Chapter 311
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 311
Chapter Title: Lesson 61. Innocent Sinner - 1
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It looked like a phoenix and a human mashed together, half and half.
Its body was formed from flames so vividly red they bordered on blood-like crimson, intensely condensed. The overwhelming presence that had felt so abstract when it was a massive sun now crushed down on Ban Yu-won and the entire group as searing heat laced with pressure.
This was the moment Winter—who had come searching for the Prominence dimension—vanished once more.
"Then, as promised."
Dokgo Yeon leaped forward. Her single sword thrust split the heat apart, carving open a path straight to it.
The sight of her lightly stepping through empty air, charging toward the falling follower of Myeonggeop from the sky, inspired awe not just in Ban Yu-won, but in everyone present.
—Ha! Pathetic... You think a lowly martial artist who can't even reach the higher dimensions stands a chance...!
"Hmph."
Sword met flames.
The inferno, blazing hot enough to melt anything, withered the instant it touched Dokgo Yeon's blade.
She sliced right through the Constellation's right shoulder amid its shock, pressing her assault even harder. But the Constellation seemed to realize something—it unleashed a barrage of flames to sweep away her momentum, then raised its foot high above her head and slammed it down.
—Wooong!
Dokgo Yeon wouldn't take such an obvious attack lying down, but the problem was the aftermath.
Shati gnashed her teeth fiercely at the heat and pressure crushing the air in the wake of its leg. She had cleanly erased it all with explosions fueled by her own power.
"What the hell is wrong with you Constellations?! It was easier when it was huge—at least it made for a bigger target!"
—Insolent fool, don't dodge!
"Thunderhead freak, thrashing around with that lucky power you stumbled into!"
—Boom, kwarang!
The fierce exchange between Dokgo Yeon and the Constellation raged on.
Dokgo Yeon's strikes never missed, but even her blade—which could slay anything in an instant—only inflicted shallow wounds on the Constellation. Its attacks carried enough force to rip her apart if they so much as grazed her, yet its movements were so exaggerated that she dodged them all effortlessly.
—I need what I want, so why are you, a wench like you, blocking my path—!
"Your eyes are set far too high for your station!"
The real issue was the fallout.
Every time the Constellation rampaged, the ground shook like an earthquake, and waves of heat hot enough to incinerate a person in seconds kept blasting outward. Shati gritted her teeth, snapping her fingers repeatedly to counter them.
"How is she dodging all that up close?! It's hard enough reacting from way back here!"
"Shati, keep suppressing it like that. I need to land at least one shot, even if it's out of spite."
Ban Yu-won's women knew full well how he felt about Dokgo Yeon, even if only roughly.
Proving it with his eyes, he watched her boldly hold off the Constellation alone. Mira, seething with jealousy, grabbed her bow to make her own mark somehow.
She couldn't do much against flames of an untouchable realm with her chainling, but a curse infused with the Constellation's own power... maybe that could work.
—Oh my, things are getting fun over here too~~.
"...Gravekeeper?"
Mira's brows furrowed at the sudden telepathic voice of the Blue Lotus Gravekeeper.
"What's so fun about it? If you've been watching, cough up more power."
—Sorry, I'm busy plugging up this side right now. No extra juice for you. Can't believe there's a slave as good-hearted as me.
"Speak so I can understand...!"
—Our cute little Mira, hang in there. Tell your hubby nice things about me~~.
With that, the Constellation's presence vanished completely.
Mira checked her body just in case—the power it had given her hadn't disappeared, but her connection to the Gravekeeper felt so faint now that she wondered if their contract might be ending for good.
'Why...? Is it not just this Constellation going wild—did something happen to make all the Constellations act up?'
How?
Who could possibly affect the Constellations?
No, not all of them were in the same place anyway...
Her mind grew tangled in thoughts, but she snapped back to reality at the sight of the Myeonggeop follower spewing heat from overhead.
Right now, priority one was taking down this bastard who had teamed up with Prominence to sacrifice the fairies.
"Hup!"
Unfortunately, the arrow she loosed evaporated in the heat swirling around it before it could reach the Constellation.
Even though she'd timed it for the split second Dokgo Yeon cleared the heat, her power couldn't overcome the enemy's body heat.
Of course, the curse loaded into the arrow seeped right into it intact.
—Kuh...!
It was a mental curse similar to what Mira had suffered before.
Its aura repelled all physical and magical attacks, but its behavior patterns so far had a strangely immature vibe.
She'd read a childish obsession in it, akin to academy students. Maybe probing its mind would expose a weakness—that was her gamble.
—What is this, why all of a sudden... Nooooooo!
"Huh? Why's it reacting like that?"
But it exceeded Mira's expectations by a mile.
The curse took hold, and the Constellation clutched its head, spewing flames wildly in all directions as it screamed.
Mira looked a bit adorable, surprised by her own shot.
—No, no no no no no no no! She wouldn't lie! She said I wouldn't die, no way!
Fireworks exploded everywhere.
Fragments from the shattered greatsword floating in the air shattered further on impact, scattering even smaller pieces.
"Hm?"
It was shocking how fragile a transcendent Constellation's mental barriers were. But considering it had never descended in its true body before, the group was probably the first to discover this.
And Dokgo Yeon wouldn't miss such a fatal opening.
Accounting for it snapping back to its senses mid-strike, she channeled her maximum power into her shortsword and plunged it into its heart.
Concentrated death flowed down the blade, throttling its throat.
—Gah, haaak! I said nooooo!
"Kuh?!"
But right after, Dokgo Yeon couldn't even pull her shortsword free—she had to leap back through the air in a hurry.
Did her attack trigger some trauma? The Constellation let out a death-rattle shriek and detonated flames across its entire body.
"Yeon!"
"...I'm fine, Won."
Even retreating the instant she sensed the attack, her right arm holding the sword had burned pitch-black along with her clothes. Dokgo Yeon stared at it expressionlessly for a moment, then pulled a candy from her sleeve—hidden there tightly—and crunched it between her teeth.
'Sweet... just like him...'
Her melting expression snapped back to normal as she registered the situation.
A normal person couldn't regenerate a burned arm even with life-force candy, but she was a martial artist who handled qi.
The charred outer layer sloughed off the exposed arm below her vanished sleeve in seconds, revealing smooth pale skin. The onlookers breathed a sigh of relief.
"It pierces Protective Aura like it's a joke. That's a Constellation for you..."
Dokgo Yeon realized anew how lacking her qi manipulation still was.
Protective Aura was an aura that guarded the body.
Hers was especially close to an authority that dismantled incoming energy to nullify wounds entirely—yet it broke through effortlessly and scorched her arm. She had to concede its firepower was no joke.
No, rather, her ability was impressive for limiting the burn to skin and muscle while suppressing the flames.
The Constellation that unleashed it, meanwhile, ignored Dokgo Yeon entirely as it wailed on.
—Don't kill me! Don't kill me! Ah, no! Don't seal me away... Let me out! You! I'll kill you! Someday I'll burn you to ashes, I swear!
"Childish."
Dokgo Yeon spat the words as she eyed the Constellation's pathetic form, howling through a massive hole in its chest.
It stung losing a treasured shortsword to it.
Especially since sacrificing it hadn't silenced the thing completely—this humiliation was something else.
'Still, I can kill it somehow.'
When it first appeared as a sun in the sky, she'd thought they might die right there.
That was underestimating her rapidly growing comrades.
Lucelle's aid, not to mention the fairies led by Mira, and Aisha's growth in recreating a dragon's breath she couldn't have blocked before—all astounding.
Well, Aisha's was less personal growth and more Ban Yu-won spoon-feeding her everything.
And she herself had grown too—
—Kuh, graaaaa!
As Dokgo Yeon's brief reverie ended and she extended her right hand to form a new sword of death qi, the Constellation changed.
Incredibly, it shoved its own hand into the hole in its chest—and crushed something inside.
—Kyak!
That had to be its origin, sustaining and restraining it at once.
Its fading flames exploded back to life, but she sensed an unstable quiver from it.
—Finally... my senses are clear.
The flames enveloping the Constellation reshaped it once more.
Now nearly human-like, but with two massive orbs floating in place of its right and left arms, orbiting its torso.
Dokgo Yeon had never seen it before, but it resembled how Prominence's former head wielded orbs.
—Yeah, it's been ages since I showed my true form. I slipped up. Embarrassing display. But you're all dying anyway, so whatever.
"You're plenty embarrassing now too, worm. Rest easy."
Her thrust sword clashed with an orb.
It tried to incinerate her on the spot, but in the next instant, the blade she'd thought blocked sliced long across its lower abdomen.
"As I said."
Chest, legs, back, then head.
Dokgo Yeon's momentum was murderous, as if testing exactly how many stabs and slashes it'd take to kill it.
Even without her sword, the death blade forged from her fully recovered life-candy qi packed even more power, severing its limbs one by one.
"You're just a thunderhead freak."
—Die!
A head-sized orb hurtled toward her wreathed in flames, but Dokgo Yeon was already gone.
In the aerial battlefield of death and fire, fine metallic particles scattered through the air.
The Constellation's gaze suddenly locked onto them.
What is this?
Since when have they been swirling around me?
—Yeon, that's enough.
"I wanted to finish it off."
But its power was so overwhelming—grazing attacks could cost lives if she pushed further.
Dokgo Yeon hurled her remaining qi into the sword to pin it in midair, then withdrew from the battlefield.
—Kuh—finally out of strength, wench? You're the real worm—!
"Call it... Downpour."
Not retreating Dokgo Yeon, but Ban Yu-won on the ground answered the Constellation as it yanked the sword from its chest.
The iron dust blanketing the area—no, the fragments liquefied by the Constellation's flames—surged all at once, piercing straight through it.
The shattered greatsword had splintered into countless fragments under Ban Yu-won's control up to that point.
—Wha... guh...!
While Dokgo Yeon riddled its body with holes, Ban Yu-won resonated with the debris of the Storm Sword and focused to unleash them in one torrent.
And now, those countless microscopic particles—now liquid—poured into every hole, filling it up and turning it into a lump of molten metal.
Only then could Ban Yu-won be certain of victory.
"Whew, barely won."
—Why... won't it melt...?
"Well, we've got the master of unquenchable flames on our side."
He didn't want to explain the prep work needed to resonate with Ban Yu-mi...
But the unquenchable flames and Ban Yu-won's 'divine killer' meshed perfectly, enough to throttle even a Constellation's true body.
And on top of that...
"Lend me some ice? Kiss me too?"
Aire, exhausted after the dragon fusion ended, turned toward him as if reading his mind. Ban Yu-won shook his head.
"Nah, luckily I've got ice right here."
Ignoring her glare, he borrowed the frost magic from Frost Fortress among the fusion robot's components.
Plus Adamant, Starlight, Rebellion, and finally Judgment.
He slammed every concept into Requiem and hurled it with all his might.
The ice-infused sword traced a straight line from ground to sky, embedding deep into the metal lump.
Freezing the Constellation of Flames solid.