The Wizard Who Endured the World of Murim - Chapter 75

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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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Surviving in the Martial Realm as a Mage: Episode 75
That single drop of blood Ilhyang had flicked onto Golden Leopard’s brow at the very beginning.
In this world’s parlance, it was called True Blood.
In the language of the Seven Continents, Essence Blood.
A single drop of ultra-refined blood could accomplish an extraordinary amount.
‘Though most of that power was extracted from that fox’s tail hair.’
A single strand of the Nine-tailed Fox’s tail hair was such a colossal concentration of mana that it could serve as a high-capacity mana battery.
Using it, I opened the door with the black iron sword.
The coordinates were inscribed in Golden Leopard’s bloodline.
So it wasn’t particularly difficult.
What happened after that was rather shocking.
‘I suspected that fox possessed divinity, but…’
A colossal full moon suddenly hung suspended at the very center of the sky.
It resembled the eye of a giant whose size defied comprehension.
Much like that Celestial Great Sage, the monkey demon I’d encountered not long ago.
This fox too had proclaimed the entire Hyeontcheon Holy City—absurdly vast as it was—to be her world.
‘And with merely a fragment of herself.’
Not even her true body, but a fragment.
Moreover, it was her weakest fragment, one that had forcibly squeezed through an open passage.
Yet somehow this monster had instantly wrapped a portion of this world into her own dominion.
Since the moonlight she cast responded so powerfully to her will, if she commanded every existence here to die, what then?
It would become reality itself.
This was an overwhelming realm of an entirely different dimension from the Mental World.
‘I opened the door, so the monsters in the Upper Realm will tear each other apart.’
It was as I’d anticipated.
Chaos and confusion would overflow.
The powerful beings of the Upper Realm would spare nothing of themselves in their mutual slaughter.
‘How’s this? Didn’t see this coming, did you?’
As the fighting in the Upper Realm escalated and the noble and great existences of each realm began dying from all directions.
This world would sustain wounds and fractures would form.
Ilhyang felt the fox’s tail hair resonating within my embrace and furrowed my brow.
‘What kind of nonsense are you trying to pull.’
I’d anticipated this and kept the tail hair extracted from my body.
Just as I was clicking my tongue softly.
The fox suddenly materialized beside Ilhyang’s bed.
“I really couldn’t have arrived here without you. Thank you.”
A playful smile.
Purple hair fluttering in the breeze.
Ilhyang regarded the fox quietly for a moment, then turned my gaze toward the window and asked of the full moon.
“Do you happen to know Manmulsang?”
“Manmulsang?”
The Three-tailed Fox tilted her head in confusion.
Ilhyang wore a slightly disappointed expression.
‘Does it not exist in this world? Or perhaps it goes by a different name?’
Comparing this world to the Seven Continents, Ilhyang had begun to grasp the secrets hidden behind the worlds themselves.
Not with perfect accuracy, of course.
But I had grasped the general framework.
‘They only appear once a world begins to collapse.’
Just like Manmulsang, which had appeared when I traveled toward the Demon King’s Castle in the past.
This world too must have an Administrator managing it.
Worlds flowed according to the predetermined course set by such Administrators.
‘Entities that are not gods, yet set rules as if they were.’
I suspected that the endless curiosity welling up within me
could only be resolved by confronting the true identity of these Administrators.
“Who are you talking about with Manmulsang?”
“Doesn’t matter if you don’t know.”
Ilhyang peeled away a tail hair that had been clinging stubbornly to my sleeve and held it forward with an irritated expression.
“Take this.”
“Why? You can just keep it. From what I can tell, that child seems to like you quite a bit.”
Ilhyang shook his head.
This was a poisoned apple.
It would certainly prove useful to possess, but it was a powerful bait I could never escape from—Cheonho’s surveillance net.
That’s why Ilhyang flicked the annoying clinging tail hair toward Cheonho and spoke.
“Since that’s settled, give me your inner core instead.”
“Hmm~ You really are strange, you know.”
“What is?”
“Why don’t you fear me? You know I could bind you alive and take you with me right now?”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“If you did, the corridor door you’ve worked so hard to open would close.”
“That door’s already open? I can already open doors across this entire continent.”
“Try it then.”
“You…!”
Ilhyang gazed at the flustered Cheonho and smiled faintly.
“If you try to kill me or harm me, the connection will sever.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Feel free to test it. Though then you’d have to wait another fifteen hundred years. Or longer.”
“You…!”
Cheonho’s face twisted with rage, glaring at Ilhyang as if to strike him dead on the spot.
Yet strangely, not a shred of hatred arose toward the unmoved Ilhyang.
Neither anger nor hatred arose within me.
Only an overwhelming affection and an incomprehensible protective instinct took root.
“You’re… definitely strange.”
The Twelve Demon Sovereigns.
If explained in terms of human cultivation stages, they had already transcended the Incarnation Realm, the Void Harmony Realm, and the Unity Realm.
They were absolute existences who had reached the Great Vehicle Stage.
Beings whose very will influenced the transformation of the world itself.
Such omnipotent great demons.
“There’s no way someone of your caliber could have cast an illusion on me… So why does this inexplicable affection arise toward you without any reason? What exactly have you done?”
“I don’t know either.”
Yet I had my suspicions.
After all, this world had no proper spirit mages.
Perhaps I was instinctively reacting to that unique fragrance of a spirit mage that Ilhyang possessed.
“This is driving me insane! A human shows such insolence before me, yet why do you look so appealing? So cute!”
“If you’re going to spout nonsense, either hand over what you promised or leave quickly. I still have things to do here.”
The death of Hyuncheon Seongjoo had no impact on Ilhyang whatsoever.
After all, I had no foundation in the Upper Realm.
Whether the Seongjoo lived or died was of no concern.
‘Those demons. Creatures that mistreat spirits like that deserve to die.’
Even in the Seven Continents, killing those who tormented spirits was lawful.
I wanted to kill Ban Eun-pae or whoever, and Man Chong’s friend as well, but…
‘I must change things gradually.’
In truth, this wasn’t something I could change through my own efforts.
But now.
With the dimensional corridor opened.
Soon, demons would cross over in massive numbers and deliver stern lessons to humanity.
I simply had to watch it unfold.
“Ugh, how infuriating! What is this?”
Cheonho continued staring at Ilhyang with a bewildered expression.
Yet even so, affection filled his eyes.
Ilhyang ignored that gaze and looked up at the sky.
‘What form will they take this time?’
How the Administrator of this place would intervene in the world.
That was what I found most curious.
* * *
“So Hyuncheon Seongjoo died last night?”
“Overnight? By whose hand?”
“They say the culprit hasn’t been found yet. What’s strange is that the killer simply left the body behind without concealing it.”
“I hear they cleanly destroyed only the original spirit. Hmm, doesn’t that suggest the killer’s strength surpasses at least the Incarnation Realm?”
“Jeongmyeong Jonja certainly had many grievances. Why didn’t he destroy the Guiyin Sect back then without any particular reason, as he found them irritating?”
“Hmm, well, Jeongmyeong Jonja does have a rather gruff temperament.”
“So it’s a murder born of resentment, then.”
The moment I stepped out onto Market Street, I could hear people whispering from every direction.
Man Chong and I observed the iron bars shattered during the day.
We practically shoved Ban Eun-pae, who was half-panicked, out the door.
“Look, it’s possible the beast escaped to the Outside. Don’t be so picky about it.”
“What if the demon escaped?”
When Ilhyang asked the question as if he knew nothing, Man Chong waved his hand dismissively.
“Hm? It doesn’t matter anyway since everything’s covered by insurance. Besides, it can’t run far. There’s a Tracking Artifact System embedded in its body, so the experts will pursue it.”
Man Chong cursed his old friend for making a big fuss and causing a commotion since morning, right in front of the Junior Guard.
Then he coughed a few times before muttering softly.
“Still, is it even possible for a Flame Avatar Jonja to die overnight? Just how transcendent must the culprit be to accomplish something like that?”
Ilhyang pretended not to hear his muttering.
Remarkably, no one remembered what had happened early this morning.
Not a single person, which was truly astounding.
‘Impressive, indeed.’
Memory manipulation.
Or perhaps memory erasure—an absurd form of magic that defied explanation.
It was magic I could perform as well.
‘The problem is the scale and range.’
Demon Sovereign Nine-tailed Fox.
Cheonho had accomplished such an impossible feat across the entirety of Hyeontcheon Holy City using merely a clone, not even his true body.
Wasn’t this closer to divine authority itself?
‘Rather than the Wind Spirit King, he should be called a Spirit Deity.’
The more I thought about it, the more I regretted not having explored the entire Divine Realm when I was on the Seven Continents in the past.
With our minds occupied by such different thoughts, Man Chong and I rented a carriage instead of wandering aimlessly like last time, and rode it out through the West Gate.
Once we passed through the gate, we could use flying artifacts.
Man Chong summoned the petal-shaped flying artifact from before, climbed aboard, and spoke.
“We could explore more. Are you really leaving this early? We haven’t even stayed a full day.”
“Yes, I’ve seen everything worth seeing. I obtained a decent flying sword, and I’ve observed the demons. Now I need to return and work.”
“W-wait, if you go to the North Gate, there’s actually an absolutely magnificent garden there. Won Young-jin created it using fourth-tier spirit techniques—it’s the finest scenic spot in Hyeontcheon Holy City. If you go there, you see….”
As I listened to Man Chong’s explanation, I thought to myself.
Perhaps this fellow was the one who truly dreaded returning to the sect.
With everything so transparently visible, both surface and depth, I found myself even more eager to return to the sect.
“Let’s go, Senior.”
“…Very well.”
Man Chong finally climbed onto the flying artifact with a dejected expression.
I also boarded the flying artifact and gazed quietly at the receding Hyeontcheon Holy City.
‘Now it’s time to challenge the sixth circle.’
Currently in my storage, I had one fourth-tier demon core and three fifth-tier demon cores.
All of it obtained from Cheonho.
I’d also extracted the auxiliary materials for concocting the elixir from him.
‘I wonder if anything troublesome is happening in the Lower Realm?’
At that thought, Ilhyang let out a soft chuckle.
‘Well, even if something were to occur, it wouldn’t matter.’
Ilhyang genuinely believed that nothing in the Lower Realm could pose a threat to him anymore, so his mind had grown considerably lax.
After returning to the Purple Cloud Sect over the course of several days and paying his respects to the higher-ups,
Ilhyang promptly used cultivation as a pretext, erected a barrier spell in the borrowed eastern pavilion, and opened a gateway to the Lower Realm.
* * *
Upon arriving safely in the Lower Realm, Ilhyang faltered at the visit of an unexpected guest.
An unexpected guest.
Someone he was seeing for the very first time.
Yet he knew the name.
“So this is Namgung Jincheon.”
The Sword King, Namgung Jincheon.
One of the Twenty-Three Stars of Divine Realm and a master of the Radiant Realm.
But being a master of the Radiant Realm stirred no particular interest in him.
After all, this man could pose no threat whatsoever.
So it should have been natural to feel nothing.
‘What is this bastard?’
Surprisingly, the moment Ilhyang faced Namgung Jincheon sitting in the Reception Room,
I felt the most vivid aura of death since crossing into this world.

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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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