Chapter 6 :

Chapter 6

Act Two: Crying-Infant Dragon Steed (3)

“Lord Goecheon—”

“I know.”

Goecheon knew that the two companions he had left behind were no match for the demon.

Even so, he—the most advanced of the three—had taken Yise with him so he could bring the boy even one step closer to Spirit-Guarding Temple.

He simply had not expected them to be defeated so quickly.

Goecheon set Yise down and immediately drew out his demonic energy.

The sight of the boy’s battered body weighed heavily upon his mind, but there was no other choice.

“Go back. Take everyone remaining in Spirit-Guarding Temple and flee as far as possible.”

The situation was urgent.

The boy was exceptionally intelligent, so those words should be enough for him to respond appropriately.

Goecheon planted his iron-studded club vertically against the ground and formed a hand seal.

Spirit-Kin Shadow Beast Demonic Art.

Shadow-Net Formation.

In an instant, shadows were extracted from the surrounding rocks, trees, and grass.

A mysterious phenomenon occurred, making the entire area seem momentarily brighter.

The shadows then transformed into the shape of a net.

Instead of immediately fleeing, Yise created some distance and watched the battle between the two beings.

His body could barely remain standing.

Even if he ran, he would not get far.

If Goecheon lost against the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed, it was obvious that Yise would be caught regardless of how desperately he fled.

In that case, it would be better to employ the final measure he had prepared and repay the kindness he had received with his life.

“The third rule of demon extermination: judge every situation calmly.”

Regardless of his feelings, he had to assess the situation calmly.

He would act as he had been taught.

“If I’m likely to become a hindrance, I’ll run as far away as possible.”

He would watch for only a single moment.

Yise’s eyes shone fiercely.

The shadows extracted by Goecheon spread like a net and descended upon the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed as though capturing a ferocious beast.

However, the horns on the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s head flashed and tore the shadows apart.

Spirit-Kin Shadow Beast Demonic Art.

Four-Directional Strike.

Four human-sized shadows immediately surged from beneath the ground.

The four shadowy hands surrounding the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed slammed down as though crushing an insect against the earth.

The Crying-Infant Dragon Steed leaped into the air, easily evaded them, and released a fierce roar.

The resulting vibration was powerful enough to make the mountain hum.

Goecheon had already closed the distance.

Gripping his iron-studded club in both hands, he swung it horizontally.

A deafening noise rang out like tearing metal.

The blunt weapon had been swung with enough force to crush the demon’s skull, but it was Goecheon’s iron-studded club that shattered instead.

After witnessing that single exchange, Yise realized just how insignificant the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed had considered him inside its barrier.

Had it wished, it could have trampled him to death by any means it pleased.

He had been such an insignificant creature that it had not even considered using its full strength.

That was how the demon had viewed him.

“This is merely a mid-ranking demon—and one near the bottom at that...”

Just how many stronger demons existed above it?

It felt as though he were standing before an impossibly towering mountain.

Yise soon shook his head.

Surviving the demon before him was uncertain, so thinking about those above it was nothing but arrogance.

Yise tore off a long strip from his sleeve and wrapped it tightly around his arm.

He then secured a dagger beneath the fabric.

Using Dokkaebi Steps, he gradually erased all traces of his presence.

***

“If I drag this out, I will inevitably lose.”

After exchanging several attacks with the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed, Goecheon became certain of that fact.

The demon’s demonic energy and cultivation realm were roughly equal to his own, but there was an unmistakable difference in their fundamental quality and experience.

It seemed to have hunted countless Spirit Kin before, as every move Goecheon attempted was immediately countered.

Even if he had to risk his life, forcing a conclusion as quickly as possible would give him the greatest chance of victory.

After exchanging several moves, he had clearly identified where he held the advantage and where he was inferior.

He was inferior in speed and endurance.

However, he possessed the advantage in physical strength and the instantaneous explosive power of his demonic energy.

In that case—

“I’ll surrender my flesh to take its bones.”

Goecheon received the lightning-fast charge of the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s horns with his own body.

He surrounded himself with demonic energy to defend against them, but the two horns struck with tremendous power, pierced his abdomen, and protruded through his back.

“Hup!”

He drew a deep breath and contracted his muscles.

The jagged end of his shattered iron-studded club then descended vertically toward the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s back.

A dull impact rang out, and the demon’s blood sprayed into the air.

Its scream echoed around them.

Twice.

Three times.

Every time the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed thrashed, its dragon horns tore through Goecheon’s abdomen.

Every time Goecheon brought down his club, the demon’s thick hide was ripped apart.

It was a desperate close-quarters battle approaching mutual destruction.

It resembled a contest to determine which of them would reach death first.

It was a race with the River of Death as its finish line.

“I can kill it...!”

Goecheon forced himself to hold on to his fading consciousness and shouted inwardly.

But for a single instant, he failed to notice the serpentine shape emerging from the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s tail.

As though revealing a hidden move, the serpent demon lunged out and sank its fangs into Goecheon’s shoulder.

“Poison...”

A virulent poison spread instantly from his shoulder.

Had he been uninjured, he would never have permitted such a fatal strike.

However, the difference created by that hidden move proved decisive.

Both Goecheon and the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed sensed that the end had arrived.

The outcome had been decided, leaving predator and prey equally distracted.

At that single moment, something dropped from the tree above them.

“Y-You!”

Yise—the human boy who should have fled and returned to Spirit-Guarding Temple long ago—landed on the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s back.

Neither of them had sensed him at all.

That demonstrated just how closely matched Goecheon and the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed had been.

“Screeeeech!”

The Crying-Infant Dragon Steed appeared equally startled by the ambush and roared furiously.

“Why didn’t you run? Do you want to die a meaningless death?”

“Hold it tightly, Lord Goecheon...!”

Only then did Goecheon notice the forearm-length dagger in Yise’s hand, which had a blue gemstone embedded in it.

The auspicious energy flowing from it made it unmistakably one of the treasures from the Spirit Treasure Hall.

Goecheon was briefly dumbfounded that the boy he had tried so hard to save had returned.

He then secured the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s head beneath one arm while it remained embedded in his abdomen, and tightly seized its serpent-bearing tail with his other hand.

He had sensed something strange in the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s struggles.

Goecheon was going to die regardless.

A third of the organs in his abdomen had been destroyed, and the venomous serpent had bitten directly into an artery.

But he wanted to create at least one path to survival for the boy before him.

“Awooooo!”

The Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s agonized cry resounded through the surroundings.

Yise gripped the Meridian-Severing Dagger, which he had secured to his hand with strips torn from his sleeve, and drove it directly into the center of the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s spine.

It was the only place Goecheon had managed to wound.

It was the single opportunity purchased with Goecheon’s life.

Although the Spirit Kin had sacrificed himself to save Yise, Yise could not afford to seize an imperfect opportunity, even if Goecheon died as a result.

Yise immediately struck the Meridian-Severing Dagger’s hilt with his small axe.

It was like driving a chisel with a hammer.

Another piercing scream rang out.

It was not a scream of pain.

It was a scream of fear.

The demon must have felt the demonic energy circulating through its body becoming increasingly unstable.

The Meridian-Severing Dagger was a weapon that severed the channels through which demonic energy flowed.

When driven directly into a demon’s energy channel and left there, it absorbed the demonic energy within its body until the creature was rendered powerless.

As the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed grew increasingly desperate, its struggles became even more violent.

Gathering the last of his strength, Goecheon struck the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s head.

Perhaps because the demonic energy protecting its body had disappeared, the head that had previously felt as hard as steel collapsed like crushed tofu.

It was a fatal wound.

However, the price Goecheon paid for exhausting his final strength was equally fatal.

The Crying-Infant Dragon Steed shoved Goecheon away with a charge and diagonally tore through his body with its dragon horns.

Goecheon’s body vanished from sight before he could even scream.

The Crying-Infant Dragon Steed snorted as though it had finally disposed of the nuisance and violently flung its body from side to side.

However, the leech-like human refused to fall away.

The demonic energy within its body had already been completely drained.

The Crying-Infant Dragon Steed began smashing its body against its surroundings in an attempt to dislodge the human clinging to its back.

Crash!

A tree split apart, and Yise vomited another mouthful of black blood.

The creature retained tremendous physical strength even though it could no longer properly use its demonic energy.

However, the Meridian-Severing Dagger remained firmly embedded as it voraciously absorbed the creature’s demonic energy.

Yise also remained attached because his hand had been tightly bound to the weapon.

With his free hand, he raised his small axe and struck the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s mangled neck.

Thud! Thud!

Three times.

Four times.

The small axe dug progressively deeper into the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s neck, scattering the demon’s blood in every direction.

Sensing the danger, the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed swung its tail and impaled Yise’s body, but he did not stop.

After a desperate struggle between two beings who could have died at any moment, the demon was the first to collapse.

Only then did the Meridian-Severing Dagger pull itself from the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed, as though finally satiated.

The demon died with its neck severed, while Yise fell to his knees, drenched in blood.

Everything he could see below his chest was red.

He could no longer move even a single step.

Survival seemed exceedingly unlikely.

Goecheon had disappeared from sight, making it difficult even to find him and attempt to save him.

For what he believed would be the final act of his life, Yise struck the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s head with his small axe, tore it free, and planted it upright in the ground.

It was as though he had beheaded an enemy general and displayed the severed head.

This was the second demon he had hunted.

It would also be the last.

His vision blurred.

As his consciousness faded, he vaguely saw a light flying toward him from the distant sky.

The blue flame trailing a long tail resembled the Dokkaebi fire from the old stories adults had told him during childhood.

Its true identity was Mong Ryeon.

Mong Ryeon leaped down from the light, waved her hand, and enveloped Yise’s body in demonic energy.

She then clicked her tongue when she saw the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s head mounted upright with the small axe.

The boy’s fixation on heads was probably an aftereffect of seeing the bodies of his family after the Snail-Headed Scholar had devoured their heads.

“Is displaying heads your macabre trademark or something? You’re still weak, yet you’ve already started putting on airs...”

Yise struggled to speak.

Strangely, however, the pain disappeared and his body felt comfortable after Mong Ryeon arrived.

When he spat out what had pooled inside his mouth, a large mass of black blood poured out.

“In my clothes... there’s a medicinal pellet... Give it to Lord Goecheon...”

Understanding what he meant, Mong Ryeon immediately searched Yise’s clothes, retrieved the medicinal pellet, and placed it in his mouth.

“It seems there’s a hole in your stomach. I’m not sure whether you’ll be able to digest it.”

“Why... me?”

“Goecheon is already dead.”

“Foolish bastard. If he was a Spirit Kin, he should have acted like one. Those weaklings shut themselves inside Spirit-Guarding Temple, yet when danger came, they couldn’t even flee and started pretending they had something to protect. Tsk, tsk. What a useless lot.”

The medicinal pellet’s effects were unmistakable.

Known as both a cure for every illness and a naturally blessed elixir, it stopped the bleeding and began healing his wounds.

“...I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to apologize for? This happened because we failed to educate those brats properly. But why were you carrying such a valuable elixir while allowing yourself to die? You should have taken it.”

“It wouldn’t have been authorized for my use.”

“Bullshit. They call this a miraculous elixir capable of reviving the dead, yet it can’t even close a few holes.”

She vigorously scratched her head before opening her palm as though deciding she no longer cared about the consequences.

“I don’t know whether it’s safe to use Spirit Kin sorcery on someone who hasn’t even awakened spiritual energy.”

After hesitating, Mong Ryeon waved her hand, and the gaping holes in Yise’s body gradually began to close.

It was a miraculous sight that left him open-mouthed.

“You truly are incredible, Teacher.”

“You’re only realizing that now? This is just a temporary measure, so don’t exert yourself until the medicinal pellet takes effect. More importantly, this bastard still isn’t dead.”

Mong Ryeon bared her teeth and growled as she approached the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s corpse.

Although the body appeared far too damaged to remain alive, Mong Ryeon merely bared her teeth and spun her iron-studded club.

“This bastard harmed four members of my family, and now it’s pretending to be dead.”

She inhaled deeply.

Her body momentarily swelled like a toad inflating its belly.

When Mong Ryeon extended her hand toward the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed, black energy began emerging from its corpse like strands of aquatic plants.

The energy gradually gathered into a sphere before plunging back into the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s body.

“That’s impossible... Its head was severed.”

“It has only fallen to the Energy Refinement Realm now, but it was once a monster that reached the Core Formation Realm. As long as traces of its Golden Core remain, destroying its physical body won’t finish it. You must destroy those traces.”

The Energy Refinement Realm and the Core Formation Realm.

Yise recalled the stages of the immortal-cultivation world that he had read about in books concerning cultivators.

Energy Refinement was the realm in which one began manipulating and learning to use spiritual energy.

Foundation Establishment was the realm in which one removed all impure energy from the body, began properly establishing one’s foundation, and accumulated enormous quantities of spiritual energy.

Core Formation was the realm in which one created an inner core called the Golden Core and began truly approaching immortality.

Nascent Soul was the realm in which one gained control over souls and spiritual bodies, acquired the ability to cause natural disasters, and developed a body approaching immortality.

Divine Transformation was the final realm attainable in the mortal world, where one became a divine being capable of ascending to the celestial realm.

Most cultivators ended their lives in the Energy Refinement Realm.

Considering that anyone who reached the Core Formation Realm was already called a master within the mortal world, the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed had quite literally fallen from the heavens to the depths below.

Mong Ryeon pulled the Meridian-Severing Dagger from the Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s back.

The Crying-Infant Dragon Steed’s head, which remained embedded in the axe, suddenly screamed and flew toward its body.

“I went through all that trouble to cut it off neatly, yet it wants to reattach itself.”

She spun her bonded weapon—an iron-studded club called the Crimson Ten-Thousand-Pound Club—before swinging it diagonally downward.

Spirit-Kin Shadow Beast Demonic Art.

Thousand-Pound Strike.

It was merely a swing, yet an impact followed that seemed to shake the earth itself.

All that remained was the demon’s body, reduced to pulp.