Betrayal (5)
Was I being impulsive?
After decades of wandering through my dreams, Yu Hwa had just opened her eyes. She was lost in thought, wondering if her decision was right.
No matter how many Shimjok she could recruit, no matter how much she could strike a dirty area, no matter how much the attack she was launching now would help when she reached the third stage of implementation.
Was it really worth consuming more than ten years of her already short life just for that?
But the moment her hand touched the golden instrument she had been playing for years, her worries melted away like snow in sunlight.
This golden instrument was one she had been dismantling for decades.
And Baek Nyeong in front of her was her disciple, awakened through years of her guidance.
It was not in vain.
It was not impulsive.
Because as a teacher who had instructed her, it was only right to take responsibility if the person she taught ended up like this.
She had realized the nature of the hypnotic compulsion that had trapped Baek Nyeong.
A powerful self-hypnosis!
She had no idea how that sinister serpent had cooked her disciple from within.
But Baek Nyeong believed in her own self-hypnosis more than anything.
Even if it was false, she had wanted to believe it so badly.
To break such a powerful hypnosis, an even stronger shock was needed.
My power alone was not enough.
To strike a blow to the soul of a Shimjok, an even stronger force was required.
What was needed now was the third stage of implementation!
A Shimjok who reached the third stage of implementation could number at most in the tens of thousands.
But that also meant that anyone who had achieved the third stage was a being terrifying enough to make even Heavenly Person and Four Pillars cultivators tremble.
Here I go.
And she began to play.
The heavens and earth turned scarlet.
***
Kurl, kurrrung!
The Yunshim Lake where the Sea Dragon Clan had settled.
A strange thunder-like sound echoed from there.
No, it was not thunder. It was something entirely different.
Yet countless Four Pillars Sea Dragon demons living near Yunshim Lake mistook it for thunder.
Because the “power” they felt from Yunshim Lake had a nature so similar to the Heavenly Tribulation they had endured whenever they reached the Four Pillars realm during their cultivation.
On Yunshim Lake, a scarlet catastrophe was raging.
Weirdly, that catastrophe was not coming from the sky, but from the very bottom of Yunshim Lake.
It originated from the performance of a slave clan member.
***
“…”
While circulating my inner energy and manifesting the realm of Mastery, I resisted the scarlet power descending toward me.
It was an incomparably familiar force.
Heavenly Tribulation!
This was Heavenly Tribulation!
The fury of heaven that I had encountered several times across my multiple lives!
Only then did I finally understand why, after seeing Jeon Myeong-hoon’s attacks last time, I had recalled the strike of Supreme Venerable Hamcheon.
Jeon Myeong-hoon’s Thunder Tribulation Method had evoked the image of lightning.
And the third stage of implementation.
The power believed to lie beyond the realm of Mastery was astonishingly similar to Heavenly Tribulation.
“…”
I used every ounce of my strength to clash with Yu Hwa’s Heavenly Tribulation, trying to capture how she was unfolding the third stage of implementation.
Of course, simply capturing it was already difficult.
But reading the inner energy, reading the will, and using the law technique of predicting Heavenly Tribulation with the Premonition Eye, I captured the power of the third stage of implementation that Yu Hwa was using.
‘That’s it…’
So that was how…
The way to leap beyond Mastery was…
Kurrrll!
Her performance was undoubtedly beautiful, but to me it sounded like thunder.
No, from the perspective of a Four Pillars cultivator, it was definitely thunder.
But to someone who possessed both the eyes of a Four Pillars cultivator and the eyes of a will, it was simply a breathtaking work of art.
‘Beautiful…’
A mastery of perfection that would make even the most ardent admirer sigh in admiration.
A skill that would inspire anyone who merely watched it.
And her own will!
Lost in the strange Huangjing, I admired the “beauty” she had implemented.
My entire body felt like it was burning, yet I did not care and watched her art endlessly.
Tsu, tsu…
“…”
I suddenly snapped back to my senses.
“Eh, eh…?”
It was difficult to regain my awareness.
Suddenly my sense of reality had become strange.
‘Something… while I was being struck by Heavenly Tribulation, my memories had cut off…?’
Dazed.
As if I had been momentarily dozing off, regaining my mind was difficult.
“Are you all right, Master?”
“…”
The next moment, thanks to Yu Hwa speaking beside me, I shook my head and stood up.
Here…
I looked around.
“Ha!”
And I let out a laugh of utter disbelief.
The Coral Village had vanished.
No, not just the Coral Village—the Sea Dragon Palace itself had transformed and crumbled as if it had always been just “the Sea Dragon Palace.”
And in every direction, the elders and masters of the Sea Dragon Clan lay unconscious.
The same was true for the Baek-yeom clan of the Coral Village.
And ahead of me, Baek Nyeong knelt on the ground.
Everyone in Yunshim Lake except me and her was “asleep.”
Yu Hwa’s face was even more haggard as she closed her eyes.
“I have laid them all to rest with the Hypnotic Performance. If I do not wake them up and let them rise on their own power, it would take one day for Heavenly Person cultivators and ten days for Four Pillars cultivators. The lower realms would require even less.”
“…”
“Incredible.”
Memory had cut off at some point, so they had simply fallen asleep without even a chance to resist.
If a Shimjok of such terrifying power were traveling with a Shimjok of strong attack power, there would be no one alive before them.
The most terrifying part was that she had laid to rest all twenty or more Heavenly Person elders of the Sea Dragon Clan residing in Yunshim Lake.
The Heavenly Person cultivators of the Sea Dragon Clan totaled sixty-two, but the rest had been continuing their activities across the Four Pillars realm following the orders of Seo Hyul.
Only one-third remained in the Sea Dragon Palace, yet she had shown an absurd exchange rate of twenty to one with just a single person.
“When a Shimjok reaches the third stage of implementation… can Heavenly Person cultivators really be suppressed like this?”
“Of course not. All the Heavenly Person and Four Pillars cultivators present here came to the Yeonseonru a few days ago and heard my voice beforehand, so it was overwhelmingly easy to dig into their souls remembering the sound.”
“…”
As expected, once the sound of music was heard, escape was nearly impossible.
The difference from ordinary sound techniques was that while ordinary sound techniques lost effect once the vibration of music faded, Yu Hwa’s Hypnotic Performance could strongly amplify the effect of that sound on the soul as long as the sound remained, allowing her to lay the opponent to rest at any time.
And as if confirming her words, some Four Pillars Sea Dragon demons who had never heard Yu Hwa’s performance before began to twitch their bodies as if trying to wake up.
Of course, she would lay them down again after a few more plucks of the instrument.
“…”
“So what do you plan to do?”
“We must escape. The Sea Dragon Clan did not know much about Shimjok and were ambushed, but anyone in the surrounding Four Pillars clans who knew about Shimjok would have recognized the attack and realized there was a Shimjok here.”
“…”
I smiled bitterly and looked at the absurd strike that had changed my fate.
When I looked up at the sky, my fate had changed upon being struck by her attack.
The bad kind.
“Now I finally understand why Heavenly Person and Four Pillars cultivators hate and fear Shimjok.”
“…”
“The third stage of implementation is almost identical to Heavenly Tribulation. And…”
I looked at Yu Hwa with an incredulous expression.
“If I’m not mistaken after confirming it with my Heavenly Qi just now, when the Heavenly Tribulation of a Shimjok strikes, the Heavenly and Four Pillars clans will now have an additional kind of Heavenly Tribulation to face. Is that not so?”
“Correct. That is why the two great clans are trying so hard to exterminate us.”
That was it.
One kind of Heavenly Tribulation had suddenly been added to my fate.
Originally struck by blue and golden Heavenly Tribulations, from now on I would also have to face the scarlet Heavenly Tribulation.
“I heard from my senior Shimjok that precisely, the strike of a third-stage implementation Shimjok is so similar in nature to Heavenly Tribulation that heaven mistakes it for one. Is that right?”
Her explanation continued.
“The strike of the third stage is also almost identical to Heavenly Tribulation, so if the person struck by it succeeds in overcoming it, heaven will not react at all. But if they fail to overcome it, heaven will recognize it as a failure to overcome Heavenly Tribulation and, when they ascend to the next realm, add a Heavenly Tribulation of the same nature as the one the Shimjok shot as a one-time exception.”
“…”
Fortunately, the number of Heavenly Tribulations I would have to face forever had not increased.
But even if it was only once, it was a horrifying and terrifying thing that the number of Heavenly Tribulations I would have to face would increase.
Anyone who fought against the third stage of implementation would have their number of future Heavenly Tribulations increased by one at a time.
It was truly terrifying, and that was exactly why the Heavenly Person and Four Pillars cultivators wanted to uproot Shimjok.
“So you told me to escape because you are a Heavenly Person and Four Pillars cultivator yourself…”
“Well, it does not matter.”
I laughed lightly and shook my head.
The increase in the variety of Heavenly Tribulations was dizzying, but since I had glimpsed the next realm, I was satisfied.
“In any case, do you have a plan for how to escape?”
“If I use my original ability, the second stage of implementation, to merge my body with the melody and flee…”
“Foolish. Since you showed me the realm beyond Mastery, I will return the favor.”
After concentrating my consciousness, I unfolded the Wolsuigungmurok that cut off her recognition in front of her.
Flash!
The instant I appeared in front of her, having left her sight, she gasped in shock, realizing the meaning of Wolsuigungmurok.
“Wh-what is this…?”
“This is my technique called Wolsuigungmurok. You would surely be able to use it if you were me.”
Her two hands holding the golden instrument trembled as she was shocked by it.
“This… is a technique you created?”
“No, I also learned a technique.”
“Wh-who created that technique?”
“…My master who guided me to this realm.”
“P-please! Could you introduce that person?”
“…He is in the lower realm.”
“The lower realm…”
She showed a meaningful expression at those words.
“I will have to speak with the Venerable about this. If we can call such a person, our Shimjok can make another leap forward.”
“Hmm… that might be true.”
If it were Kim Young-hoon, I could really turn the Shimjok into a species even more absurd than the Heavenly Person and Four Pillars cultivators.
Yu Hwa repeated the seal of Wolsuigungmurok I had shown her, unfolded it a few times, and then incorporated it into her performance.
In an instant, she transformed it into her own style.
She had the talent to become a Shimjok after all, so transforming it was not difficult.
Tsu, tsu, tsu!
Hiding her body in the shape of the melody in an instant, she greeted me and flew up with the form of a river.
I saw Baek Nyeong’s body being dragged along in the river.
“You are only taking your disciple?”
[I have loosened the hypnosis with force. As long as that serpent does not try again, there will be no additional hypnosis. If, even after doing this much, Baek Nyeong says she wants to remain… I will respect her will and send her back. But… if she wants to take the remaining Baek-yem with her, I will bring her back to the Sea Dragon Palace together, and the remaining Baek-yem will all go to the Shimjok realm with us.]
“I see. Understood.”
I saw Yu Hwa off as she disappeared using Wolsuigungmurok, then lay down on the ground like the other Sea Dragon clans and closed my eyes.
Kugugugu!
Far away, an enormous amount of天地 energy was rushing toward us.
They were Four Pillars cultivators flying here, certain that the Sea Dragon Clan had invaded after seeing Yu Hwa’s third stage of implementation.
I closed my eyes and, pretending to be unconscious like the other Heavenly Person elders, sank my consciousness into the depths of the Yunshim Lake using the Strange Star-Mind Scroll.
Kugugugugu!
All the water of Yunshim Lake was sucked upward, and the cold air slapped my skin.
And I felt the vast consciousness of the Four Pillars cultivator sweeping through Yunshim Lake, investigating every corner without pause.
[Where are you, you damned Shimjok wretch! Come out at once!]
‘This…’
I smiled inwardly.
The objective had been achieved anyway.
I had planned to cause trouble with my hands the moment Yu Hwa appeared, but thanks to her going far beyond my expectations.
The Sea Dragon Palace had become dust, and the entire Sea Dragon Clan area had fallen into chaos, so the Heavenly Person elders of the Sea Dragon Clan would have no room to make demands of me.
I had broken free from the social constraints left behind by Seo Hyul.
‘Now the only thing left is to contact representatives of the Sea Dragon demons who have complaints against Seo Hyul through freedom.’
Now began the true start of betrayal toward Seo Hyul’s back.