Red Lotus (4)
Red Lotus (4)
Withered Death Valley was a resource supply area within the Blood Lotus Palace and a dangerous zone that only disciples at Foundation Establishment or above could enter.
While it was clearly part of the Blood Lotus Palace's territory, the area to manage was far too broad, making control minimal unless it was near the main headquarters.
As such, encountering external forces that drifted in was not uncommon, and Core Formation level demonic beasts frequently appeared to inflict casualties—it wouldn't be strange for anything to happen there.
However, this current situation was an exception even for Jeokryeon.
He was a mortal. A mortal who couldn't be guaranteed survival for even a single shijin, let alone a full day, in Withered Death Valley.
Jeokhwa hadn't met a mortal in a very long time.
Because in the Ghost Realm, a mortal was nothing more and nothing less than a resource capable of speech.
Any sect with a name had at least one mortal livestock farm.
By another name, it was called a country.
The Blood Lotus Palace possessed several as well, and Jeokryeon clearly remembered the terrible conditions there.
They blindly worshipped cultivators.
They were thoroughly brainwashed, enough to willingly obey any command.
Jeokryeon did not get close to such mortals.
Because she thought there was no real difference between herself and them.
'What are you looking at, crazy bitch.'
Yet here was a mortal who defied all stereotypes and common sense.
He didn't fear cultivators when he saw them; on the contrary, he cursed and lashed out.
That recklessness, fearing not even death, sparked Jeokryeon's curiosity.
So she kidnapped him into her cave dwelling.
Fortunately, although he possessed impure spiritual roots, he had spiritual roots nonetheless, making him fun enough to play around with for a while.
Gong Muyeon almost killed the servant he'd painstakingly obtained, but his life thread was tough—after a little healing, he ran around just fine.
Anyway, Jeokryeon decided to raise him into a cultivator to pass her remaining time quickly.
As a bonus, she held the stray thought that she might be able to leave her trace in this world through him.
Becoming a Qi Refining cultivator in just one day, and after sharing a bit of spiritual energy, reaching the peak of the 1st Layer—due to his abnormal growth speed and talent, there was a slightly radical interrogation process, but raising him was definitely rewarding.
'Art is an explosion!'
'Crazy bastard.'
Her heart chilled whenever he abused Dantian Explosion, an obsolete breakthrough method that only demonic beasts would use, but thanks to that, he became decent enough for a Qi Refiner, so it wasn't bad.
'Uuung, mamang. Give me num-nums.'
'Sigh.'
Playing along with his strange nonsense became familiar, and sweating together during so-called sparring sessions became a daily routine.
The vitality of another person brushed against Jeokryeon's solitary cave dwelling, and before she knew it, three years had passed living with him under one roof.
'Ah.'
She had never once regarded a man as a romantic interest.
Ten out of ten men who approached her were lunatics anyway, but from birth she herself was far removed from human nature, so she deliberately kept her distance.
However, a relationship that began out of curiosity and whim had quietly lodged itself deep within her heart before she even noticed.
Once she realized this, his foolish face looked cute, and his behavior started looking manly.
Around the time she recognized that her own state was far from normal...
...an unremarkable conversation drove a stake right into Jeokryeon's heart.
'Would you really risk your life for me?'
'Wouldn't it be ungrateful of me not to?'
A sincerity that cared for her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Jeokryeon could not accept it.
Because if she accepted it, she felt she would remember feelings she had long forgotten.
Because she felt she would want to live.
A heart maintained for hundreds of years took merely a few years to shake to its core.
Jeokryeon left him while holding onto this unfamiliar yet warm sensation.
It couldn't be helped. If she fell any deeper into this, he would die.
Because Jeokryeon's master wouldn't stand idly by.
However, it wasn't particularly the right decision.
The half-year without him was bitterly cold and devoid of fun.
She tried to forget him through meditation.
The more she recalled him, the more her heart ached.
She tried to divert her attention by performing sect missions.
Yet every time she slayed a demonic beast and obtained its materials, she found herself habitually planning his training schedule.
She rented a room and drank until she was intoxicated.
There she was, clutching a liquor bottle and treating it as if it were him.
Deciding it was utterly hopeless, she entered hibernation.
Even in her dreams, he appeared.
Wherever she went, he was there.
It was an inner demon. An inner demon forged of feelings too embarrassing to utter.
By the time she came to her senses, she was flying back to her cave dwelling.
It wasn't that she gave up after enduring and enduring.
It was because, outrageously enough, an intruder had set foot in her cave dwelling.
It was absolutely not because she happened to stumble back by sheer accident.
'You truly make things difficult for me. If you had just stayed in the cave dwelling until everything was finished, you would have surely regained your freedom.'
Reunited after so long, he was the same as ever.
Not knowing his place, reckless, and grown even more than before.
However, she did not show this joy.
If she showed it, how arrogant would that bastard get?
Instead, she rebuked and blamed him.
'Hey, shut up. We're in the middle of discussing.'
Even so, when he talked back to Gong Muyeon—a Core Formation cultivator—she was shocked while wanting to laugh at the same time.
That bold attitude and pleasure-seeking mindset were intense enough to render all her prior worries meaningless.
Because of that, unlike herself, she harbored a sliver of hope.
No, she had forgotten Jeokryeon's standing.
'Your travels have been long lately. You have no idea how much that mortal worried about you.'
When the Faceless One appeared to mediate the fight with Gong Muyeon and uttered those words, Jeokryeon felt as if her world were collapsing.
As expected, her master knew everything.
He knew and turned a blind eye. Because within the Blood Lotus Palace, there was no element he could not control.
However, he could not tolerate a Jeokryeon who had turned soft, so he gave an implicit warning.
Jeokryeon wasn't cold-hearted enough.
She couldn't cut him off.
I will probably not even be able to choose my final memory.
And yet, I confide the situation to him.
At the end of resignation, what am I hoping for?
He can't possibly be a main character from an erotic novel who can solve every single problem a woman faces.
Why do I hold onto such a faint expectation?
Jeokryeon, I ——
「Jirak Cultivation Chronicles Gallery」
「Title: Comprehensive Overview of Methods to Disrupt Resurrection Rituals.」
「Author: NaturalINLOVE」
Written based on as much info gathered as possible.
Most of it is vague and assumes hypothetical situations, so the probability of success is equal to the probability of 'That Person' retiring.
First, let's look at how resurrection rituals are performed.
I'll eliminate the impossible ones first.
According to rumors spread by players currently active on the front lines, the Netherworld is a court of law operating under strict rules.
Apparently it's not a complete shitshow 5 minutes before disaster like your typical xianxia clichés.
So, interfering with the Netherworld from the Mortal Realm to summon a soul is impossible.
If anyone pulled that kind of shit, the magistrates would descend and smash their head in.
In the first place, 10,000 years is enough time that it wouldn't be strange if they'd already served their punishment and reincarnated.
This one has some possibility, but there's no reason to hold out for 10,000 whole years.
The reason to leave behind a split soul is as a spare life in case the main body dies. In that case, why wouldn't they resurrect right away and get active again? Why bother hiding their death?
Demonic cultivators think in such bizarre ways that who knows what their intent is, but in that time they could just cultivate and ascend.
Netherworld is almost certainly out, and as for Soul-Split, I'm over 50% sure it's not that either.
Then, which method will be used for resurrection?
I'll narrow it down to two.
If they cloned big-busted noona based on the body's data, that means an intact body exists somewhere.
Whether it's just one arm or a complete body is unknown, but since it exists, they can continue the experiments.
If the cultivation realm is high but there's no soul, by the laws of the cultivation world, spirituality can naturally emerge within the body itself.
Rumor has it that even ordinary pebbles in the Middle Realm have spirituality, so how much more so for a cultivator capable of attempting ascension?
This resurrection method might be a prayer-meta of restoring a damaged body through cloned humans and praying for spirituality to form inside it.
Objectively, I think the possibility is low, because no matter how strong they are, unless it's the actual person, it's hard to perfectly exhibit their martial prowess in life.
It's not like newly formed spirituality would be friendly, and even if they put a leash on it, at that point you might as well just turn the corpse into a puppet.
It's similar to option 1, but there's a difference.
Option 1 is a completely different person, but option 2 is likely to be a somewhat similar person.
It's a kind of cloned personality, and I'd vote for this one.
The purpose of manufacturing cloned humans would also be to maximize synchronization with the original.
Since they would have tried to implement even the cloned personality using the cloned human as a medium.
Limiting the realm to Foundation Establishment also makes sense.
Because from Core Formation onward, no matter how identical the cultivation technique they learn is, they ultimately become a different person.
The explanation was long, but assuming option 2—the most likely resurrection method—is correct, I racked my brains to figure out how a mere scrub at Qi Refining could mess things up.
Most certain. But if she does it, she's guaranteed to die.
If she does it, doing it during the ritual is probably best, but she'll still die.
A ritual of that scale will definitely use arrays, and it will be designed extremely meticulously and intricately.
Complex arrays are just like machines; if even a single part goes out of alignment, the whole thing collapses.
For you to even attempt disrupting the array, someone would have to bring you to the center of the array.
Even if you get that far, unless you have at least the caliber of an Array Master True Person, interference itself is impossible.
If you completely seep into the ritual itself and self-detonate, there might be hope, but whether an explosion at the Qi Refining level can cause meaningful damage is doubtful.
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Sigh, anyway, I wrote down everything I could think of.
I'm heading off to sleep. Taking no questions.
「Upvotes: 7823」 「Downvotes: 12」
「Comments」
Muwijayeon: Thank you, hyung-nim. I'll do my absolute best and report back on the results.
Main Mod: Before that, take a one-month ban.
Muwijayeon: Eh?
└ He's gone.
└ Banned.
But is it even possible? Doesn't seem like it.
Well, if miraculous luck follows him. The cultivation world doesn't always run on common sense anyway.
└ I mean, there's even an old guy who ascended barehanded carrying nothing but a single sword.
└ That old guy was way too much of an anomaly though.
└ 'I was bored, so I feigned death for about 10,000 years.'
└ 'I was just exhausted and fell asleep, but everyone misunderstood and thought I died. By the time I woke back up, it was already far too late.'
└ LMAO, is this a web novel opening chapter or what?