I Possessed a Cultivator Destined to Die at the Hands of the Protagonist - Chapter 42

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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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42.
The fan struck true, and Jeok-yeon’s body bore a fresh wound.
She retreated swiftly, her hands already weaving a seal to mend the gash across her shoulder.
“How dare these insignificant wretches wound me?”
As Jeok-yeon completed her hand seal, petrified figures surged toward us from all sides.
I too formed the hand seal of the Azure Lotus Technique.
Lotus blossoms bloomed among the stone puppets, bursting into brilliant explosions before they could fully open.
The moment I descended, Eun Hui-gyeom’s blade shot toward Jeok-yeon’s throat.
Shredded wire and steel clashed with a deafening screech.
“So you are the architect of the petrification plague.”
“And what will you do about it?”
“Like my sister, I have no intention of forgiving you.”
“Ho ho, a monk with nothing but empty words.”
Jeok-yeon bent low, and the Paecheonmun disciples moved as one, their hands weaving seals in perfect unison.
Earth erupted from the ground, coiling around Eun Hui-gyeom’s limbs and binding them fast.
“Hui-gyeom!”
I lunged forward, but Jeok-yeon whirled her shredded wire, barring my path.
Her crimson eyes blazed with killing intent, bright as blood-soaked silk.
“Where do you think you’re going? I told you—your opponent is me.”
Jeok-yeon and her stone puppets pressed me relentlessly.
The petrified figures she had created were endlessly vexing, resurrecting themselves as long as her spiritual power remained.
Crack.
Meanwhile, the earth binding Eun Hui-gyeom’s arms tightened with crushing force.
Another disciple’s attack came without hesitation.
A colossal cone of spinning earth hurtled toward him.
Slash.
Eun Hui-gyeom shifted his blade from his bound right hand to his free left, then severed his own right arm—the one trapped in earth—without the slightest hesitation.
He cut through the earthen tentacles binding his legs and spun his body with explosive force.
Boom.
The conical mass of earth struck him head-on, crumbling into dust.
As the cloud settled, a blue barrier shimmered into view.
The moment the attack landed, his regenerated arm had woven a seal, unfurling the Thousand-Layered Heaven Technique.
I retreated a step to evade Jeok-yeon’s onslaught.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“That… your arm. Are you alright?”
“Yes? It’s perfectly fine.”
His severed wing-garment reformed, wrapping around his restored arm.
Eun Hui-gyeom’s expression showed genuine confusion.
“In that situation, most people would cut their arm and flee!”
“But that seemed like the fastest option. Besides, it grew back anyway.”
Even if a cultivator from the Monastery can survive without limbs, that doesn’t mean you should just hack them off without hesitation.
There’s a difference between surviving and being recklessly mutilated.
‘I always thought she had a touch of madness, but…’
If this wasn’t madness gleaming in those clear eyes, then what could possibly be called madness?
Before I could even scold her, the petrified puppet that Jeok-yeon had created lunged at me again.
Kang Jin-heon, Jin Seok-jun, and the rest of our group were struggling against Gal-yung and the earth dragon he’d summoned.
‘Gal-yung and Jeok-yeon must be the leaders.’
I had no choice but to trust the others to handle Gal-yung while I faced Jeok-yeon.
“I’ll hold off the sorcerers in the back, so you focus on that one.”
“Understood.”
Jeok-yeon’s steel threads sliced through the air.
The fragments of petrified puppets scattered across the ground shot upward as if drawn by a magnet.
The fragments transformed into sharp stone spikes, all aimed at my body.
Jeok-yeon swiftly wove her hand seals.
Stone Spike Heavenly Dance!
The moment the seal completed, the stone spikes rained down like a downpour.
Gripping my sword with both hands, I drew upon my spiritual power and struck the ground.
Lotus Flame Shadow.
The blade’s edge shimmered with azure light, then blue flames engulfed the sword completely.
Since reaching the 10th star, my Lotus Flame Shadow had become incomparably more powerful than before.
I cut through the stone spikes and closed in on Jeok-yeon.
A sharp crack echoed.
Jeok-yeon threw a cursed blade hidden between the folds of her fan.
The blade flying toward my neck was deflected by my extended Eun Silver River Ridge.
As the deflected blade embedded itself in the ground, the earth instantly turned black.
It was a blade infused with a curse.
Having closed in on Jeok-yeon, I slashed at her left shoulder.
“Ugh!”
But Jeok-yeon didn’t simply take the blow.
A stone spike hidden beneath the ground erupted, piercing through my thigh before I could defend.
As my balance shattered, Jeok-yeon brought her fan down toward my head.
On one knee, I barely blocked Jeok-yeon’s fan with my sword.
Blue lotus flowers rippled around Jeok-yeon and me.
Seeing the lotus flowers, Jeok-yeon quickly increased the distance between us.
“Ugh.”
As I pulled the stone spike from my thigh, blood gushed forth.
The wound turned black and hardened like stone.
I suppressed the injury with my spiritual power and gripped my sword properly.
“A mere third-rate cultivator dares obstruct my grand design!”
Jeok-yeon drove her broken steel thread into the ground.
Then she cut her own palm and sealed a blood contract.
“Soul Stone Amalgam.”
The petrified puppets scattered around Jeok-yeon converged into a single mass, drawn by an incomprehensible force.
Crack. Crunch.
An unsettling grinding noise reverberated through the cave walls.
Severed limbs frozen in stone, crushed torso fragments—all rose into the air and interlocked at their fractures.
Bones twisted against one another, petrified limbs adhering like clay, forming a grotesque silhouette.
“This is insane.”
As the dust settled and the form became clear, I couldn’t help but curse.
“What the hell did you create!”
The petrified puppets Jeok-yeon controlled contained the souls of those who had once been criminals.
They were beings who had died by her hand yet could not rest, now enslaved to her will.
I knew the Monastery showed no mercy to criminals, treating them as less than human.
Even the petrified puppets alone had filled me with revulsion.
“Hoho, call it a masterpiece.”
Upon seeing the fully revealed Soul Stone Amalgam, I had no choice but to squeeze my eyes shut.
Dozens of petrified faces were embedded densely across the creature’s chest.
Their expressions varied—each frozen in the agony they had suffered before turning to stone.
“Now, try to stop this if you can!”
At Jeok-yeon’s deranged cry, the faces embedded in its chest suddenly opened their eyes and gaped their mouths wide.
Uuuuung—
Kwaaaaaang.
“Gaaahhh!”
“Kragh, what is this!!”
“What kind of monster is that!”
“Deploy the formation, now!”
The shockwave was so violent that it affected even the monks engaged with the Earth Dragon.
Formless sound waves cascaded across the cave walls.
Stalactites touched by the vibration disintegrated into powder and scattered.
I drove my blade into the ground and twisted my body sideways.
Paaaaang.
Overwhelming spiritual force erupted outward, shielding me from the shockwave.
But it wasn’t enough.
‘I don’t want to drag this out any longer.’
What I felt in the wave was more than mere force.
Each time the vibration touched me, phantoms rippled across my vision.
Illusions of the criminal souls trapped within, their hands reaching toward me.
The ground collapsed like mud beneath me, and hands emerging from the cracks seemed to drag me toward the abyss.
Feeling their suffering so vividly made it all the more unbearable.
“Huu.”
I took a deep breath and slowly drew my spiritual power upward once more.
The Silvery Galaxy Mantle enveloping my body unfurled wide, and stars shimmered between its folds.
After sheathing my blade, I extended my hands forward slowly.
The spiritual force flowing from the Silvery Galaxy Mantle swirled and compressed at the tips of my right hand.
Myriad Flowers Clear Lotus Sea, the technique I possessed, was an area-of-effect attack.
With such a broad range of effect, its power naturally had to diminish.
My technique—Myriad Flowers Clear Lotus Sea compressed to its absolute limit.
The unified spiritual force condensed at my fingertips.
Unable to withstand the tremendous pressure with one hand alone, I grasped my wrist with my other hand.
Star-Piercing Single Flash.
As I flicked my fingertip, a single streak of azure light tore through the pitch-black darkness and extended in a straight line.
Boom!
The light of Star-Piercing Single Flash pierced through the sonic waves the Wraith Stone Colossus was emitting and accurately penetrated the core within its chest.
In an instant, a massive hole opened in the Wraith Stone Colossus’s chest.
As the Wraith Stone Colossus crumbled, the backlash caused Jeok-yeon, the caster, to cough up blood.
Spiritual force spread outward from the penetrated area, and the stone fragments that composed the Wraith Stone Colossus crumbled like grains of sand.
Hundreds of souls scattered in all directions like fireflies.
“How dare you, how dare you! Destroy my masterpiece! How dare you!”
Jeok-yeon, seething with rage, raised her hands to form a seal.
In that instant, Yoo Yeon-seo swiftly drew her blade and swung it.
Slash!
The extended blade force mercilessly severed Jeok-yeon’s wrist.
Before Jeok-yeon could even comprehend that her wrist had been cut off, Yoo Yeon-seo was already before her.
Boom!
Yoo Yeon-seo’s kick struck precisely into Jeok-yeon’s abdomen with devastating force.

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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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