WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 19: Poison Parasite (4)

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Mok GyeongUn emerged from the chains.

Grrrrrr!

Something about him was unsettling.

Could the completed Poison Parasite have devoured him?

Blue Spirit aimed her pipe at him, her voice tinged with anger.

“You fool. Did it finally consume you?”

At that, Mok GyeongUn's lips twitched. He looked at Blue Spirit and spoke.

“It didn't consume me. I consumed it.”

“!?”

Blue Spirit's expression went blank for a moment.

His distinctive manner of speaking made it obvious that this was Mok GyeongUn himself, not someone who had taken over his body.

“What's wrong?”

“...Did you truly devour that thing?”

Mok GyeongUn shrugged.

“As you can see.”

“Hah!”

It was utterly absurd.

Even if he had several lives, the odds of failure had been greater.

Yet this ignorant mortal had actually succeeded.

“Though I ate so much that I feel as if my stomach will burst.”

“Your stomach will burst?”

“Yes. I suppose I ate quite a lot.”

After struggling with the creature, he had succeeded in absorbing its energy.

But that was where the problem began.

He had absorbed its energy, but the creature's resentment and deathly energy were beyond comparison with anything he had taken in before.

Blue Spirit furrowed her brow at his words.

‘Come to think of it, this brat is human.’

She had overlooked that fact.

Having remained a vengeful spirit for over a century, perhaps her thinking from when she had been human had become rigid.

The human physical body was a kind of vessel.

Every vessel had a limit to what it could bear.

‘More important than accepting internal energy is enlarging one's vessel through enlightenment.’

Yet Mok GyeongUn lacked enlightenment.

He had yet to understand how to wield ki as an Advanced master, and though he had learned the Moon Sword Form, a secret art of transcendent martial arts, his understanding of the sword remained shallow.

Had he gained enlightenment step by step through the normal path, the limit of internal energy he could accept would naturally have grown as well.

But Mok GyeongUn was nothing like that.

Blue Spirit spoke in a grave voice.

“Immediately expel the energy you cannot handle.”

“What?”

“Excess is as bad as deficiency. If you accept energy beyond what your physical body can bear, it will become poison to you instead.”

“Ah. Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Then I should pass on whatever energy I have to spare.”

“What?”

As Blue Spirit wondered what he meant, Mok GyeongUn bent over and searched the ground for something.

Then, after finding it, he raised it with an “Oh.”

It was a skull, its face and forehead shattered beyond recognition.

Strangely, an old talisman was attached to it. Though it looked ancient, it had remained undamaged.

‘It must be because of spell power.’

That was Blue Spirit's guess.

And she was correct.

Mok GyeongUn removed the old talisman bearing the character for “Lock” from the skull.

Then,

Hummmmm!

“What are you doing?”

He was not simply expelling the energy. Why was he pouring it into that thing?

Blue Spirit's Ghost Eyes showed her a presence curled up inside the skull.

It was a vengeful spirit, hiding in terror.

“Why give that thing energy...”

Before Blue Spirit could finish,

Grrrrrr!

The vengeful spirit inside the skull reacted as deathly aura flowed into it.

Like dried seafood regaining its vitality after being soaked in water, the curled-up vengeful spirit absorbed the deathly aura and revealed itself.

It was none other than,

Clink! Clink!

a cold-looking girl wearing thin chains over her entire body like clothing.

Judging by her young face, she appeared to be no more than fifteen.

What stood out was that half her hair had gone white, making her truly half-gray.

Blue Spirit frowned at the sight.

“What? You were a girl?”

The girl bit her lip tightly, then shouted.

“Who are you calling a girl? This young master is a man!”

“...What?”

Blue Spirit raised an eyebrow at the girl's words.

Then she muttered as though unable to understand.

“You're joking, right?”

No matter how she looked at her, she was a girl.

Yet,

“This young master is a man!”

Blue Spirit stared at the girl, who angrily insisted she was male, then held out her hand.

The girl's body was forcibly drawn into Blue Spirit's grasp.

Whoosh!

“Ugh?”

Smack!

Blue Spirit seized the girl's neck and spoke in a colder voice.

“You little brat, how dare you raise your voice at an elder? Are you so desperate to die?”

“!!!!!!!”

Blue Spirit's overwhelming pressure rendered the girl speechless.

It seemed vengeful spirits could sense each other's level to some extent. The girl, too, could tell from Blue Spirit's aura.

Yet she did not seem inclined to yield easily.

“E-even so, I've been dead for about fifteen years. By age, I'm thirty-three... Urk.”

Blue Spirit tightened her grip.

Pulling the girl closer, she said,

“If you don't want to be called a little brat by me, come back after another hundred years.”

The girl's expression hardened.

From Blue Spirit's words alone, she could estimate how long Blue Spirit had existed and what level she had reached.

Blue Spirit turned to Mok GyeongUn.

“Why give this one energy and revive her? You should have simply killed her.”

“She seemed useful.”

“Useful?”

The girl's expression twisted at his words.

Then she said to Mok GyeongUn,

“Who are you calling useful? A mere human...”

Squeeze!

“Urk!”

“Who told you to open your mouth?”

The girl was not truly short of breath, but Blue Spirit's grip suppressed her so completely that she could not speak.

Mok GyeongUn held the skull in both hands.

Showing it to her, he said,

“This is your head, isn't it?”

The girl glanced nervously at Blue Spirit.

Blue Spirit nodded reluctantly.

The girl answered.

“...That's right. So leave it alone.”

“Why?”

“What good could come of meddling with a dead person's bones?”

“Good? There is some.”

“What?”

Crack!

A fissure formed in the girl's skull.

The girl panicked, reaching out as she cried,

“S-stop!”

“Why?”

“No. Why are you trying to break it?”

Unlike the girl, who desperately tried to stop him, Blue Spirit's lips twitched with amusement.

She had wondered why this mortal had revived the girl. Apparently, he had done it to torment her again.

That skull was the girl's very foundation.

If he broke it, she would suffer unbearable pain.

‘He's vicious indeed.’

The girl tried to shake off Blue Spirit's hand and rush at Mok GyeongUn.

But their levels were too far apart for her to break free.

Instead, Mok GyeongUn crushed the skull in his hands.

Crunch!

“Aaaaaaah!”

The girl let out a piercing scream.

The pain of having the body she had possessed in life destroyed was impossible to describe.

But amid the pain, the girl witnessed an even more shocking sight.

Crumble...

After grinding the skull into powder, Mok GyeongUn put the powder into his mouth.

Even Blue Spirit's eyes widened.

Who could have expected him to put bone powder in his mouth?

“Yooooou!”

The girl screamed.

Ignoring her, Mok GyeongUn rubbed the remaining fragments between his palms until they became even finer, then put every last bit of powder into his mouth.

“You bastard... Aaaaah!”

At that moment, something strange happened.

The girl's spirit body shook violently as though she were having a seizure.

Then a red thread emerged from her body, connecting her to Mok GyeongUn.

“!?”

Blue Spirit could not believe what she was seeing.

‘This bastard...’

He had consumed the foundation of a vengeful spirit and forcibly turned her into a spirit familiar.

The act itself had been simple, but the result was anything but.

How could such a thing happen?

She could scarcely believe it even as she watched.

Mok GyeongUn, on the other hand, curled his lips into a sinister smirk when he saw that his tentative attempt had truly worked.

‘It worked.’

He had wanted to test it if given the chance.

To see whether his guess was right.

And it truly was.

“Th-this...”

The girl stared at the red thread, unable to hide her bewilderment.

Having existed as a vengeful spirit for so long, she naturally knew many things without anyone teaching her.

She immediately recognized it as a spirit familiar bond, a thread that established a relationship between master and servant.

“How could this...”

Her face reddened as she tried to grasp the red thread.

But there was no chance of catching it.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

“This young master! How could this young master become the spirit familiar of a worthless human like you?”

Mok GyeongUn asked the girl as she wildly flailed her arms.

“What is your name?”

“Shut up! Who are you to call this young mast...”

“What is your name?”

The girl's expression suddenly softened at Mok GyeongUn's repeated question.

Her lips twitched, then she looked at him with a far gentler expression.

“My name is Gyu Soha, Master.”

‘This one?’

Blue Spirit was inwardly surprised.

Even when they became spirit familiars, vengeful spirits rarely revealed their own names.

That was because names possessed power.

Once a being became a spirit body, it drew closer to the realm of gods. At that point, its true name could bind it.

That was why vengeful spirits did not reveal their names.

Yet she had revealed her true name with an altered expression, as though she had completely submitted.

Mok GyeongUn looked at the girl.

“It is a good name.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“Soha. You can become my faithful dog, can't you?”

“Ahhh! Nothing would please me more.”

Blue Spirit clicked her tongue at the girl, whose expression was as fervent as though she had been moved by his words.

This was worse than the Demonic Monk.

Though she had not quite reached that level, a Green Spirit who had nearly become a Blue Spirit had submitted so completely.

It was as if her very mental roots had been conquered.

‘...Is it because his deathly aura has grown stronger?’

Grrrrrr!

Blue Spirit's Ghost Eyes showed it clearly.

Mok GyeongUn's deathly aura had become incomparably stronger than before.

Yet even after pouring enough energy into Gyu Soha to restore her to this extent, he still had so much overflowing?

Moreover, she had been uncertain for a while now, but his energy appeared to overlap in a subtle way.

She asked,

“Your energy is strange. Why does it seem layered?”

“Ah. Blue Spirit can see it?”

“See it?”

“A new verse formula came to mind.”

“A new verse formula?”

“The Eight Forms of Force Breaking.”

“What?”

Blue Spirit could not hide her surprise.

A new verse formula for the Eight Forms of Force Breaking had come to him amid all this?

She asked,

“What verse formula did you realize?”

Mok GyeongUn gestured toward Soha and said,

“Jeongeoseoyanghyeong, Hyeolmuimugeuk, Maryanghyeongjeonsim, Wihaejeonmuga, Yeokgeukmumangnyeo, Ogeojeonjeolmu.”

“!?”

Blue Spirit's eyes shook.

‘This brat... He has realized a verse formula I do not know.’

That was why Blue Spirit was so surprised.

She had never heard the verse formula Mok GyeongUn had recited.

Even with her innate martial talent, she had only mastered four movements of the Eight Forms of Force Breaking.

Yet this was a formula she did not know.

Suppressing her excitement, she asked,

“Ahem... This is a movement I have not learned. What principle does it contain?”

“It allows me to distribute my dantian into two places.”

“What?”

“I can disperse my energy around the Baihui acupoint in my head and near the central point close to my heart.”

‘!!!!!!’

Blue Spirit looked utterly dumbfounded.

Mok GyeongUn likely did not understand what he had just said.

‘Hah.’

Until they surpassed the wall, all martial artists were bound to the Lower Dantian.

But once they gained enlightenment and crossed that wall, they opened the Central Dantian.

Only a handful of people in the martial world had opened their Central Dantian.

Yet this mortal had opened his Central Dantian through the principle of the Eight Forms of Force Breaking, without any enlightenment at all.

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