Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: The Jiangshi Spirit Returned from the Demon Dimension
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Woooong! Woooong!
The indoor space forming a perfect cube.
Geon-woo stared tensely at the lines, shapes, and characters glowing brightly, filling all six faces.
= Don't worry, my lord. It will definitely succeed. After all, it's the fusion of Yultren's soul knowledge and the Ravolas clan's secret arts.
"Yeah, it has to."
Geon-woo replied in a serious tone to Ilryeong, who floated beside his ear, inspecting the magic circle alongside him.
He took in the magic circles once more with his eyes, then turned his back.
He was exiting the cubic indoor space.
Ilryeong silently followed Geon-woo's footsteps.
Srrrrk!
The wall, which hadn't been activated by the magic circle yet, split open, creating a passage for Geon-woo to leave.
How much effort had it taken to open the wall like this and restore it afterward without distorting the magic circle?
Srrrrk! Woooong!
As Geon-woo stepped out and the wall restored itself, the magic circle began to activate normally.
From that moment, tremendous changes started occurring in the empty space inside the cube.
The lines emerging from the magic circles on the six faces intertwined in the internal space, beginning to form a three-dimensional magic circle.
"Hmm. It seems to be proceeding properly for now."
It was then that Geon-woo, unable to hide his tense expression outside the stone chamber, muttered with a slightly relieved face.
= Is the three-dimensional magic circle forming correctly?
Ilryeong asked, looking at Geon-woo.
"Yeah. It looks like it."
= If only I could enter, I could check it directly.
"The magic circle is related to souls. How could you go in there? You might get seriously hurt, or worse, it could cause issues with the magic circle."
= My apologies, my lord.
"They say to do all that a person can and await heaven's will. We've done everything we can, so now we just wait."
Geon-woo said this while glaring at the stone wall as if trying to see through it to the other side.
The magic circle inside right now was a summoning circle that Geon-woo and Ilryeong had perfected after numerous failures.
Having failed so many times, both Geon-woo and Ilryeong were even more desperate for this attempt to succeed.
= It will work, my lord.
Ilryeong comforted Geon-woo once again.
How much anxiety had they endured to complete this magic circle?
Moreover, this magic circle wasn't just activated here in Onbiroad.
Across the way, in the Demon Dimension, a corresponding smaller magic circle had been created to link with this one.
Though the Demon Dimension's magic circle was simpler than the one here, creating it had required sacrificing hundreds of jiangshi spirits.
Out of all those jiangshi spirits, only five had made it to this final test stage.
If today's attempt failed, they would lose one of them.
"Here we go!"
As Ilryeong struggled to suppress her impatience, Geon-woo muttered in a low voice.
At that exact moment, a powerful surge of mana flowed from beyond the stone wall.
Fwoosh! Kwarrr rumble!
* * *
"Urgh!"
= My lord! My lord! Please come to your senses, my lord!
"Urgh! I-Ilryeong?"
Geon-woo barely pulled himself together at Ilryeong's urgent telepathic message.
= Ahh, my lord! You've finally awakened. Thank goodness, thank goodness.
"W-what happened?"
Geon-woo racked his brain and recalled that there had been a problem with the three-dimensional magic circle connected to the Demon Dimension.
But he had no idea exactly what had gone wrong.
= My lord, Molti has successfully returned from the Demon Dimension.
Ilryeong answered Geon-woo's question.
"Molti returned? It succeeded? But why—"
Molti was the name Geon-woo gave to the jiangshi spirit he had sent to the Demon Dimension.
Originally, it was the name for the first jiangshi spirit to activate the signal magic circle there, but afterward, all surviving jiangshi spirits in the Demon Dimension were called Molti.
Since they couldn't know the situation there anyway, it was just a way to receive survival signals without checking their status.
As a result, the jiangshi spirit being pulled back from the Demon Dimension was also called Molti.
They had planned to give it a new name to commemorate its successful return to Onbiroad.
For Molti to have succeeded in returning.
But what was with the sudden shock and blackout?
Geon-woo's gaze sought answers from Ilryeong.
= Right after Molti's return succeeded, there was a massive explosion.
"Explosion? Ah, right. That sounds familiar."
Geon-woo remembered that the magic circle had activated successfully, only for a powerful shock to knock him out.
A shock that intense must have been an explosion.
Propping himself up and looking around now, this collapsed mess was definitely his underground lab.
The corridor of the stone chamber where the three-dimensional magic circle had been drawn and the surrounding area had been utterly wrecked.
"Molti! Where's Molti?"
Geon-woo urgently asked Ilryeong about Molti's whereabouts.
= My apologies. Molti exploded right after returning. And this is all that's left.
Ilryeong pulled a lump of light from the pile of collapsed dirt and floated it up.
"Hmm? What's that?"
= It's similar to the spirit body that R'ath Lohit used when creating those monsters before.
"If that's what remained after Molti exploded, then it must be Molti's spirit body?"
= Yes, my lord.
"Huh? Ilryeong, you're injured too? What happened?"
Ilryeong was originally a spirit body.
Because of that, she wasn't affected by physical forces like explosions.
But right now, Ilryeong looked wounded all over, with faint spiritual energy leaking from those wounds.
"Spiritual energy is leaking out!"
Geon-woo shouted.
For a spirit body to leak spiritual energy was like a living being losing vital energy along with its blood.
It was a blow far worse than mere bleeding.
= I'm fine. When Molti exploded, it released waves that affected spirit bodies too. But I've done emergency treatment, so it should improve gradually.
"You did emergency treatment? But spiritual energy is still leaking out like that?"
= Just give me a few soul stones later. No need to worry.
"If that's the case, then good."
Only after hearing Ilryeong's repeated explanations did Geon-woo finally relax.
"So why did Molti end up like this? An explosion?"
= I don't know the exact reason.
"Right. But it looks a bit different from those monsters we saw before?"
Geon-woo suddenly remarked while looking at the lump of light Ilryeong was carefully floating in the air.
It was similar to the spirit bodies of the monsters R'ath Lohit had summoned, but crucially, the factors implanted within had changed.
= You see many strange things about it too, don't you, my lord?
Ilryeong pushed Molti's spirit body— the floating lump of light—toward Geon-woo as she spoke.
Geon-woo focused his mind on the now-approaching spirit body and examined its interior.
"The subjugation power I applied when creating the jiangshi spirit is still intact."
Even for jiangshi spirits sent to the Demon Dimension instead of directly controlled ones, Geon-woo had always applied powerful subjugation spells.
That's why, with Molti's spirit body—the lump of light—right in front of him, the first thing he checked was whether it was still under his control.
"But the possession, predation, and proliferation commands and factors we implanted... they've changed."
= It's not a replacement, my lord. It seems like a form of growth or evolution.
"Either way, it means some external force acted on the factors we implanted."
= Yes.
"So something changed in the Demon Dimension?"
= Yes, my lord.
"Then we need to first check what affected Molti's spirit body?"
= Of course we should check that too. But my lord...
"What? What's left?"
= We can't just let that Molti activate possession, predation, and proliferation on its own whim.
"Why not?"
= Because we don't know why Molti exploded. What if it causes another explosion after predation and proliferation?
"No, there's no explosion mechanism in Molti's spirit body or the factors engraved on it, as far as I can tell?"
Geon-woo shook his head at Ilryeong's claim that the returned Molti might explode again.
= My lord, even without an explosion factor, an explosion can still happen.
"Results without a specific factor?"
= This is a spirit light orb we haven't touched since the explosion. If there's no explosion factor in it, then what caused Molti's body to explode?
"Hmm. The system?"
There was no need to deliberate further.
If Molti had been fine in the Demon Dimension but exploded the moment it arrived in Onbiroad?
Geon-woo naturally thought of the system's restrictions.
= Yes, my lord. I think so too. Molti escaped the Onbiroad dimension system's shackles by adapting to the Demon Dimension.
"So the system eliminated Molti upon its arrival in Onbiroad? But then why did this lump of light, this spirit light orb, remain?"
= Perhaps even the system couldn't touch the soul. Onbiroad now permits the existence of demons, after all.
"No, then what about Molti's explosion? Sure, it did some possession and proliferation in the Demon Dimension, but that only restored them to their original demon forms at best."
Like R'ath Lohit's six monsters, Geon-woo's jiangshi spirits could only proliferate up to regaining their original appearances.
He couldn't understand why such demons would explode upon arriving in Onbiroad.
= You're right. Why did it explode? No, why didn't the system allow Molti? Could the explosion have nothing to do with the system?
Ilryeong looked confused, unable to grasp the situation, at Geon-woo's words.
"If it didn't bring a bomb back from the Demon Dimension, then the explosion was likely tied to the system. For now, let's connect with Molti's spirit body and consciousness."
Geon-woo settled on the most reliable way to understand the situation.
Linking with the exploded Molti's spirit body and consciousness to check its memories.
= Here you go, my lord. I hope the memories are intact.
Ilryeong pushed the lump of light containing the spirit body toward Geon-woo with an earnest expression.
Passing through unstable dimensional rifts was bad enough, and then its body exploding upon arrival was another issue.
Such shocks couldn't have left the spirit body unscathed.
"Let's see. How it survived in the Demon Dimension, and why it exploded right after arriving here."
Geon-woo connected his consciousness to Molti's spirit body, brushing off Ilryeong's concerns.