Chapter 94
Translator: penny
Chapter: 94
Chapter Title: Fortuitous Encounters Come with Dangers (5)
Sometimes, while reading cultivation novels, I'd come across it.
Scenes where the protagonist snags a fortuitous encounter too grand for him to handle, pulling the aggro of cultivators vastly stronger than himself—getting chased with near-obsessive fixation.
And now, here I was, living it.
How many times had I cycled through Exploding Thunderclaps and Cloud Escape Arts?
With my spirit power drained dry and no sign of Gong Ga-jin or Gyeol Ja-yeon catching up, I dove into a nearby mountain to hide.
'Did Gong Ga-jin kill Gyeol Ja-yeon? Or are they teaming up? With the Sun Moon Star Great Harmony Scripture in my hands, they won't just let it slide. They'll want to break through to the Soul Transformation Realm no matter what, and they see that scripture as their ticket.'
They wouldn't let me go, no way.
A little tremor ran through me at the thought as I opened Gong Ga-jin's storage pouch.
'Plenty of sword manuals. Stockpiled for the Ten Sword Enlightenment, huh?'
From Foundation Establishment-grade to Nascent Soul-grade, the sword manuals were incredibly varied, numbering around fifty.
Thirty at Foundation Establishment, seventeen at Core Formation, three at Nascent Soul—but true to a 1,200-year-old monster, he'd hoarded an insane amount.
Amid the sword manuals, I spotted a jade slip. A quick divine sense scan revealed it detailed the Ten Sword Enlightenment.
'This is by Ping Yu-ran.'
I'm no sword cultivator, so sword arts or sword techniques... well, it'd be nice to learn them, but obsessing over incompatible divine abilities isn't wise.
On top of that, I found recovery pills, ones that temporarily explode one's cultivation base, stealth talismans, talismans imbued with divine abilities, and more in the pouch.
'Judging by the setup, this pouch is loaded for battle.'
I checked the next storage pouch.
This wasn't because I had time to spare.
A cultivator's divine sense is an incredibly useful sense.
You can skim a book and grasp its entire contents, detect hidden weapons on an enemy, or scan a patient's body in perfect, intricate detail surpassing any precision medical device.
And the higher your realm, the more versatile it becomes—one such technique is imprinting your divine sense into objects.
It's a lesser version of what Elder Tuho left as a lingering soul in the Eighty Thousand Canon Pagoda, but engrave your divine sense into an item, and you can track it from anywhere.
'...There it is.'
In another pouch, I detected Gong Ga-jin's divine sense on three particularly valuable items.
One was a mirror-shaped dharma treasure.
Another was some unidentified stone.
The last was the Sun Moon Star Great Harmony Scripture.
'...'
I pondered the three items for a moment.
'Taking the scripture will give me away via divine sense anyway. Send the other two elsewhere to throw them off? Nah, if they realize two signals aren't moving, they'll pinpoint me fast.'
If I had the Dharma Wheel, I could've sealed them in its Sumeru space to block the signals—but it wasn't with me.
'...No. If using the other two as decoys still gets me caught, better to grab all three.'
You've got to know when to get greedy.
Hoping the others escaped safely, I had to secure my life and gains.
'First, get as far away as possible.'
Part of me wanted to bolt straight to High Heaven Sect, but Gong Ga-jin would catch me before I got there.
I pocketed everything, felt my spirit power recover a bit, then unleashed Cloud Escape Art again and took flight.
In hindsight, competing in the Dao Tournament was a stroke of luck. If I hadn't attempted a breakthrough in the ancient archive then and earned Dragon Soaring Five Methods, I wouldn't have Cloud Escape Art.
'Like Severed Dragon Hand, Cloud Escape Art is a secret art from Dragon Soaring Five Methods. I'm just not using it well yet—it's an immortal realm escape technique. With steady practice like Severed Dragon Hand, it'll be a huge help.'
I poured all my focus into the Cloud Escape Art. Far off, I sensed massive auras closing in.
This escape art, which I'd used casually until now, had become my lifeline.
Water Escape and Cloud Escape had the highest usage counts among my spells from constant travel, but I'd never pushed one this hard.
'Never really delved deep into escape arts before.'
But I'd seen Gyeol Ja-yeon's.
Far more profound than others' straightforward escapes—impossible to track how she even moved.
Maybe the world of escape arts was deeper than I'd thought.
As that realization dawned, two massive powers surged closer from behind.
"Found him! He's close! Can't you use Cloud Absorption Dharma to suck in the surroundings?"
"You're the one who wrecked it...! Looks like he's traveling as a cloud! Just blow away every cloud around!"
The booming voices of the man and woman grew vastly louder and clearer from start to finish of their exchange.
Meaning the distance between us was shrinking rapidly even as they chatted.
Chills raced up my spine, cold sweat trickling down as I thought:
'What's the fastest way for me to move right now?'
I sensed Gyeol Ja-yeon gathering vast divine power. Had to escape before it unleashed!
For that, I needed more than my current Cloud Escape Art—but no time for sudden enlightenment.
First, to buy time, I hurled another Exploding Thunderclap.
Krarrrumble!
As its lightning tore across the sky, Gong Ga-jin's divine ability snatched it mid-air.
"Not a chance!"
'...!'
The instant it was caught, I reflexively formed hand seals and detonated the thunderclap.
KABOOOOOM!!!!
The powerful dharma treasure's destruction triggered a massive explosion, lightning bolts lancing every which way.
Without thinking, I activated Lightning Escape Art, merging into the blasts and riding the raging currents blindly.
'Good thing blasting my divine sense can temporarily jam Gong Ga-jin's signal. Time to use that.'
I'd flooded Gong Ga-jin's pouch with my divine sense earlier to disrupt his tracking and widen the gap; now I swallowed a pill from it.
Spirit power surged back as the pill took effect.
"Cough!"
Caught in the explosion's edge, I spat blood but unleashed Cloud Escape Art again and fled.
'Body's a mess.'
Fought a late Nascent Soul expert, barely recovered, then clashed with Gyeol Ja-yeon—plus blocking her attacks alongside Ping Yu-ran with defenses and treasures.
Couldn't move fast like this, so I popped another healing pill.
'...!!'
Back-to-back potent pills caused drug toxins to erupt, assaulting my body.
I diverted spirit power from Cloud Escape Art to purge them, burning through massive reserves.
'Damn...! They're closing in!'
That brief pause for detoxification shrank the distance in a flash.
'Spirit power's almost gone!'
Had to think of something.
'Minimize spirit power use to sustain Cloud Escape Art as long as possible!'
Blending with nature via escape arts has perks, but the biggest is drastically reduced spirit power cost.
Borrowing nature's power makes it feasible.
'...Used Lightning Escape Art before, clinging to Exploding Thunderclap's bolts for long distances.'
In this dire pinch, my mind raced. Memories surfaced from my fight with Yeom Suk—clashing spells in a last-stand frenzy.
That razor-sharp bodily awareness at life's crossroads, like my latent spirit intuition awakening.
Drawing on that sensation and past experience, I contemplated Cloud Escape Art in a fleeting moment.
'Beyond just blending into or clinging to nature. There's a higher realm.'
Original story knowledge proved handy here, and thinking high realms brought protagonist Mun Yoo to mind.
Mun Yoo, unable to use escape arts due to Karmic and Meritorious Forces, relied heavily on custom flight treasures—but later outgrew them.
In the distant future, successfully creating his 'own universe,' Mun Yoo could appear anywhere in it at will, crossing from one end to the other in the blink of an eye.
Not sheer speed, but because he'd become one with the universe itself.
Mun Yoo was the universe, and the universe was Mun Yoo—so wherever he willed, he manifested.
No need to create my own universe now. But I could adapt the principle.
Surpassing turning into clouds or merging with them—what if I became the clouds themselves...?
'Spread arms wide, fingers outstretched to their limit—even then, left fingertip and right are still me. Separate. Distant. Distinct. But that's just my division.'
Am I truly separate from the sky's clouds?
The clouds exist because I perceive them, and I exist beneath because they loom above—isn't that so?
Five Skandhas Enlightenment Art taught me the world. By sharpening perception, it revealed the opposite: everything, even I, is mere emptiness.
But not nihilistic meaninglessness.
The world has no fixed form, constantly shifting—all depends on how I receive it. Thus, reality arises from interdependent conditioned origination.
All phenomena emerge and vanish endlessly through causes, conditions, processes, results—interlinked dependencies.
Thus, 'I' am not independent but a conditioned being arising from interactions with others.
No true distinctions exist; everything connects as one, existing because others do.
With my scant remaining spirit power, I transformed into cloud-form and reached for the clouds ahead.
If all existence is impermanent, selfless, sustained only by interconnected karma—then no need to divide self from clouds, imposing limits.
In that instant, I became one with the vast clouds spanning the sky.
I was the clouds, clouds were I—so I felt the winds pushing me, the ice and droplets composing me; ceaseless plummets from my form, countered by the world's circulating flows.
I sought the farthest 'me' from pursuing Gong Ga-jin and Gyeol Ja-yeon. Reaching toward it with my being—eyes closed and opened, I'd crossed over a thousand li in a heartbeat.
'...'
Mountain shapes. Terrain contours. River flows. Sky's visage.
How far had I gone? Everything had changed in a blink.
'...'
Stunned by the sudden landscape shift, I scanned around—then clenched my fist, realizing my Cloud Escape Art had advanced to a new height.
"...But it's not over yet."
Savoring brief joy, I mounted nearby clouds and fled farther.
Not done. The two monsters were still pursuing.
Only after erasing every trace of Gong Ga-jin's divine sense from the pouches would the danger end.
I shifted positions repeatedly by cloud-assimilation, eventually spotting a massive city and slipping inside.