2050th cycle.
I try to block the move of Upper by attempting the Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens applied ultimate technique, Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception.
But it is impossible.
'In that brief span...he evolved...!'
When he first used Hope.
The Future King and I were facing each other with our main bodies for the first time, and Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens was also a technique that had only recently been completed.
Therefore, through Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens, I could defer Hope for a moment.
And because I could defer the final ultimate technique Hope, I thought I could let flow or deter other decisive moves as much as I like.
It was a delusion.
As if it is no lie that he grasped Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens to a certain extent in that short time, his Emptiness Sword evolves in an instant, digs into the gaps of Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens, and hounds me tenaciously.
If he uses Hope once again, I have no doubt that I will be chased down in an instant and be killed.
That's right.
He is still only playing with us.
"Your ultimate technique was one that evolves to any extent in order to survive, was it not...?"
Remembering the attribute of the Void Sword, I look at the evolution of the Emptiness Sword.
With only that brief thought, I am already at the 2100th cycle.
'If I keep wasting time like this, Hong Fan's prophecy will come true.'
With an opponent who evolves near-infinitely in an instant as my enemy, how do I face him?
It is simple.
'I too must evolve.'
However, I know myself well.
With only my own strength, I am always nothing more than a miserable senile old man.
What has always helped me grow is...
"Seo Eun-hyun!!"
Clench!
The moment of death.
At that time when I regress again and cross over time.
There is a hand grabbing my shoulder.
A god of golden light, with wings of light.
It is Kim Young-hoon.
In Kim Young-hoon's other hand, from Jeon Myeong-hoon to Oh Hye-seo.
All my comrades are all linked together and are following my regression together.
No complicated words are needed.
"Use it!"
That one phrase is enough.
With that phrase, Kim Young-hoon turns golden and begins to be sucked into the Impermanence Sword.
In that moment, I evolve by one step.
Tsuaaaat!
The principle of Sword God Dance naturally draws in Kim Young-hoon and settles him in my blade.
At the same time, I become a light faster than anything.
—Golden Great Thousand World.
Paatt!
'Only now...'
Only by borrowing the Martial Pinnacle that Kim Young-hoon reached can I finally contain it within these eyes.
I am given the bare minimum of time to react toward the decisive move of Upper that chases Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens!
The Impermanence Sword crashes toward Upper, lets the power of Upper directly flow, reads the true intent contained in that technique, and shatters it.
'Not yet, a frontal breakthrough with my Martial Arts is still impossible.'
If so, I borrow.
Humans are weak.
Because they are weak, they make weapons, make civilizations, make societies, and at last make connections.
The light of the Impermanence Sword, which has turned golden, changes once more and spews a golden radiance.
Gold is added to gold.
—Splitting Emperor Splitting Heaven.
—Annihilation Advancement Mu.
My sword becomes a golden spear and opposes the black Emptiness Sword.
With speed by Kim Young-hoon's soul, with destructive power by Gwak Am's last will, squeezing out all strength, I push back Upper.
At last.
Jjeooooong!
Light explodes, and the Impermanence Sword and the Emptiness Sword explode.
Gikikikik—
I get shoved far back by the rebound force.
However, in the end the recoil loses its strength, and I come to a stop in place.
"I too will evolve."
I will not be the only who stops in place!
And, at my declaration, Hong Fan speaks a single phrase with emotionless eyes.
"If devouring the spirits of your companions to grow is evolution, then it is evolution."
"..."
"Do not be ashamed. For that is originally your talent."
"...My talent...?"
I let out a hollow laugh.
"What a joke. Isn't my talent the lack of talent?"
Wooooo—
With empty eyes, he speaks.
At his following words, I cannot help but flinch.
"Rather, I want to ask. I clearly gifted you the Heavenly Devil Body (天魔之體). When the Absolute fragment you received descends to the Plane of Qi, the body is not something as simple as the stubborn Seo Eun-hyun."
"..."
At those words, I look at him and speak.
"If that is true, shouldn't I have been noticed right away by the Devilish sect, the Black Ghost Valley...?"
"If you had learned devilish arts even once properly. If there had been even one time you sacrificed others with an unburdened heart to accumulate your realm, the talent of the Devilish would have awakened and you surely would have noticed. Your talent is one that can devour and rule over the myriad devils. Only, the one who did not learn devilish arts is you."
At those words that are like thunder in a blue sky, I am dumbfounded.
'...That kind of talent...was in me...?'
The answer comes right away.
"It was. I am the one who bestowed it, how could I forget?"
"..."
"The very fact that you so joyfully learned the Star Extinguishing True Chapter, and the fact that you learned the Phenomena Extinguishing Mantra so quickly, is proof. For both are methods and mantras worthy to vie for the seat of the strongest, worst, and greatest devilish art."
"...What are you...? The Phenomena Extinguishing Mantra is..."
"It is the highest devilish art. How the Phenomena Extinguishing Mantra can be used so viciously, did Gwak Am not prove it? Did your senior brother not properly teach you its usage?"
—I S H A L L T E A C H Y O U P R O P E R L Y.
'That usage back then...'
At Hong Fan's continuing words, I cannot help but make a bitter smile.
"..."
"And the Star Extinguishing True Chapter likewise is a powerful devilish cultivation method not inferior to that. You must surely remember. That cultivation of severing connection...did you not learn it most joyfully and happily?"
That is so.
At that time, I surely practiced the cultivation of severing connection with great pleasure.
16th cycle.
I keep practicing the cultivation of Cutting Principle.
The practice targets are, of course, the devilish cultivators of Red Moon Island who keep bothering me.
Shwikak!
Starting from those who keep making requests to me, to those who put in requests to Makli Cheon-sa.
Every time numerous devilish cultivators come, I, through Cutting Principle, disarray their hearts regarding the relationship they tied to me.
"Hmm...that Seo guy... For some reason, I don't want to bother him today. Fine. Farewell, I will go to another fellow."
A cultivator at the early Nascent Soul stage, who came looking for me every day to put in a request to Makli Cheon-sa and to pester me, stopped bothering me the moment he was hit once by Cutting Principle.
Others are the same.
All those who formed a shallow connection with me, one by one, began to lose interest in me due to Cutting Principle.
Of course, as a countereffect, their interest shifted to another.
It is Hong Fan.
"You Hong rascal! Did I not tell you to deliver the letter to Great Person Makli!?"
"You Hong punk! Did you deliver well the gift to Great Person Makli?"
"Hong brat, why do you not come running promptly!?"
"Brother Hong, though as human and demon our races are different, if it is Brother Hong who is close to the Transformation stage and trusted by Great Person Makli, I can even introduce my daughter to you."
"Hmph, merely a daughter? I can even offer our aunt! She has not married, but that is all because she focuses on cultivation, so now she is at the Grand Perfection Core Formation stage!"
"Everyone, get lost! Hong Orabeoni is mine!"
"Great Person Hong! My friend was eaten by the demon beasts of Great Person Makli! Please save him!"
At some point, Hong Fan took on the role of Makli Cheon-sa's close aide in my stead and almost replaced the place of 'Seo Eun-hyun' in the eyes of others.
What's more, because he even handles matters better than I do, all I have to do is organize the tasks Hong Fan handles and bring them before Makli Cheon-sa's cave residence.
As I practice Cutting Principle, my presence gradually grows faint, and Hong Fan's presence soars.
I am able to focus even more on cultivation and search for a way to undo the curse of lightning.
Kiiiiiiing—
I press my palms together and feel will gathering between my hands.
'Gradually...I am getting a sense of how to cut down what is called the heart.'
If I look at it broadly, can't this also be seen as a Heart Sword?
No, perhaps in truth the meaning of the term Heart Sword fits this side even better.
'To think the Heart Sword is merely the basics of cultivation, truly...'
I let out a hollow laugh as I feel the absurd difficulty of the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.
I do not know who created the method called the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.
But what is certain is, this was clearly not made for mortal beings to learn.
'A transcendent...is it a method at the level of True Immortals?'
However, even to call it a method at the level of True Immortals is strange, as it states that one star can produce only the power of the Qi Refining stage.
Why would a True Immortal ever need power at the level of Qi Refining?
'Well...it doesn't matter anyway.'
I continue practicing the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.
Among its parts, as I continue the cultivation of Cutting Principle, there is something I can feel.
It is precisely the fact that this method called the Star Extinguishing True Chapter suits me quite well.
'It's easy to learn.'
Each and every cultivation procedure of the method goes straight into my head, and the way of cultivation suits me far too well.
'The sublimation of the three combinations of the Wonderfully Mysterious Innate Heart Canon, the Record of Transcending Cultivation and Exhausting Martial Arts, and the Formless Sword is this very cultivation method of Cutting Principle.'
That is to say, for those who have not learned those three, this is difficult to learn, but for an existence who has learned the three beforehand, learning Cutting Principle is not particularly difficult.
The more I perform the divine power of Cutting Principle, the more I can see my progress surging forward, so how could it not be fun?
With a very delighted heart, I keep learning the method.
Until now, including martial arts, I have never thought I have much talent in the entirety of Immortal Cultivation methods.
But at least for this thing called the Star Extinguishing True Chapter, I feel I have talent.
'So I too have a field...in which I have talent.'
To dig into a field one has talent truly seems to be a fun thing.
And finally, when I cut down everyone on Red Moon Island who more or less knows me and cut away everyone who formed shallow connections with me.
Kurung, kurururung!
At last, the day approaches.
Makli Cheon-sa challenges the Heavenly Being stage advancement.
Kururururung!
Clouds draw over the sky.
The ominous clouds that will bring down Heavenly Tribulation are sending out the omen right before they cast down heavenly lightning.
Urung, ururung!
I watch that Heavenly Tribulation and listen to Hong Fan's counsel.
"It is today."
"...Right."
All the shallow connections on Red Moon Island are severed.
Now it is time to cut down a slightly stronger connection.
'If it is Makli Cheon-sa, who possesses the Great Sea Eye divine power...performing Cutting Principle by ambush is impossible.'
I must aim for a proper opportunity and sever the connection clearly.
'And by severing the connection toward a cultivator at a high realm, I can explore the essence of an even deeper connection...'
As preparation to sever the connection with the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment, the optimal course is to perform the cultivation of severing connections during the period of Heavenly Tribulation.
"Hong Fan, you are holding the bindings over the demon beasts, right?"
"Yes. Proceed without worry."
"..."
I move forward in silence.
In the distance, I see Makli Cheon-sa rising under the gloomy clouds.
I see countless demon souls rising around her.
They seem to be the spirits of the demon beasts she raised.
Woo-wooooooong!
The spirits of the demon beasts vary widely from Qi Refining to Core Formation, and those innumerable spirits, linked to each other, concentrate their power into a single existence at the center.
Makli Cheon-sa gathers the power of the demon souls that form a circular formation centered on her and supply her with strength, and, revealing an overwhelming might, she begins to shout toward the sky.
Outwardly, she clearly bears the appearance of a human woman.
Yet within her shout, it seems as if the roars of countless demon beasts burst out together.
At the same time, Heavenly Tribulation begins to fall.
Kwarururung!
"Alright, Hong Fan. Here I go...!"
While she is too occupied facing the Heavenly Tribulation head-on.
Aiming for that gap, I thrust in Cutting Principle.
'...I am sorry.'
I feel a twinge of guilt toward Makli Cheon-sa as I fly toward her.
I know it myself.
As long as the connection between the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment and me remains this strong,
Those related to me may suffer some vicious misfortune at the hands of the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment.
Over the past few years, living alongside Makli Cheon-sa, I came to know that although she is a figure of the devilish path, she is not of the same extreme evil as Yuan Li or the Makli Clan.
Therefore, if I rather intend to protect Makli Cheon-sa who has become my connection, it is more right to sever the connection between us now.
Moreover, it is clearly a relationship only formed on the surface, she taught me almost nothing, and even the little she taught was to make use of me.
There is barely any affection, and she is merely a transactional partner, but still, a teacher is a teacher.
'I...will never forget you.'
One way or another, today.
It will be the first time that I, before my master, sever the connection as a disciple.
I deeply engrave her figure into the Canvas of Myriad Forms and Connections, swear to never forget, and prepare Cutting Principle.
[Is it betrayal?]
Is it because she reads the celestial energy that I intend to attack?
With a cold voice, Makli Cheon-sa begins to form a hand seal within the Heavenly Tribulation.
"...I am sorry. However, it will not interfere with your Heavenly Tribulation, so please forgive me."
[Hmph, as long as you hold the status of my disciple, you and I are both devilish cultivators. What those of the Devilish Path speak, even the same Devilish Path does not believe.]
Woo-woooong!
From her hand seal, a powerful spiritual wave spreads out and then changes into a familiar signal.
She commands her own tamed demon beasts.
[Attack Seo Eun-hyun!]
Kugugugugu!
Like a swarm of bees, demon beasts burst from Makli Cheon-sa's cave residence and begin to roar.
Among them are Oh Saek, the Five-Colored Shadow Cat demon beast at the early Nascent Soul, and Wol Rang, a Celestial Dog Race demon beast at the mid Nascent Soul.
It is practically a situation where I must endure the simultaneous assault of several cultivators of the same level!
Moreover, even the binding for controlling demon beasts, which I linked to myself to manage the demon beasts on behalf of Makli Cheon-sa, goes into a fit and comes in to reverse-erode me.
Kaang!
However, since I transferred most of the authority and function of the bindings to Hong Fan, I undo the seal without issue and block the reverse corrosion.
In that state, I begin to use Cutting Principle.
'In any case, I wouldn't have been able to use Cutting Principle directly at Makli Cheon-sa from the beginning.'
The first targets are the demon beasts.
The ones I tended with utmost care for several years...
The fellows I accumulated far more affection with than Makli Cheon-sa's followers on Red Moon Island.
Shwikak!
Cutting Principle flies toward the three-headed python demon beast.
The demon beast lets out a scream, but soon in its gaze toward me, emotions such as killing intent and old affection and the like vanish all at once.
Now the reason it attacks me is simply because of Makli Cheon-sa's order!
Woo-wooooong!
"Heaven Dao Nascent Soul"
The Nascent Soul built with the Heaven Dao method resonates.
"Earth Dao Nascent Soul"
The Nascent Soul built with demon beast methods merges completely with the Heaven Dao Nascent Soul and amplifies strength.
"Formless Sword."
Upon the Heaven-and-Earth Nascent Soul, the energy of the Formless Sword overlays.
I feel the three powers complement one another and the power surge fiercely.
'It's become solid.'
The strength of my Nascent Soul becomes in effect equal to that of a Grand Perfection Heavenly Being stage cultivator's Nascent Soul, allowing me to draw out immense spiritual power at once.
Kugugugu!
I receive the assault of the demon beast horde.
I evade with Record of Transcending Cultivation and Exhausting Martial Arts, deflect with Formless Sword, and, along with the Azure Spirit Starlight Quintessence Great Method, I actively apply the Wonderfully Mysterious Innate Heart Canon and demon beast methods to shake off the demon beast horde with my bare body.
And I keep subduing their minds through Cutting Principle, severing their ties with me.
The lower-realm demon beasts have their ties with me snap away in an instant, and even the higher-realm demon beasts have their ties cut one by one.
What remains now are only Wol Rang of the Celestial Dog Race and Oh Saek of the Five-Colored Shadow Cat Race.
[Kururururu!]
Wol Rang casts off the Transformation form, transforms into a sprawling white dog, and howls.
[Kwoooooooar!]
The Celestial Dog that drinks in the moonlight charges.
Meeting eyes with that house-sized dog, I, in a single moment, simultaneously unfold the Wonderfully Mysterious Innate Heart Canon, Record of Transcending Cultivation and Exhausting Martial Arts, and the Formless Sword.
In an instant Wol Rang's spirit is suppressed, and beyond the suppressed spirit, the divine power of Cutting Principle flies again.
Chukwagak!
Wol Rang faints on the spot and the connection with me is cut, and I, left with the last one, meet eyes with Oh Saeok, who still maintains the Transformation form.
She of the Spirit Cat Race, perhaps probing me, does not easily rush in.
Instead, she only asks a question.
[Why did you betray Master?]
"...It is not betrayal. Among the demon beasts I touched, are there any who died?"
[How would I know? Maybe with some bizarre divine power you planted gu poison in their bellies, or left a prohibition or brand on their minds to lay some curse.
[I know very well you are someone skilled in curses, so you think I'll believe your words?]
"..."
[No need to know the before and after. Just looking at the current situation makes it all too clear, traitor.]
"...I have no excuse."
I put on a bitter smile at this very situation where, one way or another, I must sever ties with my master.
But in the end, it is a necessary.
'I must sever the tie.'
At least, in this lifetime.
'So that no longer. So that I no longer harm anyone precious...I must sever the tie, to be able to move on to the next.'
I must save Jeon Myeong-hoon and the Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder Sect someday.
If I am not to let Jeon Myeong-hoon go mad and become a slaughter devil, I must also resolve the Heavenly Lightning Banner.
'If I leave the Heavenly Lightning Banner alone, it will someday bring again that monstrous True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment.'
I cannot let it be like that.
'I also need a way to cut connections. What must be cut, I must surely cut, so that Zhengli and the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment...do not annihilate Jeon Myeong-hoon and the Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder Sect!'
So that Jeon Myeong-hoon does not become a slaughter devil and, trying to save Yeon Jin who was my friend, wretchedly go mad.
"I have my circumstances. I cannot make you understand."
If they are spoken aloud, they come.
That is the trait of True Immortals.
"Therefore, I will only remember you."
[What are you babbling, you cowardly traitor?]
Oh Saek raises her claws and rushes in human form.
Kiriririk—
She is a powerful Nascent Soul stage demon beast.
But to I whose Heaven, Earth, and Heart have all reached the Nascent Soul stage, or a realm equivalent to it, she cannot compare.
Paatt!
Suppressing Oh Seak in an instant, I place my hand over her heart and speak.
"I will not forget you. I am sorry."
Flash!
Her figure is recorded in the Canvas of Myriad Forms and Connections, and Cutting Principle cuts the connection between me and her.
The hatred in her heart, which has been full toward me the betrayer, subsides in an instant.
With her spirit subdued by me, she closes her eyes and mutters a single line.
"...Damn...servant."
Since she is a cat demon beast, perhaps she perceived me as no more than a servant who brings food.
Yet, however it may be, I feel that in her own way she treated me very closely.
A bitterness I never felt for all the others with whom I weaved shallow ties, after cutting my connection with her, surges all too strongly.
"..."
At the same time, within that bitterness, I can see something else.
'This is...?'
It is a net.
Tsaaaaaat—
Star Extinguishing True Chapter, 1st layer.
I thought it was a foolish method that at most granted power at the Qi Refining level.
'It wasn't...'
The more I carry out the cultivation of Cutting People, the more I become alone.
Standing purely and alone in this world, I gradually see the essence of the world itself.
'A net...?'
I feel an unknown shiver as I think that the laws that make up the essence of this world faintly appear in the form of a net.
I can tell instinctively.
At the first layer of the Star Extinguishing True Chapter, things like the Qi Refining cultivation are merely a bonus that follows.
The true essence of the first layer of the Star Extinguishing True Chapter is this [eye].
It does not appear clearly, and it appears endlessly hazy.
Even that feels so distant it makes me think it is just a delusion, but...
Surely, the world overlaps with some kind of [net].
And where that [net] acts upon most directly is...
"Heavenly Tribulation...?"
It is the Heavenly Punishment itself that falls straight down from that sky upon Makli Cheon-sa.
They say that somewhere beyond that sky there is a god called Indra.
That god's net is called Indra's Net, and it is a symbol that shows everything in this world is connected, and it is said to be the very form of this world's Law of Causality.
For a Heaven-Defying One such as a cultivator, passing sentence in the form of correct divine providence is precisely the Law of Causality, precisely Heavenly Tribulation.
I know it instinctively.
If the god called Indra truly exists, that being is a god as closely tied to that Heavenly Tribulation as the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment who cursed me.
'No, perhaps...they might even be the same being.'
Let's not think.
The more I think of True Immortals, the more they are called.
I cut the connection with Oh Saek. and I begin to approach Makli Cheon-sa, who is advancing to the Heavenly Being stage within the Heavenly Punishment, to cut the connection with a teacher for the first time.
Makli Cheon-sa's eyes are full of anger, but she cannot flee from me or change the location to a favorable terrain.
[Your fighting strength is quite good, but you are not considering me on the same level as my demon beasts, are you?]
"...I am sorry, Master. It will end in a fleeting instant."
Though normally we call each other fellow cultivators, at least for now I decide to call her Master.
Tststststststs!
I raise the power of the Formless Sword and once more prepare the divine power of Cutting Principle.
Oooooooo—
The countless demon souls around her that supply her power howl and begin to amplify her power like an active volcano.
Surely, though she is clearly a cultivator of the Grand Perfection Nascent Soul stage who is advancing to the Heavenly Being stage, her power reaches a level comparable to a mid-to-late Heavenly Being stage cultivator.
'As expected, in a frontal clash I am certain to be defeated.'
Even if I possess the strength to leap over realms...
Even that is only to a certain extent.
Makli Cheon-sa too is someone who ascended from the Head Realm, a veteran powerhouse of a hundred battles.
Moreover, she is a woman of terrifying talent who, wandering as one of the Mountain and Rivers, reached the Nascent Soul stage.
'The opportunities she obtained are not just one or two, and the experience she accumulated is not to be taken lightly.'
Then there is only one thing I can do.
Kiiiiing!
When the divine power of Cutting Principle is prepared to its peak.
At last, my eyes gleam as I call forth my highest fighting power.
"Come forth, [General Seo]!"
Below.
The wooden box that Hong Fan kept on standby opens, and from there a gigantic shadow appears and begins to suck in the Heaven and Earth spiritual energy of the area.
As for the power source, I had neither time nor connections to procure one...
Even so, it is a work that allows to manifest the power of a Four-Axis stage cultivator for an instant.
Clickclickclickclickclick—
[General Seo] opens its mouth and prepares a Four-Axis level beam cannon.
Makli Cheon-sa, perhaps recognizing that, has her eyes go wide. Grinding her teeth, she begins to draw up every power, whether she has it or not.
I feel her draw upon true essence and even consume her lifespan in ten-year chunks.
But in the end, it is useless.
Flash!
[General Seo]'s beam cannon envelops Makli Cheon-sa who is facing the Heavenly Tribulation, and I seize that moment to unleash the divine power of Cutting Principle.
The line of Cutting Principle pierces the Heavenly Tribulation and reaches Makli Cheon-sa, boring through the power deep within her spirit.
'Ahh...'
Only now that I can see the [net] do I understand.
How a connection is composed, and in what manner it can be cut.
Even if I cannot know the true principle completely, I become able to internalize the 'knack' of how a person's heart cuts and attaches connections.
Chwaaak!
The faint affection, trust, hatred, sense of betrayal, and such that Makli Cheon-sa holds toward me are cleanly cut away.
Because she is facing the Heavenly Tribulation, I do not suppress her spirit. I only cut the connection and halt [General Seo]'s attack.
Of course, even with that brief beam cannon, nearly eight-tenths of the spirit stones I embed in [General Seo] are exhausted, so there is hardly any power left anyway.
[Kk...uuughh...]
Just from that brief attack, Makli Cheon-sa becomes a hideous sight with not only her defensive dharma treasure and the treasure garment she wears stripped away, but even her skin peeled.
Even in that state, she still withstands the Heavenly Tribulation.
Looking at her, nearly having lost her reason, I offer a bow of the head toward her from midair.
"Thank you for everything up to now."
Knowing what I have done, I cannot bring myself to utter the word master any longer, and of course I cannot call her fellow Daoist either.
I simply offer a brief greeting.
"Cultivator Makli."
The connection with Makli Cheon-sa is cut as well.
Even while having lost reason, Makli Cheon-sa is expending her true origin as she blocks the Heavenly Tribulation, reaching the Heavenly Being stage.
From her spirit eye, the Great Sea Eyes, a powerful force surges up, and a blue protective barrier like a wave-crashing great sea supports her.
I do not know how she obtained such a postnatal spirit eye, but judging by the ability of the spirit eye she displays, it does not seem to lose something like the Heavenly Golden Thunder Body or the Ghostly Yin Transformation Immortal Root.
I turn around.
From behind comes the sound of her Heavenly Tribulation nearing its end.
Listening to that Heavenly Tribulation, for some reason, I feel that the power of Indra's Net...
That the power of connection resembles Heavenly Tribulation far too much.
'To sever connections...is it to sever Heavenly Tribulation?'
If so, is this Star Extinguishing True Chapter treating connection the same as Heavenly Tribulation?
Or is the Heavenly Tribulation itself merely another manifestation of connection?
'But...if connection is Heavenly Tribulation and suffering, why does the severing of connection bring a pain stronger than the pain of undergoing Heavenly Tribulation...'
Is connection itself Heavenly Tribulation?
Or is the severing of connection Heavenly Tribulation?
Amid those peculiar topics, sensing the pain given by the loss of connection, I perceive the [Net] that composes this world.
That is, as I feel my eyes that see the world's Law of Causality becoming a little clearer, I begin preparations to leave Red Moon Island.
Present.
Flash!
2101st cycle.
I perceive once again that I have settled into a new time point.
But before there is any chance to settle into the new time point, Hong Fan grasps the void.
Shiver!
All of us realize within that [grasping] act what he has grasped.
—Immortal Cultivation is not a stage where one learns Immortal Art.
Immortal Cultivation itself...is someone's Immortal Art.
Master once said such a thing.
Yes.
Immortal Cultivation is someone's Immortal Art.
And according to what we have investigated until now...
That someone is none other than the First Radiance Supreme Deity.
That's right.
The being before our eyes is the Owner of Immortal Cultivation.
Kuuung!
The spiritual power, the Heaven and Earth spiritual energy, the authorities, the divine powers we have accumulated...
In an instant, all of it briefly stops.
However, at that very moment.
Pachijijijijik...!
Red lightning surges.
And the lightning engulfs us and weaves some kind of net.
: : I...in the name of the Owner of Heavenly Punishment...command. : :
Pajik, pajijijijik...!
Jeon Myeong-hoon, whose hope was directly broken by Hong Fan and whose face is dyed with terror, even while his body trembles in fear, stretches his hand into the void.
: : The Law of Causality...shall judge the Owner of Heaven-Defiance...! : :
—Red Lightning Heavenly Tribulation.
—Indra's Net.
Kwarurururung!
The surrounding space transforms into a world of nets made of heavenly lightning.
At the same time, the Law of Causality, which until now has obediently been sucked only into Hong Fan's Darkness World, starts to rampage madly and resist.
: : While facing Do Gon...I received an enlightenment regarding...the root of Heavenly Punishment. : :
Pachijik...!
Lightning flows in his eyes.
: : The essence of lightning is an instant. Our lives are also an instant. Within that instant, what Yin and Yang tie together is precisely connection. Therefore...the essence of Heavenly Tribulation is connection. : :
He is clearly trembling.
Yet even so, he is clearly uttering what he has to say toward Hong Fan.
: : And connection acting as tribulation...is Immortal Cultivation. Thus, O Owner of Immortal Cultivation! : :
Ururururung!
From his throat, a powerful divine power begins to burst out.
: : Is your Immortal Cultivation...resistance against connection...!? : :
—Thunderous Voice Rebukes the Non-Human (雷聲叱非人)!
The peal of thunder scolds the extreme of the Non-human Heretical Path (非人外道) existing before our eyes.
: : Just how in the world can you think that the connections that link person to person...are wrong!? : :
Kurururung!
The power of Indra's Net becomes the clapping of thunder and lightning and engulfs Hong Fan.
However, after a short while, that power of thunder and lightning is, in an instant, drawn into the darkness that unfolds centered on Hong Fan.
It is sucked into the Darkness World.
"If so, are connections right?"
A voice echoes from within the darkness.
"Immortal Cultivation is the highest mantra created by taking and developing the enlightenment of severing connection from the Darkness World."
Deep within the darkness.
He floats the Origin Essence of Light above his left hand.
That figure seems as if he is the sole god shining alone within the darkness.
"If one seeks to stand purely alone and become complete, is that wrong?"
: : What...? : :
"O child who wields Heavenly Punishment. I ask you. Do you, when you reach that realm, truly need connections?"
: : Of cour— : :
"Connections are something you can make when needed. Even without connections, you are already whole in and of yourselves. Truly, do you need connections?"
At those words of the Owner of Immortal Cultivation, who holds light in his hand and looks down on us with emotionless eyes, I slowly let out a single sentence.
"O God of the Heavens. Do you...regard connections as suffering?"
An answer returns as silence.
It means affirmation.
And, through that affirmation...
I at last become able to glimpse a part of the final objective of the Future King.
"O Future King. Do you...seek to create a world where connections do not exist...?"
A world without connection, without emotion, without miracles.
And at the same time, a world without any pain.
"Yes. A Heaven where only hope alone fills all."
Kugugugugugu!
The Audience Chamber begins to twist.
At the same time, the darkness shrouding the vicinity of the Audience Chamber begins to lift.
The Origin Essence of Light held in Hong Fan's hand sweeps away the darkness and begins to illuminate the surroundings of the Audience Chamber.
"A world in which one advances toward what one hopes for, not with a painful heart, but with cool-headed reason alone"
Gradually, the [below] of the Audience Chamber is revealed.
It is chaos.
It is the Outer Sea that we know well.
Inside that Outer Sea, something in the shape of an inverted cone is visible.
It is Mount Sumeru.
And inside that Mount Sumeru, something is seen.
An existence being born by the overlapping of countless timelines.
The gigantic [Baby].
And from the sea of chaos that covers that [Baby], and the boundary of Cakravāda that covers that sea.
I see the boundary of Nothingness.
The Audience Chamber is a world that sits in the middle of that boundary of Nothingness.
And I realize that from the Audience Chamber, I can observe [Outside] the boundary of Cakravāda.
The appearance of this world of Mount Sumeru as seen from the Audience Chamber...
It feels like a single 'egg'.
"This world is the [Cradle of Chaos]. The egg where the Creator God is born. The Conception Palace of Omnipotence. Land not yet created. A Gestation World where no possibility is yet fixed."
Kugugugugugu!
"In this infinite and empty world of possibilities, opening true creation. In the new world, applying new laws to eliminate what is called the heart. That...is my first objective."
I come to know the true purpose of the Immortal Cultivation system that until now has seemed to erase humanity.
To erase the heart of people, and sublimate every being in this world into an existence saturated only with the desire called hope.
That is one of the purposes of the Black King, who is possessed by the desire to cover the world with hope.
"A twisted desire."
"You have no right to judge."
—Emptiness Sword
—Linked Profundity.
The black power that, when I used it, was nothing more than teeth and claws.
That power flows out in a state of perfect restraint, taking on a soft shape as if ink diffusing into water.
The first form and the second form are linked.
The Origin Essence of Light passes through the light of the Radiance Mantra, suppresses spacetime again, and seals off Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens.
Immediately after, the ink begins to fly toward us.
"O Heaven-Defying One. If you have nothing more to show, then now, as prophesized, close your eyes."
—Devil King.
The gentle ink surges in the form of a vertical stroke, splits the Audience Chamber, splits Mount Sumeru, splits the Outer Sea, and then at the boundary of Cakravāda.
It cleaves this colossal egg itself that is called the [Cradle of Chaos] into halves.
Single strike.
With a single cut, the Heaven Beyond Heavens is split in half.
-x-X-x-
In a far-off past.
In the days when I was nothing more than an ordinary mortal being.
I once saw a Buddhist nun.
That Buddhist nun went around helping people with good deeds even though it brought no benefit.
At times with a shaven head, and at times with grown hair because there was no chance to cut it, she wandered the world and continued her good deeds.
Why was it? That sight of her endlessly helping people...
It also looked as if she craved something.
I asked her what she was seeking, and she answered.
—Dao. I walk the world to obtain the true Dao.
Such a her looked so beautiful to me.
She said that until she attained enlightenment, she would share affection with no one.
And yet, why was it?
Such a thing did not matter.
I, whose blood always boiled and embraced regardless of man or woman, felt that with her, I must not recklessly apply such a measure.
I did everything I could to draw closer to her.
I cut desire out of myself and created everything imaginable.
However, I, to the very end, could not know what the Dao she wanted was.
I could not make what she wanted.
Perhaps...
Even if I devoted my whole life, it felt like it may be my fate to never satisfy her heart.
But even so, it did not matter.
Even if I devoted my life and achieved nothing, it did not matter.
Just once,
If only once, I succeeded in opening the path before her,
A mere life in which I do not even know what the Dao is...
I could throw it all away.
-x-X-x-
16th cycle.
Riding on the back of [General Seo], I feel a powerful being tailing us as I leave Red Moon Island.
Kugugugugu!
It is the owner of the 'gaze' that always watches Red Moon Island.
[Stop.]
The great inspector who oversees and monitors the entire Human Race territory,
The Integration stage Grand Cultivator, Wi Ryeong-seon!
The being who scatters countless clones to watch all the Sky Island areas begins to send his will toward me.
'After the half-step Heavenly Being stage, is it immediately the Integration stage?'
I give a bitter smile, and without even looking back, I immediately spur the Four-Axis stage [General Seo] to accelerate even harder.
Kwagwagwawang!
Only two-tenths of power remain, so attacking is impossible, but moving at the speed of a Four-Axis stage cultivator is possible.
And from far away, a clone of Wi Ryeong-seon flies toward me.
A clone of Heavenly Being stage cultivation!
'Just one clone is a Heavenly Being...that is an Integration stage Grand Cultivator!'
It is a fearsome realm.
Moreover, the Heavenly Being stage clone should carry the enlightenment and battle experience of the Integration stage, so its strength would not fall behind the Four-Axis stage.
[Devilish cultivator Seo Eun-hyun of Red Moon Island, hear this. Because you used the techniques of the Heart Tribe, you must hereby be detained on suspicion of being a Heart Tribe spy. Submit peacefully to the bindings of the Human Race Grand Alliance!]
At the stern cry of Wi Ryeong-seon, I only drive [General Seo] faster.
It seems that as I pierced the Heavenly Tribulation and used Cutting Principle, the Formless Sword briefly revealed itself.
Kugugugugu!
In the far distance, the edge of the Sky Island zone comes into view.
'I will go straight to the Flying Immortal Platform like this.'
The cultivation of Cutting Principle proceeds in this way.
At first, one whose ties are shallow.
Next, one whose ties are slightly deep.
Thus gradually cutting ties with those whose ties are deep, and in the end cutting ties with the world itself.
Wo-woong!
While riding General Seo and fleeing, I also send several strikes of Cutting Principle toward Wi Ryeong-seon who chases me.
However, perhaps because even if inferior it is the split soul of an Integration stage Grand Cultivator...
I feel that no matter how many times I throw them, the effect of Cutting Principle is small.
'It doesn't matter.'
Since in any case I do not plan to stay in the Bright Cold Realm in this life, if I drop away from the Bright Cold Realm itself and cut my ties with the Bright Cold Realm, my ties with Wi Ryeong-seon will naturally fall away as well.
Of course, for now rather than cutting ties, it is only to the extent of cutting 'attention', so it will not make him forget me completely...
Even so, before long it will be to the extent that he clears me completely from his mind.
Kugugugugu!
Continuing to send Cutting Principle toward Wi Ryeong-seon who keeps chasing me, I continue my Cutting Principle cultivation as we wage a chase for several days and nights.
And at last, the Heaven-Earth Palace with the Flying Immortal Platform comes into view.
Kugugugu!
I sense the presence of powerful cultivators at the Four-Axis stage and above from Heaven-Earth Palace, but I ignore it and execute a forced breakthrough.
'This is...Star Extinguishing True Chapter!'
Perhaps because Wi Ryeong-seon sent word to seize the suspicious being that is me, several Four-Axis stage inspectors appear from Heaven-Earth Palace and start to exert attraction force to capture me.
'I won't get caught. Anyway, being near Heaven-Earth Palace is enough.'
I see innumerable nets of connection and causality.
I still cannot touch those nets.
However, if it is only to pry through the gaps and slip out of the world...!
Tsuaaaaaat!
The Formless Sword wedges through the plane and cuts space.
And beyond the slit of space, I observe the vulnerability of the Bright Cold Realm's dimension that is revealed in Indra's Net and move toward that gap.
Chwaaak! Pong!
[Youuuuu!]
A shout from behind by Wi Ryeong-seon reaches me, but I simply turn my back and put my palms together.
[In the deepest part of the master's Dao Heart, connect the divine power of Cutting Principle. Just as when Master reached the realm of Treading Heavens Beyond the Path, you connected the inner core and the Formless Sword. If Master connects Cutting Principle to Master's soul itself...]
Knowledge about Cutting Principle that Hong Fan advised gets quickly digested, and I look upon the immeasurably vast 'connection' that links the Bright Cold Realm and me.
The breaths I inhaled in the Bright Cold Realm.
Spiritual energy, rays of light.
The earth I tread there, all the wonders I saw there.
All of that is the connection that links me and the Bright Cold Realm.
'Cut.'
Kiririririk...!
Toward the principle of the connection that lies between my own spirit and the Bright Cold Realm, I use the divine power of Cutting Principle and slice it.
Of course, I still do not slice the principle itself.
However, I manage to make the apparition of the principle a little blurry,
And it seems that much is enough.
Flash!
Outside the Bright Cold Realm, I fall past the Interdimensional Void and, together with Hong Fan, head toward a place where a familiar attraction force is felt.
[As I see it, the best way to slow the curse of the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment is to go to a place where the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment's perception of Master is most delayed.]
[If it is a place that where the perception is most delayed.]
[A place where the traces of another True Immortal are. The Head Realm.]
Kugugugu!
Beyond the Interdimensional Void, I grasp what the attraction force that drags us is.
'This is...!'
It is a familiar attraction force.
Back when I was in the Head Realm, it was also energy I felt so utterly sick and tired of.
In the far distance, [something] that resembles a hard-to-recognize head seems to come into view.
And the moment I perceive it.
Before I know it, Hong Fan and I find ourselves in a familiar sky.
Chwaaaak!
"Keheok, keok!"
"Uuumm...!"
Wadangtang!
Tearing in from the Interdimensional Void into some space inside the Head Realm, we are flung into one spot inside that space.
"This place is..."
I squint and look around, and I soon know where this is.
"...Serving Command Palace...?"
Yes.
The topmost floor of the Head Realm's Serving Command Palace.
It is where the Serving Command Seal exists.
"Mm, it seems the attraction force of that Serving Command Seal pulled us in. Originally, they say that returning to the Decaying Corpse Realm you originally came from at the Nascent Soul stage is like picking stars from the sky, but seeing that we returned this easily, it is probably due to this."
"Ah, I see."
I realize how the Serving Command Seal helped us.
'From the beginning, Hong Fan is a being designated by the Serving Command Seal.'
The Serving Command Seal summoned heavenly fortune.
Hong Fan also descended from the heavens under the influence of that heavenly fortune as the one expected to be the most necessary to me.
'Since the one the heavens send through the Serving Command Seal is Hong Fan, the Serving Command Seal may have strongly pulled in the existence called Hong Fan.'
Thanks to that, it seems we arrived in the Head Realm more easily than expected.
"General Seo was almost unnecessary. Haha."
We are quite lucky.
Normally, we would have had to avoid the Vestiges of the Interdimensional Void and descend over several days while fighting with a Four-Axis stage puppet, but we descended to the Head Realm in an instant without consuming much of General Seo's durability.
It feels like heavenly fortune is following.
The heavens that always drove me into extreme environments seem, this time, to take my side a little.
I smile as I look at the Serving Command Seal before my eyes.
Immortal Treasure Serving Command Seal.
Why is it?
I strongly feel that this thing called an Immortal Treasure is alive and deliberately helped us.
"Thank you."
For designating the connection that is Hong Fan, and again helping us with heavenly fortune.
As I offer that brief thanks, I examine the curse within my body.
'Indeed...'
The speed at which the curse of lightning transformation progresses has decreased!
"At this level..."
On the assumption that I live only in the Head Realm, it seems I can endure five hundred years.
"Five hundred years in the Head Realm... If I continue progressing in the divine power of Cutting Principle...surely, there may be a possibility."
If it were another method, I would not speak like this.
But this method called the Star Extinguishing True Chapter suits me better than any other method.
If it were an ordinary method, it would be nothing more than me setting a target value, but the Star Extinguishing True Chapter is different.
It truly feels like there is a possibility.
"Master, it seems you have now reached the realm where the 'net' is visible..."
"That's right. The shape of the 'net' is visible."
As I attempt to exit the Serving Command Palace, I converse with Hong Fan about the progress of the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.
"In that case, rather than earnestly cutting connections, how about Master makes it his goal to cut the law itself?"
"Cut...the law...?"
I ask again in disbelief, but Hong Fan nods with a serious tone.
"I am not speaking of something like the principles of the world. Just trying to cut a few simple principles that apply to Master. Conveniently as the Serving Command Palace is helping, it will probably go well, no?"
"The Serving Command Palace? Ah, right."
The Serving Command Palace with the Serving Command Seal is also called Liberation Palace, and it is said to possess the ability to release prohibitions nearby.
The very law called 'liberation' exists in the Serving Command Palace.
If so...
"If, while leaving Serving Command Palace, I cultivate by using Cutting Principle to cut the restrictions that bind me in Serving Command Palace...!"
"That is correct. As the power of liberation and the cultivation of Cutting Principle interlock, Master will be able to advance the progress of the Cutting Principle cultivation even faster."
"Indeed, excellent, Hong Fan."
I did not think to use the power of liberation itself from the Serving Command Palace.
My creativity did not reach it.
Hong Fan filled in the parts I lack and helped me choose better options.
'Thank you. Truly...'
From that day, I practice cutting the laws of prohibitions laid in the Serving Command Palace, or I personally unfold a formation and lay prohibitions, then, borrowing the law of liberation, practice cutting the fundamental 'law' of the prohibition itself.
The Cutting Principle cultivation of the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.
Its progress rises very rapidly, and I gradually become accustomed to touching the fundamental law.
And one day,
I finally succeed in perfectly using the law of 'liberation' itself.
Shukagagak!
As the power of liberation is added for an instant to the line of Cutting Principle, I ignore all prohibitions laid inside the Liberation Palace and move outside Liberation Palace in a flash.
"Huff...!"
A truly immense marvel.
A transcendent method that touches fundamental laws.
That is precisely the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.
At the same time, I realize something.
'The moment I cut the law of prohibition by the power of liberation...I felt something.'
It was like the 'attention' of the faint connections I severed countless times when I was in the Bright Cold Realm.
'In the law of liberation...there is the 'heart'?'
At this strange sensation I feel for the first time, I look back at the Liberation Palace.
The Liberation Palace drifting through the void space of the Head Realm.
At the center of that Liberation Palace, the seal called the Serving Command Seal contains a powerful law of liberation.
At the same time, from that law of Liberation, I seem to feel a certain 'heart'.
'This is...'
Is this also a coincidence?
Or is it someone's intention?
On the first day I apply the law of liberation to Cutting Principle,
I shudder as I feel the intense 'heart' felt from Liberation Palace.
'What in the world...is this 'heart'...!?'
Who on earth is the maker of the Liberation Palace?
Just who are they, that they breathed such a powerful heart into a liberation seal that is no more than an object?
And, for what reason, do they harbor such...a desperate heart?
The wave of heart I feel from Liberation Palace is something like an obsession close to madness, similar to the heart with which I once prayed and prayed in desperation to kill Yuan Li.
For a long time,
Without knowing whether it is coincidence or guidance, until that wave of heart I came to feel by chance can no longer be felt, I look endlessly at the Liberation Palace,
And I only think about the maker who created Liberation Palace.
Present.
Heaven and Earth divide into two.
I am not simply speaking of the sky and ground.
The world itself that all of us have known until now is split apart.
A divine technique that surpasses by thousands of times the strike with which I barely surpassed the Great Mountain Supreme Deity in the Great Mountain Battle and scratched the boundary of Cakravāda.
By that divine technique, the entire boundary of Cakravāda is torn away, and the scenery of [Outside] enters the eyes of all Governing Immortals including me.
Some glittering presences with a feeling far too remote exist beyond the dense void.
And in between, a wind called Vairambha Wind (毘藍風), which appears when a Heavenly Domain is generated, blows in.
Wo-woong—
Before I know it, a golden silhouette that escapes from the Impermanence Sword looks toward somewhere beyond the Vairambha Wind, far across the void.
In that far-off place, a ray of shining light enters his eyes, enters all our eyes.
From the scenery of [Outside] beyond the domain of Cakravāda, a familiar nostalgia is reflected.
It is the nostalgia of Earth.
I can tell instinctively.
The dimension where the Earth we lived in...
It exists beyond those glittering worlds.
Tsuaaaaat!
Seeing that, we all firm our sentiments.
Hong Fan, seeing us like that, lifts the sword.
As if asking, do you think you can go back?
No answer is needed.
"The single strike just now is something we barely evaded by combining Golden Great Thousand World and Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens, plus Heavenly Escape and Oh Hyun-seok's Primal Chaos World."
Kim Young-hoon speaks.
It is as he says.
Only by combining each of our Martial Pinnacles and even adding Heavenly Escape and Oh Hyun-seok's authority could we barely let that radiance strike pass through.
However, Hong Fan is a monster who evolves with each single move.
The evasion method we just used will no longer work.
"We can't keep dodging."
"We have to face it."
"Do you have a combination in mind?"
"For that, I ask you, Hyung-nim. I will compose the breaking formula."
In the end, to defeat Hong Fan, we have to join forces.
I begin to pour my all into analyzing the martial arts of the Emptiness Sword, reinterpreting them, and devising a breaking formula, while Kim Young-hoon begins to pour his all into composing combinations that, through the combination of his martial arts and mine, can deflect or counter Hong Fan's attacks.
Immediately after, Hong Fan moves the Emptiness Sword.
—Emptiness Sword Sixth Form.
—Future.
Peobeong!
Including me, Kim Young-hoon and our comrades are annihilated in a single blow.
But as we pass into the 2102nd, I can at last discern the essence of Future.
'Acceleration...is it?'
The base speed being speed of Undying—that is Future King Fate Supreme Deity Hong Fan Gu Ju.
And accelerating one step more from the state of Undying.
That is the essence of the True Martial Art Emptiness Sword's Sixth Form, Future.
Only after dying several times do I roughly grasp the composition of the Emptiness Sword.
The basic composition that I grasp is as follows.
First Form, Zero.
A killing technique that maximizes 'scraping', extending even to cutting, tearing, and ripping.
Second Form, King.
A killing technique that maximizes 'downward slash' displaying great force by using the power of attraction force itself.
Third Form, Light.
A killing technique that maximizes 'coiling force' (纏絲勁), digging into 'rotation' of force itself.
Fourth Form, Heaven.
A killing technique that maximizes 'upward slash', attaining a property that transcends spacetime through repulsive force by inverting attraction force.
Fifth Form, Upper.
A killing technique that maximizes 'force emission' (發勁), expanding the concept even to throwing techniques that shoot out force.
Sixth Form, Future.
It appears to be a technique that maximizes 'acceleration,' becoming even faster than a state of having reached the domain of Undying.
I still cannot know the detailed principle.
And the final profundity of the Emptiness Sword, the Seventh Form, Hope.
'This is still impossible to analyze.'
I cannot even tell what kind of property that is.
The only certain thing is that Hope, despite being a mere decisive move, is 'alive'.
Possessing a living characteristic, it holds a trait that, once its first target is marked, it pursues to the end and kills. It is something that can be called a martial doctrine that transcends martial doctrines.
Based on the above basic forms, it appears to use applied decisive techniques or applied profundities through using the basic forms innumerable times or drawing the power out to the extreme.
And the terror of the Emptiness Sword is that, while linking the above forms with applied decisive techniques and profundities, it shows infinite combinations.
I think like a madman on the weaknesses of the Emptiness Sword and breaking formulas, and on Kim Young-hoon's side, he devises combinations of decisive techniques to attack Hong Fan Gu Ju.
And, each gripping our sword and saber, we take a step forward.
The gold sword and the silver sword are raised and aimed at Hong Fan Gu Ju.
In an instant, we take our step.
Clang—
Kang Min-hee constrains our ranks, and once again drags Hong Fan Gu Ju's whole body down into the realm of the physical.
And within the familiar world of the physical, our martial arts begin to encircle Hong Fan.
I am defense, Kim Young-hoon is offense.
We together form a Taiji formation and surround Hong Fan, unleashing attacks.
Kiiiiing!
—Apex of Movement Techniques.
—True Martial Arts, Black Heaven.
As the movement technique that reaches True Martial Arts is performed, Hyeon Mu's divine method, faster than Kim Young-hoon, takes our rear.
However, we also have a technique reaches a fragment of True Martial Arts.
Heavenly Escape!
Kiing!
At the moment the rear is taken by the True Martial Arts Black Heaven, I hide our presence with Heavenly Escape and conceal the body, and Hong Fan begins to use a wide-area technique with an expressionless face.
"Splitting Heaven."
Kugugugu!
Pure white radiance blooms from his hand, and the entire area of the Audience Chamber is torn away.
However, even before that absolute violence, Kim Young-hoon and I do not yield and keep pressing Hong Fan.
Hong Fan mutters as he looks at Kim Young-hoon.
"Why has a soul still not arisen? This generation truly is full of errors."
Yes.
In Kim Young-hoon, something one could call a soul has still not appear.
Even though he audiences the Future King Fate Supreme Deity!
"Well again, miracles are always irrational and unequal."
Woo-woong!
The Emptiness Sword resonates.
At the same time, a chilling sense throughout my whole body rings an alarm.
—Emptiness Sword Third Form.
—Applied Profundity.
Wo-woong!
The Origin Essence of Light settles in the Emptiness Sword.
The Emptiness Sword, merged with the Origin Essence itself, brightly dyes Heaven, Earth and the Heavens Above, boiling the surroundings!
Light whirls around Hong Fan as the center.
And immediately after,
—Bright (明).
Heaven and Earth brighten, and within the surging light, without even time to fully dodge surging strikes of slashes, Kim Young-hoon and I are shredded and killed.
Somehow, I feel drowsy and in a daze.
However, I confirm that my consciousness still remains.
Even though not only the true body but the prophecies and the Heavenly Domain itself are shredded, my consciousness alone remains, aiming to resurrect.
At that tenacious life force, Hong Fan looks at one strand of my consciousness and mutters.
"You are second only to Silver Basket in tenacity."
He raises the Emptiness Sword.
If I take his technique one more time like this, I will be completely annihilated.
I can tell instinctively.
However, I do not worry.
Rather, through the single strand of consciousness, I slowly begin restoring the vanished body.
It is not over yet.
For I am not the only one on this battlefield.
Flutter—
A faint flapping sound is heard.
It is Kim Yeon.
She half-opens her eyes in silence and looks somewhere.
The place she looks at is none other than the inside of the cage where the Western Heavenly Venerable, the Netherworld Queen Mother Bong Hwa is confined.
And at some point,
Wo-woong!
Kim Yeon raises her hand.
Something rises from above her hand.
It flies in the shape of a small bird and begins to approach the cage.
Perhaps noticing the sign, the Future King's technique flies toward Kim Yeon even while it faces me and Kim Young-hoon.
With each of those attacks, holes open in Kim Yeon's entire body, and the bird that rose from her hand staggers, yet the bird does not fall.
The Splitting Heaven Mantra flies in, and the technique of Future flies in as well, but even after taking those terrifying techniques, the bird keeps flying.
Only then does Hong Fan sense something, turning his gaze to Kim Yeon as his face starts to twitch.
"Vast Cold. Are you giving aid? You prepared a method to escape my sight, but will you truly be satisfied with expending that method on that child?"
Having realized something, Hong Fan raises his hand toward the void and mutters quietly.
"But it is foolish. With the level of Bong Myeong's Liberation Law Talent, it can never become the key."
Woo-woooong—
Darkness blooms centered on Hong Fan, and the rank that Kang Min-hee constraint begins to be released again.
He is again being released into a metaphysical existence.
At the same time, the Future King begins to use his authority.
"This amusement now bores me. If there are truly no more stories to be told, let us end."
Woo-woooong!
Reality begins to shatter to pieces.
At the same time, everyone present begins to feel it.
The future is being rewritten.
It is not merely on the level of history rewriting that the Underworld and I do.
Reality twists, and the scene of the next moment is engraved into everyone's mind.
With no causality at all, a future in which all the Heavenly Kings gathered are cleanly beheaded is fixed.
Just like when Oh Hyun-seok was made into an egg, a reality manipulation that needs no causality of any kind.
The authority of Future Rewrite begins to be properly exerted.
Thus, in the next moment, all of us are to have all heads cut off and, with no way for Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens to save us, die.
But Hong Fan and I, in an instant, feel the energy of a 'different existence' that intrudes upon our battlefield, and we look at them.
That existence inhabits Oh Hyun-seok's body and sheds silver light from the eyes.
"Silver Basket. O Hollow God who has lost the qualification of creation. I do not feel the need to insult you again and again. Return to Mount Sumeru. If you are to be buried inside the Cradle of Chaos, I will not defile you with my own hand."
"O great Owner of Fate, you are one close to omnipotence, but you are not all-knowing. How arrogant. Your complacency grants us possibility."
"Do you hope for possibility?"
"..."
Silver Basket, possessing Oh Hyun-seok's body, glares silently at Hong Fan and speaks.
"I too am an Ender. Thus, I too can cause a miracle."
"O vagrant of Absolute origin who has fallen into thievery. Do not dare to usurp what is mine."
"Do I truly need to show you for you to believe?"
Silver Basket seems bitter at Hong Fan's words.
However, in an instant,
Flash!
What Silver Basket has been subtly covering, the bird sent by Kim Yeon,
The bird that Hong Fan called the 'Liberation Law Talent' begins to shine with an enormous halo of light.
In an instant, through insight nearing on omniscience, Hong Fan perceives Silver Basket's stratagem and lifts the Emptiness Sword.
—True Martial Arts Emptiness Sword, Final Profundity.
—Hope.
Flash!
By Hope, even as Silver Basket's spirit is torn to shreds, they draw out to maximum output Oh Hyun-seok's fate, the power of Primal Chaos World, and through the [dream], they swap the position of the Liberation Law Talent with [someone else] who exists in a far different dimension.
And the existence swapped with the Liberation Law Talent, summoned by deceiving the eyes of the Future King and arriving before the birdcage, is a [bird] shining in all of Heaven's natural colors.
The Liberation Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek.
That great Heavenly Craftsman descends as the main body and meets eyes with the existence inside the birdcage.
Immediately after,
The will of Gongmyo Cheon-saek begins to spread inside the Audience Chamber.
—My mere life that does not even know what the Dao is.
The symbol of the Liberation Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek.
The symbol of the [Bird Trapped in a Birdcage] rises above him.
Soon, Gongmyo Cheon-saek and his symbol overlap.
The symbol starts to shine, and upon the shackles that bind Bong Hwa, imprisoned inside the cage,
One point of the shackles formed of the Emptiness Supreme Deity resonates.
Inside the Emptiness Supreme Deity, within the Serving Command Palace, the Serving Command Seal shines brilliantly and exerts the authority of Liberation.
—If it is for you, I can cast away everything!
Bong Hwa gently closes her eyes.
Jjeoeoeok!
Hong Fan, with expressionless eyes, perceives what the Liberation Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek has done.
"What was put inside the Serving Command Seal was not the split soul, but the Origin Essence of Liberation. Was it your very essence itself? Astonishing. To lay a stratagem of this degree within the body of Myeong Won, the most distant from my gaze. I give my respect."
He speaks toward Gongmyo Cheon-saek, to Bong Myeong in a tone that seems slightly surprised, and he gives him time as if to offer respect.
And at last,
Flash!
The Origin Essence of Liberation of the Serving Command Palace bursts forth, and the entire body of Gongmyo Cheon-saek, assimilated with the symbol of the [Bird Trapped in a Cage], explodes.
At the same time, the birdcage that imprisoned Bong Hwa bursts open together with the true body of Gongmyo Cheon-saek, and the shackle that restrained her is released.
Thud!
Bong Hwa, who was trapped in the birdcage in the form of a small doll, begins to reveal herself.
Her presence grows immense, and as soon as she steps out of the cage, she becomes vast enough to place the former Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek on one hand and stroke him.
Bong Hwa strokes the dying Gongmyo Cheon-saek and opens her mouth.
"I will remember."
"Please attain the Dao. O Imperial Venerable."
Tsaaaaa—
With those words, Gongmyo Cheon-saek scatters into dust.
The authority of the Liberation Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek, the Owner of Liberation, collides with the multicolored birdcage and keeps trying to liberate the 'something' that is compressed into the form of the cage, and Hong Fan, perhaps as a gesture of respect, grants a reprieve and speaks.
"You have kept a loyal retainer, Hwe-ah."
"While I was held by the Emptiness Supreme Deity, I reread the histories that you tore away each time I came to the Audience Chamber."
"Have you read them again."
"I understand both your past and the beginning of the tale. I have read more history than you, so the advancement condition of the Life Supreme Deity is satisfied."
"Do not advance, Hwe-ah."
Hong Fan, with eyes full of self-loathing, looks at Bong Hwa and speaks.
"Will I not have to tear you apart with my own hands yet again?"
However, Bong Hwa only smiles faintly.
"O pitiable one. This girl dares to report. This time will be different."
"You said so every time you came."
As if words are unnecessary, Bong Hwa closes her mouth.
Immediately after, she shouts.
True to the name Western Heavenly Venerable, three shouts toward the west.
Kugugugung!
At the same time, her appearance begins to change.
Her once-tidy hair becomes disheveled.
Her lower body changes to that of a leopard, her hands and feet grow jagged and large like those of a ferocious beast, and her teeth and gaze become a vicious visage.
The Western Heavenly Venerable, the Netherworld Queen Mother properly reveals the true form of her Gandhara, and becomes death and darkness.
She begins to transform into the very system of the Cycle of Reincarnation.
And into her two hands, a golden aggregation of information is drawn.
The Origin Essence of History, Omniscience.
The compendium of all knowledge and history gradually begins to become one with her.
Seeing this, Hong Fan Gu Ju once again merely raises the Emptiness Sword.
—Emptiness Sword, Final Profundity.
—Hope.
Rays of light surge like waves and sweep over Bong Hwa.
Hong Fan stares at her expressionlessly.
Once again, she is to be torn apart,
As has happened many times before.
But in the next moment,
As if something else is caught in Hong Fan's insight, his eyes twitch.
"You are being a nuisance. Silver Basket."
Woo-woooong!
Centered on Oh Hyun-seok's body, the spirit of Silver Basket, which has been torn into hundreds of strands, gathers power from the [Outside].
The Gods of the Otherworlds are lending their power to Silver Basket.
Mount Sumeru, Thirty-Third Heaven, Audience Chamber.
Before the audience of the king, the strange powers and chaotic deities that come from outside the cradle begin to intrude.