WeTried Translations
Translator: Joy
Editor: Joy
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Damned Transmigration ◈
Chapter 61: Power of friendship
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A mage of equal or higher rank might have been another matter, but her opponent was a 5th-Circle martial artist.
He had not even created those flames with magic. What his foot had drawn was Ganggi.
It should have been impossible to burn away the curse binding the vengeful spirits under the Withered Crone’s command. Yet the impossible was unfolding before her eyes.
A 5th-Circle martial artist who had entered the realm of Ganggi could apply the changes in internal energy attributes they had experienced at the 4th Circle directly to their Ganggi.
For a swordsman, the basics were honing their sword aura to a sharper edge. Depending on the martial art they had learned, they could also add heat or cold.
There was no heat in that man’s Ganggi. Yet it was undoubtedly flame. A fiercely burning flame that devoured everything it touched.
Look. The red line left in the path his foot had traced had not faded. It was burning even brighter than before. The curse that had bound the vengeful spirits had become kindling feeding those flames.
‘What kind of martial art is that?’
The Rudella Mage Tower had maintained close ties with the Demonic Cult for a long time, so the Withered Crone’s knowledge of martial arts was not lacking.
The most famous demonic art that stole another person’s internal energy and made it one’s own was the Star-Sucking Great Art. A martial artist who had properly mastered it possessed internal energy deep enough to overwhelm others of the same rank, but they were also like bombs that could explode at any moment.
Internal energy that had not been cultivated purely carried such risks.
‘That is not the Star-Sucking Great Art.’
It had not been stolen. It had been devoured. Even fiercely burning flames would eventually die down.
She had never seen a martial art like it before. After it burned everything away, all that remained was black ash. Its very foundation was sinister and violent.
‘The flames are merely how it appears to me. It is not an art of extreme Yang. But while it is not hot, it is no different from flame. How can that be?’
Such a thing was impossible with the attribute changes of the 5th Circle.
‘Willpower...?’
Violence forged from mental image and will. It was a realm one could only begin to enter at the 6th Circle.
Divine Arts were what allowed someone to cross the wall between ranks. The Young Leader’s Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art exerted dominance over the surrounding Ki because it contained such Willpower. The Sword Dragon’s sword aura could split the Withered Crone’s magic in two for the same reason.
All Divine Arts were fundamentally based on the use of Willpower. Those heatless flames were Willpower born from that man’s Divine Art.
In other words, that unknown man... had learned a Divine Art comparable to the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art and the Orsia Family’s Sword Saint Style.
“Who are you?”
The Withered Crone spat the question as she glared at Yuri.
“I have never heard of anyone like you. Where in the world did you come from?”
It was not a question that needed answering.
Yuri did not bother thinking of a reply. He focused only on the verses of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil.
I am the fire that carries out heavenly punishment,
the asura that annihilates evil,
the apostle who sets heaven’s principles right.
My hands uphold the sacred flame,
my feet trample demons.
He had recited those verses every day without fail for two years.
Whenever he sank deep into meditation and looked within himself, he saw flames burning. He had burned his will to cross the wall, and when he reached the 5th Circle, Yuri had instinctively realized something.
‘These verses are incomplete.’
If he cultivated only the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil, he would inevitably strike a wall. He could likely reach the 6th Circle, but to ascend to the 7th, he would have to make up for the incompleteness within its verses.
Had they been incomplete from the beginning? Or had Lorelia deliberately concealed part of them? He had no way of knowing.
It was certainly a Divine Art, but the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil was rooted in a demonic art that carried the risk of Qi deviation. If he immersed himself in it too deeply, the flames it had nurtured would devour even Yuri himself, burning him to ash.
Perhaps Lorelia had passed on incomplete verses because of that danger. When Yuri reached the 5th Circle, that was the conclusion he had come to.
Whatever the truth, the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil could take him as far as the 6th Circle. To overcome the wall of the 7th Circle, Yuri would have to supplement the missing verses himself or find Lorelia and seek her guidance.
‘I am the fire.’
The verses returned to their beginning.
He had understood Willpower long ago. The moment he crossed the wall and reached the 4th Circle, Yuri had burned his will, his killing intent.
That, too, could be called Willpower. The flames of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil corresponded to Willpower.
The protective Ganggi covering Yuri’s body trembled.
He was still in the air, and the Withered Crone was still glaring at him.
Her staff shifted slightly. The vengeful spirits that filled the sky screamed and surged toward Yuri.
Yuri’s foot moved to a point slightly higher than before. As though climbing invisible stairs, his body rose another step. As he ascended, his trailing foot naturally lifted to his waist.
There was no wall or door before him. Yet Yuri kicked forward as if there were.
Boom!
An explosion erupted. The Ganggi concentrated in his foot burst outward, scattering red light. The vengeful spirits were briefly stopped by it.
Yuri paused there.
If he had been fighting the Withered Crone alone, things might have been different. But Yuri was not the only one here trying to kill her.
The Sword Dragon moved first.
Estor Orsia, the Sword Dragon.
He had been shocked by many things. Never in his life had he been so shocked so many times in a single day.
‘Without fail.’
The situation was urgent enough that he could not spare a glance, but the Sword Dragon thought of the man whose name he had not yet heard.
‘Without fail, I will learn his name. And without fail, I will invite him to the Orsia Family.’
There was much to discuss. In truth, it would be less a discussion and more the Sword Dragon asking questions one-sidedly, but he had made up his mind.
First, he had to kill that old witch.
Fwoooosh!
The sword aura covering his blade writhed. When the Sword Dragon swung his sword, the aura flew from the blade and shot high into the sky as though it were alive.
It resembled a golden dragon ascending to heaven. Taking the form of a dragon, the sword aura opened its great maw and devoured the vengeful spirits under the Withered Crone’s command.
‘What kind of martial art is that...?’
Biyeon, too, questioned Yuri’s identity.
Before inheriting the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art as the Young Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult, Biyeon had examined various martial arts. Yet Yuri’s Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil was astonishing.
She did not know what it was, but it seemed that even compared with the Divine Arts hidden in the deepest part of the Cult’s archives, it would not fall short.
‘A companion of the Sword Dragon...?’
Biyeon set that question aside and brought both hands together before her chest. Rather than leaping into the sky herself, she concentrated the Ganggi of the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art between her joined palms.
Rumble...!
Black Ganggi swirled into a small sphere.
Obsidian Annihilation Orb.
The Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art was regarded as the finest of all Ganggi Arts. The condensed sphere of Ganggi left Biyeon’s hands and rose into the sky.
The Sword Dragon, still sending golden dragons flying, briefly looked at the Obsidian Annihilation Orb rising overhead. He seemed to want to see what the martial art could do.
Yuri suddenly grabbed the back of the Sword Dragon’s neck.
Before the startled Sword Dragon could say anything, Yuri dropped from the sky, dragging him down with him.
The Obsidian Annihilation Orb exploded.
There was no deafening blast. Ganggi condensed to its limit spread out as black smoke. The smoke dominated the surrounding Ki as it expanded, erasing even the vengeful spirits controlled by the Withered Crone from the world.
The sky darkened as if someone had poured out a barrel of ink.
Biyeon stared at the sky and clenched both fists.
The smoke exploded silently, leaving the sky empty.
“Were you trying to kill me too?!”
Having grasped the situation, the Sword Dragon shouted.
“You should have dodged yourself.”
Biyeon answered indifferently.
They shared the goal of killing the Withered Crone and had formed a common front, but they had only met today. There was no reason their coordination would be perfect.
“You...!”
The Sword Dragon was about to shout again when his body flinched.
Yuri, still holding the back of his neck, hardened his expression slightly and looked toward the sky.
The Withered Crone was gone. All that remained where she had stood was thick, dense, grayish-white fog.
Thump.
The fog churned.
Hundreds of thin lines appeared within the gray torrent as it grew denser and denser. At the sight of those unknown lines, Yuri felt a chill that made every hair on his body stand on end.
“O God.”
The Withered Crone spoke from within the fog.
Crackle!
She offered the vengeful souls without holding back and, as though that were not enough, poured in divine power as well.
“Your insignificant servant who serves you offers what is mine and begs for a miracle. Grant me the miracle with which I may kill those unbelievers and offer them to you.”
Her prayer reached its destination.
The fog seemed to writhe, and the hundreds of thin lines slowly opened.
Hundreds of eyes opened.
Every gaze looked down at the ground. There was no killing intent or hostility, nor even an emotion in the drooping or upturned eyes.
They were simply eyes.
“Aaaaaaah!”
The vengeful souls that had melted into the fog cried out as one. It sounded less like screaming or shrieking and more like a cry of ecstasy.
Soon, the eyes vanished, and the fog poured downward.
The fog transformed into hundreds, then thousands of hands. The hands clawed and grabbed at the air as they ran wild and came crashing down on them.
Yuri hurriedly looked toward Haryeong.
She had already roughly cleaned up the grotesque monsters created by corpse manipulation and retreated to the far end of the underground area.
The exit the cultists had fled through was right beside her.
Yuri stared at Haryeong in disbelief.
Haryeong promptly raised a fist toward Yuri. Her thumb stood proudly upright. As though one was not enough, she thrust out her other fist as well and raised that thumb too.
Yuri swallowed the words he wanted to say and turned away.
Yuri, Biyeon, and the Sword Dragon scattered in three different directions.
Biyeon ignored the hands as much as possible and leaped toward the Withered Crone.
The Sword Dragon swung his blade at the hands. Brilliant golden dragons shot out one after another and blocked them, but he could not cut down many.
Empowered by the Evil God’s miracle, the hands were no longer as easy to sever as before.
Yuri remained beside the Sword Dragon for the moment.
This was his first time fighting cultists, and divine power and miracles themselves were unfamiliar concepts to him.
‘It seems the magic itself has been strengthened. Can it be used in other ways too?’
Boom!
The Sword Dragon, who had been ahead of Yuri, was forced backward. He did not seem to have suffered internal injuries, but his face twisted.
It appeared his pride had been wounded by being pushed back by such an attack.
“Watch out!”
The warning was for Yuri.
The hands the Sword Dragon had failed to stop rushed at Yuri as well. Yuri moved his legs without hesitation.
Thwack-thwack-thwack!
Kicks that bent and snapped like whips formed a barrier before him. Yuri linked one kick to the next, destroying the hands.
The Sword Dragon glanced at Yuri and swallowed his admiration before focusing on his sword again. As though they were competing, he continued cutting down the hands.
Biyeon had targeted the Withered Crone herself, but approaching her was not easy.
Unlike the pale vengeful spirits from before, the hands now had solid forms. They possessed power to match.
There were also far too many of them. No matter how many she destroyed, their numbers seemed endless.
She still had plenty of internal energy remaining. But her Willpower was gradually drying up. Even a Divine Art that allowed someone to dip their feet into a higher realm placed a heavy burden on its user when it unleashed an assault beyond their rank.
Biyeon forcibly pushed through the defense of flailing hands and thrust out her right hand.
When she opened her tightly clenched fist, black Ganggi exploded and engulfed the Withered Crone.
“Kaak!”
A hoarse scream.
The Withered Crone’s body staggered. Even though the Ganggi had exploded at point-blank range, the damage amounted only to her left arm becoming tattered.
It was enough to call a severe injury, but the Withered Crone was a mage of the Rudella Mage Tower.
“You bitch, how dare you!”
Fresh flesh grew over her mangled arm in an instant. Wrinkles spread across her formerly less-wrinkled face, and her hair fell out in clumps.
The mages of the Rudella Mage Tower pursued immortality. With magic, they sought to overcome every form of death.
‘She is not consuming the vengeful souls. Does she not want to slow her assault?’
Unlike the Rudella Mage Tower’s mages, who consumed vengeful souls or other people’s life force, the Withered Crone was regenerating her wounds by consuming Soul Power and no longer suppressing her aging.
‘No. Is it that she cannot consume the vengeful souls herself?’
She had offered them up.
The vengeful souls strengthened by the miracle no longer belonged to the Withered Crone. They were all part of the miracle bestowed by the Evil God, so she could no longer consume them.
With that certainty, Biyeon’s attacks became bolder.
Each time Biyeon forced an attack into close range, the Withered Crone screamed in a cracked old voice and poured out magic.
Biyeon hated that voice.
It resembled her own voice, which had been damaged by fire energy. A voice as unpleasant as metal scraping against metal. Dull, hoarse, and cracked.
Behind her mask, Biyeon bit her lip.
‘I will kill her.’
There were two other people here who wanted to kill the Withered Crone.
They had ended up fighting together unintentionally, but Biyeon did not want to yield the act of killing the Withered Crone herself.
To Biyeon, her master’s orders were absolute. He had not explicitly ordered her to kill the Withered Crone before returning, but that order had already become as absolute as a heavenly decree to Biyeon.
Her gaze moved downward.
The Sword Dragon and the other man were dealing with the hands.
She felt a prickling gaze.
The Sword Dragon was glaring up at her with murderous eyes, as though he might leap up and attack the Withered Crone at any moment.
The other man’s gaze was... calm.
He was observing this way.
Her? The Withered Crone?
The most sinister person here, and the one Biyeon needed to guard against the most, was likely that man. Biyeon thought he might even be stronger than the Sword Dragon.
‘This.’
Yuri drew his foot back.
‘It is about time.’
He had no idea how many times he had swung his leg.
He had created this kicking art because he needed it, and he had no intention of teaching it to anyone. There were no grand verses for it.
He could divide the movements and turn them into forms, but he had not seen the need.
Still, this was a martial art.
He simply had not named it.
‘A kick that draws crimson curves... Crimson Stream Kick?’
Was that too obvious?
‘I can decide on the name later.’
It was a kicking art he had refined in his head and used in actual combat.
Only now did it feel complete.
Something tickled deep inside his chest.
This kicking art could be used by itself, but it became more powerful when combined with the other techniques Yuri had learned.
He cut and kicked repeatedly, yet the momentum of the hands did not weaken.
“They do not end, do they?”
Yuri spoke to the Sword Dragon.
The Sword Dragon, gritting his teeth as he swung his sword, glanced at Yuri.
“If you know that, then do your part properly.”
“I am working hard.”
“Use your fists too!”
The Sword Dragon snapped at him with a frown.
“Alright.”
Yuri nodded without making excuses.
“I will hold them off, so fall back.”
“What?”
“You look like you have internal energy to spare. Gather all your strength and hit them with one big attack.”
“...Can you hold them?”
The Sword Dragon asked with a slightly surprised expression.
Yuri raised both hands and clenched his fists. Without answering, he walked past the Sword Dragon.
The Sword Dragon let out a hollow laugh and gripped his sword with both hands.
Rumble!
An enormous amount of internal energy drawn from his dantian became Ganggi and wrapped around the sword.
The Sword Dragon focused his mind and forged the Ganggi. The turbulent golden Ganggi gradually settled into stillness.
Yuri inwardly admired the immense power he felt at his back.
At the same time, he had to suppress a smile.
More than two years had passed since he had come to this world, but he still remembered the game’s information clearly.
He did not rely on his memory alone. He had even written it down in case he got confused later.
He had heard several times in the waiting room that he should not rely blindly on game knowledge, but information itself was valuable.
The levels of high-level NPCs, in particular, were information worth considering.
Excluding the Evil God, the hidden boss, the highest-level NPC to appear in the game was the Heavenly Demon.
Level 95.
Before the hidden boss was discovered, the Heavenly Demon had been the game’s final boss.
The next highest was the level 90 Sword Emperor, Albator Orsia.
In this world, Albator was treated as the Heavenly Demon’s counterpart and regarded as one emperor. But that had not been the case in the game.
There was a difference of five levels, for one thing.
But putting levels aside, no one in the community regarded the Sword Emperor as the second strongest after the Heavenly Demon.
Lee Su-hyeok had felt the same way.
If he had to name the second strongest after the Heavenly Demon, he believed it should be Polar Point Arsen Lucionell, not the Sword Emperor.
Arsen’s level in the game had been 87. Lower than the Sword Emperor’s.
But as in most games, level was not everything.
‘That Sword Emperor bastard is fucking overrated.’
That was what Lee Su-hyeok had thought when he first defeated the Sword Emperor, and the community’s opinion had not been much different.
Polar Point Arsen Lucionell unleashed every type of magic imaginable. He flooded players with magic of so many different attributes that preparing for just one attribute was pointless.
But if someone filled their limited skill slots and spent all their resources on elemental resistance and magic resistance, they would become nothing more than a punching bag.
The orthodox strategy was to learn his patterns, but his patterns were difficult enough that one mistake meant GAME OVER. Unless a player had exceptionally high magic resistance, a single hit would kill them outright.
And the Sword Emperor?
His stats were certainly high. Even if someone had heavily invested in health and defense, a critical hit from one of the Sword Emperor’s basic attacks would kill them instantly.
But unlike Polar Point Arsen Lucionell, his patterns were far too straightforward. The fundamental reason the Sword Emperor overhype theory had emerged was that one of the deadly attacks in his pattern had an obvious opening for a counterattack.
At first, players might die while desperately trying to dodge it without understanding. But once they grew even a little familiar with the pattern, an easy opportunity to deal damage presented itself.
Even now, the Sword Dragon was repeating the Sword Emperor’s weakness from the game. That ultimate-like attack was powerful, but it left too many openings while being prepared.
‘Well, I am the one who set things up for him, so it is probably more obvious now... If we truly fought, perhaps he would not show such a weakness.’
Honestly, Yuri hoped he would never find himself in a situation where he had to fight the Sword Emperor.
He put the thought aside and moved forward.
He could see ahead, but not clearly.
Flailing movements. Grabbing, clawing, striking, seizing. Every attack hands could possibly make filled his vision.
Hoo.
After taking a breath, Yuri raised both hands.
He did not think about the number of hands before him. Right now, Yuri only needed to think about two hands.
‘Left hand half-open and slightly forward.’
‘Right hand tightly clenched and slightly back.’
He knocked aside an incoming attack with his left hand, stepped forward slightly, and threw a punch. Without pulling that fist back, he opened his hand, turned his palm, and swept aside an attack from the side.
Then his left hand shot out as a fist.
His feet could not remain still. His hands could move forward only because his feet carried him forward.
Yuri naturally stepped into the footwork of the Whirlwind Cloud Steps and unleashed the Fist of the Rending Cloud.
A chilling shudder and exhilaration came over him at once.
His feet and hands, no, his body and mind, were in perfect harmony.
Could this be called unity of body and mind?
It was not the first time he had felt it, but this kind of immersion always gave Yuri a chilling thrill.
‘No, it is lacking.’
He could do better.
At the same time, he scoffed at the satisfaction he had felt after completing the kicking art earlier.
What did he mean, this was enough? It was still far from enough. He needed to strip away more and hone it further.
‘Still, let us try.’
Yuri suppressed the smile that threatened to spread across his face.
The hands were not only in front of him. Flowing like clouds carried on the wind, Yuri had already reached the deep center of the swarm.
No matter where he looked, there were only attacks.
Countless hands struck at him, grabbed for him, clawed at him, and tried to tear him apart. Two hands alone could never be enough for this.
Yuri drew back the leg he had been using for footwork.
Whip!
His leg shot upward and scraped through the air above him. His body followed the movement of his leg and spun half a turn as his fist moved.
Two arms and two legs.
But Yuri did not draw merely four trajectories.
He was fast, fluid, and ever-changing.
‘Lacking.’
He moved without stopping or being hindered, yet he still felt it was lacking.
Because there was more he could do.
So he added something more.
Crackle!
Lightning from the Art of the Violet Lightning Flash mixed into his internal energy.
As lightning energy mixed with the internal energy flowing through his acupoints, Yuri’s movements changed again.
Lightning suddenly erupted from the flowing clouds.
Crackle!
Lightning flowed along the trails left by his fists and feet, leaping in every direction.
For a moment, the Sword Dragon watched Yuri’s movements in a daze.
Yuri was freely running wild in the center of those countless hands, and every one of them was focused solely on him.
The Sword Dragon was confident he could deal with the hands as well.
But he did not think he could do it like that.
“Ha ha...!”
Laughing, the Sword Dragon raised his sword high.
He had found another reason to invite that man to the Orsia Family.
The Sword Dragon desperately wanted to fight him at least once.
“Move!”
At the booming shout, Yuri immediately leaped upward.
The flailing hands tried to seize Yuri, but once he had decided to escape, they could not catch him.
After confirming that Yuri had leaped clear, the Sword Dragon swung his sword.
Golden light tore through space and erased every hand.
“Kaaaaak!”
The mass annihilation dealt a severe blow to the Withered Crone as well.
Her body staggered violently from the backlash of losing a huge amount of Soul Power.
‘Wh-what is this?’
Her mind shook.
Her attention had been divided because she had been focused on the Young Leader clinging to her so persistently.
No, it was nonsense from the beginning.
It was already unbelievable that two 5th-Circle martial artists could withstand an attack from a 6th-Circle mage empowered by a miracle, but they had not stopped there. They had counterattacked and annihilated it instead?
‘Light Sword...?!’
The Withered Crone looked down, her eyes widening as she saw the brilliant light covering the Sword Dragon’s blade.
It was the sword technique that symbolized the Sword Emperor, compressing and heating sword aura until it glowed white-hot.
Had the Sword Dragon’s blade reached the realm of the Light Sword?
‘Impossible. How can someone at the 5th Circle...?’
‘A genius can even transcend the laws of rank.’
‘Ranks are ultimately divided according to the average at that level.’
‘Withered Crone. The reason you cannot overcome the wall of the 7th Circle is very simple.’
‘Your talent ends there.’
The words the Corpse Immortal had spoken ten years ago circled through the Withered Crone’s mind.
Hateful.
Had she not possessed enough talent to be called a genius, she could never have reached the 6th Circle in the first place.
But the higher one’s rank, the more one despaired before the true geniuses who had climbed higher.
To the Withered Crone, the Corpse Immortal had been such a person.
It was not only the mediocre who envied geniuses. Geniuses envied geniuses as well. Perhaps even more than the mediocre, geniuses envied those more gifted than themselves.
How could they not?
They lived their entire lives believing themselves to be geniuses, believing they could naturally achieve anything. But when they finally confronted something they could not do, remained in place, fell behind, and ultimately realized that they themselves were not geniuses, the despair they felt was something the mediocre could never understand.
‘Hateful.’
The Withered Crone swallowed blood and looked at Biyeon.
That masked Young Leader of the Demonic Cult, with her unpleasant hoarse voice, was approaching.
Biyeon knew the Withered Crone could barely keep herself upright. She was coming to finish her off.
‘If only you were not here.’
She could have trapped the Sword Dragon and that man before escaping. If Biyeon had not kept bothering her from nearby, she might have been able to focus on her attack and wipe them all out.
‘The Corpse Immortal said the reason you were not killed was because it was too troublesome.’
The words the Young Leader had spat scraped the bottom of the Withered Crone’s killing intent.
‘At least you.’
The Withered Crone glared at Biyeon as she prepared for the rampage and collapse of her Soul Power.
Footnotes:
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