I Became a Witch in a World Full of Urban Legends

In the dark hallways, her eyes glistened a pale blue, and the dazzling silver armor that was wrapped around her body illuminated the dark, dingy hallways of the office.

Stepping forward, Jiangli pierced through several shadows and apparitions that flew and pounced at her with her sword.

As the blade connected with their bodies, pained, gloomy wails echoed down the eerie corridors.

Her sword tore through the darkness with an intense silver light, leaving behind silver arcs of energy that burnt through the shadows.

The arc of silver light pierced through a shadow, causing it to explode in an instant. Its dark blood, like ink, splashed down onto the floor.

With each slash, the arc of silver would slash across the walls, leaving deep cuts on the peeling wallpaper.

Jiangli’s body phased down the corridor rapidly, and wherever she passed, she would tear through a shadowy apparition one after another with ease.

There was no hesitation nor panic with every single step of hers.

Her blade was sharp, precise, and graceful. On the tip of her blade dripped a poisonous liquid – even Gods will writhe in pain when coming into contact with a Hydra’s poison.

Silver light continued to zip-zap down the hallway like shooting stars.In just a short amount of time, she reached the end of the corridor, and the few remaining shadows huddled in the corner, trembling and hesitating with their moves.

These poor shadows that were surely controlled by greater, more powerful urban legends, may be deadly to ordinary people, but to true psychics, they were nothing but pesky mosquitoes.

However, this is just a trial. An assessment.

The dark shadows that shrouded the corridor still remained close to the wall, and Jiangli knows that the true culprit was still hiding in the shadows.

She turned away from the fearful shadows and de-manifested her blade. She glanced at the darkness surrounding her with ice-cold eyes.

“Show yourself!”

However, nothing answered. Instead, her mobile phone vibrated in her pocket.

It seems like the file has finally been decrypted.

She silently took out her phone and tapped on the decrypted document.

You don’t want me to look into the file, and yet, you refuse to show yourself, she grumbled inwardly. I’ll show you who’s the one in charge here.

As the contents of the file loaded, her eyes widened.

She thought that such a guarded document would contain something important, but never would she expect several diary entries and audio files displayed on her screen instead.

Frowning, she tapped on the first diary entry.

[May 22

The King stopped eating, and his weight gain is severely hindered.

He must have heard us discussing about the investment in the pig pen the other day. About turning it into a specimen.

Pigs are smart. They can read faces. Some even understand human speech.

The King must’ve understood our conversation the other day. When I came to see it, its eyes rolled, and it smiled at me. Pigs don’t smile – that I know, but… it bared its canines at me, like it was taunting me. Like I was nothing but prey.]

The King? She frowned as she tapped out of the entry. She remembered running into a specimen labelled as [The King], and deduced that the empty aquarium-sized contained must be prepared for the pig.

Pondering, she opened the first audio file, and it was immediately apparent that it was two men arguing with one another.

“…I told you that something is wrong with that formula that came out-of-nowhere, didn’t I?! We’re lucky that nothing happened in the first few days!”

“Shut up! I got this formula from North of Tibet – without it, do you really think we can compete with the pigs of Hope Meat? Do you think we’ll have a pig as big as the one we have now? Do you think we’ll receive any sponsorships with no pigs fit enough for the King of Pigs?”

“A formula consisting of animal corpses and metals you can’t even name if your life depended on it!” the other man seemed to sigh. “You do realize they will end up eating us if they don’t get enough of this, right?”

“But it’s magic, no? The pigs are well-fed.”

Jiangli frowned. This sounds like a product of alchemy, with the mention of unknown metals. This must be what was in the pig’s feed.

As she continued to piece together the story, she felt that the shadows seemed to close in on her. Something moved in the darkness, and waves of psychic energy seemed to inch closer and closer, as if they wanted to stop her from learning too much.

Jiangli snorted. She willed her body to tremble slightly, and a mirage of a horse with fur as white as the moon was brought forward. Immediately, the suffocating stench of the shadows disappeared instantly, and she tapped on the next diary entry.

[June 17

Even for such a small investment deal, the factory director insisted on being alone. How ridiculous!

I hope everyone continues to believe that we have some sort of special scientific research going on, because I can’t believe something this ridiculous happened – sending somebody over to steal our formula? How ridiculous!

Did I mention how ridiculous it has been the past few days? That little thief fell into The King’s pig feed and died.

No, maybe he didn’t die from the fall, but when we found him, he was already dead. Ridiculous.

It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?

I told the factory director that we should stop feeding the pigs this stuff. Pigs never forget the taste of meat on their tongue.]

Jiangli was about to tap into the second audio file when a low growl came from the other end of the corridor – it sounded like a wild boar that breathed heavily.

The next moment, the cold, office floor of the corridor sparked with intense heat, and a squeal tore through the deadly silence.

A huge body could be heard stomping towards her in the darkness, and each step of its disgusting feet shook the very foundations of the building.

Jiangli immediately summoned her sword and slashed away. The arc of light collided with something sturdy in the darkness, as if she had hit metal and stone.

The urban legend revealed its deadly maw, and Jiangli continued to feed it a healthy serving of silver light.

Imbuing herself with power, she rose into the air, and her silver armor shifted dramatically. The moment she landed back on the floor, her lower body was no longer human, but the muscular body of a horse.

As her hooves hit the ground, azure blue and silver arcs of energy intertwined with a windy power, blowing away the filthy shadows that tried to surround her.

However, at this moment, a warm current rose up in her body, and the Black Sun Totem tattoo etched into her back began to glow with a faint light.

She froze as she felt this, and she felt her psychic energy becoming stagnant. In the next moment, a rusty iron hook shot out from the darkness and slammed straight into her.

Her breastplate became dented as she flew backwards from the impact. Her body crashed straight through a wall, and she fell out of the building in a mystical silver light as she tumbled onto the open space in front of the office building.

Thud!

Enduring the pain, she stood up once again with a green face. Her lips stained red with blood caused her to feel strange.

She could feel the tattoo creeping on her back, like a spider, making her feel uneasy.

Somebody from the Eclipse Society is here. A ritual…

Her eyes widened as her psychic senses picked up something terrifying – she could sense that the seals that sealed the slaughterhouse away have been dispelled, and her fingertips unconsciously tapped on the mourning owl badge hidden underneath her armor.

Even if she was punished and reprimanded by the Night Division for acting without permission, it is better than letting those damn cretins from the Eclipse Society get away with it.

If they succeed with their ritual, something as dangerous as a Level A threat or greater will be born through the polluted, corrupted lands of the slaughterhouse, just like what she once experienced.

After all, only a few people like her have withstood the erosion of the night to become psychics. Most turn insane and become living urban legends, forever tied to the original legend.

“Damn it! Fuck! Shit! What the fuck?!”

Just as she was about to tap on her badge, she could hear shouting from a distance.

Looking at the source of the sound, she saw a young girl carrying a muscular man who was two times bigger than her with one hand as she leapt from roof to roof, leaving behind afterimages with how fast she was moving. Looking closer, she could see the girl throwing something at the three gargantuan beasts that seemed to be chasing them.

With each throw, a purple-black smoke would rise from their bodies, and the beasts would stagger.

“Isn’t that…?” Jiangli’s eyes were covered with a layer of psychic energy as she trained in closer at the girl’s hand. “Disaster Liquid? How…?”

Where did she get this much Disaster from?

With such a large amount of Disaster, she is no buyer, but a producer…

Something is wrong with her!

She could feel something looming over her as a huge gust of wind rushed over her, and looking up, she could see a half-human, half-pig figure covered with tumorous boils falling from the office building, unleashing a large iron hook towards her.

She hurriedly rolled to her side in a panic, and the hook pierced and plowed through the ground, leaving deep scars in the earth.

…

Zhang Dexian glanced at Lu Yibei, who seemed to toss an endless amount of Disaster Liquid towards the urban legends chasing them. Dexian was filled with disgust, and even the other urban legends were dumbfounded.

Why is she throwing away her money? God, I hate rich people. They disgust me! He thought.

“What the fuck are you looking at?!” she yelled as she landed on another roof. “I thought you said you needed time to unleash your ultimate move! Would be nice if you could do it, like right now, since I’ve been running away for ten minutes now! Aren’t you the invincible man¹? What happened to real men?”

“Okay… uh, I’m ready, I’m ready!” Dexian seemed to come out of his shock and blurted out.

However, before he could finish speaking, she stopped, turned around, and after bracing herself, tossed him straight towards the beasts.

“Alright! Go ahead, big muscle hunk!”

?!

I thought we were friends! I didn’t expect you to-

His muscular body fell in an arc, and feeling the impending doom beneath him, he came back to his senses and took out his fully charged Vajra, and stabbed through his own chest.

Stab! Stab! Stab!

After three consecutive stabs of the Vajra, golden lightning seemed to pulse and burst out of the wounds, filling the air with dazzling light.

Seeing Zhang Dexian, who seemed like the God of Thunder descending from the Heavens, she nodded with satisfaction.

Alright! We’ll split the credit! I get 80%, and he gets 20%. I did most of the work here!

TRANSLATOR NOTES:

Note 1, from ‘…aren’t you the invincible man?’: Original translation here is the Chinese equivalent of a John Doe, or Ex-Machina, or plot armor, or protagonist, or OP cheat code, etc. Didn’t think it fit well so I adjusted the TL.

I love Jiangli’s need to uncover secrets, I also enjoy the bureaucratic theme behind the Night Division (kind of reminds me of SCP :p). As always, if you’d like to support me in any way, feel free to do so at https://ko-fi.com/slicedbreadsbakery, any amount helps support this translation!