Chapter 175: My goodness. The sea, the sea! (1)

Cale opened the map.

It was a map of the inside of the manor. Ron had created it using Hoya's explanation.

He looked toward Hoya.

"Hoya, it is just as you said."

He smiled and Hoya awkwardly smiled back, despite turning completely pale.

'That's odd.'

Cale felt oddly baffled as he observed Hoya.

'This reaction is much more severe than I expected.'

The young Blood Demon candidates, Hoya and Yoon… The two of them had not even tried to fight back and basically bowed toward him ever since they experienced his Dominating Aura.

The enemies Cale had met until now did cower and tense up because of this aura, but they had never turned so servile so quickly and completely.

'He did say it is enough to make a god cower, is that the reason?'

Was the strengthened Dominating Aura that amazing?

'Or maybe this power seems especially strong to them?'

He did not think that the young Blood Demon candidates were acting. The fear visible on their faces was real.

If they could act out such expressions, the Blood Cult would have long since destroyed the Central Plains.

'I guess I will get my answer if I run into other young Blood Demon candidates or others from the Blood Cult.'

The strengthened Dominating Aura…

He could slowly figure out its true strength.

– Human, it is quiet!

Cale nodded after hearing Raon's voice in his mind.

He looked at the map again.

The large manor had a peculiar shape.

After they stealthily infiltrated the formation, they saw large and tall rectangular walls that looked fortified for defense.

The buildings inside the walls spiraled like a snail shell.

Of those buildings, only a single one…

The one at the bottom of that spiral… There was one building distant from the rest to the south.

'This is where they said Old man Baek would be.'

Sniff sniff.

He could hear Raon sniffing in the air.

– Human, the stench of medicine is so strong!

They could smell all sorts of medicinal roots.

They couldn't tell outside the formation, but the smell was extremely strong as soon as they entered.

– There is also an extremely vile rotten stench!

– It also smells like there is some dead mana somewhere!

Raon rambled on without stopping.

However, it was extremely calm right now.

Cale's group was leisurely walking.

The reason was simple.

First of all, they chose a usually unoccupied path along the outskirts as they headed toward their target building.

"Who-"

The patrols who showed up every so often…

"Eek, Yoon-nim!"

They tensed up and stood at attention after seeing Yoon at the front of the group.

The patrols were too low in ranking to ask her any questions, despite her sudden appearance.

And once those patrols appeared…

Shh.

Ron came out of the shadows, and as they were focused on Yoon…

"!"

"Ugh!"

He knocked them unconscious one by one.

Cale walked without anything stopping him, as if he was water flowing down a stream.

It wasn't loud, nobody was making a fuss…

He was out for a nice walk.

That was the feeling as they walked.

Of course, Hoya and Yoon's faces became gloomier as they walked, but Cale didn't care.

He asked Hoya a question.

"Jiangshis had grades?"

He asked as soon as they arrived at the spot marked on the map.

Step.

Cale stopped walking.

This place had an especially cold air roaming around it.

He looked at the wall of the building.

There were small windows at the top.

There were some at the bottom as well.

Choi Jung Soo moved stealthily to look through one of the small windows by his feet.

"…Mm."

He could see numerous feet.

There were quite a lot of feet stuffed into a small area.

They were jiangshi feet.

This was one of the many jiangshi storage containers.

"Yes sir, they have different grades."

Hoya answered with a nervous look on his face.

"Jiangshi, living jiangshi, True Jiangshi. These are the three grades, sir."

"The latter ones are stronger?"

"Yes sir."

Cale pointed at the map.

"Based on this, there are three different places for creating jiangshis. Is it one per grade?"

"T, that is correct, sir."

"This is the most external one, so the ones in here should be your regular jiangshis?"

"Yes, yes sir."

Hoya didn't even think and just answered as soon as he thought of the answer. It was because Cale's gaze was slowly getting colder.

"It looks like there are jiangshis being stored in the basement as well."

The building next to Cale was three stories high and had those same small windows.

"Around how many jiangshis are inside this manor? All of them together."

Hoya urgently responded after seeing his cold gaze.

"I, I don't know, sir. Umm, if you consider the jiangshis that are capable of battle, we've made about one hundred to one hundred fifty thousand-"

"Haaaa."

Cale let out a sigh.

He then raised his hand.

"Ugh!"

He then smacked Hoya on the back of the head.

Hoya knew that this was a regular and slow movement of the hand that had no martial arts behind it, but he could not dodge it and just let himself be smacked.

It was because he had seen the scorn in Cale's eyes.

"If there are ones capable of battle, there are jiangshis that are not capable of battle?"

"Umm-"

Hoya hesitated before quickly answering when Cale raised his hand again.

"That is because there are jiangshis kept for experimentation, sir. Children and the elderly are not fit for battle even after they are turned into jiangshis-"

Pow!

"Ugh!"

Hoya had to clench the back of his head again.

Cale scowled because although he was the smacker, his hand was hurting.

'Crazy bastards.'

There were basically as many jiangshis inside this castle-sized manor as there were residents in a castle.

Of course, it might be obvious that there were a lot of jiangshis here because this place, just like in the North Sea, was a core area where jiangshis were created, but…

– Human, there are too many...

Cale could not react to Raon's comment.

He had already seen the faces of his people instantly stiffen.

Choi Han opened his mouth at that moment.

"How were you able to create so many jiangshis?"

His anger-filled gaze headed toward Hoya. Hoya scowled at that gaze. It was as if he was not happy that someone who was not Cale, merely one of Cale's subordinates, was sending him such a gaze.

However, he seemed to peek to see Cale's reaction before answering.

"How would I know? We've been making these jiangshis for decades."

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, seriously. Think about it. Gathering the people to become jiangshis is the work of underlings. I don't need to deal with such trivial tasks. Maybe for True Jiangshis, but still."

"Ha."

Choi Han scoffed in disbelief.

He was at a loss for words.

Based on what he had just heard, they did not care if the person was male, female, young, or old. They just gathered a bunch of people and turned them into jiangshis. How could he feel no sense of responsibility toward that?

His hand automatically tensed.

Sui Khan mumbled in a low voice at that moment.

"Decades… Do jiangshis not decompose?"

"As long as you take care of them properly, they don't."

If such a number of jiangshis were created at once, the Imperial Palace and the other major forces would have realized something was wrong.

However, it could be difficult to notice if they spent decades slowly abducting people to turn them into jiangshis.

The Central Plains was filled with small battles between martial artists and sects on a daily basis, so they tended to not care about dead people.

He had also heard that the administration had been a mess during the previous Emperor's reign. Since the current Emperor has not been in power for very long, it was probably difficult to know what has happened until now.

Furthermore, the civil war probably gave the Blood Cult lots of favorable situations.

"Haaa."

Choi Jung Soo sighed.

"If you include the North Sea, there are probably at least two hundred to three hundred thousand jiangshis."

"Umm, there's a bit less in the North Sea. There are only about seventy thousand because it is so cold over there-"

Hoya answered before he saw Cale's gaze and shut up.

Cale ignored Hoya and started walking again.

'Even if we purify those jiangshis-'

If they were not living jiangshis, they would only return to being corpses.

Cale felt frustrated.

He thought about the jiangshis they faced in Xiaolen as well.

'Have these fucking Hunter bastards gone crazy?'

He knew that their goal was to create a new god, the omnipotent god.

Even if that was the case, was there a need to kill so many people?

Cale did not consider himself to be a great hero or someone with a sense of duty, but… His emotions were beyond anger at this point. He could not understand these Hunters at all.

'Do they want to be a god so badly?

Is there a reason to do all of this to become a god?

Gods. Why is that so desirable?

Is it really worth getting a god position by talking about making an offering of karma and offering numerous worlds?

"I can't understand them at all."

Cale nonchalantly commented and stopped thinking about it.

He looked in front of him.

"It's over there."

He could see the pavilion that was off on its own.

He did not see anybody around it.

However, he heard that Old man Baek was in there with True Jiangshis protecting him.

'True Jiangshis…'

They were stronger than living jiangshis and each of them were basically biological weapons.

The strength of True Jiangshis was that they could raise a person to the limits of their natural talents. They were extremely difficult to create, but successfully creating one would give them a jiangshis that was incomparable to a living jiangshi.

'In the end, they are still just jiangshis.'

Cale gave the order with a stoic look on his face.

"Go get him."

Ron, Choi Han, and Choi Jung Soo disappeared into the darkness.

He then gave an order to Yoon.

"Set a formation so that it looks like nothing is happening here. Got it?"

Yoon vigorously nodded her head after seeing an incomparably cold gaze in Cale's eyes.

Cale then addressed Raon.

"Can you set your soundproof barrier magic around the entire pavilion?"

He wanted it so that no noise could be heard regardless of what happened in there.

"Let's go."

Cale then motioned toward Sui Khan and Beacrox with his eyes.

They slowly started walking toward the pavilion.

Ring ring!

He could hear Yoon's voice as she set the formation.

Oooooo– oooooo–

He could see Raon's spell creating a half-transparent black barrier around the pavilion.

Cale slowly headed toward the pavilion.

He was hoping that most of the things would be resolved by the time he arrived there.

This was to be expected.

'To my knowledge, the True Jiangshis are one at the Profound Realm and three at the Unrestrained Realm, sir!'

The level of True Jiangshis protecting Old man Baek were easy for Choi Han, Choi Jung Soo, and Ron to handle.

Furthermore, Cale had not told them to deal with the True Jiangshis.

'A, and Old man Baek has not learned martial arts!'

Just quickly…

Baaaaang—!

The pavilion broke.

A black yong and then a white yong ran amok through the pavilion.

Cale stepped into the pavilion that was turning into a mess and saw someone appear through the dust clouds.

"Young master-nim."

Ron had an extremely benign smile on his face.

"I have returned with the captive."

He simply told them to quickly return with Old man Baek.

That was the reason he sent Ron to make the move while the two Chois handled the True Jiangshis.

Oooooo– oooooo–

Cale looked at Old man Baek with his Dominating Aura activated as he did against the young Blood Demon candidates.

"You motherfucking human bastards! You humans dare to come into my house? You loathsome creatures!"

An extremely skinny old man was being held up by Ron as he flailed and shouted to get away.

He must have then felt an odd aura as he looked toward Cale.

"!"

He then flinched.

He commented while looking at Cale.

"Y, you are not human?"

Cale instantly scowled.

'What the hell is this crazy old man saying?'

Old man Baek didn't care and his face lit up. No, it relaxed. His jaw dropped with a blank look on his face and he could not look away from Cale.

He then commented.

"B, beautiful-"

Cale commented.

"He's nuts."

This old man was nuts.

"Then should I kill him?"

Of course, he flinched at Ron's gentle and warm comment.

Old man Baek extended his hand toward Cale.

"A King's Successor, there's another god's plate...!"

'What plate?'

As Cale looked confused…

"Eek!"

Hoya suddenly gasped and curled up in fear. He then looked at Cale and mumbled.

"No way-, there is another existence than the esteemed? Unbelievable!"

'What the fuck are they talking about?'

Cale scowled and then flinched.

"Ugh!"

Ron clenched his hand around Old man Baek's neck.

"Please calm down and slowly answer our young master-nim's questions."

And…

Pow!

"Ugh!"

Beacrox smacked the back of Hoya's head with his greatsword still in its scabbard.

"Speak so we can understand."

He stoically added that comment.

Forget gods of whatever, Cale was more scared of this father-son duo.

He gulped as Ron let go of Old man Baek's neck and spoke to him.

"He is still alive and he is now quiet. How wonderful."

'This vicious old man.'

Just as Cale clearly recognized the existence of the Molan father-son duo once again…

Old man Baek was a strong person.

He ignored Ron's warning and ran toward Cale.

His eyes were rolled back and he was drooling.

"I, I'll turn you into a god!"

His crazed eyes that were full of desire were only focused on Cale.

—

Translator's Comments

Another fanatic Cale-to-god believer?

***

If you find any errors or have suggestions, please feel free to provide feedback.

Thank you for reading!

[Author – Yu Ryeo Han]

[Translator – Anowa]

[Proofreader – Rai_Mayank]