Don’t Kneel and Weep, Stand Up and Laugh (2)
“Who goes there!”
One of the Golden Core cultivators, who had been boring through the earth with earth arts, snapped his head up and shouted.
His voice echoed across the cavern, and the others who had been digging alongside him stopped at once and drew themselves into a guarded stance.
Before long, on the far side of the makeshift barrier they had thrown up, nine human cultivators and some thirty monsters appeared.
At their head was Baek Sang-ah.
She sat cross-legged atop the enormous leg of a spider demon.
On either side stood disciples of the Ungyu Sect, and beside them trailed the monsters of Monster Mountain in a loose line—deer, foxes, bears, boars, and even sparrows.
“What in the….”
“What in the world is this mob supposed to be?”
The four Golden Core cultivators flinched at the sheer number of them, but they did not look cowed.
A cultivator might have to put up with being treated as an underling in the lower realm if he were only at Foundation Establishment, but once he reached Golden Core, he could swagger wherever he pleased.
Everywhere he went, he would be treated with deference, and most of what he wanted would be his for the taking.
“This is the territory of our Ungyu Sect and the monsters under our protection. By what right do outsiders come digging into our spiritual vein?”
When a Ungyu cultivator spoke to them, one of the Golden Core cultivators snorted.
“Ungyu Sect? Hah. So this is that Ungyu Sect that supposedly gave some Qingcheng Clan brat a proper beating?”
Then he narrowed his eyes and appraised them all.
“And yet every last one of you looks like a rabble. At best, Foundation Establishment; most of you are barely Qi Condensation. What trick did you use to teach that Qingcheng Clan fool a lesson?”
Another Golden Core cultivator scowled and barked, “Do you fools have no pride as cultivators? To join hands with these insect-like monsters—it’s enough to make heaven weep!”
At that, several of the monsters twitched.
In particular, the bear and the boar growled and lifted their forelegs, while the foxes and deer flashed their eyes and stepped forward.
“So trying to dig up a spiritual vein like thieves and getting caught somehow doesn’t go against your pride?”
This time it was Dam So-dam who shot back at the Golden Core cultivator.
“For people like you, who can’t even call yourselves proper cultivators, it’s far more useful for us to use this land than for you to waste it away.”
“Listen to me. If you promise right now that you’ll never come back, nothing further needs to happen.”
When the Ungyu cultivator, who was only at Foundation Establishment, spoke as though issuing a warning, the brows of the Golden Core cultivators twitched.
“Reason is wasted on you. Very well—then we’ll show you with force!”
The Golden Core cultivator drew up yellow-brown spiritual energy.
That energy responded to the earth within the barrier, rippling outward like a wave and pressing the surrounding air heavy with pressure.
Its meaning was simple.
The talks were over.
“Everyone, attack!”
The moment the Ungyu cultivator could no longer hold himself back and gave the order, the cultivator-monster alliance surged toward the Golden Core cultivators.
The bear roared and brought down a forepaw; the boar heaved itself forward, kicking off the ground with a jolt.
The fox slipped low with a sharp, cutting aura, and the deer charged with its hard antlers thrust forward.
The Ungyu disciples also cast their spells and rushed in.
And yet—
BOOOOM!
“Khk!”
It was the monster side and the Ungyu side that were driven back in the first collision.
The Golden Core cultivators’ arts were steady and exact.
The force that spread out from their yellow-brown spiritual energy resonated with the barrier, seizing the ground, and under that pressure the beasts were shoved back several steps.
No matter how many they had on their side, the gulf between Golden Core and Foundation Establishment was monstrous.
After all, cultivators first spent their Qi Condensation stage preparing for the path ahead, and at Foundation Establishment they laid the foundation of their cultivation.
Only at Golden Core did they truly begin to be cultivators in earnest.
Their mastery of spells and the sheer volume of their spiritual energy were on a different level entirely.
“Hah! Do you really think the likes of you, who are only pretending to be cultivators, can push us back?”
“Sect Leader! The enemy is too strong. They’re equal to Qingcheng Clan cultivators, maybe even stronger!”
The Ungyu cultivator looked toward Baek Sang-ah.
For some reason, she was still sitting atop the spider’s leg without moving an inch.
The reason was simple.
She couldn’t gather spiritual energy.
[Of course not. You stacked a pillar of sorrow into the world—one that should never have existed beneath the pillars of the beasts. Do you know how difficult it is to accept that fully?]
What do I do?
[Until that pillar is fully formed, you won’t be able to use my power. If anything, the spiritual energy will surge backward and pierce you through.]
Muyeonja’s voice rang out with finality.
[For now, focus on gathering and containing the power within. That comes first.]
In the end, Baek Sang-ah had to be excluded from the Ungyu-monster alliance, and that was a catastrophic loss of strength for their side.
“So the insects were only loud-mouthed after all!”
The animal monsters were swept aside by the Golden Core cultivators’ spells, and the Ungyu cultivators were only just managing to stay upright by sheer muscle and stubbornness.
Baek Sang-ah thought,
We need the spider demon here.
She placed a hand on the spider demon’s leg.
“You need to step in now.”
“I’m comingggg…!”
At last, the spider demon began to move its enormous body. A vast shadow fell over the heads of the Golden Core cultivators.
It was a terrifying size.
“You damned spider! You interfered with us last time too, and now you’re going to keep us from reaching the spiritual vein again?”
Eight long, sharp legs struck the rocks with heavy thud, thud impacts.
The sound rolled through the ground and shook the mountain.
The surface of the earth split as though torn apart, and the demonic qi hidden beneath those legs surged upward like spider silk.
The Golden Core cultivators’ earth arts could not leave so much as a scratch on the spider demon’s steel-hard legs.
Those legs had grown in Monster Mountain for a lifetime; the very earth of Monster Mountain would never be enough to withstand them.
With the spider demon finally thrown into the battle, the shape of the fight changed before the Ungyu-cultivator alliance could even finish mourning its disadvantage.
Some thirty monsters took on one Golden Core cultivator, and the Ungyu disciples joined together to pin down another.
Rangi faced one Golden Core cultivator, and the spider demon took on another.
Huh? Weren’t there four of them?
After all, cultivators had never fought wars; they were used to one-on-one combat.
So it was only natural that things would turn this way once multiple combatants were thrown together.
“U, uooogggh!”
Another boar monster was flung back by a Golden Core cultivator’s earth array and smashed into a wall.
The deer, the fox, and even the bear strained forward in warped postures, trying to break through the encirclement.
Other than the spider demon, the alliance was generally being pushed back.
I can’t just stand here and watch.
Baek Sang-ah let her tail droop in frustration.
The fact that she couldn’t do anything in this situation made her chest feel tight.
Then she looked at the spider demon.
She could see its demonic qi spreading outward in the shape of spider silk, tormenting the Golden Core cultivators.
There are so many of us, so we need to fight in sync.
Baek Sang-ah said to the spider demon, “Can you stretch that demonic qi out like spider silk, to the Ungyu cultivators and the monster friends too?”
“I cannnnnn…!”
The spider demon’s eyes brightened.
Its back arched as a vast wave of demonic energy rolled out from its spine.
In an instant, invisible threads of demonic qi sliced through the air and extended outward, linking the deer and the fox, the bear and the boar, and even the Ungyu cultivators one by one.
Can I carry my intent along this?
Baek Sang-ah closed her eyes and reached toward the formless spider web made of demonic qi.
The moment the vermilion spiritual energy from her own hand touched it, her intent spread along the web.
It was much like the mystery of how she had blended into nature through the Great Void Divine Method all this time.
To interfere with demonic qi and send her consciousness through it.
Among all those present, only Baek Sang-ah could do that here.
“This is…!”
“Goooooood?”
“Unnie!”
“Senior Baek!”
The strands of demonic qi spreading like spider silk seeped into the consciousness of the Ungyu cultivators and the monsters, and everyone froze for a moment.
The deer monster jerked its head up.
Baek Sang-ah said, “We have to protect one another.”
The moment demonic qi and intent were linked as one, the movements of the alliance, which had all been going its own way, began to fall into order.
They had different hearts, but their pulse was the same; different eyes, but the same direction in their gaze.
Dozens of breaths beat together evenly, like a single living creature.
Ung cultivators and Dam So-dam, both capable of earth arts, began to shake the ground.
As the two cultivators made the front line rise and writhe, the boar charged through the opening, and the bear slammed down with a crushing blow.
The tremor broke the enemy’s balance.
Then Hyeongeuk sprang from the boar’s back and shot flames from his fingertips.
His fire brushed the shoulder of one Golden Core cultivator.
The Ung cultivator seized the opening and whipped up a gust of wind, amplifying the flames, and the deer took advantage of the gap to dart in with startling agility, ramming that cultivator back with its antlers.
“Khk! Just moments ago they were a rabble—how are they moving with such coordination now?”
Beads of sweat broke out across the Golden Core cultivator’s forehead.
Only a moment earlier, this crowd had looked like scattered cannon fodder. Now it was different.
The bear pressed forward behind the boar, Dam So-dam split the earth and collapsed the ground beneath the Golden Core cultivator’s feet, and in the midst of it all a small sparrow monster took flight to disrupt his vision.
“What on earth did you do?”
Then Baek Sang-ah rose from the spider’s leg and looked down at the four Golden Core cultivators.
“I’m a legion.”
It was one of those cool lines she had heard long ago. She had always wanted to say it once, and now, finally, the moment had come.
“You’re saying that a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator and a bunch of beasts are overwhelming us…?”
“What trick did you use! What kind of beasts and mountain spirits are able to synchronize like this…!”
The two Golden Core cultivators muttered as they staggered backward.
Behind them, with a heavy boom, the spider demon slammed one of its enormous legs down, and the earth surged.
Even as dust rose around them, the monsters and cultivators moved without losing formation.
“How dare these insects—!”
And then it happened.
It wasn’t one of the four Golden Core cultivators fighting the alliance who appeared, but another cultivator who emerged from beneath the ground.
“Tsk. And here I thought the Golden Core cultivators might be of some use, only to watch them flail helplessly against a swarm of bugs. That’s why I didn’t want to bring along rookies who had just broken into Golden Core.”
He was an old man with a long, white beard and a splendid robe.
At least mid-stage Golden Core.
The pupils of the Ung cultivator trembled.
“Senior Tae, how did it go?”
“Because of your rampaging, I couldn’t reach the spiritual vein. Still, that can be done after I put this commotion down.”
“I-is that so?”
“I may not have reached the spiritual vein, but I have carved my spell into this land instead.”
The Golden Core cultivator known as Tae, having reached mid-stage Golden Core, laid a hand on the ground and began chanting an incantation.
From his fingertips, yellow-brown and wood-green spiritual energy mingled and seeped out, and a dull wave rippled across the earth.
“Everyone, retreat for now!”
The Ung cultivator shouted belatedly, but it was already too late.
With a gesture from the Golden Core cultivator, huge stone figures erupted from beneath the ground.
They had human-shaped bodies, blade-like fingertips, and above all, a single symbol carved into each of their foreheads.
“Water that sprays, fire that burns, and the like—those are not what I call real techniques.”
【Suppress】
The seal of Suppress.
It was an earth-based art of suppression and restraint, one that literally pressed the land down beneath itself.
The qi of the surroundings stiffened, and even the monsters that had been moving froze for a brief moment, holding their breath.
“This is what a true art looks like.”
The Ung cultivator ground his teeth and shouted, “Hurry! Get even one more person out of the mountain!”
As Tae slowly lifted his hand from the ground, an absurd thing happened.
The slope of the mountain began to tilt.
The Ung cultivator’s face went pale.
Roots beneath the earth, the veins flowing along the spiritual vein, were all severed at once, and the foundation of Monster Mountain was heaved upward as a single mass.
Heaps of earth began to writhe all around them.
Countless rocks, trees, and stone pillars rose slowly like waves, surrounding the alliance in the shape of a vast semicircle.
“I’ll bury you alive. Bury you alive, ahaha!”
Not merely a part of the mountain, but the mountain itself came rushing toward the alliance.
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