Chapter 164
Chapter 164
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 164
Chapter Title: Black Swan Baek Ri-hyang
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Black Swan Baek Ri-hyang.
She was pondering how exactly she should accept what had happened to her.
‘……Not…… a dream…….’
She had somehow fallen asleep and just woken up. The events from before she slept floated hazily through her mind.
At first, when she opened her eyes, she thought it had been an absurd dream, but the realization that it was stark reality soon hit her.
The musty smell wafting through her nose. The scent of an old, neglected house. Baek Ri-hyang swallowed hard and stood up. The creaking wooden floor completely chased away her lingering drowsiness.
“My God.”
Baek Ri-hyang let out a hollow laugh and shook her head.
The night before.
Baek Ri-hyang had been feeling a mix of regret, anxiety, anger, and various other emotions. She had sent Wi Seong-cheon off alone to meet with the academy friends, but he hadn’t returned even as the sun set and night deepened.
With every inch the candle burned down, she couldn’t help but entertain all sorts of thoughts.
Had something happened to him? Had he fallen into a trap set by another Black Tyrant? Or had he lost control of his temper and gone to confront the Black Heaven Young Lord on his own? Was he being tempted by another Black Tyrant through the academy friends and preparing to betray her?
It was humiliating, but she seriously considered going out to look for him herself, and the moment she decided, ‘I can’t just sit here,’ and moved to leave—
Wi Seong-cheon returned.
‘Come with me.’
She had a ton of snide remarks she wanted to hurl at him, but his forceful grip on her wrist left her stunned.
And so she was dragged to the Blood Palace.
She slept, and woke up. Clutching her throbbing head, Baek Ri-hyang stepped out of the room. Just what had happened? Neither the White Flame Witch nor Wi Seong-cheon had given a proper explanation.
‘It just sort of happened.’
That’s what Wi Seong-cheon had said.
‘Stay here in the central area.’
That’s what the White Flame Witch had said. How could she defy one of the Ten Heroes? For now, she did as told, moved her belongings, and slept in one of the Blood Palace’s empty rooms before waking.
But her questions hadn’t settled even a little. If anything, the sight before her only deepened them.
In the middle of the weed-choked training ground stood Wi Seong-cheon and the White Flame Witch. Just then, the White Flame Witch’s palm strike connected with Wi Seong-cheon’s chest.
“Gah!”
With a short cry, his body went flying. Wi Seong-cheon tumbled once across the ground but immediately corrected his stance and charged at the White Flame Witch again.
As expected of one of the Ten Heroes. Wi Seong-cheon unleashed a furious barrage so fast it made the onlooker dizzy, but the White Flame Witch deflected his attacks with one hand without even shifting her feet.
The question of what exactly they were doing rose to the back of Baek Ri-hyang’s throat, but she didn’t dare approach and interrupt the flow.
That didn’t mean she could just stand there gaping, either. Baek Ri-hyang cleared her throat and plopped down where she stood.
Soon, her eyes turned red, and a faint crimson glow enveloped her body.
He knew Baek Ri-hyang had come out, but he couldn’t spare her a glance. The slightest lapse in focus, and the White Flame Witch’s counterattack would land.
Responding to her strikes, delivered with full intent, was no easy task. They weren’t lethally powerful, but they hurt like hell when they hit, and they were incomparably faster than yesterday.
‘Training.’
The White Flame Witch, who had shown up at dawn, hadn’t said much. Wi Seong-cheon hadn’t demanded many explanations, either. Training—that was enough.
The White Flame Witch had said she had no intention of calling Wi Seong-cheon her liege, and her attitude remained the same.
But she didn’t deny the ‘sequence.’ She acknowledged that Wi Seong-cheon was the Apostle of the Doctrine, and that she had joined the sequence as a contingency for some future event.
His will meant nothing to her. She was steeped in profound emptiness and boredom, and her thirst for revenge had long since cooled. Hadn’t she said it?
A fine diversion in her tedious life. She would go along with the sequence.
That was all. Normally, the White Flame Witch would serve as a guardian lioness protecting the Apostle of the Doctrine, but she had no desire to take Wi Seong-cheon—far weaker than her—as her master.
Wi Seong-cheon had no intention of resisting the White Flame Witch’s whims. The Blood Cult, the sequence—none of that mattered to him right now. Fate was a wondrous thing; once tangled like this, it would inevitably draw everything together in a chain.
Where was he even supposed to start? The moment he made contact with the Blood Cult’s conversion tablet, Ananna’s memories had vanished from Wi Seong-cheon’s mind.
In the end, the memories Ananna transmitted were only to convey the bare minimum of facts to her vessel, Wi Seong-cheon, and to guide him to this place.
Wi Seong-cheon keenly felt the massive current he had latched onto. Since when? From the moment he was reborn as the rumor lord of the Heavenly Harmony Sect?
And what did that matter?
Wi Seong-cheon focused on the here and now instead. He was receiving instruction from one of the Ten Heroes, the White Flame Witch. Personal guidance from such an expert was an opportunity without equal in the world.
[Crude.]
It wasn’t just sparring. The White Flame Witch kindly offered advice as well.
[The Heavenly Harmony Sect split from the Blood Cult centuries ago. Its martial arts have evolved independently, but the inhalation methods are utterly crude.]
Wi Seong-cheon sat on the ground, steadying his ragged breathing. Unlike him, drenched in sweat, the White Flame Witch hadn’t spilled a single drop.
[Can’t be helped, I suppose. From your movements, the Heavenly Harmony Sect’s arts don’t emphasize inhalation much.]
True enough. In the Heavenly Harmony Sect’s martial arts, inhalation was only used in Vortex and Shackle. They held lethal power on impact, but Vortex and Shackle were double-edged swords.
The core of the Heavenly Harmony Sect’s arts lay in awakening the body through Backflow and Spirit Awakening, and guiding flows via Heavy Water Divine Position.
[Are the Heavenly Harmony Sect’s arts rooted in the Blood Cult’s?]
[Likely. Since it split from the Blood Cult. The Blood Gate’s Phantom Soul Seizure that I practice also branched from the Blood Gate’s secret ultimate art, Severing Heaven One Body Martial.]
[That…… Severing Heaven One Body Martial—where did it go?]
[I hear the original was lost long ago. It sparked internal strife in the Blood Cult, leading to the formation of the Asura Blood Cult. Not surprising. The cult’s stagnation alone incited the followers’ fury; losing the ultimate secret art on top of that. It’s impressive no rebellion has risen in the centuries since.]
The White Flame Witch smirked and rose to her feet. She glanced at Wi Seong-cheon, still catching his breath, and at Baek Ri-hyang beyond him, practicing her Blood Eye Vortex.
[Follow me.]
She spared them a glance but paid Baek Ri-hyang no mind. Wi Seong-cheon gave an awkward smile to the staring Baek Ri-hyang and followed the White Flame Witch.
[It’s true that they branched from Severing Heaven One Body Martial…… But thinking the Heavenly Harmony Sect’s arts or my Phantom Soul Seizure are inferior to the original is an overreach.]
Martial arts evolve.
[I sensed it yesterday, and today I’m certain. That’s why it’s all the more regrettable.]
[What is?]
[I don’t know how you were raised in the Heavenly Harmony Sect, but your body is exceptionally well-forged. If we judge purely by physical function, you’re among the best. Your qi and blood flexibility is especially miraculous.]
It had to be. That was the core of the Heavenly Harmony Sect’s arts: manipulating qi and blood as needed, artificially controlling inner power flows.
[That’s why your inhalation art feels even cruder. Whether innate or cultivated, your body is ideally suited for supreme inhalation methods like Ascendant Star Absorption Great Law.]
[……I’ve never particularly felt the need for Star Absorption Great Law…….]
[I’ll teach you Phantom Soul Seizure.]
The White Flame Witch ignored Wi Seong-cheon’s mutter. They returned to the room where the sake bottles from last night lay scattered, unrestored.
“Can’t even clear it all out.”
The White Flame Witch grumbled. It wasn’t about the messy room. Wi Seong-cheon steadied his breathing amid the qi filling the space.
“Still, since she’s your daughter, it must bother you.”
“That Baek Ri-mu-won? Don’t talk nonsense. What he cares about isn’t the Black Swan. He’s just curious what I plan to do with you.”
The Black Demon King’s personal guard, the Underworld Yaksha, had been lurking around the Blood Palace since yesterday. Wi Seong-cheon cleared his throat at the White Flame Witch’s jab and asked.
[……Isn’t Phantom Soul Seizure your signature technique, Lady White Flame Witch?]
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“If I learn Phantom Soul Seizure, I’d become your disciple…….”
“No need for master-disciple bonds just to teach one art. Not even proper transmission. I just don’t like your crude inhalation art, so I’m supplementing it with Phantom Soul Seizure, something incomparable.”
What’s the difference from transmission? Wi Seong-cheon didn’t voice the doubt, but he couldn’t fully hide it from his face.
“Phantom Soul Seizure is a star absorption method. It steals the opponent’s painstakingly cultivated inner power, then even their innate essence. That alone makes it threatening enough, but how to ‘use’ the stolen qi in attacks is crucial too. I’ll teach you only the inhalation part.”
[……Since you’re teaching me anyway, couldn’t you teach me the whole thing?]
“Shameless brat.”
The White Flame Witch furrowed her brow.
“No need, that’s why I won’t. Just the inhalation method of Phantom Soul Seizure should be easy enough for you. Though much has diverged, they share the same root—only the level differs, and the knack is similar. But to master all of Phantom Soul Seizure would take time, and you’d have to abandon the Heavenly Harmony Sect’s arts.”
“Yes.”
He’d only said it for the sake of it. The moment Wi Seong-cheon replied, the White Flame Witch transmitted the incantation for Phantom Soul Seizure.
‘What’s similar about the knack?’
After memorizing the long, complex incantation, Wi Seong-cheon’s face twisted. Even just the inhalation method, Phantom Soul Seizure was a supreme ultimate art of staggering heights.
“In a few days, the Black Demon King’s planning something amusing.”
[……Yes.]
“Among the things the Black Demon King has hidden around here is something called Earth Pole Blood Treasure. Grab that and the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng.”
“Do you need them?”
“They’d be useful. You’re not so dim that you can’t grasp it from the incantation alone, are you?”
“No, I understand.”
Wi Seong-cheon smoothed his furrowed brow as he answered. Phantom Soul Seizure was an art of extreme yang nature.
While absorbing the opponent’s inner power via inhalation, it generated extreme yang qi in the dantian and meridians, incinerating all impurities alongside the absorption.
“You get why Earth Pole Blood Treasure is needed, then?”
Earth Pole Blood Treasure was a spiritual herb of extreme yang nature. Such an extreme energy was tricky to handle.
Without mastery over yang-controlling arts, consuming it would incinerate the body instantly.
Hence the need for neutralization. If Earth Pole Blood Treasure was extreme yang, Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng was extreme yin.
“You have no intention of guiding the Black Swan?”
As he organized the perfectly memorized incantation, Wi Seong-cheon casually probed. He recalled Baek Ri-hyang’s glances from the training ground.
“No reason to.”
“You could at least offer some advice.”
“I’m guiding you because I decided to go along with the sequence. And your talent is decent. But what does the Black Swan have? She’s unrelated to the sequence, and her talent’s nothing special.”
The White Flame Witch paused, then chuckled.
“If she had talent worth my notice, Baek Ri-mu-won would’ve taught his daughter more.”
That bad, huh? Wi Seong-cheon tilted his head. Frankly, Baek Ri-hyang’s talent wasn’t so abysmal as to warrant that.
Among the later-generation disciples at the Righteous Heaven Academy or in the Black Forest, countless youths had worse talent than her.
“What you see depends on how high you stand.”
The White Flame Witch chuckled.
“If the upper dantian fully opens, you awaken Divine Sight and perceive far more, entering the Divine Realm. At that point, it’s not just a different vantage—it’s an entirely different world.”
Wi Seong-cheon had heard this from the Supreme Sword Lord too. Opening the upper dantian lets a god possess the human body, entering the Divine Realm. And opening the heavenly gate grants martial transcendence beyond gods.
“I hear you earned considerable favor from the Supreme Sword Lord and Baek Ri-mu-won. Why do you think that is? Were they charmed by your antics? No. Through Divine Sight, they saw you had already imperfectly achieved a sage body, letting them gauge your potential. And that’s not unique to you. All the disciples taken by this era’s Ten Heroes possess such ‘potential.’”
Not just because of the same sect.
It wasn’t that simple. The Supreme Sword Lord took Tae Hui-myung as disciple, and the Eccentric Heroine took Bang Jun, because they saw promising potential in them.
“But the Black Swan has nothing. The Poison Vine, whom Heaven’s Death took as disciple—less than her sister Sa-hee, but still promising talent. The Black Swan has nothing. At her age past thirty, no chance of her talent blooming now either. No expectations for her.”
Her dismissal of the talent was extreme, even cruel. But coldly considered, it was unavoidable reality.
“It’s miraculous.”
The White Flame Witch chuckled, waving her hand. One of the scattered bottles, with some sake left, floated lightly toward her.
“Baek Ri-mu-won’s daughter, yet with such pitiful talent. Makes you wonder if she’s really his. But then, he wouldn’t raise a non-daughter that much either.”
[……What’s your relationship with the Black Demon King and you, Lady White Flame Witch?]
“Evil friends. You’re not entertaining the absurd notion that I’m the Black Swan’s mother, are you?”
“Of course not.”
He hadn’t entirely dismissed it. The White Flame Witch, bringing sake to her lips, shot Wi Seong-cheon a cold glare.
“Me rolling in the sheets with Baek Ri-mu-won and bearing a child? You’d sooner believe Baek Ri-mu-won got pregnant in a man’s body and birthed the Black Swan.”
“Ahem…….”
At the blunt jab, Wi Seong-cheon cleared his throat and averted his gaze.