I Will Become a Phoenix More Noble Than the Emperor - Chapter 82

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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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82.

Yu Yu-an tried to remember where he had seen her before, but failed. Since there was nothing he couldn’t remember, if he couldn’t recall, it meant he had never seen her before.

But even so, Yu Yu-an couldn’t shake off the uneasiness crouching within him.

As if proving his incredible intuition, hadn’t this interesting woman caused such a commotion again?

“Hmm, this can no longer be considered a coincidence.”

He muttered quietly. At this point, he couldn’t treat Seon-o’s eccentric behavior as mere luck.

“But how did she know? About both of those bastards.”

His purple-tinted eyes flickered persistently as if extremely curious about this. According to the information obtained, Kang Seon-o was nothing special among the candidates. She was an ordinary person from a family that was not just average but failing, who hadn’t even awakened until the competition.

However, conversely, as soon as the competition began, she not only awakened but passed the entry gateway in one go, instantly standing shoulder to shoulder with powerful candidates. Her family also regained tremendous wealth in the blink of an eye.

As if everything had been calculated.

Yu Yu-an glanced around the dry storage without a single drop of water element. If she had simply taken all that alcohol, the entire storage couldn’t be this parched.

“Isn’t this truly interesting? She completely eliminated all that precious alcohol.”

As he muttered in an intrigued voice, his subordinate also looked around the dry storage.

“Don’t tell me she even figured out that drinking that alcohol causes madness?”

Or perhaps she possessed arrogant confidence that she could win the competition without such alcohol. Yu Yu-an looked down at Seon-o’s portrait again.

No matter how much he examined it, Kang Seon-o, who seemed nothing particularly special, had one peculiar aspect.

Her elder brother who was said to be in a comatose state.

Yu Yu-an’s instinctive interest was being drawn to that unsettling existence.

The subordinate who had been reading his mood cautiously spoke up.

“Shall we deal with them?”

Then he immediately rebuked him sharply.

“What nonsense, when things are just getting interesting. Besides, she’s only passed two gateways so far.”

Several more gateways still remained, and Yu Yu-an wanted to fully enjoy this Phoenix competition that would probably be the last. For deeper pleasure, he would have to go directly to Myeonggyeong next time to observe the third gateway passage ceremony.

He wanted to see Kang Seon-o in person, who had appeared out of nowhere and was ruining their plans one by one. He was extremely curious whether she actually had such eyes.

“Ha, but she’ll have to survive and return for that. Even if she somehow enters Flower Cloud Island, whether she can survive there…”

Yu Yu-an clicked his tongue as if worried, then dropped Seon-o’s portrait and turned around sharply. His subordinate followed him and asked respectfully.

“We also examined the entire main building, but couldn’t find what we supplied. Seeing that all the alcohol in the building evaporated, it seems whoever killed Intoxication deliberately eliminated it. What shall we do with this place?”

A coldly decisive answer came immediately.

“Eliminate it. It’s too unsightly to bear watching.”

His subordinate who received the order immediately stopped and bowed his head.

Having finished his business, Yu Yu-an leisurely left the storage. His subordinate also attached a talisman to the cave wall and quickly took cover.

The large cave wall rippled as if it were silk, then in an instant everything inside the storage was mixed up chaotically and sucked underground. The intact large jars and broken large jars, the Yin Stones abandoned inside the jars and the dried corpses of superhumans, and even the traces of Intoxication that had become ash powder.

Finally, even Seon-o’s portrait that had been lying on the floor was sucked underground with a rippling motion.

Soon everything was covered in darkness.

* * *

Seon-o suddenly turned around.

It was because she suddenly felt a very chilling presence behind her.

Extremely unpleasant, ominous, and very chilling…

“…Is something there?”

When Seon-o suddenly looked back and didn’t move, Cheong-eum also turned around puzzled. However, due to the bleak fog, the distant scenery wasn’t visible.

“…”

Seon-o narrowed her eyes and examined inside that fog. She had a feeling that something dangerous was hiding within it.

But the place where the two had arrived by ghost carriage was a remote area where no living thing could be found even if you searched with your eyes wide open. There wouldn’t be any fool who would bother coming to such a dangerous place.

“It’s nothing.”

Seon-o shook her head and looked forward again. In front of the two was a river filled with fog.

“Is this really the right place?”

Cheong-eum asked casually, hiding his bewilderment. A ferry boat was placed at the riverside in front of them. As if it had been waiting for them.

“That’s right.”

“…We’ll have to use that boat.”

“You understand well.”

Seon-o grinned as if that was the correct answer, then strode toward the boat and stepped aboard.

“Get on.”

“….”

“Once you get on, I’ll explain everything about where we’re going and what we need to do there.”

Cheong-eum looked at the suspicious ferry boat for a moment.

A premonition that there would be no turning back once he set foot on it brushed past the back of his neck. However, he had already traveled here for two straight days by Ghost Carriage. He couldn’t return empty-handed now.

When Cheong-eum finally boarded the boat, Seon-o also lifted his remaining foot onto the vessel.

The ferry boat carrying the two people seemed to gauge their weight for a moment, then began moving on its own. Seon-o, who didn’t seem surprised as if he already knew this would happen, turned to look at Cheong-eum.

“This boat is heading to an island on the other side. There will be a labyrinth there.”

At the mention of a labyrinth, Cheong-eum’s eyes sharpened considerably.

A labyrinth was a type of trap that the Yin Cult had created throughout the continent, where the Yin Energy inside was dangerously twisted. The Imperial Palace and temples had tried to find and destroy the labyrinths hidden across the continent over many years, but since labyrinths couldn’t be destroyed unless someone entered and removed the traps inside, dismantling them was quite difficult.

“An important characteristic is that time flows in a twisted manner there. A day outside becomes about a month inside there, I think….”

As Seon-o explained while searching through hazy memories, Cheong-eum couldn’t hold back any longer and asked.

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually been inside?”

To that question, Seon-o again didn’t answer. All of this was information he had seen in a book. Thanks to that, while Seon-o hadn’t actually entered the place himself, he knew what was hidden inside and what events occurred there. He also knew how to destroy the traps and escape the labyrinth.

“Listen carefully to what I say from now on.”

“….”

“Moonlight Grass is blooming inside there. We’re going to retrieve it. Getting to where the Moonlight Grass is blooming isn’t difficult. Of course, we mustn’t touch anything on the way there.”

This labyrinth wasn’t tangled like a maze, so there was no worry about getting lost. Of course, even so, retrieving the Moonlight Grass wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

Because that Moonlight Grass was the trap of this labyrinth.

“Once we pluck the Moonlight Grass, the trap will begin. You’ll see hallucinations and hear auditory hallucinations.”

Hallucinations were the Yin Cult’s specialty and the sorcery they handled best. They called that phantom pain the pinnacle of Yin Energy and took pride in it.

‘Right, it is the pinnacle of Yin Energy. That sorcery must have originated from Rift Sound Stones.’

Thanks to that, Seon-o had already experienced that phantom pain before coming here. Now that he thought about it, it had been like practice.

‘Well, I wonder if I should call this a fortunate thing.’

Anyway, there was only one thing to do once inside.

“You absolutely must not move until all those hallucinations end. Even if one of us dies, absolutely not. Do you understand?”

Cheong-eum looked at Seon-o with a face that had forgotten what to say. How on earth did this woman know all of this?

Noticing his deepening suspicion, Seon-o spoke firmly.

“Just think about the Moonlight Grass.”

But he couldn’t do that. After pondering, Cheong-eum opened his mouth.

“If inside there….”

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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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