Chapter 95: Evolution (3) (Illustration Included)
Translator: bjgoofy
The people were left speechless in disbelief upon realizing that the small centipede raised by Wei Soryong had swallowed the immense Inner Core of the Flying Celestial Serpent.
Only when Soryong suddenly lost consciousness did they snap out of their shock and cry out.
"So, Soryong!"
"Soryong!"
"Ryong!"
At first, they assumed he was simply overwhelmed by the shock of the centipede swallowing the precious Inner Core imbued with the internal energy of two great masters. But his condition was clearly different from someone merely stunned.
Soryong suddenly lost consciousness and collapsed onto the table.
Tang Hwa-eun, who was right beside him, quickly caught him, but Soryong slumped over the table like a lifeless weed.
His eyes rolled back white, his body trembling.
Soryong, collapsed just like that, began to shake uncontrollably.
Then, Hyang and Bin, who had been held in Soryong’s hands, screamed in alarm and quickly crawled up Hwa-eun’s body.
They bit at her robe, as if urging her to check on Soryong.
-Tsururut!
-Tsurut!
"I-I understand."
Moved by their reactions, so different from the ones just moments ago when they tried to bite, Hwa-eun placed her hands on Soryong’s body.
-Phwak.
But then, a sudden burst of light.
Though the Flying Celestial Serpent's Inner Core had clearly been swallowed by the centipede, blue light once again began to burst forth from beneath Soryong’s collapsed head, where the energy of the Flying Celestial Serpent’s Inner Core had been flowing out.
It was so bright, even more dazzling than before, that the light spilling outward felt like it could blind them.
Startled by the light, Hwa-eun momentarily let go of Soryong, but just as she regained her senses and tried to pull him back.
“D-Daughter-in-law! Do not, under any circumstances, touch Ryong’s body! You must not touch him now!”
A sudden thunderous voice rang out, the voice of the Beast Palace Head.
The Beast Palace Head shouted with a thunderous tone at Hwa-eun, who was trying to raise Soryong, stopping her from touching him.
Overwhelmed by his intensity, Hwa-eun withdrew from the unconscious Soryong, and Seolpyo, who was about to rush toward him, halted in place.
“Father, why!? Why are you telling us not to touch him!? He looks like he’s about to die!”
Blocking the blinding light with her hand, Seolpyo looked at her father with a face full of confusion, unable to understand why they were being prevented from helping the unconscious Soryong.
To Seolpyo’s desperate question, the Beast Palace Head answered, wearing a face that clearly showed disbelief.
“Feel it! This is the energy of the Beast Heart Technique! That child, he is radiating the energy of the Beast Heart Technique! Something... something we don’t understand is happening within his body! You must not touch him. He could fall into qi deviation!”
“Beast Heart Technique?”
Tilting her head at her father’s words, Seolpyo quickly closed her eyes and focused on the energy.
She could sense something, but as her level was below her father’s, she needed to concentrate more deeply to sense it clearly.
And once she focused for a bit longer, she truly began to feel the energy of the Beast Heart Technique swirling within the Beast Palace Hall.
The energy, emanating from something beneath Soryong’s head, was being absorbed into his body and then expelled again in a repetitive cycle.
As her father said, it was a very familiar energy, earthy and wild in nature.
It was unmistakably the Beast Heart Technique.
“W-why!? The Beast Heart Technique?”
Soryong had learned the Beast Heart Technique, so it wasn’t surprising that he could use it.
But operating the Beast Heart Technique while unconscious was unheard of, and to do so with such immense energy?
Even more astonishing was that the centipede raised by Soryong was also radiating the energy of the Beast Heart Technique.
While the Beast Heart Technique did allow one to accumulate internal energy and form a connection with their beast, that was the extent of its capabilities.
As Seolpyo turned to her father with a face full of disbelief, the Beast Palace Head, staring blankly at Soryong, muttered like a man possessed.
“What in the world is this.... Why is this energy coming from both the centipede and Ryong...?”
“Beast Palace Head, what on earth is going on? What should we do!?”
Unable to just stand by and watch, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons asked urgently what was happening and what they should do, but the Beast Palace Head had no answer.
Everyone stood frozen, unsure of what to do.
They had already been stunned enough, but then an even more shocking sight unfolded.
-Crack. Crack.
From beneath Soryong’s body, something didn’t just spring out, it began to grow and slowly wrap around him.
“Wh-What is this!?”
“Centipede!? Why is the centipede Soryong raised, why is it like that...?”
What was definitely coiling around Soryong was the centipede.
Moreover, the small centipede Soryong had been raising.
Its yellow body with blue spots, the small centipede Soryong had nurtured, began to grow larger and larger, eventually coiling entirely around Soryong’s body.
Even its yellow shell with blue spots began to shed, changing both in color and size until it no longer looked the same at all.
No longer the small, cute creature with yellow skin and blue dots.
Now it had a deep blue body.
Jade-colored legs.
And a flat, yet massive torso.
Upon seeing this, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons now shouted out in disbelief, replacing even the shock the Beast Palace Head had shown.
“B-Blue body. Jade-like legs! T-This is... it can’t be! Th-The Flying Celestial Centipede!”
The Flying Celestial Centipede, Hwa-eun had certainly heard the name at least once.
It was listed in the final section of the ‘Compendium of Venomous Creatures Under Heaven’ under the Ten Great Venomous Creatures.
It was clearly said to be the king of all centipedes....
“The Flying Celestial Centipede? If it’s the Flying Celestial Centipede, then surely...”
When Hwa-eun asked with a face full of disbelief, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons replied with a dazed expression.
“O-One of the Ten Great Venomous Creatures, the king of all centipedes. A calamity among calamities, said to fly through the sky and rain down mists of death... the Flying Celestial Centipede!
To think that the Blue-Spotted Centipede which consumed the Inner Core of the Flying Celestial Serpent would become a Flying Celestial Centipede! This, this is truly astonishing!”
Something never seen or heard of in any book.
Not even recorded in the ‘Compendium of Venomous Creatures Under Heaven’ preserved by the Tang Family.
And yet, right before their eyes, the Blue-Spotted Centipede had eaten the Inner Core of the Flying Celestial Serpent and was transforming into the Flying Celestial Centipede.
“Ch-Cho became a Flying Celestial Centipede?”
As the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons and Hwa-eun reeled from the shock of the Blue-Spotted Centipede becoming the Flying Celestial Centipede, it seemed they weren’t the only ones struck by realization, the startled voices of the Beast Palace Head and his daughter echoed as well.
“C-Could it be... the meaning of a martial art that grows alongside a beast... is that when the beast evolves, its master does too!?”
“So the hidden meaning of the Beast Heart Technique passed down from our ancestors truly meant growing together with the beast!”
A single line written at the very beginning of the Beast Heart Technique manual, often dismissed without much thought.
‘The Beast Heart Technique is a martial art that grows alongside the beast, and when one of the two connected beings grows, the other may grow as well.’
Realizing its true meaning sent chills down the spines of the Beast Palace Head and Seolpyo, while beside them, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons and Hwa-eun trembled at the fact that the Blue-Spotted Centipede had become the Flying Celestial Centipede.
Soryong, now completely wrapped up by the Flying Celestial Centipede and transformed into something like a blue cocoon, lay in the center.
***
My head, my head felt like it would split.
When Cho had swallowed the Inner Core of the Flying Celestial Serpent, something inside my head had suddenly started swelling as if it would explode.
I thought my consciousness would fade away just like that, but it wasn't.
The endless pain continued.
I felt like cutting off my head and removing it right away.
I groaned while clutching my head in pain.
“Ugh... h-help...”
Every time something throbbed deep inside my head, pain swelled up again.
Strangely enough, though, for all the pain, I hadn’t lost consciousness. My mind remained clear.
No, rather, because my mind was clear, the pain seemed to become more vivid.
If the first pain could be described simply as pain, now I felt I could describe in detail what kind of pain it was, what kind of characteristics appeared in which parts, in thousands or tens of thousands of words.
I thought it strange that none of the people around me - Grandfather Man of Ten Thousand Poisons, foster father, Seol Nunim, or Tang Hwa-eun - were helping me, and occasionally called for help between the flowing groans.
“...P-please help...”
-Srrrk.
I felt a soft hand brush back my hair.
A gentle touch swept through my hair.
I could feel the tender sensation clearly.
‘H-Hwa-eun? Seol Noona?’
Since it was definitely a woman's touch, I briefly wondered whose touch it was, but who was touching me wasn't important right now.
Strangely, every time someone stroked my head, my splitting head began to feel unbelievably cool.
It wasn’t like drinking soda, it was like applying it directly.
With each added touch, the inside of my head was becoming refreshed, so although I couldn't open my eyes due to pain, I entrusted my head to the gentle touch.
Since the pain was rapidly decreasing with each stroke, this was the only way to survive.
And in less than ten strokes of that touch, the pain had nearly vanished.
Though the pain had gone, a lingering ache remained like an afterimage. Slowly, I opened my eyes and checked the surroundings.
But nothing was visible in my sight.
I thought it might be night, but that wasn't it, and when my mind became a bit clearer, I finally realized that I was being held in someone's embrace.
But unlike the gentle touch, the embrace was cool.
‘What?’
Soft, but a chilly embrace.
I tried to slowly lift my head to look up.
To see whose embrace it was.
‘Blue?’
Then the first thing that entered my sight was blue hair.
Deep cobalt-colored hair first entered my view.
Hwa-eun and Seol Noona both had black hair.
No, was there even a woman in this world with blue hair?
Startled, I tried to escape from the woman's embrace, but perhaps due to the traces of pain, my body didn't move perfectly, and when I barely managed to lift my head to check her face, the woman looking at me with blue eyes was a woman I had never seen before.
A woman at the boundary between adult and girl smiled at me when our eyes met.
“Wh-Who are you?”
And when I asked who she was, instead of answering, the woman's lips approached my forehead.
-Chup.
When the woman's lips touched my forehead, my vision began to darken again.
***
‘Right, blue hair doesn’t make sense.’
The memory was so vivid that I thought it was real, but it was probably a dream.
When I came to my senses, I felt pressure bearing down on me.
“Ugh....”
-Churup. Chup.
Something strange was being felt on my forehead, and when I opened my eyes, what I saw was a giant blue eye.
But unlike the woman’s pale blue eyes from my dream, these were four small, dot-like eyes.
“C-Centipede?”
The dot-like eyes were unmistakably those of a centipede, seen thousands of times in reference books.
Blinking in disbelief at the incomprehensible sight, I slowly grasped the situation, there was a huge centipede, baring its fangs and licking my forehead.
"Ahhhhh!"
I screamed in shock.
No matter how much I was called Maewoon Fabre, if a large centipede was licking my forehead, I couldn't help but be surprised.
At my scream, the large centipede flinched, and I heard Hwa-eun and Seol Noona's voices from the side.
“S-Soryong! Are you awake?”
“Ryong, are you conscious?”
“S-Save me... C-Centipede...”
I tried to escape from the centipede but couldn't move at all. As I cried out for help in panic, Hwa-eun’s voice reassured me.
“It’s okay, Soryong. It’s Cho.”
“Cho?”
Cho was definitely the name of our first daughter.
I hesitated for a moment, then at the mention of Cho, I made eye contact with the creature again, and it nodded as if to say it was right.
And the pressure I had felt on my body disappeared, and my body began to be freed.
-Srrrk.
"Cho, you're Cho? Wh-what on earth is this...."
-Tsurut!
The voice had grown deeper, and clearly, our Cho had been small and cute. But the one before me now, claiming to be Cho, looked over six meters long, with a bright blue body.
And emerald-colored antennae and legs.
The sight triggered something in my memory.
Getting down from the Beast Palace Hall table where I had collapsed, I spoke with a voice of disbelief.
“This isn’t Cho, it’s rather like the Flying Celestial Serpent...”
Then, Hwa-eun and Seol Noona smiled and answered.
“That’s right, Soryong. After eating the Flying Celestial Serpent’s Inner Core, Cho became one of the Ten Great Venomous Creatures, the Flying Celestial Centipede.”
“Cho evolved into the Flying Celestial Centipede, Ryong.”
“F-Flying Celestial Centipede? One of the Ten Great Venomous Creatures!?”
At the words that she had become a Flying Celestial Centipede, one of the Ten Great Venomous Creatures, I turned my head toward Cho, and Cho was floating in the air while looking at me and making a pleased sound.
-Tsururur.
‘Holy... My daughter! My daughter became a flying girl!’
I didn't know how she became like that, but when I came to my senses, my first daughter had become a flying girl.
An irrepressible scream burst out.
Because it was freaking amazing.
“Aaaahhhhh! As expected! My first daughter!”
