I Became the Academy’s Genius Shikigami Summoner – Chapter 292

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟗𝟐

“I’ve never heard of Polar Night having the power to control humans. Now that I think about it, that seems a bit strange.” 

Ho-chung interjected, tilting his head.

As the one who had once been the world’s greatest fear, it would only be natural for Polar Night to have extended his manipulation to humans as well, if he were capable of doing so.

However, judging from the fact that his reputation as the King of Yokai had been his main claim to fame, it was probably more accurate to assume that Polar Night hardly, if ever, used that ability.

“In other words, for some reason, Polar Night’s control doesn’t extend to humans?”

Of course, if he were to strip his subordinate yokai of their similar abilities, that would be a different story, but even that was doubtful at this point.

“Since controlling yokai is one of Polar Night’s greatest strengths, it stands to reason that he would have tried it on humans at least once or twice.”

“Of course, it wouldn’t work on the truly powerful ones, but I don’t think there were many of those around when Polar Night was active.”

And yet, not a single rumor of such an incident had ever spread. There was definitely something suspicious about that.

That was why Sophia had been pondering her question since earlier.

Why was it that Polar Night could only exercise his absolute control over yokai, and not humans?

“Hmm, I’m not sure, but I have a feeling that it has something to do with Polar Night’s true nature.”

“. . . It’s definitely worth thinking about.”

As they were discussing this, Ho-chung, who had been standing with his eyes closed in concentration, suddenly spoke up with a warning.

“I sense Polar Night’s aura growing stronger. It seems that he will soon be able to pinpoint our exact location.”

“. . . No, I don’t think that will be necessary.”

As Seo Ji-an spoke, a gigantic dark cloud appeared in the distant sky.

And all around it, countless traces of demonic energy began to bloom.

“He’s already that close . . . . . .”

“Are you kidding me? It’s not even been half a day since we fought Taotie!”

The chaos had already erupted on the ground.

The auras of yokai could be felt all over the city, and their rampage was only going to grow in scale.

“Donor, it’s possible that . . . . . . the worst has already happened.”

Originally, Polar Night would only have become active much later in history.

However, our presence in this era had caused Taotie to make his move, and as a result, Polar Night had absorbed Taotie’s power and awakened much sooner than he should have.

Ho-chung hadn’t even begun his journey to fill the Scapula Chamber, yet Polar Night had already grown this powerful.

It was clear that the situation was spiraling out of control.

“Polar Night . . . . . . seems to have already left this place. What should we do?”

Even Ho-chung was at a loss for an answer, so he asked for everyone’s opinions. Given the urgency of the situation, we did our best to focus on defeating the yokai in the immediate vicinity.

However, we were unable to completely drive the yokai away, so we eventually had to evacuate the people of the city to safety.

“. . . . . . It’s like every single yokai in the world has come out to play. Is it the same everywhere else?”

“At least everywhere Polar Night has been.”

It was like watching the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, and the damage was likely to be much greater, given the lack of communication and cooperation between exorcists in this era.

The rampaging yokai eventually disappeared to the east, and it wasn’t hard to guess that Polar Night was somewhere in that direction.

“The distance has narrowed, so pursuing him shouldn’t be difficult . . . . . . but I don’t think it would be wise to rush in blindly.”

It had taken a tremendous effort just to drive the yokai that had gathered in this city away.

Even if we all joined forces, it was doubtful whether we would be able to defeat Polar Night, let alone the yokai under his control.

This was a completely different situation from fighting Xue Laifu or Taotie.

I truly understood the fear that Polar Night inspired, and after some deliberation, I shared my thoughts with everyone.

“Perhaps . . . . . . we should let him do as he pleases for now.”

“Junior, you mean we should just leave Polar Night alone?”

One thing was for sure: even if we were to confront Polar Night and his yokai head-on right now, our chances of victory were extremely slim.

After all, even the Ho-chung of the future had only engaged Polar Night in battle after weakening him as much as possible through the Scapula Chamber.

So, for now, our priority should be to save as many people as possible and learn more about Polar Night’s secrets.

“At the very least, we might be able to figure out his goals during this time. Even though we only have a month, I think it will be enough time to confront him directly at the very end.”

My words seemed to resonate with them, and my companions nodded, asking me to elaborate.

With a small sigh, I uttered a single word.

“In order to stand a chance against him, we need to gather our strength and work together.”

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

Some time passed after that.

We met with the Taoist priests of Daehwa-rym, the members of the Hawon Clan, and the five Taoist masters of Yonggol, who were all our de facto allies, and informed them of Polar Night’s revival and our intention to oppose him. We were also able to form a kind of alliance with various Taoist priests who had been drawn to this chaotic era in search of a guiding light.

“We have received reports that the group of yokai that had been lurking near Dong-eup has disappeared. As we suspected, Polar Night seems to have made his nest in the north.”

Pyeong Won-myeong, who had regained his energy, was providing us with all the support he could, and we were doing our best to save as many villages as possible from the yokai’s clutches.

However, the situation was nothing short of desperate. The world was already in chaos, and people were barely clinging to life from day to day, losing all hope for the future.

That was how powerful Polar Night was, and it gave us a glimpse of just how formidable Ho-chung’s abilities must have been to stop him in the original timeline.

“Any new information?”

“Not much, other than the fact that he’s being very cautious.”

In fact, even though Polar Night now possessed the power to control the entire world, he was content to sow chaos rather than come to the forefront.

His two previous failures had made him more cautious, but it was more likely that our presence was the main reason for his restraint.

“Well, of course he would notice, Oppa. Polar Night is far too powerful to compare to the likes of us,”

Guimei, who had taken on the appearance of So-yul, said with a nonchalant smile, but her words were anything but lighthearted.

After all, we were now Polar Night’s true targets.

“Perhaps . . . . . . it would be wise to turn back at this point?”

Yoo Ha-on asked with concern, and I couldn’t give her an immediate answer.

Despite stalling for as much time as we could, we had made no significant progress. We still hadn’t uncovered Polar Night’s secrets.

It was a moment of bone-chilling powerlessness.

「. . . 𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙞𝙨 𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙧 𝙉𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩’𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙥𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙪𝙣𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬𝙣, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙠𝙖𝙞 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙡 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙧 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙥𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨.」

They were similar to the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, yet different.

The yokai controlled by Polar Night actually worked together with a shared purpose, almost like humans.

Even if we were to return to the present, it wouldn’t be easy to break apart that formidable legion.

「𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙤𝙥 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩, 𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩 𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙡𝙮. . . . . . .」

He was truly an unbeatable enemy. We didn’t even know if he had any weaknesses, and we still had no idea how to counter him.

There are now less than two weeks left until Sancheon’s horn runs out of power.

At this rate, no matter how much we had grown, we wouldn’t be able to properly defeat him in the outside world.

「𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙨 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙞𝙢, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙥 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜.」

As for the former, there was still some hope.

Not only had we all grown beyond our wildest expectations, but we also had reliable allies on the outside.

Plus, I had a few trump cards up my sleeve that I had been saving for this very purpose.

「𝙃𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧. . . . . . .」

As for the latter, there seemed to be no hope in sight.

If he truly could resurrect endlessly, there was no way to stop him. We could only speculate, but we had no way of testing any of our theories.

I could feel it instinctively. This wasn’t going to work. We had to find an answer to this question, at least, while we were still in this mystical world.

「𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙖 𝙛𝙚𝙬 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙗𝙞𝙙𝙙𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙝𝙣𝙞𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙨𝙞𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙧. . . . . . .」

They were essentially a way to avoid death in advance, but they didn’t actually bring someone back from true death.

It was unlikely that Polar Night’s resurrection, which had allowed him to return over and over again for centuries, was such a simple mechanism.

It was a power that even my Shadow Assimilation trait couldn’t come close to replicating. That was the true nature of Polar Night’s resurrection ability.

“It seems that we won’t find the answer unless we confront him directly.”

“. . . Isn’t that too dangerous?”

“He’s an unavoidable opponent. It would be even more hopeless to face him again on the outside without knowing anything.”

Even so, we had managed to gather a lot of strength in a short amount of time.

With this many people, we should be able to break through Polar Night’s controlled yokai and somehow find a way to face him.

And we had to find a way to stop him from resurrecting, and then return to the outside world.

It was a mission of unimaginable difficulty.

To be honest, even I, who had suggested it, couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it.

However, no one here looked away.

“Indeed. . . . . . . There’s no point in going back without any other options, only to be defeated by him on the outside.”

“. . . To make matters worse, he’s already faced Ho-chung in battle, so he must be even stronger than Polar Night of this era. Junior is right.”

Agreeing with that opinion, Ho-chung clasped his hands together and quietly made his resolve.

“Even if this is the end, I will do everything in my power to ensure that the Donors return safely to the outside world.”

Everyone nodded at his heartfelt declaration.

If we had had a little more time, it might have been different, but now there was truly nowhere left to run.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before making a formal declaration in front of everyone.

“In one week, we will confront Polar Night with all our might.”

It was time to bring our brief journey through this bygone era to an end.

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