Chapter 619
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 619
Chapter Title: We Won't Fall Behind
Deeply submerged in the darkness, Gongya Ha-rang continued to absorb and digest its energy.
Sudden commotion briefly snapped her consciousness awake.
'What is it?'
The dark energy writhed and probed the surroundings.
Fifty-three zhang above where she lay.
Six people stood at that spot.
'What?'
She had burrowed a hundred zhang deep, yet there were people fifty-three zhang overhead?
And six of them at that?
Impossible. How could six people descend this deep into the earth at once?
As that doubt surfaced—
She sensed the terrain above shifting.
'They've dug down that far?'
Gongya Ha-rang was startled.
Right above where she lay.
Humans had crazily tunneled down a full forty-five zhang.
Then she sensed a familiar energy and understood.
'Gongya Jang-cheon... Big Brother...'
She recalled their connection, but that was all.
For she was Gongya Ha-rang, yet not Gongya Ha-rang.
Her consciousness fully awakened, and she opened her eyes.
Eyes dyed pitch black.
"Since you've found me, I suppose I should come greet you."
She moved.
Dark energy still remained to absorb, but it didn't matter.
Humans making a fuss up there?
She had more than enough power already.
As she rose, the surrounding earth parted on its own, creating space.
Black energy flowed from Gongya Ha-rang's body, and she shot straight upward.
The sun was already setting.
Gongya Jang-cheon probed fifteen zhang below once more with his senses.
The alien energy had thickened, but he still couldn't detect Gongya Ha-rang's presence.
"One more time..."
As he started to say they needed to dig another fifteen zhang—
He felt an intense presence rising from the depths.
Beyond the limit of his senses at fifteen zhang.
But it was so overwhelmingly powerful and vivid that Gongya Jang-cheon couldn't ignore it.
"Th-this is...?"
The Blood Thunder Corps members felt it too.
"Fall back for now."
At Gongya Jang-cheon's command, the six leaped out of the pit.
Kwaaaaaang!!!
The pit's bottom exploded simultaneously.
A massive blast roared, hurling dirt, gravel, and tree roots like a storm.
Of course, it did nothing to Gongya Jang-cheon and the five Blood Thunder members.
Their protective auras deflected it all, scattering harmlessly around them.
As the storm subsided—
Gongya Jang-cheon gazed at the figure before him.
He could vividly picture her even with eyes closed.
From the moment she was born, suckling at their mother's breast.
When she first held her head up.
Crawling on the floor.
Her proud first steps, toddling along.
Every moment of her growth, scene by scene, all crystal clear.
Though they shared no blood, Gongya Jang-cheon remembered everything from her birth until he entered the Golden Treasure Valley.
That child now stood before him.
Her eyes, black with only faint whites remaining, oozed ominous dark energy in all directions, laced with killing intent.
Staring right at him.
"It's been a while, Big Brother."
A cold voice.
Yet unmistakably Gongya Ha-rang's.
Gongya Jang-cheon flinched at the sound he hadn't heard in ages.
But he replied in a voice as frigid as millennial ice.
"Who said that thing is my little sister?"
That was no sister of his—just a Blood Cult monster.
Hence, he called it "it," denying even its gender.
A faint smile curved Gongya Ha-rang's lips.
Devastatingly beautiful.
Had she ventured into the world, the era's famed Six Flowers of Jianghu would have become seven.
Gongya Jang-cheon's eyes twitched slightly at that smile.
But he drew his blade.
Crimson blade aura surged from it.
"A monster indeed."
A murmur thick with profound fury.
Gongya Ha-rang was relaxed.
"Big Brother, aren't you being too harsh to a little sister you haven't seen in so long? Or do you hate me now because I'm a concubine's child?"
Her fresh smile had vanished, replaced by a poignant sadness at her lips.
Eyes cast sorrowfully downward.
The Blood Thunder Corps encircling Gongya Jang-cheon recoiled at the sight.
They quickly turned away.
Instinct told them this was no place for them.
No instinct needed.
The killing intent pouring from Gongya Jang-cheon grew thicker, more terrifying.
They wisely retreated.
They knew the storm to come would be like the calm before a tempest.
And they knew its power best of all.
Expression vanished from Gongya Jang-cheon's face.
A face devoid of emotion.
His rage had peaked, paradoxically erasing all feeling.
Getting swept in anger loses Calm, and that invites defeat.
A truth Gongya Jang-cheon had learned through long experience.
A flame colder than ice blazed fiercely in Gongya Jang-cheon's chest.
Icy rage.
That was his state now.
"To think you'd dare mimic my sister and spout such nonsense."
A flat voice.
No anger, shame, or malice—just emptiness.
Instead—
The blade aura on his great blade burned crimson.
Redder than flames that could melt the world.
Tat.
No more words needed.
Gongya Jang-cheon's blade fell toward Gongya Ha-rang.
North deep Asura Soul-Severing Blade.
The Gongya Clan's supreme blade art, pride of the supreme evil house, revealed itself.
Gongya Ha-rang drew her sword against the blade hurtling straight at her.
A sword cloaked in black sword aura.
Hers too unleashed the Gongya Clan's supreme sword art.
South deep Asura Soul-Shooting Sword.
Kwang!!!!
A massive clash rang out.
Gongya Jang-cheon and Gongya Ha-rang locked blade and sword, staring each other down.
Gongya Ha-rang stared straight into Gongya Jang-cheon's eyes.
Piercingly.
To stir emotion deep within.
But Gongya Jang-cheon showed no change.
Only tyrannical, overwhelming blade arts followed relentlessly.
A barrage pressing from all sides, poised to shatter her in one breath.
His blade aura had gone from red to transparent.
Gongya Ha-rang parried with full power but was slowly pushed back.
'Hiding your strength?'
She was honestly surprised.
When she'd probed him with dark energy, he hadn't been this strong.
She should have absorbed more darkness.
If she was going to clash head-on and bring him down.
But—
She was now a child of darkness, Gongya Ha-rang.
She had absorbed substantial dark energy, surpassing some boundary.
Which meant—
Shwoong!
When Gongya Jang-cheon's blade pierced her sword's guard and slashed her waist—
He felt no resistance in his hand.
Even a shallow cut should have snagged on cloth.
Nothing.
The figure of Gongya Ha-rang holding her sword before him faded to transparency.
Her body was slowly merging into the encroaching twilight darkness.
'This is...'
Gongson Dan-gyeong had already warned him of such cases.
Gongya Jang-cheon poured more internal energy.
A monster vanishing into darkness, losing form.
Then overwhelm it with power enough to shred even illusions.
His internal energy swirled like a typhoon.
The Gongya Clan's supreme heart method.
Dark Heaven Asura Hell Art.
The energy surged through his dantian, raced his meridians, and returned to the blade.
The translucent blade aura turned fully transparent.
A faint crimson glow betrayed its presence.
"If it's darkness, then our Gongya won't fall behind either."
His blade swept through Gongya Ha-rang, but it couldn't touch her phantom.
Yet Gongya Jang-cheon's assault didn't stop.
'Tch.'
Gongya Ha-rang was the flustered one.
Her form gone, she should have taken no damage.
Yet his blade inflicted faint harm.
That was the issue.
Their energies could interfere with darkness.
That's how they'd endured the Demon Annihilation Curse for ages.
But that was mere imitation of darkness's edge.
Its limit against true darkness like her.
Darkness flowed into Gongya Ha-rang's position, toward her.
Merging with it made absorption even easier.
Gongya Jang-cheon, operating the Dark Heaven Asura Hell Art at peak, sensed the flow.
The alien energy he'd first detected.
Why he could sense it still.
Only now, at full operation, did he realize.
Darkness.
The Dark Heaven Asura Hell Art originated from darkness too, sensing the darkness within that alien energy.
If that monster's foundation was that dark energy—
Then that explained how Gongya Ha-rang endured the Demon Annihilation Curse.
Two energies utterly different, yet both born of darkness.
Only then did Gongya Jang-cheon understand his sister's words about possibly breaking the curse.
He'd only glanced at the Demon Annihilation once.
p>At his level, one proper look imprints the formula for unconscious use.
So he hadn't known.
That darkness lurked within the Demon Annihilation.
But Gongya Ha-rang had seen it, hence her belief she could break the curse.
'My mistake... I should have taught her every formula.'
Realization brought self-reproach for his sister.
Had she known all of the Dark Heaven Asura Hell Art's formulas, could she have overcome the curse?
The final formula of the Dark Heaven Asura Hell Art.
He hadn't passed it to her.
Her cultivation wasn't ready.
Yet because of that, she'd fought the curse with an incomplete version.
His chest ached sharply.
In that instant—
Gongya Jang-cheon's emotions wavered, his detachment shattered.
His blade art faltered.
Srck.
Pahat!
Gongya Ha-rang didn't miss the opening.
Her real sword within the phantom grazed his thigh.
Cloth tore, flesh parted, blood sprayed.
"L-Lord!"
The Blood Thunder Corps cried out in shock.
Gongya Jang-cheon grimaced.
"Hohoho. So that's your limit, Big Brother. Don't worry—I'll see you off comfortably on your way."
As real-form Gongya Ha-rang spoke—
Gongya Jang-cheon's blade flew at her, and she became phantom again.
His blade aura grazed past, inflicting minor damage she could ignore.
The influx of dark energy only strengthened her further.
'Those tiny hands clutching my finger in the cradle...'
With detachment broken—
The constant reminder that it was a monster, not Ha-rang, shattered too.
Memories he'd buried deep surged like a tidal wave.
Srck.
Slashed once more.
'You've grown so much now.'
Even as those hands gripped a sword aimed at him.
Tenderness filled Gongya Jang-cheon's eyes, and Gongya Ha-rang noticed.