The Jester and the Performance (2)
The vast mountain range and dense forests of the Jinryong-maeng stretched endlessly before them as one figure flew through the sky, stepping on nothing but air.
Gyu-baek.
“Void Step… even that is not difficult.”
It was nothing more than a touch of refinement beyond the gliding technique she had once seen in Gyu-ryeon’s memories.
Seo Eun-hyun had been surprised by Gyu-baek’s unexpected talent, but to her, it was merely a form of rehabilitation.
Gyu-ryeon, destined to become a Great Dragon King at the Integration realm, was gone. Gyu-baek, the residue left behind, had not even reached the Core Formation level. Honestly, it was not something she could accept.
“Even if there is talent, why can I not even enter the realm of the mouth?”
From her perspective, it was humiliating that someone who had experienced the Integration realm could not so much as touch the Core Formation.
When enlightenment reached its peak, it would connect with all others, she had once believed. In practice, the experience of Gyu-ryeon, who had reached Integration, had applied even to the realm beyond Wuji Chaoyuan. But from the realm of the mouth onward, it had become infuriating and maddening.
She could not understand a single word.
At least, using the Gwanghan Covenant, she had partially stepped into the realm of the mouth for only Seo Hyul. That had been the limit.
She had come to realize she could never reach the realm of the mouth.
“Must I keep craving and craving?”
She had certainly been craving. But was the craving hatred toward Seo Hyul, or love? Gyu-baek could not tell.
She craved, yet she did not know what.
That was why she could not reach the realm of the mouth.
“Realizing the flesh of the earth… it is too alien.”
There was a connection to the enlightenment of heaven and earth, but unlike the regular methods of heaven and earth, realization of the flesh was absurdly irregular.
Even experts like Yu Hwa and Seo Eun-hyun, who had seen her use the Gwanghan Covenant to create a realm of the mouth that applied to only one person, had said they had never seen anything like it.
The Heavenly Venerable had seen it once or twice, but when she asked for an explanation, he had refused, saying their cases were too different.
There was no regularity at all. It was unbearably alien.
No, even in the days when she had been Gyu-ryeon, she had thought the same about those called the flesh of the earth.
They were so alien.
Gyu-baek, as Gyu-ryeon’s reserve Dragon King, had known one fact about the heaven and earth, flesh of the earth, and true immortals.
In the heaven clan there were heaven immortals corresponding to them. In the earth clan there were earth immortals, or saintly experts.
But in the flesh of the earth, there was nothing of the sort.
She had never heard of true immortals corresponding to the flesh of the earth.
Even more astonishing was that the saint of the Star Plate she had met as a child, Baek-woon Seongsa, had answered that she did not know whether there were true immortals corresponding to the flesh of the earth or not.
“As if they were never meant to exist and someone forcibly shoved them into the flow of history…”
It was beyond strange.
Thinking thus, Gyu-baek stepped on the Void Step as she headed toward the resource warehouse for Seo Eun-hyun’s pet beast that he had hidden.
After a while, Gyu-baek arrived before a large waterfall near Bongmyeong-ju.
The waterfall fell in two perfectly divided streams of white and black water, and behind it, a dark cave was faintly visible.
“That place… is where the resources were stored.”
Previously, when Gyu-baek had lived there, the other members of the Yellow Dragon Clan would have come to recover the resources and her remains. So she had no choice but to come here for the warehouse of Seo Eun-hyun’s pet beast.
“Of course, if I go to the Yellow Dragon Clan, I can be recognized as Gyu-ryeon and treated as a dragon clan member.”
A Four-Pillar Saint could be resurrected once after death, or some rare ones multiple times.
This did not refer to those with a remnant of Nascent Soul or Core Formation, but to those who had truly died after the Nascent Soul collapsed.
Resurrection after the Nascent Soul had collapsed was always limited to lower realms, but even that was enough for Four-Pillar Saints to be treated as enormous existences.
Those who had missed the proper time to resurrect after death, or who did not wish to resurrect again even after death, simply did not come back.
But occasionally, fragments of those who had not wanted to resurrect were born from the immense life force of a Four-Pillar Saint.
They were generally called “fragments” or, in contempt, “residue.”
Because they had not been formally resurrected, but created by the obsession of a Four-Pillar Saint, they were usually resurrected into bodies incapable of proper cultivation.
Yet even among those residue, whether they were treated with the respect of the original Four-Pillar Saint or simply as residue differed by clan.
And the Yellow Dragon Clan was one of the clans that granted respect to residue as the original Four-Pillar Saint.
Because they still possessed a significant portion of the original Four-Pillar Saint’s memories.
That was why, when a residue was born in the Yellow Dragon Clan, they often assigned them the role of teacher, training young dragon clan members.
Gyu-baek could have lived that way too.
But she had no desire to do so.
If she did, Seo Hyul would come to kill her when he learned she had resurrected as a residue.
“For now, I will meet Seo Hyul again someday.”
Meet him properly, organize her heart, and face the end.
Whether she gave him one final blow or quietly accepted death at his hands.
That was what Gyu-baek wanted.
And for that, she had to eat the fodder that Seo Eun-hyun’s pet beast, which she had not been able to reclaim, had eaten.
“I do not expect to gain anything from the few Core Formation pills, but I should at least pull up the energy veins to the Foundation Establishment level so that pure force can circulate in my body.”
With pure force circulating, she could taste a significant rise in her strength.
Of course, it was ridiculous that she had once struggled so hard to obtain the strength of Foundation Establishment, which even toes could trample. But that was all.
She decided not to think such things and began searching inside the cave.
“Seo Eun-hyun said he would have set up a seal around here…”
She groped along the seal Seo Eun-hyun had laid and followed it.
After a while, she spotted a place where the flow of spiritual energy was twisting.
Even as a residue, her earth clan vision remained, so she followed the flow of spiritual energy and shattered the seal.
Boom!
When she scratched the air, the hand bones that extended from her palm touched the weakest point of the spiritual energy flow and dismantled the seal.
“Hmm…”
She looked at a few Core Formation beast fodder pills and dozens of jin stones, along with Core Formation saint pills and cores, and let out a small sigh.
“So many were supposed to be filled, but they are not much at all.”
It was an amount that would be humiliating if Gyu-ryeon had offered it.
But for now, she decided to be satisfied with this much and picked up a nearby core to bring it to her mouth.
That was when—
Ta-da-da-da—
A strange sound echoed, and something entered the cave.
Gyu-baek stood on guard and glared at whoever had come in.
Soon, the shape of the intruder was revealed.
It was a giant centipede that filled the entire cave.
Their eyes met.
They stared at each other for a moment, and as Gyu-baek debated whether to attack or not,
words flew from the centipede’s mouth.
“Who are you to be stealing from someone else’s warehouse?”
“Huh…”
The tone was surprisingly polite.
Outside the cave, Gyu-baek faced the giant centipede, Hong-beom, and they sat down to talk.
To her surprise, Hong-beom readily believed her words and nodded.
“If you are Master’s acquaintance, you are always welcome. If there is anything you wish for, you may take it all. After I reached Core Formation, these things became largely useless.”
“Huh…? Core Formation?”
Gyu-baek looked up at Hong-beom and asked.
“Last time, when I saw you as a kid, you had just reached Qi Condensation…”
“Fufu, you remember my childhood, so you must be Master’s long-time acquaintance.”
“…Well, I suppose I am. By the way, how did that centipede reach Core Formation in just a few tens of years?”
Gyu-baek looked at the centipede beast in front of her, bewildered.
But the centipede beast seemed not to care about her confusion and simply laughed.
“It is nothing. I have a method that raises the spiritual energy inside my body, and I received the help of a Divine External Water.”
Swish!
The centipede wriggled its many legs, and after a while, it pulled out a long bamboo from between its armor.
“It is called the Essence-Sucking Bamboo, a technique. Once you suck on it, your spiritual energy grows rich and your talent as a beast clan improves. This is the technique Master gave me.”
“Essence-Sucking Bamboo…!?”
Gyu-baek was startled as she watched Hong-beom suck on the Essence-Sucking Bamboo.
She knew the item.
“From what I know, this technique helps concentrate the spiritual energy of beast clan members, but if used continuously, it releases toxicity and can lead to death by poisoning. I thought it had been banned in ancient times…”
“I happen to be immune to poison.”
Whoosh—
Hong-beom put the bamboo in his mouth, sucked in the smoke, exhaled, and laughed.
Gyu-baek looked at him and felt one question.
“With your talent, you could have escaped even if Seo Eun-hyun had cast a seal and found freedom. Why are you still treating him as Master and obeying?”
Whoosh—
Hong-beom sucked the smoke again and laughed.
“You misunderstand. Master has not placed any seal on me. I call him Master by my own will.”
“…?”
“I was born, and the first memory I have is that I naturally climbed onto Master’s body, and Master accepted me. The thrilling memories of fighting together with Master are still deeply engraved in my mind.”
“So it is simply because Seo Eun-hyun took care of you since you were young?”
“No. It was when I gained spiritual energy and will. At that time, I realized my fate.”
“…?”
“I was born to support Master, to protect him. I felt that this was my fate.”
“The earth clan felt fate? That was during Qi Condensation?”
“You may not believe it, but it is true.”
“How peculiar… Did Seo Eun-hyun know you had that kind of realization?”
“How could he. Master disappeared suddenly when I was in Qi Condensation. Ah, now that I think about it, I have not seen Master in tens of years… Where is he now? What is he doing?”
“….”
As she followed the bizarre train of thought, Gyu-baek felt a strange feeling.
“Even understanding that the earth clan realized fate during Qi Condensation… he still calls Seo Eun-hyun Master and follows him after not having seen his face in tens of years?”
Gyu-baek looked at the centipede beast before her.
Hong-beom was incredibly peculiar.
“Explain to me exactly where Seo Eun-hyun was when he came to the earth clan realm. By the way…”
Gyu-baek pointed at the cave and asked.
“Seo Eun-hyun said there used to be a lot of Core Formation beast fodder cores and pills that could fill the entire cave, but did you eat them?”
“Yes. Thanks to Master, I never lacked training resources during that time.”
“…Did Seo Eun-hyun tell you how to break the seal and go in?”
“No. I saw the flow of the seal and dismantled the formation myself.”
“Dismantled the formation by yourself…?”
As she talked with Hong-beom, Gyu-baek was certain.
“This guy… has tremendous talent.”
Hong-beom was a genius.
Gyu-baek could only conclude that after speaking with him.
Two months passed.
After meeting Hong-beom, Gyu-baek had eaten the spiritual energy pills prepared by Seo Eun-hyun for him and recovered her pure force.
Meanwhile, the soul of the Moon’s Moon Pill had also been preparing to open, and Yu Hwa had been investigating Seo Hyul’s condition and the overall flow of the earth clan.
While they were spending time like that.
Finally, Seo Eun-hyun returned.
“It has been a while.”
“Yeah, did you do what you intended in the human clan realm?”
“…It was not very successful, but there were some results. Ah, and let me introduce you.”
And behind Seo Eun-hyun entered a small hunched figure.