Chapter 97
Translator: penny
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Mountains and Rivers Life (3)
Yong Yoo let out a sigh after drawing Yi Seon-aeng's soul into his own.
"Has being sealed away for centuries made you dull? You're practically radiating your intent to attack, so of course I wouldn't just let that slide."
Yi Seon-aeng had no intention of hiding her emotions. True to her straightforward nature, her body was openly primed to strike at Yong Yoo at any moment.
Though it seemed she herself was unaware of that fact.
Fortunately, whether the spirit banner resisted or not, its core was still a dharma treasure. The secret art for storing dharma treasures in the soul worked without issue.
'With the Pagoda of the Eighty-Four Thousand Dharma Teachings inside my soul, it shouldn't shatter. Guess I'll keep her stored away for a while.'
Yi Seon-aeng herself was a remarkably powerful dharma treasure. And since she had made the Yellow Springs Ghostly Ritual Banner her own dharma treasure, dominating her would mean he could freely wield two mighty treasures.
'Man, I sure am getting a lot from the Falling Star Sect's leader.'
A Soul Transformation-grade dharma treasure to start, and even his wife on top of that. What a grateful guy.
Yong Yoo prayed that the man would live a good life in his next incarnation.
In the boundless expanse of Yong Yoo's soul space—devoid of up or down, front or back, past or future—it stretched out endlessly into the void.
It was impossible to believe this was the soul of a mortal-born ordinary spirit lifeform. The space accommodated the colossal Pagoda of the Eighty-Four Thousand Dharma Teachings without issue, and even the enlightenment from the immortal realm that Yong Yoo had gained upon breaking through to Core Formation—what he called "Anti-Dragon Pentad"—resided there perfectly intact.
If it had been an ordinary Core Formation breakthrough, even with the aid of a great adept like Tuho Bibeol, storing just the pagoda would have consumed all functions, trapping him in a vegetative state within it.
Of course, in exchange, the pagoda's power would have ceaselessly refined his cultivation, naturally leading him to the Greater Vehicle Scripture and ascension to the immortal realm. So from Tuho Bibeol's lingering soul's perspective, it had truly been an act of goodwill in passing on the pagoda.
Moreover, the Anti-Dragon Pentad—which should have left only as much enlightenment as a Core Formation cultivator could handle and then dissipated—remained wholly intact within his soul.
The Anti-Dragon: an immense enlightenment tied to a great dragon that had ascended to the unreachable heights of the heavens, a fortuitous encounter even immortals of the celestial realm rarely attained. It was utterly impossible for a mortal realm Core Formation cultivator to fully contain it.
In other words, being able to hold both the Pagoda of the Eighty-Four Thousand Dharma Teachings and the full Anti-Dragon Pentad meant Yong Yoo's soul was mighty enough to command both colossal entities without strain.
Naturally, Yi Seon-aeng, plunged into such a vast soul, felt as if she'd been cast into the unfathomable depths of an ocean abyss or the endless cosmos.
The sensation of being a single grain of sand adrift on the vast sea instilled an unbearable terror, and even Yi Seon-aeng—whose body had transformed into a death sage via the Life-Extinguishing Corpse-Sealing Technique and been remodeled into a jiangshi, drastically reducing emotional fluctuations—was no exception.
"What...! What the hell is this?!"
Her agitated scream tore through the void as she looked around wildly, but treated as a mere stored dharma treasure in the soul, she couldn't move of her own accord.
The instant she tried—the moment she revealed malice or hostility toward Yong Yoo—the power of the Pagoda of the Eighty-Four Thousand Dharma Teachings, permeating the entire soul, clamped down on her spirit.
Like a housefly gripped in a human hand, Yi Seon-aeng felt her breath choke off and her body crushed under the pressure. Suppressed by that force for what felt like ages, she finally screamed.
"Kyaaaaaaa!!"
The moment her terror and despair surpassed her enmity and malice, the pagoda's power receded, restoring her freedom.
But Yi Seon-aeng's ordeal was far from over.
"Th-this...?"
As she warily scanned her surroundings in lingering fright, she spotted a jade fragment lying haphazardly on the "ground," and nearby, the wrecked form of the Merit Illuminated Sixfold Dragon wandering aimlessly.
"The Merit Illuminated Sixfold Dragon! The dharma treasure her husband had sought to create!"
A treasure as precious as the Merit Illuminated Sixfold Dragon retained immense value even in ruin, so Yong Yoo had naturally stored it in his soul.
This Merit Illuminated Sixfold Dragon was the dharma treasure the Falling Star Sect leader had created, inspired by the Life-Extinguishing Corpse-Sealing Technique.
Unlike his lich-wife who practiced the lich transformation method, he had studied the technique, learned to refine the body with death sage energy, and used that as a foundation along with six flood dragons—offspring of the Dragon King—to forge a powerful dharma treasure.
Yi Seon-aeng knew that while the sect leader researched safely turning his wife into a jiangshi as she desired, he had simultaneously worked on the Merit Illuminated Sixfold Dragon. Though sealed away and never having seen the finished product, she recognized it instantly.
"Ah... Aaaah!"
The state of the Merit Illuminated Sixfold Dragon was utterly wretched.
Not even dismemberment in life could compare. No part of the dharma treasure remained intact; all six flood dragons were gruesomely torn apart, hinting at the horrific end its master had met.
"You bastard...! You bastard! I will never forgive you!!"
The instant her grudge reignited, the colossal dragon coiled around the pagoda stirred.
If the pagoda was vast enough to link heaven and earth, the dragon wrapped around it was immense enough to encircle the world.
As that behemoth uncoiled from the pagoda and set foot in the black void, Yi Seon-aeng faced a monster where even its smallest tooth dwarfed her by hundreds of times.
Before this dragon that could swallow the sun in a single bite, she was less than a microbe. When it quietly snorted, it felt like everything comprising her would crumble.
She knew it was an illusion.
But it was so vividly real.
The Anti-Dragon Pentad silently gazed at the terrified Yi Seon-aeng, who had forgotten everything in her fear, then returned to the pagoda as if bored. Collapsing to her knees, she hesitated before checking between her legs.
"......"
She was glad to be a jiangshi.
Otherwise, she might have lost control of her bladder from the terror.
And so began her horrific cohabitation with the Pagoda of the Eighty-Four Thousand Dharma Teachings and the Anti-Dragon Pentad.
A year and four months had passed since leaving the High Heaven Sect.
Three months had elapsed since storing Yi Seon-aeng in his soul. In that time, he had fulfilled the city's tasks as a wanderer, earning spirit stones and gathering information.
Having acquired maps of various places and memorized them, he cross-referenced them with his geographical knowledge to plot a route to the Lower Star Sect.
The result: he was currently in the northern part of the Central Water Star Realm, so he needed to head south to reach the Lower Star Sect. Those were the two key facts.
He didn't know the Lower Star Sect's exact location. Even heading south, it might be southwest while he went southeast.
Still, it would bring him closer than now, so he prepared to move south without hesitation.
'Good thing those two old monsters show no signs of tracking me.'
He had stayed in the city for months, but heard nothing of Gong Ga-jin or Gyeol Ja-yeon.
Convinced he had completely shaken them off, he bid farewell to the city he had grown fond of and flew south.
En route, he repeatedly merged with clouds to survey the terrain, supplementing his mental map. Thus, an incredibly detailed and clear map of the Central Water Star Realm took shape in his mind.
Yong Yoo wasn't the only one struggling with poor geographical awareness.
Do Mun-hyang had also lost her way fleeing the demon horde, only able to procure a map from a nearby border city and properly head toward the Lower Star Sect afterward. Meanwhile, Pyeong Yu-ran—who had fled in yet another direction—savored her long-overdue wanderer's life while making her way there.
However, more urgent and desperate than the three of them were Gong Ga-jin and Gyeol Ja-yeon.
After Yong Yoo vanished with an absurd escape art and even his divine sense disappeared, they lost all trace of him. They blamed each other amid a furious battle that demolished five surrounding mountains, then admitted this approach yielded no progress and sought another way.
When cultivators sought something with no clues at all, what did they rely on?
Divination.
Gong Ga-jin and Gyeol Ja-yeon immediately sought out a known diviner, begging to have their fate lines regarding Yong Yoo and the Sun-Moon Star Formation Great Harmony Scripture read.
The diviner obliged, performing divination on Yong Yoo.
But for a full month, the diviner failed, blocked by some immense power.
"It failed."
"What do you mean?"
"An unidentified colossal force is protecting the target. Sorry, but direct divination seems impossible."
"......"
They suspected the diviner might be deceiving them, but dismissed it. Tampering with or exploiting divination clouded one's spirit, weakening future prowess—they knew that well.
In this case, they had to conclude that the cultivator who took the Sun-Moon Star Formation Great Harmony Scripture from them possessed extraordinary background.
"There were women with that cultivator. Can you divine on them?"
"Who do you want? I can only divine one at a time."
After conferring, Gong Ga-jin and Gyeol Ja-yeon figured Pyeong Yu-ran, a Nascent Soul cultivator, had higher odds of contact with Yong Yoo than the Core Formation Do Mun-hyang, so they requested divination on her.
"A woman who looks like this. Please divine on her."
Conveying Pyeong Yu-ran's appearance via divine sense, they waited another month for results.
Pyeong Yu-ran possessed the extraordinary true-name dharma treasure Great Freedom Heaven Sword, but it lacked the pagoda's caliber, allowing smooth divination.
"The result is in. While divining her fate line, I saw a point early next year where external forces block reading it. That's likely when she meets the one you seek."
"Oh! Location! What's the location?"
"She's been staying in Wol-yak Border City for months. If you want to meet your target, watch and wait for her there. But a warning: contacting her and altering her fate might ruin your chances."
"......Understood."
"Thank you for the divination, True Person."
And so, the two Nascent Soul old monsters headed to a border city near the Lower Star Sect—faster than Do Mun-hyang or Pyeong Yu-ran.
After they left, the diviner wore a pitying expression.
"Already hounded by some massive faction, and now chased by those old monsters too. What an unlucky woman. Maybe that sword of hers draws misfortune."
Of course, such things weren't his concern.
The diviner examined the heavenly treasures from the Nascent Soul monsters and resumed his cultivation.