WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Episode 14: Rapid Changes in the Continental Situation (11)

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Mongryeon’s body slipped from Bi Hyeongrang’s hand and began to fall slowly.

There was a gaping hole in the center of her chest.

Nothing remained inside it.

The Golden Core, which contained a Core Formation Realm cultivator’s soul, internal qi, and entire essence, was clutched in Bi Hyeongrang’s hand.

Ise’s White Luan Boat soon overtook Gong Wol-a’s flight art.

Though his master had lost, Bi Hyeongrang was not unhurt either.

Half his head had been blown away, one leg was gone, and four or five fist-sized holes pierced his body.

As if he needed to replenish his exhausted strength as quickly as possible, he greedily devoured Mongryeon’s Golden Core.

Even as sparks flew from Ise’s eyes with rage, he calmly used the Voice-Transmission Art on Gong Wol-a.

‘Do we have a chance of subduing him now?’

Gong Wol-a could not answer.

Realizing what that silence meant, Ise urgently sent another message.

‘Then, Senior, you must recover Master’s body!’

‘What?’

‘You must. Absolutely!’

Then he accelerated, flying straight at Bi Hyeongrang.

Gong Wol-a had assumed he had been blinded by rage and intended to die after leaving even a scratch on Bi Hyeongrang.

She had been flying with much the same intent.

Yet the moment she saw the hope in the boy’s eyes, Gong Wol-a had no choice but to follow, though she knew it was futile.

Her body turned sharply as she shot toward Mongryeon’s falling body.

In the meantime, Ise drew close to Bi Hyeongrang.

Bi Hyeongrang seemed unconcerned by Ise’s approach. His entire focus was on devouring Mongryeon’s Golden Core.

That was only natural. He was a demonic cultivator who had brought in orphans, planted gu parasites in their heads, and used them as bait for decades until Mongryeon took the hook.

It was obvious how ecstatic and careless he must have been at that moment.

His expression was utterly calm.

Yet no calm face had ever felt so chilling.

Bi Hyeongrang lightly twitched a finger.

Primordial qi shot from his fingertips straight at Ise.

The flying boat flipped upside down in an instant, spinning away from the incoming primordial qi.

Bi Hyeongrang’s narrow eyes tightened slightly.

A flicker of curiosity crossed his face. It was not surprise, but interest.

Ise knew it. Approaching Bi Hyeongrang like this was suicide.

Still, Bi Hyeongrang was wounded, careless, and surely burning with thirst before such sweet spoils.

If Bi Hyeongrang truly intended to kill him, Ise would not be able to escape.

But Bi Hyeongrang was clearly curious about Ise’s strange physique.

Otherwise, he would have had plenty of chances to kill Ise before Mongryeon arrived.

Even now, Bi Hyeongrang only wore an interested expression, his entire body wrapped in primordial qi as though inviting Ise to try anything.

There would be only one chance.

‘Extremely aggressive primordial qi cannot be blocked by ordinarily defensive primordial qi.’

Clinging to Gwak Chan’s single sentence as his hope, Ise charged.

Bi Hyeongrang did not know that Ise could use primordial qi.

No matter how Ise struggled, Bi Hyeongrang would never expect him to leave so much as a scratch.

Ise used the Divine-Sense Severing Art to cut off the divine sense in the half of Bi Hyeongrang’s head that had been blown away.

Then, through that opening, he sent a drop of primordial qi honed with desperate care toward Bi Hyeongrang.

Bi Hyeongrang’s forearm snapped off.

For the first time, a crack appeared in the demonic cultivator’s calm expression.

Ise immediately snatched the Golden Core and plunged straight down.

The flying boat, controlled through divine sense, caught him.

Bi Hyeongrang’s belated spell rushed toward Ise, but a one-time talisman that blocked primordial qi immediately burst into light.

The three talismans together were expensive items worth ten thousand Spiritual Stones.

The three talismans Ise had acquired while swallowing tears were proving their value.

Having secured Mongryeon’s body, Gong Wol-a moved far away and began supporting him with long-range attacks.

She, too, had instinctively realized that Ise was trying to do something.

Bi Hyeongrang waved a hand as if annoyed and sent primordial qi flying toward Gong Wol-a.

“You are troublesome.”

At last, Bi Hyeongrang’s voice slipped out.

Having spent much of his strength fighting Mongryeon, the Core Formation Realm dokkaebi bothering him from a distance was less important than the cute human trying to steal his Golden Core and run away.

Bi Hyeongrang’s gaze followed Ise.

Ise had lowered his altitude and was weaving through the mountains as if performing aerial acrobatics.

Bi Hyeongrang descended as well and began pursuing him closely with his flight art.

His divine sense was impressive, but hiding among the trees? What an adorable idea.

It was the sort of shallow thinking only a cultivator who had just entered the Foundation Establishment Realm would have.

Primordial qi burst from Bi Hyeongrang’s hand and swept through the forest.

Ise reacted quickly, but the White Luan Boat and his entire lower body were blown away.

Bi Hyeongrang moved to retrieve the stolen Golden Core when dokkaebi warriors suddenly rushed him from every direction like moths to a flame.

Crack! Crack!

With a single gesture, Bi Hyeongrang crushed the dokkaebi warriors one after another.

So many dokkaebi swarmed him that it was impossible to know where they had been hiding. They threw away their lives like blades of grass.

As Bi Hyeongrang irritably swept through his surroundings, his divine sense tracking Ise’s movements, Ise replaced his severed legs with the Metal Body Art, an art that replaced severed body parts with metal, then burrowed underground with the Earth-Escape Art.

By the time Bi Hyeongrang had turned all the pests into a handful of dust and reached the spot, Ise had already vanished somewhere beyond the reach of his divine sense.

“Ha.”

He had never imagined that a mere Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator could escape his grasp.

First there was that energy similar to primordial qi, which had blown off his arm. Then came astonishing aerial acrobatics, the Spirit-Veiling Art, the Concealment Art, the Earth-Escape Art, and the Metal Body Art.

A cultivator’s foundation was to focus on training several arts, yet the orphan boy Bi Hyeongrang had taken in could freely use countless arts.

The orphan boy had surprised him time and time again.

“My hundred-year plan has suffered a complete blow.”

The Extreme Yin Demon Ground.

The divine artifact that had protected the dokkaebi with its warding barrier.

The Golden Core of a late-stage Core Formation Realm dokkaebi.

He had waited a full hundred years to obtain those three treasures.

The dagger he had planted to locate Gwisu Temple and find a way to break its warding barrier had instead stabbed him in return.

He had obtained Gwisu Temple’s divine artifact and the Extreme Yin Demon Ground, which would keep his sect safe and secure. Yet one of his three goals, the late-stage Core Formation Realm Golden Core that would have led him to the Nascent Soul Realm, had been stolen.

“But how long can he protect it?”

He could pursue Ise if he wished, but securing the other two treasures completely came first.

There was another Core Formation Realm dokkaebi, after all.

Bi Hyeongrang smiled unpleasantly and flew toward his newly acquired nest.

* * *

With a gasp, Ise burst from the ground.

He pushed against the earth with both arms, hauling himself out before pulling his empty lower body onto the ground as well.

He poured a Healing Pellet into his mouth, made legs again with the Metal Body Art, and began walking forward one step at a time.

Mongryeon’s Golden Core was clutched tightly in both hands.

One difficult step after another.

Then Gong Wol-a flew down and landed beside him.

She immediately brought Mongryeon’s body close to the Golden Core, but nothing changed.

Gong Wol-a buried her face in both hands, slapped her cheeks twice, then restored Ise’s legs.

“…You worked hard. Give me Mongryeon’s Golden Core.”

“I will keep this.”

Gong Wol-a’s face twisted at Ise’s reply.

“What are you talking about? She is the head of our people. At the very least, we will not leave her funeral in another’s hands.”

“I can save her.”

Irritation rose in Gong Wol-a, but she barely forced down her anger.

She had lost someone like a blood sister, but Ise had also lost his master.

How deep must his grief be for him to lose his mind and say such madness?

Still, he had risked his life to recover Mongryeon’s body and Golden Core. Gong Wol-a could at least offer him that final mercy.

“Is it because you heard that someone with a Golden Core does not die until the core is destroyed? That only matters when the body and Golden Core are connected. Once someone has died and the Golden Core is removed, they are simply dead. At the very least, they must return to their body while their Golden Core still retains consciousness…”

By the time they had seen Mongryeon, Bi Hyeongrang had already begun devouring her Golden Core. She had already been dead then.

“As long as the Golden Core remains… I can save her.”

“That is impossible! Don’t tell me you want Mongryeon’s power?!”

Gong Wol-a shouted.

She had reached her limit.

She was grieving Mongryeon’s death, afraid of the void left behind, and barely holding back the feeling that she might collapse at any moment.

“Among the ascension arts of the Upper Realm, there are arts that place a Golden Core into a combat puppet, doll, or corpse to reconnect body and soul… But there is no such method on the Eastern Continent.”

Even body seizure, the demonic sects’ art, was impossible if the soul and body had been separated for too long.

The soul had to pass directly from one body to another without delay. Otherwise, the consciousness would become trapped inside the Golden Core, leaving it as nothing more than a demon core ripe for devouring.

It seemed this human boy had truly lost his mind.

“So… please stop. I also… lost someone who was like a real sister. Don’t make this… any harder for me…”

“There is an art.”

“…”

The tears Gong Wol-a had barely held back vanished at once. She stared blankly, wondering if she had heard wrong.

Ise took the jade slip containing the Soul-Return Body-Entering Art from his storage pouch and showed it to her.

As Gong Wol-a read its contents, her eyes gradually widened. Then the tears that had disappeared began flowing again.

“This truly is an Upper Realm… art.”

“I found it in the Dark Heaven Secret Realm. It is an art only I can learn because I absorbed the Upper Realm energy that came with it. I will certainly reach the realm needed to learn this art and bring Master back. Senior, please preserve Master’s body in a Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Casket or the Meat Preservation Vault so it will not decay.”

The boy standing before her had been thinking of this from the beginning.

From the moment Mongryeon was struck, he had decided that he would recover her Golden Core and save her.

He had poured everything he had into achieving it.

The cold composure to remain rational even as his master died before his eyes.

The tenacity to find a way even in the worst situation, with such an overwhelming difference in strength.

The ability to carry out his plan and achieve his goal.

Physique, talent, comprehension, divine sense, effort.

He was a young man with the greatest potential in every field, without a single weakness.

If he one day reached his full potential, if he went beyond Core Formation and entered the Nascent Soul Realm...

‘Where did Mongryeon find someone like this? He is practically... a monster.’

Gong Wol-a trembled as she felt fear beyond awe.

But he was not an enemy. He was an ally.

At least the teeth of that monstrous cultivator would never turn toward her or her people.

“Ise.”

“Yes, Senior Gong.”

“Please… take care of Mongryeon. She is someone the dokkaebi cannot do without.”

“She is the same to me.”

“The dokkaebi will hide in Halla now.”

Halla was a ruined island nation south of Suari.

“With Mongryeon gone, I have no choice but to become the temporary leader and protect the dokkaebi. There, I’ll build the strength to take revenge.”

“The Great Exorcist Order…”

“The alliance is over.”

Gong Wol-a’s voice was firm.

Footnotes:

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