Return to the Central Realm
Salt is sacred.
Since ancient times, it has symbolized purification and remains one of the essential elements of life itself.
Furthermore, the character for “salt” (鹽) is composed of the radical for “observe” (監) and the radical for “brine” (鹵), forming a pictograph of a “pot boiling over with edible salt.”
In the Three Thousand Greater Thousand Worlds, multiple terms exist for salt, yet ultimately and fatefully all converge on the same meaning described above.
**[Observe]**.
Salt is bound by necessity to contain the meaning **[Observe]**.
**[Observe]** is the essence of maintenance and, at the same time, self-contemplation.
In the end, salt is the materialization of someone pushing the meaning “repentant awakening” down from the realm of names and conventions into the realm of qi.
Cultivation is nothing other than repentance.
Just as tiny grains of salt gather to form an ocean.
Through repentance, stack the mountain.
For only by stacking the mountain of salt can one reach the heavens the fastest.
— Excerpt from the concluding verse of the **Taesan Yeolje Gong**
* * *
“Grrrrrrrrr!!!”
I rolled my eyes back and screamed.
**Gu-gu!**
A single “gu-gu” was forcibly carved into the core of my mind!
And every time I tried to understand it, I felt my skull turning into flowing salt, grinding my teeth in fury.
‘I can’t die like this!’
I bit down hard and activated the **Myeolsin Geopcheon** verse.
At the same time I fused the **Ohaeng Hyeoljubeon** with the **Eumhon Gwijumun**, forging a black curse banner, then wove the **Myeolsin Geopcheon** verse into the black banner.
**Kugugugugu!**
Deep inside my consciousness, flags wrapped in black curses appeared.
And instantly, dark ink clouds rolled over them, transforming the flags into ones made of that ink.
**Kwak!**
I drove the black curse banner infused with **Myeolsin Geopcheon** into my dantian and sealed the verses whispering inside my skull.
Simultaneously, I finally found freedom.
“Keruk! Khehuk!”
**Kugugugugu!**
The colossal salt pillar that had been crushing me collapsed.
Had I lost consciousness and merged completely with the salt pillar, it would have turned everything it touched into salt like Cheongmun Ryeong’s, but I had fortunately managed to break free just before the danger became irreversible.
**Chwa-ruk, chwa-rururuk!**
“Hueok… heuk…”
I sweated coldly and regenerated my body.
“Seo Eun-hyun! What the hell happened?!”
“Are you okay?!”
“Master, what is going on?!”
They were Jeon Myeong-hoon, Kim Young-hoon, and Hong Beom.
I stood up, my whole body trembling.
* * *
“Hueok… heuk…”
I sealed the memory of what I had seen.
Yet I felt it.
I understood Yang Su-jin’s words and Jeong-ryeo’s words with bone-deep clarity.
“Jeon Myeong-hoon.”
“Hm?”
“I have to leave.”
“What?”
**Kwak!**
I grabbed his shoulder like I was tearing it off, eyes bloodshot.
“I have to get out of this world.”
“Of course you do. So once we finish the construction of the Buk-hyung, when the Ascension Gate opens…”
“Right now!!!”
“Wha…?”
My hands shook.
“I saw something you don’t know. No, sorry. Actually, I barely saw it either. But one thing is certain. **[We]** cannot stay in this world. This place is far too dangerous and terrifying. We have to leave immediately! The Ascension Gate isn’t necessary. I can rip open the dimensional barrier with my own power. Come on, come on, let’s go anywhere—Jeon Myeong-hoon!”
I remembered the time when Yang Su-jin had forced my regression to the Gwanghan Realm through the Ascension Gate.
Back then it had only confused me, but now I understood.
When coming here, we should have come only as clones.
To walk this world in our true bodies would definitely bring disaster someday.
Because I had sealed my memories, I didn’t know what I had seen.
But one thing was clear.
‘Evil. There is a heavy malice toward **[Us]** in this Water Realm. We have to leave—now, now.’
I looked at Kim Young-hoon.
A wave of immense relief washed over me.
Kim Young-hoon had reached the **Wol-do-ip-cheon** realm, returned to the Goryeok Realm with Buk Hyang-hwa, Song Jin, and Seo Ran on his own.
It was almost too good to be true.
Jeon Myeong-hoon tilted his head, unable to understand.
“What are you talking about? If we leave now, what about the Geumsincheonroemun…?”
“The Geumsincheonroemun can survive. You saw the politics too, right? You know how the Foundation Establishment disciples and their formations and techniques alone can dominate the Water Realm? Even with a Nascent Soul patriarch appearing, the current Core Formation disciples can handle it. Even Geum-haemin is just one step away from Nascent Soul. We don’t have to worry about the Geumsincheonroemun, Jeon Myeong-hoon.”
“Hmm…”
His face was troubled.
But I looked at him with pure earnestness and begged.
“Please, Jeon Myeong-hoon, believe me. **[This time too]** I am not lying! At the very least, **[We]** must not be in our true bodies here. If you’re worried, just make a clone and leave it. Or I can create a clone of the General Baekgeom for you to use and implant only a fragment of my consciousness in it!”
Jeon Myeong-hoon shivered at the phrase “**[This time too]**,” then gritted his teeth.
“…Damn it. You always throw out decisions that are hard to choose from.”
“…And by accepting my proposal, you would have avoided some calamity.”
“Ask one more thing.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon frowned slightly.
“If only **[We]** leave… won’t the calamity you mentioned fall on the remaining disciples?”
“It won’t.”
I answered firmly.
[I didn’t know anything about what I saw], but one thing was clear.
It was that **[what I saw]** was dangerous only to **[Us]** and beings above True Immortal.
Lower beings could not perceive it except in special cases.
“If I leave after leaving the disciples the instruction to stop interpreting Heaven’s observations and astronomical phenomena, there will truly be no problem.”
“….”
“Believe me.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon let out a long sigh, then nodded.
“…Understood.”
He gave a bitter smile.
“**[This time]**… I guess I have to listen to you.”
He had finally realized the nature of the entity he dared not name.
He had understood I could not explain in detail, and this time he chose to trust me.
“But it’s impossible right now. Half a day. We’ll finish everything as quickly as possible and return.”
**Kworurung!**
Jeon Myeong-hoon turned into a bolt of lightning and shot toward the Geumsincheonroemun.
I panted and staggered.
“Are you all right?”
Hong Beom steadied me from the side.
I winced and clutched my throbbing head.
**Wung, uuung, uuuuuung!**
The sealed knowledge inside my skull wriggled as if alive.
How long would it take me to pull up the **Myeolsin Geopcheon** and suppress the knowledge?
The knowledge inside the seal finally fell silent.
And then—
**Dwoong—**
I felt the sound of a giant beast’s roar.
Through that roar, one thing came to mind.
**Taesan Yeolje Gong**.
“Ah… I see.”
This knowledge was connected to the **Taesan Yeolje Gong**.
‘Heon-won… I have to meet him first.’
The throbbing in my head finally subsided. I looked at Kim Young-hoon and said,
“Young-hoon hyung, I’m sorry, but…”
“Yeah, well… I understand. It’s fine. Being beaten fairly once is enough.”
“…Thank you for understanding.”
We nodded briefly at each other and exchanged farewells.
I sent Jeon Myeong-hoon a telepathic message to meet me in Deungsunhyang, then ran over in a single leap to where Hong Beom was waiting.
**Kugugugugu!**
The center of Deungsunhyang.
There, a completely closed Ascension Gate.
And above it, the stone tablet of Yang Su-jin.
And countless spatial rifts.
‘I have to leave—quickly, quickly!’
I gnawed my nails in anxiety.
Then my gaze landed on one spot.
‘That spot…’
That spot.
Five hundred years ago, the day Hong Beom had first clung to me.
I suddenly recalled the **[dream]** I had dreamed.
‘Ever since I saw the inverted triangle… was it a dream? Or perhaps the moment I first “created” it… was it a dream too…?’
But the dream was far too detailed, and I felt a strange unease.
“Hong Beom.”
“Yes, Master.”
I instructed him to reveal in **[the dream]** the “poison compounding method” I had given him.
“This spirit poison. Can you make it?”
“Hoo, a poison made only from ordinary herbs and sap without spirit energy. I’ll do it right away.”
Hong Beom vanished from my sight and moments later was assembling medicine inside a temporary clinic in the Deungsunhyang forest.
**Chwarararak!**
He transformed his upper body into his true form, countless centipede legs moving at an incredible speed, mixing the poison with astonishing rapidity.
The sight was somewhat grotesque.
After a while—
“It’s done, Master. Quite an interesting poison combination.”
Hong Beom presented the exact spirit liquid I had seen in the dream.
“…?”
‘What is this?’
It wasn’t just a dream?
How could knowledge that came from a dream be applied in reality?
I felt a chill and asked Hong Beom.
“Hong Beom, I have one more order.”
“Speak, Master.”
“Within half a day, go to the Jeon clan of Yeon Kingdom… investigate these things and return.”
“Hmm, yes. Understood.”
I handed him a note containing several pieces of information. Hong Beom took it and left Deungsunhyang heading west.
I sat in place and began seated meditation to calm myself.
After a while—
**Paaaat!**
Hong Beom returned again.
“Yes, Master. I found out. The head of the current Jeon clan raises a centipede spirit beast, and that spirit beast can produce spirit liquid identical to the one you made.”
“…I see.”
A strange feeling rose in me.
The information from the dream was correct.
“And it turns out that spirit beast is my blood relative. One of my siblings.”
“…I see.”
I clutched my head.
‘Knowledge from the dream…’
Matched reality.
Events in the dream came back to memory.
The logic was strange, but I reasoned that everything had simply unfolded according to the flow of consciousness in the dream.
Even setting aside that logic, however—
The **[facts]** that had come from the dream matched reality.
‘What the hell is this?’
I was confused, and I recalled the words Hong Beom had said in the dream.
A mother centipede who loved her children and possessed the bond of blood relatives—yet the man before me was nothing like her.
‘Things that happened in the dream are not merely illusions. The dream was grounded in reality.’
Hong Beom hadn’t asked, but his attitude toward his own family was probably the same as the dream.
The **[actual truth]** had come into me from the dream.
There had been a feeling of something floating in the dream.
And a feeling that my thoughts were unclear.
Yet the ‘facts’ I had learned from the dream were true.
‘It wasn’t a simple dream…’
But I could not understand why such a true-like dream had come to me.
What was the intention of the being who granted me that dream?
I could not know.
A while later.
I was waiting near the Ascension Gate.
**Kworurung!**
Lightning flashed, and Jeon Myeong-hoon appeared.
He opened the **Jeomuldo** and a massive warship emerged from within.
‘That’s…’
It was far inferior to the real **Seopmyeong Ship**, but it possessed excellent spatial attributes.
“Either way, good I took it. Also, incidentally, I have sealed my split soul in the Geumsincheonroemun shrine. If there’s a need to communicate with the Water Realm disciples, you may use it too.”
I shook my head.
“If you left it, I wouldn’t need it.”
“Well, actually I don’t need it either. Because…”
I glanced at the person emerging behind Jeon Myeong-hoon and startled.
“Wait, are you taking him?”
The one behind Jeon Myeong-hoon was Yeon-jin.
Not the ancestor ‘Yeon-wi,’ but Yeon-jin, a Core Formation swordmaster.
At that moment, Yeon-jin’s eyes rolled back and Yeon-wi’s voice came out.
“I decided to stay in the lower realm. I will seal my true soul together with Jeon Myeong-hoon’s split soul in the shrine where his split soul is, so that I may remain in the Geumsincheonroemun.”
“Yeon-wi… are you sure?”
“Yes. And I am not sending Yeon-jin. I have implanted my split soul inside Yeon-jin’s consciousness. Through Yeon-jin I can communicate with me in the lower realm.”
“Truly… are you sure?”
I knew she craved life and asked.
But Yeon-wi laughed.
“Anyway, once we reach the Middle Realm, Heon-won will try to catch me somehow. If I fall into his hands like this, heehee… I don’t even want to imagine. It’s better to stay here than to go up with that guy and the Sovereign. Don’t worry.”
“…Understood.”
I nodded, added several requests to Yeon-wi—asking her to investigate the Sea Dragon Palace, Bongmyeong Castle, and Black Flame Mountain, and Deungsunhyang—then turned around.
“Huu…”
In feeling, it was as if I had climbed back up the moment I had descended to the Water Realm.
But I knew.
This place was too dangerous.
Therefore I had to leave immediately.
This time, thanks to Jeon Myeong-hoon trusting me, I could leave with him.
I would leave the Geumsincheonroemun behind, but the outcome of Heaven’s judgment would be twisted.
“Then, let’s depart.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon and Yeon-jin and Hong Beom boarded the replica **Seopmyeong Ship**.
I manifested the **Triple Taiji** behind me and raised my hand toward the spot where the Ascension Gate had opened.
Then I brought my hand down.
**Kwaaaang!**
“Back to the Middle Realm.”