The World Turns Red
The world was turning red.
What on earth was happening?
I hadn't even checked the chat. The moment I laid eyes on that man, goosebumps erupted across my skin and my whole body started to tremble.
It was like staring at a huge dog I'd run into as a kid.
No — I'd never actually experienced it, but this was probably how it would feel to have a tiger or a lion standing right in front of you. Just looking at him made my breath catch in my throat, every hair on my body standing on end.
Come to think of it, that face looked familiar. Where had I seen him before?
Foundation Establishment? Wasn't that the stage I was trying to level up to?
Then that meant this guy had already leveled up?
A single rank of difference caused this much of a gap?
This is so confusing.
The sudden crisis left me with no idea where to go. I just headed for the only place I knew — the cave where I'd been training.
The problem was the speed of the pursuit behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the distance shrinking by the second.
How was he that fast? He didn't even have a flying artifact — how was he flying?
Even my masters couldn't seem to find a solution. There was a limit to how long I could keep running like this.
Time, cruelly, kept ticking by, and before I knew it a familiar landscape came into view. The place I'd been training. With nowhere left to flee, I descended to the ground.
There wasn't even time to catch my breath.
A heavy thud shook the earth. A rumble followed, rolling through the ground, and before I knew it the man who'd been chasing me was glaring this way.
I'd been backed into a dead end!
But the man seemed to have forgotten he'd even been chasing me. He looked around, letting out a sound of admiration.
"Heh heh. For a mere Qi Refining cultivator, you've settled yourself in quite the fine spiritual land."
His way of speaking was weirdly similar to my masters'.
Then the man's expression snapped, and a vicious grin spread across his face.
"Kyahaha! You dogshit NPC bitch! This time, I'm the one who's gonna tear you apart!"
A voice dripping with murderous intent. A familiar line. Words that dragged a memory up from the depths.
Could it be Baek Shin-hoo?
But why had his face changed so much?
My masters seemed just as confused.
A ghost cultivator. From what they were saying, a ghost that became a cultivator? That kind of thing was possible over there?
More importantly, just standing face-to-face with him was enough to tell me I had absolutely no chance of winning.
Meanwhile, Baek Shin-hoo — as if he'd forgotten why he'd even chased me here — wandered around like he was strolling through his own front yard.
"The eastern plot you've staked out is a fine site as well. You know how to read spiritual veins, do you?"
He swept a glance through the cave, then spotted the spiritual herb garden beside it. Greed glittered in Baek Shin-hoo's eyes.
"Kyahahaha! What kind of fortune is this? To think such an opportunity would be sitting in a backwater like this!"
As if bewitched, the man approached the herb garden.
"Phantom Void Grass, True Void Flowers, even Nine-Revolution Melting Peach Blossoms! Counting them is almost pointless!"
While my masters were still trying to get their bearings, Baek Shin-hoo, who'd been absorbed in the herb garden, slowly started approaching again.
Ugh.
I couldn't help but tense up. Just a moment ago he'd made his hostility crystal clear. He'd said he was going to tear me apart.
But that vicious expression had vanished without a trace. Baek Shin-hoo looked my way with a satisfied smile.
"So you're the cultivator who had a connection with this body's original owner."
Judging by the way he talked... a different person? Had someone else taken over now?
Should I be on guard?
Then my masters' chats all came in at once.
What? Is that how things work in their world?
That's six to zero. No need to even think about it — he's going to stab me in the back?
"Don't be alarmed."
"…"
"From time to time the original owner's lingering obsession bursts out and causes trouble, but I've nearly suppressed it."
"Then leave!"
"I won't claim I have no greed. I simply don't enjoy conflict."
"I merely wish to cultivate in a land of clear waters and live in peace."
"And?"
The man smiled brightly and held out his hand.
"I haven't been in this place long. Hand over what you have, and I'll withdraw without doing a thing."
I didn't need my masters' warnings to know this one! Did he think I was an idiot? This is in movies too! If you just sit there and listen to the villain like a pushover, you only die however they feel like killing you!
"It's mine! I'm not giving it to you!"
Baek Shin-hoo's face went ice-cold.
"Is that so? A pity. I offered mercy, and you wouldn't take it."
The man moved both hands in a blur, forming a mudra.
Hhk!
There was no time to think. I formed a mudra on instinct.
The technique I was preparing was the Frost Condensation Scripture too. No — even if she hadn't told me, I somehow knew that was the one I had to use.
In that instant, something erupted from the man's fingertips—
I couldn't see anything.
They'd said it was wind-attribute, so... wind? The one thing I knew for sure was that standing still would get me killed.
I'd learned this while studying techniques from my masters — if you try to understand things with common sense, you'll get hit by something you never saw coming.
Please!
I hurriedly completed the technique and drew up my spiritual power.
The empty air froze solid. A glittering ice wall rose up like a mirror.
It worked!
Then the invisible attack slammed into the ice wall.
A thunderous boom. Ice shrieked and split. A sharp snap, then a long, grinding crack as the wall began to give.
The trees around us were sheared through as if a blade had passed through them. The grass was ripped from the earth as though a typhoon had torn across it. Even massive boulders were sliced clean in two. It looked as if the man were carrying a storm with him.
The ice shield I'd raised in front of me was barely holding the attack at bay, but... it felt like it was just barely hanging on.
Meanwhile, Baek Shin-hoo's face went slack with shock.
"The Frost Condensation Scripture? It can't be—"
A dagger with a red thread attached moved through the empty air of its own accord.
Unease flickered across Baek Shin-hoo's face.
If she's really Binghu's disciple, I can't kill her.
Binghu was infamous for not killing her enemies — she tortured them across ten thousand kalpas.
No, more than that! Then does that mean the Reversal Blood Sword and the Red Cloud Silk are real?!
There was no time to collect his thoughts. With the sound of ice fracturing, cracks began to spider across the surface of the ice wall.
A shattering crash.
The instant the ice mirror exploded into pieces, the fragments of the broken wall became a blizzard and were sucked into the storm. The ice storm, now even more powerful, slammed into Baek Shin-hoo.
"KRAAAAGH!"
Ice shards and a killing wind froze Baek Shin-hoo's eyes and shredded his body—
"This is insane! It's real?!"
Baek Shin-hoo scrambled backward in a panic. His vision blocked, his body sluggish from the extreme cold, he was wound tight with tension. He swept his blinded gaze around, on high alert.
Then Hyeolha Nojo's chat came in.
The other masters were against it. I'd never experienced it myself, but a flicker of fear still ran through me.
"Can I draw the demonic sword?"
"You're sure? It's really okay?"
"I swear it upon the Great Dao."
Huh? A Great Dao Oath?
That means he's not lying, right? That's on the same level as swearing on your mother's life!
So it really is okay?
There was no other way out anyway, so I drew the Reversal Blood Sword then and there.
Huh...
All of a sudden my vision was going red.
I think I could hear someone's voice? What's happening? Hyeolha Nojo said it was fine...
I couldn't even tell what they were saying in the chat anymore.
The chat went still.
The chat window went still once more. No one could answer Hyeolha Nojo's question.
