Chapter 113
Chapter 113
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: The Six Managers of the Great Demon Blood
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Geon-woo didn't know where the master of the Great Demon Blood was.
But he could make a guess. If he followed the flow of chaos mana within the Great Demon Blood, the master would be at the end of it.
The problem was that the master had six retainers who could also generate chaos mana.
He might end up running into one of them if he followed the flow.
Fortunately, there was only one place in the Great Demon Blood where chaos mana was flowing out, so Geon-woo arrived here without any confusion.
The vast center of the Great Demon Blood.
A deep funnel-shaped pit, like an open-pit mine that had been dug out long ago and now abandoned.
The chaos mana was flowing out from the bottom of that funnel-shaped pit.
‘The density of the chaos mana is extremely high. This could shake my barrier.’
The chaos mana in the Demon Blood neutralized and erased the energy of ordinary people.
Even if he deployed a barrier, the energy forming it would continuously cancel out and dissipate against the chaos mana.
In the end, unless one was a resident of the Great Demon Blood or a bio-armor implant who had accepted chaos mana, they would have all their energy drained by the chaos mana and die.
If they died here, they might get lucky and revive as a resident of the Great Demon Blood.
But Geon-woo was someone relatively free from such a fate.
He had realized a way to coat his own energy with chaos mana.
That meant he could protect his normal energy using chaos mana that he could control.
So there was no particular burden or time limit to staying in the Great Demon Blood.
However, the situation was a bit different at the center of the Great Demon Blood, where chaos mana was emanating.
The chaos mana was so thickly distributed that it threatened to strip away Geon-woo's coating.
‘If my barrier peels off here, that would be dangerous.’
Imagining the moment his barrier collapsed and concentrated chaos mana flooded into his body, Geon-woo's expression hardened.
If that happened, he would need to escape the Demon Blood as quickly as possible.
But this was deep in the Great Demon Blood, so that wouldn't be easy.
‘It might be okay to let it peel a bit, then recoat and redeploy the barrier. But by then, chaos mana would already have infiltrated my body, so I don't know how long I could hold out.’
He would only know for sure after experiencing it, so Geon-woo had no choice but to hesitate for a moment.
Should he jump into the pit just like this?
Or pull back and find another way?
‘The problem is that time isn't on my side.’
Geon-woo thought of the golden crystal rod stored in his tattoo space.
While he had been training after entering the Great Demon Blood, the summoning ritual had activated.
Considering that, he had at most half a month left before the summoning.
‘I don't have time to spare if I want to at least say goodbye to Pang and the clinic staff.’
In the end, Geon-woo decided to throw himself into the secrets of the Great Demon Blood.
And as soon as he made up his mind, he leaped into the deep pit where the bottom was invisible.
Whoosh!
Using the mana propulsion technique powered by chaos mana, his body vanished into the black hole at the bottom of the pit in an instant.
* * *
“It's been a while since we had a visitor.”
“Not a visitor, an intruder. He doesn't carry chaos mana.”
“An intruder is still a guest. Isn't that what guests are?”
“Well, that's not wrong if you put it that way.”
“Come on, it's rude to chatter among ourselves with the man right here. How about introductions first?”
“Indeed, that's right. Pleased to meet you. We're the managers of the Great Demon Blood.”
“They say we're the retainers of chaos, the six of us.”
“Chaos is an old name. Nowadays, they're calling him the master of the Great Demon Blood.”
“Same difference either way.”
Geon-woo had jumped into the deep pit he found in the center of the Great Demon Blood and descended into the hole for a while.
When he finally reached the bottom, he encountered the current situation.
The floor at the bottom of the hole was circular, and six elderly men sat on stone chairs arranged in a circle.
Since their bodies were composed of the energy called chaos mana, they felt like holographic projections, and they all looked remarkably similar.
Faded hair and beards, faces and hands full of wrinkles.
It was unusual that they all appeared male, but since they were energy beings, gender was probably meaningless.
“The managers of the Great Demon Blood?”
In any case, Geon-woo decided to engage them in conversation and opened his mouth.
“That's right. We're the ones maintaining it, so that's an apt title.”
One of the six managers replied.
Geon-woo decided to call him the Twelve O'Clock Manager and stood facing him directly.
“Maintaining it means generating chaos mana, I assume?”
Geon-woo asked, looking at the Twelve O'Clock Manager.
“Hahaha. Yeah, there's that misunderstanding. That we create the chaos mana.”
“So you're saying that's not the case?”
“No, it's not. We merely regulate the output of chaos mana. We decide between maximum and minimum based on our individual judgments.”
As the Twelve O'Clock Manager spoke, he casually extended his hand and pointed at where Geon-woo stood.
Rumble rumble rumble!
“Urgh.”
Geon-woo was startled, feeling the concentration of chaos mana around him surge dramatically in that instant.
He had nearly lost the barrier that was blocking the chaos mana.
“Fascinating. He uses chaos mana, but it's not his own.”
While Geon-woo struggled to steady his shaken barrier, a manager behind him muttered.
In Geon-woo's naming, it was the Six O'Clock position manager.
“Anyway, let's start with self-introductions. Consider that just now a warning for skipping the basics.”
At that moment, the Twelve O'Clock Manager lowered his extended hand and urged Geon-woo to introduce himself.
“What's there to introduce? I'm Geon-woo. Lately, I've been building a small city on the outskirts of the Demon Blood Mountains.”
“A city? Didn't Krosus decide to allow only one city in the Demon Blood Mountains?”
At Geon-woo's words, the Nine O'Clock Manager snapped in an irritated voice.
“Well, I'm not under Krosus, so no issue there.”
“It's Krosus's territory, but you're not affiliated with Krosus? Something interesting must be happening.”
This time, the Eight O'Clock Manager sitting nearby showed interest.
“Looks like communication with the outside is spotty? You don't know the latest news.”
Seeing their reactions, Geon-woo nodded with an expression as if he understood something.
“We have no need for outside news unless it's something special.”
The Twelve O'Clock Manager drew a line as if trying to cover up a weakness.
Meaning that even if outside information was delayed, it had nothing to do with them.
But inwardly, Geon-woo shook his head.
The Great Demon Blood was practically isolated from the world, but there was no harm in receiving world news quickly.
No matter how you looked at it, delayed information offered no advantage.
“Why bother with excuses? Any intruder who makes it this far should just pay the price.”
But the Six O'Clock Manager, for some reason dissatisfied, pushed for punishing Geon-woo in a prickly tone.
“Looks like my presence here is a problem.”
Geon-woo glanced back at the Six O'Clock Manager, then muttered while facing forward again.
His demeanor seemed to treat the Twelve O'Clock Manager with respect while ignoring the others.
“If you had accepted chaos mana, we could have had a good connection. But since you haven't become a being of the Great Demon Blood, that's the issue.”
The Twelve O'Clock Manager explained with a look of regret.
“So accepting chaos mana isn't enough? You have to become a resident of the Great Demon Blood to be welcomed?”
“Exactly. That's it. But you haven't.”
“Just to be sure, what happens if someone accepts chaos mana but doesn't become a resident of the Great Demon Blood?”
Geon-woo asked, thinking of the bio-armor implant recipients.
“No energy other than chaos mana. Not taken over mentally by chaos mana. And finally, reaching here through one's own power alone. You've barely satisfied only the last one.”
“Doesn't seem like there's a rule requiring you to be a resident of the Great Demon Blood, though?”
Geon-woo asked, still facing the Twelve O'Clock Manager, at the voice from behind.
It was deliberate disregard for the Six O'Clock Manager.
“If there's no energy other than chaos mana, you inevitably become a being of the Great Demon Blood. The first condition encompasses that.”
“Hmm. I see.”
Geon-woo clicked his tongue as if truly regretful.
“What? What's that reaction?”
Then a voice came from the Ten O'Clock direction.
Geon-woo turned his head slightly to look at that manager.
“Just pitying it. I have subordinates who abandoned all other powers to embrace chaos mana but failed the first condition.”
“Nonsense.”
“Chaos mana can't coexist with anything else. So if you survive with chaos mana, you absolutely can't leave the Great Demon Blood.”
“No, wait. Something's off.”
“Yeah. We overlooked something. How did that guy just use chaos mana? He clearly borrowed it from another being.”
“Right. That's what happened. And that being who had the chaos mana—it wasn't part of the Great Demon Blood.”
“We missed that! Thinking back, yeah, that's how it was.”
The managers, who had been agitated about subordinates who had chaos mana but weren't part of the Great Demon Blood.
But they soon realized such beings actually existed and grew noisy.
“Again! Once more!”
Boom boom boom rumble!
“Grgh! You bastards!”
With the Six O'Clock Manager's cry of disbelief demanding another demonstration, the concentration of chaos mana amplified sharply.
Having experienced it once, Geon-woo sensed the chaos mana's movement and immediately reinforced the coating on his barrier.
At that moment, several jiangshi stored in his tattoo space pushed chaos mana toward him.
“Ooooh. That's it!”
“Indeed. So we weren't wrong.”
“What is that? It's alive, yet how can it be kept in that space? That space clearly rejects living things.”
“A container that holds chaos mana? How is that possible? Something that doesn't clash with chaos mana?”
The managers noticed the jiangshi in Geon-woo's tattoo space and couldn't hide their confused expressions.
They seemed to panic at the fact that the absolute law—chaos mana cancels out and annihilates upon clashing with anything—had been broken.
But they weren't ordinary beings, so they soon accepted the fact and composed themselves.
“We can't deny a clear fact. But it's still hard to believe.”
As the Twelve O'Clock Manager spoke while looking at Geon-woo, the other managers fell silent.
The representative among the managers that Geon-woo had intentionally created was now subtly acknowledged and empowered in this moment.
“So, what changes? I'm still an intruder, aren't I?”
Geon-woo asked, looking at the Twelve O'Clock Manager he had positioned as their representative.
Asking what they planned to do with him, the intruder.