WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 182
──────
This feeling was concern. And fear.
Haeil was certain that neither Ise nor Hall Master Woo Yu-hui could handle Bi Hyeongrang.
What are you so afraid of?
The question rose to Ise's throat.
But instead of voicing it, he swallowed it down.
“I await your orders.”
Ise lowered his head and withdrew.
He had no intention of resenting Haeil.
No matter how thoroughly one prepared, a leader ought to fear the defeat and deaths of those under their command.
How could Ise dare judge the anxiety of a giant who had lost a cherished junior like Sugyeom, and perhaps had been forced to send countless others to their deaths in war?
All he could do was wait for an opportunity and prove his worth.
The moment he left the Order Lord's chamber, Ise sent out two message talismans.
One was sent to Dine and Go. The other was sent to Azure Dragon Hall.
His instruction was simple. Gather every scrap of information on Bi Hyeongrang, Ten Thousand Demons in Turmoil, whether it came from unofficial histories, legends, or barroom talk.
Secure Victory Before Seeking Battle.
To fight from a position of victory, one first had to know one's enemy.
He needed to skin every detail of that bastard's past and lay it across the table before he could carve it up or cook it.
After giving his orders, Ise entered the Living-Spirit Cave Abode and devoted himself to cultivation.
He drew in heaven-and-earth spiritual energy through qi circulation, while steadily improving his mastery of Wind-Gold Submerging Thread and Dokkaebi Bloodflame.
He also named the strike that returned attacks through Yeowol the Return-to-Origin Strike. Beyond simply returning raw primordial qi, he practiced layering it with Five Elements attributes, as well as the attributes of the Dokkaebi Shadow-Hunting Demonic Art and Wind-Shattering Qi Art.
To train under conditions closer to actual combat, he summoned members of Azure Dragon Hall once every fortnight for instructional spars.
But the hall members suffered wounds far too severe every time, so he stopped.
Half a year passed like that.
When Ise opened his eyes after completing qi circulation, he saw Hwayeong tending the spirit field.
She stood in her usual spot, stroking the leaves of spiritual herbs with the same familiar touch.
It was no different from any other day, yet something about it suddenly bothered him.
“Don't you get bored?”
“I'm fine. I enjoy this work.”
Hwayeong's daily routine consisted solely of tending the spirit field, cultivating, and reading books.
“You can go out and relax sometimes.”
“Flower spiritual beings are accustomed to remaining rooted in one place. I go out for walks and sunlight from time to time, so please do not worry.”
“All right. You've been reading a lot lately. Are you studying?”
“...”
When Hwayeong did not answer, Ise tilted his head.
“It is a personal... hobby.”
“Is that so?”
He shrugged and turned his attention away from the pile of books nearby.
Maybe I should make her a private residence.
“How is the Life-Accelerating Art?”
“It is excellent. It is a shame that I cannot use it outside the Living-Spirit Cave Abode.”
The Life-Accelerating Art could only fully manifest in a place where heaven-and-earth spiritual energy pooled calmly.
Outside the cave abode, even in a blessed grotto, spiritual energy was bound to flow little by little. The spell's effect did not even reach a quarter of its full potential.
“There's probably a place somewhere where it would work.”
“I hope we can find it.”
Hwayeong, who had been stroking a leaf, suddenly looked up.
“By the way, Master. What if you took my spell arts?”
“Spell arts? Can I take yours?”
“You bestowed spell arts upon me through our mindscapes, so I thought the reverse might also be possible.”
Now that she mentioned it, it made sense.
If it was possible to send something, perhaps it was possible to receive it as well.
“Then let's try it while we're talking about it.”
“Yes. Your grace overwhelms me.”
“...?”
Frowning as though he had received a particularly bizarre greeting, Ise placed his hand on Hwayeong's forehead.
He sent in his divine sense and searched through her mindscape as though rummaging through her thoughts.
Several spell arts, including the Life-Accelerating Art, had been imprinted there.
One of them caught Ise's interest.
Flower-Separating Pursuit Art.
It was the tracking art Hwayeong had used when she was the Flower Demon Mother, the art that had allowed her to find him even across the continent.
A spell that could track prey across continents after marking it once was extraordinarily useful.
As their mindscapes touched, unfamiliar principles of spell manifestation flowed into him like fish swimming against the current.
The incantation and its principles settled completely into his mind.
“Hmm. So this works.”
“The feeling of being connected to you is truly intoxicating, Master. Please grant me your favor from time to time.”
“Are you reading palace tales or something?”
“Yes.”
“Stop reading them.”
“But that is my only hobby...”
“If you use royal court speech one more time, I'm confiscating every book.”
“Yes, Master.”
“There shouldn't be that kind of trashy fiction in the Library Pavilion. Who spread it around?”
“I cannot say. Betraying a companion goes against a living spiritual being's Dao heart.”
Flames rose in Ise's hand.
“It was Cultivator Seolryeong.”
Ise finally understood why parents had urged their children, since ancient times, to choose their friends carefully.
* * *
“Hall Master Ise. I have compiled the information we received.”
Onyu, the attendant, approached while holding up an intelligence scroll.
It contained all the information Dine and Go and Azure Dragon Hall had gathered over the past half year.
“You worked hard.”
Ise opened the intelligence scroll.
Tiny writing had been arranged in a clear, orderly fashion.
At its beginning were four names, including Bi Hyeongrang's.
Four infamous epithets had once shaken the Human Realm.
The Anomaly. The Mighty Force. Turmoil. The Ghost-God.
Storytellers called the four beings the Four Aberrant Powers that threw the Human Realm into chaos.
Jegang, the Anomaly that had turned the Human Realm into a sea of fire in ancient times.
Bulgasal, the Mighty Force that had appeared over four hundred years ago and earned the title of unkillable demon god.
Eoduksini Gongmyeong, the Ghost-God that had plunged the continent into chaos during the same era.
And Bi Hyeongrang, Ten Thousand Demons in Turmoil, who had first appeared one hundred and fifty years ago.
The four were not feared merely because they were powerful.
They shared only one thing in common.
All of them were beings beyond understanding.
They not only won battles against opponents of the same realm, they won cross-realm battles as easily as eating.
No matter how relentlessly they were pursued, they could not be caught. They openly defied the laws and common sense of the Human Realm.
There had even been speculation that they were beings of the Upper Realm, manifested or descended into this world.
Ise turned the intelligence scroll.
From the next page onward, it contained detailed information about Bi Hyeongrang.
The bastard had first made a name for himself in the early Foundation Establishment Realm.
The instant Bi Hyeongrang reached Foundation Establishment, he assassinated the Sect Master of the demonic sect to which he belonged.
The Sect Master had reached Great Perfection in the Foundation Establishment Realm and stood on the verge of Core Formation.
Bi Hyeongrang then massacred most of the sect's disciples, selected only his loyal hands and feet, and founded Cheoryang Thunder Gate.
In the process, an entire small market town under the sect's control was wiped from the map.
It was not only cultivators. Not a single mortal had been spared.
At the time, the market town held more than ten Foundation Establishment Realm demonic cultivators whose realms surpassed Bi Hyeongrang's.
Sowing discord, taking hostages, traps, ambushes, bribery.
He had used every method available to him and slaughtered them all miserably.
No one could have imagined such a result had been achieved by a cultivator in the early Foundation Establishment Realm. The world gave him the name Turmoil.
The entire process had been recorded in detail in historical records.
“...”
Ise took some pride in his learning.
Yet as he read through the account, he found himself clicking his tongue again and again.
Bi Hyeongrang's ability to read the situation was not merely cunning. It was uncanny.
His cruelty went without saying.
He had not hesitated to grind the souls of hundreds, even thousands, of mortals into medicinal pellets.
There was not a shred of compassion to be found.
No, perhaps it was questionable whether this bastard possessed anything that could be called a human heart.
Ise continued turning through the intelligence scroll.
When Cheoryang Thunder Gate was founded, the Great Exorcist Order was locked in a fierce war with the Zheng Empire. Bi Hyeongrang exploited that situation.
Using the chaos of two powers holding blades to each other's throats, he swiftly seized control of the Cheoryang region and turned it into a demonic sect of note. Once the turmoil had settled, he calmly crossed into the Zheng Empire.
From there, his methods became even more extraordinary.
Rather than gathering his disciples in one place, he scattered them all.
He operated the sect through independent cells.
Even if one found and cut away its branches, its trunk remained impossible to find. That was how he expanded the sect's power.
Then, after reaching the late Foundation Establishment Realm, he used Realm-Leaping Devouring to consume a Core Formation Realm great demonic cultivator and ascend to the Core Formation Realm.
After that, his whereabouts became unknown.
Cheoryang Thunder Gate reappeared in the world around seventy years ago. Its stage was the Three Peninsula Kingdoms.
When this became known, the Great Exorcist Order felt a sense of crisis and launched a large-scale purge and search.
They succeeded in culling several of Bi Hyeongrang's loyal hands and feet, but the bastard ultimately evaded capture and disappeared into the western wilderness.
Everyone believed he would cross the desert and head for the Western Regions.
Instead, he lay low. Then, in the previous war, he allied himself with the Zheng Empire and launched a surprise attack on the Great Exorcist Order. After defeating Mongryeon, the greatest warrior of the dokkaebi clan, he seized Gwisu Temple.
A brief overall assessment had been appended to the end of the intelligence scroll.
“Among the demonic sects of the Eastern Continent, excluding Phantom Demon Valley and Joyful Union Sect, which survive by bowing to Pill Altar Sect and offering immense resources, Cheoryang Thunder Gate is the sole Core Formation-grade demonic sect.”
In other words, Bi Hyeongrang was an abnormal being who had raised a demonic sect to the Core Formation level through his own power alone, without yielding to outside pressure.
Ise set down the intelligence scroll.
Now that he had taken in the whole truth, Haeil's fear no longer seemed strange at all.
A being beyond understanding was bound to inspire the fear of the unknown.
Ise tapped the desk with his fingertips.
He remembered the night he had entered and left Gwisu Temple's warding barrier safely.
At the time, he had considered it fortunate that Bi Hyeongrang had not changed the cultivation method registered in the barrier.
But after reading this record, he thought differently.
He must have sensed the demonic qi within my body on the day he attacked Gwisu Temple.
A man with such a calculating mind would never overlook Ise's circumstances.
News that Ise had reached Core Formation must already have reached him. It was entirely possible Bi Hyeongrang had also guessed that Ise had stolen and mastered Cheoryang Thunder Gate's cultivation method.
To assume that he did not know would be arrogance.
He knew, and he chose not to change it.
Because if Ise entered alone, he would be nothing but prey.
Perhaps Bi Hyeongrang had even predicted that the dokkaebi clan would unite and enter the barrier, then laid a trap for them.
The door had not merely been open.
It had been left open.
Moving rashly would be like placing his own head into a tiger's mouth.
Ise took a long, steady breath.
Order Lord Haeil must have calculated even this much.
Ise could not even imagine how viciously the two giants' battle of wits had been unfolding.
Have faith.
Ise would trust his superior.
The person who had protected and strengthened the Great Exorcist Order despite its insufficient forces, who had upheld their convictions.
Ise put away the intelligence scroll and crossed his legs once more.
He committed every record of Bi Hyeongrang's cultivation methods, tactics, and battle patterns to memory.
Then he shaped the bastard within his mindscape and began conducting simulated spell duels.
Without end.
* * *
“Hall Master Ise. A message talisman has arrived from the Order Lord's chamber.”
The message talisman finally arrived several months later.
Ise opened it.
A late Core Formation Realm demonic cultivator was approaching the Three Peninsula Kingdoms.
The demonic cultivator belonged to Joyful Union Sect. After offending a disciple of Pill Altar Sect, the person had become wanted and fled the Zheng Empire toward the border of the Three Peninsula Kingdoms.
Judging from the direction, the target intended to seek refuge with Cheoryang Thunder Gate. Ise was ordered to move immediately and intercept the target before they joined Bi Hyeongrang.
So this is the proving ground the Order Lord mentioned.
How lightly did they take the Great Exorcist Order to think they could simply pass through?
Did they think Cheoryang Thunder Gate would come greet them and serve as an escort?
Anger rose within Ise at such arrogance, and he shot into the sky.
The demonic cultivator was traveling along a mountain ridge beneath the cover of night.
The person did not even seem to intend to hide their divine sense or demonic qi.
Only a fierce determination to fly at full speed and reach Cheoryang Thunder Gate could be felt.
“Out of my way!”
The great demonic cultivator let out a bizarre roar and poured forth demonic qi the instant Ise blocked the path.
The bastard's appearance was a complete mess, as though the escape from the Zheng Empire had been made at full speed.
Still, as a late Core Formation Realm demonic cultivator, perhaps the Zheng Empire had ultimately failed to capture the bastard.
Or perhaps they had deliberately let the bastard go.
Ise swung Yeowol toward the center of the incoming spell art, thick with killing intent.
The demonic qi was drawn into Yeowol. His primordial qi melted into it, adding a metal attribute.
Ise spun and swept Yeowol in a wide arc.
Like a dancer in motion, the blade curved gracefully. Through the process of Division and Raging Current, it unleashed a strike brimming with primordial qi.
Return-to-Origin Metal Strike.
The moment the demonic cultivator sensed something wrong and hastily deployed a defensive spell, the enormous current of primordial qi had already reached the bastard's Golden Core.
One strike.
A single strike blew away a third of the great demonic cultivator's body, Golden Core included.
The battle ended there.
The demonic cultivator died a miserable death with eyes wide open, wearing an expression of utter confusion over what had happened.
With a crunch, Yeowol's axe blade buried itself below the neck.
While Ise performed a spirit-sending rite for the demonic cultivator, Yeowol absorbed the person's life source.
Then Ise used the Telekinesis Art to rummage through the corpse's robes. His brow twitched.
My storage pouch...
Unfortunately, the storage pouch the bastard had carried had vanished along with the destroyed portion of the body.
It seemed to have been worn at the waist.
Regretfully, Ise used Yeowol to lift the demonic cultivator's head by the neck.
Upon returning, he planted an Earth Spear in the middle of the Great Exorcist Order's main headquarters and hung the severed head from its tip, its eyes still wide open.
He chose the spot most visible to disciples passing through.
As though issuing a declaration.
I am ready.
I have sharpened myself until I can take the head of a late Core Formation Realm demonic cultivator in one strike.
At the same time, it was a question for the Order Lord.
I trust you.
Do you trust me?
The next morning, Haeil witnessed the sight and gave a hollow laugh.
“That brat really does have a vicious temper.”
Haeil spoke to Chief Master Kang I-tae, who was carrying approval documents.
“Kang I-tae, cancel the first plan. Let's go with the third.”
“Yes. A wise decision.”
They said people grew more timid with age.
It seemed retirement was drawing near after all.
Footnotes:
“Four Aberrant Powers” renders a Korean collective label assembled from the first syllables of the four epithets. It also alludes to an Analects phrase concerning strange things, feats of strength, disorder, and spirits.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
