A Baby Cat Who Commands the Dog Clan - Chapter 244

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 244
The one who had driven a dagger deep into the Heavenly Demon’s chest was none other than the Thousand Killing Witch, Je Gal Seon.
“G-Ga Ryung’s enemy! I would drink your blood and still not be satisfied…!”
The hilt of the dagger embedded deep in the Heavenly Demon’s chest trembled.
The Heavenly Demon gazed down at the dagger lodged in his own body without uttering a word.
Drip, drip.
Crimson blood trickled down the dagger’s hilt.
“It’s… it’s done! I’ve slain him!”
The Thousand Killing Witch cried out with a face radiant with joy.
But the Heavenly Demon’s expression remained utterly unchanged.
Not only that.
When he pressed his vital points himself, the blood flowing from the wound ceased in an instant.
He was undoubtedly concentrating his inner force to accelerate his recovery.
The Heavenly Demon remained unscathed.
Witnessing this, the Thousand Killing Witch’s face drained of all color.
“No… this cannot be…. Ga Ryung’s… revenge….”
“Who is Ga Ryung?”
“She is my daughter!”
To the Heavenly Demon’s question, the Thousand Killing Witch answered with a voice that seemed to boil from within.
“The very medicine that allowed you to walk without injury—my Ga Ryung was used as its ingredient!”
The Thousand Killing Witch, having uttered Myo Ga Ryung’s name, began to weep uncontrollably.
Her sobs were so anguished that the cloth covering her face became completely drenched.
The Thousand Killing Witch’s entire body seemed to lose all strength as she swayed.
“And yet you… you don’t even know that child’s name…. Sob.”
While the Thousand Killing Witch wept bitterly, her shoulders heaving.
The Heavenly Demon gazed down at her silently.
Yet the atmosphere was entirely different from when he had spoken with Hong Seol moments before.
Beneath his crimson eyes lay deep shadows, and a murderous aura rippled forth as though he might tear his opponent to shreds at any moment.
“…!”
Unable to overcome her fear at the escalating tension, the Thousand Killing Witch stumbled backward.
In that instant.
Whoosh!
The Thousand Killing Witch’s body was violently drawn toward the Heavenly Demon’s raised hand.
“Ugh!”
Simultaneously, fresh crimson blood sprayed from the Thousand Killing Witch’s mouth.
Her vital channels were clearly twisted in all directions.
Then, beginning from the nape of her neck where the Heavenly Demon’s hand gripped her, the Thousand Killing Witch’s body began to wither.
“Th-the Star Devouring Technique!”
Hong Seol’s face, watching from the side, turned pale as paper.
The Star Devouring Technique.
It was a dark art that absorbed the vital essence of one’s opponent.
I had heard countless rumors of such a technique’s existence, but witnessing it firsthand was entirely unprecedented.
The sight of a human withering like a desiccated flower in mere moments was too ghastly to bear with open eyes.
Yet the Heavenly Demon’s face bore not a shred of compassion.
“How dare this worm show such insolence.”
A parched, rasping voice emerged from the half-desiccated throat of the Heavenly Demon Witch.
“…Y-you… Perhaps to you, my daughter and I are nothing but insects, but…
In that instant, the Heavenly Demon Witch tore the dagger from the Heavenly Demon’s chest with both hands.
Still, no blood flowed from that wound.
The Heavenly Demon Witch, her dimming eyes fixed upon that wound, suddenly cried out with every ounce of remaining strength.
“Even if I must offer this life, I shall complete my vengeance!”
The Heavenly Demon Witch’s raised hand trembled violently.
Even in that moment, her skin from neck to shoulder to arm continued to desiccate like a mummy.
“Rot eternally within the abyss…”
The next instant.
Crack!
The Heavenly Demon Witch plunged the dagger into her own heart.
Spurt!
Blood erupted from her mouth once more.
But it was not crimson.
An ominously black blood.
That blood drenched the Heavenly Demon’s collar entirely and spilled down to the ground.
Rumble.
In that moment, all who witnessed the scene felt the earth trembling beneath them.
Dang Yi Woon’s body suddenly jolted upright.
“W-wait. This is!”
Dang Yi Woon, seized by horror, turned to Hong Seol and Nam Goong Baek.
“What’s wrong?”
“What is it, Yi Woon?”
But it was already too late.
Black droplets of blood were already splattered across Nam Goong Baek and Hong Seol’s cheeks.
‘Could it be…?’
Dang Yi Woon brought his fingers to his own cheek.
Looking down at his fingertips, they were smeared with a viscous black blood.
Dang Yi Woon cried out in despair.
“This is the Eternal Void Formation!”
The Eternal Void Formation.
A composite formation combining illusion arrays and the Eight Gates, passed down through the Je Gal Family.
Not a single martial artist of the Dang Family had ever witnessed its true nature.
The reason being that it was a formation that could only be activated in exchange for the caster’s death.
Second, not a single person had ever escaped from that formation.
“Using the pretext of inspecting the Valley before the wedding ceremony, that woman actually set up the formation herself!”
Thud!
The desiccated corpse of the woman who had emerged from the Heavenly Demon’s grasp—the Thousand Killing Witch—fell to the ground.
The corners of the withered corpse’s mouth were turned upward as if smiling.
The moment I saw it.
Spin.
My world began to whirl.
“What… why is this happening to me…”
I tried to reach out my hand to Nam Goong Baek and Dang Yi Woon standing beside me, but it was futile.
They had already collapsed unconscious long ago.
“No, soon the dragon…”
With those final words, I lost consciousness.
* * *
Drip, drip.
The sound of water falling onto the rock was deafening.
“So noisy…”
Nam Goong Baek’s eyelashes twitched as he lay with his cheek pressed against the cold stone floor.
No, this wasn’t noise.
His head throbbed so intensely that the sound felt magnified.
“Gasp!”
In an instant, Nam Goong Baek pushed himself upright.
The place where he had been lying was a Stone Cavern.
Three torches, placed by someone unknown, flickered ominously within the Stone Cavern.
Beneath the torches, a peculiar stone altar caught his eye.
Solid stone surrounded him on all sides, and the single passage leading out was impossible to trace.
“Seol Ah, Seol Ah!”
Growing anxious, Nam Goong Baek called out loudly for Hong Seol.
But there was no answer.
“Ugh, my head…”
Instead, a groan from Dang Yi Woon reached his ears.
Clad in a green robe covered in filth, he clutched his head in pain just as Nam Goong Baek had moments before.
“Get ahold of yourself, Dang Yi Woon!”
“Nam Goong… Baek? Where’s Seol?!”
Seeing that Dang Yi Woon, who had scrambled to his feet, was also searching for Hong Seol first, Nam Goong Baek bit his lip.
“We’ll have to search for her together from now on.”
It was then.
Rumble.
A tremendous, ominous energy came rushing like a tempest.
It was neither the Heavenly Demon nor the dragon.
“Whose aura is this, exactly?”
Dang Yi Woon spoke to the bewildered Nam Goong Baek in a trembling voice.
“A formation.”
“What?”
“The Eternal Formless Formation.”
Eternal referred to ‘the passage of endless time.’
Formless meant ‘without fixed shape.’
A living hell that constantly shifted its appearance and existed solely to annihilate anything that entered within—that was what it truly was.
The Eternal Formless Formation was precisely that.
“From this moment forward, you must keep your wits about you.”
As if on cue.
In that instant, the floor of the Stone Cavern split cleanly in two.
“Watch out!”
Crack!
Nam Goong Baek drove his sword into a wall crevice while Dang Yi Woon wedged his dagger in and braced with all his strength.
A fragment of stone jutting from the wall tumbled downward.
Only after a long while did a distant thud echo as it struck the ground below.
In short, the depths beneath them were fathomless.
“You must have learned about mechanism formations at the Sichuan Dang Family! Don’t you know how to break a formation?”
“There would need to be survivors for me to know such things! All I’ve heard is….”
Dang Yi Woon clenched his teeth.
The Eternal Formless Formation ceaselessly transformed itself every hour.
One moment it became an endless chasm, the next a roaring furnace of molten metal, then a blade’s edge sharp enough to cut with the slightest touch.
‘Which is why there are no accounts of survivors….’
Their only hope lay in a single thing.
The stone altar that stood where they had fallen.
“All I’ve heard is the method to pause this cursed formation, if only briefly.”
Dang Yi Woon gazed at the altar where three torches burned.
It was shaped as though a human sacrifice placed upon it would fit perfectly.
“Surely you don’t mean one of us must remain here?”
Nam Goong Baek had also grasped the implication.
Silence stretched between them for a long moment.
It was Dang Yi Woon who broke it.
“…I’ll stay.”
“…!”
“Shameful as it is, the Heavenly Demon has already broken through all my secret techniques and poison arts.”
Words that should never have left the lips of the proud young master of the Dang Family.
Yet they spoke to how dire their circumstances had become.
Hong Seol had to be found.
Dang Yi Woon opened his mouth, his voice hollow and resolved.
“The Bright Mirror Blade is specialized against demonic techniques, isn’t it?”
Nam Goong Baek nodded lightly.
Moments before, it had been a sword overwhelmed by the Heavenly Demon’s supreme technique, unable to even unfold a single move.
‘Since that old woman passed it down to me, its effectiveness must be certain…!’
Dok Bi Jo was crude in speech, but she was no liar.
Even her warning that learning the Bright Mirror Blade would resurrect painful memories from the past had come true exactly as she said.
“So promise me, Nam Goong Baek. Swear that your blade will save Seol Ah.”
Nam Goong Baek nodded silently.
Screeeech.
In that instant, the formation shifted once more.
The entire Stone Cavern trembled, and the ground seemed to rise beneath us.
This time, a scorching gust of heat came roaring down the passage.
“F-fire!”
Dang Yi Woon retrieved his throwing blade and hurled himself onto the altar platform.
The moment his feet touched the altar, the heat in the Stone Cavern vanished as if by illusion.
The passage lay open and clear, as though flames had never flickered there at all.
“Go now, Nam Goong Baek.”
Dang Yi Woon gestured.
“After you save Seol Ah, it would be even better if you didn’t forget me and came back to take me with you.”
Nam Goong Baek, who had been hesitating, suddenly blazed with resolve.
“Wait for me. No matter what happens, I will return to find you.”
“Yes, yes.”
Dang Yi Woon even waved one hand casually in farewell.
Tap-tap-tap!
The moment Nam Goong Baek’s footsteps faded into the distance.
Thud.
Dang Yi Woon dropped to one knee. His body convulsed with agony.
But the formation remained silent.
The ‘human sacrifice’ placed upon the altar of the Eternal Void Formation.
Using the sacrifice could indeed halt the formation.
But it could not stop it forever.
The Eternal Void Formation ceaselessly attacked the sacrifice on the altar to restart itself.
Anguished sounds escaped between Dang Yi Woon’s clenched teeth.
“Damn it, I never thought I’d volunteer for this role….”
First came the sense of hearing.
Eeeee—.
An incomprehensible sonic technique assailed Dang Yi Woon’s ears.
Soon his world was consumed by eternal silence.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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