Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint - Chapter 554



The Task of Seeking Offerings

—

The monkey is a master of climbing trees. Though not a human, the Hanuman tribe, who made a pact with the king of monkeys long ago and received a share of that power, can run through the treetops as if on flat ground.

In the jungle, they moved with an unparalleled speed, making excellent use of their talents. Usually, they would sneak away with what they needed while living among the trees.

The recent raid on Piuchon was no different. Even if the immortal was strong, the slow and clumsy Toin could be easily shaken off by the Hanuman tribe.

They were also confident that if they kidnapped a child from Piuchon, not the child of the immortal, nothing would go wrong.

“Ukkiyak! You said nothing would happen!”

The monkey mask shouted, flailing wildly.

“It’s the spirit of the wind! The spirit of the wind is angry, and we’re going to face a terrible fate!”

“I came prepared to be hated by the persistent Toin, but I didn’t expect a spirit to be here!”

“If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have raided Piuchon!”

In truth, it was not the spirit of the wind but a returner wielding a celestial bow. For them, distinguishing between the two was meaningless. Whether it was the spirit or the returner, facing their wrath would lead to the same dreadful outcome.

Perhaps even worse than the spirit of the wind.

“We need to run away immediately, regardless of the sacrifice!”

“What about this? It’s a sacrifice we barely managed to bring back after losing five of our kin!”

The monkey mask pointed to the child in the sack. The leader, wearing a lion-like mask, shouted back.

“Why are you asking such things? Just kill it and hang it somewhere!”

“But, but what if the spirit of the wind really gets angry?”

From noble mtl dot com

“Shaking it off and running away is the best option! Ukkiki. If we leave for another place, whether it’s the spirit of the wind or whatever!”

The leader monkey mask threw the sack down roughly. The child, who had been holding their breath in fear inside the sack, let out a whimper.

“Ah, ah….”

“If we just leave it here, the leopard will eat it!”

The leader monkey mask reached out with both hands toward the child’s neck, intending to snap it with his powerful grip.

However, it was better for the monkey mask to consider the spirit of the wind more carefully. No matter how cold-hearted the returner was, they wouldn’t stand by while a kidnapped child was killed.

In truth, they weren’t very cold-hearted at all.

“Kieeeek!”

Blood burst forth as the leader monkey mask’s arm was violently flung away. An invisible blade of wind had struck his arm. In front of him, the returner shot up like lightning, kicking the monkey mask that was protecting the child.

The returner glared at the leader monkey mask and said,

“It seems the tailing ends here. Huz, you have no complaints, right?”

“Of course not. Isn’t this also guided by the saintess’s blessing?”

As the monkey mask stumbled back, the returner lightly stirred the air. The sack holding the child slowly floated down with the wind.

Lash leaped up in an instant to catch the child. Petting the terrified child, Lash wore a deeply sympathetic expression.

—

“How can you carelessly treat the life of the same being you are? Has the Hanuman tribe lost both its pride and its honor?”

“Ukkit! What does a lucky, powerful Toin know…!”

The chief monkey mask shouted, wrapping his blood-soaked arm.

“You immortals wouldn’t understand! To survive, we must offer sacrifices! We must offer our tributes to the great spirit and the beautiful Muhu, and only then can we gain strength to survive!”

“There are many ways to live without sacrificing another child. I have seen it beyond the vast plains.”

“Beyond the vast plains? That’s only possible beyond the vast plains! Not here!”

The chief monkey mask continued to speak, wiggling his fingers.

“This land is ruled by witches, beasts, spirits, and Muhu! Without strength, without a place to lean on, you will be abandoned and pitifully devoured! You who have fortuitously sacrificed your bodies to gain immortality… do not understand our desperate struggle to survive!”

And in that moment, the chief monkey mask pulled out a leather bundle he had hidden in his bosom. It was a pouch filled with venom collected from insects. With a swift motion, he burst the pouch and hurled it towards us.

“Kikikiki! It’s ant venom! Be drenched in poison and die!”

However, the chief monkey mask’s secret weapon yielded no results.

Clang. The regressor retrieved the celestial bow once more. In an instant, dozens of branches were severed and fell in unison. Among the countless fallen leaves was the blood-soaked hand of the monkey mask.

The wind howled a beat late, and the monkey masks hanging from the trees flailed and fell to the ground.

Even the pouch of venom, once a secret weapon, fell quietly to the earth, sealed by the regressor’s whirlwind.

“Poison? It’s too old. Who falls for that these days?”

Since the emergence of Qi practitioners, asymmetric attacks like poison or curses have nearly become obsolete. Not only can they not invade the body of a Qi practitioner, but even if they manage to enter, it’s difficult to seize control of the body. Poison that stops the heart? Just squeeze the heart with Qi, and that’s the end of it. In the age of Qi, poison has lost its place.

Yet, this barbaric land, where Qi is not well understood, still relied on poison.

“Ukkiki….”

“The spirit is angry….”

The monkey masks crawled on the ground, having lost their will to fight. The regressor dominated the space with the wind and looked down at the monkey masks.

“Now. You have only one choice. Either die quietly, or confess everything before you die. What were you planning to do with the child?”

“No, Mr. Shei. If you threaten us like that, do you think we’ll confess?”

“Ukkiki…. We must offer a thousand souls to the demon of the celestial banquet, Ankra….”

“No, you want me to confess this?”

It didn’t make sense to demand loyalty from a barbarian to the point of sacrificing their life. Yet, they were being told they would die, so should they confess willingly?

The Hanuman tribe barbarians bowed their heads to the regressor and confessed obediently.

“We, we were also asked for a favor! The demon of the celestial banquet, Ankra, needs a thousand souls to sacrifice. They said they would give us an apple tree for each one we brought.”

“The demon of the celestial banquet?”

“A powerful ancient demon that devours a thousand! They said if we don’t help, they would eat us first. Ukkiki! We kidnapped the children to survive!”

From the very beginning, the regressor’s perfectly submissive approach had softened his murderous intent towards the Hanuman tribe.

—

—

Though they call it a spirit, showing unconditional obedience to a powerful force they cannot comprehend is, in its own way, a survival strategy for them.

“It seems to be a demon so notorious it has a nickname. It must really be the ancient evil that Meiel described.”

“Just hearing about it sounds terrifying. Can Shea win?”

“Of course. A demon isn’t that powerful of a being. Nearly a thousand three hundred years have passed since the original year, and the demon’s power has almost faded. Even if it is resurrected as a sacrifice, it will only inherit a fraction of that power, not the strength it once had.”

‘There’s no way a demon I can’t even remember could be that strong. Meiel wouldn’t send me to face an opponent she could never defeat. Let’s wrap this up quickly. I have no particular business in the land of the old nations anyway. The only demon left is the Tree of Betrayal…’

With a lighter heart, the reincarnator asked the monkey mask.

“Tell me their location. Then I’ll spare your life.”

The monkey mask, brightening at the mention of being spared, quickly divulged.

“It’s the Bone Altar! Ukkiki. It’s at the Bone Altar! That’s….”

At that moment, one of the monkey masks, which had been writhing on the ground, suddenly stood up. This monkey mask emitted a sinister aura, raised its arms, and then twisted its own arm joints.

Crack. With a sound that sent shivers down the spine, the arms of the monkey masks twisted simultaneously. The unusually long arms bent grotesquely, creating a horrific scene.

“Kiieeeek!”

“Kiieek!”

The monkey masks fell, screaming in unexpected pain. Amidst the sight of their limbs twisting in unison, only the monkey mask that had broken its own arms stood there, grinning ominously, as if it felt no pain at all.

“Monkey fools. I knew this would happen, so I planted poison in advance.”

The reincarnator hesitated, feeling an unpleasant energy as they prepared to kill the bizarre monkey mask with a spell.

“It’s black magic, isn’t it?”

The closest thing to a human is another human. Therefore, to use magic that harms humans, it is easiest and most convenient to use a human body as a medium.

What developed from that principle is precisely black magic. Body-mediated magic. As powerful and easy as it is, using black magic comes with the drawback of harming one’s own body….

“A puppet, huh? It seems you don’t have the capability to show your true self?”

“Ki ki. Isn’t that obvious? There’s no need to expose my true body to deal with these beasts.”

The monkey mask grinned slyly from beneath its mask.

By using its own body as a medium, it can easily wield powerful magic. But even a black magician values their own body. Thus, black magicians have devised ways to protect their bodies while using black magic.

Among those, the most barbaric and the first method utilized is sacrifice. It doesn’t necessarily have to be one’s own body as the medium.

“What a waste, what a waste. The monkey fools were easy to handle, but now one of the carefully crafted puppets is about to fly away because of you.”

“What a pointless effort. Instead of making that one puppet, you might as well hire someone with money.”

The reincarnator spoke with disdain.

On the surface, black magic seems convenient and low-risk, but in reality, there is no power as wasteful as black magic.

Writing with one’s own body is easy, but controlling another’s body one by one to make them write is nearly impossible. Especially if that ‘other’ resists. Therefore, to use a sacrifice properly, one needs poison and drugs to seize the will of the sacrifice and control their body. At this point, the cost-effectiveness is already out the window.

Is it easy to find someone to be a sacrifice? If you can’t obtain more than one using a single sacrifice, the yield is lost. Moreover, if the sacrifice resists and suffers damage to their body, their value significantly decreases.

—

In the world, it is said that the dark sorcerer fell from grace to easily gain power, but in truth, that is a naive notion. Even dark sorcerers have their own struggles. The lesser dark sorcerers are barely scraping by, living day to day.

“You may think that way, being from beyond the vast plains, but here, we are driven by fear and desire rather than money. A puppet would be much cheaper.”

Yet, transcending all those hardships, the dark sorcerer on the path has become a monster, greedily consuming human lives. The sorcerer controlling the monkey mask before him was one of them.

The reincarnator asked in a lower voice.

“Are you planning to resurrect the evil god?”

“Of course. Isn’t that the dream of every dark sorcerer?”

“Stop with the nonsense.”

“Hehehe. Are you afraid? But what can you do? That is precisely what I have longed for!”

The monkey mask spread its broken arms wide. Blood flowed, and twisted bones rattled, but it cackled as if that were of no concern.

“I will resurrect the evil god and become one with Him! And I will sweep away the remnants of the eternal here on this land, standing as a new god! Hehehe! This land will be great once more!”

Despite his ambitious declaration, the reincarnator replied nonchalantly.

“No, the evil god you wish to resurrect. Whatever it is, it’s so weak that even if it were to be resurrected, it would die at my hands, so just give it up.”

Perhaps it was too unexpected. The monkey mask stood still, arms outstretched. Hoping it was a joke, but the reincarnator was serious.

‘The Celestial Recognition? I’ve never even heard of it in my previous life. Right now, I’m just the one pointed out, but as foretold by Meiel, it would have been vanquished anyway. The Grand Shrine would never tolerate such an evil god.’

The more straightforward the truth, the deeper it digs. The monkey mask, bleeding profusely, clutched its mask and laughed maniacally.

“Hehehe. How arrogant, human from across the plains. You have always been like this… Laughing at, trampling, and destroying everything in this land, then trying to correct us… As if we were the ones in the wrong!”

Veins bulged beneath the clothing of the monkey mask. In an instant, an immense energy surged from the puppet. The monkey mask, burning all its life force like kindling, charged at the reincarnator like a beast, emitting a growl.

“I will kill you and use your corpse as a sacrifice! Still laughing, are you…?”

“How amusing.”

But to be honest, the power displayed by that monkey mask was not that impressive.

Throughout my adventures, I had faced legendary opponents far too often. Compared to them, a dark sorcerer, especially one merely controlling a puppet, was… Sorry to say, but I could win against it too.

Dozens of blades made of wind sliced through the monkey mask. If it had mastered Qi, such a wind blade would have been ineffective, but it is difficult for a dark sorcerer to master Qi, and even if they did, they could not wield it through another’s body. The blades cleaved through the monkey mask’s body like tofu, severing muscles and tendons.

“Kiiiii!”

The monkey mask let out a shriek and fell. After all, it wasn’t even its own body; the dark sorcerer tried to move the puppet, but now, with the tendons cut, the puppet merely squirmed.

The reincarnator spoke with a face devoid of joy or a sense of accomplishment.

“Just wait with your neck exposed. I’ll kill you.”

“Hehe… Do you think you can kill me?”

The blood-soaked monkey mask shouted with a voice that seemed on the verge of death.

“This is but one of many puppets for me. I too have failed to kill you, but so have you! You will never find me, nor will you kill me!”

“As for me…”

The returner snapped awake, cutting off the words of the monkey mask.

“I’ve caught countless beings like you!”

In the midst of the seven-colored haze, a tricolor gaze, the golden eye that sees the unseen.

He thrusts the celestial spear deep into the doll. The storm grinds the doll’s flesh to dust, gifting that pitiful body with a definitive rest. The consciousness of the dark sorcerer, unable to linger in the dead body any longer, departs…

And the returner watched intently as a part of the consciousness left the body through the golden eye. Though invisible to me, remnants of the consciousness flying toward that dark forest were clear to the returner.

“I found it.”

The returner muttered chillingly.

Now, only the task of tracking and killing remains. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Rash looked at the rescued child and spoke.

“It will be quite a grueling fight. What should we do with the child? If we take them along, they might get swept away and perish.”

“We must send them back to Piuchon. Mr. Rash, please take them.”

“I cannot do that. The priests of the evil god are treacherous. If it were an immortal race, it might be different, but a boy or a teacher could easily fall victim to their cunning. How about the teacher takes them?”

“I appreciate your concern, but as much as we don’t know the enemy, the enemy doesn’t know us either. The element of surprise isn’t theirs alone.”

And we also have what is commonly referred to as the ‘Blessing of the Saint.’

One must not delay against a dark sorcerer. A dark sorcerer typically hoards offerings and wealth, and the moment they feel threatened, they will indiscriminately consume everything. If we want to save even one more life, we must depart immediately.

“You can go too, Hughes. It would be easier for me to handle this alone.”

Oh, how kind of you to say that. To suggest I go home and rest instead of working—under normal circumstances, I would have eagerly accepted such an offer.

But right now, I have a slight interest in demons and evil gods. I politely declined the returner’s suggestion.

“No. I’m also interested in the evil god, and I want to fight once. I’ll help Mr. Shay as well.”

“…Really?”

‘What? How commendable? Offering to help. What’s going on? Is this thanks to the Blessing of the Saint?’

What does he think of me? After all I’ve done to help, is it so surprising that he thinks it’s the Blessing of the Saint?

Well, he’s half right.