The Little Baby Snake of the Vermilion Bird Family - Chapter 86

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

Episode 86
***
Baeksa blinked slowly at Siyeom’s outcry.
Stealing a soul?
How?
It was something the child could not comprehend with her common sense.
To begin with, it was something that should never have happened.
“Could it be…”
Did he smuggle the child’s soul away so this Ghost Dragon’s soul could completely meld into her body?
How could anyone commit such an atrocity?
It was unbelievable that the true owner of this body had lost her soul.
Once she realized Mo Hyun had perpetrated such a horrific deed, her sorrow subsided, replaced by a searing anger.
Baeksa was genuinely furious.
No matter what his goal was, he should never have done this.
Smuggling a soul away defied the laws of heaven and earth; it was tantamount to forfeiting one’s humanity.
“How could this happen…?”
“We must capture Mo Hyun immediately! He couldn’t have gone far. Deploy the soldiers at once to catch him!”
Siyeom whipped around to face Doeui.
“Doeui! You find him. It will be much faster for you to track him than for the birds to search from the sky. Go and—”
Rumble, crash!
A sudden bolt of lightning struck from the clear sky, startling everyone into looking upward.
Lightning was flashing across a sky that had been completely blue and cloudless just moments before.
Boom!
A thunderbolt slammed into the earth.
Clouds gathered in an instant, and the sky began to churn strangely.
And at that exact moment.
Crackle!
A short spark of electricity, like a mini-flash of lightning, flared from Baeksa’s bead. Breathing softly, everyone looked back and forth between the bead and the sky.
In that instant, a single truth flashed through everyone’s minds.
A dragon’s Cintamani can call forth wind and rain, and it can hurl lightning from a clear sky.
That was possible because the Dragon Race were Celestial Beings sent from the heavens, serving as the judges of the skies.
And just moments ago, Baeksa had become a young dragon with sprouting horns.
She was no longer a baby snake.
Which meant Baeksa’s bead now functioned exactly like a dragon’s Cintamani.
“Uh, Baeksa…”
Hwanya stopped Hwaryeong as he tried to step closer to Baeksa.
Siyeom, Ju Jeokseo, and Ha Seolyeong also watched the young dragon in silence.
A tiny dragon, whose horns had only just begun to poke out, was cradling an infant much smaller than herself and venting her wrath.
Until now, she had been a child who only felt sorrow or guilt.
Even when she was abandoned, she blamed herself rather than those who had cast her away.
As if she were a child who had never learned how to be angry in her entire life, Baeksa had never lost her temper under any circumstances.
Yet that baby dragon was now furious.
The Cintamani reacted to the dragon’s wrath, bringing thunderbolts down from the clear sky. The horizon flashed repeatedly, mimicking the onset of a cataclysm.
Baeksa spoke, holding Je-ryu tightly against her chest.
“Whoever committed such a horrific deed will surely face Heavenly Punishment…”
The child’s voice trembled faintly with rage.
The dragon’s soul trapped inside this body was actually blameless as well.
This soul had also been absorbed by the Ghost Dragon at far too young an age, leaving it completely ignorant.
After existing in that state for a very long time, it had merely broken away from the Ghost Dragon and entered a physical vessel that felt familiar.
Unlike the other Ghost Dragon Fragments, the reason it hadn’t been lured into the Warehouse by following Baeksa was likely because it simply knew nothing.
While the other dragons’ souls coveted the baby snake’s body, this young dragon probably just wanted to reclaim a form of its own.
Therefore, this was neither the dragon’s fault nor Je-ryu’s fault.
If someone hadn’t stolen Je-ryu’s soul, the young girl could have easily harvested the dragon’s soul and awakened Je-ryu.
But now, she couldn’t.
Right now, only a ghost’s heart was beating inside this infant’s body instead of a beast-kin’s heart.
If even the ghost’s soul vanished under these circumstances, Je-ryu’s heart would stop completely.
Nothing could be done until they retrieved the soul that had been stolen.
Why on earth did he do it?
Whatever the reason, it certainly wasn’t taken with good intentions.
Baeksa boiled with fury at this wretched situation.
“Anyone!”
As the child gave in to her shivering rage, another bolt of lightning struck down.
And this strike was different from the others.
A white light flashed, tearing through Namto and flying off to strike a precise location in the distance.
Watching the sight blankly, Siyeom murmured.
“A dragon’s Heavenly Punishment…”
She whispered in a tiny voice, as if unable to believe it.
“It’s Dragon Words—the power to make whatever one says come true.”
***
Dragon Words.
The most potent ability the Dragon Clan could wield.
It was a type of incantation akin to spoken magic, an ability born from the myth that whatever a dragon said would inevitably come to pass.
Normally, only someone of an Emperor’s stature could utilize it.
Furthermore, using Dragon Words drained an immense amount of physical stamina and spiritual energy, meaning even an Emperor could not use them carelessly at any given time.
Yet just now, exactly as Baeksa declared that he would face Heavenly Punishment, a thunderbolt had truly fallen.
Everyone watching the lightning strike from beyond the window shared the exact same thought.
That Mo Hyun would be at the very spot where that lightning had pierced the earth.
Since no one had traveled that far yet, there was no way to know for sure, but they felt an absolute certainty that Mo Hyun would be waiting at the end of that flash.
The sheer intimidation displayed by the young dragon was that immense.
It felt as though no one could ever escape or survive this dragon’s wrath.
Crackle, snap!
The Cintamani, which had done nothing but absorb the energy of contamination all this time, now emitted an energy that flashed like lightning as it floated beside Baeksa’s head.
And in the next instant.
Whoosh!
The light bird perched on the child’s shoulder soared away, flying gracefully toward the place where the lightning had just struck.
***
“Ugh, let’s get moving again. They’ll be pursuing me again in no time…”
Mo Hyun picked up the lantern he had set down.
He debated where he should go to discard this lantern.
However, he soon reached the conclusion that it might be perfectly fine to just carry it along.
The Black Tortoise Clan possessed a Supernatural Ability to command ghosts.
And ghosts meant the souls of humans.
Therefore, he could probably achieve anything even with a soul ripped from a living person.
Somehow, leaving it behind felt like a massive loss.
At any rate, since he had succeeded in stirring up chaos in Namto, it felt acceptable to claim this much booty.
Just as he straightened his stiff body.
“Hmm?”
Suddenly, a commotion arose from the direction of the Vermilion Bird Family Estate.
Above it, lightning was striking down from a clear sky.
“What’s going on?”
Never dreaming that the baby snake had become a young dragon, Mo Hyun watched the spectacle with puzzlement.
“…Huh?”
Then, the lightning flashing down from above suddenly seemed to spot Mo Hyun, hurtling toward him at an insane speed.
Unable to credit the sight, he stood dazed and rubbed his eyes.
But when he looked again, nothing had changed.
The thunderbolt was racing straight toward him.
“What the—!”
Mo Hyun scrambled to flee.
Rumble, crash!
But before he could even take a single step, a massive thunderbolt slammed down upon his head. It was something he could neither dare to dodge nor attempt to block.
How could anyone dodge a falling thunderbolt?
Moreover, this was a snowfield with absolutely nowhere to hide.
If he were in a forest or a cave with places to conceal himself instead of the snowfield marking the boundary of Namto, he might have evaded the lightning.
But he was out in the open snowfield, completely devoid of any structures to shield or protect him.
Boom!
“Aaagh!”
Taking a direct hit from the lightning, Mo Hyun convulsed, his eyes bulging wide.
The agonizing pain of the lightning striking and battering every inch of his body transferred directly to Mo Hyun.
The thunderbolt falling from the heavens thrashed his body in an instant, scorching his clothes to ash.
And in that split second.
Every single evil deed Mo Hyun had committed throughout his life, ranging from the trivial to the severe, flashed before his eyes.
‘No, what on earth is this…’
It was a panorama of his dying moments.
Without even the time to string another thought together, he collapsed from the lightning strike.
Thud.
The sinner’s body tumbled to the ground.
His hands trembling violently, Mo Hyun loosely dropped the lantern he was holding.
And then.
Flash!
A tiny flame escaped from that lantern, glancing around at its surroundings.

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