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Chapter 6

Act 2: Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed (3)

“Sir Gwae Cheon—”

“I know.”

He was well aware that the two comrades staying behind stood no chance against the demon. But even so, as the strongest of the three, he had carried Yise to get the boy at least a few steps closer to the safety of the Ghost Temple.

He simply hadn’t expected his comrades to fall this quickly.

He set Yise down and immediately flared his Demonic Qi.

It tore at his heart to see the boy so bruised and broken, but they were out of options.

“Run. Gather everyone left in the Ghost Temple and get as far away from here as possible.”

The situation was critical. The kid was sharp enough that he’d know what to do with much.

Gwae Cheon planted the iron cub vertically into the ground and formed a hand seal with one hand.

Ghostkin Shadow-Gathering Demonic Art — Shadow Web Formation

In an instant, shadows were ripped from the surrounding rocks, trees, and grass. For a fleeting moment, the world seemed to grow inexplicably brighter from the absence of shadow. Then those same shadows shifted and wove themselves into the shape of a net.

Instead of fleeing immediately, Yise put a bit of distance between them and observed the clash between the two beings.

His body could hardly hold itself upright anyway, so fleeing wouldn’t get him far. And if Gwae Cheon lost to the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed, running would just mean getting caught and eaten later.

That being the case, he figured he might as well prepare his last resort and pay back the life he owed.

“The Third Principle of Demon Hunting.”

“Always assess the situation with a clear head.”

Regardless of his resolve, he needed to judge the battlefield objectively. He needed to stick to his training.

“If my being here is just going to drag him down, I need to put some distance between us.”

He gave himself a brief moment to analyze the field.

The shadows Gwae Cheon had drawn out spread wide like a net and draped over the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed as if to pin down a rabid animal. But the horn on the Demon’s head flashed, and it tore the shadows apart.

Ghostkin Shadow-Gathering Demonic Art — Four-Direction Strike

Four shadow-hands the size of a grown man erupted from the ground around the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed and came crashing down like they were swatting a bug.

However, the Demon leapt high into the air and effortlessly dodged the blow before unleashing a deafening roar that made the mountain tremble.

The demon leapt clear with casual ease, then let out a thunderous roar that sent tremors rolling through the mountain.

By then, Gwae Cheon had managed to get close to the Demon and swung the iron cub in his hands in a wide horizontal arc.

The shriek of metal on metal split the air.

It was a blow aimed to cave in the Demon’s skull, but shatter instead was his own cub.

Watching that single exchange as it took place for Yise just to realize how thorough the Demon had been toying with him earlier.

It could have squashed him at any moment, but it didn’t do so since the bug in his eyes was too insignificant.

That is all he amounted to in the Demon’s eyes.

‘And this is only a Mid-Grade Demon. Barely scraping by the High-Grade at that.’

Just how many monstrous nightmares were ranked extendedly beyond sight.

He felt like he was starting up a mountain range that stretched endlessly beyond sight.

Yise shook his head.

He didn’t even know if he could survive the Demon in front of him right now, no thinking about what lay beyond was nothing short of arrogance. He pushed the thought away.

Now, he tore a strip from his sleeve and wrapped it tightly around his arm, then tucked a dagger under the binding. Then he began gradually erasing his own presence using the Dokkaebi Steps.

‘A battle of attrition is a guaranteed death sentence.’

It only took a brief exchange of blows for Gwae Cheon to realize his situation. The creature’s Demonic Qi was roughly on par with his own, but the gap in their combat experience was insurmountable.

It moved as though it had slaughtered countless Ghostkin before, and perfectly countering every single trick he threw at it.

If he wanted any chance at winning, he had to bet his life on ending this quickly.

Even if it costs him his life.

From those few exchanges, he’d assessed his own advantages and disadvantages.

He was outmatched in speed and endurance but held the upper hand in terms of physical strength and the instantaneous explosive power in his Demonic Qi.

Which left him with only one option.

“Give up one’s flesh to sever their bones.”

As the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed charged into him like a bolt of lightning, Gwae Cheon braced his body and took the impact of its horns head-on.

He channelled his Demonic Qi to cushion the blow, but the monstrous force behind the charge was still too much for him to bear. The Demon’s two horns speared through his gut, bursting out the other side of his back.

“Hgh—!”

He sucked in a sharp breath and clenched every muscle he had.

Then, he brought the jagged end of his iron club and plunged it down like a stake directly into the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s back.

A heavy impact rang out, and black blood sprayed upward. The monster shrieked in agony.

He struck a second time. Then a third.

Every time the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed thrashed, its horns gouged deeper into his gut. And every time the jagged end of Gwae Cheon’s club came down, the Demon’s thick hide was torn into a bloody mess.

It was a vicious melee tantamount to mutual destruction.

A death race with the gates of hell as the finish line.

“I’ve got it…”

Gwae Cheon tried to hold onto that conviction as his consciousness began to blur. But in that split second of triumph, he completely missed the viper-like shadow whipping around from the Demon’s tail.

Like a hidden card it had been saving, the serpentine appendage lunged and sank its teeth into his shoulder.

“Venom…”

The venom immediately surged into his bloodstream. If he’d been in any decent shape, he never would have let such a clumsy attack land. But in a fight like this, the one who got one last trick was the winner.

Both Gwae Cheon and the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed knew it was over.

It was a singular moment where the victor had been decided, and both predator and prey were momentarily distracted.

And suddenly, something dropped down from the branches above.

“You… you!”

It was Yise.

The human boy who was supposed to be halfway back to the Ghost Temple by now was suddenly mounting the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s back.

Neither of them had sensed him at all due to how bloody and all-consuming the duel between Gwae Cheon and the Demon had been.

EEEEEAAARGH—!

Caught completely off guard by the ambush, the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed thrashed and unleashed a furious shriek.

“Why didn’t you run, you idiot? Are you trying to throw your life away?”

“Hold it still for me, Sir Gwae Cheon!”

It was only then that Gwae Cheon’s eyes fell upon the weapon gripped tightly in the boy’s hand. It was a forearm-length dagger, embedded with a glowing blue gemstone and radiating an auspicious energy. It was undeniably a treasure from the Ghost Treasure Pavilion.

For a split second, Gwae Cheon felt a crushing sense of futility. He had thrown his life away to save this kid, only for him to jump right back into the battlefield.

But this was no time to feel despair.

Gwae Cheon looked his forearm around the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s head and then used his free hand to clamp the snake-headed tail.

He did this because he felt an unnatural panic in the Demon’s thrashing.

He wasn’t going to survive this anyway. A third of his internal organs were gone, and the viper had spread through his body. So at the very least, he wanted to carve out a way for the boy to live.

The Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s skull shook the trees.

Yise tightened his grip on the Vein-Severing Blade and drove it crashing down onto the pommel of the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s spine, the one spot Gwae Cheon had managed to wound.

It was the only chance to survive, paid with Gwae Cheon’s life.

Even knowing the Ghostkin was dying for his sake, Yise had hewn couldn’t afford to strike during an imperfect opening, even if it meant watching his savior die.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Yise raised his hatchet and brought it crashing down onto the pommel of the Vein-Severing Blade like hammering a chisel.

Another bone-chilling shriek ripped through the forest. But this wasn’t a scream of pain.

It was a scream of fear.

The Demon could feel its own Demonic Qi unraveling and scattering by the second.

The Vein-Severing Blade was a weapon designed exclusively to sever the flow of demonic energy. Once plunged directly into a demon’s body, it was a Ghost Treasure that would aggressively devour its Ql over time, rendering it completely powerless.

As its energy bled away, the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s thrashing grew increasingly frantic and desperate.

Squeezing out the very last drags of his life refuge, Gwae Cheon slammed his broken club into the Demon’s skull one last time.

Maybe because the Demonic Qi that armored its body was gone, the head that had felt like striking solid steel all this time now caved in like crushed tofu.

It was a fatal blow. But the price Gwae Cheon paid for expending his remaining strength was equally fatal.

The Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed showed Owae Cheon back and cleaved its body diagonally with its horns from the chest. He didn’t even have the breath to scream as his mangled body was thrown out of sight.

The Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed shook itself and trashed as if to try to shake off something annoying, but the little human clinging to its back refused to let go.

With its Demonic Qi nearly drained away, the Demon resorted to brute force.

It slammed itself into a tree trunk to knock the human loose.

CRASH!

The trunk shattered on impact, and a spray of blood gushed out from Yise’s mouth.

Even stripped of its Demonic Qi, the Demon’s strength was still terrifying.

But the Vein-Severing Blade was still greedily drinking down the last drags of its energy, and the binding on his hand kept him from being thrown. Instead, he grabbed the hatchet with his free hand and beat down on the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s mangled neck.

THUD. THUD.

Three times. Four times.

The hatchet dug deeper with each blow, and blood scattered in every direction.

Sensing its impending doom, the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed lashed out with its tail and drove it through Yise’s body, but the tenacious human didn’t stop.

It was a vicious, bloody wrestling match between two creatures already knocking on death’s door.

And in the end, first to fall was the Demon.

Only then did the Vein-Severing Blade pull free as it satisfied.

The Demon died with its neck severed, and Yise slumped to his knees.

Everything below his chest was red.

He couldn’t move a single muscle, let alone take a step.

He probably wasn’t going to make it.

It would be a good spot to gone from his line of sight, meaning he couldn’t even attempt to find and save him.

So, for his final act on this earth, Yise brought the ax down one last time and tore the Demon’s head cleanly off before staking it into his hatchet’s handle like a general’s severed head put on display after a battle.

This was the second Demon he’d ever hunted.

And it would be the last.

Before long, his vision began to darken.

Just as the last threads of his consciousness began to snap, he caught a faint glimpse of a light streaking across the distant sky.

It was a brilliant blue flame trailing a long tail, looking exactly like the ghostly fire from the old village folktales.

But contained within that flame wasn’t a ghost; it was Mong Ryeon.

She leapt down from the high branch, the lone flash of a layer of Demonic Qi wrapped around Yise to stabilize his weak body. She then took one look at the Demon’s severed head propped up on the axe and clicked her tongue.

She suspected that the boy’s morbid fixation with severing heads stemmed from the trauma of discovering his family’s corpses after their heads had been devoured by the Snail-Headed Scholar.

‘Is staking severed heads up like this supposed to be some sort of morbid catcalling? For a cutie like you, you sure are obsessed with trying to look cool…’

Yise couldn’t get words out.

But strangely enough, pain faded from his body the moment Mong Ryeon appeared.

He spat out what had been pooling in his mouth, and a mouthful of black blood poured out.

‘In my… in my pocket, a pill… for Sir Gwae Cheon…’

Mong Ryeon understood what he was saying and reached into Yise’s pocket.

Sure enough, she found a pill and put it in his mouth.

‘Well, you have a hole in your stomach right now, so I’m not sure if you can even digest this.’

‘Whry… me.’

‘Gwae Cheon is already dead.’

‘…’

‘Idiot. If you’re Ghostkin, act like it. Those weaklings holed up in the Ghost Temple couldn’t even run properly, yet insisted on playing the heroes…’

The effects of the pill were miraculous.

True to its reputation as a panacea and a heaven-blessed elixir, the bleeding stopped, and his wounds immediately began to close.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What the hell are you apologizing for? It’s my own fault for not beating some sense into you kids. But more importantly, why are you dying when had a rare pill on you? You should’ve taken it yourself.’

‘Because I assumed it wasn’t meant for me.’

‘Bullshit. Good grief, they call it a miracle drug that can bring back the dead, but it can’t even patch up a gaping hole.’

She scratched her head before throwing her hand out with an exasperated sigh.

‘I’m not sure it’s wise to use ghostkin arts on someone who hasn’t even awakened their Spirit Qi, but we have no choice.’

After a moment of hesitation, Mong Ryeon ryed heaven nd, the gaping hole in his body gradually began to mend.

It was a miracle that after Yise’s haed-long operation.

‘You are truly incredible, master.’

‘You’re only realizing now that this is just a temporary fix, so don’t overexert yourself until the full pills take effect. More importantly… you’re not quite dead yet, are you?’

Mong Ryeon bared her teeth and prowled toward the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s corpse with a low growl.

By all logic, this thing should have been dead for sure, but Mong Ryeon sneered while twirling her club.

‘You son of a bitch. You murder four of my family members and think you can just play dead?’

She drew in a long and deep breath. In a flash, her body swelled up like a toad puffing out its stomach.

Mong Ryeon stretched her hand toward the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed, streams of black colored energy began to churn into her hand and then rapidly condensed into a swirling sphere in the air being slammed back into the demon’s body.

‘That’s… impossible. Its head is.’

‘This thing dropped to the Qi Condensation Realm recently, but it’s actually a Core Formation Realm creature in the past. As long as the fragments of its Golden Core are still intact, just its destroying its body isn’t going to finish the job. You have to obliterate any remnants of the core itself.’

Qi Condensation Realm, Core Formation Realm

Yise’s mind flashed back to the ancient texts he’d read regarding the stages of cultivation.

The Qi Condensation Realm is the beginning of cultivation where one begins to handle Spirit Qi. When one steps into the Foundation Establishment Realm, the body is purified and begins to accumulate a vast amount of Spirit Qi. It is here that Cultivators will start forming their own Inner Core. Once the Inner Core is formed and they break through to the Golden Core Realm, only then can one be said to truly tread upon the path of enchantment.’

The Nascent Soul Realm is the step to master the soul. Once mastered, one gained the power to unleash natural disasters and possessed a near-killable body.

And finally, the Soul Transformation realm.

The final realm attainable in the mortal world, where one becomes something close to divine and can ascend to the heavens.

Considering that the vast majority of cultivators ended their lives in the Qi Condensation Realm, and that merely reaching the Core Formation Realm earned one the title of a master in the mortal world, this damned Demon had quite literally fallen from the heavens all the way down to the abyss.

Mong Ryeon pulled the Vein-Severing Blade fence from the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s back.

The instant the blade was free, the Demon’s severed head that still hung on Yise’s hatchet shrieked and launched itself back toward its body.

‘My cute little disciple went through that all that effort to chop you up nicely, and you think you can just glue yourself back together?’

Mong Ryeon twirled her signature weapon, known as the Red Mace of Ten Thousand Jin, and brought it down in a vicious arc.

Ghostkin Shadow-Gathering Demonic Art — Thousand-Jin Strike

The swing may look like a careless one, but the resulting impact from the strike made the earth itself shake.

When the dust settled, the only thing left of the monster was a crater of bloody mush.