Ascension (2)
Crunch crunch crunch!
A ferocious spatial storm raged from beyond the horizon.
After boarding the replication Seopmyeong Ship, I took the controls.
The manipulation method... is simpler than the original.
Crunch crunch crunch!
Recalling the memories of controlling the Seopmyeong Ship, I brought the replicated version through the spatial rift.
Whoosh!
The Seopmyeong Ship shielded us from the spatial storm.
We had crossed the Ascension Gate and entered the void space of the Water Realm itself, not the inter-dimensional passage seen beyond the Gate.
Ordinary Heavenly Person Water Cultivators.
In other words, how did those who did not ascend through the Ascension Gate succeed in ascending?
It was simple.
The Heavenly Person Water Cultivators were those who could sense the will of fate, and the 'Middle Heaven Realm' itself attracted powerful cultivators.
If one could ride that current toward the top, they would succeed in ascending, but if they failed to grasp it properly, they would drift foolishly through the void space and die.
That was the typical form of 'ascending without the Gate.'
I could feel it.
The force emanating from the Middle Heaven Realm was calling to me.
In theory, I should have ridden that force and seized the opportunity at once.
To do that, I would have needed to remain in the void space and observe the flow of the will.
But I had no time for that.
Whoosh!
I raised the Colorless Glass Sword.
Once again, the Triple Taiji formed behind my head.
Kwaaang!
Ascending without the Gate could be likened to shooting an arrow from the battlefield.
Passing through countless obstacles and hitting the target.
Sensing the flow of the will was like recognizing the enemy commander.
Riding that flow was like calculating wind direction, obstacles, and distance, then loosing the arrow.
That was 'ascending without the Gate.'
But I.
Ku gu gu gu gu gu!
The waves of space split apart before my sword strikes, creating a vast path.
A path leading to the Middle Heaven Realm.
To put it simply, I was firing a cannon, not an arrow.
Wind direction? Obstacles? Distance?
Irrelevant. I tore through them all and struck the enemy.
Like an indiscriminate war machine, we sliced through the void space and rose toward the heavens.
We soon reached the great current.
'Done. I rode it!'
The will the Middle Heaven Realm was spewing!
The very space I had reached during my last ascent without the Gate.
The place cultivators called the void space!
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
Innumerable scenes swept past us, heading downward.
The appearance of a vast universe, the forms of stars...
Everything was the same as before.
But there was one thing different...
Crunch crunch crunch!
I was ascending through the spatial storm, taking the pressure without any defense, body exposed.
Because Jeon Myeong-hoon had a weaker body than mine, he protected himself with spells, and Yeon-jin was cradled in his one arm, both being shielded together.
I stood at the prow of the replicated Seopmyeong Ship, enduring the strongest spatial pressure with my bare body.
'Was this what it was like...'
Back then, even holding on made the space seem insane.
But now I could ascend through the void space with ease, as if just taking a leisurely tour.
Suddenly, beyond the scenes where space and space intertwined far in the distance.
At that place, something was twitching.
'That's...'
Something I had seen before.
A bizarre lifeform swimming in the spatial waves of the void space, imbued with the power of a Heavenly Person.
'Thinking back, that was it.'
The green-armored ghost I had met during my first ascension without the Gate had warned me, calling it a monster from outside the world that had entered in human form.
And when I was the governor of the Human Race Alliance, I could access information about the Bongrae Palace.
The Alliance was planning to turn the Gongryeong-ji into an Ascension Platform like the Bongrae Palace, so it was permissible information, and from him I had seen one of the duties of those managing the Ascension Platform in Geongon City.
'To block the bizarre lifeforms from entering the Middle Heaven Realm.'
That was it.
'What on earth are those things trying to block entry from the Geongon City dimension for?'
The Geongon City was not managed by humans but by the entire 'Heaven and Earth Race.'
In short, the writhing lump in that scene was an existence that combined the power of the entire Heaven and Earth Race to prevent their entry into this world.
Twitch—
When I looked at it, suddenly, a fourth sense told me I sensed the intention of 'that.'
—Food.
"...!"
Crunch crunch crunch!
From afar, the bizarre lifeform that swam freely in the spatial pressure was flying toward us.
'Damn it, last time you didn't even look, why now...'
Thinking back, I had obtained the answer then, so my actual power was at the Nascent Soul level, but my cultivation stage itself barely reached the Elixir Cultivation level.
'Is it because of the spiritual energy I carry inside?'
Crunch crunch crunch!
I debated what to do with the charging lifeform.
But at that moment, Jeon Myeong-hoon reached out.
Kwaaah!
Red lightning flashed from the void space and instantly roasted the lifeform.
"Wait, Jeon Myeong-hoon. Hold on."
"What? Why again."
"What do you think you're—"
Then.
Creak creak creak!
Accompanied by a bone-chilling roar, the lifeform pierced through Jeon Myeong-hoon's lightning and charged straight at the replicated Seopmyeong Ship.
Jeon Myeong-hoon looked shocked.
I, too, startled and reached out.
Crunch crunch crunch!
The power of the Five Elements swirled in my hand and shot toward the lifeform.
A direct hit that would be fatal even to an ordinary Heavenly Person Water Cultivator!
But the lifeform did not dodge; it charged head-on, and I frowned and drew out the Invisible Sword.
'It has an immense resistance to the Five Elements. This is not normal.'
Then the answer was to swap to physical power.
Whoosh!
Crack!
When I shattered its body with the Invisible Sword...
"...!"
I felt a strange familiarity from the lifeform.
'What? This sensation I've felt before...'
Thinking that way, I raised the Invisible Sword again to smash its body to pieces.
But at that moment.
Creak creak creak!
"...?"
The lifeform sliced in two by the Invisible Sword did not die but suddenly thrashed around madly.
'Why?'
When I wondered, suddenly something familiar burst from the lifeform's entire body.
Kwaaah!
"...!"
It was the Golden Tribulation.
The lifeform was spewing Golden Tribulation from its entire body.
Seeing the familiar golden Golden Tribulation, I was startled.
'This, this...'
It was not a single simple golden Golden Tribulation.
From the lifeform came the familiar 'Colorless' Golden Tribulation as well.
The colorless Golden Tribulation strangely possessed the same nature as my Invisible Sword.
The lifeform, spewing Golden Tribulation from its entire body, eventually exploded in the Golden Tribulation.
Or rather, thanks to the power of my colorless Golden Tribulation, it had simply smashed itself apart on its own.
I was taken aback by the unexpected situation and stared blankly at the broken remains of the lifeform being swept away in the spatial storm.
'What on earth is that?'
And only then did I realize where the strange familiarity I had felt from the lifeform had come from.
'Heon-won, Gwanghan Seon-woo, Heukryongwang Hyeon-eum, Gyu-ryeon...'
Integration stage.
Or the feeling similar to the 'domain' power sensed by those who had challenged the Integration stage.
Yet the power it actually possessed was at the Heavenly Person level.
I sighed after pondering the identity of that lifeform and decided to focus on ascending for now.
After all, there could be more than one such bizarre lifeform, and there was no guarantee there wouldn't be even stronger ones.
And a while later.
Indeed, those mindless bizarre lifeforms continued to attack us.
'I never realized having so much Heaven and Earth spiritual energy inside would cause such troubles.'
Probably formal Heavenly Person Water Cultivators had to deal with those bizarre lifeforms during ascent without the Gate or even flee from them.
'It's only now that I feel it anew, but it wasn't for nothing that they favored ascenders in the Gwanghan Realm.'
Ascending without tearing through all of this meant one was an amazing expert in their own right.
At the same time, I realized again that Geum Byeok-ho, Changhoza, and Baekgol Gwima were truly great individuals.
'No matter how many Heavenly Person Water Cultivators there were in the sects, bringing the entire sect members to ascend added enormous pressure here... and to do it while protecting the sect members from the bizarre lifeforms, that was amazing.'
One's tongue was parched.
Kwa jijijijik!
Fortunately, these lifeforms seemed to have extreme resistance to my Invisible Sword's power, so the Golden Tribulation inside would surge and boil before exploding and dying on its own.
'Young-hoon hyeongnim must have ascended rather comfortably.'
While I thought that, ascending without the Gate continued.
"Master, there seems to be something big below."
Hong Beom pointed downward and said.
As he said, a momentum surpassing the Integration Grand Completion was felt from below, so Jeon Myeong-hoon and I moved at once.
Jeon Myeong-hoon assisted me while I fired the Invisible Sword.
Jeon Myeong-hoon said after sighing.
"Still, the monsters around here seem to be that one last one. No more momentum is felt beyond that."
"Yeah, just a little more effort."
And we moved to the rear of the replicated Seopmyeong Ship to prepare for attack.
Flash!
My Gyeomcheon mixed with Jeon Myeong-hoon's Budo Gongbeop and fell.
Kwa kwa kwa gwang!
The lifeform, which was at the peak of the Four Pillars level, immediately shattered into pieces and scattered, and Jeon Myeong-hoon used Budo Gongbeop to protect the replicated Seopmyeong Ship from the Golden Tribulation spewing from the lifeform.
And just as we were about to move forward again.
"Wait, Seo Eun-hyun. Isn't there something over there?"
"Hmm? What do you mean?"
I followed Jeon Myeong-hoon's finger and looked below.
And...
And...
* * *
* * *
"Eh, eh?"
"Master!!! Master!!!"
I felt Hong Beom raising one hand toward me and opened my eyes.
'What, what is this?'
My head was in chaos.
I looked around; I was still on the replicated Seopmyeong Ship and continuing to ascend without the Gate.
Somehow, there was vomit everywhere around me, and my cheek stung from Hong Beom slapping me awake.
I realized I had momentarily lost consciousness.
'What on earth? My consciousness had flown away...'
And I knew why my consciousness had flown away.
'I had seen [something]! I had seen what Jeon Myeong-hoon pointed at together! And...'
U, uueuh!
Suddenly feeling my stomach flip, I vomited on the outside of the replicated Seopmyeong Ship.
"Kkeok, kkehueok!"
Memories are coming back!
No, not exactly!
But I knew I had seen something extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely disgusting and repulsive.
Even now, the nausea had not subsided and the vomiting continued.
'What, what is this, exactly?'
I wondered what on earth I had seen.
But since it would not come to mind, I shook my head and asked Hong Beom.
"Hong Beom, how long have I been unconscious now?"
"Fortunately, only half a day. The replicated Seopmyeong Ship took all the spatial pressure because Master and Myeong-hun-ssi did not wake up, and its durability is almost gone."
"Such...!"
I hurriedly ran to the front and took the spatial pressure.
"What happened to Jeon Myeong-hoon?"
I felt the replicated Seopmyeong Ship rocking quite a bit differently from before and asked.
Hong Beom replied to the question.
"I will wake everyone now. I thought waking Master first, so I woke Master first."
"Yeah, thanks."
I glanced at Hong Beom's hand.
'He shattered his own hand to slap my cheek.'
My cheek, trained in the Yaosu Gongbeop, was harder than steel.
By pure hardness, it should have been even harder than Yaosu Hong Beom.
Hong Beom had slapped it with his hand until it shattered.
Puak, puck!
After a while, Hong Beom began slapping the cheek of Jeon Myeong-hoon, who was rolling around on the deck.
A while later, Jeon Myeong-hoon also woke up.
"Jeon Myeong-hoon, are you all right?"
"Eh, e-uh? Eh..."
But Jeon Myeong-hoon seemed dazed, and unlike the torrent of vomit he had poured out after regaining consciousness, he had a very peaceful mind.
For some reason, a blush had risen on his face, leaving an ecstatic look.
I realized he was not yet fully sane and said.
"Hong Beom. Hit him more."
"Yes, Master."
At those words, the Yaosu Hong Beom, a Human Demonic Beast, slapped Jeon Myeong-hoon's head with full power.
Kwaaah!
Of course, Jeon Myeong-hoon's head exploded, and after a while, Jeon Myeong-hoon, who had regenerated his head, said with an unsatisfied face.
"Damn it, say it in words! I was coming back to my senses!"
"...Jeon Myeong-hoon."
I asked with a stern face.
"Do you remember what you saw during the ascent without the Gate? Just now when your consciousness was lost."
"Ah... what did you see?"
Then.
Suureuk—
Jeon Myeong-hoon suddenly cried tears.
"Eh... why am I like this?"
"...?"
I frowned while reading Jeon Myeong-hoon's mind, unable to understand.
'Sense of loss?'
The man was currently suffering from a tremendous sense of loss.
"I saw something... very ecstatic. I don't know exactly what, but... it felt so nostalgic. Yeah... when I was a child, sometimes playing happily under the nanny, my nanny sister reading fairy tales... the feeling of that time when I was truly, genuinely happy..."
He seemed to clutch his chest with a hollow feeling and said.
"Well... it seems it was a hallucination. Maybe one of the bizarre lifeforms used an illusion spell. I must have been careless. I'm sorry."
I felt an odd feeling while listening to those words.
'Why did I see the opposite of what I saw?'
I feel like I saw something extremely horrific and repulsive.
But why did the man see the opposite?
It was impossible to know.
'Hallucination spell of the bizarre lifeform?'
I had a feeling that couldn't be.
'If the bizarre lifeform had cast an illusion spell on us, we would have all been eaten by the bizarre lifeform, and I should have regressed. But that didn't happen.'
It was definitely something different from the bizarre lifeform.
I was uneasy, but at the same time, a sense of relief washed over me.
'Still... it wasn't a dream.'
Ever since waking from the salt pillar, I had actually been anxious whether 'this very moment' was a dream inside the salt pillar.
What if it was a dream within a dream?
But I realized it just now while seeing that horrific thing.
'This place is absolutely not a dream.'
Although I could not be sure in detail, what I had seen was something that could never be realized inside a dream.
Appearing inside someone's dream was itself a terrifyingly disrespectful thing.
That was what I had seen.
'I am not dreaming right now.'
Since I could be certain, I carefully lowered my gaze without looking downward, sighing in relief.
We ascended from the Water Realm to the Middle Heaven Realm without looking below for several days.
* * *
'Almost there.'
Crunch crunch crunch!
The will felt from the Gwanghan Realm gradually grew stronger and clearer.
Perhaps in just a little more distance, the dimensional barrier of the Gwanghan Realm would appear.
At that thought.
Fwok!
"...!"
Jeon Myeong-hoon and I simultaneously pulled in our strength.
From above, a gigantic bizarre lifeform appeared, opening its mouth like a maw toward us.
Crunch crunch crunch!
Creak creak creak!
'It is a monster at the late stage of the Four Pillars level!'
Somehow it had hidden in the spatial storm of the void space, evading even my sight, and pounced on us.
'Its abilities are varied indeed.'
I clicked my tongue at the bizarre ability this monster possessed and drew the Invisible Sword.
Crack!
The monster's mouth had already swallowed our entire ship.
But I did not care and gripped the sword and swung it as is.
Whoosh!
I gave almost no strength.
Yet the monster did not split, but I could see Golden Tribulation surging from every corner of its body.
Tup!
Finally, the monster completely swallowed us.
"Ho-oh..."
And we who had rushed inside the lifeform's body each let out a cry.
Surprisingly, the inside of the bizarre lifeform contained a [world].
A miniature world, not the real world.
It was so small it should have been called a pocket dimension, about three thousand pyeong.
Swoooosh—
There was a small island in that place.
A really small island, only about thirty pyeong.
Surrounding the island was all sea water.
And the sky was a night sky filled with stars I had never seen before.
"What on earth is this, these guys?"
"It felt like Integration stage cultivators... but I never thought there would be a domain inside their bodies like Integration stage cultivators."
Crunch crunch crunch!
I let out a cry seeing Golden Tribulation boiling in the sky.
"Heh, even if Integration stage cultivators received the manifestation of a heart sword, they don't have Golden Tribulation boiling inside their own domain... how bizarre."
These bizarre beings could do what Integration stage cultivators could not, yet their actual power and energy were only at the Heavenly Person or Four Pillars level.
Crunch crunch crunch crunch!
The colorless Golden Tribulation fell and filled the entire world.
We waited while defending against the Golden Tribulation, and after a while we felt the small world inside the monster gradually collapsing.
It self-destructed, unable to withstand the Golden Tribulation bomb.
Crack, crack!
The night sky split and the familiar void space we had come from appeared beyond it.
'Just a little more and the Gwanghan Realm...'
Then.
Ziiing—
"...?"
I suddenly felt my predecessors' true blood surging inside my body.
The true blood was reacting to the will.
'What is this?'
The true blood was telling me not to simply ride the will but to follow it.
But at the same time, I felt the Seopmyeong Ship whining.
Although it was a replica, the Seopmyeong Ship with its own will was crying out and presenting another path of will.
'What is this?'
I felt the dimensional barrier, which ended like the sea and seemed endless, far in the distance.
Crossing that dimensional barrier would lead to the Middle Heaven Realm.
The Gwanghan Realm.
If I entered there, I would emerge from the Ascension Platform in Geongon City.
But I sensed that if I followed another will, I would emerge from the 'other' place, not the Geongon City Ascension Platform.
'What should I do...'
I briefly pondered and decided to head toward the Geongon City Ascension Platform for now.
It was not just me alone, and there was no need to gamble with Jeon Myeong-hoon, Yeon-jin, and Hong Beom's lives.
"I am entering!"
I struck the dimensional barrier with the Invisible Sword.
Kwaaah!
The replicated Seopmyeong Ship could not withstand the final shock and was finally shattered, scattering beyond the dimension, and we finally succeeded in ascending without the Gate and entered the Gwanghan Realm.
