WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 2: Soul-Severing Mountain Villa (2)

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『Before reading this rulebook closely, first raise your head and look at the sky. If the forest is too dense to see the sky, accept the noise and break the branches to clear your view.』

The sky?

It was a rather abrupt opening for a rulebook about the villa.

Still, this booklet was my only clue to escaping this bizarre place. I set my doubts aside and looked up.

Mist rose in the distance, but the sky was still blue.

『If a whitish mist is blocking your view, or if you can see blue sky through the mist, turn to the next page.

If the sky has turned red, or the mist carries a red tinge, we regret to inform you that you must immediately run toward Soul-Severing Mountain Villa and find the Gate of Life hidden in its deepest reaches.

In this case, the final page of this rulebook contains a summary of the villa's hazards. Move as swiftly as possible to ensure your survival.』

The words red sky naturally brought sunset to mind. So there was a time limit after all?

Fortunately, it seemed I still had some time.

『Soul-Severing Mountain Villa is a moving formation array created by a strange man who calls himself the Ghost Valley Master.』

It began with something difficult to understand. Formation arrays in martial arts novels could broadly be divided into two types.

The first was a combined formation, created when several martial artists gathered to beat down a single person.

The other was a formation array akin to the barriers installed in places that had to be guarded with utmost care, such as the Martial Alliance's secret repository. Zhuge Liang's Stone Sentinel Maze from Romance of the Three Kingdoms was the most representative example.

Soul-Severing Mountain Villa clearly belonged to the latter category. Yet formation arrays of that kind were normally created by drawing on the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and the environments where they could be installed were strictly limited.

One could partially overcome those positional limitations through inner cores, treasured swords, sorcery, and the like.

Even so, those methods merely replaced the spiritual energy needed to maintain a formation array after it was set up. They did not make movement possible.

‘How could someone create a formation array like that...?’

『The power source of Soul-Severing Mountain Villa is your essence and qi, trapped within the formation array.』

‘Ah.’

From today onward, the Ghost Valley Master was outside the Orthodox Path. I had decided that.

『This is also why Soul-Severing Mountain Villa moves periodically. It must steadily consume others to sustain its own existence.

The cloud-mist that rises is the villa's digestive fluid, and the tree roots are its teeth. But do not worry. They will not move while you still have the strength to resist.』

I stepped back from the tree trunk.

『Continued breathing within the mist contaminates your qi. As the qi that links the body's essence and the soul's spirit grows tainted, you will gradually lose control of your body. The red sky mentioned earlier is a sign of this.』

I had thought the red sky was a sunset caused by the sun setting within the formation array.

So it was the result of my senses being distorted as the connection between essence and spirit was severed...

This was bad.

Wasn't it telling me to survive in a space filled with poisonous gas?

Every second I spent breathing was dangerous. I hurriedly turned the page. Escaping was far more urgent than understanding the theories behind Soul-Severing Mountain Villa.

『...The Ghost Valley Master designed formation arrays, including Soul-Severing Mountain Villa, according to the principles of the Eight Trigrams. Like the Eight Trigrams Furnace that imprisoned Sun Wukong in Journey to the West, it has a clear path to life, though it is difficult to find.』

Journey to the West. It was an unexpected reference, but not a surprising one.

This strange martial arts world had books from every era. The same was true in the original game, Black and White Martial Heroes Chronicle.

I remembered seeing a Zhuge Clan NPC mention the Stone Sentinel Maze.

‘If it's the Eight Trigrams Furnace, wasn't that where Sun Wukong gained his Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils?’

Flames rushed in to roast the stone monkey, but the Xun trigram of the Eight Trigrams represented wind.

Fire could not invade where the wind blew.

Thus, the stone monkey's body remained intact, though the furnace's vapors reached his eyes and gave him shining eyes.

‘Easy!’

If this was modeled after the Eight Trigrams Furnace, I only needed to escape through the Xun trigram.

『If the sky still appears blue, you may attempt to escape through the forest without entering the villa. At this time, the most important thing is the ability to determine direction.』

Anyone who learned the Martial Alliance's shared martial arts would naturally memorize the directions represented by the Eight Trigrams.

The directions represented by the trigrams changed depending on whether the formation array followed the Earlier Heaven Eight Trigrams or the Later Heaven Eight Trigrams, but that much should be explained in the rulebook...

『The essence of Soul-Severing Mountain Villa is the mountain represented by the Gen trigram. The Ghost Valley Master's skill naturally cannot compare to the wonder of the Supreme Lord Lao, so proceed toward either the Li trigram, which possesses the nature of fire that burns mountains, or the Qian trigram, the sky that no mountain, no matter how high, can invade.』

Damn.

My prediction had been slightly off, but the situation was better than I had thought.

There were now two paths to life. That meant my chances of survival had doubled.

『However, the formation array spread across Soul-Severing Mountain Villa constantly alters its own structure. The only way to determine whether its directions follow the Earlier Heaven Eight Trigrams or the Later Heaven Eight Trigrams is to observe the circulation of spiritual energy within the formation array yourself.』

What?

『It is estimated that the Earlier Heaven and Later Heaven arrangements switch, on average, every quarter-hour. The time required for your qi to become completely contaminated appears to vary according to your realm and amount of internal energy, but there are currently too few samples to quantify it.』

What kind of fucked-up formation array was this? Wasn't it nastier than the deadliest formation arrays in most martial arts novels?

I skimmed the rulebook's explanation of the formation array.

The formation array spread in a circle with Soul-Severing Mountain Villa at its center, covering a radius of ten li. The cloud-mist continually disrupted one's sense of direction, so I would need to stop periodically and determine my bearings again.

Overall, it was another way of saying, ‘You're already dead.’

"...My life."

My hand rose to my brow on its own.

Crossing ten li in fifteen minutes was not difficult. Chinese li were longer than Korean li, but it was still only around five kilometers.

Even a third-rate martial artist could easily cover ten li in a quarter-hour. I was Second-rate, even if only barely.

The problem was direction.

With a formation array this complicated, even sensing the flow of spiritual energy would be difficult.

It wasn't as though I was deeply versed in formation arrays, or even born into the Zhuge Clan.

Escaping this way was practically impossible. I would likely contaminate all my qi and collapse while trying to get out.

At least dying unconscious would be a small mercy.

I immediately turned the page. The beginning of this book had clearly said there was also a way to escape once the sky turned red.

That was the method I needed to choose.

『If you cannot discern the formation array's structure, your final remaining method is to enter the villa.

You need not worry about finding a key. The door of the red-brick, blue-tiled Soul-Severing Mountain Villa is never locked.

The moment you approach, the door will open.

The open door will close the moment you have fully entered, but this is a natural phenomenon.

You may consider yourself safe from the threat of the mist. Do not let down your guard, however. Soul-Severing Mountain Villa is far more dangerous within than outside its main gate.

The cloud-mist of Soul-Severing Mountain Villa melts qi, while its forest feeds on essence to grow.

And Soul-Severing Mountain Villa is the central section of the formation array that gathers the remaining spirit.』

"What a thorough heretical bastard..."

『The moment you pass through the villa's doors, a voice will speak to you. Depending on the circumstances, there may be more than one voice.

Do not answer. They are not alive.』

A few lines explaining lingering resentment followed. The Ghost Valley Master collected the souls trapped within the villa and used them as materials for further dark arts.

This was also why a passage leading outside the formation array existed within Soul-Severing Mountain Villa. It was a direct route for the Ghost Valley Master to come and go.

If I entered while the purification process that bleached the ego from souls was underway, I would inevitably hear those voices. But if, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, I entered the villa after the purification process had ended...

『Give thanks for your good fortune and proceed deeper into the villa.

You will surely see a red door.

But if the purification of souls has not yet ended, the villa's interior will transform endlessly according to the lingering resentment scattered from those souls.

No matter what you see, no matter what whispers you hear, follow only the color red. At the end of that path is the exit.』

Red.

In the Chinese cultural sphere, red represented joy and good fortune. It was certainly auspicious in the sense that it pointed out the exit, but the one who had painted the doors red was probably the Ghost Valley Master too.

‘Even a demonic practitioner wants fortune and blessings, huh.’

I quickly flipped through the pages. The remaining content was basic advice: if the auditory hallucinations worsened, circulate internal energy and recite Daoist or Buddhist scriptures.

There was too little time to read it all when my vision could turn red at any moment.

My eyes naturally moved to the condensed practical escape guide printed on the very last page.

Other than a warning not to tear it out to prevent information leaks, it was not particularly different from what came before. Only the final paragraph contained something absent from the rulebook until now.

『The Anomaly Records Office strives to revise the deployed rulebooks regularly, but the dark arts of heretics always catch people off guard.

If Monstrous Strength and Chaos not recorded in the rulebook appears, and if a crisis or hardship the Anomaly Records Office did not anticipate comes upon you, only one method remains.』

The final method was rather deflating.

『Exercise your right as a martial artist.』

What was that supposed to mean?

With a hollow laugh, I checked my gear one last time. My shoelaces were still tightly tied, and the leather vest under my outer garment still felt reassuring.

I turned to look at the villa. Its red exterior and blue roof tiles were clearly visible even without an eye technique, making its presence seem all the more unreal.

The moment I approached, the black-painted iron gate opened on its own. The wide-open gate and the darkness filling it resembled a beast's gaping maw.

I threw myself into the villa's mouth.

Footnotes:

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