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And then, a strange voice echoed from somewhere.

“Are you an acquaintance of Mangnyang?”

It was impossible to tell whether the voice belonged to a man or a woman. I calmly surveyed my surroundings, but I couldn’t grasp any solid presence. I shouted back into the darkness.

“Who are you? Where have all the villagers gone?”

The response came, dripping with menace.

“Heh heh… I won’t let you off if you’re from the Bancheon Alliance. This is your grave!”

Bancheon Alliance?

Before I could even comprehend the utterly confusing reply, plant stems erupted from all directions. Each stem was as thick as three people combined, and it looked like something was buried at the village center. The stems shot out like tentacles, moving at incredible speed to attack me.

Crack!

I activated the Thunder Blade and sliced through a stem, startling the voice.

“What? You have significant skill.”

“Are you a sorcerer? What have you done to Mangnyang?”

“Hahaha… Nothing changes. Die!”

A crazed roar resounded as the stems shook violently and charged at me. If it had been five years ago, I wouldn’t have dared to face such horrific limbs, let alone try to evade them.

“Ha!”

But I scoffed as I unleashed my Thunder Spirit Technique, slicing straight through the chaos. As a flash surged past, the stems burst apart, spraying bodily fluids everywhere.

Shwaaaak!!

With all my power, I directed the Thunder Cloud Palm at the bulb at the center of the plant stems.

BOOM!

A wailing scream erupted. As I had suspected, that thing was controlling the stems from within. The sorcerer, whose whole body seemed to be engulfed in the bulb’s energy, flickered out. My eyes widened as I beheld the twisted figure of the sorcerer emerging from the bulb.

“……!!”

It was no longer human!

A creature resembling an insect, closer to a fly than anything else, stood before me. It had legs like a human, but the rest of its grotesque body was hard to define. From its bright red mouth, tentacles wiggled out, oozing forth like something from a nightmare. Even a regular human would be disheartened just by looking at it.

As I stood, stunned, the sorcerer hissingly said. “You… Dare look at this magnificent body I’ve received from God! Die!”

The creature convulsed and lunged at me like a spring. It was beyond anything human, leaving me speechless. I sliced the creature in one clean slash. Its blue bodily fluids sprayed everywhere, rolling lifelessly on the ground.

“What just happened? What was that thing?”

Still baffled, I steadied my heart and made my way toward Jinrang Valley, the dwelling place of Mangnyang. As I ascended the mountain, I sensed more bizarre beings beginning to attack.

Hisssss!!

“A snake?!”

To be precise, they were human figures with the lower body and face of snakes. Armed with knives and tridents, they lunged at me like springs. Whether they could speak was unclear, but their speed would give even top experts a hard time. I dodged their attacks lightly, landing a few strikes, but as I realized, they didn’t cut as cleanly as I hoped.

Thud!

“Hisss!!”

The snake beings fell one after another, crushed under the savage blows of their own resilience. I had intended to slice them into pieces painlessly, but they succumbed with little struggle. Their innate physiques seemed incredibly durable compared to ordinary humans. Even while the Mangyun Formation operated strongly, the snake men kept coming at me relentlessly.

‘No way. They’re trying to break through the Mangyun Formation in overwhelming numbers!’

I was flabbergasted. The power of the Mangyun Formation surged without losing its strength, yet the snake creatures were screeching and trying to violently penetrate it! It was an ignorant, primitive approach, but with at least a hundred of them, it might just overwhelm it if left too long.

However, having studied Qimen Dunjia, I didn’t need to wander around mindlessly like them; I could find the weak points. I broke through the Mangyun Formation and climbed up to a cabin. Then I spotted a familiar face.

“Mangnyang!”

“You made it just in time…”

He looked at me with a bittersweet gaze. He had changed quite a bit since I last saw him, wearing black clothes like a crow all over his body. And the way the Black and White Lotus I gave him was well absorbed made me sense an impressive level of internal power flowing from him.

I gazed up at the red-hued sky of Jinrang Valley and asked.

“What’s going on? What are those creatures?”

“The Golden Eagle Guard is searching for the Seven Luminaries.”

“What?!”

Mangnyang glanced over at the Mangyun Formation.

“Thanks to you, Baek Woong, we might just have enough time. But if those demon beasts show up, it might break through. We need to run!”

“Quickly explain!”

Mangnyang began to explain slowly.

“All this time, I’ve been cultivating my internal power with the Black and White Lotus you left me. While learning martial arts, I’ve also grasped sorcery. I’ve enhanced my techniques to a level where I can hold my own. By then, I grew confident and headed to Liaodong.”

“Liaodong?”

“It was the old land of Balhae. There, I followed the clues of the Phoenix Fragment, and I learned something astonishing.”

Mangnyang extended his hand. In it laid a shattered, silvery fragment of the Phoenix. It looked as if it had been in pieces since time immemorial. Staring longingly at the Phoenix fragment, Mangnyang declared.

“This was a schematics designed to be dismantled in a fixed order. It also held the reason for the fall of Balhae left by its last king. Balhae fell due to the eruption of a massive volcano, but the cause of the explosion was the Seven Luminaries.”

“Was something like the Water Element Divine Sword around there?”

I recalled the torrential rain that had rushed upon us when I broke the seal of the Water Element Divine Sword. Mangnyang nodded at my thought.

“The Divine Treasure of the Earth Element was the first Eight Trigrams given by the Three Sovereigns, Fuxi. Precisely, it should be called the Eight Trigrams Diagram. Someone must have taken that Divine Treasure out of the sealed place, causing a disruption in the energy channels stabilized by the Eight Trigrams, leading to the volcanic eruption that destroyed the Balhae Empire.”

“……!!”

This was an unbelievable story. No matter how powerful the treasures of the Seven Luminaries were, could they really possess the power to shift energy channels and trigger a volcano to destroy a nation? While I stood gaping, Mangnyang continued.

“But while investigating, I discovered who took that Divine Treasure of the Earth Element.”

“Who?”

“It’s the Golden Eagle Guard… more accurately, an organization pulling the strings behind the Emperor. They’ve been obsessed with gathering the Seven Luminaries by manipulating the imperial lineage for hundreds of years. It’s highly likely the current Golden Eagle Guard is also being controlled by them.”

“……”

“I’ve been calling the forces in the Demon Subduing Hall by the name of the Bancheon Alliance.”

I was overwhelmed by this sudden tidal wave of information. But one thing was certain; the Golden Eagle Guard hadn’t been idle during the five years I spent training; they’d been scheming with the treasures of the Seven Luminaries.

Mangnyang pressed on.

“To uncover the true nature of the Demon Subduing Hall, I’ve formed my own group called the Bancheon Alliance, and over the past few years, I have been active. Kind-hearted individuals have supported me through this journey. However, it seems that the Golden Eagle Guard and Dongchang have already interpreted the Nameless Ritual Book and succeeded in cultivating their sorcerers. Now they possess a power that is almost impossible to stop…”

“Are those bizarre sorcerers and snake men outside?”

“The demons of the Demon Subduing Hall are using the sorcery of the Nameless Ritual Book to summon those fiends.”

I felt utterly speechless.

“What… But haven’t they deemed it impossible for those creatures to escape through the Nameless Ritual Book?”

“It seems otherwise. The Demon Subduing Hall must have summoned them instead of relying solely on the sorcerers of the Otherworld.”

“……!!”

I was horrified. Another unimaginable creature had been summoned?!

Mangnyang muttered in despair as he heard the hissing cries of the snake men outside.

“They’ve acquired strength from the Otherworld to the extent that they no longer need to accumulate power through human sacrifice. They must have discovered one of the Seven Luminaries in the last few years…”

“Just discovering one Luminary turned everything into chaos?”

“You know how much blessing we received just from offering the spirit of the Seven Luminaries? If used correctly, their power is nothing short of extraordinary…”

“……..”

I clenched my teeth.

I thought it was all over, but it wasn’t. Mangnyang continued.

“With the Golden Eagle Guard moving from the Demon Subduing Hall, I called you to Jinrang Valley before it was too late to inform you. But it seems they were one step ahead.”

“We can still escape. Follow me!”

“…Please.”

I took Mangnyang and started descending below the Mangyun Formation. As we went down, the snake men lunged at us, rattling like metal, but I slashed through them mercilessly. Normally, I would have had quite a tough time against their teamwork, but I wasn’t some pushover from the Azure Dragon Martial Arts School who’d been through Lee Kwang’s ruthless training. By blooming my Thunder Spirit Technique occasionally, I was able to dispatch over fifty of them in no time.

Mangnyang was taken aback by my skill.

“W-Wow, that’s incredible. Each of those snake men would give first-class experts a run for their money!”

“Hmph, do you think I care about first-class experts?”

I teased as we quickly descended towards Jinrang Valley village.

“Let’s go.”

Tydaht!

We dashed towards a nearby forest. Mangnyang performed his Light Body Technique, catching up with me, indicating he had mastered the martial arts during the last few years. He seemed to be at a high level of what was considered advanced in the Martial Arts World.

‘Looks like Mangnyang has quite a talent for martial arts after all.’

I felt a twinge of envy. He was truly a jack-of-all-trades, except for sorcery. As we ventured deeper into the forest, I noticed grotesque monsters resembling decaying corpses spewing red flames lunging at us. Clearly, these were no ordinary humans but rather Otherworldly horrors.

BOOM!

“Ugh… This is endless.”

I had stopped hoping for the villagers by now. They had likely been completely consumed as sustenance for the sorcerer controlling those plant roots. What I needed to focus on now was ensuring Mangnyang’s survival and getting him to safety.

At that moment, a strange sound echoed through the air.

Beep beep!

Mangnyang turned pale as he heard the noise.

“N-Not that! Is it the Bi Gang-jang?!”

“What’s that?”

“Those… triangular footprints… Ugh! This is bad!”

Upon seeing the bizarre footprints on the ground, Mangnyang turned ashen and urgently pushed me forward.

“Leave me and go! The creature coming is more vicious and terrifying than any monster you’ve ever faced. If a pack comes, we’ll be done for, so I’ll hide with Invisibility Technique. You must run without looking back!”

“But if I leave you…”

“You mustn’t! Just go, please! They are truly terrifying entities.”

With that, Mangnyang pulled out a talisman and began to set up some kind of formation around him. It seemed he could only protect himself with his current power. Now seemingly in a daze, Mangnyang focused frantically on casting his spell, igniting a spark of defiance within me.

‘I can take down demons now, but I’m supposed to flee from some bird-like monster?!’

I didn’t want to waste those five years of intense training. So, resolving to fight if need be, I quietly gathered my Thunder Spirit Technique.

Swoosh swoosh swoosh —

I sensed something approaching. From a distance, I could make out a massive, translucent creature charging in a group. Seeing monsters that were several times larger than a cow gliding through the air, I was dumbfounded. They were creatures that could not possibly be birthed normally in nature.

I erupted in laughter, unleashing my sword qi.

“Ha! Take this!!”

With the Ten Thousand Success Sword Technique, I executed a series of swift strikes as streams of sword qi burst forth, clashing with a single one of those Bi Gang-jang monsters charging at me. Despite their speed and robustness, the sword qi sliced through them seamlessly.

However, my expression darkened.

Keyeek!

Suddenly, the other Bi Gang-jang that had been rushing in alongside it began to summon wind pressure all at once. At the same time, long, fleshy appendages twisted and circled around me, looking incredibly nauseating.

I surged my internal power and scattered the Thunder Cloud Palm around, managing to momentarily stagger those creatures as they were hit by lightning. Yet, it seemed that they hadn’t taken any serious damage, returning to their vicious demeanor too soon. I quickly caught on to one crucial discovery.

‘These guys almost don’t take physical damage! They’re only affected by pure Qi or natural forces…’

BOOM!

Ka-chack —

Before I could even think of regret, the invisible monsters surged chaotically and retaliated with hundreds of their attacks. They even shot beams of energy down from the sky.

“Aaaaah!”

I did my best to resist, but for every ten that I cut down, it felt like a hundred more emerged. It wasn’t long before other creatures from the Otherworld joined in, launching bodily fluids from a distance.

Thump!

After about half a moment, one of the tentacles smashed into my head.

That became my ninth death.

 

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