WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 48: Invincible (1)
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Crimson Profound Soul-Shifting Art.
It was a sorcery derived from the Crimson Profound Sacred Cult, or more precisely, from the Western Regions.
This art originated with the Origin Cult of the Western Regions, the parent cult of the Crimson Profound Sacred Cult. It had been secretly passed down to ensure the eternal succession of the Saintess.
Yet no matter how tightly people kept their mouths shut, rumors were bound to spread.
The secret that the immortal Saintess changed bodies eventually reached the ears of the Overlord of Blood and Slaughter, head of the Mighty Conqueror Council.
The Overlord of Blood and Slaughter had long desired to unite immortality with a perfect body. Though exceptional in his own right, he mobilized countless ritualists and even improved the sorcery.
But...
‘Why?’
Neung Man-ha, whose palm rested atop Mumu's head, felt bewildered for the first time.
Even the improved Crimson Profound Soul-Shifting Art was not entirely without flaws.
Its greatest weakness was that control over the body weakened and the soul could be rejected unless the soul belonged to one of the vessel's blood relatives.
Even so, once the sorcery took hold, the invading soul could control the body, if only temporarily.
The body simply could not endure it.
Yet something was strange.
‘It isn't working?’
No matter how Neung Man-ha looked at him, Mumu did not appear to have been invaded by another soul.
If the invasion had succeeded, two souls would have taken root in one body. The eyes would not have been able to withstand it, causing them to move independently.
But Mumu was perfectly fine.
“How did you do that?”
“What do you mean?”
Neung Man-ha frowned at Mumu's puzzled tone.
Could it be that Mumu himself did not know?
If so, rather than resisting the sorcery himself, some unforeseen variable must have arisen.
“Are you an anomaly?”
“...”
“How amusing. You're only a vessel, yet you endured even an abbreviated ritual?”
“You keep saying things I can't understand.”
Neung Man-ha grinned.
“It seems difficult to incorporate you immediately. Before long...”
-Crack!
Before Neung Man-ha could finish speaking, Mumu's slap sent their head flying.
The headless body staggered before collapsing forward onto the ground.
Mumu snorted.
“You only keep saying what you want to say. Then I have no reason to keep talking to you.”
-Twitch! Twitch!
At that moment, the veins and flesh around the fallen body's neck wriggled as if trying to regenerate. They failed to take shape properly before...
-Boom!
The entire body exploded.
Mumu shrugged as he looked toward Yang Mu-o, whose lower body was still buried in the ground.
“So losing your head means you can't regenerate after all.”
Possessed Yang Mu-o's expression turned cold at Mumu's words.
Possessed Yang Mu-o seemed displeased that things were not going as intended.
“A mere vessel has grown rather insolent.”
“A mere vessel?”
Mumu walked over, grabbed Yang Mu-o by the head, and pulled the body from the ground as though yanking out a radish.
-Rumble!
The moment Yang Mu-o was pulled free, Yang Mu-o swung a kick toward Mumu's neck.
Yang Mu-o's spine and broken bones had already healed in that brief instant.
Mumu raised a hand and blocked the kick.
-Smack!
The instant he did, a wave burst forth and knocked Mumu's hand away.
It was the technique that had struck his heart earlier.
The first time Mumu suffered that technique, the unfamiliar attack had struck his heart and left him unable to move for a while.
But...
-Smack!
Mumu's hand, which had been knocked away, shot back and seized Yang Mu-o's ankle.
‘He endured it?’
Yang Mu-o narrowed his eyes.
Yang Mu-o had a higher rate of assimilation than the vessel called Neung Man-ha.
That allowed the possessor to draw on his own power effectively to a certain degree, even if not perfectly.
Yet Mumu had already adapted to that higher-order wave of force.
‘What an astonishing body, even more astonishing than Extreme's.’
-Crack!
Mumu broke Yang Mu-o's ankle.
The bone snapped so violently that it tore through flesh, but Mumu did not stop there. He tore off the broken portion altogether.
An ordinary person would have been unable to endure such pain, leaving an opening.
But the possessed Yang Mu-o showed no such opening.
-Creak! Creak!
Yang Mu-o's left rectus femoris and calf muscles swelled to a grotesque, unbelievable degree.
It happened in an instant.
Yang Mu-o's kick shot toward Mumu's right ribs.
-Boooom!
Its power and speed were both extraordinary.
Mumu precisely tracked it.
As Yang Mu-o aimed for Mumu's ribs, Mumu tensed his forearm and drove his elbow down at Yang Mu-o's left calf.
-Crack!
Yang Mu-o's calf bent into a grotesque shape.
Mumu did not stop there. He grabbed Yang Mu-o's swollen rectus femoris and tried to rip off Yang Mu-o's remaining left leg as well.
At that very moment, Yang Mu-o's eyes flashed fiercely.
Sharp ki weapons curved and coiled through the surroundings.
Then...
Mumu, who had been about to pull the leg free, coughed up a mouthful of blood from pain in his heart unlike anything he had ever felt before.
“Bleurgh!”
He dropped to one knee.
-Thud!
Mumu's expression twisted from the terrible pain, as though his heart were being carved to pieces.
He could not even understand what had happened.
Yang Mu-o had not touched him, yet the sudden pain in his heart made it difficult even to breathe.
“What happened to you?”
Kang Mu-i cried out in alarm.
Mumu had seemed to be overwhelming that bastard with sheer strength, so Kang Mu-i could not understand why he was suddenly like this.
-Creak! Creak!
In the meantime, Yang Mu-o's torn-off right leg rapidly regenerated.
Bone grew, and veins and muscles intertwined to form a new limb. The sight was utterly horrifying.
Yet something stood out.
-Swishhh!
The more Yang Mu-o's torn leg recovered, the more wrinkles appeared on Yang Mu-o's face.
Even Yang Mu-o's hair began turning white from the crown of the head.
Within moments, Yang Mu-o looked more than ten years older, as though age had overtaken the body in an instant.
‘What is this?’
Just then, Yang Mu-o's leg nearly finished regenerating. Yang Mu-o approached Mumu, who had dropped to one knee and was still clutching his heart in pain.
“What... did you... do?”
Mumu endured the pain and tried to stand.
-Crack!
But the pain gripping and tearing at his heart made him stagger.
Kang Mu-i could not understand it either.
Yang Mu-o had not even stirred his life energy to do anything, so why was Mumu suffering like that on his own?
Then Yang Mu-o curled his lips.
“I never thought I'd have to use the Heart Sword on someone who was neither Extreme nor One, but Nothing.”
‘!!!!!!!!’
Kang Mu-i's eyes widened.
Had that bastard just called it the sword of the heart?
‘Heart Sword?’
Heart Sword.
It was, as its name suggested, a sword of the heart.
It was a realm where someone who had reached the highest enlightenment in the sword could manifest a sword through will alone.
From time to time, exceptional swordsmen appeared in the martial world who broke through their limits and used Sword Kinesis.
But the Heart Sword was an entirely different realm.
It belonged to a different order altogether.
Long ago, Baek Mu-ja of the Zhou Dynasty, said to be the founder of the Central Plains' Demon Sword Clan, defined the three realms of the sword like this.
The first was Divine Sword Unity, the realm where there was nothing a sword could not cut.
The second was Ten Thousand Swords Transformation, the realm where even a blade of grass held in one's hand became a sword.
The third and final realm was the realm of wielding a sword through will alone.
Even without a sword, one always carried a sword in one's heart. Without moving a hand, one could pierce and cut anything. It was said to be the highest realm.
‘...That's impossible.’
Kang Mu-i trembled in fear and awe.
Every master who wielded a sword believed that this third realm, wielding a sword through will alone, was not something that could truly exist. It was only a realm of imagination.
But it was real?
“Cough, cough...”
Kang Mu-i swallowed dryly as he watched Mumu cough up blood.
It was the first time he had ever seen that monstrous bastard coughing up blood.
-Tap!
Yang Mu-o approached Mumu, who was clutching his heart in agony, and placed all ten fingers against the acupoints on Mumu's head.
Yang Mu-o smiled.
“If you endured the abbreviated ritual, I'll perform the art properly.”
With those words, Yang Mu-o was about to chant something strange.
‘Damn it!’
Unable to stand by and watch, Kang Mu-i simultaneously drew out all the power of the Three Spirit Beasts within his body. It was thunder ki, flame ki, and cold ki.
He knew better than anyone that he could not handle this opponent even using all the Three Spirit Beasts' power, but if Mumu fell here, he would be finished too.
“Stop!”
-Flash!
Though he had suffered an internal injury, Kang Mu-i drew out tenth-level Force of ki together with the Three Spirit Beasts' power.
Then he was about to unleash his strongest Ultimate Technique.
But...
“Do not do anything foolish.”
Yang Mu-o merely turned his head and gave him a casual glare.
-Crack!
“Urk!”
An immense pain like his heart being carved apart made Kang Mu-i collapse face-first onto the ground.
Something like a sharp ki weapon bored into his heart and tore it apart, yet the pain was utterly different from being struck by a ki weapon.
“Gasp... Gasp... Gasp...”
‘I can't even breathe.’
He felt as though his breath might stop at any moment.
Now he understood why that bastard Mumu was suffering so much.
“Wait your turn.”
Yang Mu-o snorted, then turned back and began chanting something strange again.
“Nuimanukasranu aranyawuma...”
-Hummmmm!
Yang Mu-o's face brightened with pleasure.
After subduing Mumu with the Heart Sword and performing the proper Crimson Profound Soul-Shifting Art rather than an abbreviated ritual, he could clearly feel the soul overlaying Mumu's body, unlike before.
‘Your body is mine.’
In that brief instant when Yang Mu-o became certain of success, goosebumps spread across Mumu's body.
He could clearly feel something indescribable invading his mind and entire body, trying to layer itself over him.
“Nuimanukasranu aranyawuma...”
-Swishhh!
The chant dug into his mind, and the spiritual energy of his Baihui acupoint opened.
The Crimson Profound Soul-Shifting Art was a sorcery that went against the natural order. It opened a person's spiritual energy and forcibly overlaid a soul upon it.
Yet as the spiritual energy of his Baihui acupoint opened, an unintended event occurred.
‘!?’
As it opened, a verse formula suddenly surfaced in Mumu's mind.
“Eternal Bud Seeks Answers, Vast Sea Follows Yang, Morning Flashes Through Clouds...”
It was the verse formula of the True Heavenly Martial Scripture.
Mumu had recited and studied the True Heavenly Martial Scripture every day for mental discipline.
Originally, the True Heavenly Martial Scripture was a compilation of a martial immortal's insights, meant to open one's own spiritual energy through Martial Arts and achieve ascension.
Yet it had been forcibly opened.
-Goooooo!
Five-colored light rippled across Mumu's entire body, and a fierce gleam burst from his eyes.
Yang Mu-o could not hide his bewilderment at the sudden, bizarre phenomenon.
‘What in the world...’
Then it happened.
-Kiiiiiiiik!
The adjustment screw on one of the golden Ki-Restraining Bracelets at Mumu's left wrist turned on its own.
Then it shifted to Opening.
-Clank!
The restraint on Mumu's left wrist, one of the Ki-Restraining Bracelets that had suppressed his strength as much as possible, was released.
-Shiver!
The overwhelming pressure that erupted beyond imagination made Yang Mu-o instinctively pull his hands away from Mumu and stagger back.
Footnotes:
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