The Great Heavenly Demon Sovereign - Chapter 347

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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 347.
Yu Cheong Rim bit down hard at Baek Woon Sang’s sharp rebuke.
‘Will I be caught?’
And the moment he turned to deploy the Great Hall’s Extreme Shadow technique without looking back,
“Spread the Heavenly Net of Destiny!”
Baek Woon Sang had already commanded his martial artists to seal off the escape routes and encircle the area.
Yu Cheong Rim, who had leaped into the air to flee, halted his movement technique.
He gazed upon the formidable encirclement and fell into contemplation for a moment.
‘With this, I cannot shake off pursuit. A hundred men stand with eyes wide open—I cannot employ the Thousand Transformations Art or the Earth Concealment Technique.’
Both methods required the observers’ attention to be diverted elsewhere.
If I were to disguise myself or deploy concealment before their very eyes, there would be no escape from their pursuit.
‘Should I simply drop the disguise and reveal my identity?’
Yu Cheong Rim, who had wrapped cloth around his head, immediately shook his head.
‘Even if I reveal myself, they will still capture me, will they not?’
No matter what explanation I offer, they will drag me away for interrogation regardless.
And if my identity as the Thousand-Faced Divine Thief were exposed?
Since I bear the crime of stealing the Eternal Flame of Bliss, I would ultimately be imprisoned in the Murim Alliance’s Underground Prison.
「Simply deploy your movement technique and come to the third floor, premium suite of Po Cheon Pavilion. Now.」
At that moment, So Ok Rim’s voice transmission reached him from afar.
Yu Cheong Rim’s mouth fell open as he gazed toward the distant blue pavilion that seemed impossibly far away.
‘She transmitted her voice from that distance?’
His surprise was brief. For some reason, his eyes gleamed with sudden clarity.
‘Indeed. She knows precisely why I am the Thousand-Faced Divine Thief.’
Rather than deploying my technique to break through the encirclement, if I were to make a grand detour and leap directly into the massive blue pavilion in one bound?
The Murim Alliance would assume I had done so and would surround the pavilion, conducting thorough investigations of the courtesans and patrons alike.
But So Ok Rim had specified the third floor’s premium suite, meaning she would have made advance reservations for three people.
Therefore, even if the Murim Alliance’s martial artists conducted their investigation, they would detect nothing amiss.
‘Meticulous indeed. But… this is actually an opportunity.’
Confirming that So Ok Rim was positioned at a safe distance, Yu Cheong Rim nodded as if he had resolved something.
Then he withdrew a small cylindrical object from his robes.
“Hehehehe. Hahahaha!”
He deliberately released a sinister laugh.
Whoosh!
At that very moment, a crimson light burst from the cylinder and soared into the distant sky.
Boom! Crackle crackle.
The light that ascended high into the heavens blazed brilliantly, then instantly erupted into magnificent fireworks.
“Hmph, a signal flare.”
As Baek Woon Sang snorted derisively and began to lower his gaze,
“…!”
He found himself doubting his own eyes.
In that brief moment, the Black-White Witch who had been right before my eyes vanished.
“Where did she go!”
“We didn’t even see….”
My subordinates shook their heads in embarrassment.
When the brilliant fireworks erupted into the sky, all two hundred martial artists had instinctively gazed upward.
Yu Cheong Rim had seized that moment of distraction and vanished instantly using the Great Hall Extreme Shadow Technique.
“Chase them!”
Baek Woon Sang, consumed with rage, shouted as he watched Yu Cheong Rim’s trajectory disappear like a gale.
“Quickly!”
Yu Cheong Rim was already fleeing the village in a single breath, racing toward the desolate forest.
‘I’ll leave Shandong entirely this time.’
Getting any deeper involved in capturing the Black-White Witch would require a hundred lives to spare.
Moreover, the Murim Alliance branch had already caught my trail—under these circumstances, it was far wiser to flee Shandong and go into hiding.
Whoooosh!
Tracing a white arc across the night sky as I deployed the Great Hall Extreme Shadow Technique, I had already left Pyeong Do behind.
Had I been running for about an hour?
From running so violently, my breathing had become labored and my dantian felt as though it might tear.
The cotton and rubber stuffed inside my clothes had soaked my entire body in sweat, and my movements were gradually becoming sluggish.
“This should be far enough.”
Having ventured deep into the forest, I quickly employed the Earth Concealment Technique and then deployed the Returning Corpse Method.
The Murim Alliance’s pursuit was terrifying, but So Ok Rim was even more so.
However, if I remained underground using the Returning Corpse Method for three or four days?
No matter how formidable her martial prowess, she would eventually give up searching for me.
Crunch, crunch.
Yet shortly after, I heard footsteps in this deep forest.
‘Have they already pursued me this far?’
I shook my head.
That couldn’t be right.
After detonating the fireworks, I had fled at full speed toward the southeast in a single breath.
Even if So Ok Rim had sensed something amiss and given chase, there would be a considerable gap between us.
How could they have followed me so directly?
‘No, it’s not her.’
Based on the vibrations transmitted through the earth, the weight of whoever was making those footsteps was roughly sixty jin.
It was not So Ok Rim’s footsteps—she appeared to weigh at least one hundred eighty jin.
Swish. Swish.
Yet something was strange.
The footsteps were circling around the area where I was hiding, as if tracing a perimeter.
‘What on earth is this?’
I grew uneasy.
Why were they pacing around the ground where I was concealed?
‘I’ve been discovered.’
He sensed instinctively that his concealment had been exposed.
Since his presence underground was already revealed, deploying the Bone Burial Technique would prove futile.
‘I need to escape.’
Yu Cheong Rim abandoned the Bone Burial Technique and slowly drew upon his inner energy.
He intended to seize the moment and slip away using the Earth Concealment Art once more.
A soft whoosh.
Yet suddenly, the earth where he lay hidden yawned open like a living creature’s maw, revealing the moonlit sky above.
‘How is this possible?’
Yu Cheong Rim lifted his gaze in shock,
“….”
There, between strands of white hair, a pair of eyes gleamed with a crimson hue as if drenched in blood, fixed directly upon him.
The Black-White Witch.
The witch, whose visage had always remained obscured, now stared at him with eyes mere inches from his own.
“Ah, ah….”
Terror flooded Yu Cheong Rim’s mind once more.
Simultaneously, crimson droplets began streaming from his eyes.
Anguish. Terror.
All the torment and dread a human could endure seeped through his eyes, overwhelming his senses.
Unable to withstand it, his eyes wept blood.
“Ugh….”
Yu Cheong Rim could not comprehend it.
Why did she kill others so effortlessly, yet pursue him relentlessly to drain his blood?
Unable to bear the cascading terror and agony, Yu Cheong Rim raised his hand to strike his own heavenly gate.
A wet sound.
But a strange noise echoed in his ears.
Lowering his dimming gaze, he saw sharp fangs piercing his flesh.
The Black-White Witch was tearing through his carotid artery, drinking his blood.
‘This agonizing world. Death matters not, in any form.’
Just as Yu Cheong Rim, surrendering to despair, began to close his eyes,
“There!”
Shadows of nearly two hundred figures descended from the distant sky, surrounding the area.
It was Baek Woon Sang and the masters of the Murim Alliance.
“Two Black-White Witches?”
After staring intently, Baek Woon Sang caught sight of Yu Cheong Rim’s face visible between the strands of the wig and gasped.
“You…!”
Only now did he realize that the person he had pursued was not the Black-White Witch, but the Thousand-Faced Divine Thief who had been plundering the treasures of the Murim Alliance branches.
“Thousand-Faced Divine Thief! You’ve been imitating the Black-White Witch!”
“Save me….”
Yu Cheong Rim struggled to open his mouth and respond.
Yet the aura unleashed by the Black-White Witch caused my consciousness to waver, and even my facial muscles twisted in distortion.
However, Baek Woon Sang, completely unaware of that situation, wore a faint smile.
“I’ll catch two rabbits with one stone.”
Yu Cheong Rim, the Thousand-Faced Divine Thief who had stolen treasures from the Murim Alliance branch all this time.
And the Black-White Witch, who had plunged the Murim into terror with every appearance. To capture both of them at once.
“That witch’s martial arts are formidable, so deploy the Demon-Slaying Sword Formation!”
At Baek Woon Sang’s cry, a hundred martial artists moved in chaotic coordination.
They were not only the elite forces of the Murim Alliance’s Shandong Branch, but also practitioners of the Demon-Slaying Sword Formation that the Murim Alliance had devised to handle demonic cultivators.
This formation could perfectly confine enemies through its exquisite techniques, and could concentrate the combined martial power of all practitioners to unleash upon a foe.
In other words, it was an anti-demonic formation that combined only the superior functions of Shaolin’s Goshim Sect and Wudang’s Seven-Star Sword Formation.
Thud, thud.
Yet the Black-White Witch was walking of her own volition toward the center of the Demon-Slaying Sword Formation that a hundred martial artists were about to deploy.
Baek Woon Sang’s expression became peculiar in that instant.
The Demon-Slaying Sword Formation contained the purification principles of the Murim Alliance’s formation techniques, and even a child could sense the overwhelming power contained within it.
Moreover, it was said that once trapped within, escape was impossible—yet she was entering of her own accord?
What in the world was her scheme?
“Strike!”
His thoughts lingered, but his judgment was swift.
At Baek Woon Sang’s command, the hundred martial artists immediately activated the formation.
Boom!
Simultaneously, a tremendous force crashed down upon the center where the Black-White Witch stood.
In its wake, trees toppled and boulders shattered. It was as though an enraged heaven had unleashed a tempest to obliterate the entire world.
“It’s finished.”
Baek Woon Sang, gazing at the rising dust, wore a smile.
At this level of destructive power, not even the Black-White Witch—no one could withstand it.
Whoosh.
The wind swept past, and Baek Woon Sang’s smile vanished.
An utterly unbelievable sight unfolded before him.
The Black-White Witch stood upright,
Thud. Thump.
And with dull sounds, the hundred martial artists collapsed one by one, blood streaming from their heads.
“How is this possible.”
Only then did Baek Woon Sang regain his senses and look around.
The devastated surroundings showed not a single leaf plucked from the trees, and not a single boulder broken.
Then what in the world was that sight of the surroundings being destroyed along with the tempest soaring skyward from the Demon-Slaying Sword Formation?
‘Have I been possessed by a ghost?’
Baek Woon Sang rubbed his eyes.
The surging sword energy and the tempest had been illusions?
Yet even now that sight seemed vivid before his eyes, and his cheeks where the wind had swept past ached with a stinging sensation.
“Can an illusion be this convincing?”
Baek Woon Sang cast his gaze upon the fallen martial artists.
Their Heavenly Spirit Orbs were all shattered, and their right hands were drenched in blood.
Remarkably, a hundred highly trained martial artists had destroyed their own Heavenly Spirit Orbs.
“Surely not….”
In that instant, a thought flickered through Baek Woon Sang’s mind.
An Evil Sect Grand Master capable of inducing vivid hallucinations and controlling the spirit with merely a glance.
The name of that legendary master surfaced in his consciousness.
“You are….”
Before Baek Woon Sang could finish his murmur, the Black-White Witch suddenly loomed before him.
He wanted to flee, but his body had turned rigid as stone, incapable of movement.
“Your incessant chatter is tiresome.”
She extended a single finger slowly, her voice low, and pressed it against his throat.
Thud.
In that moment, Baek Woon Sang’s head fell to the ground.
He was the leader of the Murim Alliance’s Shandong Branch, a master who had reached the Transcendent Realm.
Yet she had severed his head with a single finger?
Yu Cheong Rim, witnessing this from afar, was consumed by terror and shock.
How had the Black-White Witch shattered a hundred Heavenly Spirit Orbs simultaneously?
With such power, she could claim invincibility under heaven and, if she wished, command tens of thousands of soldiers as the leader of a faction…
Why then had she become a blood drinker, a fugitive of the Murim world?
Whoosh.
The Black-White Witch turned her head.
And she slowly approached the trembling Yu Cheong Rim.
‘I must move.’
But the moment their eyes met, his limbs became as rigid as stone, and his mind turned white.
It was not fear.
The Black-White Witch’s eyes possessed a mystical power—a single glance was enough to dominate both body and soul in an instant.
“Why do you… persistently crave my blood?”
The Black-White Witch answered briefly.
“Human-Form Snow Ginseng.”
In that moment, Yu Cheong Rim understood everything.
Three years ago, he had stolen and consumed the Human-Form Snow Ginseng that Hwa Moon Sung, a wealthy merchant of Jenam, had purchased for ten million gold coins.
―It’s nothing special.
He had eaten the legendary elixir, yet felt no effect whatsoever.
But the spiritual essence remained in his blood…The Black-White Witch had sensed it and had persistently sought to drain his blood.
‘This is the price of theft.’
Just as Yu Cheong Rim, his soul now seized by the Black-White Witch, naturally began to tilt his neck,
Ching!
A clear blade cry rang out, and a sharp sword aura came pouring down.
The Black-White Witch, who had been about to drink his blood, instantly retreated.
Screech!
Sword energy as massive as a claw raked across the earth, and a white silhouette descended from the void before Yu Cheong Rim.
“Are you alright?”
Along with a clear yet soft voice, a warm aura emanated from behind Yu Cheong Rim’s back.
A woman in white had approached him and was infusing her vital energy into his body.
“Ugh.”
The black mist that had been rising before his eyes dissipated, and Yu Cheong Rim’s vision gradually brightened.
At the same time, he could see the figure of a woman dressed as if wrapped in moonlight, her sword sheath stained white like her blade.
“Who are you…?”
“I came from Geom Gak.”
The woman in white was none other than Ah Yeon, the Geomgak Successor.
Upon hearing rumors that the Black-White Witch had appeared again in Pyeong Do, she immediately ventured into Gangho.
While pursuing the Black-White Witch’s trail, she learned that warriors from the Murim Alliance’s Shandong Branch were chasing her.
Ah Yeon changed her target and tracked down the movements of the Shandong Branch warriors, finally discovering the Black-White Witch attempting to drain Yu Cheong Rim’s blood.
‘Geom Gak… why did she come from Geom Gak?’
Even as Yu Cheong Rim received vital energy from Ah Yeon, his mind had not fully recovered.
His vision remained blurred as if intoxicated, and a persistent dizziness continued.
“That’s strange. You don’t seem to have internal injuries.”
Ah Yeon withdrew her hand from his vital point and produced a small medicinal pill from her sleeve, offering it to Yu Cheong Rim.
“It’s the Bon Gak’s Ambrosia Clarity Pill. It should help restore your clarity.”
Then she turned her body and spoke in a low voice.
“Once you’ve recovered, leave this place quickly.”
Whoosh.
Drawing her blade, Ah Yeon walked before the Black-White Witch and spoke in an icy tone.
“Black-White Witch. For decades, you have brought calamity upon Murim and harmed the innocent.”
“…”
“I can no longer stand idle and watch your wickedness. I shall deliver judgment upon you in Heaven’s stead.”
“Hehe.”
A smile played across the Black-White Witch’s lips.
Simultaneously, as if conducting an invisible string, she moved her fingers lightly, and tremendous sword energy surged into both sides of Ah Yeon at once.
Boom!
Ah Yeon quickly leaped into the air, and the sword energy pouring from left and right collided, creating a deafening explosion.
“You wield quite an unusual martial art.”
Landing back on the ground, she immediately began to unfold the sword technique of Geom Gak.
Whoosh… Shriek!
As her white-stained blade wove through the void, the gentle wind suddenly transformed into a piercing roar that threatened to shatter eardrums.
Severing Self Like a Dream Sword.
Geom Gak’s sword technique aimed to achieve the ultimate pinnacle of stillness, turning defense into offense.
Ah Yeon had long immersed herself in the sword path, yet she had not broken through the wall of the Transcendent Realm.
Then, when she went to Demon Palace to obtain information about the Ohdok School, she engaged in a wager with Bu Eunseol and faced masters of the Sayoung Battle Division.
Though I failed to break through to the Transcendent Realm, I gained profound enlightenment from battling the Lords of Sayoung Battle Division, who possessed rich combat experience and had forged their own unique martial traditions…
And finally, I perfected the Danya Yeomong Sword.
Screech! Shatter-crack-crack!
Yet even as I unleashed the Danya Yeomong Sword repeatedly, it failed to touch the Black-White Witch’s body at all.
‘Her martial prowess is formidable.’
Ah Yeon sensed that the Black-White Witch’s cultivation had reached the Extreme Heavenly Realm, and she drew upon her full power.
‘But with the Danya Yeomong Sword, I should be able to contend with her.’
And I unleashed the Ultimate Sword Form of the Danya Yeomong Sword that I had mastered.
Shatter-crack-crack!
Six strands of sword energy erupted forth with a sound that split the air, instantly descending upon the Black-White Witch.
Tap-tap-tap.
But something strange occurred.
Those six strands of sword energy did not pierce through the Black-White Witch’s body; instead, they circled around her form.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
It was the Ultimate Sword Form of the Danya Yeomong Sword—Lingering Echo in the Rafters.
Just as the technique’s name suggested, like beautiful song reverberating at one’s ears.
Sharp sword energy positioned around the enemy’s body to block counterattacks and suppress them in a single breath.
“Hmph.”
But something strange occurred.
The Black-White Witch, as if she had become a phantom, was passing naturally through the sword energy I unleashed.
Whoosh!
Ah Yeon, undisturbed, deployed Lingering Echo in the Rafters once more, pouring sword energy around the Black-White Witch’s body.
But it was futile.
The Black-White Witch continued to ignore my sword energy, approaching slowly as if taking a leisurely stroll.
‘How is this possible.’
Ah Yeon suffered a profound shock in her heart.
I had ventured alone into Gangho to confront the Black-White Witch precisely to test my greatly improved swordsmanship.
Yet even with the sword technique I had honed through bone-grinding effort, I could not halt even a single step of the Black-White Witch?
“Snap out of it!”
Yu Cheong Rim, breathing heavily as he sat, cried out.
In truth, even after consuming the Nectar Clarity Pill that Ah Yeon had given him, his mind had not become significantly clearer.
But as he watched Ah Yeon’s battle from the outside, he finally grasped the secret of the martial technique the Black-White Witch was employing.
“She’s not… No!”
Yu Cheong Rim cried out loudly.
The Black-White Witch was approaching from the side, not from Ah Yeon’s front.
Yet she seemed to hear nothing, earnestly deploying her sword technique.
Moreover, were not the pupils of her eyes, as she wielded the technique, losing focus?
Splurt!
Blood sprayed from Ah Yeon’s body as she deployed her technique with vacant eyes.
Somehow, the Black-White Witch had used a sharp finger wind to wound her near the throat.
Drip.
Clear blood glistened in the moonlight, trickling down the curve of the neck.
Yet in the eyes of the Black-White Witch, who gazed upon that crimson stream, a sinister gleam flickered to life.
“Ohhh.”
As though inhaling a fragrant scent, the Black-White Witch drew in the blood’s aroma deeply and murmured in a low voice.
“A woman bearing True Yang.”
But something was amiss.
Upon catching the scent of Ah Yeon’s blood, the Black-White Witch—who had been emitting feminine laughter mere moments before—suddenly produced an eerie, grotesque male voice.

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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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