Chapter 86
Chapter 86
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 86
Chapter Title: Settlement
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile.
Seon Woo-hyun was gauging whether these people blocking his path were truly minions of Mijinhyang, while retracing the chain of events that had led him here.
Could there ever have been a day in his life as chaotic as this?
Ever since the Solar Divine Meridian began showing its side effects.
Seon Woo-hyun's life had been utterly consumed by one thing: how to control it.
He couldn't rely much on his clan.
Just one person.
His infamous wandering uncle had roamed the world with him, searching for a solution.
There was no helping it.
The clan had its own duties.
No matter that Seon Woo-hyun himself was the young master.
He should be grateful they'd even assigned him a peak expert like his uncle.
With that in mind, Seon Woo-hyun had always hurried across the world.
But a day as overwhelming as this was a first.
'I figured I'd gather some info at the Dengwang Pavilion.'
Then, hearing rumors of the Sword Immortal, he'd gone to Gansu Province and brushed past that person.
And that person turned out to be a strikingly pretty girl who even made Seon Woo-hyun jump.
She'd come looking for him right away, and it turned out she'd met his uncle too.
That girl lived with the very Blue Sound Jade Maiden he'd been seeking.
But then she went off to handle something at the Nangong family, only to return and test him with poison without a word.
And when she finally brought him before the Blue Sound Jade Maiden, she claimed it was syphilis medicine.
Up to that point, fine, whatever.
He'd at least met the Blue Sound Jade Maiden, his original goal.
He could graciously overlook it and be welcoming.
The poison was a bit much, sure.
But considering she tended to syphilis patients, he could chalk it up to some kind of initiation rite or qualification test.
But then she suddenly said she was taking the altar girl role at the Mid-Autumn Festival event.
And the reason wasn't some woman's vanity, but to thwart Mijinhyang's plot.
And that half-believed claim seemed to be true after all.
'Mijinhyang's Dream People. Poison arts, incantations, even curse techniques.'
It matched everything he'd heard about Mijinhyang.
For a moment, Seon Woo-hyun felt like he'd stepped into one of the world's heroic tales.
Could all this happen in a single day?
But it had.
A reality he couldn't turn away from.
True to the lesson learned writhing in agony the day his body first burned, Seon Woo-hyun simply accepted the reality before him.
He gripped the weapon slung on his back.
The cloth wrapping it fell away naturally, revealing its form.
A spear.
A polearm not permitted in ordinary society.
A weapon symbolic of the Seonwoo's identity.
In the Seonwoo Clan, even Seon Woo-hoon—who wielded the sword and saber most common in the jianghu—was considered unorthodox.
A light swing of the spear stirred the wind.
No qi infused, no shockwave, yet the whoosh carried real weight.
The spear's own heft, combined with Seon Woo-hyun's physical prowess.
Even without internal energy, his skill already surpassed a first-rate expert.
"I prefer to avoid fights if possible."
Snap.
As Seon Woo-hyun gripped the spear with both hands, scorching hot yang qi rose from his body like a heat haze.
Fierce burning pain raced through him.
Yet not even his eyelids trembled—was it endurance honed to the extreme, or simply adaptation from familiarity?
Without time for introductions with Mijinhyang's followers, Seon Woo-hyun thrust out his spear.
Red Lotus Sun Wheel Spear, First Form.
Flying Wheel Soar.
Like a divine steed pulling the sun chariot, the spear drove back the night and spread dawn's light.
And the body of the Mijinhyang cultist in its path crumpled to the ground.
No blood flowed.
Instead, a foul burnt stench spread from the corpse.
The spear's passage had cauterized the wound, staunching the bleed.
"But once it starts, I make it end as quickly as possible."
With those words, his spear blazed anew.
First move, victory.
Seon Woo-hyun stayed true to his clan's motto.
§
Baekha looked down at his severed lapel.
The oesek powder pouch he'd kept inside was sliced open too, his robes covered in dust.
Baekha's expression was emotionless.
A stark contrast to the pity he'd shown the commoners moments ago, or the radiant smile toward Wi Sowol.
Not a shred of feeling in that stony blankness.
"I thought you'd understand."
His voice, too, was devoid of the earlier exaltation—dry and flat.
"A pity. You possess the qualities to devote yourself to the Lifeless Mother, yet you're bound by the world's false teachings."
Wi Sowol shot back with a scoff.
"Understand what?"
"The yin qi filling your body. Profound medical knowledge. Even a beauty blessed by the Lifeless Mother. With the right mindset, you could ascend to Dream Master."
The highest rank under Mijinhyang's Fragrance Lord was Dream Master.
Baekha himself was still just a candidate.
But Wi Sowol's talents could easily claim that seat.
Perhaps even the next Fragrance Lord's position.
Unfortunately.
Wi Sowol had rejected that path.
"No helping it, then."
But Baekha didn't give up.
"I'll show you by force. The mission you must embrace."
To save them from this false, corrupt world and lead to the true vacuum paradise—that was Mijinhyang's calling.
With resolve to guide Wi Sowol right, Baekha chanted his incantation.
Heart-Mind-Form-Spirit Flawless Purity—a mantra to delude the mind and induce hallucinations.
"Awaken if unsteady, world deludes itself. I wish clear wisdom. Svaha."
Wi Sowol witnessed the mantra's qi shift, the twisting intent.
The Insight Scripture visualized this new world for her.
Like overlaying a thin crystal egg over her eyes alone.
The faint qi membrane over Wi Sowol's eyes revealed what should have been invisible.
'So that's how it works.'
She read the essence from the qi and intent's flow.
How the mantra warped intent, how Baekha's qi interfered with heaven and earth's energy—she etched it all in her eyes.
'Open the upper dantian to link her intent with external ones. Specially refined internal energy deceives heaven and earth's qi, temporarily twisting natural flow artificially. Close to a formation.'
Using the mantra as formation pivot, bolstering the unstable axis with internal energy to activate the ritual.
Both sorcery and formations bent phenomena by harnessing nature's qi.
Fundamentally the same structure.
Unlike formations, mantra sorcery was temporary.
Thus, like a formation, this could be broken.
'No need for life-death vision. Just avoid the qi bound by that intent.'
Wi Sowol moved as the Insight Scripture showed.
Her motions exquisitely precise.
Her current internal energy was a mere handful compared to her original.
Utmost efficiency.
Not a speck of waste allowed.
The moment Green Shadow Step shone.
An assassin's tread hides presence with subtlety.
Thus, it minimizes even qi use.
Wi Sowol's form melted into the moonlight shadow.
Star Lodge Divine Traces filled the gaps in Green Shadow Step's elusive steps.
And the instant she evaded the mantra.
Reciting Changya White Blade's incantation, she became the altar girl, laying a white path over the night's darkness.
If internal energy lacked, supplement with external qi.
Changya White Blade's core qi circulation was perfect for sparse internal energy.
In trade, it demanded brutally complex energy control—but to Wi Sowol, it was as natural as breathing.
Like the moon god traversing the night sky, illuminating the world.
Wi Sowol's body absorbed light, erasing darkness along her path.
'That first sword strike was a shame.'
An unfamiliar blade.
Instead of her usual sword, Wi Sowol wore a decorative one fitting the altar girl role.
Ornately adorned beyond recognition as a sword, blade shortened and thinned for ceremony over utility.
If that first strike had gone deeper, it would've split not just Baekha's lapel, but his chest.
Baekha clearly watched Wi Sowol sidestep the mantra's bound intent with precise intervals, then lunge.
Facing the blade aimed at his throat, Baekha extended both hands without fear.
"Did you think one sword strike meant I lack martial arts?"
Baekha's hands fluidly deflected under Wi Sowol's wrist.
Mijinhyang's advanced art, Illusion Haze Hand.
The skill bringing out its subtleties was profoundly refined.
Substantial internal energy gathered in his palms.
A peak expert.
Like Wi Sowol, controlling qi to the limit to hide it, or masked by Mijinhyang's mind arts.
Baekha's internal energy uncoiled, enveloping his hands.
Counterstroke unfolded.
Step forward to close distance, palm thrusting at Wi Sowol's raised lower body.
The motion seamless, inescapable in one breath.
Yet Baekha's hand cleaved empty air.
A palm striking nothing.
Air burst with a drum-like boom.
"...Huh?"
Baekha's lips parted in stunned surprise.
He realized how Wi Sowol had dodged his unavoidable strike.
From a step away, Wi Sowol's voice came.
"Like this?"
Wi Sowol lightly swung her sword like a baton, just as she once had with Hwangbo Yoon.
Heaven and earth's qi responded to her motion.
Exactly what Baekha had done.
Mixing her intent with external ones to alter natural flow.
"Not bad. But it won't work as a proper technique."
Impossible under normal conditions.
A technique enabled only by this unique circumstance.
Thus, Wi Sowol decided to make it an extra form of Moon Flower Spirit Sword.
'Peering Moon Heaven-Stirring.'
Peering at the moon to paint the heavens.
A form extending her intent outward to wield external qi.
If Baekha sought to hijack minds with that method.
Wi Sowol's was more direct.
"...How. No, of course. You have the qualifications to stand by the Lifeless Mother. But too late. The poison is already set."
Baekha smiled serenely.
"The match is decided."
"I see."
Wi Sowol didn't deny it.
It wasn't wrong.
Just.
"Off with you."
At her words, Baekha sensed his perception slightly warped.
"Wha...?"
A tilted world.
And he fell.
Thud.
Baekha's white hair fluttered up in the belated wind, like swirling snowflakes.
Under that early snow, moonlit robes fluttered alongside.
Wi Sowol's external qi control was simple.
Intent shaped into blades.
Hence, Peering Moon Heaven-Stirring.
"Tang" meant painting color, but also sweeping away to annihilate.
"This one's pretty good."
Wi Sowol reviewed the technique without glancing at Baekha's corpse.
And realized its tremendous utility.
'Using formless qi, I could operate like multiple people alone.'
In tight spaces too narrow for hands, wield needles with formless qi to minimize patient burden.
During skin grafts, treat the site by hand while flaying donor skin with formless qi to shorten procedure time.
With mastery, even operate on two, or several, simultaneously.
Infinite applications danced through Wi Sowol's mind.
"In return for the good lesson, I'll tell you one thing."
After sorting her thoughts.
Wi Sowol looked down at the corpse with magnanimity.
"I'm already poisoned."
To poison her, he'd need at least ultra-concentrated toxin refined and condensed by a peak expert's full effort.