Almighty God of War - Chapter 197

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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197

Guyang Cheongang slowly moved his feet toward the entrance of Cheongi Dungeon.

It was the very moment when the cave’s mouth seemed close enough to grasp.

Kwarrrrr-!

The earth screamed and vibrated.

The ice and snow beneath his feet churned, and the crystal-clear ice on the walls cracked like spider webs, emitting sharp rupturing sounds.

It felt as if the entire space was being shaken by a giant’s hand.

Simultaneously, the yin energy that had been suppressed deep within the cave erupted explosively.

Whiiiiing-!

As the terrifying cold energy swept through the atmosphere, the surrounding temperature plummeted instantly.

The swirling blizzard transformed into solid hail in a split second.

Fist-sized ice chunks flew from all directions like cannonballs, mercilessly pounding Guyang Cheongang’s silver-white protective body energy.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwaack-!

Guyang Cheongang’s entire body tensed.

A chilling aura circulated between his tightly pressed lips, and all his sensory cells became extremely sensitive, beginning to capture every change in his surroundings.

The momentum emanating from inside the cave was overwhelmingly beyond imagination.

The energy emitted by a being of a different dimension provided a crushing pressure that seemed to freeze one’s soul just by facing it.

[Doctor, an entity with unmeasurable energy levels is approaching. Maximum danger level. Begin combat preparations immediately!]

As Akasha’s urgent voice struck his mind, a terrifying vibration echoed from inside the cave.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It was the heavy footsteps that shook the earth, though slow.

With each step, terrible vibrations spread throughout the entire Bottomless Pit, and as the intervals narrowed, the air pressed down on Guyang Cheongang with suffocating weight.

Eventually, a massive shadow began to reveal its outline from within the pitch-black darkness of the cave entrance.

Devouring the faint blue radiance as it crawled outside, it possessed a terrifying appearance that mocked human imagination.

Seeing the gradually revealed form, indescribable shock arose in Guyang Cheongang’s eyes.

It was a turtle, but an entity that differed from worldly life forms.

Its shell, gleaming with the luster of jet-black obsidian, appeared as hard as diamond that no weapon in the world could penetrate.

And adorning it, each intricate hexagonal pattern was inscribed with ancient characters that emitted mysterious radiance.

At the ends of four legs thick as pillars supporting the earth, sharp claws that seemed forged from black steel protruded, and whenever they touched the ground, the solid ice floor crumbled helplessly.

Most peculiar of all was its appearance.

The scale-covered head was unmistakably dragon-shaped, and within it, golden eyes burned with the dignity of one who could see through all things.

Around the turtle’s body, an equally massive black serpent writhed, coldly glaring at Guyang Cheongang.

It was, surprisingly, the turtle’s tail.

Hyeonmu .

One of the legendary Four Divine Beasts said to guard the frozen Underworld at the northern extremes had descended before his eyes.

Of course, its body length of about three jang was not as massively imposing as the mountain ranges of legend.

But the overwhelming pressure emanating from that small form was terrifyingly powerful.

The cold, ruthless golden gaze of the divine beast, readable of no emotion, showed that it viewed the human before it like an ant.

Guyang Cheongang experienced a thrill he had never felt in his lifetime.

Dry saliva went down between his tightly pressed lips, and cold sweat flowed down his spine.

‘Could it be… that imaginary beings actually exist in this world?’

He had expected the monster Gyo Myosangin mentioned would be a deformed evolved beast or an imugi.

But he was wrong.

The being before his eyes was a divine beast itself that defied biological classification.

It was a spiritual creature that bore eons of time in its body, a transcendent life form whose very existence was a law unto itself.

Guyang Cheongang clenched his molars mercilessly.

Crunch-

His teeth ground together, making a chilling friction sound.

The overwhelming momentum that Hyeonmu emitted was like a tsunami crashing from all directions.

An invisible giant hand seemed to grasp and crush his entire body, and a heavy pressure like gravity amplified dozens of times tried to buckle his knees.

His joints screamed and creaked, and his taut muscles and tendons that bulged like earthworms heated up red as if about to tear.

The fundamental helplessness that humans feel when facing natural disasters began to poison Guyang Cheongang’s mind like a toxic substance.

Just as the primal fear of living beings was about to erode his reason, intense flames blazed and poured from his eyes.

‘…I cannot submit.’

He had not crossed the abyss of hell just to kneel before mere momentum.

“Hup!”

From deep within Guyang Cheongang’s dantian, the Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art erupted through his meridians like runaway lava.

Condensed internal energy began circulating at high speed, striking all the acupoints throughout his body like a raging storm.

Kukukukukung-!

A thunderous roar seemed to echo from within his body.

His heart pounded loudly like war drums on a battlefield, and meridians unable to withstand the expanding internal energy protruded above his skin with a blue light.

Simultaneously, the silver-white protective body energy surrounding him expanded explosively.

The defensive barrier that had been about one cheok instantly extended to three cheok distance, and its light density became even more compact, forming a fortress more solid than steel.

Hyeonmu’s magnificent momentum and Guyang Cheongang’s desperate will-infused internal energy collided head-on in midair.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The collision of these two massive forces created terrifying shockwaves that scattered in all directions.

The entire underground plaza shook violently as if struck by an earthquake.

Rurrrrrrr-

The ice and snow-covered floor cracked miserably in spider web patterns, and deep grooves formed between the widening gaps as fragments shot up like arrows.

The ice walls one jang thick covering the wall surfaces also could not withstand the shock of this transcendent confrontation.

The crystal-clear ice shattered like glass all at once, and massive ice sheet fragments poured down with thunderous noise.

The scene instantly transformed into a hellish ice storm of chaos.

Crushed ice fragments formed giant whirlwinds soaring into the air, and ice powder finer than mist filled the space, blocking vision.

In the chaos of swirling ice and snow fragments, terrifying cold energy invaded Guyang Cheongang’s entire body.

It was the extreme cold carried by Shinsu Hyeonmu’s momentum, primordial yin energy that seemed capable of freezing even the warmth of souls.

The cold energy that penetrated like a blade through gaps in his solid silver-white protective body energy finally reached Guyang Cheongang’s skin.

‘Ugh…’

He felt as if his flesh would freeze and crumble.

His fingertips turned blue and his blood flow visibly slowed, and his body temperature necessary for survival began plummeting rapidly below the critical point.

Guyang Cheongang immediately gripped tightly the two chunks of Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade in his hands.

Whoooong-!

As the internal energy of the Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art penetrated into the warm jade, the essence of extreme yang reacted explosively.

Guyang Cheongang began absorbing the warmth emanating from the jade stones with all his might.

Warmth like condensed solar heat rapidly converged throughout his entire body through both palms.

The heat that spread through his heart to his limbs penetrated to his bone marrow, neutralizing and pushing back Hyeonmu’s cold energy that had invaded.

The frost that had formed on his skin evaporated, and white steam rose up.

In Guyang Cheongang’s eyes, having fully absorbed the power of the Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade, intense fighting spirit blazed.

However, Shinsu Hyeonmu’s authority was not yet finished.

The absolute zero cold energy that poured forth with the momentum to devour the Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade’s heat pressed in terrifyingly like an irresistible massive glacier.

The Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade’s warmth that Guyang Cheongang desperately absorbed and the Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art he desperately summoned wavered as if about to be extinguished at any moment, pushed back by the terrifying divine beast’s might.

Guyang Cheongang’s complexion turned pale as a corpse.

Before the authority of the divine beast that possessed primordial cold energy, his resistance seemed like nothing more than feeble struggling.

At that critical moment, the white bead on the bracelet around his wrist vibrated violently.

Woooooong-!

Blindingly brilliant white light burst from the bead.

And intense absorption power generated from the bead’s surface, beginning to reversely suck in Hyeonmu’s cold energy that had been trying to crush Guyang Cheongang.

Whiiiiing-!

The yin energy that had filled the space like a desert whirlwind swirled and was sucked into the white bead.

As the cold energy created by Hyeonmu’s momentum flowed into the bead, the pain that had been constricting Guyang Cheongang rapidly subsided.

At the same time, a mysterious change occurred in the orb itself.

The opaque white light gradually became transparent.

The murky impurities that had filled its interior melted away in the process of absorbing Hyeonmu’s pure cold energy, and the orb’s essence was being refined and evolved.

[Doctor, the orb’s energy purity is rapidly increasing.]

Akasha’s surprised voice echoed in his mind.

Guyang Cheongang felt the changes in energy transmitted through the bracelet in real time.

The extreme yin energy felt from the orb was much purer and more powerful than before, absorbing the divine beast’s energy and assimilating it as its own.

Hyeonmu’s overwhelming pressure crushed down on Guyang Cheongang, but he resisted using the power of the Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art, the Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade, and the white orb.

Their breathtaking confrontation was long in description, but in reality occurred during a brief time of less than ten breaths.

However, the time Guyang Cheongang experienced felt longer than eternity.

His heart sank heavily.

‘I need to find a way. At this rate, I’ll collapse first.’

As time passed, the momentum and cold energy Hyeonmu emitted accumulated like waves, pressing down on him layer upon layer.

Meanwhile, his strength was rapidly weakening like grains of sand in an hourglass.

But at that very moment, a strange voice sharply pierced into Guyang Cheongang’s mind.

It was not transmitted through his ears but directly into his head.

[A lowly being from the mortal realm who has not even reached the Golden Core stage…]

That low and majestic voice, whose age could not even be guessed except that it belonged to a man, contained such terrifying power that Guyang Cheongang’s mind became dizzy.

The man’s words continued.

[Though it is merely an avatar body, to withstand Hyeonmu’s momentum. Truly a strange matter indeed.]

That voice echoing in his mind was deeply tinged with unconcealed surprise.

As soon as the words ended, the heavy pressure that had been crushing Guyang Cheongang’s entire body and the extreme cold that had been raging violently disappeared in an instant as if by magic.

Where the storm had passed, only an eerie silence lingered.

The man’s voice was heard again.

[If you can fully receive Hyeonmu’s strike, I will permit you to set foot in this elder’s Eastern Region.]

In an instant, Guyang Cheongang’s complexion changed drastically.

He had caught the tremendous truth contained within that extremely human linguistic habit of referring to himself as ‘elder.’

‘Could it be… that Cheongi Jinjun is still alive?’

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