Chapter 174 – Three Eyes (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Looking at the eyeball writhing in agony and shriveling up, Mok Gyeong-un let out a short laugh.

When it had possessed a body, it had raised such tremendous spell power and stirred his wariness, but now it was helpless and could do nothing.

It had been somewhat of a gamble, but the risk had paid off.

If he had failed to deal with it now, even more troublesome things would have happened later.

In any case, he had found out what its true body really was and had neutralized its power, so should he squeeze until it burst now?

-Squeeze!

‘Aaaaaaah!’

The eyeball, already suffering because of the poison, hastily revealed its voice when Mok Gyeong-un pressed down and it felt its life was in danger.

-S-stop!

“Oh? It has a voice?”

Yeo Su-rin stared at the eyeball with wide eyes.

Mok Gyeong-un, on the other hand, showed no sign of surprise, lifting the eyeball to eye level.

Then, with a smile, he said,

“So you could talk too.”

-Grrr. You bastard…

“Still not in your right mind, I see.”

-Squeeze!

Mok Gyeong-un put more force into his fingers again.

Then the eyeball cried out urgently to him.

-S-stop!

“Stop what? Just die like this.”

-Spurt!

As Mok Gyeong-un tightened his grip further, black blood burst out from various parts of the eyeball.

At once the eyeball’s attitude changed completely.

-Please spare me.

“What was that?”

-…Spare me! I’ll grant whatever you want, so spare me.

“Heh.”

Watching the eyeball become so craven, Yeo Su-rin lifted the corners of her lips in interest.

Seeing will embedded in the eyeball itself, this was undoubtedly a supernatural anomaly.

For demonic power to lodge in what was no different from a part of a human body and give rise to self-awareness.

This was a new fact, even by the standards of what the occult world knew so far.

At that moment Mok Gyeong-un said,

“In that state, what exactly could you grant me?”

-Say what you want. I will grant anything. If you want gold and silver, I will fill a granary with treasure. If you want power, I will use my influence to make you an executive of the Heaven and Earth Society. Or if you want strength, I will obtain whatever martial art or elixir you desire.

The eyeball listed everything it could possibly offer.

If it could only overcome this crisis, opportunities would arise again later.

There was no need to think it humiliating.

To begin with, pride was nothing but a useless emotion possessed only by humans.

-Just spare my life. Once I give you what you want, I will go far away and make sure never to become entangled with you again.

“Those are all very tempting offers.”

-Only spare me. I will keep my word.

“How did you do that thing earlier?”

-What are you referring to?

“You stopped every sense and movement except consciousness, as if time itself had stopped.”

-What?

At Mok Gyeong-un’s words, the eyeball could not hide its bewilderment.

That was because once the forbidden art, the Space-Time Total Deception Transformation Method, was activated, the only being capable of retaining flow within that space was the caster.

For every living thing other than the caster, time and space themselves came to a halt.

‘What in the world is this bastard?’

This made no sense.

He had remained conscious within the Space-Time Total Deception Transformation Method?

This was a forbidden art banned even in the ancient age when it was said the immortal realm still lay open.

It came with many restrictions, but no one could retain consciousness inside it.

For someone to remain conscious in that state…

-…Could it be that you are not actually a living being?

“What an impolite question to ask someone who is breathing perfectly well.”

-No, but how can a living human…

“Forget the pointless talk. How do you perform that art?”

At Mok Gyeong-un’s words, the eyeball fell silent for a moment.

Whatever the case, what mattered right now was somehow currying favor with this bastard and surviving.

-Are you talking about the Space-Time Total Deception Transformation Method?

“Ho. So that is the name of the art?”

-…Yes.

“I’d like to learn that art.”

At those words from Mok Gyeong-un, Yeo Su-rin, who had been watching, cut in.

“What art?”

“Ah. It’s just something.”

As if telling her not to worry about it, Mok Gyeong-un waved a hand lightly, and Yeo Su-rin came closer, hooked her arm through his, and said,

“Hey. We’ve gone through life and death together, so we’re practically comrades. Teach me too.”

-Press.

Yeo Su-rin pulled Mok Gyeong-un’s arm close between her full breasts.

She knew it well.

Men were unexpectedly weak against this sort of temptation.

She had tried it a few times on her senior brothers before, and it had worked very well.

But,

“What are you doing?”

“…”

What was this?

This was not the reaction she had expected.

Usually men either grew embarrassed or liked it when she did this.

Did this man not like things like this?

As she wondered, Mok Gyeong-un tilted his head and asked,

“Are you perhaps trying to seduce me with your body?”

-Flush!

Her face instantly turned red.

“N-no, what are you talking about? Who’s trying to seduce you with their body? You’re more shameless than you look. Hmph!”

Yeo Su-rin let go of his arm and retreated some distance away.

It was an extremely embarrassing situation.

She had seen many men, but it was her first time meeting someone who could say something like that so casually with such a dry face and gaze.

It was enough to make her feel even more embarrassed herself.

Once she had stepped away, Mok Gyeong-un asked the eyeball again,

“It would be even better if there were a book that organizes that art.”

-There is no such book.

“There isn’t?”

-The Space-Time Total Deception Transformation Method is a forbidden art composed of sixty-three million eight hundred fifty-nine thousand three hundred eighty-seven pictographic characters. It cannot be learned in a short period of time.

“Pictographic characters?”

-Yes. It is written in a script from before Chinese characters, and it takes years just to familiarize your eyes with it and commit it to memory.

“Years… that is very long.”

-Even merely copying it down would take a great amount of time. If you truly want it, I could do it for you if you gave me a new body. But that much time would be required.

At the eyeball’s words, Mok Gyeong-un smacked his lips.

Memorizing it was not the problem.

But if it would take that long even to copy it down, then in practical terms it was an art he could not learn immediately.

And more than anything else, he could not give this eyeball a body.

“You’re not lying to me, are you?”

-I swear on my existence. This is absolutely not a lie.

“A vow, is it… Well then, do you have any other useful arts?”

-Besides the pavilion lord’s office, I have a personal office. There are three books sealed there with an Eight-Formation Seal. In them I recorded all the occult arts and techniques I gathered over the years.

“Good.”

-If there is anything else you want, say it. If only you spare me, I will gladly…

The eyeball had not even finished speaking.

At that moment, a shadow from the beating of huge wings fell over the pavilion lord’s office where they were.

At the same time Earth Ram, now reduced in size and scraping the floor with its forehoof with an angry face, appeared.

‘It took them long enough.’

The eyeball clicked its tongue inwardly.

If they had only come a little sooner, none of this would have happened.

But now it was already too late.

If Mok Gyeong-un put even a little more strength into his hand, it would burst and die.

-Gwoooooo!

-Flap, flap!

At the tremendous demonic power of the two demon beasts overturning the surroundings, Yeo Su-rin pulled out a talisman and took a combat stance.

“Tch. I forgot about the demons and monsters.”

Mok Gyeong-un looked at the demon beasts blocking both sides with a detached gaze and replied,

“So it seems.”

“Hey, eyeball. Hurry up and order them not to attack!”

‘Eyeball? This girl really…’

The eyeball was seething inwardly at her words, but endured it and said,

-Earth Ram. Qinyuan. Stop.

-Grrr! Grrr!

‘!?’

But something was strange.

The eyeball had issued an order to the two demon beasts that could be called its shikigami, yet the atmosphere was not normal.

Earth Ram, scratching the floor with its hoof, looked ready to charge at any moment.

“Hey, eyeball. You really did order them, right?”

-This is bad…

“Why are they acting like that?”

-They have broken free of control.

“What? What are you talking about?”

-Damn it. This is why I shouldn’t have split the governing core.

The eyeball itself was just as flustered by the situation.

That was because when it made those two demon beasts into shikigami, it had divided the master connection between Jo Tae-cheong’s soul and itself.

It had been an experiment to divide command authority when controlling shikigami, but it had never expected a side effect like this.

-Kwoooooo!

At that moment Earth Ram charged at Mok Gyeong-un.

Earth Ram was enraged at Mok Gyeong-un for taking one of its eyes.

Just as Earth Ram came charging fiercely toward Mok Gyeong-un,

-Swooooosh!

In that instant Earth Ram passed through a smoke entrance that appeared in the middle.

“Ah! That works too!”

It was Yeo Su-rin who had created the door.

-Gwoooooo! Boom!

With a crash, along with the sound of something falling beyond the door, a thunderous noise rang out.

Unable to create a smoke gate over a long distance without a medium, she had used a flash of wit to open an entrance in midair, even higher than the fourth floor.

Thanks to that, the demon beast Earth Ram plunged straight downward.

Having succeeded by accident, she let out a sigh of relief.

But at that very moment,

-Kwoooooo!

The demon beast Earth Ram, having fallen, gave a furious roar and then leaped back toward the entrance with tremendous leg strength.

Startled, she twisted the hand wearing the artifact in the opposite direction.

It was so fast that Earth Ram’s horn and head thrust through first.

“Wah!”

But then,

-Crunch!

Only Earth Ram’s head was caught between the closing smoke door, and it was severed cleanly.

“H-huh?”

What in the world had just happened?

Since she had never seen anything caught in a smoke door before, she was left dumbfounded by the absurd result.

Having never killed a demon-beast-rank demon and monster before, she had no idea whether to call it skill or simple good luck.

‘Whatever.’

Either way, wasn’t it basically the same as her killing it?

Yeo Su-rin puffed up with pride and turned her head as she shouted,

“Hey, I got Earth Ram…!?”

At once her eyes widened.

That was because before she knew it, Mok Gyeong-un was stepping on the torso of Qinyuan, the demon beast whose upper body was that of a gigantic bird and lower body that of a hornet, while gripping one of its wings.

‘Ha…’

Was that man really some kind of monster?

How could he seize a demon-beast-rank demon and monster by force, without using any occult art?

Even while the demon beast Qinyuan frantically beat its wings, it could not shake Mok Gyeong-un’s hand loose.

‘…’

She was not the only one shocked.

The eyeball too stared at Mok Gyeong-un in disbelief.

In some ways Qinyuan was a more troublesome demon beast than Earth Ram.

And yet before Qinyuan could even do anything, Mok Gyeong-un had moved at tremendous speed, stepped on its back in an instant, and seized its wing.

‘At this level, he’s far stronger than most martial artists in the Heaven and Earth Society. Who in the world is this bastard? I don’t recognize the voice at all.’

Demon-beast-rank demons and monsters were more than most martial artists could handle.

Yet this bastard was overwhelming Qinyuan instead.

Only a high-ranking executive within the Heaven and Earth Society would normally possess this level of martial power, so what exactly was his identity?

Just then Mok Gyeong-un, still holding the demon beast Qinyuan, said to the eyeball,

“I have something to ask you.”

-What is it?

“Why did you leave that seal in the Corpse Blood Valley archive?”

-Seal? What are you talking about?

“The scroll inside that wooden box.”

-A scroll? I have no idea what you are talking about right now.

“…”

At that answer from the eyeball, Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes narrowed.

It didn’t know?

‘Well now.’

Since it was called Three Eyes, he had assumed this eyeball was the one that had sealed that raccoon-dog monster.

But the eyeball truly seemed not to know anything about it.

Which meant,

‘…So it wasn’t this one.’

This was an outcome he had never expected.