Thunder's Lament
I felt as though I had fallen into an ice cave.
Why, in front of the Lord of Heavenly Tribulation, had he called my name three times?
I swallowed hard.
“….”
[….]
“….”
[….]
And nothing happened.
“…?”
It was then that I glanced at her with a puzzled look.
She turned her head away from me and once again assumed a posture of prayer toward the Lord of Heavenly Tribulation in the void.
And.
Crackling!
Lightning struck from the sky and crashed down upon Jeong-ryeo.
Clang!
With it, I felt the invisible chains that had bound Jeong-ryeo snap as if cut.
And she rose from her place and cried out.
[By the will of the Master, I purify the sins of the Heavenly Tribulation and judge the descendants of Geumsin.]
Crunch…
I clenched my teeth.
[Perish.]
Flash!
The sky glowed brightly, and a golden bolt of lightning descended.
“…!”
But this time it was different.
The golden lightning that had pierced Noeryeong-do had been terrifyingly massive, visible even from afar.
This one falling now was clearly smaller and weaker in its aura.
Each bolt of lightning carried power no greater than a single strike at the Core Formation stage!
“Ugh…!”
The light of that power shone brilliantly above Noeun-bong, flaunting itself.
Whoosh, rumbling!
The sky trembled and gradually began to boil.
I understood what I had accomplished with Myeonsingeobcheon.
By sacrificing myself, I had changed the Geumsin Heavenly Thunder sect's 9,000+ sub-techniques—once destined to annihilate all at once—from being executed in rapid succession near the Lord of Heavenly Tribulation to a much slower process.
“Ugh…!”
Thunder roared!
Dark clouds gathered once more in the sky, snatching at the descending golden bolts and holding them back.
The golden lightning tried to fall but was caught by the clouds and could no longer descend.
Countless golden bolts were trapped in the clouds, yet somehow one still fell toward Noeun-bong.
“…!”
I clenched my teeth.
* * *
Boom! Boom-boom!
Light flooded the heavens and earth.
Jeon Myeong-hoon could not grasp the scene.
Amid the golden light, every being except himself was being reduced to ash.
“Min…hoon…”
Even Geum So-hae, who he was holding in his arms, was burning.
No matter how he tried to protect her, no matter how tightly he held her, Geum So-hae was consumed by flame.
Kugugugu!
Even with the power of the Heavenly Person stage, he could not absorb the Heavenly Tribulation.
This overwhelming force poured endlessly from the sky as if infinite, faster than he could defend and faster than he could absorb it, striking Geum So-hae.
“Ah, aaah, aaaaa! No! So-hae! So-hae!!!”
“Min…hoon…”
“Hu, uwaaaa! Do, don’t! Please! No! So-hae, just hold on a little longer, a little! It’ll be over soon! Just a little more! Please hold on just a little longer…!”
But that was only his wish.
Geum So-hae was slowly turning to ash.
As she slipped into cinders, Geum So-hae spoke to him.
“I love you…. Please… protect… our family…”
With those words, Geum So-hae vanished from Jeon Myeong-hoon’s sight.
She had become ash.
Yet Jeon Myeong-hoon could not die.
The power of the Heavenly Tribulation flowed endlessly into him, growing him stronger.
Unwanted as it was.
When his family died, he alone survived and became stronger.
“Ah, aaaa…”
In his maddened state, Jeon Myeong-hoon howled.
“Aaah! Aaahhh! Uwaaaaaaaa!”
As if he had forgotten how to speak, he raved.
“Uwaaaaaaaa!!!”
And a vast [Will] poured into Jeon Myeong-hoon’s mind as he spiraled into madness.
—Go-bae-eok-seon-go-i-eo-geu-reun-dae-jong-myeong-seong-ja-jang-yeo-eul-geu-jeul-dae-geo-ga-i-ba-da-ji-eun-kyeo-gi-bo-jeog-gess-eul-da-taeg-ha-dae-ra-neun-bon-tae-seon-ga-eun-do-geu-men-dae-bon-ro-seon-in-ha-al-yeo-hyeon-hae-hal-bang-ji-doel-eo-ji-ra-ni.
“Kuwaaaa!”
The incomprehensible giant [Will] violently stabbed into Jeon Myeong-hoon’s mind.
He screamed.
The horror lay in the fact that the [Will] was changing the Heavenly Qi in real time, moving, and resetting destiny itself.
According to that incomprehensible [Will], he would act to fulfill the fate it wove.
The realization that he was entangled in an unfathomable fate terrified him more than anything.
A while later.
The Heavenly Tribulation that had been hell ended.
Whoosh, rumbling…
Jeon Myeong-hoon looked around with vacant eyes.
Even now, golden lightning and the clouds trapping it were visible in many places of the sky.
And higher still.
Barefoot Jeong-ryeo let out an ecstatic cry and was being sucked into that [being] there.
Crackle!
Jeong-ryeo turned into a single bolt of lightning and was drawn into the giant [eye].
Blink.
Then the giant [eye] that had covered the sky closed.
“….”
The terrifying pressure had vanished, yet Jeon Myeong-hoon looked around.
It was ash.
Everyone was ash.
Geum Byeok-ho, Geumrin, Geum Jinchan, Jin Hwi…
And.
Thud…
Jeon Myeong-hoon startled when the thing in his hand fell back onto the cinders.
It was a [hand].
The hand of Geum So-hae that had been flung into the air by the lightning.
“Ah, aaaa, aaaaa…!”
Jeon Myeong-hoon began screaming.
“Hueaaaaaaa!”
Only his hand, which had perfectly and completely covered Geum So-hae’s hand without a single gap, remained as cinders and was flung into the air by the electricity.
“Uwaaaaa! Aaah! Aaaaa!”
Drip, drip…
Tears of blood began to flow from his eyes.
Jeon Myeong-hoon howled.
“Aa… aaaaa…”
As he wept with tears of blood, he heard a whisper echoing from the surroundings.
The ‘voice of lightning’ that had been screaming in his ears just moments ago had returned to normal.
He listened closely.
The voices of lightning were telling him knowledge.
Because he had faced [that being] moments ago, the knowledge the lightning voices conveyed came to him easily.
“…The most great…”
Jeon Myeong-hoon grabbed his head and laughed.
[He] was watching me!
[That being]!!!
The [eye] in his mind would not leave!!!
Jeon Myeong-hoon rolled his eyes and cried out the knowledge delivered by the ‘voice of lightning.’
No, it was madness twisted into evil.
“The most great Lord of Heavenly Tribulation resides in the distant Heavenly Realm. He sits upon the throne at the center of this universe and is imprisoned by light. He is waiting for me. He is calling me. He is calling. He is calling me… He is…!”
Boom!
After a while of raving, Jeon Myeong-hoon suddenly began pounding the ground with his fist.
Bang, bang, bang!
The ground shook from the power of his Heavenly Person stage qi strike, and Noeun-bong began to collapse.
Kugugugu!
Jeon Myeong-hoon crashed to the ground together with Noeun-bong.
“…He took… He took… He took… He took… He took… my family… my family…”
He looked at the sky and whispered in a howl.
“That bastard took everything from me… everything from me! Aaa, uwaaaaaa!”
Then, at some point.
The pupils of Jeon Myeong-hoon’s eyes, once filled with madness, filled with fury, and at last all madness vanished from his eyes.
At the same time he realized that the [gaze] remaining in his mind had disappeared.
“Ah… I see.”
Crunch…
Grinding his teeth, Jeon Myeong-hoon stood up with his eyes rolled back.
“This… is my fate…”
Drip, drip…
With tears of blood and tears of sorrow, Jeon Myeong-hoon spoke in a trembling voice.
“I must… heal this rage…”
Upon realizing his own fate, Jeon Myeong-hoon, who had wiped away the influence of the [gaze], ground his teeth and said.
“I will kill… every last thing that blocks my path… even if I have to kill it…”
Crunch…
“I will… get my revenge…!!!”
He picked up Geum So-hae’s flung left hand and roared as he swore revenge.
And from behind him came a familiar voice.
“Now is not the time for revenge.”
“…!”
Jeon Myeong-hoon turned around.
Seo Eun-hyun was there.
* * *
With a bitter expression, I approached Jeon Myeong-hoon, who was crying with tears of blood and eyes rolled back.
“You…”
Jeon Myeong-hoon stared at me for a moment, then began spitting red lightning.
“You…!!!”
I looked at the man calmly and spoke.
“Calm down. I have something to say.”
“You, you, you have to listen to me properly…”
“You’re out of your mind with rage.”
In his current state, there was nothing I could do.
In an instant I reached him and clamped onto his head.
‘Because I limited the Heavenly Tribulation with Myeonsingeobcheon, the amplification rate of the Heavenly Tribulation’s power is not that high.’
At best, he was only a little stronger than in his past life.
“Alright, snap out of it, Jeon Myeong-hoon.”
I stuffed a thick layer of black curses into his head.
The curse I injected into him was the agony that recreated the 60,000-fold sensation felt when opposing Seo Hyul.
The vast pain that had even forced Seo Hyul to tear apart his mind poured into the man’s consciousness.
“—————!”
Jeon Myeong-hoon thrashed without even regaining his mind.
But I did not stop.
Until his consciousness changed from red to the pure ‘pain’ symbol, until he forgot even rage from the agony, I poured the curse into his mind.
A while later.
At last Jeon Myeong-hoon’s hair turned white from the pain, and only then did he reach the point of forgetting even rage.
“Reversal.”
Crackle!
I completely reversed all the curses I had injected into him with Baekran Chukseongmun and stabilized his mind.
A while later.
“…I’m coming back to my senses.”
I watched the slowly returning clear light in Jeon Myeong-hoon and asked.
“…Hu…”
And as his mind returned, memories did too.
The fury in the man’s eyes began to return gradually.
Before he could go mad with rage again, I pulled out an important fact.
“Listen well, Jeon Myeong-hoon. Because of the Heavenly Tribulation just now, more than 60,000 disciples of the Geumsin Heavenly Thunder sect have died. Besides Noeun-bong, several Heavenly Tribulations that I could not stop fell elsewhere. But…”
As I spoke, Jeon Myeong-hoon’s face hardened.
“Several Core Formation disciples, Foundation Establishment disciples… and the vast majority of Thunder Tribulation disciples… most of them survived!!!”
“…What?”
Incredibly, Heavenly Tribulation struck those of higher realms even more.
That was why, despite using Myeonsingeobcheon, most of the sect’s main power members of Geumsin Heavenly Thunder died.
But those who were not the main power.
Those who did not even care about the Heavenly Tribulation.
The Thunder Tribulation disciples, or those who were not in Noeryeong-do at the time, had not died.
Of course, they had only not died ‘yet.’
I read the Heavenly Qi.
‘Twenty years… All disciples of Geumsin Heavenly Thunder have a fixed fate of dying to the Heavenly Tribulation within twenty years.’
But it was not the same as in the past life.
In the past life, even if it was said to be twenty years, they all perished within months of the Heavenly Tribulation.
But this time it was different.
Myeonsingeobcheon had succeeded in delaying the Heavenly Qi!
‘At least one to two years of time remains.’
Rumbling…
I watched the golden lightning trapped in the clouds and the clouds gradually becoming transparent and disappearing.
This was the phenomenon visible as the qi rank shifted to the Ming rank.
The ‘golden lightning’ I had held back would now roar in the Ming rank, killing the remaining disciples of Geumsin Heavenly Thunder.
But I had taken the backlash of Myeonsingeobcheon into this single body.
“Listen well, Jeon Myeong-hoon. I understand the feeling of losing precious people. No, perhaps I cannot fully understand it. Because I cannot arbitrarily judge someone else’s heart. But, Jeon Myeong-hoon.”
I looked at the man and said.
“I too have lost my dao companion, Hong Su-ryeong. Even so, there is still work to be done.”
“….”
“From now on, I will lead the surviving disciples of Geumsin Heavenly Thunder away from the Heavenly Tribulation.”
“…What does that mean?”
“In so many words. I will go somewhere the Heavenly Tribulation cannot chase.”
“Somewhere the Heavenly Tribulation cannot chase?”
I recalled Jeong-ryeo’s words.
The terrifying world where even the Lord of Heavenly Tribulation had been threatened, or where even friends of that being had died.
“The Lord of Heavenly Tribulation cannot chase there.”
The First Realm.
“From now on, I will gather the surviving disciples of Geumsin Heavenly Thunder and head to the First Realm!”
* * *
A surreal world where the boundaries of all things were hazy and countless lights flickered.
In one region of that world.
A white-haired woman with bare white feet knelt before a giant wall.
The wall was made solely of endless thunder and lightning.
It was so vast it might as well have been the sea of thunder and lightning standing beside it.
The white-haired woman, Jeong-ryeo, opened her mouth toward the wall.
[I was able to know its name because it told me its name directly.]
———.
Some metaphysical will was transmitted to her.
Jeong-ryeo accepted the will and continued speaking.
[One, as you saw with your own eyes, it did not even respond to my voice, which carries your authority. No matter how many times I called, there was no reaction. From beside it, I observed it and learned one thing.]
Jeong-ryeo let her snow-white hair fall onto the hazy ground.
[Its name was covered in death. It is already a dead being. Despite being a departed soul, it is wandering in the living world. There is no way a call to a living being’s name would work on a dead being. Its name already belongs to the Lord of the Underworld.]
———!!
The wall of thunder and lightning flickered for an instant.
[Yes, perhaps the Lord of the Underworld is trying to use it for something. Or perhaps it is one of his celestial treasures.]
———….
[Yes? What is a Jongmyeongja then?]
———.
[It was presumptuous of a lowly one to speak thus. In any case, it was a clearly chilling existence. Extremely unpleasant and terrifying, so originally it would have gone straight after regaining its power and annihilated it. But, upon thinking of the Lord of the Underworld, I decided that if it were one of his servants, I should not touch it rashly.]
———.
[Thank you. That is the reason I asked you not to attack it rashly. And… since you have returned, Lord, do not worry. No matter what the Lord of the Underworld might do to bend the world again, since I have come, you too will be able to extend your power outside the prison.]
———.
[Ah, my Lord. I am grateful….]
With those words, Jeong-ryeo approached the wall of thunder and lightning with a look of ecstasy, spreading her arms toward it.
Swoosh!
A while later the wall moved, and it swallowed her as if it were a living thing.
The wall of thunder and lightning twitched for a moment.
---