Chapter 610
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 610
Chapter Title: Did You Hear the Voice of the Abyss?
Bang Sa-uk moved without rest.
Ha Mu-baek unintentionally confirmed once more that the bastard was a dark blood corpse puppet.
He neither ate, slept, nor rested, pushing on relentlessly for a full three days.
Ha Mu-baek had no choice but to keep pace.
If he fell too far behind, tracking him down again would take considerable effort.
And so, Ha Mu-baek tailed him day and night for three days, stopping only for the most urgent bodily needs.
At first, Bang Sa-uk seemed directionless, zigzagging haphazardly, but at some point, he set his course firmly toward the northeast.
A day after leaving Henan Province and entering Shandong Province.
He veered into an unnamed wild mountain.
It was a mountain thick with eerie yin energy and ghostly qi.
There were probably graves clustered nearby.
Even the qi of death hung in the air.
Around that time.
Bang Sa-uk had found a definitive vein of darkness.
A place brimming with the power of darkness, just like the one where he had first gained his dark strength.
Bang Sa-uk's speed increased even further.
By the time he reached the vein of darkness, his face was alight with ecstasy.
'Ha Mu-baek. Next time will be different. Grind.'
Gnashing his teeth, he poured all his effort into absorbing the power of darkness.
Having traveled this path once before, he drew it in faster, greedily claiming more.
Ha Mu-baek arrived about half a shichen later.
His gaze turned downward, to the earth.
An unnamed wild mountain.
Dark power pooled thickly here.
"So there was a place like this."
He hadn't known of it before.
He could never have imagined a spot where primordial qi gathered so densely.
Even Ha Mu-baek's qi sense hadn't detected it.
Only now, with his senses steeped in dark qi, was it possible.
'Primordial. What the hell does that even mean?'
He thought he understood, but he didn't.
Perhaps even the primordial fragments themselves didn't fully grasp their own nature.
The Infinite Sage hadn't explained this part.
If he had known, it would have been impossible to overlook.
The simple fact that there existed an energy detectable only through primordial qi, invisible to ordinary senses.
Bang Sa-uk was devouring the darkness voraciously.
Deep underground.
The pooled dark qi lay in profound depths.
Directly below where Ha Mu-baek now stood, about a hundred zhang down.
That's where Bang Sa-uk's presence emanated from.
Along with the thick, congealed darkness—no, the power of the abyss.
"It's certainly a spot the abyss would relish. If it's like this, there might be similar pools for the other primordial energies."
Ha Mu-baek murmured as he extended his qi sense outward.
There was a place saturated with deathly qi.
Likely a cluster of graves.
From there, death qi, ghostly qi, and yin energy flowed down, pooling like a pond.
That accumulated energy had transformed into abyssal qi, drawing in more from the surroundings.
Through that process, this massive vein of power had formed.
The very spot where Bang Sa-uk was immersing himself.
'Wait. If it's like this...'
Ha Mu-baek's thoughts drifted elsewhere.
Death qi.
Yin energy.
Ghostly qi.
The group that exploited these best was the Blood Cult.
Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest, where they had held sway.
That place was incomparable, steeped in far denser death qi and ghostly qi.
If even this modest wild mountain had coincidentally birthed such a vein, how much more so Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest?
'There has to be one.'
He was certain.
Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest surely harbored such a vein.
Possibly one holding even vaster power, deeper within.
'Maybe the abyss itself resides there...'
Just as the Infinite One and Yeo-ui had forged a world of mindscapes together, the abyss might have carved out its own domain deep beneath Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
Now he had reason to return to Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
He'd thought it was all over.
But seeing the Blood Cult's dark blood corpse puppet absorb abyssal power.
Perhaps the Blood Cult's very roots lay in the abyss, one of the Primordial Six Divine Arts.
'It wasn't the end after all.'
Ha Mu-baek's eyes sharpened fiercely.
But first, he needed to deal with the matter at hand.
Ha Mu-baek drew his sword.
Gripping it in reverse.
Infusing it with qi.
He plunged it straight into the ground.
"Come out."
With Ha Mu-baek's calm murmur, the sword qi shot downward like a bolt of lightning, a hundred zhang deep.
It was the energy of Infinite Yeo-ui.
A bolt of pristine white sword qi bored into the earth, piercing Bang Sa-uk's body clean through.
"Gah! W-what?!"
By the time he sensed the colossal energy surging toward him, it had already impaled him.
It wasn't mere lightning.
Utter speed, utter might.
True lightning had struck him down.
And it didn't end there.
It yanked Bang Sa-uk up to the surface, like reeling in a fish on a line.
Kwaaaang!
A massive crater erupted in the ground as Bang Sa-uk was flung out, tumbling across the dirt.
It was still the dead of night.
Bang Sa-uk's time, blended with the darkness—but taking that blow from Infinite Yeo-ui had restored some of his physical form.
The hole in the ground was proof.
"That was fun. Thanks to you, I learned a lot."
"You bastard!!!"
Darkness swirled around Bang Sa-uk's body.
The energy surging toward Ha Mu-baek poured down like the Sichuan Tang Clan's ultimate art, Ten Thousand Heavenly Blossoms.
The moment Ha Mu-baek thrust out his left hand.
Black qi roiled and rose from his palm.
Its source was the hole from which he'd hauled up Bang Sa-uk.
A hundred zhang below.
The abyssal qi pooled deep underground surged up at Ha Mu-baek's call, manifesting thus.
Bang Sa-uk's eyes widened in shock.
"H-how...?"
How could this non-dark spawn absorb and wield the darkness pooled so deep below?
Bang Sa-uk's full-powered strike was utterly devoured by the black qi Ha Mu-baek had summoned.
Ha Mu-baek glanced briefly at his left palm.
"Not bad."
Bang Sa-uk stared at him in stunned disbelief.
From the gaping hole in his abdomen, black qi continued leaking out.
Black qi instead of blood.
Bang Sa-uk strained to draw underground dark qi to mend the wound, but it wouldn't seal.
No other reason.
Infinite Yeo-ui.
A wound from the same primordial power, but of opposing nature.
To heal it, he needed to draw stronger power than what had inflicted it.
However.
Absorbing dark power like this made immediate repair seem hopeless.
As the qi bled out, Bang Sa-uk's body began to fade ever so slightly.
At the same time, the murderous intent he exuded subsided a touch.
The berserk killing urge that seemed ready to destroy everything calmed somewhat.
Whether due to the qi loss or some other cause, Ha Mu-baek couldn't tell.
Confirming the change, Ha Mu-baek asked.
"Did you hear the voice of the abyss?"
What sort of change had occurred, exactly?
Bang Sa-uk tilted his head at the question, replying where before he would have charged with murderous fury.
"Urk. Abyss? What's that? I heard the words of darkness, though."
"What did it say?"
"The child of darkness returns to the darkness."
Ha Mu-baek's expression said it couldn't be that simple as he pressed further.
"It didn't promise you power?"
Bang Sa-uk blinked in surprise.
"How do you know that, you bastard?"
"And after that?"
Ha Mu-baek continued impassively.
"Got the power—what comes next? Heh."
A laugh or groan escaped Bang Sa-uk.
As the dark qi kept leaking, his fading body solidified fully.
His assimilation with the darkness had unraveled.
The dark qi poured endlessly from the hole Ha Mu-baek had made.
"Eugh."
Bang Sa-uk grimaced, groaning.
White Lotus Flame Art.
Borrowing the power of his Vermilion Bird Blood Spirit Body constitution to resist annihilation qi.
But the abyss qi unleashed by Infinite Calamity had overwhelmed it, turning Bang Sa-uk into a dark blood corpse puppet.
The White Lotus Flame Art should have vanished.
Yet a tiny sliver had evaded the annihilation qi, hiding deep in his upper dantian.
And now.
As the dark qi drained, the annihilation qi weakened too, and the White Lotus Flame Art seized the opening.
Its inner energy expanded once more from the upper dantian.
Possible because his Vermilion Bird Blood Spirit Body was still viable.
"Grrrrgh."
Still leaking dark qi from the abdominal hole, Bang Sa-uk clutched his head and doubled over.
A splitting headache wracked him, making him writhe.
Ha Mu-baek paused at the sudden shift.
Thanks to his Infinite Bright Wheel Eye, he saw the change.
A white energy blooming in Bang Sa-uk's head—his upper dantian.
Undoubtedly Beggar Clan inner energy.
'White Lotus Flame Art, was it?'
Having seen it before, he identified it quickly.
Ha Mu-baek kept his distance, watching patiently.
To see what role this suddenly resurfaced White Lotus Flame Art would play.
"Grraaagh. Kraaak."
Bang Sa-uk kept screaming.
He extended one hand, slowly drawing in abyssal qi from deep underground.
But the absorbed qi went not to his abdominal wound, but to his upper dantian.
This was annihilation qi's instinct.
Bang Sa-uk groaned in agony, his eyes unfocused and vacant.
He had lost consciousness.
Meanwhile, a fierce battle raged in his upper dantian.
Annihilation qi versus White Lotus Flame Art, both fighting with all they had.
Ha Mu-baek's Infinite Bright Wheel Eye saw it all.
Infused with abyssal qi, it could even track annihilation qi's movements.
'Perhaps...'
A flash of insight crossed his mind, but he focused on Bang Sa-uk's state.
The two energies clashed violently in the upper dantian.
For an ordinary person, it would burst the head instantly.
But Bang Sa-uk was a dark blood corpse puppet, no ordinary body, so he endured.
Except one spot.
The tiny nail-sized nook where White Lotus Flame Art had hidden—that alone was human.
Annihilation qi threw everything into claiming it fully.
Bang Sa-uk's current state was utterly defenseless.
Ha Mu-baek could end him with a single sword stroke if he wished.
Annihilation qi, fixated on the internal foe, had forgotten the external threat.
"Still, I'm curious how this plays out. Tsk."
Ha Mu-baek approached the frozen Bang Sa-uk.
One hand clutching his head, the other absorbing dark qi—he hadn't twitched.
Despite qi draining from his body, the fresh influx kept going to the upper dantian.
As a result.
Annihilation qi was gaining the upper hand bit by bit.
Then.
Ha Mu-baek placed his hand on Bang Sa-uk's head.
And.
His inner energy flowed through his hand into Bang Sa-uk's mind.
Infinite Yeo-ui energy.
Radiant energy too.
Unable to fully merge them yet, he sent them in separately.
The White Lotus Flame Art welcomed the reinforcements.
The combined power resisted annihilation qi anew.
No—it counterattacked, gradually gaining dominance.
Annihilation qi spread Bang Sa-uk's other hand to absorb more, but Ha Mu-baek's output overwhelmed it.
Thus.
They expelled annihilation qi from the upper dantian, then swept through the entire body.
The lower dantian cleared as well.
In the emptied spaces settled White Lotus Flame Art, Infinite Yeo-ui, and radiant energy.
"Gah!"
With a ragged gasp, focus returned to Bang Sa-uk's eyes.