Chapter 241
Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 241
Chapter Title: Assault of the Wood Spirits
“...Where is that bastard?”
Turning her gaze from the Mountain King to search for Ja-seong, the source of her anxiety, Yukgan soon realized he was nowhere inside the Wudang Sect.
“Damn it all!”
Spitting curses, Yukgan immediately scattered even more eyes in every direction to locate Ja-seong.
And she found him soon enough.
His figure charging straight toward the clone alongside a group.
-Kiririk!
The worst possible scenario she had prayed would never happen.
A savage grinding of teeth echoed inside Yukgan’s mouth.
Her tightly clenched fist was stained red by nails digging into flesh, and from eyes burst with ruptured veins, a single drop of blood tear trailed down her cheek from the sheer force.
But she had no time to worry about such things.
He was coming.
The monster who had shattered her plans and single-handedly slaughtered over two hundred holy beasts.
She didn’t know what trick he had used, but he had destroyed the eyes she scattered and slipped out of the Wudang Sect through the gap.
His objective was clear.
To kill her and dare harm the clone’s sacred form.
“...Fine. I knew you wouldn’t go down that easily.”
Muttering coldly, Yukgan turned her head to gaze at the unmoving wood spirits.
As she extended her hand, a blood-red aura rose from her fingertips and seeped into the tree bark.
-Uuuung
With a deep resonance, the three wood spirits began moving in unison.
The wooden dolls marched straight to stand before Yukgan.
Seeing them as if awaiting orders, Yukgan issued a low command.
“Go. Kill everyone trying to approach the clone.”
At her order, the three wood spirits sprang into action without hesitation.
Watching their backs as they swiftly turned and cut through the forest, Yukgan bit her lip.
Wood spirits—three of them could even slay a Ten Supremes.
Logically, there was no way they couldn’t kill Ja-seong.
But her opponent was a being beyond logic.
Yukgan couldn’t confidently bet on the wood spirits’ victory.
What if those wood spirits fell?
“...Then I’ll have to stake my life to stop him.”
The clone’s maturation was near.
A few hours. Just a few more hours, and it would become the great divine tree itself.
To protect that great god by sacrificing her life would be martyrdom.
And Yukgan was always prepared for martyrdom.
“If I can use my life as fertilizer to dye this world red and beautiful...!”
If she could, she would gladly embrace death.
Yukgan vowed as much.
*
After breaking through the encirclement of monsters, we raced in a straight line toward the blood-red pillar piercing the sky.
Along the way, the detection net caught small objects flying toward us one by one.
Round orbs with membranous wings.
Realizing what they were, I frowned.
“Looks like Soso’s already recovered. Eyes are gathering around us.”
“...Yeah. The situation at the Wudang Sect must be tougher than expected.”
“W-What do we do? Are the others okay?”
Seol asked in a fluster at Ye So-ha’s low-voiced reply.
Ye So-ha gave a faint smile to reassure her.
“No need to worry. We’ve made preparations, and with Hong and Cheong there, they’ll handle it appropriately.”
“You trust them a lot, huh?”
Curious at her tone implying all would be fine with Hong and Cheong, I spoke up, and Ye So-ha nodded without hesitation.
“Of course. They’re my closest aides.”
And so, even under Soso’s surveillance, we chatted quite leisurely.
In the strangely resistance-free situation, Master muttered.
“I wondered, but there’s really no opposition. Was that encirclement truly all that maid had?”
Hearing this, Ye So-ha replied.
“Who knows. Not certain, but it’s too early to assume. Above all, Soso herself is likely guarding the sapling directly.”
“Even so, she’s just a Bloodwood Cult lackey. Like at the Zhuge Clan, she hasn’t moved personally, so maybe her own power isn’t much?”
Ye So-ha firmly shook her head at Seol’s suspicion.
“If she directly oversaw that experiment at the Zhuge Clan, she’s at least a high-ranking executive—a stem. Don’t let your guard down.”
A high-ranking executive stem... superior to Chilji?
I recalled how Chilji had mutated into a tree monster back in Hefei.
A superior to that Chilji.
Then...?
“You’re saying Soso isn’t human either?”
“Almost certainly.”
I clicked my tongue at Ye So-ha’s answer and explained Chilji’s mutation in detail to the group.
Naturally, their faces filled with astonishment upon hearing it.
“Like a tree that’s alive and moving... If I hadn’t seen it here, I’d never have believed it.”
“That’s why I didn’t go into detail.”
As Hwa-ryeon muttered with a sigh and I shrugged, something approaching from afar was detected.
Three presences in total.
Soon, human shapes became visible to the naked eye.
Expanding my vision with inner sight to examine them closely, I frowned at the bizarre forms.
At a glance, they resembled humans, but lacked facial features, their entire bodies covered in tree bark.
Less human, more like life-sized wooden dolls.
Instinct told me these were Soso’s next move.
“...Looks like she had more up her sleeve after all.”
“Huh?”
As Seol tilted her head at my mutter, the wooden dolls spotted us and veered straight toward us.
Their speed exploded.
“...!”
Fast enough to startle even me, the wooden dolls closed in and swung their arms at me, Hwa-ryeon, and Ye So-ha, who had been leading.
“Watch out!”
Drawing my sword and slashing at the whip-like extending arm flying toward me, I moved to cleave the one attacking Hwa-ryeon as well.
But it proved unnecessary.
Before I could even swing, Hwa-ryeon’s sword deeply gashed the wooden doll’s side.
-Kwajik!
“...Wow.”
I couldn’t help letting out an exclamation at Hwa-ryeon’s strike ripping savagely into the wooden doll’s flank.
-Hwaruruk!
In that moment, Ye So-ha’s sacred flames engulfed one wooden doll, and Hwa-ryeon smashed its head from behind, shattering it.
Realizing I’d fallen behind, I dove into the embrace of the last attacking wooden doll and split its upper body in one strike.
The wooden doll’s upper half fell limply to the ground.
Its remaining lower half collapsed atop it.
“...That was nothing.”
For foes who approached so menacingly, the three wooden dolls fell far too anticlimactically.
Unable to hide my puzzlement, I turned to Ye So-ha.
“Do you know what these are?”
“...No. First time seeing anything like this.”
Ye So-ha stared suspiciously at the wooden doll burning away in white flames.
Even the Heavenly Secret Pavilion doesn’t know...?
Not Soso’s hidden force?
Just trees mutated by the Demonic Transformation?
Feeling uneasy that my instincts might be wrong, I tilted my head when Seol’s voice rang out.
“Anyway, we dealt with them, so let’s hurry. We’re in a rush, right?”
“...Yeah.”
Shaking off the discomfort, I nodded and turned away from the wooden dolls.
*
“.......”
Through her eyes, Yukgan silently watched Ja-seong’s group dispatch the wood spirits with absurd ease.
The wood spirits collapsed without accomplishing a thing.
Yet Yukgan’s face remained serene as she regarded them.
“Kh, khihihihi...!”
No, she even burst into delighted laughter?
It might seem mad to any onlooker, but she wasn’t truly insane.
She simply found Ja-seong’s group laughable, presuming victory and turning away prematurely.
“The terror of the wood spirits is only beginning.”
Right after Yukgan’s words ended, the motionless wood spirits began moving again, as if hearing her.
Shattered heads regrew,
Split upper and lower bodies rejoined,
The unidentified white flames died down.
The wood spirits restored to their original form in an instant.
But the changes didn’t end there.
Infinitely red orbs emerged from their chests, and crimson auras began swirling around their bodies.
Sensing the wood spirits’ transformation, Ja-seong turned back and widened his eyes at the sight.
Of course he would be shocked.
He was witnessing again the scene from the Zhuge Clan not long ago.
“Unlike with Zhuge Cheon-sang. This time it’s not one, but three. I wonder if that shining sword of yours can fell them?”
Zhuge Cheon-sang.
The moment that name was uttered, the nature of the red orbs revealed on the wood spirits’ chests became clear.
Blood essences.
Sources of infinite power unbreakable without sword aura, the distilled blood consumed by Blood Burst Technique cultivators.
Those demonic things were the wood spirits’ very cores.
“What powers the wood spirits isn’t the defective implant from Zhuge Cheon-sang’s body. It’s the true blessing of the god, forged from human blood.”
The blood essence implanted in Zhuge Cheon-sang had been unstable in various ways, made from animal blood with inconsistent output.
But those embedded in the wood spirits were different.
True blood essences, made solely from human blood.
Three wood spirits powered by those blood essences.
The blood-red wooden dolls charged at Ja-seong’s group in unison.