WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 186
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Outside Gwisu Temple's warding barrier, seven Azure Dragon Hall members fought a fierce battle.
Despite their small number, they fought admirably.
Their skills had been honed through training spars that felt like real combat against Core Formation Realm great cultivators.
They had crossed the line between life and death against hordes of Abyssal Mole-Mice in the Archipelago.
All of it was proving its worth.
Their formation had collapsed, and they had poured every resource they possessed into the bloody battle. Even so, they held their ground, seized the demons that broke through the defensive line from behind, and crushed them.
Even the Great Exorcist Order's Shamans clicked their tongues at the sight of these warriors, who seemed born to fight.
This was not a battlefield that seven Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators could possibly handle.
Yet they endured. And endured again.
Dozens of formations spread across the ground overlapped and churned through the demons. Doksu and Eunbo ran wild above them.
Hong Wonseo, Hwayeong, and Bisang unleashed spell arts from the rear, while Shin Hyeon coordinated the openings, allowing the hall members to focus solely on the enemies before them.
Their coordination was so seamless that they covered one another's blind spots as though they shared a single body.
But fighting well and winning were different matters.
Before the overwhelming numbers, the battle line was slowly but surely being pushed back.
Doksu and Eunbo, who held the foremost line, were especially imperiled.
The speed of Doksu's Gold Chain Staff had noticeably slowed, and Eunbo had run out of talismans long ago.
Covered head to toe in blood, the two swayed as if they could collapse at any moment.
“...!”
Watching them, Shin Hyeon gritted their teeth and leaped into the front line.
They seized the back of Eunbo's collar just as he was about to fall, shoved him back, and took his place.
Crunch!
A Foundation Establishment Realm demon's jaws tore off Shin Hyeon's entire left arm.
One arm flew away.
Rather than scream, Shin Hyeon split the creature's head apart with the sword in their remaining hand.
“Deputy Hall Master...!”
“Go to the rear and catch your breath, Cultivator Eun.”
“Yes. I'm sorry...”
Shin Hyeon poured a Regeneration Pellet into their mouth, slapped a talisman that repelled demonic qi onto their shoulder, and restored the battle line.
Once the demons' demonic qi touched the body, it rapidly rotted the wound.
Without immediately applying a Purification Talisman, even a regenerated arm would be useless.
'Damn it.'
The Shamans in the rear had their divine senses extended, ready to provide support at any moment.
But their own situation was no better.
At the center of the altar, Haewol was performing a spirit-sending rite in a trance, her eyes rolled back like a shaman possessed by a god.
Several dozen Shamans surrounded her, pouring cultivation power into the ritual.
The thrashing of the evil spirit, which had surpassed the Core Formation Realm and was nearing the Nascent Soul Realm, was slowly being bound by the ritual's chains.
She truly was a genius worthy of being called the greatest Shaman.
Without her, there would not have been even the slightest chance of sending on such a vicious evil spirit.
But neither side could afford to withdraw.
“Hold out just a little longer!”
Just as Shin Hyeon shouted to encourage the hall members, something came rushing down from the sky.
Human-sized dolls of ice.
Seolryeong's Ice Combat Puppets.
Several dozen Ice Combat Puppets plunged precisely into the gaps in the battle line and rammed into the demons.
“Cultivator Seol?”
Shin Hyeon instinctively looked around.
But Seolryeong was nowhere to be seen.
She was carrying out a vital task in the very center of the Shamans' formation.
While assisting the rite, she was supporting them by controlling dozens of puppets with divine sense alone.
Even so, the ritual remained solid, as if her role as a spirit-sending practitioner had not suffered the slightest gap.
It was a feat worthy of being called divine skill.
“...Thank you, Cultivator Seol.”
Shin Hyeon murmured thanks she could not hear and tightened their grip on the sword.
Extreme cold and extreme yin complemented one another.
The ice-attribute puppets shone all the more brightly in the Extreme Yin Demon Ground.
This place was entirely Seolryeong's stage.
It was support that truly allowed them to breathe again.
They could hold out.
The battle would end someday.
Enough demons had already poured out.
Thanks to the Hall Masters, quite a few had been swept away from the outset.
Even the Grand Burial Ghost Prison of Ten Thousand Demons in Turmoil had to have an end.
Just as Shin Hyeon finished calculating that, demonic qi suddenly approached from behind.
Despair colored Shin Hyeon's face.
The demonic qi had passed the Shamans performing the rite and approached from the rear.
Had the enemy stationed another force behind them?
But why target them instead of the altar?
“Lord Doksu!”
A clear, refreshing voice cut across the battlefield.
Doksu immediately recognized its owner.
“Gonga? Brothers and sisters...?”
Dokkaebi came pouring down over the ridge.
They were young dokkaebi from Gwisu Temple's dokkaebi clan, excluding the elite warriors, ranging from late Qi Condensation to early Foundation Establishment Realm.
Their realms were low, but they were promising dokkaebi personally raised and trained by the Acting Leader.
“Gonga! Did the Acting Leader come?”
“Yes!”
Gonga swung her cudgel and shouted spiritedly.
Strength that seemed impossible for her slender body to possess immediately turned a demon into pulp.
The Azure Dragon Hall members' faces brightened in an instant.
Nearly a hundred dokkaebi clan members had joined them.
With two rounds of reinforcements, their greatest problem, their numerical disadvantage, was no longer a problem.
Following their training, the dokkaebi formed their own formation, established a new battle line, and pushed the enemy back.
Watching the new line take shape, Shin Hyeon murmured without realizing it.
“Hall Master. How far ahead did you see?”
Everything was beginning to fit together like shattered pieces of porcelain.
Perhaps they really would pull off a monumental feat that would go down in history by capturing Ten Thousand Demons in Turmoil.
That was what Shin Hyeon thought.
* * *
Meanwhile, at the border of the Great Exorcist Order's territory.
Core Formation Realm Hall Masters and Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators had formed a battle line and were fighting the Zheng Empire.
The Zheng Empire had brought only Core Formation Realm great cultivators, yet their numbers were enormous.
Nearly a hundred had certainly been killed in the previous war.
Yet it seemed they had already replenished their great cultivators.
With their cultivator population in the hundreds of millions, the size of their reserves was simply on another scale.
The one fortunate thing was the enemy's passivity.
They only fired spell arts from afar as if probing them, then retreated like an ebbing tide the moment the Hall Masters tried to close in.
They did not want a war of attrition.
They had learned painfully in the previous war that they would die in droves if they truly clashed.
They mistakenly believed time was on their side.
After Bi Hyeongrang disappeared, they would pay dearly for that mistake.
“Tch.”
Haeil clicked his tongue as he watched the great cultivators flee at full speed like rats.
There was no point wasting time pursuing enemies determined to run.
He was moving along the battle line with Woo Yu-hui.
They filled any holes that opened and stood ready to kill the Pill Altar Sect Master on the spot should that person appear.
The two had comparatively little to do because everyone they encountered fled, but most of the other battlefields were overloaded.
Even though the battle line had narrowed considerably, their numerical disadvantage still tightened around their throats.
Then they spotted a Zheng Empire great cultivator who had pushed deep into their line.
Without a word, Woo Yu-hui flew over.
A storm of primordial qi raged, and soon she returned, dragging the blood-soaked great cultivator she had subdued by the back of the neck.
“You don't need to drag back someone who was trying to flee. Don't pile up killing karma when you're on the verge of advancing to the Nascent Soul Realm.”
“Being afraid of heavenly tribulation is cowardly, Senior.”
“...Was that meant for me to hear?”
Woo Yu-hui did not answer.
Instead, she shattered the captured great cultivator's Golden Core on the spot and cut off their head.
“Somehow, you're starting to resemble the Azure Dragon Hall Master.”
Haeil rubbed his chin and shook his head.
“No. You were always like this. I was mistaken for a while.”
“...”
Woo Yu-hui's inner state was filled with dissatisfaction.
Though she said nothing, her aura spoke plainly enough.
She was unhappy that Ise, rather than herself, had been sent to face Bi Hyeongrang.
“You couldn't enter the warding barrier anyway.”
An obvious glare came from behind her mask.
“You can just respond if he attacks first.”
“You can't do that.”
The mask shifted. She must have twisted her face beneath it.
Looking beyond the battle line, Haeil continued.
“Strength alone isn't enough. Unless you have a motive vicious enough to uncover even the color of his underclothes by using everything you possess, and an obsession that will chase him to the end of the Human Realm and kill him no matter what, you can't face that bastard.”
“Disgusting.”
Haeil grinned.
“Don't worry. He'll manage.”
“I'm not worried. I'm annoyed because you took my prey.”
Woo Yu-hui muttered so softly that he could barely hear her that she would have advanced to the Nascent Soul Realm immediately if she had killed him herself.
“Let's hurry. If we take it easy, the others will suffer.”
“Yes.”
Haeil's divine sense spread wide.
'Where are you hiding, you rat bastard?'
* * *
While the dokkaebi clan fought Bi Hyeongrang, Ise sat cross-legged behind the rubble, circulating his qi like mad.
His severed head had been reattached, and both legs and his left arm had regrown.
Before the final medicinal potency of the Tribulation-Failure Preservation Pellet ran out, he swallowed all manner of medicinal pellets as though drinking water.
At last, the medicinal-pellet compartment of his storage pouch was empty.
The wealth he had gathered for this very moment was being completely depleted, but he did not find it wasteful.
He only needed to buy a little time.
The key was not allowing that bastard any respite.
If he prevented Bi Hyeongrang from calmly expelling the lingering primordial qi within his body and taking time to recover his physical form, Bi Hyeongrang would have to fight while still incomplete.
Though his body had been half destroyed, Bi Hyeongrang's Nascent Soul had not been damaged.
His cultivation power was still formidable and dangerous.
But the dokkaebi clan had not come empty-handed either.
They had prepared defensive spirit artifacts for this day.
Every warrior carried a shield resistant to lightning qi.
Whenever lightning struck, the shields rose layer by layer and formed a wall.
Even so, the dokkaebi were falling one after another.
“Ilpung!”
A crimson attack that lashed out like a tentacle flew toward a dokkaebi who was one of Gong Wol-a's closest aides.
Gong Wol-a shouted and hurled herself forward to block the incoming blood strike, but she was too late.
A dokkaebi warrior's head rose into the air.
The death of a cherished subordinate. Bloodshot veins appeared in Gong Wol-a's eyes.
Her furious Gold Chain Staff descended, wrapped in demonic qi.
Crack!
Bi Hyeongrang's head, which he had painstakingly restored halfway, burst like a watermelon.
Instead of answering, killing intent erupted from the headless body.
The next moment, Blood Thorns burst in every direction like chestnut burrs.
There was no time to evade.
The dokkaebi, including Gong Wol-a, were pierced through all at once.
Suspended in the air on the thorns, the dokkaebi clan members writhed in pain.
'Is this as far as we go?'
Gong Wol-a looked down at the thorn piercing her abdomen and thought.
No matter how well trained and battle-hungry they were, they could not bridge the difference in realms.
They had only endured this long because she was here. The other dokkaebi were facing an enemy more than two major realm boundaries above them.
As time passed, her brothers and sisters' blood soaked the earth.
The dokkaebi's cradle was becoming their grave.
She had no regrets.
If they had let their enemy go without even swinging a dokkaebi staff, they would have spent the rest of their lives consumed by regret.
So at least she would land a single blow before she died.
Just as she gathered her demonic qi.
Whoosh!
A storm of Wind Blades swept through the battlefield.
The Blood Thorns writhing like tentacles were all severed at their roots.
The freed dokkaebi rained down onto the ground.
“I'm sorry I'm late.”
It was Ise. Having recovered his body and gathered as much primordial qi as he could, he strode forward radiating grim fury.
Recovering his full strength one step before Bi Hyeongrang, Ise raised Yeowol into the sky.
Yeowol's body swelled until it was the size of a mountain peak.
Sensing danger, Bi Hyeongrang deployed layers upon layers of crimson barriers.
Ise brought down his axe.
Kraaaang!
The enormous Yeowol cut through the barriers and the primordial qi sustaining them.
Then it blew apart Bi Hyeongrang's body.
His half-formed body scattered without leaving a shape, becoming a crimson mist.
“We did it!”
Someone shouted.
Bi Hyeongrang's body had been completely destroyed.
Even a Nascent Soul Realm great cultivator would lose the place for their Nascent Soul to reside if they lost their body.
The realm they had painstakingly achieved would become useless.
Just as cheers were about to spread across the battlefield, Ise was looking elsewhere.
A black sphere floated intact in the center of the remains of Bi Hyeongrang's exploded body.
Bi Hyeongrang's Natal Spirit Artifact.
Unbroken even by Yeowol's strike, it gave off a dark light.
And that light embraced Bi Hyeongrang's Nascent Soul.
The Natal Spirit Artifact was desperately protecting its master's Nascent Soul within its embrace.
Ise immediately unleashed a barrage of spell arts.
Dokkaebi Bloodflame, filled with immense primordial qi, burned the sphere.
Yet the Nascent Soul did not break.
It was the final defensive measure Bi Hyeongrang had treasured and saved.
That precious artifact had protected its master's Nascent Soul to the very end.
Meanwhile, the blood on the ground rose again.
The blood effigy it formed was unlike any before.
A humanoid blood effigy modeled after Bi Hyeongrang had formed, as if his body had been remade.
The next moment, the Nascent Soul within the sphere began flying toward it.
Everyone watching felt a chill crawl down their spines and their skin rise in gooseflesh.
Nascent Soul Departure, followed by Soul Entry into a Humanoid Vessel.
The Nascent Soul moved independently and took possession of an empty vessel.
It was the ultimate survival method available only to Nascent Soul Realm great cultivators, and an omen of resurrection.
“W-we have to stop him...”
Despair filled the dokkaebi clan's faces.
Only Ise curled up the corner of his mouth.
It was a smile so bright that it was almost chilling.
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