Chapter 143: Angnyangnyang
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 143: Angnyangnyang
“Geeeek…”
Streeeetch.
My short, stumpy body elongated.
“Hehe. This can’t be helped.”
“Kiooong!”
Under the pretext of examining me, Tang Soyeong and the spiders began to fiddle with my body.
It was obvious she was just satisfying her own desires, but I decided to endure it for now.
After all this was over, I could just pop that dumpling head of hers into my mouth.
“…Why do I feel like something damp and dark is about to happen? Is it just me?”
“Gek gek.”
It’s too late, Tang Whatchamacallit.
Still, I might forgive you depending on how you do, so give it your best shot.
Tang Soyeong examined me with a serious expression.
She slowly caressed my scales, then brought her hand to my belly.
“Gek!”
Chomp.
“Kyaak! That hurts!”
You who covet my precious parts, endure the ordeal of my bite.
Tang Soyeong managed to withstand my nibbling.
Of course, she did whimper that it hurt.
“…I’ve found the cause!”
I stopped my munching.
As expected of the genius of the Tang family, Tang Soyeong.
I believed in your potential.
“It’s a side effect of pushing your internal energy to its absolute limit!”
The dropout of the Tang family, Tang Whatchamacallit, looked down at me with a triumphant expression.
Nyam nyam.
“Kyaaak!”
I knew that, Baek Yeon-yeong knew that, and even Swish-Swish knew that.
“…But that’s not all! I’ve also found the solution!”
As expected of Tang Soyeong.
I never doubted you for a moment.
I waited quietly for her to speak.
A little waiting was fine.
After all, our Tang Soyeong was a precious talent who knew how to restore my body.
“The solution is… to eat well and rest well.”
“Gek.”
Om nom nom.
“Kyaaak! It’s true, I swear it’s true!”
To offer something like that as a solution.
Waaaang.
“Kyaaaaak! It hurts! I-I’m bleeding!”
This Divine Beast is disappointed in the Sichuan Tang Clan.
No wonder you people go around stealing things like the Beggars' Sect’s Sky-Filling Flower Rain.
“My heart… hurts more than my finger, I think?”
And I don’t like this Internal Energy Pouch either.
“This is, all things considered…! Huh? What was I trying to explain?”
Tang Soyeong muttered nonsense to herself.
Perhaps I should be more concerned with fixing her head than my body.
“What’s with that look? I’m like this because of you, Hero Go!”
“Gek gek.”
Smack.
“Ngh! Wh-why did you hit my butt!”
“Kioooo!”
“And why are you so angry! Kyaaak!”
*
The Heavenly Dragon Fortress, one of the buildings of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, was unusually noisy.
“For the sky to be stained with darkness. What in the world is happening!”
A sudden darkness had fallen.
It was a strange phenomenon that even the battle-hardened elders had never experienced before.
If the moon had covered the sun, they could have understood it.
They wouldn’t know the exact cause, but it wasn’t as if such a thing had never happened before.
But this time was different.
Something like a black fog had obscured the sun.
Worse, the fog was studded with bizarre, red eyes.
Faced with this unprecedented situation, every person holding the rank of elder had gathered at the Heavenly Dragon Fortress.
“Calm yourselves. It disappeared quickly enough, did it not?”
“Even if it was a temporary phenomenon, shouldn’t we dispatch an investigation team immediately?”
“The Cult Leader has sealed entry to the 100,000 Great Mountains. What do you propose we do?”
“The situation is different now!”
A commotion, both large and small, erupted.
The elders were all renowned martial artists.
Their overwhelming martial prowess could represent their respective clans.
They were the deterrent that kept the Murim Alliance from carelessly encroaching on the 100,000 Great Mountains.
With such warriors gathered in one place, a clash of opinions was inevitable.
The Priestess of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, Baek Seol-hwa, frowned.
It wasn’t because the elders were causing a ruckus in her presence.
It was because of Baek Yeon-yeong, who was looking down at them with an expression of amusement.
“That is enough. The Cult Leader is waiting.”
Unable to watch any longer, Baek Seol-hwa restrained them.
“The Cult Leader? Wh-what!”
Why wouldn’t the elders of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult know that their leader was present?
The answer was simple.
Baek Yeon-yeong had always been like this.
When the firebird had rampaged, when the eight-headed snake had chewed up a mountain…
Whenever a serious incident occurred and the elders gathered for a meeting, she had never once shown herself.
The meetings of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult had devolved into a format where the elders exchanged opinions and later reported to the Cult Leader directly.
It was a distorted structure, but no one dared to complain.
Because the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult was Baek Yeon-yeong.
While the elders were making a fuss and devising countermeasures, Baek Yeon-yeong would set out alone.
She was the one who had beaten the firebird into submission and pulled the mountain from the snake’s stomach.
The results of the elders' meetings were usually rendered useless.
By the time they went to report to her, the entire incident would already be resolved.
This wasn’t to say the elders were slow or incompetent.
It was simply that Baek Yeon-yeong was too strong and too fast.
That was why they had assumed she wouldn’t attend this time either.
The elders were merely preparing to discuss the black energy amongst themselves and report to Baek Yeon-yeong.
But Baek Yeon-yeong had been waiting for them from the very beginning.
Moreover, she had intentionally concealed her presence, so it wasn’t strange that the elders hadn’t noticed her.
“To the Supreme One of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult…!”
“Enough.”
Baek Yeon-yeong dismissed the elders, who were about to pay their respects, with a single word.
“Paying respects once a day is sufficient.”
Baek Yeon-yeong, who had been watching from the second floor, descended to the first.
An unprecedented event occurred.
Baek Yeon-yeong spoke to the elders about the incident.
Although she suffered from her unique, chronic inability to explain things properly, the elders had known her for a long time.
Any elder who couldn't understand her words would cease to be an elder, so they had learned to comprehend her quite well.
The power that had forcibly summoned Baek Yeon-yeong, the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
The master of that power was Heo Seong, Tai Sui.
An evil god who sought to spread his malevolence by dominating spirit beasts.
They learned that he had arrived.
“Tai Sui…”
The elders murmured Tai Sui’s name.
As a group that revered the Heavenly Demon, they were bound to know of Tai Sui’s existence.
“Cult Leader. Then, for now, to deal with Tai Sui…”
“It is fine. I have already dealt with him, so you need not worry for a while.”
She had dealt with Tai Sui.
Seeing as the sky had brightened, her words were likely true.
And yet, she had attended the meeting.
That meant there was another reason.
“However, this incident has given those Murim Alliance bastards a justification.”
An unexplainable event had occurred in the 100,000 Great Mountains.
“‘The evil Demonic Cult is plotting something,’ is what they will say.”
They wouldn’t care what the truth was.
All they needed was a justification.
“‘The righteous Murim Alliance gathers in one place to thwart the schemes of the evil Demonic Cult.’”
Their goal was the 100,000 Great Mountains.
To be precise, they were after the spirit beasts within the 100,000 Great Mountains.
It was a fact she had tried to hide as much as possible, but it was information that was bound to spread eventually.
Knowing this, Baek Yeon-yeong hadn’t massacred everyone who had entered the 100,000 Great Mountains.
From the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’s perspective, they also needed powerful masters to covet the mountains.
“I may be exaggerating slightly, but they will try to encroach on our 100,000 Great Mountains by any means necessary.”
She did not want the Murim Alliance to move as one.
If they joined forces, it would be troublesome even for Baek Yeon-yeong.
But there was no way they would join forces.
Their goal wasn’t to vanquish the evil Demonic Cult, but to obtain precious inner cores.
It was obvious they would try to shift responsibility onto one another while scheming to take the largest share of the profits for themselves.
“I have one thing to say to you.”
But there was no harm in being cautious.
“Each elder is to prepare for an invasion from the Murim Alliance.”
The elders’ hearts began to beat faster.
Baek Yeon-yeong was different from the cult leaders of the past.
She had risen to the position of Cult Leader from nothing, and unlike other leaders, she had never aimed to advance into the Central Plains.
Her job was to manage the 100,000 Great Mountains, and her conviction was to ensure her followers never went hungry.
She focused on internal affairs rather than war.
The elders had held some dissatisfaction with her actions, but they too were followers of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult who served the Heavenly Demon.
Since her actions were in line with the cult’s doctrine, they followed her will without complaint, despite their reservations.
And now, that same Baek Yeon-yeong was ordering them to prepare for an invasion.
At a glance, it might seem like a natural thing to say.
However, the elders interpreted it differently.
Preparing for an invasion was the same as being ready to advance into the Central Plains at any moment.
She had finally made her decision.
The elders realized why Baek Yeon-yeong had attended this meeting.
This, too, was a justification.
If the Murim Alliance truly attacked first, it was no different from a declaration that she would immediately march into the Central Plains.
Of course, the elders didn’t rule out the possibility that they were jumping to conclusions.
Perhaps she was just saying, without much thought, that an enemy was coming, so they should prepare to defend.
“And the most important thing remains.”
Gulp.
The elders swallowed hard.
The Cult Leader’s true intention would be revealed with her next words.
A preemptive strike amidst the chaos.
Using deception to lure the Murim Alliance into a trap.
Any method would be fine.
At a single command from their leader, they were prepared to lay down their lives to forge a path to the Central Plains.
She just had to say the word.
She just had to show a sliver of her will to invade the Murim Alliance.
But Baek Yeon-yeong’s next words were not what the elders had expected.
“Does anyone know what kind of food a Seokcheok likes?”
Baek Yeon-yeong, who had worn a dignified expression, was now smiling faintly.
She was gazing at her own ring finger.
A small, circular mark bloomed red.
Looking at the mark, which resembled a ring, she murmured to herself.
“He’s gotten so thin, I feel like I have to feed him something.”
The meeting was over, but the elders could not easily leave their seats.
It was because they found the Cult Leader’s words difficult to understand.
There had to be some hidden meaning they were missing.
Surely, she hadn’t actually summoned them just because she was curious about a lizard’s favorite food.
Keeping a pet lizard was plausible.
After all, various spirit beasts lived within the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
But for a lizard’s food to take precedence over the remnants of Tai Sui or the invasion of the Murim Alliance…
Giving her a hundred concessions, considering the Cult Leader’s prestige and power, she might think of those two matters as trivial.
But then, that would naturally mean the reason for attending the meeting was to ask about the lizard’s food.
That couldn’t be right.
The Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, Baek Yeon-yeong, would never do such a thing.
“Seokcheok…”
The elders of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult endlessly muttered the word.
Trying to interpret the words their leader had left behind.
Believing that there must be another meaning.
