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[Translator - Night]
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Chapter 198
Although I had extracted the souls and given them physical force to take revenge on the Elder, there really isn’t much they can do.
Hwa Ryeong, however, must have had a lot built up over time.
Forgetting even the pretense of being composed, she was ruthlessly beating the elder’s soul.
Even though she was breathing heavily from pummeling the soul, revenge isn’t something that ends so easily just by doing that.
In my case, I had many means at my disposal.
I crushed Tyvel to dust and eventually used him as a material.
But all they could do was beat on the elder’s soul that remained.
Moreover, that elder wasn’t even the entirety of their revenge.
“Master.”
“Watch carefully now. This will be the last.”
At my reply, Cheon Ryeong let out a short groan.
He shed tears as he looked at his youngest sibling, who was tied to the floor, screaming in agony.
“There’s no way to turn this back? You seem capable of directly handling souls, Master.”
“Isn’t your clan also one that manipulates spiritual power?”
“Our interference is extremely limited. Especially when it comes to soul control—it’s considered taboo.”
So, the spiritual practices of the Sichuan clan only involve helping wandering souls find peace or purifying spirits that have turned evil.
“Cheon Ryeong, as I said, interfering with one whose soul has already departed is no way to honor the dead.”
Even if it’s possible, it’s not easy.
Especially since Ma Cheon’s soul has already melted into the river of reincarnation.
“……”
“What stands before you now is nothing more than a beast wearing your brother’s discarded shell.”
“Then what should we do?”
“For the dead, the options are burial or cremation. Given the situation, cremating what’s inside that body is the proper course.”
Cheon Ryeong hesitated, then slowly approached Ma Cheon.
He spoke.
“Lady Luna, I know this is a cruel request but…”
“Even a finger won’t twitch.”
At her words, Cheon Ryeong silently embraced his grotesque-looking brother.
Ma Cheon screamed and tried to bite and claw at Cheon Ryeong’s neck, but just as Luna had said, he couldn’t even move his mouth properly.
“Guh… aaah…”
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Cheon…”
Cheon Ryeong wept hot tears as he held Ma Cheon close.
“I should never have let you go like that. Blame me… Blame this worthless older brother.”
The two siblings prepared to part with their youngest sibling.
“The resemblance is uncanny. That’s what makes it even more tragic.”
Unlucky Cascadia?
Yeah, if I had arrived any later, I might’ve ended up hugging Arsha like that, shedding tears.
But for some reason, Ma Cheon’s resistance gradually faded during the process.
Eventually, he stopped resisting entirely, falling into silence.
It wasn’t that a miracle happened because of their sincerity.
It was merely a coincidence in an extreme situation.
We handled the aftermath using the Bata faction’s troops and knights.
We disarmed and restrained all the martial artists from the noble family, then confined them in one place.
One by one, we also collected the corpses and cleaned up the mess.
With Ma Cheon no longer resisting, I summoned elemental mana...
It didn’t take long to prepare for the cremation.
Laying the motionless body down, which no longer reacted like a stopped machine, I simply used magic to burn the body in an instant.
At this point, Ma Cheon wouldn’t even feel pain from his own body burning.
Thus, I stabilized the elemental mana and aligned the formation.
A red magic circle was intricately constructed from the ground up.
[5th Circle]
[Flame]
With a snap of my fingers, the flame magic ignited.
In an instant, intense flames surged up and wrapped around Ma Cheon’s body.
And that’s when it happened.
“…Hm?”
As I watched the corpse, I felt something strange.
A filthy feeling, like the magic was being interfered with as it tried to reach Ma Cheon’s body.
Even before I could confirm it, I instinctively raised my head to look up at the sky.
The sky, which had been covered in dark clouds…
Had already turned red.
[The Red Moon’s Corruption is beginning.]
[The Red Moon’s Corruption is beginning.]
[The Red Moon’s Corruption is beginning.]
[The Red Moon’s Corruption is beginning.]
As if on cue, the messages from the Librarian popped up everywhere like warnings.
[Prepare yourself.]
At the same time, I felt as though the red eye-like moon in the sky had moved.
This had never happened before.
Normally, when the Red Moon’s corruption begins, the cause awakens and monsters pour forth.
But it seemed the corruption of the Red Moon didn’t always manifest in the same way.
That massive eye-like moon in the sky.
Despite the overcast weather, it shouldn’t be visible during this time of day.
That moon—the same one that always dyed the skies red in Labyrinthos.
To be honest, seeing that thing again gave me the chilling feeling that I’d never left Labyrinthos.
Eventually, the eye-moon slowly turned its focus toward me.
No—more precisely, toward Ma Cheon’s body, now engulfed in flames from my magic.
“Damn.”
BOOM!!
My judgment was swift, and so was my action.
I instantly cast defensive magic on the two siblings of the Sichuan clan, then spread a sealing spell over Ma Cheon’s body.
But from around the giant moon, red mist like flowing blood rained down like flashes of light, some of which managed to seep into Ma Cheon before I could stop them all.
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[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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The blood-red mist, flowing at terrifying speed like a flood, devoured the protective spell I had cast and consumed it entirely.
There was no point in analyzing this.
Abandoning hesitation, I gave up on Ma Cheon’s body and retreated to a safe distance.
The red mist swirled like a vortex and completely engulfed Ma Cheon.
Only I could see the Red Moon.
But everyone could witness the aftermath it caused.
“What… what’s happening to Cheon?!”
“Lord Leon!”
How would this look to their eyes?
“Prince Cheon Ryeong, how does the situation appear to you right now?”
At my question, he looked at me with a puzzled expression before carefully answering.
“It looks like Cheon’s body is being enveloped by red mist.”
Ah, you can see that far?
Well, I still have to do what needs to be done.
“For now, fall ba—”
BOOM!!!
At that moment, a strange pressure swept across the area, and both Hwa Ryeong and Cheon Ryeong, the sibling pair, collapsed on the spot.
They had lost consciousness.
And from within the red mist, something bizarre with glowing red eyes lunged at me.
This time, I couldn’t see any future.
But even without foresight, it was clear—this thing must not be allowed to roam free.
KWAANG!!!
Ma Cheon may have only been a fifteen-year-old boy, but through special procedures and his transformation into a jiangshi, he possessed strength comparable to a master.
At his age, such power was considerable, and with the final element they desired, Ma Cheon's power could have been further enhanced.
But the Ma Cheon before me was no longer Ma Cheon.
That thing…
It was something that seeped into his body through an extradimensional force that flowed from the red moon.
An empty shell with its soul stripped away.
What should have been a vacant husk now housed a strange and grotesque spirit with an unidentifiable form.
What could I even call that?
Through the eyes of the Spirit Mana, the soul residing within Ma Cheon’s body seemed capable of dealing immense damage to the mind just by being looked at.
Moreover—
The thing inhabiting his body was staring straight at me.
—You’re… there.
A shock struck me as if my mind had been momentarily twisted.
I grimaced, involuntarily stepping back from the horrifying voice.
That voice tore through my mind without mercy.
It wasn’t Ma Cheon’s.
It came through the soul residing in Ma Cheon’s body…
The Voice of the Moon.
[#@$*^%&%&#$!]
[!@$!%$2*%&%^#$]
Suddenly, texts of the ancient script floated around me, but due to the spreading red mist—or perhaps because of the eye watching from the sky—they were so distorted with noise that I couldn’t read them properly.
A strange phenomenon that only I could see and hear.
Someone could easily mistake this for madness.
BOOM!!! BOOM!!!
As Ma Cheon’s body launched a fierce assault at me, I remained silent, focusing on channeling my mana.
One thing was certain: this red moon’s corrosion was different from all previous ones.
Its purpose was different.
—In the end, your struggle is meaningless.
—The gate has already opened.
Though the voice was directed at me, it felt as though it was speaking to something else entirely.
A horribly twisted sensation.
The eye floating in the sky now gazed straight at me.
At the same time, I grabbed Ma Cheon’s charging head and slammed it into the ground.
Then I forced open his sealed mouth and spoke.
“The only thing you can do now is one thing.”
CRACK!!! FWOOOOSH!!!
“Get the hell out of here, you bastard.”
I infused my voice with power.
It resembled incantation magic, but this was something different—it couldn’t be performed like a typical spell.
Twisting the torrent of massive power as if resisting that thing’s strength, the red mist scattered like a lie.
And in an instant, Ma Cheon’s body ignited and burned completely to ash.
The red moon vanished as if it had never been there.
It was the first time the corrosion of the red moon had ceased on the spot.
Yet somehow, I couldn’t shake the filthy feeling that the thing had still achieved its goal.
As the traces of the red moon disappeared, all that remained was Ma Cheon’s body engulfed in the lightning of Astrape.
Its very presence was enough to overwhelm most people without even attacking…
Its presence was clearly different from the entities that had appeared through red moon corrosion so far.
“Librarian, was that thing just now related to the red moon itself?”
In response to my question, texts began to appear.
[That is fortunate.]
[What you faced just now is something that must not yet manifest in this world. If you sense anything similar in the future, it is highly recommended you flee.]
“You said I’d have to deal with it, though.”
[Your survival is the top priority.]
Brushing away the floating texts with my hand, I walked over to the two unconscious siblings.
Fortunately, it was just fainting—they would wake soon.
As I moved to tend to them—
Luna approached with a stiff expression.
Arsha was nowhere to be seen in her arms.
“Where’s Arsha?”
“I put her to sleep. I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“That thing just now… since when?”
“Huh?”
“When did you first come into contact with that?”
Her serious expression made me think—could she know something about the red moon?
Come to think of it, she was once an archangel, so it was possible.
“Do you know what that thing is?”
To my question, she hesitated, then slowly spoke.
“The power that destroyed paradise… and caused its fall.”
She grabbed my arm tightly and said—
“Promise me. No matter what happens, never talk to it.”
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[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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