Chapter 304
Chapter 304
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 304
>Chapter Title: Plains (4)
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She had been carefully surveying the terrain ever since arriving in the area. No, throughout the entire journey, she had kept her senses sharpened, constantly scanning her surroundings.
It was because of what Il-mok had told her a few days ago.
‘I, I can only help Young Master with th, this.’
If she mastered the Ghost Spirit Divine Bow and reached Transcending Demon, she might truly become a peerless master, just as Il-mok had said.
But that was a distant future prospect. Right now, she could offer almost no help in terms of martial prowess.
So, she decided to leverage her strengths.
She had been utilizing the senses that Il-mok had praised, always keeping watch around her.
Thanks to that, she didn’t miss the faint traces left near the river where the Zarchigod tribe had been.
Grass chewed as if by livestock, mismatched bushes and blades of grass around uneven ground. Extremely subtle crushed marks lingering in the soil and underbrush near the river.
They were traces not particularly eye-catching, and individually, nothing special.
However, piecing them all together, it was certain that some group had made camp here until just a few days ago.
“C-Can you track those traces?”
“I-I’ll give it a try.”
Jin Ha-yeon, who had been watching their exchange for a moment, spoke up.
“Young Master, this could greatly deviate from the route to the Heavenly Myriad Mountains.”
“If the trail breaks or leads too far, we’ll abandon it. We’re the advance party anyway, so detouring for a few days to scout the surroundings won’t be a big issue.”
Il-mok hadn’t suggested blind pursuit either.
‘They’re nomads, but they don’t endlessly wander the pastures.’
The climate turning too harsh. The river drying up. The pasture’s grass nearly depleted.
They moved to new pastures for such reasons. Once they settled, they stayed long-term—that was their trait.
The fact that faint traces still remained here meant they hadn’t been gone long.
Il-mok concluded they were likely camped at another nearby pasture.
“Follow the traces, Officer Jeong.”
“Y-Yes, I will.”
At Il-mok’s command, she stepped forward, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
“Suuuuup. Hoooouuu.”
The expectant gazes might have felt burdensome, but her accumulated experience allowed her to push through.
‘Right. Master sent me out for missionary work and informal sparring because he believed I could handle it.’
Steeling herself, she snapped her eyes open and pushed the Ghost Spirit Divine Bow to its limits.
The vast, open plain with nothing obstructing her view filled her sight, and contradictory sensations overwhelmed her.
A sense of the world expanding, and yet the world rushing toward her.
Amid that bizarre sensation, she examined the traces she had spotted moments before.
Then, as she scanned the open plain, new traces etched into her vision.
Some were haphazard, but others formed a clear outline, stretching long.
“This way.”
Having found a path invisible to others, she began leading the group.
They followed her guidance, leaving the pasture and traveling for quite some time.
When Jeong-hyeon, reaching her limit, clutched her throbbing head from the intense headache, Il-mok spoke.
“Just tell us the direction and rest for a bit. No need to keep running the technique constantly like now. From here on, just check the trail’s direction with the Ghost Spirit Divine Bow occasionally.”
“S-Sorry, Young Master.”
“No. If not for Officer Jeong, we wouldn’t have tracked these traces at all.”
After that, they proceeded as Il-mok directed.
Jeong-hyeon would recover, check the traces with the Ghost Spirit Divine Bow once, and they’d move in that direction while she rested again.
The trail they followed stretched farther than expected.
Fortunately, it didn’t veer completely off toward the distant east, away from the western regions route.
Two days of tracking northwest along the traces.
They arrived at a new pasture and spotted a village in the distance.
“Well done, Officer Jeong.”
Il-mok praised her, but his expression wasn’t particularly joyful.
“It looks like we’ll all need to don our masks.”
Screams and the stench of blood were spreading in all directions near the distant village.
* * *
Sensing the battle, Il-mok and the group donned their Furious Four Heavenly Kings masks and approached the village.
As they drew closer, Il-mok could grasp the situation in more detail and let out an involuntary chuckle.
‘What the hell is that?’
The village nomads were in combat. But their opponents weren’t fellow humans.
“Mountain goat…?”
It certainly looked like a mountain goat.
The problem was its size.
‘It’s not an elephant or anything.’
It was an absurdly massive beast, the kind where “house-sized” came to mind.
“Young Master, it seems to be a spirit beast.”
“…Spirit beasts really do exist.”
He’d roughly guessed from the size, but hearing it confirmed made it real for Il-mok.
Though years had passed since falling into this bizarre world, this was his first time seeing a spirit beast.
At that moment, a nomad was flung skyward by the massive spirit beast goat’s charge, tumbling through the air into Il-mok’s view.
“Officer Jeong!”
At Il-mok’s command, Jeong-hyeon, who had already drawn her bow mid-leap, released the bowstring.
Whiiiish!
Her arrow flew with a sharp whistle, aiming for the goat’s eye.
Swish!
But the goat twisted its head mid-motion, dodging the eye shot, and the arrow merely embedded in its forehead.
No.
Ting.
It bounced off the forehead.
‘…Ridiculously tough, huh.’
Il-mok chuckled at the ridiculous sight, but at least they’d achieved a minimum goal.
The monstrous goat bellowed strangely and turned its glare toward Il-mok and the group.
Puhuhung.
Snorting fiercely, it scraped the ground like a bull, shoving aside nearby nomads with its body as it charged straight at Jeong-hyeon.
The surrounding nomads thrust spears or loosed arrows at it, but they all bounced off harmlessly.
Ignoring attacks from others, the goat barreled toward Jeong-hyeon alone.
Observing the bizarre scene, Il-mok had already drawn his Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword and blocked her path.
“So, ordinary attacks don’t work, huh.”
Then he just needed to use an extraordinary method.
Il-mok forcibly disrupted the peacefully flowing aura of the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword, like a vast sea turning turbulent.
As if a typhoon raged, the demonic qi in his meridians churned wildly, gathering toward the sword.
Crackle!
Lightning formed of sword aura now swirled around the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword.
Flash!
Il-mok charged at the goat, sword lightning ready. The goat’s eyes changed.
Sensing something amiss, the charging beast’s frenzied gaze calmed.
Unlike Wi Jin-hak’s genuine rage-control disorder, this spirit beast seemed to have selective rage-control issues.
Just before Il-mok’s soaring sword clashed with the goat’s forehead.
Boom!!
The goat frantically twisted its legs, barely altering its path to evade the strike.
‘Spirit beast is spirit beast, alright.’
As the goat, narrowly dodging, continued its charge to ram Jeong-hyeon.
Flash!!
Il-mok formed an qi platform in midair, shattered it with full force to propel himself after the goat.
Heeeing!!
The goat, belatedly realizing, shrieked in panic and tried to turn again, but it was a step too late.
Crunch!!
The sword lightning finally pierced the massive goat’s head.
Flash!
Piercing through, Il-mok flew onward, scooped up the targeted Jeong-hyeon, and leaped aside.
Boom!!
Immediately after, the goat’s corpse, momentum carrying it forward despite stopped legs, swept through where Jeong-hyeon had stood, rolling to a halt.
Gazing at the carcass that left a massive scar on the earth, Il-mok thought.
‘Lucky… I guess?’
His eyes fixed precisely on the goat’s horns.
Then, a trembling voice came from right beside him.
“W-Will you p-put me down now, Y-Yooung Master?”
Turning, Il-mok saw Jeong-hyeon in his arms, her face on the verge of a breakdown.
* * *
Some time after Il-mok slew the massive goat, at a spot dozens of li away.
“What!”
The Manggod tribe’s kagan roared in fury.
“Those runaways from the north caught the master of Kanggai Mountain? You think that makes any sense!”
The kagan’s rage was simple.
The spirit goat called the master of Kanggai Mountain was their prey, hunted over days.
Since ancient times, humans hunted stronger beasts with one method.
Endurance and swarm tactics.
Harass from afar, flee, pursue repeatedly until the prey collapsed from exhaustion.
They employed the same.
Climbing Kanggai Mountain to find the spirit beast, they shot arrows from distance, tormented it with chases and escapes.
But as expected of a spirit beast, it didn’t fall easily.
Then, the Manggod kagan devised a ploy.
The nearby Zarchigod tribe that had recently settled came to mind.
They herded the fleeing spirit goat toward the Zarchigod camp.
To let them clash, wear it down, then finish it—and if the Zarchigod warriors were slaughtered, absorb their women and children to grow the tribe.
But word came that the grand plan had failed. The kagan couldn’t endure it.
Amid the killing intent surging through him, a subordinate knelt hastily and shouted.
“It wasn’t the Zarchigod tribe that hunted it! Th-There was intervention by outsiders!”
The Manggod kagan glared toward the Zarchigod tribe’s location.
“Daring to steal our prey.”
After glaring long, the kagan sprang up and issued a command.
“Prepare for battle at once! We must seize it before they absorb the spirit beast’s essence!”
He coveted the goat’s inner core.
With the inner core of that beast called Tengri God’s messenger, he could break the wall blocking him and reach the ‘Batar’ realm.
‘Once I surpass this wall, I’ll return there.’
Grinding his teeth, he recalled the massive western tribe that had driven his Manggod tribe here.