Traces of Spatial Transfer
Whoosh—
Thud.
"You've arrived."
As Do-ha and Canteas descended from the cliff, Song Gyeol, the Blade Unit leader who had been standing guard over the dragon's corpse, offered a respectful greeting.
It had been quite some time since they last met at the Martial Alliance.
"Oh, Song Gyeol. Long time no see. You've gotten a lot stronger, huh?"
"It is an honor to hear such words from the Absolute One."
"Eh, I'm not the Absolute One right now."
"……"
When Do-ha brushed the title off so casually, Song Gyeol's eyes narrowed.
Back when they met at the Martial Alliance, Do-ha had clearly been in a weakened state. But now, only a few months later? He had grown incomparably stronger.
Is this truly the growth rate of a human being……?
Even the renowned geniuses of the martial world could not advance this quickly. No—if one was merely human, matching this pace was impossible to begin with. And Baek Do-ha was a being who wielded magic as well. To grow this much in a matter of months while using two different powers only proved once again that he stood outside every ordinary measure.
"So an herb gatherer found this?"
"Yes. With demand for herbs from Earth surging, he said he climbed the mountain without rest even on rainy days."
"Man, the internet's the real problem."
Do-ha scratched his head. Ever since the connection to Belhart opened, the net had been buzzing about how the herbs of the martial world possessed incredible effects, and a bizarre herb craze had taken hold.
"They think herbs are miracle elixirs or something……"
He let out a sigh and laid a hand on the dead dragon's body.
Sizzle—
"Hmm…… not a sword wound."
"The Alliance Leader said the same."
"Je-woo couldn't find any traces either?"
"No, sir."
"Canteas. What do you make of this wound?"
Do-ha pointed to the deep gash near the neck. It ran in a clean straight line, as if a blade had carved deep, yet it was hard to call it a sword cut. Thicker than a sword, and the grain of the wound was too smooth for a saber.
"Hmm…… looks like it was struck by something soft…… but is there anything soft enough that still has the strength to punch through dragon scales?"
Canteas tilted his head as well. A dragon's hide was as tough and resilient as a true dragon's. Ordinary attacks stood no chance of piercing it. In the distant past, a sixth-circle mage had once hit a dragon square-on with a misfired spell, and the creature had only been jarred—no serious wound at all.
"They said the Yeouiju wasn't found, right?"
"Correct. The herb gatherer didn't take it either."
"Figured as much."
Do-ha crossed his arms and scanned the surroundings.
Deep in the cliffs. A remote mountain with almost no traffic……
Hummm—
Closing his eyes, he spread his qi sense across the terrain.
No settlements nearby.
"Find anything?"
Sensing the spread of Do-ha's qi, Canteas looked over at him.
"From what I can tell, the dragon didn't die here."
"What? But the corpse is right here, isn't it?"
Song Gyeol tilted his head at the claim. If it hadn't died here, that meant the body had been dumped. Yet a dragon wasn't some earthworm—it stretched well over a hundred meters. Hauling something that size to this spot should have drawn every eye along the way.
"Something killed the dragon and dumped it here."
What could it have been? The only beings large and powerful enough to discard a dragon like trash were dragons themselves. But this wasn't a dragon's work. There was no lingering scent of draconic mana, and besides, the dragons of Belhart had long since vanished from the world.
Hummm—
Void Step × Fly.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Using Void Step to tread the empty air several times, Do-ha then unfurled Fly midway and shot straight upward. Combining the two like this built acceleration and gave him far smoother thrust.
"Looking for something?"
Canteas rose into the air after him and scanned the same horizon.
"To bring that giant dragon all the way here, they'd have needed a route with almost no people."
He whipped his head around, mapping the geography at speed.
Southwest.
The roads toward Yunnan and Tibet saw the least traffic. Other directions had little shops or fields along every path; the southwest was the sparsest of all.
Whoosh—
Thud.
"Did you find something, sir?"
As Do-ha landed, Song Gyeol approached. From the sky he had been staring in one particular direction.
"Nothing solid yet, but I have a rough idea where we need to go."
"Southwest?"
That was exactly the direction he had been watching.
"Right. By the way, what are you going to do with this dragon corpse?"
"We'll probably have to hand it over to the Kunlun Sect."
"Aw, what a waste. I was thinking of using it myself if things went that way."
"Haha……"
In truth, if Do-ha claimed it, not only the Kunlun Sect but even their root in the Immortal Realm of Kunlun would not dare protest. The world, however, still did not know the Absolute One had returned.
"We'll keep searching, then. If anyone from Kunlun asks who's looking into this, just say a search team is on it."
"Understood."
Whoosh!
Song Gyeol nodded, and Do-ha and Canteas immediately climbed back up the cliff.
Whoosh—
"Pii!"
The moment they cleared the cliff face, Yong-yong poked his head out from where he had been cleverly hiding. Before coming here, Do-ha and Canteas had warned him to stay well out of sight while they were in the martial world.
"Pii?"
Yong-yong looked up at Do-ha, clearly fishing for praise for having hidden so well.
"Yeah, good job. From now on, whenever we meet people, you hide. Folks around here freak out the second they see a dragon."
"Pii……"
At the words that people shuddered at the mere sight of dragons, Yong-yong's ears drooped. He hadn't done anything wrong, yet he was still of the dragon race.
"You didn't do anything wrong, so don't get down. It's just how things are."
"Pii."
"And if anyone ever gives you grief, Canteas will teach them a lesson."
"Huh……? Me?"
Canteas, who had been flying quietly alongside, nearly jumped out of his skin. He was no martial artist—why would he be the one scolding people in the martial world? Doing so would only deepen friction with the Western Continent.
"Oh right, come to think of it, you're weak against martial artists who use internal arts, aren't you?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Canteas bristled at once.
"You're dredging up ancient history. That was right after I got unsealed—my body wasn't fully loosened yet."
"Don't make me laugh. That was more than two years after you were freed. Do you loosen up on a yearly schedule?"
"Ugh, that pisses me off. Fine, land. I'll show you. Just grab some random martial artist and I'll fight him."
"Ahh~ so you want a random martial artist. Strong ones are too much for you, I take it?"
"Pii."
"This is so damn annoying."
Do-ha needled him, Yong-yong burst into laughter, and Canteas fumed. In the past he truly had struggled against internal arts. But that really was the past. Things were completely different now.
"Is there a Blood Cult or Demonic Cult branch around here? I'll actually—"
"Hold on."
Whoosh—
Do-ha cut him off and halted in midair.
"What?"
"Down there."
Whoosh—
Thud.
He dropped to the ground at once and pushed into the dense undergrowth.
Rustle.
"What? What is it?"
"Here."
Do-ha pointed to a small bloodstain on the earth—about the size of a baseball.
"This is dragon blood."
"You spotted this from up in the sky?"
Canteas glanced upward. Moments earlier they had been flying so high that even buildings looked like tiny toys. How had he seen something this small from there?
"I didn't see it. I sensed it."
Back at the cliff he had absorbed a faint trace of the dragon's energy while examining the corpse. The entire flight he had kept his qi sense stretched to its limit, searching for any echo of that same aura.
"So this direction was right after all."
"……"
"Why the long face?"
Seeing Do-ha's brow furrowed, Canteas tilted his head. They had found a trail and confirmed the direction—why so grim?
"What exactly are we chasing right now?"
"What else? The thing that killed the dragon."
"Is it really just a 'thing'?"
"What do you mean…… ah?"
Grasping Do-ha's meaning, Canteas's eyes went wide.
"That enormous dragon was hauled all the way to a cliff in the Sichuan region, and the only trace left behind is this single bloodstain."
The dragon's body had been riddled with dozens of deep wounds and had been bleeding freely. Yet only one mark remained. That meant whatever moved the giant corpse was capable of erasing nearly every sign of its passage.
"Then what the hell killed the dragon? It wasn't a dragon—we already know that."
Canteas knew the scent of draconic mana well enough to rule them out. Still, the only creature that came to mind capable of reducing a dragon to this state was another dragon.
"Not a Demon King either……"
"A Demon King could kill a dragon easily enough…… but if those bastards showed up in the middle realm, it wouldn't be a dragon vanishing—it'd be entire cities."
"True."
"Let's keep moving for now."
Do-ha scooped up the bloodstained soil and tucked it into a small pouch. Tracking the residual energy he had absorbed earlier together with the aura soaked into the blood should be enough.
In that instant—
Whoosh!
Do-ha and Canteas both snapped their heads toward the same point.
"Do-ha…… that energy just now……"
"I felt it too. Let's go."
Whoosh—!
They shot forward at a speed that nearly cracked the air with a sonic boom.
Thud.
"Hah…… hah…… damn it all."
Panting hard as they arrived at the source of the energy, Do-ha spat a curse. Another dragon lay dead before them.
"It just breathed its last."
Canteas examined the body and shook his head. The surge they had felt moments earlier must have been the final burst of energy the dragon released as it died.
"The wounds are identical."
Looking at the gash near the neck, Canteas recalled the dragon dumped on the cliff.
"Looking at this, they're using a Yeouiju."
"Yeah."
Do-ha nodded. Even flying in from the sky, they had seen no one fighting. They had spotted nothing fleeing either, and the Eastern Continent was under a barrier that made teleportation impossible. That left only one possibility: a being that possessed a Yeouiju was using its power to shift through space.
"That's already two Yeouiju."
Two pearls equal in rank to a Dragon Heart had been stolen.
"No wonder no one could find them. They're space-shifting."
Canteas rose with a sigh. Unlike teleportation, which left a mana scent, spatial transfer left no trace. Even the immortals could not perform it. It was a unique property of dragons—more precisely, of the Yeouiju they carried.
"What now? Do we take this dragon's energy and start tracking again?"
"……"
"Do-ha?"
"Shh."
Eyes closed, Do-ha quieted him.
What is he doing?
A faint thread of energy began to seep from Do-ha's body.
"Found it."
"Found what?"
"Where they went."
"Huh? How?"
"I tracked the spatial transfer."
"You tracked a spatial transfer?? What does that even mean?"
As he had said earlier, spatial transfer left no traces.
"Spatial transfer leaves traces too. The catch is, you can only find them if you know how to space-shift yourself."
"Ahh, so that's why people think it leaves nothing—because they can't do it themselves…… wait. Then how do you know?"
"Because I can space-shift."
Do-ha pressed his hands against empty air and wrenched them apart. The void itself began to tear open down the middle.
Whoooosh—!
"……What am I even looking at right now……"
"Hey, get in already! This thing closes fast!"
Do-ha grabbed the collar of the still-gaping Canteas and yanked him through.