Chapter 62
Chapter 62
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 62
Chapter Title: Heart-Pounding Great Adventure (3)
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Severance Realm cultivators are hard to kill.
From the start, their defining trait is transcendent vitality.
That's why, across the entire human world, creatures capable of killing a Severance Realm cultivator were exceedingly rare.
If one had to name suspects, they would be dragons, high-rank cultivators, or great yokai.
And in Detective Seoran's mind, it was definitely a great yokai that killed this cultivator.
Why would a dragon or high-rank cultivator take the lower half of the corpse they killed somewhere?
To snack on it later when they got hungry?
Clearly, a great yokai had swallowed it down along with the golden core.
Seoran knew all about great yokai.
She had memorized every type of great yokai that had appeared in the world since ancient times, their levels of danger, and how to deal with them.
Not because she wanted to, but because the Black Bamboo Sect leadership had ordered it.
It carried the deep implication that wandering around clueless would get you killed with a "You don't know? Then die."
Seoran rummaged through her mental great yokai database.
Ones living in the deep sea: excluded.
Ones in scorching deserts: excluded.
Ones in high mountains: excluded.
One in the jungle that bisected Severance Realm cultivators: matched perfectly.
There was a record that fit the given information exactly.
It was a great yokai that looked like a golden stag beetle.
She couldn't recall the name, but it was said to have jaws like scissors that could cut through anything.
It had incredibly fast flight speed and a strong territorial instinct.
Getting caught here would mean a rough end.
Seoran imagined her waist being cleanly severed by that stag beetle great yokai's jaws.
"Heek!"
Seoran freaked out and started running.
Then she stopped and returned to the skeleton.
Using her earth divine power, the ground split open on its own, burying the bones, and a small gravestone rose up.
Having finished the grave, Seoran immediately fled.
The flight of a Severance Realm cultivator in peril was indeed swift.
Seoran darted between trees like a bullet.
And some gaze was fixed on Seoran.
A shabby appearance with long, skinny limbs.
Everything else was emaciated, but only the belly was bloated to the bursting point—an unbalanced form.
Sunken eyes burning only with appetite and teeth sharp enough to make one's legs buckle gleamed in the tree shadows.
A ghost trapped in the netherworld, paying for sins from its past life—the gaze's owner was a hungry ghost.
The hungry ghost began pursuing its marked prey.
It was a charge that pulverized every massive tree blocking its path.
The jungle grew chaotic in an instant.
Seoran, running ahead, also heard the approaching noise.
Naturally curious, she glanced back.
A bizarre yokai was chasing her, foaming at the mouth.
It looked like a monkey that had lost all its fur to disease.
Seoran, unaware of what a hungry ghost was, pondered briefly.
What the heck is that?
Some kind of monkey yokai relative she'd seen before?
Did it lose its fur to illness and bloat up with pus?
Seoran ignored it and kept running.
The hungry ghost lunging at its prey also sensed something off.
No matter how it chased, the distance wasn't closing.
It had never experienced such bafflement, not in the netherworld nor since climbing to the human world.
Every prey it had encountered so far had died.
Unable to shake off the predator closing in instantly, they all ended up in the hungry ghost's gut.
The hungry ghost was the symbol of death on four legs—once encountered, escape was impossible.
This was blatantly irrational.
How many lives had it devoured so far?
It had lived for hundreds of years in the depths of the great jungle.
The victims it had consumed were beyond counting.
The Severance Realm cultivator Seoran had seen was also eaten by the hungry ghost.
In the great jungle depths eroded by the netherworld, even Primordial Infant cultivators couldn't fly.
It was due to the irresistible pull of the netherworld.
This was prime hunting ground for the flightless hungry ghost.
From the hungry ghost's perspective, this was an unprecedented sense of helplessness.
Driven mad by eternal agonizing hunger and rage at the uncatchable prey, the hungry ghost lost its mind.
The hungry ghost spat out enormous hatred.
"Kieeeek—!"
A terrifying roar that shook the great jungle.
The hungry ghost's claws lengthened, and its eyes turned blood-red.
Viscous yin energy, as if from hell itself, dripped from its maw.
The distance between them closed in an instant.
At that moment, Seoran spun around.
She hadn't stopped running.
With acrobatic skill, she ran backward while raising her index finger to point at the hungry ghost.
Seoran's golden core whirled fiercely.
Originally, she'd planned to spare it out of pity.
But yelling like that was a problem.
Who would take responsibility if the great yokai heard and came?
Spiritual power gathered in the air, condensing into bead form.
It was a trick Damcheong had shown her before.
In an instant, dozens of yellow spheres launched.
The hungry ghost saw the incoming attack and sneered at its foe.
Thinking you can oppose me? How foolish.
If you'd focused solely on fleeing, you might've had a slim chance.
I'll devour your golden core deliciously.
The hungry ghost planned to tank the attack with its body and bite the slowed prey.
A bold scheme trusting in its own toughness.
But things in the world don't always go as planned.
The hungry ghost met an end strikingly similar to all of Seoran's past adversaries.
The spiritual power beads collided with the terrain or the hungry ghost's body and exploded spectacularly.
In unbelievable power, the hungry ghost vaporized without knowing what hit it.
One of the four fiends of the great jungle depths had just died.
Of course, the killer had no way of knowing.
Seoran immediately turned and sprinted full speed.
She was on pins and needles, fearing she might run into the great yokai.
Twenty days later, Seoran finally encountered civilization.
*****
Faint traces of human presence at last.
Seoran, using concealment arts, entered the city.
For a city near a great jungle swarming with monkey yokai, it was surprisingly prosperous.
Seoran headed straight into a dim alley.
She erected a concealment barrier and fell into deep sleep.
Seoran slept a full day and woke.
She went to a nearby stream for a bath first.
Polished clean, Seoran infiltrated the city administration office.
She checked the military map first.
The map roughly depicted the entire continent.
West: safe sea, elsewhere: dangerous sea.
A vast great jungle dominated the continent's center.
The place she'd been teleported to wasn't the Western Continent.
This was Mou Nation, a human kingdom in the central-western East Continent.
No wonder the language and script felt slightly off.
Seoran trudged out of the office.
Returning to the Western Continent across the sea would require enduring an arduous journey.
Unable to cross dangerous seas, she had to stick solely to safe routes.
It meant a grand expedition passing through the world's center midway.
Seoran squatted by the roadside, clutching her head.
"Ugh, ugh..."
Seoran groaned, imagining her grueling future.
Then a delicious smell teased her nose.
Seoran looked up at the source.
It was chicken skewers glazed with sweet sauce and grilled.
Seoran smacked her lips and stood.
It wasn't childlike distraction by snacks.
Purely academic curiosity about East Continent cuisine.
Seoran ordered the chicken skewers as if entranced.
"Three spicy ones, please."
Her speech had naturally shifted to casual amid the sizzle.
"Yes, right away!"
The vendor immediately handed over the skewers.
Normally, payment came first.
But Seoran looked like a rich girl at a glance.
Just selling that hairpin would buy a field plot.
Seoran ate the skewers deliciously.
The taste was about the same as Western or East Continent fare.
Still, nice as a snack after a month.
Finishing her meal, Seoran asked.
"How much?"
Hearing the vendor's reply, she rummaged in her sleeve.
Naturally, nothing was there.
Seoran's money pouch was across the sea in the Western Continent.
Seoran froze like stone, sweat pouring like rain.
Any onlooker would peg her as broke.
The seasoned vendor grasped the situation.
Rich folks don't carry their own purses anyway.
The vendor said.
"I'll hold it for you, so call your servant."
Naturally, Seoran's servant was also in the Western Continent.
"Uh, uh..."
As Seoran hemmed and hawed, the vendor spoke again.
"Or just tell me your family name. I'll visit later to collect."
After agonizing, Seoran pulled out and offered her hairpin.
Overkill for three skewers.
The vendor naturally freaked.
"No way, I can't take it! If your family finds out later, it'll be a disaster! They'll say I scammed a young lady and beat me to death!"
"I'm not from a scholarly clan!"
Seoran was born a tenant farmer's daughter.
Of course, the vendor didn't buy it for a second.
He was convinced she was lying to sneak snacks without her elders knowing.
"Who'd believe that!"
The surroundings grew rowdy in an instant.
A girl offering a hairpin, a middle-aged man refusing: rare spectacle.
Then a man approached the stall.
"What's going on?"
The vendor quickly explained.
"I see, got it."
The man nodded and paid instead.
Then he took the girl and left.
The vendor convinced himself the man was a rich young master's servant.
Once far from the market, the man asked.
"Senior, you seemed in a bind, so I presumptuously stepped in. Please forgive me generously."
Confirming he was a cultivator via spirit eye arts, Seoran thanked him.
"No need, I'm grateful."
The man hurriedly waved it off.
"Please speak casually. I'm only about a hundred years old."
Seoran realized the man was misunderstanding.
But revealing her true age of twenty-four was fraught with issues.
A Severance Realm cultivator at just twenty-four was utterly abnormal.
Whether he believed it or not, Seoran would be in trouble.
So she went with the flow.
"Fine, if it suits you, speak that way."
Visibly relieved, the man said.
"Isn't acting deferentially before elders the way of man? Please don't mind."
Seoran, feeling oddly guilty, added an explanation.
"True, my age this year is two hundred forty-two."
A tenfold exaggerated fake age.
It was the first meeting between the Foundation Establishment cultivator, Dan Wonpyo.