WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 12: Dark Heaven Secret Realm (3)

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Irang added four more precautions.

If he encountered fellow disciples of the Great Exorcist Order, he was to act with them.

If he found strangers, he was to strike first and subdue them.

The place with the densest heaven-and-earth spiritual energy was the heart of the secret realm, so he should head there.

If he encountered mechanisms or formations whose nature he could not discern at his level, he was never to touch them.

“Senior, may I ask one question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Why are only Qi Condensation Realm cultivators allowed to enter the secret realm?”

“You really crawled in here knowing nothing at all.”

Irang let out a faint sigh.

Hall Master Woo Yu-hui’s description of him as someone eager to get himself killed fit perfectly.

“This secret realm is Battlefield Remains.”

“Yes. I heard that much.”

“Three hundred years ago, during the Heaven-Demon Great War, or perhaps at some earlier time. Part of the Heavenly Realm where a battle had taken place was severed and broken away by the aftermath of a clash between True Immortals. Most secret realms called Battlefield Remains are formed that way. They drift through space in that state, and whenever they approach the human realm, an entrance opens.”

“...?”

“Since those spaces hold the power of such mighty beings, countless mysterious and auspicious things are created within them. Ancient objects from thousands of years ago are sometimes buried there as well.”

What kind of battle could cut space apart?

It was far beyond Ise’s common sense.

“That space contains enormous spiritual pressure left behind by the battle of the True Immortals. If someone whose spiritual energy is compressed to a high density, such as someone with a Dharma-Flower Dantian or Golden Core, enters it, their spiritual root will burst and be destroyed.”

“I see...”

Ever since stepping into the world of immortal cultivation, he had faced one incomprehensible thing after another.

“Do not try to understand it. It is a story from above the heavens.”

“Yes.”

“You only need to fight your enemies, overcome them, and return safely. If you find any spiritual herbs, dig them up with the soil still around them and put them in this.”

Irang handed him a green pouch.

It was a Spiritual Herb Pouch, a storage pouch that kept spiritual herbs alive and preserved their spiritual essence.

“Do I have to return this...?”

“If you bring back spiritual herbs and turn them over to Spirit Beast Grove, I will give it to you.”

“Understood.”

Pitch-black darkness stirred as it welcomed Ise.

A strange pressure flowed from within the rift.

It was a pulling force, as though space itself wanted to swallow him.

Ise took a breath.

Then he stepped forward.

The black space wrapped around his body.

* * *

“He’s late. Nothing happened to him, right?”

At the same time, Seolryeong was slumped over a table in Dine and Go at headquarters, her cheek pressed against the surface.

She often stopped by to ask after Ise, but his seclusion showed no sign of ending.

Pi Garam and Buchun were just as curious about him.

Had he managed to reach Great Completion?

Would someone from their year become the first to attempt Foundation Establishment Realm?

Just as those questions grew unbearable, Park Gangseo rushed into Dine and Go.

“Urgent news! Urgent news!”

All three turned toward him at once. There was only one thing that could make him this frantic.

“He came out?!”

“How did it go?”

Park Gangseo caught his rough breath, raised one finger, and spoke with a meaningful expression.

“He came out.”

“Then why are you here alone? Where’s Ise?”

At Seolryeong’s question, Park Gangseo let out a hollow laugh. Even he thought the news was absurd.

“He went into a secret realm.”

“...?”

What was that supposed to mean?

The three of them froze for a moment.

Went where?

“You know the Dark Heaven Secret Realm that opened recently. He heard the news as soon as he came out and went straight in.”

They had heard that a secret realm had opened.

Of course, it had nothing to do with them, who were only in the middle stages of the Qi Condensation Realm. They had also assumed Ise would miss it this time because he had entered seclusion.

Yet he had gone in. He had come out of seclusion at an utterly ridiculous time.

“A secret realm isn’t some neighborhood walking path... Did he prepare properly?”

“Probably not at all. They said he left as soon as he came out.”

No matter how gifted a monster he might be, what kind of place was a secret realm?

From what they had heard, it was no different from an asura hell.

“What about my spirit artifact?”

“He must have taken it with him.”

“Is he seriously insane?”

* * *

An enormous pressure bore down on Ise’s body. Just as he began to worry that he might truly burst apart, the black space spat him out.

Solid ground met the tips of his feet.

Ise bent his knees slightly to absorb the impact and steadied himself on the balls of both feet.

At that exact moment, a wedge-shaped spell filled with killing intent flew at the back of his neck from the right.

He raised the Yellow Great Parasol, and the shield caught the spiritual energy head-on.

The humming impact traveled up his wrist, but his spirit-bone body did not budge.

He quickly located his opponent.

Then Ise kicked off the ground and surged forward.

The attacker’s eyes shook as though an earthquake had struck when they saw him close in without panic despite the ambush.

Before the opponent could even gauge his realm, the Yellow Great Parasol shot toward their head.

The opponent hastily drew upon the metal element and cast a defensive spell. Ise glanced at it once, then used the Yellow Great Parasol as a feint and split the enemy’s waist with his hatchet.

It was a change in attack path so swift that it was impossible to imagine from an ordinary cultivator.

Slash.

The cultivator, a head shorter than Ise, was cleanly cut in two.

Ise withdrew his hatchet and looked down at the corpse.

‘Weak.’

The ambush itself had been a fine tactic, but the opponent had been far too slow to respond to an irregular attack.

With that level of spell control, they could not even contend with a cultivator who had learned a body-tempering cultivation technique.

Their skill was far too poor for someone who had entered a secret realm.

The amount of spiritual energy scattering from the corpse suggested the seventh star.

Someone must have brought them in, or they had fearlessly entered hoping to strike it rich through a fortuitous encounter.

Ise brought down the hatchet and severed the cultivator’s head from their neck.

He impaled the head with an Earth Spear, then searched the Daoist robes for a storage pouch.

Yet the cultivator possessed no spirit artifacts at all.

The robes were scorched and torn in several places. It seemed they had already fought once, lost, and been stripped of everything.

Just as Ise felt disappointed, he sensed a disturbance in spiritual energy behind him.

Ise turned around. Beyond the black rocky ground, a shadow was rapidly fleeing.

It looked exactly like the cultivator he had cut down.

His gaze returned to the corpse at his feet.

The fabric of the Daoist robes was unravelling into thin strands, as though it were scattering apart.

It was a clone.

Still, since they had entered a secret realm, they appeared to have possessed at least one life-saving method.

‘...That was quite the grand welcome.’

Ise clicked his tongue. The moment the ambush failed, the other cultivator had fled at full speed.

Judging by that speed, they seemed to have mastered an escape spell as well.

Ise withdrew his gaze and slowly surveyed his surroundings.

The scenery of the secret realm was strange.

Dark Heaven. As its name suggested, the sky stretched overhead in blackness.

It looked like a night sky with no moon, stars, or clouds.

It was even difficult to tell whether he was indoors or outside.

The soil beneath his feet was black sand, and the rocky hills rising here and there were black as well.

There was no easy way to distinguish earth from sky.

Whenever Ise moved his gaze up or down, dizziness swept over him as though he had been trapped in an illusion formation.

There did not appear to be a single trace of light, yet he could see clearly.

It was a contradiction, but this place had dark light.

There was no other way to describe it.

As he walked, he examined the area around him.

He had landed in a rocky region.

It was not an environment where spiritual herbs could grow, and marks where the rocks had been gouged out remained everywhere.

It appeared that someone had already taken every unusual mineral.

The rest of the surrounding area was likely no different.

Ise chose the direction where spiritual energy felt strongest.

As Irang had told him, he intended to head for the center of the secret realm, where heaven-and-earth spiritual energy was abundant.

As he walked, he began finding corpses one after another, each surrounded by signs of fierce battle.

Some had only their heads cut off, while others had been split cleanly through the torso.

Fragments of shattered spirit artifacts lay scattered nearby, and some bodies were riddled with holes, as though something had pecked at them.

Their times and manners of death varied greatly.

Among the corpses he found, some had been stripped of their outer robes.

Ise’s brow drew together slightly. At first, he suspected rape and murder.

But after looking closer, he saw that the stripped corpses included both men and women, and aside from their missing outer robes, they showed no other unusual signs.

‘They took their Daoist robes?’

Ise kept the sight in mind.

Perhaps it was simply some pervert’s calling card.

Or perhaps the rule here was to treat even Daoist robes as resources and strip everything away in the most literal sense.

There might even be another reason altogether.

After walking farther, he spotted a familiar hem of a robe.

Pure white Daoist robes. A pattern bearing the symbols of the Crane Bird and Haechi.

It was the corpse of a formal disciple of the Great Exorcist Order.

The middle of the body’s abdomen had been completely blown away. The scorched burns around the edges showed that the disciple had been struck by a fire-element spell.

Ise had never met the disciple, but he knelt and carefully turned the body onto its back.

Then he pressed his palms together and recited the Memorial Incantation.

“Though this body may crumble in a foreign land, may the soul return home.”

Ise removed the pendant from around the corpse’s neck and placed it in his storage pouch.

It was not a spirit artifact, so it had likely been carried as a keepsake. He intended to return it to Great Exorcist Order headquarters as a personal belonging and have it placed in the Hall of Remembrance.

He wanted to return the body too, if possible, but he could not place a Daoist’s corpse inside the Demon-Sealing Talisman Book.

Treating a fellow disciple’s body as though it were a demon would not be spirit requiem. It would be desecration.

Ise left the corpse where it was and rose.

He continued onward.

After following the flow of spiritual energy for about two hours, Ise stopped.

Dokkaebi Senses had detected someone’s gaze.

After reaching Great Completion in the Qi Condensation Realm, Dokkaebi Senses had become even sharper and more sensitive.

The other person had hidden their presence and spiritual energy perfectly, but Ise could clearly feel their gaze, as though they were watching prey.

Ise slowly turned to look around.

He prepared to block any spell that might come flying at him.

Even after waiting for some time, the other person did not show themselves. They seemed quite cautious.

Flames created through Ise’s Fire-Release Art floated into the air.

If they intended to hide like a rat in the shadows, he had no choice but to turn the area upside down and force them out.

Whoosh.

Just before the massive flames swept through the area.

“Fellow Daoist. Stop your attack.”

A cultivator with both hands raised over their head slowly stepped out from the shadows.

Ise narrowed his eyes.

The cultivator wore white Daoist robes marked with the emblem of the Great Exorcist Order.

Footnotes:

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