WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 15: To the Northern Continent (6)

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Ise used the metal-aspect spell, Hardening Art, hoping to block its attack.

Metal countered wind.

Besides, it was widely accepted that wind was weaker than the other single attributes.

Yet despite that common knowledge.

Blades of wind clawed through the metal-hardened barrier as though tearing it apart.

His Daoist robes were shredded in an instant, and cuts appeared all over the skin that the armor did not protect.

They had not cut through his spirit bones, so the wounds were not deep, but the exchange was still shocking.

Wind that could cut metal.

This was not an attack flying in from one direction. It was a whirlwind that wrapped around his entire body.

It rendered defensive spirit artifacts nearly useless.

A Foundation Establishment demon beast truly had a trick or two.

Ise readily acknowledged his enemy’s strength.

Once its attack landed, Uin pressed him with savage speed.

Wind Blades flew at him from the front, while whirlwinds surged up from below.

Choosing evasion over defense, Ise increased Dream-Saving Cloud’s flying speed.

They looked like two winged creatures circling side by side deep within a gorge.

He tried firing the primordial qi he had barely maintained using Order Lord Haeil’s method, but Uin, having reached the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm, sensed it with divine sense and leisurely avoided it.

Fireball Art, Earth Spear, and Water-Arrow Art flew out one after another.

Yet not one projectile could hit the demon beast as it moved like the wind.

‘There’s no shadow, so I can’t hold it down with the Dokkaebi Shadow-Hunting Demonic Art either.’

The sky was a realm without shadows.

Ise considered every method he had and searched for a way to break through, but nothing came easily to mind.

He had never imagined an enemy faster than him, one he could not hit.

He had been confident that he could even compete with a Core Formation cultivator in speed.

Ise barely dodged a Wind Blade aimed at his head.

His temple was nicked, and blood ran down his jaw.

Its divine sense covered a wider range than his.

The slightest lapse in focus brought another lethal attack.

During the Qi Condensation Realm, cultivators had always been far more troublesome opponents than demons.

Yet this Foundation Establishment demon beast, the first one he had met since advancing, felt even more troublesome than a cultivator.

Uin twisted in the air, then flashed past him with a strike.

The body of the bird of prey rushed in within the blink of an eye, left behind a shock, and opened the distance again.

A moment later, the force shook Ise’s dantian, and blood surged from his mouth.

He had not seen the attack.

The moment he sensed the wind, Uin had already struck him and flown far away.

‘Should I retreat?’

If there was no way to defeat it, retreating was also an option.

If it followed him to the top of the cliff, the ground would become his battlefield.

He was confident he could break its wings in one move and turn it into fried chicken.

‘It’s too soon to give up.’

Its attacks were clearly dangerous, but not fatal.

Its tremendous mobility came at the cost of power.

He had faced enemies far more terrifying than this.

Ise flew toward the cliff.

Then, like a pine tree clinging to a rocky wall, he hung there and drove the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner vertically into the cliff.

A warding barrier could unfold as long as there was a place to inscribe the formation. It did not need to be the ground.

In an instant, a barrier that sealed demonic qi spread as though it would swallow Prison Wind Gorge whole.

Uin, which had continued beating its wings and firing Wind Blades, hesitated.

The demonic qi within its body had stopped moving for an instant.

“What trick is this, human?”

Instead of answering, Ise raised the hand holding the Yellow Great Parasol and unleashed the fire-aspect spell, Firefall Art.

Fire-wreathed meteors poured down from the middle of the sky like a meteor shower.

He thought that would be enough, but even with its demonic qi sealed, the creature knocked the meteors aside through sheer physical strength.

It even deflected a fireball flying toward Ise.

Boom!

The explosion swept over him once. The hem of Ise’s Daoist robe was scorched by the flames.

‘This one really isn’t ordinary.’

Once again, he acknowledged his enemy’s ability.

It still possessed such power with its demonic qi sealed.

Ise shot forward on Dream-Saving Cloud and closed in.

Uin remained fast, but its speed without demonic qi was manageable.

Spiritual energy gathered in the Black Phosphorus Axe and slashed toward Uin’s chest.

Uin hurriedly flipped backward through the air to dodge, but the spot grazed by the spiritual energy split open, and demon beast blood spurted out.

Its next movement resembled a water snake moving through water.

A desperate counterattack came at once.

The demon beast’s single leg shot toward Ise’s dantian.

At that moment, the defensive spirit artifact Ise wore, the Thunder-Repelling Armor, shone.

Crackle!

Lightning-aspect energy raced up Uin’s bird leg and swept over its entire body.

Steam rose, and the demon beast’s skin blackened.

Uin changed direction and fled as though in a convulsion.

It was heading for the sacred relic embedded in the cliff, the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner.

The demon beast had finally realized that the sacred relic had turned Prison Wind Gorge into Ise’s domain, and it flew toward it.

Ise immediately chased after it, but Uin’s desperately flying body narrowly avoided his attacks.

Then, just as it descended toward the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner with its blackened bird leg.

Ise pulled the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner free with Telekinesis Art and drove it into Uin’s wounded chest.

Crunch!

A satisfying, dull sound of penetration rang out as the banner spear pierced flesh.

He had never used the banner spear for attack before, worried it might be damaged, but it was a spear at its core.

Since reaching the Foundation Establishment Realm, he had sharpened its blade so he could use it as a hidden trump card whenever necessary.

Screeeech!

Instead of human speech, an animal’s cry thundered through the gorge.

Ise flew to within arm’s reach of Uin.

Squawk! Screeeech!

The demon beast hurriedly tried to pull away and fly upward, but its body would not move.

Ise kept pulling the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner toward himself with Telekinesis Art.

Telekinesis Art normally did not work on living beings such as cultivators or demons.

But that changed when an inanimate banner spear was lodged in their body.

Without understanding why its body was restrained, it could only struggle.

Ise and Uin collided.

Uin’s beak shot toward Ise’s throat.

Ise swung the Yellow Great Parasol and knocked aside its beak, then brought the Black Phosphorus Axe down on Uin’s head, its eyes rolled back white.

Dokkaebi Shadow-Hunting Demonic Art.

Thousand-Pound Strike.

The Black Phosphorus Axe fell in a perfect arc and struck the center of Uin’s head.

Crack!

Uin’s skull burst at once. Bone and flesh scattered in every direction.

The hunt was over. The master of Prison Wind Gorge had changed.

‘As long as I fight calmly, I can hunt even one at peak Foundation Establishment.’

After revising his assessment of his own strength, Ise shook the blood from the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner and put it into his storage pouch.

He had wondered whether he would have any use for it after learning to handle primordial qi, but a sacred relic was still useful after all.

The giant bird’s body spiraled down into the depths of the gorge.

Ise watched it fall.

This was a strange place where the gorge’s updrafts lifted anyone standing still into the air.

But apparently, they did not simply raise everything upward.

Wind paths.

After naming them that, Ise flew deeper inside, going against the headwind.

Toward Uin’s corpse.

When he descended deep into the gorge, his feet touched the ground.

Updrafts surged from cracks in the earth, which was split like land suffering through a drought. Only the center was windless.

It was as calm as the eye of a typhoon.

Standing before Uin’s corpse, Ise understood that this was where wind-aspect external qi was most abundant.

After performing a spirit-sending rite for Uin and devouring its demonic qi, Ise put the corpse into the Beacon Fire Album and walked toward the large nest that had caught his eye earlier.

Inside lay a single egg so enormous that he would have believed it if someone told him a phoenix had laid it.

It looked nearly three feet tall.

Thinking it might be Uin’s egg, Ise approached and examined it.

He could clearly sense internal qi from within the shell.

‘Ten people could eat their fill from an egg pancake made with this.’

Eggs were not an ingredient Ise particularly liked.

They carried too many bad memories.

Still, fresh eggs were naturally ingredients with excellent spirit-gathering effects.

It would make fine immortal cuisine. Ise placed it in the Cosmos Pouch.

Uin’s nest lay at the center of the wind spiritual ground.

Ise sat cross-legged where the egg had been.

Then, savoring the energy of the wind, he began cultivating the Wind-Shattering Qi Art.

The Wind-Shattering Qi Art was a cultivation method that included two Qi Condensation Realm spells and one Foundation Establishment spell.

Tailwind Step, which made the body move as lightly as the wind.

Wind Blade, which condensed the flow of wind into blades and fired them.

Levitation Art, the foundation of flight arts, which kept the body aloft.

He intended to raise the cultivation method and all three spells to at least the fifth star here.

If cultivation went quickly, he would try to reach Great Completion. If it took too long, he could return here once more after finishing his mission.

Ise slowly closed his eyes.

Instead of the sight visible to the naked eye, only the sixth sense spread by divine sense remained beyond the darkness.

* * *

When the cultivation method and spells reached their intended fifth star, thirty marks drawn with spiritual energy stood beside him.

Cultivation itself had not been difficult, but he judged that it would take more time from here onward and rose to his feet.

When he traveled farther north from Prison Wind Gorge, vast ruins appeared beyond the ridges of the wasteland.

Fallen Heavenly Realm, Byeolcheon.

It was a mysterious island that had once drifted through the skies. What kind of sight must it have offered in its peaceful days?

Ise tried to picture it, but it was difficult to imagine a city glittering like stars amid the wasteland before him.

Like the Inner Reaches of the secret realm, traces of a city that had once stood there lay collapsed everywhere.

Still, it looked different from the secret realm.

Everything in sight had been thoroughly plundered and taken away.

Only empty frameworks and fallen stone remained.

‘If there were a teleportation formation in a place like this, it would be hard for it to remain intact.’

After entering deeper into Byeolcheon, his guess proved wrong.

The teleportation formation had not been set up with formation artifacts or a Formation Plate. The entire deep space beneath Byeolcheon’s underground waterways had been carved as one vast intaglio formation.

Its design also differed from modern formations, so at a glance, it looked no more than a pattern on an ordinary structure.

Even the stone used to carve the formation was unremarkable.

‘The Northern Continent is famous for its cold, so dress warmly.’

Remembering Haeil’s advice, Ise put on a winter outer robe stuffed with cotton from the Zheng Empire.

It might seem strange for a cultivator to worry about the cold, but Ise had always listened well to others’ advice.

Once he was ready, he inserted the Black Ruler into the central groove. Light wrapped around his body.

A moment later, a snowfield spread out before him.

Along with a bitter cold that chilled even his spirit bones.

Faced with the magnificent snowy landscape stretching without end, Ise let out an involuntary gasp of admiration.

Footnotes:

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