WeTried Translations
Translator: Joy
Editor: Joy
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Damned Transmigration ◈
Chapter 60: Geppo
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Why Haryeong had suddenly called for her mother was anyone’s guess, but Yuri had more immediate concerns than Haryeong’s mother.
Yuri looked up at the Withered Crone through narrowed eyes. The Bishop who managed the heretics in this district. A sixth-tier mage.
‘So this is the magic she uses...’
Ghostly wails accompanied the magic, along with death masks. An ominous presence spread in creeping waves, seeming to encroach upon the space around her. Just looking at it gave him a headache and made his eyes ache. Beyond the pain, anxiety and fear spread from the pit of his chest, turning his stomach.
In game terms, it was a mental attack that inflicted debuffs. Mages who specialized in such eerie magic were not particularly common.
“Rise!”
The Withered Crone shouted. The ruins of the buildings trembled, and corpses crushed beneath them began to crawl out.
Blood bubbled and flesh twitched.
Whoosh!
A gray current swirling around the Withered Crone poured into the corpses.
The corpses did not rise. Various things were born from them. Broken bones clung together to form different monsters, sticky blood gathered into slimes, and chunks of flesh tangled together into pulsing masses of meat.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!”
Ghosts wailed. Countless souls bound by the Withered Crone’s magic let out horrific screams. From dozens of corpses, hundreds of monsters were born.
‘This is...’
Mental attacks, necromancy that handled souls, and corpse manipulation that kneaded corpses into different monsters at will. There was only one mage tower that dealt in that kind of necromancy.
‘The Rudella Mage Tower.’
When players voted for the most fucking awful mage in the game, Herein Rudella, the Corpse Immortal, master of the Rudella Mage Tower, had taken first place by an overwhelming margin. She had beaten Extreme Arsen, the highest-level mage with brutal difficulty, and Heavenly Thunder Orca, who coolly declared all physical attacks invalid.
The reason Herein earned first place as the most fucking awful mage was simple.
The Corpse Immortal was an unavoidable mid-boss before meeting the Heavenly Demon.
The Heavenly Demon, considered the game’s final boss before the hidden boss appeared, was not easy even to encounter. The Demonic Cult, the field with the game’s most brutal difficulty, teemed with high-level NPCs and monsters.
What truly made the Demonic Cult field troublesome were the Rudella Mage Tower’s mages, who appeared alongside them.
They appeared only in the Demonic Cult field. They showered players with every kind of debuff magic while casting buffs on Demonic Cult NPCs. If players failed to kill them cleanly, they used healing magic. If they barely managed to kill them, they spread poison or curses, and sometimes self-destructed outright.
That alone made the tower a fucking nightmare, but its master, Herein Rudella, the Corpse Immortal, was the worst of all. She blocked the way before the boss room where the Heavenly Demon waited, and there was no trick that could bypass her. To meet the Heavenly Demon, players had no choice but to kill Herein Rudella.
First, Herein summoned every NPC corpse the player had killed on the way there and used them as meat shields. Then she extracted their souls separately and bombarded the player with magic that ignored defense. If her HP or MP dropped, she devoured souls to return to full condition. The longer the battle went on, the more the player’s stats fell under mental attacks and curses.
The moment Herein died, the player was immediately moved to the boss room, where the fight with the Heavenly Demon began. Retreating after killing only Herein was impossible.
Herein made it impossible to create a build specifically designed to kill the Heavenly Demon. Building to get through Herein easily made killing the Heavenly Demon difficult. At least the Heavenly Demon healed the player when the boss fight began. Without that, killing the Heavenly Demon would have been impossible.
‘Why the fuck is a mage from the Rudella Mage Tower serving as a Bishop for the heretics?’
The Rudella Mage Tower was allied with the Demonic Cult. Did that mean the Demonic Cult had joined hands with the heretics as well? It was hard not to misunderstand the situation that way.
“The Rudella Mage Tower!”
The Sword Dragon was not lacking in experience. He glared back and forth between the advancing abominations and the Withered Crone, surrounded by ominousness, grinding his teeth.
“Have the Demonic Cult and the heretics joined hands? Were those ugly, horrific things working together to defile Orsia territory?”
“That is not it.”
Biyeon, who had been glaring at the Withered Crone, answered quickly.
“That old woman, the Withered Crone, was once with the Rudella Mage Tower. But that was ten years ago.”
“What?”
“She deserted the Rudella Mage Tower ten years ago. That old woman has nothing to do with the Rudella Mage Tower anymore, and naturally nothing to do with the Divine Cult either.”
‘Divine Cult?’
The Sword Dragon’s eyebrow twitched. In this world, only the Demonic Cult and the Rudella Mage Tower referred to the Demonic Cult as the Divine Cult.
“You are...”
Before the Sword Dragon could ask anything further, pitch-black Ganggi from the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art covered Biyeon’s body.
At that moment, the Sword Dragon felt intense demonic energy. There was no need to ask further. That ferocious demonic energy was proof of demonic martial arts.
Biyeon ignored his reaction. The situation was difficult to understand, but it was neither complicated nor difficult.
She only had one thing to do.
Kill the Withered Crone.
The Sword Dragon swallowed the words he had meant to throw at Biyeon’s back as she leaped up alone. There was no doubt that she belonged to the Demonic Cult. He did not know why the Demonic Cult was here, but what mattered now was killing the Evil God’s Bishop.
Rumble!
Golden sword aura covered the Sword Dragon’s blade. He spun and swung, his slash sweeping through the area. Golden light flashed, bisecting the monsters created through corpse manipulation.
“Are you alright?”
Yuri checked on Haryeong first. Her body had subtly stiffened ever since the Withered Crone summoned the ghostly wails. She pressed close to Yuri’s side as she answered.
“I am perfectly fine.”
She probably thought she had spoken in her usual calm voice, but it did not sound that way to Yuri.
“What, are ghosts scary even for an assassin?”
“When have I ever been scared?”
Haryeong sharply turned her head and glared at Yuri. Even so, she quickly threw a hidden weapon. It pierced the mass-of-flesh monster crawling toward them, and it burst with a pop.
“You seem scared.”
“An assassin is someone who kills the living, not someone who kills things that are already dead.”
Haryeong spoke quickly.
“That is all. I am not afraid of ghosts.”
She talked like some Marine saying, “Once an assassin, always an assassin,” yet she could not kill ghosts? Yuri found it absurd, but the words were not entirely unreasonable. Even Yuri found the monsters the Withered Crone made through corpse manipulation and the souls she summoned through necromancy unsettling.
‘What the hell is she?’
It was only natural that his attention went to the masked woman who had suddenly appeared, rather than the Sword Dragon who had already been there. He did not even know her name.
‘She’s from the Demonic Cult.’
It was not difficult to infer her identity from her use of the term Divine Cult and the demonic energy she emitted.
For now, Yuri’s gaze was drawn to the martial art she used.
The ink-black Ganggi that wrapped around her body and poured forth in her attacks.
The color of internal energy emitted outside the body differed according to the cultivation technique one had learned. Yuri could also see that the black Ganggi controlled the ki around it. Above heaven and below heaven, I alone am supreme. Her internal energy subdued and dominated all the ki around it.
‘The Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art...?’
There was no way to obtain the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art in the game. The martial art called the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art simply did not exist.
But Yuri knew exactly how fucking awful the martial art used by the Heavenly Demon was.
Whether one used magic or martial arts, it was impossible to gain an advantage in compatibility against the Heavenly Demon.
What made it even more fucked up was that magic or attacks landed during openings between his patterns could be reflected back at random.
Then, after a certain amount of time, he would shove in a so-called ultimate move that killed instantly and could not be blocked, evaded, or endured.
Even using one of the game’s rare invincibility skills was useless. Since the instant death itself was a set pattern, it would not end until the player died, no matter how many times they repeated their invincibility skill.
It was hard to see the woman’s martial art, which subdued and dominated the ki around it, as completely identical to the martial art used by the Heavenly Demon in the game. But if that domination reached its extreme, could it not dominate ki-based attacks that did not belong to her, such as magic or Ganggi, and use them like her own limbs?
Of course, it was only a suspicion. Still, her connection to the Demonic Cult and that absurd divine art that subdued and dominated ki were enough to suggest one possibility.
She might be the Demonic Cult’s Young Leader, the Heavenly Demon’s veiled disciple.
‘It’s different from the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil.’
The Blood Fiend, who had died after being struck by Sacred Flame Release, had babbled that Yuri’s martial art was the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art. But even the Blood Fiend, one of the Seven Evils ten years ago, had failed to associate the ordinary Ganggi created by the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil with the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art.
The Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil was not a martial art that subdued and dominated.
It devoured energy as firewood and burned it into flames.
‘Could she be a transmigrator?’
Nothing was known for certain about the Demonic Cult’s Young Leader.
Whether they were male or female. How old they were. Some said they were from a prestigious family in the Demon Subjugation Palace, some said they were a poisonous creature the Demonic Cult had raised with utmost care, and some said they were a transmigrator.
There was no way to know whether that woman was truly the Young Leader or a transmigrator. But her affiliation with the Demonic Cult alone made her Yuri’s worst possible opponent. He could not send a telepathic message asking whether she was a transmigrator, as he had with the Pointing Flame.
Rumor had it that the Demonic Cult possessed a horrific alchemy that captured transmigrators, ground them up, and made them into elixirs.
‘Then I can’t use Sacred Flame Release.’
Yuri looked up.
Black and golden Ganggi fluttered chaotically overhead.
The Sword Dragon was considered the strongest among the younger generation at the fifth tier. The woman’s strength was unknown, but if she really was the Young Leader, she would be at least equal to the Sword Dragon.
That was Yuri’s assessment after seeing them both firsthand. Their martial arts were vastly different, but there did not appear to be a great difference in their abilities.
Even while facing those two, the Withered Crone was not being pushed back badly. Rudella magic ruled over corpses and souls. A mage’s strength was determined by how many high-quality corpses and souls they possessed.
That mage had lived long enough to earn the alias Withered Crone. During the ten years since deserting the Rudella Mage Tower, she had wandered the world collecting corpses and souls. She had done enough to settle in the Sect of Chaos and rise to the rank of Bishop.
Furthermore, from the rank of priest onward, members of the sect could use divine power bestowed by the Evil God.
“Kyaaaak!”
The screams of souls pouring from the Withered Crone were proof of the countless deaths and chaos she had caused. Her white hair fluttered as she laughed madly in harmony with the souls’ cries.
“So that’s it, you! That martial art!”
The Withered Crone recognized Biyeon’s martial art.
“So you are the Heavenly Demon’s much-rumored disciple! Kahaha! I was never some famous or valuable mage in Rudella, so why have you come in person?!”
‘The Heavenly Demon’s disciple!’
The Sword Dragon looked at Biyeon in horror, but this was not the time to ask for an explanation.
Rumble!
Frenzied souls harassed the Sword Dragon.
“Could it be? Could it be?! Tower Master! Did the Corpse Immortal specifically send you to capture me?! Has the Corpse Immortal decided that I must die?!”
Biyeon had wanted to keep the fact that she was the Young Leader hidden if possible. She frowned beneath her mask in irritation.
“The Corpse Immortal said this.”
The ghosts’ ear-splitting cries abruptly stopped. The Withered Crone stared at Biyeon, her eyes shining with anticipation.
“She said she did not kill you because it was troublesome.”
“What...?”
“You did not run away with anything important. She left you alone because hunting you down and killing you would have been troublesome.”
The Withered Crone’s eyes trembled.
“The one who ordered your death was...”
“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!”
The Withered Crone screamed before hearing the rest. Her robe swelled as though it had swallowed the wind.
Pop, pop, pop!
Countless souls poured out of the Withered Crone’s body.
It was not only the souls that ran wild. The monsters created through corpse manipulation, which the Sword Dragon had cut down and Haryeong had burst apart, creaked and staggered as they rose again.
Haryeong slightly hunched her shoulders and glanced at Yuri.
“Would it not be better if we simply ran away?”
Haryeong asked with considerable sincerity, but Yuri did not even pretend to listen.
“Two years ago and now, you still do not listen when people tell you to run away.”
Haryeong let out a deep sigh and shook her head.
“I will remain below, so little brother, go alone.”
“Scared?”
“I really will...”
Yuri avoided her glare and leaped upward.
The Moonlit Reveller, Orca, and Crimson Wing naturally flew through the sky as though it were nothing.
But the Sword Dragon and Biyeon did not possess such a talent. They had trained only in martial arts. Among the realms of lightness skills were Heavenly Ladder, Treading the Void, and Sky-walking, realms that allowed one to freely traverse the sky. But to naturally use such supreme lightness skills, one had to reach the seventh tier and surpass the wall of being human.
“Huh?!”
The Sword Dragon, who had been falling through the air and repeatedly kicking off the ground and walls to leap upward, unconsciously gasped.
Biyeon, who was flailing both arms and legs to remain airborne longer, made the same startled sound.
“S-Sky-walking?”
The man who had been below was flying into the sky.
He had not leaped. That man was truly flying.
“A seventh-tier master?!”
The Sword Dragon cried out in shock. Biyeon swallowed as well.
“What bullshit are you spouting...?”
The Withered Crone, who floated high in the air and controlled her magic, distorted her gaunt face as she muttered.
“Sky-walking? A seventh-tier master? You ignorant martial bastards, are your brains muscle too?! That is just levitation magic!”
Levitation magic could be used from the third tier onward. How high, fast, and long someone could fly differed greatly depending on their magical realm and soul power, but that was magic, not a lightness skill.
“You ignorant, pathetic things! Ground bugs that cannot even fly properly!”
The Withered Crone poured out abuse and raised her staff high.
Rumble!
Dozens of souls wandering nearby tangled together and formed a grayish-white sphere.
Screams and curses from the souls swirled inside the sphere. The deeply ominous attack poured downward. Biyeon and the Sword Dragon hurriedly raised defensive Ganggi, but they could not remain in the air and fell below.
“Goodness.”
Haryeong, who was busily running around on the ground and dealing with corpse monsters, made a startled sound. She retreated far enough to avoid getting caught in the attack and looked up.
“Huh.”
Yuri did not fall. He was not particularly fast, but he was slowly approaching the Withered Crone.
Using martial arts and magic at the same time was never easy merely because their tiers were the same. Martial arts and magic differed in both method and sense. Someone could understand spells quickly but understand martial arts slowly, or find magic easy while martial arts were difficult.
Yuri had a similar ease and understanding in both. Even before properly entering magic, he had understood spell formulas simply by focusing on magic books. Maintaining levitation magic while using martial arts was not even awkward for him.
“You fall too!”
The Withered Crone shouted in a cracked voice and pointed at Yuri. Mana joined with a vengeful spirit, turning it into a living bomb.
Screeeech!
The moment the chilling ghostly wail shook his mind, the vengeful spirit shot toward Yuri.
Instead of dodging, Yuri lifted his foot. The unbounded air, with nowhere to step, felt freer than the ground.
After all, clouds were meant to drift through the sky.
His slowly moving foot split the air.
Fwoosh.
Crimson Ganggi flared, following the path of his kick.
‘What?’
The Withered Crone was the first to feel doubt.
A kick. Setting that aside, Ganggi? That was nothing new. Until just now, the Withered Crone had been facing the Sword Dragon, disciple of the Sword Emperor, and the Young Leader, disciple of the Heavenly Demon.
They were at the fifth tier, yet their Ganggi was powerful enough to disrupt the Withered Crone’s magic. Even so, neither had given her this unpleasant feeling.
‘Fire...?’
From the surging crimson Ganggi, the Withered Crone sensed blazing fire.
There was no heat like real fire.
That was not hot.
A martial artist or mage who had reached a high tier would feel no pain even if bare skin touched flames. The Withered Crone was at the sixth tier. Mere flames would not affect her. Even without defensive magic, ordinary flames could not burn her body.
But fire was something one should not approach. That was an instinctive understanding anyone possessed. Fire was hot and dangerous. Get close and one would be burned. If it spread and engulfed someone, they would burn to ash.
That should not be flame.
It was not ordinary. Even while knowing it was not, the Withered Crone sensed flames in that crimson Ganggi.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!”
The vengeful spirit did not explode. The instant it touched the flames, the curse forcibly binding the spirit burned away.
It was like purification by flame. Feeling chills break out across her skin, the Withered Crone hurriedly retreated.
‘Purification? Divine power? No, it is different. That is just burning it away...!’
That unknown man’s martial art was violent and arrogant in a different way from the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art. While the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art subdued and dominated, this martial art burned ki itself into ash.
“What are you?!”
The Withered Crone screamed.
Footnotes:
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