Chapter 184
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 184
Chapter Title: Spirit Wave Steps (2)
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"Whoa!"
From the moment Geum Sihyeon found the temple entrance smack in the middle of the desert in one go.
Even as they descended endlessly, endlessly into the underground like a monster gaping its jaws wide.
All the way until they faced a massive stone door at the end of that journey.
Luri found everything utterly fascinating.
The great desert she often passed through in her daily life actually hid such a secretive, mystical space underground!
As expected of Geum Sihyeon!
"Hee hee."
"Are you an idiot?"
"Hee hee."
No matter how much Geum Sihyeon scolded her, Luri couldn't hold back the laughter bubbling out.
Back in the Heavenly Mountains, back in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
When her power hadn't properly taken root yet.
When she couldn't properly control her power yet.
The only thing that satisfied her curiosity to wander the outside world were the novels Wi Ji-ryang occasionally brought her.
And what especially made her heart race...
Were the brothers widely known as the Jo duo: Jo Moo-jeong and Jo Dong-jeon.
Especially every action of the protagonist Dongmun Cheong from Jo Moo-jeong's Martial World Madwoman, That Is Me made Luri's flat, stuffy chest pound.
How many times had she imagined roaming the Central Plains freely like that, encountering all sorts of fortuitous encounters and connections?
And now.
"Hee hee."
That dream had finally come true.
"Chamber of Conquering Grief... So this one's theme is overcoming sorrow, huh."
"Hm?"
"Wanna wait here? Or, well, it might be a bit dangerous, but wanna come in with me?"
"Together."
The young lady of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Cheon Luri wouldn't back down from a place like this!
How could she retreat when a fortuitous encounter she'd only dreamed of experiencing was right before her eyes!
"...Be careful. No telling what might come out."
"Okay."
As Geum Sihyeon worked his magic once more, the door rumbled open with a ku-gu-gung!
Luri strode boldly inside without hesitation.
The next moment.
"...Geum Sihyeon?"
Her vision was dyed in darkness.
She flailed her small hands every which way to grab the sturdy arm that had been right beside her until just now, but nothing caught hold.
It felt like she alone was isolated in an empty void.
Cold, lonely, chilling.
Just like when she'd first been thrown into this world.
"Eek."
Luri shuddered violently once.
But.
"No."
This was surely an illusion.
She'd felt Geum Sihyeon's warm body heat with her whole body just moments ago.
Right, a fortuitous encounter.
Fortuitous encounters were like this.
You had to face them utterly alone.
Gathering her courage, she took a step into the empty void.
And that instant.
"Ah──"
Geum Sihyeon collapsed, struck by a bandit's axe.
.
.
.
"Augh."
Geum Sihyeon fell into Qi Deviation after consuming a spirit elixir.
His seventh death already.
No, no.
All lies.
Not reality.
Geum Sihyeon wouldn't die to some bandit, wouldn't be betrayed and killed by comrades, wouldn't die from an old knee wound reopening in a spar, wouldn't die just from failing to properly absorb a single elixir.
No way.
Another step.
Geum Sihyeon had his throat slit by a fiend wielding twin blades.
And the moment she took another step.
"...Pfft."
There he was: Geum Sihyeon, grinning with that signature sly smile like some monk, his head shaved bald.
Finally, fortune after hardship?
The heavy clouds that had weighed on her chest lifted all at once.
But another step.
Geum Sihyeon died.
Another step.
Geum Sihyeon died.
And, and, and...
"Wh... why...?"
Wi Ji-ryang's sword pierced straight through Geum Sihyeon's heart.
That instant.
The rationality Cheon Luri had desperately suppressed completely evaporated.
"Waaah──!"
The wig Geum Sihyeon had carefully fitted and neatly curled into cute round puffs vanished in an instant, as if it had never existed.
A delicate crimson bloomed through the ink-black strands, dyeing her hair red.
From her back, the bindings that had held her in check gleamed ominously, releasing demonic energy that even her restraints couldn't fully contain in all directions.
Like an abyss deeper than the void crushing the space, dragging everything down into ruin.
Just as the emotion called despair began to erode Cheon Luri's mind.
"...Get a...
"...grip..."
A voice that shouldn't have been audible.
Geum Sihyeon's voice, the one who'd died over and over, wearing that sad, wistful expression.
"...Snap out of it..."
It swirled in her thoroughly muddled head, fresh and clear like a spring breeze.
And at the same time.
A warm body heat enveloped her back, smothering the wildly rampaging demonic energy.
That was when Cheon Luri realized her body was trembling like an aspen leaf.
But that lasted only a moment.
So incredibly cozy.
A warmth she'd never felt from anyone before.
Instinctively yielding to that reliable sensation that felt like 'love', Cheon Luri closed her eyes.
.
.
.
.
And when she opened them again.
"Calmed down?"
The usual Geum Sihyeon.
Geum Sihyeon looking at her with warm eyes.
Sometimes looking down at her like she was a child or an idiot, not a woman.
But occasionally, very occasionally.
Geum Sihyeon's gaze that saw her as a woman.
At that welcome look.
"Uuu..."
Cheon Luri's face.
It flushed bright red.
* * *
...Did I bring her for nothing?
Chamber of Conquering Grief.
The room to overcome sorrow.
When I saw the visions of plummeting from 100,000 nyang to 50,000 nyang, realized my fate as the youngest son of a chaebol family, and snapped out of it right away.
I have no idea what she saw.
But Cheon Luri was crumbling in real time.
...To a suspicious degree regarding her bloodline's secrets.
Her hair turned bright red in an instant.
Suddenly, black wings that some elf fetishists would drool over sprouted from her wing buds.
And then she even thrust out her hand and unleashed a 360-degree Heavenly Demon Death Gun Kata.
I never imagined I'd witness the Equilibrium cast via Heavenly Demon Divine Art in my lifetime.
Even for an utter martial arts noob like me.
This... is... murim...?! My inner latent murim geezer spat blood and burst out.
And to top it off, the incantation etched on her back glowed iridescently like some demon-summoning array.
The demonic energy leaking from it felt seriously bad news, so good thing I sealed it with my body.
Otherwise, the Central Plains would've been on the verge of a triple-skull disaster.
One of those skulls would've been mine.
"Euugh..."
Anyway.
This reaction.
Delicious.
Luri, who usually strutted around all smug and ku-so-gaki-like with her "hee hee"s, now with her cheeks flushed lady-like and head bowed low.
I wanna tease her so bad...
!
But if I did that.
She might blanket this whole space in Heavenly Demon Equilibrium again.
Value your life, Geum Sihyeon.
.
.
.
After that.
Clinging to my hand like she'd never let go again, I soothed Luri as best I could and pressed on, onward.
Chamber of Conquering Desire.
...The room to overcome desire, and there.
"Hee."
"Get a hold of yourself, Cheon Luri...! You'll explode and die at this rate...!"
We barely overcame a seriously dire crisis.
And next.
Chamber of Conquering Felicity.
The room to overcome happiness...
Man.
This one was tough even for me.
This was...
For real.
I was one hell of a badass.
For real, that was all I could say.
Escaping Infinite Tsukuyomi on my own?
Abandoning Seong Yu-jin's life?
I admit it.
Me, Geum Sihyeon.
Superhuman, confirmed.
Of course, naturally.
"Hee hee... Bro... Hee hee..."
"Bro, she's laughing... No, Luri. Wake up."
"Wuuing..."
Sighing as she, clearly reluctant to wake from her sweet spring dream, went from holding hands to straight-up linking arms with me.
Finally.
"Whoa...!"
A treasure room appeared, like something straight out of Prince of Persia with its desert-authentic backdrop.
Piles of gold and jewels scattered everywhere.
Luri bounced over, picked up a gem like her own eyeball, and "Hii!"-ed while shoving it at me to show off.
"Toss that and grab an elixir instead."
"Hing."
"Our house is full of that junk; I'll give you one later."
"Hee...!"
As if she'd try to take some stupid gem.
The lady of the Geumhyeon Gate coveting mere gold and jewels...
"Ahem, ahem."
The aftereffects from passing those trials must not have worn off yet.
I set aside Luri's antics—like a three-year-old nephew let loose in a toy box, scampering around knocking stuff over and fiddling with everything—for a moment.
"So this is the Spirit Wave Steps, huh."
I gazed at the cover, written in the newly codified Hangul from the National Institute of Korean Language, like it had mega-evolved several stages from Hunminjeongeum.
And the moment I turned the first page.
"What the hell is this insane technique."
For a footwork manual,
I was shocked at how ridiculously high the learning difficulty seemed.
A steady seller from primitive ancient uncivilized Central Plains days, and one that modern Korea's last occultists loved quoting: the Zhouyi.
Featuring a whopping eight times eight, the sixty-four hexagrams.
In modern Korean sensibilities,
Whoa! Qian, Kun, Kan, Li!
Times two, and then eight more!
Something like that.
But...
"Yeah, I get the gist of Spirit Wave Steps' level..."
I wanted to die from how lame it was.
The greatest genius of past and present, Geum Sihyeon, could memorize the Zhouyi like it was breakfast.
Thus.
I immediately tried executing the Spirit Wave Steps' footwork──
"Hyaak!"
"Augh."
The second I stepped step-by-step in Heavy Heaven Qian, I straight-up crashed into Luri who was squirming nearby.
"Sorry."
"Euugh...!"
Savoring the sensation of Luri's rare pummeling to my side for a while.
I reconfirmed that Spirit Wave Steps was no technique I could grasp easily.
A footwork where you had to whirl and whoosh according to the directions of the sixty-four hexagrams.
To properly comprehend and move with the hexagram flows in real combat, it'd take repeated dedicated practice for a while.
.
.
.
"For real?"
"You get stronger, then I'm more secure."
"Hee."
No joke.
Don't smile so contentedly.
In the end, I even yielded my share of the Northern Bright Tablet reward for Luri's mega-evolution.
If I'd been selfish, I'd have gobbled it up, but honestly, elixirs that ordinary barely register in my dantian anymore, let alone my liver.
With my share of the elixir in hand too, Luri squirmed to a corner of the treasure room and settled down.
And.
"Nyum."
She dumped the elixir into her mouth and closed her eyes.
And soon.
Ku-gu-gu...!
Mal-lang-mal-lang-mal-lang...!
The thick, sticky demonic energy unique to Heavenly Demon Divine Art began overflowing the surroundings.
...Oh?!
Cheon Luri's status...!