“That’s great.”
Levias, the daughter of Qian Zun, lowered her blood-soaked hands. There was the sound of someone clapping behind her, congratulating her on her for her actions as she let out raspy breaths.
“When I first decided to make you a disciple, the daughter of Qian Zun. I had no doubt that you would be the best of my disciples.”
Levias looked down, listening to Wolhu. Where her eyes went, were below her, where a sprawled out woman laid dead, her face beaten in by Levias.
It wasn’t just her. There were fifteen other women in the dark room, including Levias. All were women, and they were disciples that Wolhu had raised throughout the past ten years or more.
But that was only up until a few days ago. Before then, Levias had spent 10 whole years smiling and getting along with them as martial sisters.
For Levias, 10 years ago, she lost her biological father and came to the Wolgung Palace in search of revenge.(T/N : completely mis-tled it before, but the place she went to in the mountains was Wolgung Palace, the place where Wolhu, the brother of the Divine Maiden, lived.)
Life at Wolgung Palace was all for her single goal of revenge one day, but the past ten years weren’t spent just brewing in her hatred.
It was incredibly peaceful during her time there. The moonlight in the sky completely separated the mountain range from the rest of the world, and it felt like the mountain was like the gate between the earth and the moon.
Far from all the turmoil in the rest of the world, the Wolgung Palace was a place of abstinence and moderation. Everyone was quiet and considerate of each other.
Their master generously provided the disciples food, drinks, and martial arts scriptures to be mastered.
All the other martial sisters that lived in the Wolgung Palace had stories as well. Everyone there caressed each other’s wounds and took care of each other.
Levias thought she was being softened and that she would forget her goal of revenge.
But that wasn’t the case at all.
Everyone did. When the master of this place, Wolhu, who had not been seen in person for an entire decade, suddenly decided to choose a single disciple to be the strongest of the 15 disciples to teach his personal martial arts to…. It became clear.
Everyone pounced on each other at the same time. Their true natures and personal reasons that were being suppressed through the peacefulness of the area exploded. Their personal revenges were only being hidden deep within their hearts, sharpening for the right moment.
Levias knew at that moment too. She knew she wasn’t being softened and realized she hadn’t forgotten her revenge.
She had just learned to hide it, use it as her deepest drive for motivation and never to be consumed by it. She learned how to hone this single drive to be her reason for growing stronger at any cost.
She survived. Levias had killed those who used to be called her martial sisters. Ten years. Ten years at the most. Wasn’t it natural to value the revenge of her late father, who had been alive for hundreds of years, more than the sisters she had for ten years?
Based on everyone else’s reactions, they seemed to hold the same values. Each of them had a story that shook their hearts to the core. Levias shook her blood-soaked hands with bitter eyes.
“Come here.”
The hidden door within the dark room opened. Beyond that, there was no sign of Wolhu. For ten years, Wolhu did not once appear to his disciples. But the voice continued to be heard, leading them and teaching the disciples with their teachings.
Levias followed Wolhu’s voice out of the room. Walking along the long corridor, she headed to the deepest part of the Wolgung Palace.
Toward a secluded bedroom that no one would be allowed to ever enter, let alone know about. There was no hesitation in Levias’ hand opening the closed door. Creaaak…
When she saw the empty room, she noticed a tiny sphere of light floating in the air, and beyond the bright light within the sphere, there was something that looked like human flesh wriggling inside of it.
The door closed when I tried to back out of the room. The voice of Wolhu was heard from within that sphere of light.
“Come here. Closer.“The flesh wriggled every time the voice of Wolhu spoke.
On closer inspection, the owner of the voice was a fragment of a smashed head. Among the wriggling of flesh known as Wolhu, it was a grotesque sight, but there were faint outlines of a jaw and sets of teeth that were moving to produce the voice.
“I’ll give you the strength to take your revenge.”
Levias’ body trembled.
* * *
Teresa decided not to return to Prabach, but to remain in the forest. Still, she didn’t want to cause worry to the other officials, so Teresa asked Lee Sungmin to deliver the letter.
Eventually, Lee Sungmin went to the Holy Cathedral in Prabach via the Pegasus and left the letter in the nighttime next to Theos’ bedside while he was asleep.
With this, Lee Sungmin had gained his own force to face against the end of the world, to be more exact, it was a force to rival and take on the Vampire Queen and the rest of Predator.
Baek Sogo, Scarlett, Yana, Teresa. The numbers were small, but not a single one of them could be taken lightly.
There were more people Lee Sungmin hoped to gather.
Lee Sungmin thought of the Black Dragon, Jehu, and the Spear King. If the two of them were still alive, they would have been on Lee Sungmin’s side with a high probability.
They wouldn’t want everything to end with the Apocalypse either.
Jehu and Kang Seok were once members of Beyond the Heavens, but they betrayed Musin due to their realization and contradiction Musin’s actions and words. At that time, the two did not die in the fight against Musin, so they would probably still be alive.
The only question was where to find the two of them. Although they had certain characteristics, the information obtained through Erebrisa could not specify their location. They had several different areas of possibilities, but nothing but speculations.
A week had passed since Baek Sogo had the poison in her body purified and had been nursed back to health.
Lee Sungmin took his time to check up on his own body’s condition and its limits since waking up from the seal. He thought that with the completed body of a monster he had finally become as powerful as he could possibly become.
But he knew for a fact that he could also go further. There was still room left for growth. It was the power inherited from Sima Ryunju that had suggested a clear path that would allow one to enlighten and go past the Realm of Transcendence.
It was a change that happened within his own body with his meridians opening up and becoming wider to allow more internal energy flow.
Sima Ryunju had once told him about it in the carriage ride to the North with the Black Dragon, Jehu, present.
‘In the Realm of Transcendence, when there is no room for further development in the martial arts and the body there will still be a second stage of metamorphosis that your body can undergo. In the process, the body and martial arts, which would previously have had no room for development, will allow for more growth once your body metamorphosis opens up those meridians and internal circuits within your body. In fact, at that point, talent and learning becomes practically meaningless. Any martial arts scripture you pick up will be easily learnable, and you will be able to adapt to any cultivation method as your body is hand-tailored for mastering any kind of martial arts. Internal energy would also become meaningless and there would be no need to draw your internal energy from the dantian as the internal energy would be completely accumulated within your whole body.’
Lee Sungmin called Neville just in case and bought a simple martial arts scripture to test what he had once heard from his late master. He sat down and started reading the book. Learning the mugong from the scripture was interesting to say the least when Lee Sungmin read through it.
“……umm.”
He could understand it to some extent. Lee Sungmin’s Dark Storm Arts were already the best in the entire world and he had a plethora of internal energy within his body.
However, that did not mean that Lee Sungmin’s talent was suddenly incredible and that he could master any martial art after seeing the theory only once. Lee Sungmin’s ability to acquire the martial arts he had mastered was not due to talent, but rather hard work and his luck. It had nothing to do with his talent. But it could definitely be said that his talent was a bit better at understanding the theory behind most martial arts.
“Most martial arts books are perfectly understood as a single reading……?”‘I don’t have a clue what the hell that feels like.’
The words Sima Ryunju said didn’t sound right at all for Lee Sungmin’s current state.
How could a person completely understand the mugong within a martial arts scripture by looking at it once? He expected it might actually be possible, but Lee Sungmin’s body did not seem to have reached the completion that Sima Ryunju had reached yet.
It was unfortunate, but he also thought it worked out well. This meant he still had more growth to grow stronger.
In the passtime, Selgerus had also completed the new spear. The new spear that Selgerus made from the remnants of dragon’s remains fit to his hand perfectly.
Selgerus looked at Lee Sungmin ridiculously when she heard that the temporary spear had been broken apart, but she did not get angry as much as Lee Sungmin thought she would. She was still angry, but not as much when she heard it couldn’t handle Lee Sungmin’s internal energy output.
“Come to think of it, Baek Sogo, where did my original spear go?”
“……um……that…… It’s broken.”
Baek Sogo replied with an apologetic expression, but Lee Sungmin didn’t care. He thought it was rather fortunate that the fight had only ended up with a broken spear instead of Baek Sogo or Frau’s life.
When the new spear in that sense felt somewhat familiar.
Lee Sungmin prepared to go out.
There were various questions that went through his mind.Where was Wijihoyeon right now? What was the true motive for the Devil of Maryeong Pavilion? What did Beyond the Heavens even do for the past 10 years? Where was Musin and where was the Divine Maiden?
Step by step, Lee Sungmin was going to try to figure it out. Fortunately, there were some clues. Lee Sungmin knew that the man holding the title ‘Mercenary King’ of Eria, was one of the 6 Divinities of Beyond the Heavens. Since the Mercenary King was not dead yet, it would be better to first dig into him to find out about the recent situation of Beyond the Heavens.
And there was also the Blood Alliance.
And the leader of the Blood Alliance was not a simple person.
At present, the question was this. At the time when Lee Sungmin and the others were at the Vampire Queen’s mansion to save Baek Sogo….. Gemini told him a lot of things.
Gemini said it was a simple drag, but now that he had more time to think about it, there were more questions than answers that he had from the time spent there.
Gemini told Lee Sungmin that the leader of the blood alliance was the second direct descendant of the Vampire Queen
Why did she say that to him? Gemini didn’t have to tell him that information at all.
It was something better off if Lee Sungmin didn’t know, but now he did.
To the public, it was not known that the Blood Alliance of Murim was connected to Predator.
Lee Sungmin’s power could not challenge Geniella when she was in her mansion. Travia was where not only she had lived for thousands of years, but the rest of her direct descendants lay in hiding.
[Even a dog can guard best at its home, but Geniella is no guard dog.]
Heoju’s metaphor was crude, but it was not wrong. Challenging Geniella in Travia was too much for now.
But the leader of the Blood Alliance was different. Although he was Geniella’s second direct descendant and Lee Sungmin wouldn’t know how much power there may be in hiding in the main headquarters of the Blood Alliance, it at least was surely not comparable to Travia where Genilla was.
‘What the hell was she planning when she said all that?’
Did Gemini mean for Lee Sungmin to kill the second direct descendant? That was all Lee Sungmin could do with that information so it didn’t make sense to tell him otherwise. It was just as confusing as when Gemini just let Lee Sungmin take Baek Sogo without even trying to stop him.
[Maybe it’s a trap. There will be few traps that can stop you unless Geniella, herself, might be there or Juwon.]Heoju grumbled. Certainly, if Juwon was at the Blood Alliance, it would be a risk in many ways.
However, if Lee Sungmin challenged the Blood Alliance in a head-on confrontation, Lee Sungmin had no intention of going alone. It was said that only four people could ride on the Pegasus at a time, but if that proved to be a hassle, shouldn’t they just go by foot?
‘I won’t do that yet though.’
The location of the King of Mercenaries, Do Zun, had already been determined as his next course in his journey. Since he was a very famous person, it was not very difficult to locate him through the large information network of Erebrisa. In addition, the city where the Mercenary King was located was a city Lee Sungmin had once been to.
Cron.
It was the city where the headquarters of the Murim Alliance was located. Ten years ago, with his late master, Sima Ryunju…… Lee Sungmin visited Cron. It was to crudely beat up the leader of the Alliance at the time, Jehu, the Black Dragon.
It just happened to be a good time for Lee Sungmin to revisit since he was thinking of going to Cron sometime again but it also happened to be the place where Do Zun was currently located. He had some other business to take care of in Cron so it would be a good location to head to first.
The other business in Cron was to visit the headquarters of the Murim Alliance and find anything that was related to Jehu. If he was able to find anything of Jehu’s while being there, Lee Sungmin would be able to backtrack his location through sorcery from Aladdur or Frau.
“I wish he would be located with the Spear King too if I do find him.”
Yana and Baek Sogo approached. They said they would go to Cron together with him just in case.
Teresa seemed to want to go because she had never been to Cron, but Lee Sungmin couldn’t take Teresa, who had no fighting ability, because he didn’t know what would happen in a city full of martial artists.
“Don’t pout so much like that.”
“This forest is empty and boring.”
“You’ll play well with fairies.”
“That’s them playing with me, not the other way around.”
Lee Sungmin didn’t really think she meant that. Lee Sungmin thought of Teresa, who was just laughing with fairies and chatting with them happily, but he didn’t bother to talk to Teresa any further. Lee Sungmin bowed his head as he looked at Scarlett standing in front of him with her arms folded.
“Well, I’ll be right back.”
“You must be happy to go out with two girls.”
“It’s not like we’re going to play around like that.”
“I’m telling you to go play. To be blunt, the world may end tomorrow, so you might as well enjoy it while you can.”
“You don’t seem to be enjoying it much either, Scarlett.”
“You have to have someone to enjoy it with. I’m married to my magic. When I’m done with my research, I’ll divorce magic and marry a real person.”
Scarlett grumbled and rubbed the circles underneath her eyes. Teresa, who was still pouting, spoke up one last time as Scarlett said this.
“Just get me a present. Something like their speciality. What’s famous there?”
“One of the most famous souvenirs for sale is the formation flags that symbolize the hundred man formation of the Murim Alliance that boasted to take down anything in the world. After the new alliance leader was appointed, I’ve heard the beggar sect has started to be able to merchandise more things as of late in the commercial areas.” (T/N : homeboy Sima smashed your shit apart tho lol)
“I don’t need a formation flag…….”
“Then I’ll buy something moderate for you.”
Lee Sungmin smiled and climbed onto the Pegasus. Yana and Baek Sogo strode up and hopped on as well right behind him.
“I don’t have a lot of good memories in Cron.”
Baek Sogo grinned bitterly and muttered. Lee Sungmin turned his head slightly to the words he heard behind his back.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, when I left you alone in the dungeon some time ago…… Cron was the place where I teleported to with the teleportation scroll. I ran right out of Cron when I got there because I was ridden with so much shame and haven’t been back since.”
It had already been more than a decade since that time. Baek Sogo grinned and grabbed Lee Sungmin’s waist.
“Will I be able to make some good memories this time?”
Baek Sogo murmured in a low voice to herself.
Before Lee Sungmin could even reply to what he heard, the Pegasus warped through space.