The Great Heavenly Demon Sovereign - Chapter 348
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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 348.
‘Is she going to suck her blood?’
Watching the scene unfold, Yu Cheong Rim bit his lip and thrust his hand into his robe.
No matter how hard he tried to focus, mist seemed to swirl before his eyes, and his body moved as though trapped in a dream.
‘This will have to do.’
What he withdrew from his robe was a small tube.
It was the Explosive Flame Pellet he had used when escaping the encirclement of Baek Woon Sang and the Murim Alliance warriors.
‘Please!’
Just as he barely managed to twist the end of the tube with his fingers,
“How pointless.”
With a grotesque voice, the Black-White Witch suddenly appeared before Yu Cheong Rim’s face.
‘She wasn’t even looking this way. How could she….’
The moment Yu Cheong Rim’s eyes widened in shock, the Black-White Witch slowly extended her hand and grasped his fingers.
Sizzle.
The instant her fingertips made contact, flames erupted from all five of Yu Cheong Rim’s fingers.
Simultaneously, he felt a pain as though his bones and meridians were melting away.
‘Ugh….’
Just as Yu Cheong Rim groaned in agony,
Boom!
With a thunderous roar, an enormous force began to descend from the heavens.
“Hmph.”
The sight was like a massive meteor plummeting to earth.
The Black-White Witch let out a scoff as she watched the cascading power, then instantly repositioned herself more than a dozen paces away.
Crash!
At the same moment, the ground where the Black-White Witch had stood was torn asunder, dust billowing in all directions.
Thud.
Simultaneously, a massive silhouette landed before Yu Cheong Rim from the air.
It was So Ok Rim.
“Ugh, blast!”
So Ok Rim strode forward and raised her fist toward Yu Cheong Rim.
“You disloyal bastard. I secured an escape route for you and waited, but you couldn’t hold back and bolted?”
“So… Lady So.”
“Why are your eyes so wide? Are you hoping to get beaten so badly that they naturally close?”
Unaware of Yu Cheong Rim’s confusion, she threw a few more feints before lowering her hand.
“Never mind. We’ll settle this later.”
So Ok Rim flexed her knuckles and turned to face the Black-White Witch.
“How many times are you going to make a fool of us?”
“….”
“Good grief, what’s with all that hair hanging down? Clean it up. Let me see your face.”
The Black-White Witch stared at So Ok Rim, then slowly curved her lips into a smile.
In that instant, the entire world seemed to darken, and strange energies flooded into So Ok Rim’s mind relentlessly.
“What are you scheming? This…”
So Ok Rim’s expression twisted as she raised her hand to approach the Black-White Witch.
Her head spun dizzily, and something in her stomach churned endlessly, rising toward her throat.
“You’ll try anything. Now you’re releasing poison?”
The Black-White Witch made no movement, yet she had secretly unleashed a vicious miasmic toxin that clouded So Ok Rim’s mind.
Hisssss.
So Ok Rim rapidly deployed her detoxification technique to expel the poison, clenching both fists.
“Are you ready to fall?”
Then she thrust a palm strike directly at the Black-White Witch.
“Take this!”
* * *
A moment before So Ok Rim unleashed her martial technique against the Black-White Witch.
Bu Eunseol was moving swiftly toward the Southeastern Forest where Yu Cheong Rim and So Ok Rim were located.
―Let’s go separately with a time delay.
Bu Eunseol had suddenly made this strange proposal to So Ok Rim.
Something had nagged at her mind.
―Fine.
Seeing Bu Eunseol’s gaze, she understood there was a plan and nodded in agreement.
Then she followed Yu Cheong Rim’s trail and departed swiftly ahead.
‘Something feels off.’
Bu Eunseol’s eyes darkened as she observed the direction So Ok Rim had gone.
Her mind was filled with an inexplicable sense of discord.
‘The Black-White Witch couldn’t possibly be using a clone technique.’
The first sense of discord had emerged when she and So Ok Rim initially pursued the Black-White Witch.
As the two of them chased at extreme speed, the Black-White Witch suddenly split into two forms and vanished.
Dividing one’s body into two was absolutely impossible.
However, Murim contained various unique techniques and methods that could be called sorcery.
Therefore, initially, she had only entertained the possibility that a unique technique had been employed.
But when she clashed briefly with her, that discord intensified beyond what could be overlooked.
Severed strands of hair being absorbed into her body. And movements at extreme speed that couldn’t be detected even after drawing upon the Primal Beast Sword.
Most of all, hadn’t she evaded both herself and So Ok Rim right before their eyes and disappeared?
That was absolutely not a level of martial prowess visible within the boundaries of the Extreme Heaven Realm.
‘If the Black-White Witch’s martial prowess had broken through the Extreme Heaven Realm, she wouldn’t need to flee at all—she could have cut down both me and So Ok Rim in an instant.’
What if the Black-White Witch had reached the Boundless Realm as a supreme master?
She wouldn’t need to flee like this; with a mere flick of her finger, she would have struck down both herself and So Ok Rim instantly.
Yet the Black-White Witch displayed such formidable martial prowess that she could toy with Bu Eunseol and So Ok Rim, and still chose to flee.
That meant only one conclusion: her actual martial prowess was inferior to what appeared.
‘She showed us illusions.’
Bu Eunseol paused in thought, then shook her head.
What if everything the Black-White Witch had cast until now was a hallucination more vivid than reality itself?
She had unleashed a formidable soul-capturing technique merely by meeting his gaze.
‘That couldn’t be possible.’
In all of Murim, only one person had ever reached such an extraordinary mastery of soul-capturing arts.
Moreover, that person was not a woman but a confident man, was he not?
Regardless of other considerations, the Black-White Witch’s body—which poured forth powerful qi into empty space as if striking a zither—was unmistakably that of a woman.
‘I’ll know once we clash.’
After roughly half an incense stick’s worth of time had passed, Bu Eunseol soared back into the air above the rooftop.
Then she shot forth in a single breath toward the southeastern direction where So Ok Rim had vanished.
* * *
“Damn it!”
So Ok Rim wiped away the thick beads of sweat gathered on her brow, her expression turning grim.
“This witch’s martial prowess surpasses mine?”
She unleashed another devastating palm technique, her voice thundering like lightning.
“Absurd!”
Boom!
Her palm force spread across dozens of zhang, encircling the Black-White Witch’s body without a single gap.
Yet again, the palm force merely passed through the Black-White Witch’s form without effect.
“Excellent!”
Crack.
Brilliant light gathered in both her fists.
She was about to unleash Seong Hwang’s ultimate palm technique, the Dual Severance Galaxy Form, which destroyed everything in its path.
“If you can block this, I’ll concede defeat….”
But as she drew her qi to its maximum, a flash of insight struck So Ok Rim’s mind.
‘There’s no scent?’
She possessed naturally exceptional olfactory senses.
Moreover, when she activated the Dual Severance Galaxy Form, all the air within dozens of zhang would pour into her palms.
Therefore, whenever she deployed this technique, she could always detect the subtle body fragrance emanating from her opponent.
Yet the Black-White Witch, standing directly before her eyes, emitted no scent whatsoever.
‘So that’s what it was!’
Only then did So Ok Rim realize that everything she was seeing was an illusion.
She quickly halted the Dual Severance Galaxy Form and fixed her gaze upon the Black-White Witch.
Though the figure stood unmistakably before her, the body fragrance seemed to drift faintly from somewhere else entirely.
This meant the image before her eyes was a phantom, while the Black-White Witch observed her from elsewhere.
‘An illusion one cannot perceive….’
So Ok Rim bit her lip.
There was only one method to shatter such a terrifying soul-capturing technique.
“Very well!”
At last, having resolved herself, So Ok Rim cried out loudly.
Then she struck her own face with all her might.
Crack!
With a tremendous burst of sound, So Ok Rim’s cheek swelled grotesquely.
Spit.
As blood sprayed from her lips, brilliant clarity blazed anew in So Ok Rim’s previously clouded eyes.
At the same moment, she glimpsed the true form of the Black-White Witch standing some twenty paces away.
“Your martial prowess is formidable.”
The Black-White Witch spoke in an eerie voice.
“It’s remarkable that you sensed yourself caught in my illusion art, but to resort to self-harm to break free—that’s audacious.”
Admiration threaded through that uncanny voice, neither masculine nor feminine.
Moreover, by referring to herself as “nobu,” one could infer her true age far exceeded appearances, and her accumulated martial power ran correspondingly deep.
“I have sent countless adversaries to their deaths within my illusions, yet never have I encountered someone crude enough to awaken through such barbaric means.”
The Black-White Witch readily admitted her technique was indeed “illusion.”
This meant either she possessed absolute confidence in preventing So Ok Rim from ever escaping the illusion, or—even if she did awaken—she was certain of her ability to kill her.
“So that’s what this was.”
Then, from a distant ancient tree, a low voice resonated,
Whoosh.
A grey shadow descended before the Black-White Witch with a piercing sound.
It was Bu Eunseol.
“I suspected as much, but to think you truly are the Black-White Witch.”
“What are you saying.”
“The Phantom King.”
Bu Eunseol spoke in a glacial tone.
“I cannot fathom why one of the Four Gods Seven Kings would resort to such grotesque methods.”
The Phantom King, Sa Ok Cheong.
She was the most recently elevated among the Four Gods Seven Kings.
In terms of age, comparable to Gu Hong Cheong, she should have entered the Mado Sipgyeol long ago.
Yet she rarely appeared in Murim, and her reliance on mind-control techniques prevented her from receiving proper recognition.
However, twenty years prior, she had gathered Orthodox Sect masters at the Bi Cheon Hyup Gyo and annihilated them all through mind-control sorcery.
Simultaneously, she had struck down the Sword King, Tan Mok Cheon Seung, who was present there, finally ascending to the Four Gods Seven Kings.
‘If she’s the Phantom King, this is troublesome.’
So Ok Rim, listening to the exchange between Bu Eunseol and the Phantom King, furrowed her brow.
The Phantom King’s mind-control technique had reached an unprecedented level of mastery.
It did not merely conjure illusions; even upon awakening, one could not distinguish reality from fantasy, and by controlling the spirit itself, it could weaken martial power and physical abilities alike.
“Nobu is the Phantom King?”
The Black-White Witch, reverting to that eerie feminine voice, let out a derisive laugh.
“Wasn’t she a confident man?”
“Perhaps both man and woman.”
Bu Eunseol regarded the Black-White Witch with an unhurried expression.
“You are a hermaphrodite, aren’t you.”
A hermaphrodite.
Possessing the energies of both female and male in equal measure, such beings are also called “Half-Yin Half-Yang.”
Yin-Yang humans not only possess the reproductive organs of both sexes, but their external appearance distinctly resembles either a man or a woman.
Therefore, no one could discern their true nature unless their clothes were removed or they revealed it themselves.
“What nonsense are you spouting?”
The Black-White Witch’s voice grew thin and delicate, like that of a young girl.
The aura radiating from her entire body became even more sinister, and her silhouette reflected in the moonlight grew more voluptuous.
“Do I appear to be a Yin-Yang human to you?”
“A Yin-Yang human possesses all the qualities of both sexes.”
Bu Eunseol displayed a confident smile.
“At first, I thought you were merely a woman of courtesan origins. The aura unique to courtesans cannot be mimicked in a single moment, after all.”
And she spoke in a low voice.
“Yet a master of courtesan origins periodically turned the Murim upside down, and despite countless masters pursuing you, your identity, name, and martial techniques remained undiscovered? That would be difficult even for someone of extraordinary ability, would it not?”
Bu Eunseol’s eyes, which had paused momentarily, now gleamed with a torch-like brilliance.
“You maintained that bizarre witch’s attire from the beginning to emphasize your femininity. If you changed your very gender, pursuit would become impossible.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Perhaps from childhood you lived as a young courtesan, spending a certain period as a woman. Then, upon discovering you were a Yin-Yang human, you lived freely, changing your gender at will, did you not?”
A moment of silence fell.
“You’re clever, yet foolish in another sense.”
At last, the Black-White Witch—no, the Phantom King, Sa Ok Cheong—nodded and acknowledged her words.
“Had you known I was the Phantom King, you would have fled quickly. Why do you stare at me with your eyes wide open?”
In that instant, his eyes blazed crimson, and murky heat shimmer rose like dark clouds.
Yet Bu Eunseol let out a cold laugh and spoke.
“Not all who open their eyes truly see.”
Shing.
Bu Eunseol drew her silent sword and unfolded the Meteor Chasing Moon technique, swiftly thrusting toward his throat.
“Ho.”
Sa Ok Cheong retreated slightly, taken aback.
Bu Eunseol’s eyes had lost all focus. Observing this, Sa Ok Cheong nodded.
“I see. You’ve struck the Seung Eup acupoint to temporarily blur your vision.”
Bu Eunseol had mastered the Wild Beast Sword while maintaining the Seung Eup acupoint struck, and now had reached the highest stage: Empty Heart Penetrating Spirit.
Therefore, even with her eyes blinded, she suffered no disadvantage whatsoever.
In truth, though she saw nothing, she moved far more naturally than one with open eyes.
“Hehehehe. Hahahaha!”
Sa Ok Cheong burst into laughter with a voice neither male nor female, nodding in acknowledgment.
“You’ve used your wits well. But you’ve chosen the wrong opponent.”
With a cold laugh, he spoke calmly and deliberately.
“If blinding oneself could evade soul-stealing techniques, how would this old one have earned the title of Phantom King?”
The moment his words ended, Bu Eunseol detected a sour fragrance.
Simultaneously, a strange resonance erupted in her mind, as if shaking her very brain.
“Your inner force is now slowly beginning to crumble.”
As those words left his lips, the inner energy stored in Bu Eunseol’s dantian began to dissipate like smoke.
Empty Spirit Soul Whisper Incantation.
The pinnacle of soul-manipulation techniques that could control the spirit through voice alone—the Empty Spirit Soul Whisper Incantation had been unleashed.
Moreover, Sa Ok Cheong, having discerned that Bu Eunseol possessed formidable inner power and martial prowess, deployed a fragrant poison that induced intense hallucinations with a single exposure.
Simultaneously, he unfolded Illusory Mirage Stench, layering a powerful hypnotic suggestion over her mind.
“Your legs are bound by heavy shackles. That is why you cannot move with agility.”
Thoom.
The moment Sa Ok Cheong’s voice reached her, Bu Eunseol felt her ankles tighten.
At the same time, she sensed heavy shackles hanging from her legs, making movement difficult.
Though such a thing had not actually occurred, Bu Eunseol’s body perceived it as absolutely real.
Clank.
Yet Bu Eunseol grasped her silent sword with an unbothered expression.
“Is that all?”
Bu Eunseol raised her silent sword with a calm voice, speaking in low tones.
“If you’ve finished deploying your illusions, come at me. I’m growing bored waiting.”
“Hehehehe. Hahahaha!”
Sa Ok Cheong burst into wild laughter, his expression one of utter disbelief.
Thud.
As his laughter ceased, he spoke in a sinister voice.
“You must be mad with a death wish.”
Whoooosh!
Raising his pointed nails, Sa Ok Cheong became hundreds of shadows, encircling Bu Eunseol completely.
Even without suppressing the Shengyin acupoint, one could not discern which was real and which was false.
Finally, as a claw shadow curved in from an invisible angle toward Bu Eunseol’s throat,
Ching!
Bu Eunseol’s silent sword flicked away Sa Ok Cheong’s claw shadow in a single motion.
“Pathetic. Is this truly the level of the Four Gods Seven Kings?”
In that instant, Sa Ok Cheong’s expression shifted to one of shock.
Bu Eunseol could not see, and her inner power had been reduced to eighty percent or less.
Moreover, she was under the hypnotic suggestion that heavy shackles bound both her legs.
Yet how could she shatter the opening move of his Shadow Breaking Body染 technique in a single breath?
‘Could this woman’s power truly exceed fifty years of cultivation?’
The Empty Spirit Soul Whisper Incantation suppressed the spirit to lower inner power by roughly eighty percent at most.
If one attempted to lower power beyond that threshold through suggestion, the body would detect the absence of actual power depletion and the hypnosis would shatter immediately.
Yet the inner power he felt through his nails from Bu Eunseol exceeded one year of cultivation, did it not?
As Bu Eunseol’s power and martial skill transcended imagination, a strange light flickered in Sa Ok Cheong’s eyes.
In that moment, the name of the Demonic Path’s foremost successor of the new generation—one who had ascended to the position of advisor to the Four Gods Seven Kings at such a young age—surfaced in his mind.
“So you are Bu Eunseol!”
The successor of the Demon Palace, Bu Eunseol.
Realizing that the young person before him was that formidable new-generation grand master, he instead burst into delighted laughter.
“Excellent! Splendid!”
He released a grotesque laugh, nodding his head repeatedly.
“If I bring your head to them, they will accept me back!”
A flash of realization gleamed in Bu Eunseol’s eyes.
Seong Hwang had kept a low profile in Murim all this time. Yet wasn’t he now speaking as though he had belonged to some organization long ago?
“Die!”
Sa Ok Cheong unleashed a finger wind toward Bu Eunseol with a voice brimming with elation.
Apart from the Seopsim Secret Art, his true martial techniques were the Blood Zero Phantom Finger and the Yin Dew Binding Hand—both capable of piercing ancient trees in a single breath.
The Blood Zero Phantom Finger possessed devastating power at range, rivaling Tan Wang’s Inner Qi Explosive Force, while the Yin Dew Binding Hand deployed at close quarters matched the Shaolin Dragon Claw Technique.
In other words, even without employing the Seopsim Art, Sa Ok Cheong’s martial prowess was more than sufficient to rank among the Four Gods Seven Kings.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Dozens of razor-sharp threads burrowed toward Bu Eunseol’s vital points.
The Phantom Finger moved with such blinding speed and possessed a trajectory as thin as a hair that defense was nearly impossible.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
In that instant, two brilliant rays of energy erupted from Bu Eunseol’s body to counter the Phantom Finger.
The Thirteen Night Technique—Mu Hwang’s supreme pinnacle art—had been unleashed.
Thud-thud-thud.
Unlike the Female Immortal Formation, the Thirteen Night Technique required no overwhelming inner force.
Moreover, each move contained the profound mysteries of Orthodox martial arts in their entirety.
Bu Eunseol predicted every trajectory of the Phantom Finger, deploying the Thirteen Night Technique to deflect the steel-piercing threads at an angle.
“Remarkable!”
Sa Ok Cheong exclaimed in admiration, closing the distance.
I thought her swordsmanship was merely exceptional.
Yet she wielded such profound martial arts?
“But this is where it ends.”
Sa Ok Cheong’s lips curved upward.
Only those at the Transcendent Realm could suppress enemies through the profundity of martial technique alone.
At that level, even without inner force, one could repel opponents through the subtlety of technique.
But the Extreme Heaven Realm was different.
Masters of the Extreme Heaven Realm wielded overwhelming martial power that transcended the force born from technique’s subtlety.
Without equivalent inner force, offense and defense could not continue.
“The gap in inner force cannot be bridged.”
As Sa Ok Cheong raised one hand, a colossal shockwave materialized in the void, brilliant enough to eclipse the sun.
As Bu Eunseol attempted to overcome the power disparity through martial subtlety, he sought to shatter her defenses with raw force in a single stroke.
“Die.”
Time seemed to freeze, and in the next instant, a massive sphere of energy crashed down before Bu Eunseol’s eyes.
It was a sudden assault leveraging the gap in inner force, moving so swiftly that there was no time to evade.
As the luminous sphere engulfed Bu Eunseol’s entire body,
Boom!
An enormous explosion erupted, and a towering inferno of true qi spread outward for dozens of paces, reaching toward the heavens.
As the gale subsided, the dust scattered away, and a towering silhouette emerged from the haze.
“Ugh.”
A heavy groan escaped as a massive figure materialized before Bu Eunseol, arms spread wide.
It was So Ok Rim.
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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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