WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: WeTried Translations
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◈ Ophidian of the Immortal World ◈
Chapter 21: Human Cultivators
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The Thorn Lizard was good prey.
In other words, it was an easy opponent.
Its weapons were sharp teeth and thorns, neither of which posed much threat to the Wood Demon.
The Wood Demon was huge and covered in tough bark. It attacked from afar, lashing out with long branches and roots. The Thorn Lizard could neither ignore those attacks nor strike back against them.
It would not have been an exaggeration to say that the thorns covering its body were its only defense. Unlike Jegyeong's scales or the Wood Demon's bark, the thorns were not meant to withstand attacks. Their purpose was to wound whatever attacked them.
The thorns were devastating against enemies that fought at close range, but nearly useless against an opponent like the Wood Demon, which kept its distance and struck without giving the Thorn Lizard a chance to retaliate.
The Wood Demon's bark was tough as well. Even when its branches and roots were pierced by thorns, it showed no sign of flinching.
‘This is a terrible matchup.’
If the Thorn Lizard had faced the monkey Demon Beasts from before instead of the Wood Demon, it would have put up a far better fight.
The monkey Demon Beasts had pressured the Wood Demon without much difficulty, yet the Thorn Lizard could barely do anything against it and was being pushed back helplessly.
That was the importance of compatibility. Wasn't it like rock-paper-scissors?
‘Still, this is a problem. I can't just stand here and watch.’
Jegyeong had learned for the first time that a hunt going too smoothly could also be a problem.
At this rate, the Wood Demon looked likely to defeat the Thorn Lizard alone. Of course, even if the lizard was foolish, it was not an idiot. It would flee before that happened, and the slow Wood Demon would not be able to catch it.
Jegyeong could step in then and finish it off, which would count as contributing in some fashion, but he could not be satisfied with merely taking credit at the end.
‘Can't be helped.’
As he watched the fight grow fiercer, Jegyeong used the Qi Concealment Technique to its fullest and hid his Aura.
Then he quietly approached the battlefield between the Wood Demon and the Thorn Lizard.
Wooooo-!
The Wood Demon intensified its assault and pressed the Thorn Lizard harder.
Beating down an opponent that posed no threat whatsoever felt deeply satisfying. The Wood Demon had been discouraged by one thing after another lately, and it vented all its pent-up frustration through this fight.
The Thorn Lizard tried desperately to resist, but none of its weapons worked on the Wood Demon.
Its teeth were useless, and so were its poisonous thorns.
The Wood Demon could handle poison as well, so it possessed considerable resistance to toxins. The small amount of venom lodged in its branches and roots could not cause it more than a faint itch.
“Skree!”
After being pushed back from start to finish, the Thorn Lizard finally accepted that this monstrous tree was an enemy it could not defeat and decided to flee.
The moment it turned its head slightly to check its escape route, a huge snake tail that had somehow crept close without its notice smashed into its head.
Bang!
The Thorn Lizard flew away like a kicked pebble.
Despite being struck in the head, it somehow did not lose consciousness and tried to regain its balance as it fell. Yet it landed on muddy ground that was little different from a swamp.
The instant its feet touched down, the ground rippled. Several small roots buried beneath the mud shot up and wrapped around the Thorn Lizard's legs.
That was the end.
The Thorn Lizard struggled to break free, but the Wood Demon had no intention of letting it go. While it thrashed about, Jegyeong swiftly caught up and swung his tail again.
‘Be careful.’
At first, Jegyeong had instinctively opened his jaws wide to bite into the Thorn Lizard.
Then he belatedly remembered the obvious fact that there were no scales inside his mouth. He closed his jaws and swung his tail instead.
Just as he had expected and hoped, the Thorn Lizard's thorns could not pierce his scales.
The lizard, on the other hand, had taken two solid blows to the head. It staggered about in a near-death state.
Wooo-!
The Wood Demon delivered the final blow.
An especially thick root dropped down and struck the crown of the staggering Thorn Lizard's head.
With a heavy impact, the Thorn Lizard collapsed without even managing a scream.
“Amazing! Amazing!”
As always, Cheongo watched the fight from the sky and loudly showered praise without even saying whom it was for, making sure their presence was known.
Even amid that racket, Jegyeong's sharp eyes noticed that the fruit which should have been held in Cheongo's beak was gone.
‘You're so easy to read.’
He had no intention of saying anything.
It was not his place to say anything, anyway. If anyone had a complaint, it should be the Wood Demon, but it did not seem likely to make a fuss over one fruit.
In truth, Cheongo's contribution to this hunt was far from small.
Cheongo had done nothing in the actual fight, but before that, they had flown all the way to the Thorn Lizard's territory with the Wood Demon's fruit in their beak.
That was not only troublesome, but also considerably dangerous.
Cheongo already stood out and was an easy target for other beasts because of their appearance and the air around them. This time, they had also needed to fly a long distance while carrying the Wood Demon's fruit.
Beasts and Demon Beasts that could not leave the ground were not a concern, but the sky was different.
What if other flying beasts, or even Demon Birds, had spotted Cheongo? They probably would not have escaped unharmed.
Jegyeong knew the risk Cheongo had taken, so he did not want to scold them over one fruit.
What the Wood Demon thought about it... was none of his concern.
“Jegyeong, amazing! Tree, amazing!”
While Cheongo chattered away, Jegyeong wrapped his tail around the Thorn Lizard, which lay limp and was on the verge of dying.
It was monstrously large for a lizard, but Jegyeong's tail could still wrap around it once with ease.
Crunch!
The Demon Beast's Qi and Blood had already been exhausted, and it had lost consciousness. Its body was as weak as that of an ordinary animal.
A slight squeeze was enough to crush its whole body.
“Let's divide it into five. I'll take two portions, you take two, and Cheongo gets one.”
Neither Cheongo nor the Wood Demon objected to Jegyeong's division.
Jegyeong had secretly worried that the Wood Demon might react badly, but he was pleased by its calm response and distributed the shares.
Jegyeong immediately swallowed his portion.
Cheongo, meanwhile, flew away with a chunk of meat larger than their own body in their beak. The Wood Demon wrapped its roots around the remaining carcass and dragged it into the mud.
‘Cheongo was in a real hurry.’
He had wanted to discuss their next hunt, but without an interpreter, he could do nothing.
In the end, Jegyeong and the Wood Demon exchanged a brief farewell in words neither could understand before parting ways.
* * *
The Thorn Lizard they had hunted this time was stronger than the monkey Demon Beasts and contained more Qi and Blood. Still, there was only one lizard, and Jegyeong had obtained only forty percent of it.
Even after swallowing his share all at once, he did not feel any strain in his stomach.
‘More importantly, my capacity itself has grown.’
He did not know whether capacity was the right word, but no other expression came to mind.
By the feel of it, he would finish digesting everything today without even needing to sleep.
‘Will it take Cheongo a while to return?’
The Wood Demon's fruit that Cheongo had swallowed, along with the twenty percent of the Thorn Lizard's carcass they would soon eat, was more than enough to turn them into a Demon Beast.
Jegyeong was not worried that Cheongo would become a Demon Beast and leave without a word.
It was not because he trusted Cheongo. It was because he trusted Cheongo's greed.
He had been somewhat doubtful before, but seeing Cheongo lose patience and swallow the fruit this time had cemented his belief.
Not all Demon Beasts were the same.
Unless they awakened a special ability, a Demon Beast's combat strength generally depended on what kind of creature it had originally been.
Cheongo was only a somewhat unusual crow, so even after becoming a Demon Beast, their combat strength would likely remain fairly ordinary.
Unless they planned to live by hunting and eating normal beasts even after becoming a Demon Beast, Cheongo would have no choice but to return to Jegyeong if they wanted to eat better things and dream bigger dreams.
And Jegyeong believed Cheongo would return.
Cheongo was clever, but even greedier.
‘This is a good chance to practice the Qi Concealment Technique.’
When he practiced alone, it had felt vague and frustrating, as if he almost understood it but never quite grasped it. After using it once in an actual fight, he finally got a feel for it.
‘It's still clumsy. I was able to use it well this time because I got lucky. That lizard was slow, and the situation was chaotic.’
‘The key to the Qi Concealment Technique is ultimately developing the ability to control one's Aura.’
Then what was Aura?
It was neither the power of Qi and Blood nor Spiritual Power.
Jegyeong understood it as a kind of presence, or in other words, the weight an existence carried in this world.
That understanding came from a short discussion he had heard in the Forget-Me Garden.
According to the kind senior cultivators of the Forget-Me Garden, the strength of one's Aura was related to a cultivator's realm, but it was not absolute.
For example, the emperor of an Immortal Dynasty often had a lower realm than his ministers, yet his Aura could be strong enough to overwhelm ministers whose realms exceeded his own.
Why was that?
Because of the position of emperor of an Immortal Dynasty and what that position represented.
An Immortal Dynasty's emperor held great weight in this world, so even if his personal realm was low, his Aura was powerful.
‘But what use is this Aura?’
Qi and Blood and Spiritual Power were tangible strengths.
He could not tell what Aura was useful for.
The senior cultivators in the Forget-Me Garden did not know, nor had they cared to find out.
To them, Aura seemed to be one of the natural phenomena of the Cultivation World.
Jegyeong thought that perhaps he would become equally indifferent to it someday, but for now, he needed to focus on this Aura.
‘First, I need to find somewhere to stay.’
The cave he had used before was now too small for him to keep using.
He could force it wider, but judging by its condition, it seemed likely to collapse if he applied any strength, so he gave up on the idea.
In the end, Jegyeong found a suitably shaded place and lay down.
Even after becoming a Demon Beast, the exposed feeling of having open space in every direction still made him uneasy. Still, he had nowhere else to settle for now.
Fortunately, after becoming a Demon Beast, Jegyeong's Heart State had become far steadier than before. It did not take him long to calm his unease.
Soon, faint breathing, so quiet it seemed imagined, leaked out, and the enormous snake's presence melted into the shade.
* * *
“Jegyeong. How do I look?”
Cheongo did not fly over while noisily calling Jegyeong's name as usual.
They simply approached with powerful wingbeats and showed off their changed appearance.
“...”
Fatigue from practicing the Qi Concealment Technique had not fully faded, so Jegyeong only half-opened his eyes to look at Cheongo.
Cheongo was clearly very different from before, unable to hide their pride even as they pretended otherwise.
For one thing, they had nearly doubled in size.
Demon Beasts were larger than ordinary beasts because their Qi and Blood increased explosively. To contain that greater Qi and Blood, their bodies naturally had to grow.
“You look impressive.”
He did not mean it.
Judging by appearance alone, Jegyeong thought Cheongo had looked better before.
Cheongo was bigger now and looked more like a Demon Beast, but they had lost the air of mystery they once possessed.
That was because the faint blue light that had drifted around their body was gone.
Still, Cheongo seemed pleased with the change. Could he not offer them a few flattering words?
“Right? Right?”
Jegyeong gave a vague response and added a few more compliments.
Cheongo's mood seemed to soar into the sky. They babbled on and on about the moment they had become a Demon Beast, having forgotten that the enormous snake before them had gone through the same experience much earlier.
“By the way, Jegyeong, I saw humans while coming this way.”
“Humans?”
Jegyeong, who had gone beyond boredom and was beginning to suffer from Cheongo's endless chatter, opened his eyes wide.
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure! I saw them. They were hiding, but they couldn't fool my eyes!”
Cheongo said confidently, clicking their beak.
“How many were there? Were they strong?”
Jegyeong knew Cheongo would not be able to answer if he asked about their realms, so he kept the question vague.
“There were six. And, um... they were strong, but I don't think they were that strong.”
“Weaker than me?”
“Yeah. But two of them were pretty strong. They seemed a little weaker than you, Jegyeong.”
A group of cultivators with two leaders? Was that how he should understand it?
Jegyeong narrowed his eyes and sank into thought.
‘Six Qi Refining Stage cultivators. Are they from the same group as the ones I saw before? Or are they Rogue Cultivators?’
Either way, it was not good.
Jegyeong, who had been somewhat relaxed, straightened as tension ran through him.
“Where did you see them?”
“Over there. In the direction we came from. They were two days away. I don't know where they are now.”
Two days away was based on the speed at which they had traveled together.
They had moved diligently on the way here, but they had not pushed themselves too hard. If those people had been two days away...
‘We might run into them.’
An unprecedented sense of danger surged within him.
Jegyeong was about to question Cheongo again.
Which direction had they been traveling? What had they looked like?
Woooooooo-!
But then the Wood Demon's rage-filled roar rang out, and Jegyeong swallowed the questions he had been about to ask.
* * *
“Senior Brother! It's a Wood Demon! Look at those branches!”
“Spirit Fruits!”
The group of cultivators could not hide their excitement as they looked at the Wood Demon, which was as enormous as a thousand-year-old tree.
Their eyes gleamed at the Spirit Fruits growing on the Wood Demon's branches, but instead of rushing forward blindly, they looked toward the two people leading the group.
“Senior Brother. Senior Sister. What should we do?”
The man and woman at the front seemed to consider it briefly, then smiled and nodded.
“Didn't we come all this way to seek fortuitous opportunities like this? That demon fiend does not look ordinary, but there are many of us. We should be able to kill it without much trouble.”
The man who spoke stepped forward.
“My junior sister and I will attack it first. Once the demon fiend's attention is on us, support us. If we make too much noise, other demon fiends in the area may be drawn here, so let's finish this as quickly as possible.”
“Understood.”
The man tapped his waist, and the sword hanging there without a scabbard floated before his eyes.
“Junior Sister, be careful. That demon fiend is no ordinary creature. We don't know what strange abilities it may possess.”
The man warned the woman beside him, then took out a talisman and attached it to the sword before him.
The talisman burned away in an instant, and the remaining flames seeped into the sword.
“Go!”
The man swept out a hand and shouted.
The sword, blazing red, shot toward the Wood Demon at his command.
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