Chapter 27
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 27
It had been about a day since he left the Cloud Capital.
Lee Hyun was traversing the mountain range in the northwestern reaches of the Untaek Kingdom, a path he had traveled countless times over the past dozen or so years.
Using the Reclining Escape Technique, he glided swiftly down the mountainside and arrived at a broad expanse of gray bedrock. Once he crossed this stretch, the terrain would return to thick, soil-covered slopes. Normally, he would have passed over it without a second thought.
…What’s this?
A sense of wrongness pricked at him.
Activating the Enhanced Hearing Technique and the Earth-Sensing Technique, he felt the faint presences of tiny creatures hiding within the bedrock’s crevices filter into his awareness.
There are far fewer insects than usual…
Just then.
Snap!
With a flash of blue-green spirit light, tree roots erupted like vipers from the fissures beneath his feet, coiling tightly around his ankles.
Simultaneously, waves of spiritual power erupted from three directions.
From straight ahead, a flying sword radiating an eerie blue luminescence hurtled toward his throat.
Clang!
A translucent Spirit Light Shield materialized and deflected the blade.
Crack!
The impact sent a hairline fracture spiderwebbing across the shield’s center. The deflected blue sword was densely engraved with patterns the size of sesame seeds.
A magical artifact!
His divine sense locked onto the concealed auras of his three ambushers. The middle-aged man in front was at the sixth layer of Qi Refining, the gaunt man to his right was at the fifth, and the young man on the left, who had cast the Wood-Binding Technique, was at the third.
Suddenly, the sunlight vanished from above.
A black, square seal over ten feet across was plummeting toward him, poised to crush him into a paste.
“Bind him!”
“Now!”
The three Qi Refining cultivators had sealed off his escape.
From the front, the deflected flying sword curved back around for another strike. From above, the black seal crashed down. And at his feet, the tough roots of the Wood-Binding Technique held him fast.
The moment he realized they genuinely intended to kill him, wrath and killing intent flared in Lee Hyun’s heart.
Boom!
The Spherical Qi Barrier exploded from his body. The blast of displaced air shattered the roots binding his ankles, and he immediately followed up with the Square-Inch Step, his silhouette vanishing like a phantom.
Thump!
The black seal slammed down with crushing force onto the exact spot where he had stood an instant before.
“What kind of speed is—!”
Though startled, the ambushers pressed their assault without pause.
The gaunt man scattered black awls to cut off his retreat, while the young man tore two talismans, conjuring a massive curtain of flame and a wall of wind. Straight ahead, the cultivator at the sixth layer of Qi Refining shifted his hand seal, causing the blue flying sword to split into three phantom illusions that darted toward Lee Hyun’s vital acupoints.
In response, a dazzling sphere of white light bloomed over Lee Hyun’s palm. The overwhelming surge of spiritual power it radiated terrified the trio.
“Dodge!”
KBOOM!
The fireball Lee Hyun threw collided with the curtain of flame, setting off a catastrophic explosion. The wall of wind collapsed from within as the flying sword, black awls, and black seal were all swept up by the tempest and hurled away.
Flash!
The entire bedrock zone was painted in blinding white light. The shockwave battered the three cultivators like an all-consuming gale.
Crash!
The gaunt man hurriedly recalled the black seal to shield himself, but the violent impact still gouged his feet into the rock and forced him back more than ten paces. The young man, enveloped in a golden barrier, was flung into the air and slammed hard against a boulder.
Amidst the billowing smoke, Lee Hyun drew an ordinary iron sword from his waist.
Schwing—
A terrifying pulse of spiritual power surged from the iron sword, giving birth to a spiritual aura suffused with an enigmatic light.
The middle-aged man’s pupils contracted violently.
“Don’t let him get close!”
Thud.
As Lee Hyun executed the Square-Inch Step, his body, which had been shooting straight forward, veered sharply. The gaunt man desperately launched his black seal and awls to block him, but Lee Hyun slipped through the gap before the two attacks could converge.
By the time the gaunt man’s eyes widened in disbelief, Lee Hyun was already in front of the young man, who was shrouded in layers of bronze shields and talismans.
“Eek!”
Screaming, the youth layered two golden protective barriers over himself and raised a bronze shield as a final bulwark.
Lee Hyun’s sword did not hesitate.
Kbam!
The first barrier tore apart instantly, and the second one cracked. The spiritual aura coating the iron sword then converged to a single point at its tip. Rather than smashing the bronze shield head-on, the sword light of the Six Swords of the Single Ultimate skimmed past its rim in a blindingly fast arc.
Splurt!
“Aaargh!”
The young man’s left arm was severed cleanly at the shoulder, spraying blood into the air. The dismembered limb, still clutching a talisman, tumbled across the ground, punching a gaping hole in their once-solid formation.
“So-baek! You bastard…!”
Enraged, the gaunt man brought the black seal crashing down on Lee Hyun’s head while thrusting his awls forward. The middle-aged man also gathered the blue flying sword’s power, sending it slicing toward Lee Hyun’s neck.
Yet Lee Hyun didn’t even look back as he stirred his intent.
Hum! Hum! Hum!
Spurred by an unsparing surge of Primordial Unity True Qi, twelve Spirit Light Shields bloomed simultaneously. Three layers of shields materialized before the flying sword, three before the awls, and three before the seal, while the remaining shields revolved rapidly around Lee Hyun to cover any openings. The three magical artifacts battered the Spirit Light Shields in succession, yet not a single one shattered.
That’s a Spirit Light Shield?
Paeng Ja-ryang felt as if he were seeing a ghost. Defensive spells conjured from compressed spiritual power were inherently weaker than physical magical artifacts. Yet the shields before him effortlessly absorbed the impact of mid-grade magical artifacts. The sheer durability of the Spirit Light Shields manifested by this rogue cultivator was utterly inconceivable.
Before his shock could fade, an iron spike shot out from Lee Hyun’s sleeve. It was the Spirit-Breaking Spike he had received from Wang So long ago.
Launched with the Finger-Flicking Divine Ability and imbued with a massive amount of spiritual power, the Spirit-Breaking Spike slammed directly into Paeng Ja-ryang’s defensive enchanted robe.
Crack!
The spike pierced the robe’s restrictions and dug deep into his shoulder. Overwhelmed by the Primordial Unity True Qi coursing through it, the spike fractured.
Snap!
The Spirit-Breaking Spike shattered, its fragments embedding themselves deep inside his shoulder.
How could a piece of trash worse than a low-grade magical artifact pierce my enchanted robe?!
As he stumbled back, struggling to steady himself, Lee Hyun closed the distance in a single breath.
No…
Thwack.
A flash of sword light pierced the space between Paeng Ja-ryang’s brows. Unable to utter a sound, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed.
“Senior Martial Brother Paeng!” Han So-baek screamed, clutching his spurting shoulder.
The battle had turned in an instant. In just a few breaths, one of them had lost an arm, and another was now a corpse.
Wi Mun-do’s face turned ashen.
Is this man truly a rogue cultivator at the third layer of Qi Refining?
Without hesitation, he bit the tip of his tongue and spat a mouthful of scarlet blood essence onto his blue flying sword.
Sizzle—
Stained crimson, the flying sword emitted an ominous divine light and swelled dramatically in size.
Swoosh!
Tearing through the air with a sonic shriek, the sword flew straight for Lee Hyun’s chest, its sharp sword qi shredding the surrounding bedrock.
Yet Lee Hyun remained composed.
Hum! Hum!
At his thought, layers upon layers of Spirit Light Shields filled the air. The blood-red flying sword pierced through three of them.
Crack! Craaack!
But behind them, the shields were endless. Each time the sword broke through one, a fresh Spirit Light Shield instantly rose to take its place.
Clatter.
Finally exhausted of its power, the flying sword dropped lifelessly to the stone.
“This can’t be…” Wi Mun-do coughed up a mouthful of blood, unable to finish his sentence. Seeing his mid-grade magical artifact—one he had poured his own blood essence into—blocked by mere Spirit Light Shields felt like a complete denial of his life’s cultivation.
Crash!
Lee Hyun thrust his palm out. A massive wave from the Spherical Qi Barrier slammed into Wi Mun-do and Han So-baek, sending them tumbling across the ground with agonized cries.
Realizing there was no chance of victory, Wi Mun-do slapped his storage pouch and summoned a blue flying boat.
Whir—
He attempted to launch the boat into the sky, but Lee Hyun had already drawn his Earth-Shoveling Sword and vaulted into the air.
Slash! Crunch!
The sword light of the Cheonggang Sword Formula plunged down, smashing the flank of the flying boat to splinters. Spinning wildly as if screaming, the vessel plummeted toward the earth.
Boom!
Thrown from the boat, Wi Mun-do crashed onto his knees. Before he could even steady himself, four beams from Lee Hyun’s Yang Metal Formula accurately punctured the acupoints in his four limbs.
Thud! Th-th-thud!
“Urgh!”
All strength drained from his arms and legs, and Wi Mun-do collapsed.
In the sudden quiet of the mountains, only the faint rustle of rock dust trickling down the slope could be heard.
Lee Hyun looked down at the three fallen men. The gaunt one was dead. The middle-aged man lay vomiting blood, his limbs sealed. The young man trembled in terror, clutching the stump of his left arm.
Coming to his senses through his dread, the young man began to kowtow desperately, striking his forehead against the stone.
“We were wrong! Please, spare our lives!”
Lee Hyun regarded him in silence.
“We’re just pitiful rogue cultivators! We have no sect or lineage, just wanderers trying to cultivate. That fellow daoist over there has a wife and children, and I have an elderly mother back home! We will never speak a word of what happened today!”
“Take our storage pouches, our magical artifacts—take everything! We don’t need any of it. Please…” The youth’s voice trembled pitifully.
“Before that, I have a question. Why did you ambush me?”
“I-It was because of the pill recipe. We thought you obtained the pill recipe for the Barrier-Breaking Pill from the Bureau of Heavenly Service… Greed got the better of us.”
“How did you know about that?”
“We knew you’d been hoarding merit points for a long time, and we saw you frequenting the Earthfire Cave for over a month after leaving the Retainer Pavilion. That was all, truly!”
The recipe for the Barrier-Breaking Pill was indeed something Qi Refining rogue cultivators would covet.
Now that the battle was over, the killing intent that had boiled within him was slowly subsiding. If they truly were rogue cultivators with no backing, he could consider stripping them of their belongings and banishing them. By the time he emerged from his tunnels, they would likely have grown old and died. The grudges of a few Qi Refining cultivators were nothing to fear; the world was far too vast for them to ever find him again.
Just as Lee Hyun was pondering this and preparing to speak—
A blue pattern on the dead man’s clothing caught his eye.
Hm?
The gaunt man’s long robe had been torn by the explosion, revealing a pattern embroidered on the lining.
A blue cloud.
Lee Hyun’s gaze froze.
That is…
He had seen it somewhere before. Searching his memory, a scene from hundreds of years ago surfaced in his mind. Back when he lived as a woodcutter in Baekmok Village in the western Great Yeon Kingdom, long before he had ever stepped onto the Immortal Path, he had witnessed an immortal vessel flying through the sky. A blue cloud was painted on its white sail, and the villagers had vied with one another to bow, calling them the immortal teachers of the Cheongun Sect.
The Cheongun Sect?
After verifying the emblem once more, Lee Hyun looked at the young man and asked nonchalantly, “You said you were rogue cultivators?”
“Yes! The three of us have traveled together for a very long time.”
Lee Hyun nodded slightly. “Strange. Your spells seemed rather familiar, so I thought you were disciples of the Cheongun Sect. Long ago, I received great help from a cultivator of that sect. If you were their disciples, I was considering sparing you out of that karmic bond. But if not, there’s hardly any reason to do so.”
The young man’s eyes widened. “Wait! We are disciples of the Cheongun Sect!”
“So-baek!” the middle-aged man roared, coughing up blood. “You fool…!” He tried to force his battered body up, only to collapse again. “What nonsense are you spouting?! How dare you impersonate cultivators of the Cheongun Sect! We are rogue cultivators!”
“Ah…”
The face of the youth called So-baek blanched white. Only then did he realize what he had done. The middle-aged man squeezed his eyes shut. It was too late.
Lee Hyun fell into a prolonged silence.
Had they truly been rogue cultivators, he might have chosen differently. Taking a life was an awful feeling, one he preferred to avoid if possible.
But disciples of a major sect changed the equation entirely.
He knew next to nothing about the Cheongun Sect. Yet it was a sect that generously equipped even Qi Refining disciples with fine magical artifacts and talismans. Centuries ago, they had sent emissaries to the remote Baekmok Village in the Great Yeon Kingdom to recruit disciples, and now their disciples were active here in the Untaek Kingdom. At the very least, it was a power far beyond what he could handle.
And he, a mere rogue cultivator at the third layer of Qi Refining, had just killed one of their disciples and grievously injured two others.
If he let the remaining two leave alive?
Major cultivation sects placed immense importance on face. Even if the survivors harbored no desire for vengeance, the Cheongun Sect would never let the matter slide. Since things had come to this, the two before him had to die. Only with zero witnesses was there any chance he could survive.
“F-Fellow Daoist…” the young man stammered, his voice trembling.
“It can’t be helped. You brought this upon yourselves.”
“What?”
Thud.
A small puncture appeared between the youth’s eyebrows. The light slowly faded from his wide, staring eyes.
Thump.
Finally, Lee Hyun looked at the middle-aged man. He seemed to know that whatever he said would be futile. Keeping his mouth shut, the man simply closed his eyes.
“Kill me.”
Thump. The man’s body went limp.
Lee Hyun let out a short exhale.
I need to clean up the traces immediately.
He cast several detection spells to survey the area. No presence of mortals or other cultivators was detected.
Using the Soil-Turning Spell and the Earth-Shoveling Sword’s Soil-Softening Technique, he began covering the evidence of the battle. He softened several cracked sections of the bedrock and collapsed them, burying the scorch marks from the Fireball Technique, the scars from the flying sword, the footprints, and most of the bloodstains beneath an avalanche of rubble. Before long, the area looked less like a cultivator battleground and more like the aftermath of a minor rockslide.
Lee Hyun stripped everything from the corpses—including their storage pouches and identity tokens—and gathered the scattered magical artifacts into one place. After temporarily stashing the bodies beneath a boulder, he used the Earth Escape Technique to submerge himself underground. Expanding his senses with the Earth-Sensing Technique, he probed the surrounding strata and detected numerous natural fissures and small cavities winding deep within the bedrock.
He chose three deep fissures that were unconnected to any subterranean waterways.
Returning to the surface, Lee Hyun dragged the corpses down one by one, shoving them deep into separate fissures before collapsing the entrances.
Rumble—
He didn’t believe this would completely erase all traces, but it was the absolute best he could do with his current abilities.
Now, it was time to sort through the loot.
Lee Hyun found a natural cavern well away from the battlefield and slipped inside. Spreading a cloth on the floor, he emptied the three men’s storage pouches.
First, he set aside the three External Retainer Tokens from the Bureau of Heavenly Service.
Next came three white jade tokens. Engraved on the front of each was a blue cloud, while the backs bore their respective names:
Wi Mun-do.
Paeng Ja-ryang.
Han So-baek.
“As expected…”
They were undoubtedly identity tokens of the Cheongun Sect. He pushed them to one side.
Next were the magical artifacts. Wi Mun-do’s blue flying sword and half-destroyed flying boat. Paeng Ja-ryang’s black square seal and three awls. Han So-baek’s bronze shield. Additionally, there were a few artifacts they hadn’t used in the battle: a black dagger and several slender, needle-like artifacts.
Lee Hyun picked up the blue flying sword and examined it.
“This is… made of wood.”
During the clash, he had assumed it was forged from metal due to its heavy impact. Looking closely now, he saw the entire blade was carved from spirit wood. Minute spiritual patterns forming restrictions seamlessly blanketed its surface. It was the finest magical artifact he had ever laid eyes on.
It’s a pity, but…
Lee Hyun cast aside any lingering attachment.
He had no way of knowing what restrictions were placed on that sword. Did it transmit its location to the sect upon its owner’s death? Could someone in the sect sense the sword’s resonance with a specific hand seal? Had an undetectable tracking mark been placed on it? There was no way to know.
Nor was there any guarantee the other artifacts were safe.
Throw away all the magical artifacts.
No matter how precious they were, nothing was worth more than his life.
Items of unclear identity or function—such as two gray marbles, a black bronze medallion, and the enchanted robes bearing the Cheongun Sect’s emblem—were likewise cast into the dangerous pile.
Conversely, items that were commonly available and impossible to trace could be kept.
First were the low-grade spirit stones.
“One, two…”
After placing down the final spirit stone a good while later, the corners of Lee Hyun’s mouth curled up.
“Three hundred and ninety.”
Combined with the twelve he already possessed, that made four hundred and two.
I won’t have to worry about spirit stones for quite a while.
Next were the talismans.
The three men had possessed dozens of unused talismans. Among them was one yellow talisman that stood out, its spiritual qi thicker and its patterns more intricate than the rest.
He reasoned that any talismans they had in multiples were likely common, general-use items, so he took them all. Conversely, he tossed any unique, single talismans or those that looked unusually distinct into the dangerous pile without hesitation.
He kept all the bottles containing pills. Some had names labeled on them while others were unidentifiable, but since they were meant to be consumed, he doubted they would contain any tracking mechanisms.
Finally, he inspected the storage pouches. Between the three of them, there were five in total.
After emptying them completely, he inspected each one with his Qi-Observation Technique. They were ordinary, commonplace storage pouches, bearing no sect emblems or marks on the exterior or interior. As far as Lee Hyun’s current knowledge could tell, there were no anomalies.
He decided to keep the empty storage pouches. Combined with the two he already owned, he now had seven.
Several books and documents were uncovered as well: a demonic beast compendium, a book on the Basic Talisman-Making Technique, guides on executing several spells, and cultivation records left behind by the three men.
There were also multiple jade slips, but these made him uneasy.
Reading a jade slip required sending one’s divine sense inside, and the divine sense of a third-layer Qi Refining cultivator was too weak to counter any mental trap that might be laid within.
Throw these away too.
The paper books, however, could be perused safely, so he kept them.
Among them, a map made Lee Hyun pause.
Rustle.
The vast territory of the Earth Kingdom and its surrounding regions unfolded before him. The borders of mortal kingdoms, major cities, prominent mountain ranges, and rivers were all outlined in rough detail.
And to the north of the map…
At the northeastern edge of the Great Yeon Kingdom, three words were written in blue characters:
Cheongun Sect.
Around thirty-six thousand li from here, is it? Not close, but still unsettling…
That night, Lee Hyun buried the items he’d deemed hazardous across several locations, scattered over dozens of li.
He refused to group them together. The blue flying sword, the black seal, the half-wrecked flying boat, the Cheongun Sect identity tokens, the Bureau of Heavenly Service retainer tokens, the enchanted robes, the mysterious jade slips, and the unusual talismans—he disposed of them all separately. Some were shoved deep into bedrock that he softened with the Soil-Softening Technique, before he collapsed the surrounding rock over them.
Even after disposing of the last item, he did not immediately return to the surface.
Using the Earth Escape Technique, he traveled underground for a long time to put a wide distance between himself and the burial sites before resurfacing in the mountains. Even then, whenever the terrain looked disadvantageous or he sensed any sign of a presence, he would change direction or slip back into the subterranean depths.
Severing his tracks as thoroughly as possible, he made his way toward Tunnel No. 1.
A day later.
Tunnel No. 1.
Rustle, rustle—
Lee Hyun’s head emerged from the soil.
“Phew…”
Just as his tension began to ease, a familiar buzzing sound reached his ears.
Bzzzz—
A few Fluffy Bees flew over from the direction of the spirit field. Spotting Lee Hyun, the little creatures buzzed straight toward his head as if delighted to see him.
Splat.
One of them landed on his shoulder and promptly dropped a turd. Blocked by his Spherical Qi Barrier, the tiny white pellet slid down the transparent surface and landed on the ground.
Plop.
Normally, he would have chided it for defecating on him yet again, but Lee Hyun didn’t even spare it a glance.
He stood motionless in the center of the cultivation chamber for a long time.
I’ve done almost everything I could, but…
The unease lingering in a corner of his heart refused to dissipate.
What if they have methods I don’t know about?
The spells he knew were merely a fraction of what existed in the Cultivation World. It wouldn’t be strange in the least if there were secret arts that could track a culprit using nothing more than a corpse or a trace of blood.
Worse still was another detail gnawing at his mind.
Yesterday’s ambush was no coincidence.
The three had known the route he frequently traveled. They had positioned themselves on the bedrock in advance, choosing a vantage point where escape would be difficult, and waited for him.
They didn’t just spot me once or twice.
They might have been watching him for days—or perhaps even far longer.
Which meant traces might very well remain at the Bureau of Heavenly Service as well.
Three cultivators from the Cheongun Sect had suddenly vanished in the Untaek Kingdom. To make matters worse, all three were External Retainers of the Bureau of Heavenly Service. Surely someone around them remembered their last known whereabouts.
If an investigation took place, the name of a retainer who had left the Cloud Capital at the exact same time—Lee Dong-il—could easily surface.
If they dug a little deeper, the fact that he had consistently taken his leave and traveled in the exact same direction for over a decade might also come to light.
Once that happened, even if they didn’t know the precise location of Tunnel No. 1, their search area would narrow drastically.
Tunnel No. 1, which had felt so familiar and safe until recently, suddenly looked completely different.
Lee Hyun closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.
There was no reason to hesitate any longer.
“Time to move.”