WeTried Translations

Translator: Joy

Editor: Joy

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Damned Transmigration

Chapter 61

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Power of friendship

A 6th-Circle mage of her calibre might have been a different story, but her opponent was a 5th-Circle martial artist.

He hadn’t even used magic to create those flames. The arc drawn by his foot was pure Ganggi.

It should have been impossible for it to burn away the curse afflicting the vengeful spirits she commanded. And yet, the impossible was happening right before her eyes.

A 5th-Circle martial artist who had mastered Ganggi could imbue it with the attributes first glimpsed in the 4th Circle. A swordsman might hone their sword aura to an impossible sharpness. Others might add the sting of heat or cold.

She felt no heat from this man’s Ganggi, yet it was unmistakably fire. It was a roaring flame that consumed everything it touched.

The red line left in the wake of his foot’s trajectory wasn’t fading.

It burned more vividly than before, the curse that had bound her vengeful spirits now acting as kindling for his flames.

‘What kind of martial art is that?’

The Rudella Mage Tower had maintained close ties with the Demonic Cult for generations, so the Withered Crone’s knowledge of their arts was not shallow.

She knew of the infamous Star-Sucking Great Art, which stole another’s internal energy. Its masters possessed a profound power that overwhelmed their peers, but they were also ticking time bombs.

Internal energy that wasn’t purely cultivated always carried such a risk.

‘This isn’t the Star-Sucking Great Art,’ she realised.

She had never seen a martial art like it. Sinister and violent, its blaze left nothing but black ash in its wake.

‘The flame is just my impression of it; it isn’t an art of pure Yang. But even without heat, it’s no different from a real flame. How?’

Such a feat should be impossible with the simple attribute changes of the 5th Circle.

‘Willpower…?’

Violence forged from one’s mental image and will. That was a state one only began to enter at the 6th Circle.

A Divine Art, a power that allowed one to cross the wall between circles.

The Young Leader’s Heavenly Demon's Divine Art exerted dominance over the surrounding Ki because of this added Willpower. The Sword Dragon’s sword aura could slice her magic in two for the same reason.

In other words, this unknown man… had mastered a Divine Art on par with the Heavenly Demon's Divine Art and the Orsia family’s Sword Saint Style.

“Who are you?” the Withered Crone spat, glaring at the man called Yuri.

“I’ve never heard of anyone like you. Where in the world did you come from?”

It was a question that required no answer.

Yuri didn’t waste a moment considering one, his mind focused only on the verses of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil.

I am the fire that enacts heavenly punishment,

the asura who annihilates evil,

the apostle who rights the course of heaven's will.

My hands uphold the sacred flame,

my feet shall tread upon demons.

He had recited those verses without fail every day for two years. Whenever he sank deep into meditation and looked within himself, he saw a fire burning.

He had burned his own will to cross the wall and reach the 5th Circle. In that moment of breakthrough, Yuri had realised something instinctively.

‘These verses are incomplete.’

If he trained with only the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil, he would inevitably hit a wall. He could probably reach the 6th Circle, but to ascend to the 7th, he would have to supplement the missing parts.

Had it been incomplete from the start? Or had Lorelia deliberately hidden parts of it? He didn’t know.

While it was a Divine Art, its foundation was that of a demonic art, carrying the inherent risk of Qi deviation. If he became too engrossed, the very flames he cultivated would consume him, burning him to ash.

Perhaps Lorelia had passed on an incomplete version because of that danger. That was the conclusion Yuri had settled on.

Whatever the truth, he could reach the 6th Circle with what he had. To break through the wall to the 7th, he would either have to complete the verses himself or find Lorelia and ask for her guidance.

‘I am the fire.’

The verses returned to the beginning.

The concept of Willpower was already familiar to him. The moment he’d broken through to the 4th Circle, Yuri had burned his ‘will’, his killing intent. That, too, could be called Willpower. The flames of his art corresponded to it.

The protective Ganggi covering his body wavered.

He was still in the sky, the Withered Crone’s glare fixed on him.

Her staff twitched. The vengeful spirits that filled the air shrieked and surged towards him.

Yuri’s foot moved to a slightly higher point. As if climbing an invisible staircase, his body rose. With that single step, his trailing foot lifted naturally to his waist.

There was no wall or door before him, but his foot kicked out as if there were.

Boom!

An explosion tore through the air. The Ganggi concentrated in his foot burst outwards, scattering a red light that momentarily held the spirits at bay.

Yuri paused.

If he were fighting the Withered Crone alone, it would be a different matter, but he wasn’t the only one trying to kill her.

The first to leap forward was the Sword Dragon.

Estor Orsia, the Sword Dragon, was in a state of shock. Never in his entire life had he been so stunned so many times in a single day.

‘I must.’

The situation was too urgent to spare a proper glance, but the Sword Dragon’s mind was set on the man whose name he had yet to hear.

“I must learn his name. And I will, without fail, invite him to the Orsia family.’

There was much to discuss. In truth, it would be less of a discussion and more of a one-sided interrogation, but his mind was made up.

To do that, he first had to kill this old witch.

A wave of heat pulsed from his blade as the sword aura covering it writhed. The Sword Dragon swung his sword, and the aura detached from the steel, shooting towards the sky as if alive.

It looked like a golden dragon ascending to the heavens. The draconic sword aura opened its great maw and devoured the Withered Crone’s vengeful spirits.

‘What on earth is that martial art?’

Biyeon, too, was wondering about Yuri’s identity.

As the Young Leader of the Heavenly Demon’s Divine Cult, she had witnessed countless martial arts before inheriting her own.

Yuri’s Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil was astonishing. Though unknown to her, she felt it wouldn’t lose out even when compared to the Divine Arts stored in the deepest archives of the Cult.

‘Is he a companion of the Sword Dragon?’

Biyeon pushed the thought aside and brought her hands together before her chest. Instead of leaping into the sky, she focused the Ganggi of the Heavenly Demon's Divine Art between her palms.

Rumble…

The black Ganggi swirled into a small sphere: Obsidian Annihilation Orb.

The Heavenly Demon's Divine Art was praised as the pinnacle of Ganggi Arts, and the sphere that now left her hands and ascended into the sky was its condensed form.

The Sword Dragon, still unleashing his golden dragons, glanced at the rising object. It seemed he wanted to see what the technique could do.

Yuri’s hand suddenly clamped onto the back of his neck, and before the surprised Sword Dragon could utter a word, Yuri fell, pulling him down.

The Obsidian Annihilation Orb detonated, yet there was no loud explosion.

The Ganggi, condensed to its limit, simply spread out as black smoke, dominating the surrounding Ki and erasing the Withered Crone’s spectres from existence.

The sky darkened as if a barrel of ink had been poured over it.

Biyeon, glaring at the sky, clenched her fists. The smoke silently imploded, leaving the sky empty.

“Were you trying to kill me as well?” the Sword Dragon roared, having grasped the situation.

“You should have dodged on your own,” Biyeon replied coolly.

Though they shared the goal of killing the Withered Crone, there was no way they would be perfectly synchronised on their first day meeting.

“You…!”

Just as he was about to shout again, the Sword Dragon flinched. Yuri, still holding his neck, also hardened his expression and looked up.

The Withered Crone was gone. In her place was only a thick, dense, greyish-white fog.

Thump.

The fog swirled.

Hundreds of small lines appeared within the ever-thickening grey torrent. The sight sent a shiver down Yuri’s spine, making the hairs on his body stand on end.

“My god.”

From within the fog, the Withered Crone spoke.

Crackle.

She unhesitatingly offered up the vengeful souls and, as if that were not enough, poured in her divine power as well.

“Your humble servant offers what is hers and begs for a miracle. Grant me the miracle to kill these unbelievers and offer them to you.”

Her prayer was answered. The fog seemed to writhe and an uncountable number of eyes blinked into existence. Every gaze looked down upon the ground.

There was no killing intent or hostility, no emotion revealed in the drooping or upturned lids. Just eyes.

Aaaaaaaah!

The vengeful souls dissolved in the fog emitting a cry of ecstasy in unison. Soon, the eyes vanished, and the fog poured downwards.

It had transformed into hundreds, thousands of hands. They clawed and grasped at the air, rampaging as they descended.

Yuri quickly looked towards Haryeong.

She had already dealt with the grotesque monsters from the corpse manipulation and had retreated to the far end of the underground area. Right beside her was the exit the heretics had scrambled through earlier.

Feeling a little dumbfounded, Yuri stared at her.

She promptly raised a fist towards him and a thumb shot up. As if one wasn’t enough, she raised her other fist and gave him another thumbs-up.

Yuri swallowed the words he wanted to say and turned away.

Yuri, Biyeon, and the Sword Dragon scattered.

Biyeon ignored the hands as much as possible and leaped towards the Withered Crone.

The Sword Dragon swung his sword at the grasping limbs. Resplendent golden dragons shot out repeatedly, but they couldn't cut down many. Empowered by the evil god's miracle, the hands could no longer be so easily severed.

Yuri remained by the Sword Dragon’s side.

This was his first time fighting a heretic; the concepts of ‘divine power’ and ‘miracles’ were unfamiliar.

‘It seems to have enhanced the magic itself. Can it be used in other ways?’

Crash!

The Sword Dragon was knocked back. He didn’t seem to have suffered any internal injuries, but his face twisted in a scowl, his pride wounded.

“Watch out!” he shouted.

The hands he had failed to block were now swarming towards Yuri, who moved without hesitation.

Thwack-thwack-thwack!

A flurry of kicks, snapping and whipping like a lash, blocked his front. He linked his kicks, destroying the hands one after another.

The Sword Dragon, watching from the corner of his eye, swallowed his admiration and refocused on his sword, as if competing.

Biyeon aimed for the Withered Crone herself, but getting close wasn’t easy. Unlike the ethereal spectres from before, the ‘hands’ now had a definite form and were overflowing with power.

There were too many of them. No matter how many she destroyed, their numbers seemed endless.

She still had plenty of internal energy, but her Willpower was starting to run dry. A Divine Art let you dip your toes into a higher circle, but an onslaught that surpasses your own circle places a heavy burden on its user.

She forced her way through the flailing hands and thrust her right hand forward.

The moment she opened her fist, black Ganggi exploded, engulfing the Withered Crone.

“Kaak!”

A hoarse scream. The Withered Crone’s body staggered.

Despite the point-blank detonation, the only damage was her tattered left arm. It was a severe injury, but she was a mage from the Rudella Mage Tower.

“How dare you!”

New flesh grew on her mangled arm in an instant. In exchange, more wrinkles spread across her face, and her hair fell out in clumps.

The mages of Rudella sought immortality; they aimed to overcome all forms of death with their magic.

‘She’s not consuming the vengeful souls,’ Biyeon noted.

‘Does she not want to slow her assault?’

Unlike other Rudella mages, the Withered Crone was regenerating her wounds by consuming her own Soul Power, accelerating her ageing.

‘No, is it that she can’t use the vengeful souls?’

She had offered them. The souls, enhanced by the miracle, were no longer hers. They had all become a miracle granted by the evil god. She could no longer consume them.

With this realisation, Biyeon’s attacks became even more audacious. Each time she forced her way in to strike, the Withered Crone shrieked and unleashed a torrent of magic.

Biyeon hated that voice. It was too similar to her own, damaged as it was by fire energy. It grated on the ears like scraping metal.

Hoarse, raspy, broken.

Beneath her mask, she bit her lip.

‘I will kill her.’

There were two others here who wanted the Withered Crone dead.

Though they were fighting together unintentionally, she didn’t want to yield the act of killing her ‘personally’.

Her master’s command was absolute. Although he hadn’t explicitly ordered her to kill the crone, the command had already become a heavenly decree in her mind.

Her gaze drifted downwards. The Sword Dragon and the other man were dealing with the hands.

A sharp glare met hers.

The Sword Dragon was looking up at her, his eyes blazing, as if he might leap up at any moment.

The other man’s gaze was… calm. He was observing.

Her? The Withered Crone?

In this situation, he was the most inscrutable one. Biyeon thought he might even be stronger than the Sword Dragon.

‘This is it.’ Yuri drew his foot back.

‘It’s about time.’

He didn’t know how many times he had swung his leg. He had created this art because he needed it and had no intention of teaching it to anyone, so there were no grand Oral Verses.

He could have broken down the movements into forms, but he didn’t see the need. Still, this was a martial art. He just hadn’t decided on a name.

‘A kick that draws a crimson curve… the Crimson Stream Kick?’

Too on the nose?

‘I can decide on a name later.’

It was a kicking art he had been refining in his head and using in real battles. Now, finally, he had a feeling of ‘this is it’.

A tickling sensation spread through his chest. This kicking art could be used on its own, but it was far more powerful when combined with his other techniques.

He cut and kicked repeatedly, but the onslaught of hands didn’t relent.

“There’s no end to them,” Yuri said to the Sword Dragon.

Grinding his teeth as he swung his sword, the Sword Dragon glanced back.

“If you know that, then start acting like it.”

“I am trying my best.”

“Use your fists too,” the Sword Dragon snapped.

“Fine.” Yuri nodded.

“I’ll hold them here, so you fall back.”

“What?”

“You’re overflowing with internal energy. Just gather your strength and hit them with one big shot.”

“…Can you hold them?” the Sword Dragon asked, a slightly surprised look on his face.

Yuri raised his hands, clenched his fists, and walked past him without another word. The Sword Dragon let out a hollow laugh and gripped his sword with both hands.

Roooar!

An enormous amount of internal energy drawn from his dantian became Ganggi and coiled around his sword. He focused his mind, moulding the Ganggi. The turbulent golden energy gradually grew calm and settled.

Yuri was impressed by the immense power he felt from behind him. At the same time, he had to suppress a smile.

Over two years had passed since he’d come to this world, but his memories of the game were still vivid. He had even written things down to avoid confusion.

He’d heard countless times in the waiting room not to blindly rely on game knowledge, but primary information was always valuable.

In particular, the levels of high-level NPCs were worth noting.

Excluding the hidden boss, the evil god, the NPC with the highest level in the game was the Heavenly Demon. A staggering level 95.

Next was the level 90 Sword Emperor, Albator Orsia. In the current world, Albator was considered the Heavenly Demon’s counterpart, but it hadn’t been like that in the game.

For a start, there was a five-level difference. But levels aside, no one in the community considered the Sword Emperor to be the second-strongest.

Lee Su-hyeok felt the same. If he had to pick a runner-up, it’d be the Polar Point, Arsen Lucionell. His level was 87, lower than the Sword Emperor’s, but that wasn’t the only measure of strength.

‘The Sword Emperor is so overhyped,’ he remembered thinking.

Arsen Lucionell spammed so many kinds of magic that preparing resistances was meaningless, yet if you filled your skill slots with nothing but magic defence, you just became a punching bag.

The only strategy was to learn his patterns, which were so tricky that one wrong move meant GAME OVER.

And the Sword Emperor? His stats were high, true. A critical hit was an instant kill. However, his patterns were too straightforward.

The fundamental reason for the ‘Sword Emperor is overhyped’ theory was that one of his ultimate attacks had a blatantly telegraphed counter-attack window.

At first, you might die trying to dodge it, but once you got the pattern down, it was an easy DPS window.

Even now, the Sword Dragon was repeating the same flaws. While the ultimate-like attack was powerful, the preparation left him wide open.

‘Well, I’m the one who set the stage for him, so it’s more obvious now. If we were really fighting, he probably wouldn’t show such a weakness.’

He hoped a situation where he had to fight the Sword Emperor would never arise.

Pushing the thought aside, Yuri moved forward.

His vision was obscured by a sea of flailing motion. Grasping, clawing, striking, grabbing. Every possible attack a hand could make filled the space before him.

Hoo.

He took a breath and raised his hands. He didn't think about the number of hands. Right now, he only needed to think of two.

‘Left hand half-open, slightly forward. Right hand clenched tight, slightly back.’

He parried an approaching attack with his left hand, advanced, and thrust out a fist. Instead of retracting the punch, he opened his hand, turned his palm, and swept aside another attack. Then, his left hand became a fist and shot out.

His feet couldn’t stay still. Naturally, Yuri began to use the footwork of the Whirlwind Cloud Steps and unleashed the Fist of the Rending Cloud.

A shiver of thrill ran through him. His body and mind were in perfect sync: Mind-Body Unity.

It wasn’t a new sensation, but this level of immersion always gave him a chilling pleasure.

‘No, it’s not enough.’

He could do better. He mentally scoffed at the satisfaction he’d felt just moments ago.

This is good enough? Not by a long shot. It was still rough. It needed to be honed further.

‘Still, let’s give it a try.’

Yuri suppressed a smile.

Flowing like a cloud on the wind, he soon found himself deep in the centre of the swarm.

Everywhere he looked, there were only attacks. Countless hands struck, grabbed, clawed, and tried to tear him apart. With just two hands, he was bound to be overwhelmed.

Yuri dragged back the leg he had been using for his footwork.

Whip.

His leg shot up, scraping the hands above him, and his body followed the motion, spinning half a turn as his fists moved.

Two arms, two legs. But the trajectories he drew were not just four. He was fast, fluid, and ever-changing.

‘Not enough.’

Even as he moved without pause, he felt it wasn't enough. Because there was more he could do. So he added it.

Crackle!

Lightning from the Art of the Violet Lightning Flash mixed with his internal energy.

As Lightning Qi mingled with the energy flowing through his meridians, Yuri’s movements changed once again.

Lightning burst erratically from the flowing cloud.

Zzzt!

The electricity lingering in the trails of his fists and feet arced out in all directions.

For a moment, the Sword Dragon watched, mesmerised. Yuri was rampaging freely in the centre of that massive swarm, and every single hand was focused on him.

The Sword Dragon was confident he could handle the hands too. But he didn't think he could do it like that.

“Haha…!”

He burst into laughter and raised his sword high.

He had another reason to invite the man to the Orsia family. He desperately wanted to fight him.

“Get back!”

At the roared command, Yuri immediately leaped upwards. The flailing hands tried to grab him, but since he was focused on escaping, none could catch him.

After confirming Yuri was clear, the Sword Dragon swung his sword.

A golden light sliced through space, erasing all the hands.

“Kaaaaak!”

The mass annihilation dealt a massive blow to the Withered Crone. Her body staggered violently from the backlash of having a huge portion of her Soul Power sheared away.

‘Wh-what?’

Her mind reeled.

She had been too focused on the persistently clinging Young Leader. No, this whole situation was nonsensical.

It was unbelievable enough that two 5th-Circle martial artists could withstand an attack from a 6th-Circle mage enhanced with a divine miracle, but they had counter-attacked and wiped it out.

‘A Light Sword?!’

Looking down, the Withered Crone’s eyes widened as she saw the brilliant light enveloping the Sword Dragon’s blade.

It was the sword technique that symbolised the Sword Emperor: compressing and heating sword aura until it became incandescent.

Had the Sword Dragon’s blade reached the realm of the Light Sword?

‘Impossible. How can a 5th-Circle…?’

‘A genius is one who transcends even the laws of the circles.’
‘The circles are, after all, just an average measure.’
‘Withered Crone, the reason you could never overcome the wall to the 7th Circle is very simple.’
‘That is the limit of your talent.’

The words the Corpse Immortal had spoken to her ten years ago echoed in her head.

If she hadn’t possessed enough talent to be called a genius, she would never have reached the 6th Circle in the first place. But the higher the circle, the more one despaired before the true geniuses.

For the Withered Crone, the Corpse Immortal had been such a figure.

Geniuses envy other geniuses far more fiercely than any mediocre person ever could. It was inevitable. You live your life thinking you are a genius, only to face a wall you cannot climb, and the despair of realising you were not a genius after all is something the mediocre can never understand.

‘I hate you.’

Swallowing blood, the Withered Crone’s eyes fixed on Biyeon.

The masked Young Leader was approaching. She knew the crone was unsteady and was coming to deliver the final blow.

‘If it weren’t for you.’

She could have trapped the other two and escaped. If she hadn’t been pestered from the side, she could have annihilated them.

‘The Corpse Immortal said the only reason she didn’t kill you was because it was too much trouble.’

The Young Leader’s taunt scraped the very bottom of the Withered Crone’s killing intent.

‘You, at least.‘

The Withered Crone glared at Biyeon as she prepared for the rampaging collapse of her Soul Power.

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried