Chapter 175 – Three Eyes (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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

“…”

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

Naturally, since he had been certain the eyeball itself was that Three Eyes, he had assumed it was the one that sealed the monster raccoon-dog in the Corpse Blood Valley archive.

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

Which meant,

‘…So it wasn’t this bastard.’

This was an outcome he had never expected.

Then who in the world had sealed that monster raccoon-dog there?

It had definitely said it was an occult practitioner with three eyes.

At that moment the eyeball said,

-I do not know what you are talking about, but I have never once gone to the Corpse Blood Valley archive.

“You’ve never gone there?”

-That’s right.

Mok Gyeong-un, furrowing his brow, stared straight at the eyeball and asked,

“Do you really not know of a demon-and-monster that looks like a raccoon-dog?”

-A raccoon-dog-like… demon-and-monster?

“Yes.”

At that moment the eyeball began trembling violently in convulsions.

It looked almost as though it were feeling fear.

Why was this eyeball suddenly reacting like this?

As he wondered,

-C-could it be that you mean the Sea-Slaying King, the Binding Badger Tengu?

“Binding Badger Tengu?”

Hearing a name he had never heard before, Mok Gyeong-un repeated it.

Could that perhaps be the name of the monster raccoon-dog?

Just then Yeo Su-rin, who had been standing some distance away out of embarrassment over what had happened earlier, suddenly showed interest with a startled face.

“What did you just say?”

“Pardon?”

“Did you perhaps say Binding Badger Tengu?”

Mok Gyeong-un turned his head toward Yeo Su-rin and asked back,

“Do you know it?”

“Of course I do. My master told me about it.”

“Your master, meaning that…?”

“Yes. That person.”

Red Eyebrow Old Immortal.

Yeo Su-rin’s master, and the lord of Sea Immortal Pavilion, one of the two pavilions said to be the most mysterious among the Sixty-Four Pavilions of the Square and Circle.

Yeo Su-rin answered with sparkling eyes, as if she found this interesting.

“My master told me about it.”

“What is it?”

“Hm? Don’t tell me you don’t know the leaders of the six spirit beasts said to have existed since the ancient age?”

“The leaders of the six spirit beasts?”

Of course he would not know.

At Mok Gyeong-un’s reaction, Yeo Su-rin made a face as though she could not believe it.

Was this man really an occult practitioner who had studied occult arts?

Then the eyeball said in a trembling voice,

“…They are beings who stand at the summit of the demons and monsters. They are not beings that a human girl like you can carelessly judge.”

At that, Mok Gyeong-un asked,

“The summit of the demons and monsters? Are they divine beasts?”

According to the Introductory Text on the Anomalies of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, which he had memorized, anomalies were said to be divided into six grades according to danger and power.

The lowest rank was ferocious beast.

The demon-and-monster he had first encountered on Mount Yeoa, Gudiao, had been a ferocious beast, the lowest rank.

Of course, even though it was low-ranked, it was stronger than most resentful spirits.

The next rank, called fourth grade, was monster.

The wolf-shaped monster that had let out pig-like cries during the gates of Corpse Blood Valley, Galjeo, was what they called a monster.

The next, third grade, was demon beast, and Qinyuan, the Mount Kunlun demon-and-monster whose wing Mok Gyeong-un was now holding in his hand, belonged to that rank.

After that came second grade, devil beast, and from there on even famous occult practitioners could rarely see them. They were so rare that they were called walking disasters.

And then there were the demons and monsters that were called a natural catastrophe and upheaval of the earth even if only one appeared. Those were called spirit beasts.

Spirit beasts were beings that might appear only once every several hundred years, and even one of them belonged to a realm of disaster great enough to reduce an entire city to ruins.

‘Divine beasts.’

The last rank was divine beast.

According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, a divine beast was a being that might appear only once in several thousand years. Since it belonged to the realm of the workings of heaven or divine punishment that humans could not possibly do anything about, it was said to be a great catastrophe that could destroy an entire nation and wipe out the seed of mankind.

So when he heard they stood at the summit of demons and monsters, Mok Gyeong-un wondered if they were divine beasts.

But,

-Divine beasts? Such a thing cannot exist in the present world to begin with. Once demonic power reaches that kind of realm, it departs from the natural order.

“The natural order?”

-Do you not know what the natural order is?

“What is it?”

-The natural order is what upholds this world. Well, for a human it would be difficult to understand.

“You’re speaking in very vague terms.”

-The natural order is the natural order. Once one departs from that realm, the natural order leaves no choice but to cross beyond the boundary.

“Beyond the boundary?”

As he wondered about that, Yeo Su-rin cut in.

“It means ascending to immortality.”

“Ascending to immortality?”

A strange light entered Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes.

Come to think of it, he had heard about this before when he learned the sword and martial arts from Blue Spirit.

[Internal energy, the origin of martial arts, comes from the Daoist method of breath cultivation. Daoists govern inner energy through breathing methods, and through that they evolve the body.]

[Evolve the body? Do you mean becoming stronger?]

[That is also true, but the evolution spoken of in Daoism means shattering the walls of the body, realizing the flow of the workings of heaven, and reaching spiritual awakening.]

[Spiritual awakening?]

[Yes. That is what is called ascending to immortality, or feathered ascension.]

[Feathered ascension? Do you mean becoming an immortal and going to the heavens?]

[Yes. Anyone who trains in martial arts naturally seeks enlightenment through martial ways and aims for ascension. Of course, by now that has faded, and martial arts have simply come to symbolize power and have degenerated into tools for protecting oneself and killing others.]

[Ho. But isn’t that the truth?]

[It is. The essence of martial arts was never originally about cultivating the Dao, but also about killing others with ease. But if you seek a higher realm, you need to think on a more elevated level.]

That had been Blue Spirit’s teaching.

She had said that if he trained martial arts and intended to reach a higher realm, then he should aim for ascension.

Of course, Mok Gyeong-un had no interest in that whatsoever.

His goal was to gain power for revenge, not to become an immortal.

Still, he had asked out of curiosity.

[But Blue Spirit, has there really been anyone who achieved ascension?]

[There has.]

[The great master Bodhidharma, called the founder of the Central Plains martial line, the Perfected One Zhang Sanfeng who founded Wudang Sect, and the Sword Immortal said to have severed a dragon’s neck with Heavenly Flight. Besides them, there are surely other extraordinary figures unknown to the world as well. One never knows the affairs of the world.]

[So there really were people who achieved ascension?]

[Of course there were. That is why others take it as their goal.]

If what Blue Spirit called feathered ascension meant crossing beyond the boundary the eyeball had spoken of, then did that mean that humans too, by refining martial arts, could reach the same domain as the divine beasts described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas?

The world of occult arts and the martial world alike seemed somehow to converge the farther toward the end one went.

As his thoughts deepened, the eyeball spoke again.

-Yes. I think that was it. Humans called crossing beyond the boundary because of the natural order ascending to immortality.

“Hmm. Then those six demons-and-monsters you mentioned…”

-The Six Demons.

“Pardon?”

-The demons and monsters that awakened intelligence call them the Six Demons, or the Six Demon Kings.

At the eyeball’s words, Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes narrowed slightly.

He had thought of it as a malformed aberration, but now he had confirmed the eyeball’s identity for certain.

It too recognized itself as one of the demons and monsters, in other words as an anomalous being.

Well, for something with this much demonic power and its own will, it would have been stranger to dismiss it as a mere byproduct of deformity.

“Six Demon Kings? That’s a rather grand title.”

“Wow… This is the first time I’ve heard this too.”

Yeo Su-rin said that with sparkling eyes.

She too was deeply interested in demons and monsters, but meeting one with intelligence was like finding a needle in a sand field.

So hearing about the leaders of the six spirit beasts she had heard of from her master, but from the standpoint of a demon-and-monster, naturally could not help but interest her.

“Eyeball. Go on. I want to know whether the Six Demons you all speak of are the same as the leaders of the six spirit beasts I know.”

-…

At her urging, the eyeball tightly shut its mouth.

The one whose mood it had to read right now was this bastard, so why should it explain such things to the girl too?

At that moment Mok Gyeong-un spoke.

“Call them whatever title you like. In any case, you’re saying that monster raccoon-dog is called the Binding Badger Tengu.”

-It is the Sea-Slaying King.

Its voice was filled with fear.

Judging by that reaction alone, the eyeball seemed to feel considerable reverence toward the monster raccoon-dog.

Come to think of it, even weakened to that degree by being sealed, that monster raccoon-dog had still possessed tremendous demonic power.

It was not strange that the eyeball would fear it.

“Well, whether it’s the Sea-Slaying King or the Binding Badger Tengu, you’re saying there are six monsters of that level.”

-Yes.

“Do you know all of them?”

-How could I not?

At those words from the eyeball, Mok Gyeong-un pondered for a moment.

He wondered whether there was any real need to know such beings, but one never knew.

Who could say whether the monster raccoon-dog, no, the Binding Badger Tengu, might also end up sealed somewhere in the Corpse Blood Valley archive?

Knowing at least something about beings like these was not a bad thing for the future.

“Can you tell me what sort there are?”

“What do you call the white ox spirit beast?”

At that moment Yeo Su-rin cut in.

Mok Gyeong-un shot her an annoyed look.

Then she puffed out her lips and said,

“I helped too, so I can ask at least this much, can’t I?”

“…”

At her words, Mok Gyeong-un shrugged as if to say do as you pleased.

Yeo Su-rin, delighted, grinned and asked,

“What do you call that white ox spirit beast that’s several hundred zhang long from head to toe?”

-The King of Great Strength.

“King of Great Strength? Oh. So that’s what the demons and monsters call that huge ox spirit beast. Then what about that flood dragon that failed to ascend and fell into corruption?”

-The Dragon Demon King.

“And that roc spirit beast of the North Sea, the one said to have white wings?”

-The White Roc Demon King.

“And what about that spirit beast shaped like a lion with black wings and a sharp spiny mane?”

-The Lion Pull King.

‘Hmm.’

Thanks to Yeo Su-rin’s questions and the eyeball’s replies, Mok Gyeong-un was naturally able to learn what the spirit beasts looked like and what titles they bore.

He thought it had been a good decision to let her do the asking on purpose.

Then Yeo Su-rin continued,

“Then what about that stone ape that was said to have been imprisoned beneath Five Finger Mountain…”

-No.

“Hm? How do you know what I was going to ask and say no?”

-That being you mentioned vanished long ago because of the natural order. It no longer belongs among the Six Demons.

“Ah… That’s a little different from what my master said.”

At those words from Yeo Su-rin, the eyeball, dumbfounded, asked,

-You girl… who exactly is this master of yours? How does such a one know of the Six Demons of long ago?

“Heh. Come to think of it, since you pretended to be an occult practitioner, you must know who my master is.”

-What?

“You’ve heard of Red Eyebrow Old Immortal, right?”

-…Surely you mean the lord of Sea Immortal Pavilion, one of the Fang Gods?

The moment it heard the name, the eyeball immediately recognized which pavilion and which person she meant.

Since it shared a body with the Square Sun Jo Tae-cheong, it naturally knew of the famous occult practitioners.

To a demon-and-monster like the eyeball, they were natural enemies.

Yeo Su-rin looked at Mok Gyeong-un with a triumphant face and said,

“See? Even this malformed demon thing knows my master.”

“Yes, yes.”

At Mok Gyeong-un’s dry response, Yeo Su-rin’s lips stuck out like a duck’s.

Was this person really an occult practitioner?

Her master was so famous and renowned, yet he showed not the slightest interest.

Ordinary occult practitioners would have gone wild trying to make some kind of connection.

Clicking her tongue inwardly, Yeo Su-rin asked the eyeball again,

“No. If it’s not that being that was imprisoned under Five Finger Mountain, then what exactly is the remaining last one of the Six Demons?”

-The Hundred Faces King.

“The Hundred Faces King?”

-Yes.

“A hundred faces? I’ve never heard of it… What exactly is that spirit beast?”

At Yeo Su-rin’s question, the eyeball trembling in Mok Gyeong-un’s hand shook violently.

It was even more severe than when it spoke of the Sea-Slaying King, the Binding Badger Tengu.

As the eyeball shrank in on itself, it opened its mouth.

-It is said to be a being even more dreadful than the King of Great Strength, who is known as the oldest among the Six Demons. That being is evil intent itself and leads all things into ruin.

“…Leads them into ruin?”

-Because of that being, many nations have fallen since the ancient age, including Shang and Zhou.

“Shang and Zhou? Surely the spirit beast you’re talking about…”

Before Yeo Su-rin could finish, the eyeball said in a meaningful voice,

-A fox with golden fur and nine tails. The Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox.