Chapter 149
Chapter 149
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 149
Chapter Title: For What (3)
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Damcheong's shout echoed like a scream.
“Seoran!”
The falling Seoran crashed into the sea surface.
And sank amid the spray.
Her life was not in great danger, but she was in no condition to fight.
Neither Damcheong nor the One-Eyed Dragon emerged unscathed.
After days of continuous battle, everyone was battered and exhausted.
But the victor and loser were clear.
Damcheong's Dragon Pearl had already reached its limit.
In contrast, the One-Eyed Dragon still had some strength left.
A suffocating sense of helplessness gripped Damcheong.
After the Food Mountain Great Peng withdrew from the fight, Seoran and Damcheong had unleashed their trained combination techniques like rain.
Each time, the One-Eyed Dragon countered with minimal damage.
Once their prepared tactics ran out, it devolved into a slugfest.
The increasingly fierce clash entered its final phase.
The battle had essentially turned into a one-on-one duel between Seoran and the One-Eyed Dragon.
Damcheong could no longer keep up with them.
As time passed, Seoran grew faster, stronger, and sharper.
Her rate of improvement far exceeded the One-Eyed Dragon's predictions.
It was an utterly irrational sight.
The One-Eyed Dragon focused all his attention on Seoran.
Such an incomprehensible element had to be eliminated.
That was the reason Damcheong had managed to hold out this long.
Defeat was now imminent.
Seoran had already fallen, and Damcheong wouldn't last much longer.
Alone, he could never defeat the One-Eyed Dragon.
Damcheong sensed his own end.
So he gathered his remaining strength one last time.
Even if he died, he intended to land at least one blow.
But something was off about the One-Eyed Dragon's state.
He stared only at Seoran sinking into the depths, as if Damcheong didn't exist.
Suddenly, the One-Eyed Dragon's gaze turned to Damcheong.
And he spoke.
“Young dragon, leave this place.”
Damcheong, doubting his own ears, asked back.
“Leave?”
“Yes, I'll let you go. I've achieved my goal.”
“Your goal? You're saying it wasn't my Dragon Pearl you were after?”
The One-Eyed Dragon didn't bother answering.
He merely looked down at Seoran again.
But that alone conveyed everything.
Damcheong couldn't comprehend it.
The One-Eyed Dragon possessed three Dragon Pearls.
A dragon typically had only one.
It was unlikely he had received them as gifts; the other two must have been taken by killing other dragons.
So Damcheong had thought the One-Eyed Dragon's words about waiting meant him specifically.
He assumed it was to obtain a fourth Dragon Pearl, survive the Heavenly Tribulation, and forcibly ascend.
That they had been waiting at the world's center for that purpose.
But to just let him go?
Was the Dragon Pearl not the goal?
Then what on earth was the reason?
In that moment, a flash of insight struck Damcheong's mind.
Incarnation Cultivators reborn as spirit beasts through the Transformation Ritual.
Dragons and humans sharing cultivation realms from the Supreme Star Realm onward.
Seoran's exceptionally vast soul essence and her forbidden trait.
Damcheong's gaze turned to the One-Eyed Dragon.
The One-Eyed Dragon who killed dragons and collected their Dragon Pearls.
The One-Eyed Dragon utterly uninterested in Damcheong.
The One-Eyed Dragon fixated solely on Seoran.
Memories reflected in Damcheong's azure dragon eyes.
The astonishing talent to unconsciously subjugate a Dragon Pearl.
The once-in-a-millennium chance to become a dragon if she wished.
The girl who had forsaken even immortality to become a noble being.
Damcheong's thoughts raced to a conclusion in an instant.
It was less inference and more like prophecy, built on leaps atop leaps.
But it was not wrong.
The One-Eyed Dragon intended to use some method to convert Seoran's forbidden trait and soul essence into a Dragon Pearl.
That was the horrific fate awaiting her.
Yet one puzzle remained unsolved.
Damcheong shouted.
“Then why let me go unharmed?! Me, the one you fought tooth and nail against until moments ago!”
“A reason?”
“Yes! The reason you're abandoning a Dragon Pearl within your grasp! Why bother sparing my life?!”
The One-Eyed Dragon pondered briefly before replying.
“Hmm, who knows.”
Damcheong was speechless.
He couldn't discern the truth of the One-Eyed Dragon's words.
The dragon eyes' power to distinguish truth from lies apparently didn't work on fellow dragons.
What on earth was the reason?
The whim of a sated predator?
Deception to strike his back as he fled?
Or indifference toward a weakling not even worth threatening?
Damcheong's dilemma deepened.
Noticing it, the One-Eyed Dragon continued.
“You look distrustful. Ah, worried I'll pursue you? Then ascend right now.”
“What?”
“The Ascension Gate opens every few months and stays for only a few days. It will close soon, so leave. Then you won't need to fear my chase.”
With that, the One-Eyed Dragon indifferently turned away.
He seemed intent on approaching the fallen Seoran.
Not a hint of hesitation.
A world at the break of dawn.
To the right, the Dragon Ascent leading to the Immortal Realm.
To the left, the One-Eyed Dragon slowly receding.
Damcheong suddenly felt profound loneliness.
As if left alone in a vast world.
The young dragon's azure eyes gazed at the heavens.
The horizon filling his vision bisected the world.
In the violet sky, the Ascension Gate was visible.
And in the pitch-black sea lay his dying friend.
A world divided between sky and earth, the reason for ascension.
What an ironic coincidence, he thought.
It was the persistent obsession that had tormented the young dragon since the moment he lost his Dragon Pearl.
Why had he desired ascension?
Was it simply the fate of being born a dragon?
Or the manifestation of a desire even he himself was unaware of?
When he lost his Dragon Pearl.
When he reclaimed it.
When he finally completed it.
An answer he had kept postponing.
He had tried to ignore it, but the question dogged him relentlessly.
And now, between his friend's death and the closing Ascension Gate, it finally caught him.
The heavens were asking the young dragon.
What had he stood here for?
A question posed only now, after endless flight with nowhere left to run.
For what.
The young dragon who had just escaped the cave back then could not have answered.
But now, he didn't even need to think.
The young dragon's Dragon Pearl throbbed.
Sensing the surge of spiritual power, the One-Eyed Dragon turned.
“Pointless struggling, young dragon.”
Damcheong grinned ferociously and said.
“My name is not 'young dragon.'”
The One-Eyed Dragon sensed something ominous.
The power's fluctuations grew increasingly violent.
The five-colored star screamed repeatedly.
Cracks began forming in the overloaded Dragon Pearl.
The One-Eyed Dragon realized Damcheong's intent.
“You mean to abandon ascension and crawl the earth forever?!”
A response came.
“I, Damcheong, have never lived so pathetically as to abandon a friend and save my own skin.”
Immediately after, Damcheong's Dragon Pearl exploded.
Shards of the shattered star rained into the sea.
Where Seoran had sunk.
The Ascension Gate slammed shut with a deafening roar.
The inverted Dragon Ascent plunged from sky to sea.
The One-Eyed Dragon's face filled with shock.
The Little Peng plummeted toward the sea surface, stripped of its wind.
And Seoran opened her eyes.
*****
There existed spells in the world that detonated one's latent power.
Methods that sacrificed lifespan, cultivation realm, or something else to gain immense power for a brief moment.
What Damcheong had done was similar.
The five-colored star possessed by Supreme Star Realm cultivators—the spirit core—was the source of infinite primordial spiritual power.
Damcheong had pulled all the power he could have enjoyed over future eons into this single instant.
Even disregarding the enormous loss rate, the sheer volume overwhelmed the One-Eyed Dragon.
Amid the influx of spiritual power, Seoran's consciousness surfaced.
Until the moment she was shot down, Seoran had desperately sought a way to fell the One-Eyed Dragon.
And now, the means she had so earnestly desired was in her grasp.
Seoran swiftly assessed the situation.
She needed a vessel to contain the spiritual power.
But she couldn't hold it for long.
Even if it was the same primordial spiritual power, it belonged to another.
Seoran began creating a spell on the spot.
All the spells she had ever learned disassembled.
Their fragmented components recombined into one in a flash.
Spells, no matter how simple, were not meant to be invented so haphazardly.
It was like charging toward a cliff with eyes closed.
Yet Seoran wrought a miracle through instinct alone.
Damcheong, bereft of wings, collided with the sea surface.
And the earth rose.
A head towering higher than clouds, a body clad in rock like armor—it was unmistakably the form of a god.
The colossal god born of the earth charged at the One-Eyed Dragon.
Maintaining the rapidly crumbling giant form left almost no room for further spells.
But that was no great issue.
There would be no second chance anyway.
The colossal god's roar shook heaven and earth, and with it, a massive spell activated.
Countless harpoons surged from the seabed toward the One-Eyed Dragon in the sky.
An attack too vast to evade.
The One-Eyed Dragon reflexively wrapped his body in five-colored mist and barriers, but he couldn't react with his usual agility.
Because it was a spell he had never seen before.
Because the prolonged battle had exhausted his body and mind to the limit.
And because he had witnessed a dragon shattering its own Dragon Pearl—a sight beyond imagination.
Those factors delayed his response by the merest instant.
The colossal god's spell exploited that fleeting gap.
That decided Seoran and the One-Eyed Dragon's fates.
Countless harpoons pierced the barriers, the five-colored mist, and the One-Eyed Dragon's scales.
The moment they struck true, the chains linking the harpoon shafts to the earth reeled in.
The hooks dragged the One-Eyed Dragon from the clouds to the ground.
The colossal god had no spiritual power left for spells.
But it didn't matter.
In the end, one relied on the most familiar tool.
Instead of futile thrashing, the One-Eyed Dragon gathered spiritual power to prepare for close combat.
The best response in this situation.
Finally, the colossal god closed in.
The secret martial art that converted the user's full body weight into destructive force—Giant Dismemberment Technique—unleashed.
The colossal god's right arm moved.
What felt agonizingly slow near the shoulder accelerated exponentially toward the extremity.
By the fingertips, it left no afterimage.
The screaming air.
The forearm glowing white-hot from friction.
The target: the right arm clutching the Dragon Pearl.
The colossal god's spear-thrust fist achieved its mark.
Dragon scales and flesh sprayed blood as they severed.
The right arm holding the Dragon Pearl flew into the sky.
The One-Eyed Dragon knew instinctively.
From the moment the harpoons hit, he was already defeated.
An inescapable death approached.
Strangely, he even felt relief.
He felt no despair at losing his life.
That wasn't the way the One-Eyed Dragon lived.
He was a monster driven solely by instinct.
Born a sea demon and living through strife.
When he met a worthy foe and lost his legion and right eye.
Even when he faced Heavenly Tribulation, failed to ascend, and plummeted.
The One-Eyed Dragon had never once despaired.
If he couldn't advance, he simply died and sank.
Now, marching toward death, it was no different.
The One-Eyed Dragon roared savagely.
As he had when first opening his eyes in that perilous ancient sea.
Two monsters straight out of creation myths charged at each other ferociously.
In a flash, hundreds, thousands of exchanges flew.
And as the falling One-Eyed Dragon's right arm touched the sea, the fight ended.
The colossal god's left hand cleaved the One-Eyed Dragon's neck.
The One-Eyed Dragon's severed head soared into the sky.
Then it was swept into the inverted Dragon Ascent.
At its end waited the entrance to the underworld, opening in place of the Ascension Gate.
The underworld's pull seized the One-Eyed Dragon's head.
What remained was an endless fall of unknown duration.
A truly ironic end, deferred for two thousand years.
The deeper he fell, the narrower the sky above grew.
In his fading consciousness, the One-Eyed Dragon wondered.
His final question.
Why had he so desperately craved ascension?
Come to think of it, he had never pondered it.
He had simply charged ahead blindly, on instinct alone.
There wasn't enough time left to find the answer.
That day, the hegemony of the One-Eyed Dragon, who had rampaged across a world, drew to a close.