Chapter 58
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The moment he reached the core room, Dohyun collapsed and could not hold himself up any longer.
Grrrrr...
Ever since the Convergence Totem had been created, a jade-colored life had taken root in the flowing spiritual energy.
That light settled over the dragon’s body.
Dohyun shut away his senses and sank into sleep completely.
Days passed. Many days.
Even as sleep dragged him under, he never felt hunger. The goblins in the storage room even made meat dumplings and fed them to Dohyun themselves, doing everything they could to ensure he rested in peace.
He had no idea how much time had gone by.
When he finally lifted his heavy lids and opened his eyes, the core room was quiet.
The core alone glowed with white light and jade light.
Blinking away the last traces of sleep, he tried to take a step.
“Mmm...”
A low sound slipped from Dohyun’s mouth.
His body had grown longer.
He could feel the flow of blood and qi within him had changed as well. His basic sense for spiritual energy had clearly sharpened.
His body felt heavier, more massive than before.
“So that’s how it is.”
The total amount of blood and qi inside him had increased. Blood and qi meant the evolution of life.
He had gone deeper still into the realm of a demon beast.
At a rough estimate, his body length alone must now have reached nearly three meters—larger than a human.
“Dragon, you’re awake?”
“Yeah.”
“You really did sleep in like crazy.”
“...Nothing went wrong?”
“Oh! You can talk just fine now.”
“...Did you think I couldn’t?”
“Hey, dragon. Of course you should be able to. Honestly, it was more fun that you slept this long.”
Ignoring the crow’s smug grin, Dohyun asked, “How much time has passed?”
While his body had grown by nearly a meter, quite a bit of time must have passed. He had never imagined he would sleep like this.
Am I some kind of reptile?
It was a bit of a reckless thought, but this was a world where dragons were living creatures too.
“Ten days and nights passed.”
So, ten days.
Dohyun looked at the time that had slipped by more easily than he expected, then got to his feet and moved out of the core room.
Just near the entrance, he saw the goblin leader standing watch.
Recovered, then.
The blood-soaked body he had seen before was back to normal.
And beyond that—
“Geoung! Geoung wants more to eat.”
He heard a familiar voice.
In front of the dungeon’s storage room, the familiar sight of someone throwing a tantrum at the storage goblins because he wanted more food.
The forest area on the dungeon’s first floor looked noticeably larger than before.
“They worked hard while I was asleep.”
He thought the ones left behind had properly followed his orders.
After watching the legion members who had taken part in the battle recover, he noticed one was missing and asked Heok-o, “What about Gyetoo?”
“Heh! He safely returned to the Gyeyosu.”
“I see.”
He’d had a place to go back to.
And yet Dohyun had made him stay. I should have judged the situation more accurately.
The world was always full of unexpected variables. That monstrous centipede called Yin had been one of them.
“Dragon, but aren’t you going to check the loot?”
“Has it not been sorted yet?”
“The demon beasts were waiting for you. Since you were sleeping, they were dying of curiosity.”
Listening to Heok-o’s shameless answer, Dohyun headed toward the place where the spoils were stored.
It was a clearing not far inside the dungeon entrance, the same open area used for drilling troops.
There, along with the huge centipede’s head, the rest of the body lay crumpled and twisted.
Because it was so large and so tough, they still hadn’t finished processing it.
That one.
The truly valuable-looking part—its head—had been left untouched by everyone.
Even in death, the monster’s body carried an oppressive presence.
The answer to what it was came quickly.
“The inner core...”
Or, as it was sometimes called, a yodan. An organ carried by great demon beasts.
“Whistling~ Even with only its head left, that’s no ordinary thing, is it?”
At Heok-o’s words, Dohyun nodded and raised a claw.
Wung—
The claw felt cleaner now when he drew in spiritual energy than it had before.
I’ve gotten stronger.
The spiritual blade extending from his claw had grown to more than a meter.
Now he could strike beyond the range he could previously reach.
He lifted the claw and attempted a vertical cut through the center of the head.
Grrrrooooo...!
“So it’s still not easy, huh.”
The hardness was beyond ordinary.
He cut into it again and again until the head finally began to split apart. Then he ordered the others to hurry and separate the flesh, hide, tendons, and shell from the rest of the body and the various parts around the head.
It took three days.
They split the skull head-on, tore through the flesh, scraped out what was hidden inside, and in the end, the black yodan was revealed.
“...Dangerous.”
The black yodan carried a strange magic that stirred an immediate urge to swallow it whole.
“Dragon, if you eat that, you’re finished.”
“...I know.”
Beyond the temptation, reason spoke clearly.
This energy needed to be neutralized.
I need the knowledge of a cultivator...
He had no medicinal knowledge beyond what he had taken from the cultivators he killed before. Unfortunately, most of it was martial knowledge.
What he had on herbs amounted to little more than descriptions of their effects.
Purifying a yodan belonged to alchemy, a field far beyond simple herbal medicine.
If I adapt the refinement techniques from the martial arts side...
“Lucky break, dragon.”
“Hm?”
Heok-o’s voice cut through his thoughts.
“If the fruit from the White Spirit Life Tree ripens fully next year, it’ll purify that thing.”
“Ah. That.”
It felt like a long time ago, though only a few months had passed.
It was the spiritual fruit that a wild boar demon beast had eaten—the one that held life force and purification power.
It could cleanse poison and even purify on its own. Though it was only a first-rank item, even cultivators in higher realms sought it out.
That was the information he remembered from the journal of the cultivator he had killed.
“I see. And...”
Dohyun’s attention shifted to another object that had come out with the core.
This isn’t something a centipede should have.
Inside the centipede’s head was an object made of red metal.
Blood Seal.
The moment he interpreted the lines visible to the dragon’s eyes, he understood.
This is used to handle formations.
It was equipment that required a great deal of knowledge, exquisite craftsmanship, and instruction—something impossible to make without all three.
Humans...
When he thought of formations and humans together, an image surfaced in his mind: the monkey with the vacant eyes.
For some reason, it was hard to shake the feeling that that being was involved.
I can’t take this lightly.
Even something this small was like gambling your life on a roll of the dice.
This time, he had clearly understood the difference between a great demon beast and an ordinary demon beast.
He had nearly forgotten it for a moment because success and calm had gone on for so long.
He would have to carve this hard-won warning into instinct itself so he would never forget it again.
“Hm?”
Heok-o, who had been watching, suddenly turned his head toward the outside of the dungeon in puzzlement.
The trees and the wind...
They stirred ever so slightly.
...It was different from before.
“Dragon, the lord of the forest is calling you.”
Dohyun raised his head and looked outward with jade-colored eyes.
He couldn’t see the wind’s flow, but he could see the swaying branches.
And there was a sensation, as if someone were looking at him and calling him over.
While he was immersed in that sense, Heok-o called him back.
“Dragon.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s go.”
“Right.”
After answering, Dohyun started walking forward without any special preparation.
For some reason, it felt like he could do that. Of course, the dungeon’s residents seemed to think otherwise.
“Geoung!”
Step—!
Two legion members tried to follow him, but Dohyun refused them.
“Wait here.”
Then he stepped out beyond the dungeon.
He could feel it clearly.
The forest’s call was unmistakable now.
As his realm as a demon beast grew higher, he was finally beginning to understand the forest’s gaze.
This forest... is connected to Gwiyeongmabok itself.
With Heok-o walking beside him, the path unfolded strangely at every step, as though space itself were folding. Before long, it led them swiftly to the place where the forest council had once been held.
It felt like walking through folded space.
At the same time, another presence came to mind.
Gwiwolrang...
He was certain the wolf had deliberately brought him here slowly.
The forest path made several days pass in the blink of an eye. As they went deeper, the spiritual energy grew thicker, heavier, more profound.
It’s still stronger than the dungeon’s spiritual energy.
As he analyzed the feeling, he kept walking.
At the end of the path, the forest opened, and a clearing beneath the sky came into view.
It was the place where the forest council had gathered.
After a long time, he saw the giant ancient tree there once more.
And then he noticed something he had not before.
The blackened, rotten, warped outer surface of the tree here and there looked oddly familiar.
Then realization struck him as he looked at those traces.
The lord of this forest knew.
Maybe that centipede great demon beast had been acquainted with the forest’s ruler.
Then a wary gaze brushed against him.
A squirrel demon beast cautiously lifted its head and stared at Dohyun, full of caution.
There was even a demon beast that looked like a young bird perched among the branches.
All of them were young, small demon beasts.
So this is what they meant by the forest’s lord. Offerings?
But that did not seem right; they were gathered there like a nest among the roots of the tree.
While he was lost in thought, the air slowly began to grow heavy.
The lord of the forest had returned.
One side of the tree twisted, and two eyes made of red light began to rise from between the branches.
Just meeting those eyes was enough to send a chill down the spine.
Simply by being there—
the surroundings
held their breath.
It was a great demon beast like the centipede.
But...
It was on a different level entirely.
As he thought that, the air turned cold and rang with a deep, heavy sound.
“...You overdid it.”
Dohyun paused briefly.
...That was strange.
It was clearly an overwhelming presence.
And yet—
Somewhere inside that voice, reason was shouting.
There was no oppression in those words.
“...”
He tried for a moment to understand what he was sensing, but could not.
Dohyun had been about to calculate his response, but remembering that he stood before Gwiyeongmabok, he spoke instead.
“I would like a reward.”
In the end, he had dealt with a great demon beast.
He deserved sufficient compensation.
“It is not good to make a habit of neglecting your own body.”
For a moment, the red light looked at Dohyun.
“Still...”
The forest trembled ever so slightly.
Very slowly.
“You did it.”
Why...
Why did Gwiyeongmabok’s eerie voice somehow not grate on him?