Chapter 30: Day 30

“Baekho, are you sure this is the right way?”

Roar!

Baekho answered with a confident roar, as if saying, “Trust me.”

“Alright then.”

Well, it wasn’t like she could doubt him and go off on her own now.

She only had a vague idea that the Blood King Sect existed somewhere in the Central Mountain Range, based on the snake-human’s journal.

Between her limited knowledge and Baekho’s lifetime of experience in these mountains, who was more likely to find a trace of the sect?

Of course, if Baekho truly failed…

“You’ll be the main ingredient in my next stew.”

Whine?!

Baekho’s eyes widened in surprise at her chilling words, so different from the gentle stroking of her hand on his fur.

Cheon Seo Ah chuckled at his reaction.

Suddenly, she felt it.

“Stop.”

A faint trace of Demonic Qi brushed against her senses.

Cheon Seo Ah’s expression hardened. Baekho, who had been padding through the mountains, stopped instantly.

That Demonic Qi, thin as a veil, was clearly…

‘A barrier.’

A barrier was a means to protect one’s territory, or to seal something away.

Cheon Seo Ah recognized the sensation.

‘I’ve felt this before.’

In the underground library of the White Snake Gate.

More precisely, when she passed through the ordinary-looking wooden door in the library’s basement.

Cheon Seo Ah dismounted Baekho and scanned her surroundings, her senses sharpened by her recent breakthrough to the Golden Core stage.

“There’s no one here?”

Her senses, now far more acute than at the Foundation Establishment stage, picked up nothing but the usual animal life of the Central Mountain Range. No trace of a cultivator.

She frowned.

Child, turn back.

A voice, like that of an old woman, echoed from all directions.

Cheon Seo Ah’s frown deepened.

The presence behind the voice was clearly that of a Golden Core cultivator.

If they were at the same level, she should have been able to sense them, even if they were concealing their aura.

The inability to pinpoint the voice’s source irritated her. Her eyes began to gleam with madness, and a faint toxicity emanated from her breath.

Hidden from view, the cultivator observing Cheon Seo Ah was startled.

Everything touched by her breath withered and decayed.

She seemed to be exuding a potent poison.

What kind of cultivation could produce such a toxic aura? More importantly…

To think a Golden Core guest would visit us.

A hint of surprise colored the old woman’s voice. She had initially assumed it was a lost Demonic Beast, but to encounter another at the Golden Core stage…

Child, to which sect do you belong?

Child, who is your master?

Child, what is your purpose in entering our territory?

Child…

The questions continued, one after another. Cheon Seo Ah frowned at the incessant questioning, then responded.

“I belong to no sect, and I have no master. I achieved this level through self-cultivation.”

My, how intriguing.

And impressive.

A Demonic Beast reaching the Golden Core stage alone.

Admiration laced their voices.

Child, so, why have you entered our territory?

Child, why are you using that beast to seek us out?

Child…

“May I correct something?”

Annoyed by the interruption, or perhaps simply granting her a chance to speak, the voices ceased.

“First, I’m not a ‘child’,” she stated, her voice laced with the chilling madness of a true lunatic. The honorifics were gone.

“And you,” she continued, her gaze locking onto a specific point in the forest where shadows intertwined, “as a fellow Golden Core cultivator, will you stop calling me ‘child’?”

Cheon Seo Ah’s gaze, burning with madness, pierced the shadows, finding the old woman hidden within.

She had initially responded politely, confident that she could pinpoint the source of the voice. And she had.

The old woman, surprised that she’d been discovered, emerged from the shadows.

“Child, your insight is quite remarkable…”

“I told you I’m not a child. Baekho, she’s picking a fight with me, right?”

Growl…

Cheon Seo Ah grumbled to Baekho, annoyed by the old woman’s insistence on calling her “child.” Baekho, though growling in agreement, cowered slightly at the old woman’s powerful presence and Demonic Qi.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m clearly stronger than that old hag.”

“Child, I can’t simply ignore that…”

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake. Did you stuff your ears with dirt? I’m not a child, granny!”

Cheon Seo Ah’s expression twisted as she unleashed her Demonic Qi.

The Golden Core in her danjeon pulsed, and a dark green aura, infused with the toxicity of the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill, radiated outwards, decaying everything it touched.

The old woman flinched, taking a step back.

This toxic Demonic Qi was unlike anything she’d expected from a Golden Core Demonic Beast.

Cheon Seo Ah grinned.

“Are you so close to death that you don’t value your life? Why don’t you just donate that pathetic Golden Core of yours to me?”

“You little b*tch! A mere wandering Demonic Beast who got lucky with her breakthrough!”

Rumble!

The old woman, unable to tolerate the insults, unleashed her own Demonic Qi.

It was tinged with red, carrying a coppery scent of blood, a clear indication of her affiliation with the Blood King Sect.

The tension escalated. Both prepared to strike, ready to kill.

Stop.

A deep voice echoed, and both Cheon Seo Ah and the old woman’s Demonic Qi vanished instantly, dispelled by a third party. Cheon Seo Ah’s expression hardened.

“I greet Elder Bloodfiend-!”

The old woman, her face pale with fear, knelt and bowed deeply.

Elder Bloodfiend…? Cheon Seo Ah glanced upwards, and there, descending as if walking on air, was a middle-aged man clad in blood-red robes, his hands encased in gauntlets shaped like dragons.

Cheon Seo Ah instantly recognized the monstrous aura. It was similar to the White Snake Gate’s Sect Leader, the one who had tried and failed to take her life.

‘Nascent Soul stage? Or perhaps…’

Even beyond that, perhaps the Transformation stage, the minimum requirement to transcend this world. The middle-aged man exuded such power. Of course…

‘He couldn’t possibly be at the Transformation stage.’

If he were, why would he remain in this world? According to what she’d learned in the White Snake Gate’s library, this world was the Lower Realm, and Transformation was the highest attainable level.

Further advancement required ascension.

This man, standing beside the old woman, was likely a powerful Nascent Soul cultivator, his aura simply misleading.

“Why has an elder of the Blood King Sect suddenly appeared?”

Cheon Seo Ah’s voice, now respectful, held a note of caution.