'What is this!' Already annoyed by the opponent clinging so stubbornly to him, Sagye-wan cursed inwardly at the sinister demonic energy that had instantly filled the surroundings. He didn't even need to turn his head to know what was happening.
'Old Mountain-Picking Demon! What in the world is this scheme?' 'Did that old man let his guard down and take a hit from Shin Baek-rim?'
Within the Upper Demon Forest, there were only various rumors about the origins of the Old Mountain-Picking Demon; no one knew the truth. Some said his original form was a thousand-year-old tree drenched in the blood of an ancient demon, while others claimed he was a naturally born demon spirit that had seized the body of some unlucky tree demon.
There were all sorts of other theories, but they were all laughable nonsense. An ancient demon? What ancient demon?
Surely they weren't talking about the demon races? A legendary race that might be mentioned in a brief line in the oldest history books of the Azure Abyss Realm cultivation world? And a naturally born demon spirit?
Seizing the body of a tree demon? Were they talking about possession? Wasn't that also a legend in the cultivation world?
If the Old Mountain-Picking Demon had such an ability, wouldn't he have long since ruled this entire Crimson Spine Mountain Range? 'Fools always have unnecessarily rich imaginations.' 'Is that the problem right now?
The Old Mountain-Picking Demon is getting serious! This fight is completely different from before!' Sagye-wan couldn't help but seriously doubt the Old Mountain-Picking Demon’s state of mind.
This was a deal that couldn't even be called a simple fight. A trade of getting meat in exchange for handing over corpses. It was a sort of event that had been going on for a very long time, and Shin Baek-rim and the Old Mountain-Picking Demon were the ones in charge, the managers of this event.
Their role was supposed to be supervising and ensuring the flames of battle didn't spread too far. But what the Old Mountain-Picking Demon was doing now was like pouring oil on an already precariously burning fire.
Why?
Why do something like this?
Boom!
The terrifying shockwave of spiritual power reached all the way to where he was. His entire body trembled from the immense will to fight and killing intent faintly mixed into the shockwave. Far away in the deep darkness, divine light flashed intermittently.
Unlike him, who had kept his distance early on, the ones positioned relatively close to the battleground of the two old monsters were starting to be affected, their auras fluctuating wildly. It was proven once again that not all Foundation Establishment was the same, and not all Great Spirit Beasts were the same.
At least in terms of presence alone, the two old monsters were on par with all the other Great Spirit Beasts and Foundation Establishment cultivators combined. 'This is driving me crazy.' 'Shin Baek-rim seems to be furious too.
It looks like he intends to fight for real.'
Furious?
Of course he would be. What Shin Baek-rim had wanted was just to trim the branches, not to pull the tree out by its roots. 'Does this mean an all-out war?'
'I don't know. But it's definitely not going to pass by easily.' A fierce storm raged in Sagye-wan's heart.
But even as he mulled over all sorts of thoughts, his four eyes never left his opponent. Thanks to this, Sagye-wan immediately noticed that his opponent's already fierce gaze had become even more threatening.
'Damn it.'
'Damn it all!' Even if they had to fight, he wanted to move to a place farther away from the old monsters, but seeing those murderous eyes, it didn't seem like his opponent would cooperate.
As Shin Baek-rim and the Old Mountain-Picking Demon began to clash in earnest, the battles between the other Foundation Establishment cultivators and Great Spirit Beasts intensified as if everything before had been mere child's play. However, those fighting on the ground had no time to spare for the sky above.
The appearance of the dead, who attacked friend and foe from their past lives indiscriminately, had completely changed the atmosphere of the battlefield. The tide of battle, which had been leaning in the humans' favor, was overturned in an instant. This was because the human side suffered more from the appearance of the dead.
The human cultivators, while swept up in the heat of battle, still maintained a minimum of reason, fighting with some degree of thought. On the other hand, the demon races had long since been swayed by madness and ferocity without any reason, so the appearance of the dead simply meant they had more opponents to fight.
But just as there are exceptions to every rule, not all of the demon races were fighting with empty heads.
'Ugh!'
Jaekyung irritably shook off the head of a spirit beast that had latched onto him. For a corpse, with its body cleanly gone below the neck, to cling to him with its sparse teeth. There was no way such teeth could pierce his hard scales, but the problem was that an unpleasant energy was transferring from these dead things.
The general feeling was similar to demonic energy, but this energy, which felt more foul than any filth, provoked an instinctual revulsion.
Crash!
Before he could recover from the foul mood, this time a spirit beast with a tattered body charged at him head-on. Greatly displeased, Jaekyung easily crushed the creature and struck it with his tail, turning its ragged body into a bloody pulp.
'Huh?'
Jaekyung, who had been striking down with his tail several times in a row out of irritation, suddenly came to his senses. Is this the time to be playing around with these disgusting corpses? Why am I wasting energy emotionally?
'This isn't like me. This is... something is strange.' Jaekyung was certain.
Something was affecting his mind without him even noticing. It was clouding his reason, stimulating his ferocity, pushing him to become more engrossed in the fight. 'This bizarre demonic energy.'
Jaekyung looked around. The demon races, seized by madness, were still fighting fiercely, but somehow they seemed even more ferocious than before. Until a moment ago, they would at least flinch when they felt pain, but now there was not even that.
They were truly like dogs with rabies, no, even worse. 'This is dangerous.' An invisible wave of madness was staining the entire battlefield.
For now, it seemed only the demon races, who had already lost their minds, were affected, but soon the human cultivators would suffer the same fate. 'And me, too.' He could hold on for now, but eventually, with time, he too would no longer be able to resist and would be seized by madness.
So before that happens, he had to escape as quickly as possible. He had to escape, but.
"What a shame."
Jaekyung silently approached a human cultivator he had been eyeing for a while and devoured him in one gulp. The human cultivator, who had been cutting down a companion who had charged at him with a mournful cry, met his end without noticing Jaekyung's approach. 'Such a shame.'
Jaekyung felt a fulfilling amount of spiritual energy enter his stomach, but he was still not satisfied. 'Just a little more, just a little more.' Jaekyung's eyes urgently scanned for his next target.
The intention to play it safe was gone. It seemed those fighting in the sky above had no time to pay attention to what was below anyway, and with chaos already breaking out everywhere, it didn't seem like there would be a problem even if he went on a rampage.
'Three.
No, just four more.' An anxious gaze swept across the battlefield.
Crack!
Lightning flashed, splitting the darkness. But the darkness only flickered for a moment before recovering its original momentum.
"You didn't really think you could scare me with lightning techniques you're not even familiar with, did you?"
The Old Mountain-Picking Demon let out a sinister laugh as he restored his body, which had turned into dark smoke. On the other hand, Shin Baek-rim frowned as if something displeased him. Shin Baek-rim's gaze, which had been fixed on the translucent body of the Old Mountain-Picking Demon, shifted to the black sky above.
"You're quite confident. It seems you think everything is going your way."
"Of course."
Just as Shin Baek-rim said, the Old Mountain-Picking Demon was full of confidence. It was no exaggeration to say that compared to when they first started exchanging blows, he was now overflowing with it.
"We'll see."
A powerful surge of spiritual power swirled around Shin Baek-rim. An intangible current, which made one feel dizzy just by sensing its power, formed profound patterns, pressing down on the Old Mountain-Picking Demon and the surrounding space.
"Don't you know it's useless yet? I really don't understand. If blood is going to be spilled anyway, what does it matter if a little more flows?"
"That's true."
Even while they exchanged words, Shin Baek-rim's assault didn't slow for a moment. He attacked and destroyed the Old Mountain-Picking Demon each time he reformed his body, but every time, the Old Mountain-Picking Demon recovered as if nothing had happened.
"You know as well as I do that this is just a childish tantrum. If you're that upset, why don't you just withdraw your remaining men?"
The Old Mountain-Picking Demon’s dark form shattered into hundreds, thousands of pieces. Each of those pieces let out a chilling shriek and flew towards Shin Baek-rim. They flew at different speeds and in different ways, as if each piece had a will of its own.
"Hmph!"
The scroll, enveloped in a halo of light, appeared once again behind Shin Baek-rim. This time too, it exerted a powerful suction, pulling in hundreds of the black forms. But even after eliminating hundreds, more black forms were still flying towards Shin Baek-rim.
Among them were some shaped like gaping skulls, and others like the freshly severed heads of beasts.
"Yin Evil Ghost Spirit. Still as crude as ever."
Faced with thousands of threats that seemed ready to tear apart his spiritual nature at any moment, Shin Baek-rim remained calm and composed. He sent the scroll, which had absorbed hundreds of black forms and whose radiance had noticeably dimmed, flying into the sky.
"Putting on airs with such shallow tricks."
The night sky, which should have been quiet and still, was writhing like a living creature. Inky rain fell, and eerie cries, instead of thunder, disturbed the ears. In such an ominous sky, the light emitted by the scroll was so faint it was hard to even spot.
"Begone!"
As Shin Baek-rim's command fell, the scroll that had only been swallowing everything now did the opposite, spewing out all it had consumed. However, what erupted from the scroll was not the black forms it had just swallowed, but a pure wave of spiritual power.
Kwoong-!
A spiritual wind shook the heavens. The darkness rippled, and the demonic energy rippled. The Old Mountain-Picking Demon, who had been at ease the whole time, couldn't maintain his composure this time, frowning as he began to chant an unknown incantation.
"Kyaaak!"
The thousands of black forms that had almost reached Shin Baek-rim screamed eerily and vanished like smoke. And a similar scene was unfolding on the battlefield below. The dead spirits that had dominated the corpses and rampaged according to instinct collectively slumped or fell as if struck by a sudden bout of lethargy.
"Huh?"
A human cultivator, who had narrowly escaped being torn apart alive by several dead spirits, blinked his eyes, unable to grasp the situation. And the next moment, just as he was about to smile in the joy of survival, his life, which had been extended by a few seconds, was ended by Jaekyung, who had appeared abruptly from behind.
'What is this now?' Jaekyung's eyes, bloodshot with impatience, anxiety, and madness, scanned the once again changed surroundings. 'Have the corpses lost their power?
Has that demonic energy disappeared?' Come to think of it, his head felt a little clearer. He didn't know if it was just his imagination or if the demonic energy that had been spreading madness had weakened or disappeared, but either way, it was not a bad change.
'No. Is it really?' Jaekyung worked his cleared head, trying hard to think and judge. After that sinister demonic energy had indiscriminately spread madness, the demon races had, at some point, started fighting among themselves, in addition to the human cultivators and the corpses.
As a result, the number of demon races had rapidly decreased, and now, at a glance, they seemed to be outnumbered by the humans. 'No. This is not good.' If the corpses lose their power, the side that benefits is the human side.
The demon races have already had their numerical advantage reversed, and they have lost a lot of energy from rampaging without thinking. Clearly, the demon races in their current state were no match for the human cultivators.
If they could win the battle of the high-level combatants, it would be a different story, but Jaekyung predicted that even if the Great Spirit Beasts of the Upper Demon Forest were victorious, it would not end well for them. 'This black rain and sinister demonic energy must be a trick from the Upper Demon Forest.'
This was a scheme to maximize the damage on both sides, and the ones being ground down were the disciples of the Flame Lotus Sect and the lesser demons that the Upper Demon Forest had scraped together. If both sides shed blood equally, which side would gain more and which side would lose more? The answer was simple.
'It's about time I left.' He didn't feel like his stomach was completely full yet. But he had an ominous premonition that if he got any greedier here, he wouldn't be able to pull out in time.
'Cheong-o and Mook-soo?' In the early stages of the battle, he had occasionally checked on their location and situation, but as things got more urgent, he hadn't had the luxury. Still, he hoped they hadn't lost their minds as easily as the other demon races and had managed to protect themselves well.
'Where are they?' Fortunately, Jaekyung hadn't widened his range of activity too much while hunting human cultivators, and Mook-soo's size was large enough to be recognizable on the battlefield, so finding them wasn't too difficult. Using the Aura Concealment Art that had now become as familiar as breathing to its fullest extent, Jaekyung moved towards Mook-soo, visible in the distance.
"Mook-soo! Behind! Behind!"
At Cheong-o's urgent cry, Mook-soo shot out a root without even turning his body. An arrow that had been aimed at his torso was blocked by Mook-soo's thick root.
Wooo~!
It was just a small arrow, but Mook-soo, who had blocked it, howled in pain. At the same time, Cheong-o flew as fast as that arrow had and brushed past its owner.
"Ugh!"
Although Cheong-o was on the weaker side in terms of combat power for a spirit beast, he was still a spirit beast. His beak and claws were sharp enough to easily leave marks on rock, and that sharpness was not something a Qi Refining cultivator with no defenses could withstand.
While the human cultivator, with a chunk of flesh torn from his face, staggered, another of Mook-soo's enraged roots struck him with full force. He flew away with the sound of breaking bones and was thrown into a huge pile of corpses in the muddy water.
"Ugh... Ahh!"
Even as he was unable to move a muscle with all the bones in his body broken, his body, instinctively trying to escape the pile of corpses, was slowly buried in the pile that wriggled as if it were alive.
In less than a few seconds, his figure disappeared completely, and black rainwater poured down on the pile of corpses that had swallowed its prey.
The sky, which had seemed to be clearing up for a moment, darkened again. The scroll, which had been exerting its power as if to push away all the darkness, had completely lost its light, and the ghostly cries flowing from the sky rang out loudly, as if they were shouting openly.
Shin Baek-rim and the Old Mountain-Picking Demon were still facing each other, but their appearances were quite different from the beginning. Shin Baek-rim's complexion had turned somewhat pale, and his neat Daoist robe was damaged in several places, making its original form hard to recognize.
On the other hand, the Old Mountain-Picking Demon at first glance seemed unchanged from his initial appearance, but upon closer inspection, one could see that his aura was fluctuating quite a bit.
"The River-Crossing Scroll. Truly formidable. It seems to have gotten stronger than before. You must have put a lot of effort into that spirit artifact, I see?"
Spirit artifacts were treasures that only cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage or higher could wield, items with a power on a different level from the spiritual energy mainly used by Qi Refining cultivators. However, just as they were powerful, spirit artifacts were rare, so not even every Foundation Establishment cultivator could possess one.
Especially for a mountain sect without any particular talent for making money, it was not easy for even a mid-stage, let alone a late-stage, Foundation Establishment cultivator to acquire a proper spirit artifact. Of course, this was a story that had nothing to do with Shin Baek-rim, the Grand Elder of the Flame Lotus Sect.
He had obtained a middle-grade spirit artifact called the River-Crossing Scroll when his cultivation level had reached the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, and since then, the fame of the River-Crossing Scroll has resonated alongside Shin Baek-rim's name.
"What would a mere yin spirit know about spirit artifacts?"
Despite Shin Baek-rim's mockery, the Old Mountain-Picking Demon smiled leisurely.
"I don't know much. There's no point in trying to know, so what's the need?"
It is no exaggeration to say that the history of the cultivation world is a history of conflict. How many other races had the humans fought to become the hegemonic race of the Azure Abyss cultivation world?
On their path to their current position, there was a history of countless victories, and behind that glorious history was the legacy they prided themselves on. To defeat the enemy, one must first know the enemy. The other races that had been pushed back by the humans, and the demon races, were not foolish.
If they had been foolish, how could they have contended with the humans for so long? They continuously studied the humans and their legacy. Among them, they delved especially passionately into areas that had direct utility in combat, such as artifact refinement.
But the results were too disappointing for the effort invested. They could somehow manage a superficial imitation, but that was all; they could not reach the true essence of artifact refinement.
"But just as I know nothing of your spirit artifact..."
The Old Mountain-Picking Demon's gaze shifted to the battlefield below.
"You, too, know nothing of my curse arts, do you not?"
The Old Mountain-Picking Demon, having recovered the distinct form of a wooden man, began to form hand seals with an unprecedentedly solemn expression and chant a sinister incantation. Seeing this, Shin Baek-rim immediately roused his spiritual power, but his attack was blocked by a blurry figure that had suddenly appeared between him and the Old Mountain-Picking Demon.
Thump!
As the Old Mountain-Picking Demon’s incantation echoed, the sinister sky writhed violently, pouring the vast ghostly energy it held onto the earth. As if in response, the dead spirits on the ground wailed in unison, and finally, a passage made of ghostly energy was erected between heaven and earth. Well over a thousand dead spirits flocked towards that pillar-like passage.
They abandoned the living they were biting and the shells they were wearing, and their mad rush into the passage gave the impression that they were not flocking voluntarily but being forcibly sucked in. Shin Baek-rim once again infused the River-Crossing Scroll with spiritual power, but this time, the scroll showed little effect.
It briefly shook the flow of ghostly energy, but that was all.
"Hahahaha!"
All the ghostly energy filling the sky and the earth gathered towards the Ghost Pillar, towards the Old Mountain-Picking Demon situated at its core.
If an ordinary living spirit were exposed to this much ghostly energy, its mind and soul would immediately be twisted into a ghostly creature, but this was a completely different story for the Old Mountain-Picking Demon, whose very foundation was a yin spirit.
He handled the gathered ghostly energy as if it were his own spiritual power, and his aura rapidly grew immense. Shin Baek-rim clearly watched the Old Mountain-Picking Demon's rapid transformation but made no further moves.
"Unification through a single Qi? An interesting interpretation."
Instead, he even momentarily set aside the hostility he had been emitting like an erupting volcano and showed interest.
"So you recognized it? Yes. If my own power is insufficient, isn't it fine to borrow it from elsewhere? Stubbornness and foolishness are different things; the Immortal Path is by no means a single road."
"Well said."
Both Shin Baek-rim and the Old Mountain-Picking Demon were beings who had spent long years without reaching the third realm of the Immortal Path.
At first, they devoted themselves to Cultivation with faith in themselves, but as the time of stagnation grew longer, their confidence turned to doubt, and they even felt fear that they might have taken the wrong path. What the Old Mountain-Picking Demon was doing now was also a result of that.
Some might call this a heretical path, but for someone cornered, if they can reach beyond the wall, that is the righteous path. That was why Shin Baek-rim could understand the Old Mountain-Picking Demon. If he were not an enemy, and if they hadn't met in a place like this, he might have even applauded him.
But unfortunately, they were enemies, and this was a battlefield.
"Core Formation."
Shin Baek-rim let out a long sigh. If one could only reach that distant realm, what would a side path matter? One would willingly crawl through a wasteland filled with filth.
"Don't be too disappointed. Even if you can't achieve it, you will be able to witness it."
A voice suppressing elation echoed from the center of the Ghost Pillar, and an otherworldly, alien spiritual power raged fiercely. That power clearly surpassed the Foundation Establishment level and was encroaching on the realm above, to the extent that even Shin Baek-rim felt pressure.
However, even under the pressure that crushed even his spiritual nature, Shin Baek-rim's eyes remained calmly settled.
"Aack!"
It was an unremarkable scream. But what happened after that ordinary scream was terrifyingly special.
'Huh?'
Jaekyung, who had just regrouped with Cheong-o and Mook-soo and was about to shout that they needed to escape, felt as if a very thin stream of wind had brushed past him.
Amidst the pain and fatigue that stained his entire body and mind, it was a truly pleasant and welcome breeze, but what Jaekyung felt was not refreshment but a profound sense of wrongness.
'Ah.'
In that moment, Jaekyung remembered the scream he had just heard, and he recalled a story he had heard before.
"Be careful!"
Shouting that one word of warning to Cheong-o and Mook-soo was the best and all he could do. Right after he shouted, the storm, which had shed its mask of a gentle spring breeze to reveal its true form, swept over him. It was a flood of emotions, a scream of pain, and a wave of cultivation.
'A Foundation Establishment cultivator, or a Great Spirit Beast, has died!' Jaekyung recalled the story he had heard from his seniors at the Twilight Gathering. The power wielded by a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment stage or higher is spiritual power, and this spiritual power can be said to be the cultivator's Cultivation itself.
A cultivator's spiritual power contains their mind, strength, emotions, and all sorts of other elements. Therefore, a cultivator's spiritual power can be said to be their identity. Generally, when a cultivator, that is, a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment stage or higher, meets their death, their spiritual power escapes their control and spreads into the surroundings.
This is a temporary phenomenon, and after a short while, the spiritual power will break down into spiritual energy and dissolve into the world, but before it disappears, the spiritual power affects the world and leaves a mark.
The greater the spiritual power and the more intense the emotions felt by the cultivator before their end, the larger the impact and the mark left behind. At the time, Jaekyung had listened to the story seriously, but the senior cultivators of the Twilight Gathering had dismissed it as nothing serious. Because they were Foundation Establishment cultivators.
No matter how great and strong the power emitted by a Foundation Establishment cultivator's spiritual power was, could it be as great and strong as when they were alive? To them, it was merely an annoyance, something they could dismiss without much thought. 'But I'm different.'
Jaekyung felt his mind and emotions shaking. Anger, sorrow, and fear flowing in from the outside tried to dominate his mind. But Jaekyung knew that those emotions were not originally his.
He tried to resist, and the moment he made up his mind, his spiritual nature lit up. It was still a small spark, but it was bright enough to drive away the encroaching darkness.
Whoosh!
The moment the spark flared, reason returned to the snake's clouded eyes.
"Spiritual power. Is this spiritual power?"
The first thing Jaekyung thought of after shaking off the madness was not relief at being alive, but the almost vanished spiritual power, or more accurately, the afterglow of spiritual power.
It was a dangerous power that might have driven him mad if not for the spark of his spiritual nature, but it was also the power he had to pursue. Jaekyung felt both relief and regret at the swiftly disappearing afterglow of spiritual power. Anyone who saw Jaekyung like this would have cursed him for being a madman.
But this obsession, bordering on madness, was the driving force that had brought Jaekyung this far.
"Cheong-o! Mook-soo!"
Shaking off his regret, Jaekyung belatedly thought of Cheong-o and Mook-soo. As expected, they were lying weakly on the ground, trembling. Jaekyung lifted his tail to wake them, but just as he was about to swing it, he heard Cheong-o's faint voice.
"The, the Immortal..."
"What?"
Cheong-o lifted his head with difficulty. His small eyes, his mesmerized gaze, were turned towards the sky where the ghostly energy was gathered.
"It's the Immortal..."
Before Cheong-o's small mumble could finish. Without any warning, a huge hole opened in the sky, and a dazzling light poured in.