a civilized society, these were practically useless skills. As for the occult, most content was at best of folkloric value or mere entertainment, if not outright scams by charlatans.

So for him to persevere through all that and somehow extract his own essence, to find something that could be called “real,” was close to a miracle compounded by madness.

Days of relentless searching, from the snowy Himalayas to Stonehenge, exploring wonders and ruins across the five oceans and six continents. Sometimes inquiring about oral traditions from local indigenous peoples, uncovering clues and traces of secret lineages.

Through repeated efforts to restore these, he finally managed to create his own “truth.”

It was a secret method to strengthen one’s existence, while simultaneously being a proper dharma to dispel deceptive tricks.

It is said that true sages do not deal with magic, and Buddhas do not handle spells. Wherever they go, illusions are inevitably shattered and malicious beings are cast out.

To use a RPG game analogy, if one levels up enough to defeat mobs by normal attacks, then lower-level mobs cannot withstand it – this was a conception he could arrive at having previously exorcised spirits with his inborn vitality alone.

Thus, he gathered ancient visions spanning from East Asia to Western Europe, incorporated modern physical training (mainly powerlifting and acrobatic gymnastics) into an extreme self-enhancement doomsday prepper tech tree, and wholeheartedly cultivated this for about 110 years.

At the age of 160, facing impending death from old age, Lee Bum-seok lamented:

“How vexing! If I had just 10 more years, I could have surely seen the end of this path and glimpsed the next stage!”

It was a lament that he had completed the vision too late.

Though the doomsday prepper is fated to prevail, that’s only if one can persevere until the very last moments. But what could be done? No matter how much he regretted it, he had already reached his life’s limit long ago. From the beginning, his lifespan had run out, only extending it bit by bit through profound cultivation and health management. Having reached that limit, there was nothing he could do.

That’s when the underworld bureaucrats who had repeatedly tried to take him away entered Lee Bum-seok’s sight as he faced death. The tall figure leaning on a large sword was clearly the angel of death Azrael. The skeleton-masked figure with a scythe over his shoulder approaching from another side seemed to be the Grim Reaper. The man in a black robe and hat, face painted black, from yet another direction was likely a reaper of the underworld.

At first when they came separately, he managed to beat them back a few times, but afterward they started swarming him in droves. Although he could still fend them off with force so far, after straining for decades to cling to his lifespan with his cultivation, even the peerless Lee Bum-seok could feel his strength wavering.

“Even if I can still win one-on-one for now, it seems I’m no match against the violence of time and numbers.”

He glanced sideways. There, a winged female warrior in a plumed helmet was secretly lurking, biding her time to strike the back of his head. What was she trying to hide? She was a Valkyrie. It seemed her plan was to strike the back of his head while he was busy scuffling with the other reapers, then whisk him away to Valhalla.

He couldn’t help feeling vexed. No matter how he thought about it, he had no intention of heeding that woman’s wish. That Valhalla place, honestly speaking, was just a salughara wasn’t it? Not really a fit place for people to reside, right?

But following Azrael would likely land him in an Abrahamic hell to be tormented. He wished he could quickly convert to Christianity and make the sign of the cross against hell, but those reapers probably wouldn’t give him the time. If only he had attended church earlier, he thought with a brief pang of regret, but it was already too late.

In the end, his remaining choices were to either follow the Grim Reaper to the registry of Hades or accompany the underworld reaper to the Buddhist afterlife. But he felt uneasy about this too – frankly, he had been scuffling with these guys for decades while defying his predetermined lifespan. There was surely some harsh punishment prepared.

[Hey, Lee Bum-seok. You yourself know well that there’s no point in resisting any further, right? If you admit defeat and come along, I’ll put in a bit of leniency for you.]

The King Yama, the sovereign of the underworld reapers, spoke with an arrogant, swaying stance. Lee Bum-seok felt a surge of irritation.

‘This bastard, he’s acting like he’s already won completely!’

These guys couldn’t even handle him alone so they teamed up with reapers from other realms to gang up on him, and now they’re putting on airs? Lee Bum-seok gnashed his teeth, reining in his emotions as his mind raced furiously.

‘What do I do? I can’t just be taken away like this. Didn’t I swear with my own hands to witness the culmination of the dharma I created?’

But what could he do? Lee Bum-seok felt chaos creeping into his aged mind. How could he drive away these underworld bureaucrats? No, even if he did chase them off this time, they would undoubtedly return fully prepared once again.

It was the same during the last Gyeongshin year. The Five Elemental Supernatural Marshals would come each time having completed new preparations, bringing schemes to subjugate him on the Gyeongshin day. If his mental fortitude had been even slightly weaker, or if his cultivation had been a bit less meticulous, he would have been repeatedly defeated and his decades of practice undone.

The worst case was if these underworld bureaucrats teamed up with the Five Elemental Marshals to come on the Gyeongshin day. If he got flanked while clashing with the Marshals, the outcome would be uncertain. Fortunately, that hadn’t happened yet, but… you never know.

…No, it wasn’t like there was no way. Back when Lee Bum-seok was investigating forgotten ruins in the Himalayas, he had discovered certain traces. Outwardly they seemed meaningless marks, but to him, who had restored past lineages through such traces numerous times before, they appeared differently.

It was the trace of a ritual. More precisely, it was the trace of a great dharma to “reincarnate while preserving memories by offering up one’s remaining life force in the present world, bypassing the underworld procedures.”

When he first grasped the full picture of this, Lee Bum-seok had a puzzled expression. He found it perplexing why such a ritual even existed in the first place. For humans, what comes after death has always been shrouded in uncertainty and the unknown. Under such circumstances, to forsake the present for the future, even abandoning one’s current life – it’s something no sane person would consider.

Not only did such a great dharma get conceived, but it was even practiced – as a still-youthful Lee Bum-seok, it was inconceivable based on common sense. The one thing that did seem clear was the reason this lineage was cut off.

But now, faced with this situation of fending off underworld bureaucrats, he felt he could finally understand the context in which this great dharma emerged. They must have been desperate enough to grasp at straws, considering the potential drawbacks they might face in the afterlife.

Especially in his case, having long exceeded his predetermined lifespan, he had no need to be attached to his remaining life force, having nothing left to lose.

Until now, he had hesitated due to doubts about the dharma’s credibility, but there was no more time for hesitation. In this predicament where he could not guarantee driving off the bureaucrats right in front of him, he had no other choice.

“I have no choice.”

[That’s right, you’ve thought it through. You understand by now that any further resistance will only compound your transgression, don’t you? Who knows, maybe the great sovereigns, impressed by your ability, will offer you an official post?]

What a load of nonsense. Lee Bum-seok sneered silently.

To him, the King Yama had clearly just made a mistake. He knew well that there were power factions even in the underworld, competing for influence with each other. Just as population and results were the source of power in the human world, the same seemed to apply in the underworld as well.

Under such circumstances, if the reapers took the initiative to seize control with that sort of implication, would the others just sit idly by? It seemed they stepped forward quickly thinking they had already won. But the others would not accept being cheated right before their very eyes.

Sure enough, Anubis, who had been watching the King Yama with a displeased expression, picked a fight.

[King Yama, do not forget that we too have a stake in the postmortem disposition of this soul.]
[What? It’s hard to hear the words of an outdated has-been from thousands of years ago.]
[You bastard…!]

Heh, well done. Lee Bum-seok laughed dryly. It seemed that winged female warrior in the plumed helmet was muttering from her corner, “This is my chance!? Headhunting reapers from other mythologies totally possible!”

‘Hey, are you really thinking of striking the back of my head while they’re busy fighting each other to switch jobs and whisk me away to Valhalla? Just what mental process leads to such thoughts? Ah, I really am surrounded by idiots…’

Well, in any case, he no longer had any reason to face off against their ruckus any longer. He had already decided to perform the reincarnation great dharma.

As he focused his mind, the seven major chakras and 88,000 minor chakras aligned along his central nervous system resonated and spun. The qi welled up from the three dantians, controlled and amplified by the “Geass” engraved all over his body, the “Mark of the Anointed One” on his forehead, and the traces of “Knighthood” and “Tribulation” carved into his meridians and musculature.

Channeling the torrential flow of qi like the Niagara Falls, Lee Bum-seok split it into two streams, one directed to the tip of his tailbone and the other to the crown of his head.

These were originally the points where the life force and spiritual energy of the human body were sealed. The energy preserved there was only consumed to maintain one’s lifespan throughout life. However, having reached this point, they had fulfilled their purpose as his own cultivation power had taken over preserving his life and staving off aging. Fortunately, they could now find their final use.

“Chakravarti Punarjanma (Wheel of Reincarnation Great Dharma)!”

In an instant, a azure radiance emanated from his subtle body, enveloping Lee Bum-seok. The underworld bureaucrats, who had been squabbling over credits, were taken aback by the sudden anomaly. Flashes of past memories resurfaced in their minds of being defeated and driven away by Lee Bum-seok’s myriad mystical powers over the years.

In fact, to them, Lee Bum-seok was a human about whom nothing ever seemed strange no matter what outrageous things he did. They had thought the time was nearing for his strength to wane, but could it be that he had been hiding yet another trump card? Each of them tensed up in readiness.

[Huh? That light – could it be…?]

Sharamaya, a hellhound with some knowledge of Tibet and Nepal, widened her four eyes. An Earth Deity serving the Taoism’s Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak asked:

[You recognize this phenomenon?]
[Big trouble! It looks like that guy knew the Wheel of Reincarnation Great Dharma!]

The underworld bureaucrats who were initially dumbfounded finally turned pale after hearing Sharamaya’s explanation.

[Hey, hey! This is cheating! Being born human and going through birth, aging, sickness, and death is an unavoidable karmic duty! Trying to evade the proper administrative procedures is cowardly, don’t you think!?]

The King Yama rushed forward shouting, realizing the situation had taken an ominous turn. If those hands reached Lee Bum-seok, his soul would surely be torn from his body. But the King Yama’s actions were too late. The light emanating from Lee Bum-seok’s body had already fully manifested, completing the invocation of the great dharma.

In an instant, Lee Bum-seok’s soul coalesced into a beam of light that was swiftly drawn into a rift in space. No matter how much the underworld bureaucrats cried out in pursuit, it was useless. Lee Bum-seok’s soul had already vanished without a trace, leaving behind only his lifeless physical husk standing there like an empty shell, and the underworld bureaucrats who had ended up like dogs chasing a chicken, dumbfounded and enveloped in stunned silence.