Chapter 162
Chapter 162
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 162
Chapter Title: Apostle of the Blood Cult
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This is death.
He sensed it the moment the White Flame Witch raised her hand. His fully opened senses, sharp as ever, moved to evade the death foretold even before the light cleaved the darkness.
Evasion outpaced the attack. But it was razor-thin. The slowly extending palm pierced the darkness in an instant.
Slash!
Wi Sungcheon's feet dragged across the floor. In a situation like this, cold sweat doesn't even form. He realized that anew.
It didn't even graze him. He had perfectly dodged it, if just barely. But the White Flame Witch's palm strike was utterly bizarre. She unleashed her palm force.
Even in the darkness, it was a white-hot stream of qi. Yet the evaded palm force vanished without a trace.
"You dodge well."
The White Flame Witch sneered. Wi Sungcheon steadied his pounding heart. Doubts swirled in his mind, more than one or two.
More than the cryptic words about the apostle of the doctrine, it was what she had spat out just before attacking that lingered in his head.
I have no desire to serve a liege weaker than myself.
"Why are you doing this?"
"If you don't know, then die not knowing."
"What the—! You won't even explain properly!"
Wi Sungcheon shouted in frustration, but the White Flame Witch's attitude didn't change.
She still radiated mad killing intent, her white-hot arm raised. Wi Sungcheon's mind raced.
'The Black Demon King?'
Until moments ago, the White Flame Witch had seemed to respect the Black Demon King's will. She had threatened to kill him if he pushed too far, but there had been no real killing intent in those words. But now? The killing intent she emanated was genuine.
'Death.'
Here, of all places? Without knowing why? No, stay calm. Wi Sungcheon forced down his agitation, acutely aware of it.
The White Flame Witch of the Ten Supremes. She was a powerhouse beyond comparison to him.
Even if Wi Sungcheon had undergone marrow cleansing and bone transformation through various elixirs and fortuitous encounters, and even opened his middle dantian, he was nowhere near the level of the Ten Supremes.
The White Flame Witch could kill him at any moment.
Even right now. He had barely evaded her initial strike, but not because he dodged 'well.' She had given him just enough leeway to avoid it.
'It was close, though.'
The same held true now. Her overt, savage killing intent didn't match her actions.
If she wanted, she could press him relentlessly without giving him a moment to breathe, or end him in a single blow without the need.
The fact that she wasn't...
'Hesitation.'
She was still hesitating. Perhaps she was wary of the Black Demon King, but that didn't seem likely. If she truly cared about his gaze, she wouldn't attack Wi Sungcheon so openly in the heart of the Black Forest.
The thoughts flashed in an instant, leading to a conclusion. He wasn't sure if it was right. But it seemed better than 'fleeing.' He had no confidence he could shake her off anyway.
So.
Wi Sungcheon charged at the White Flame Witch. He cast aside all extraneous thoughts unrelated to combat.
His opponent was one of the Ten Supremes. He had to go all out. The moment he stepped forward, all his meridians flared open. Reverse Flow and Spirit Ignition produced his maximum speed.
In one step, he closed the distance to the White Flame Witch. Ignoring his prior fear, he burrowed into her guard. A twisted smile crept onto the lips of the White Flame Witch, who had both arms raised.
There were no clash sounds in their exchange. They hadn't collided, after all. Only the sharp sounds of movement continued. Wi Sungcheon pressed his assault without breathing, maintaining Breathless State.
It looked like a reckless all-out attack ignoring defense, but it wasn't. His senses strained to catch even her slightest movements.
The onslaught flowed harmlessly. The White Flame Witch slipped away with minor twists of her body, evading every strike. Yet no counter came.
Was she waiting for an opening? He mixed feints into his real attacks to provoke a response.
"Hah."
Her scoff snapped him back to reality. The skill gap was too vast. Their experiences incomparable.
She wasn't an opponent he could unsettle with psychological ploys like feints.
But he didn't stop. Not out of foolish stubbornness, but desperation. To optimally unleash Heavenly Flower Sect techniques, he needed to draw out her attacks.
As if humoring him.
The White Flame Witch extended her hand. Touching that still white-hot hand was chilling, but he had no choice.
Inner energy drained from his dantian, forming a protective qi barrier around Wi Sungcheon's body. He tried to grab and twist her arm.
Crackle!
The instant he touched her white-hot arm, electricity surged through his meridians. A colossal force incomparable to any qi he had touched before shook his protective barrier.
Finding her Qi Explosion Point through repeated contact was impossible.
But that didn't mean there was no way. Ignoring the pain, Wi Sungcheon burrowed deeper into her embrace. Their eyes met as he glanced up.
Boom!
A severing fist punch exploded the air. It aimed for his solar plexus but missed again. Wi Sungcheon narrowed his stance to pursue the White Flame Witch as she slid sideways.
A mocking smile still lingered on her lips.
Slash!
White light shredded the darkness. A stinging pain spread through his body. Fresh blood lines etched into his flesh—scars that had only just vanished thanks to marrow cleansing. But not fatal.
His evasion just before had not been too late. He didn't recoil in fear. Wi Sungcheon stubbornly advanced.
He still didn't know if his actions were correct. Fleeing was impossible, defense impossible. Evasion had limits. So he burrowed in. Again.
Wi Sungcheon's hand reached for her white-hot arm. Whether the White Flame Witch accepted his fearless action, he had no way to know. But she kindly played along.
Their hands met. The white heat invaded his qi. It was his left hand. It felt like his fingertips were burning to ash.
Rumble!
The White Flame Witch's qi flooded into Wi Sungcheon's meridians. He gritted his teeth and withstood the torrent with his body. In the past, even attempting it would have burst all his meridians, but after consuming various elixirs and undergoing marrow cleansing via the Dragon Jade, they didn't rupture easily.
Moreover, the insights from the Heavenly Flower Chain Technique gained at sea guided her immense power as he wished.
Aiming for the immediate counter. Absorb with Reverse Flow, then drive in the Shackles. The attack that had made the Poison Blood Ghost Demon vomit blood.
No good.
Wi Sungcheon realized it before he could even thrust the Shackles. His meridians—no, his inner energy—seemed entirely frozen. He barely mustered strength into his wobbling legs.
"Impressive. So this is the Heavenly Flower Sect's Suction Skill."
The White Flame Witch sneered. Wi Sungcheon looked up at her with a pale face. She glanced at the hand he gripped and giggled.
"Quite amusing... but a shame. To have forged such a body, yet your Suction Skill is only at this level."
Rumble!
The White Flame Witch's qi, which Wi Sungcheon had drawn in with Reverse Flow, flowed back to her. She was a master of the supreme Suction Great Law, renowned as the world's best.
He had known that all along. To catch a veteran who had dominated for decades with her own technique using Suction Skill? Reality wasn't so lenient.
He had attempted it knowing full well. Whether he used it or not. The outcome wouldn't change. From the moment he had to fight the White Flame Witch, defeat was a foregone conclusion.
The cause of defeat was having to fight her, not attempting victory with Suction Skill.
So Wi Sungcheon forced a smile. No voice came out, but he could twist his facial muscles into one.
"What a ridiculous kid."
The White Flame Witch scoffed and averted her gaze. Wi Sungcheon couldn't hold out any longer and collapsed to the spot. His head spun, vision shook. His left arm throbbed.
That was all. No internal injuries, no broken bones or damaged muscles. But he couldn't even lift his head to look at her.
"Follow me."
The White Flame Witch ignored the seated Wi Sungcheon. Only after she passed him did he regulate his breathing.
From midway, she no longer emanated savage killing intent. Nor did she radiate hostility. Of course, killing without either was easy, but Wi Sungcheon didn't die.
'I want to run.'
The thought burned desperately, but he couldn't truly flee. The White Flame Witch had said 'follow.'
Defying it might mean real death. Wi Sungcheon rubbed his aching arm and stood.
"Do you know of the Blood Cult?"
Back in the room where liquor bottles rolled about.
The White Flame Witch, half-reclining as before, tossed out the question abruptly.
"...I know of the Demonic Cult, but not the Blood Cult."
"Well, of course. It never revealed itself to the world."
"What is the Blood Cult?"
"The predecessor of the Blood Gate."
The White Flame Witch answered, then frowned.
"Not even that. The Blood Gate is a branch of the Blood Cult, I suppose. No, hmm. Precisely, the Blood Gate derived from the Blood Cult but rejected its fundamental Perfect Doctrine while sharing roots. That's why it was exterminated."
"...Pardon?"
"It's common, isn't it? What stagnates rots, what endures corrupts. The Blood Cult was the same."
Wi Sungcheon couldn't fathom why the White Flame Witch was telling him this. Seeing his bewildered expression, she clicked her tongue.
"This island was the sacred ground where the Blood Cult was founded."
"..."
"What you saw at the bottom of the pond was the Blood Ancestor's Founding Stele."
"...Wait..."
"Seeing it means you were guided by the Life-sized Buddha and became its apostle. Unpleasant for me, but if you received the Life-sized Buddha's guidance, I have no choice but to serve you as liege."
"Wait. What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb. Why did you enter the Blood Palace and dive into that filthy pond? Not because it was hot and you wanted a bath, surely?"
At the White Flame Witch's sneer, Wi Sungcheon clamped his lips, at a loss for words.
"I suspected as much, perhaps. In the end, the Sequence is inevitable..."
"...What is the Sequence?"
"The flow linking the arrangements to correct distorted heavenly principles with human benevolence. You really know nothing."
The White Flame Witch sneered. She tilted her head slightly and looked at Wi Sungcheon.
"So it's troubling. To serve a distant grand-disciple as liege."
"Pardon?"
Her grumbling left him no choice but to exclaim in surprise.
"Grand-disciple? What do you mean?"
"Branches split off long ago, but strictly by lineage, that's how it is. Both Blood Gate and Heavenly Flower Sect root in the Blood Cult."
Wi Sungcheon couldn't hide his shock. The White Flame Witch giggled at his gaping mouth.
"Judging by your rampage, you didn't receive the generations-old seal of the Heavenly Flower Sect. The Black Heavenly Prince seems to have a different one."
Wi Sungcheon had never heard of the Blood Cult in his life. He had come here led by Anannai's memories.
The stele at the pond's bottom. It was in Anannai's memories too. Hundreds of years ago. The Divine Maiden, Sea Dragon, Anannai. And others united in exterminating demons had inscribed their fervent will on it.
'Ah.'
Wi Sungcheon hadn't seen all of Anannai's memories. He didn't know what happened after she became the throat demon. The 'Life-sized Buddha' the White Flame Witch mentioned undoubtedly referred to Anannai.
'Blood Cult.'
The stele was the Blood Cult's Founding Stele. Hundreds of years ago, the will for demon extermination gathered by the Divine Maiden had formed the Blood Cult.
He could understand that far.
"...What happened?"
Wi Sungcheon asked in a trembling voice. He grasped only fragments now.
That the Heavenly Flower Sect originated from the Blood Cult. And what it meant for him to become the White Flame Witch's liege—he couldn't comprehend.
"Didn't I tell you?"
The White Flame Witch clicked her tongue and shook her head.
"What stagnates inevitably rots, and what endures inevitably corrupts."
In her quiet mutter. Wi Sungcheon smelled thick blood, where none should be.