Chapter 332
The light faded, and I realized my body was in ruins.
“Damn it… I’m about to die.”
But the feeling in my chest was soaring.
I understood everything.
Seo Hyul had truly caused me immense harm.
The bastard had always lied, but it was true that his plan had been delayed for a long time.
Because he had sacrificed his precious Obok-chuk, I would have to go rescue him again.
Considering the damage I inflicted through Yeokhwa, the bastard probably wouldn’t show himself or move freely for a while.
Cough… cough!
I collapsed on the spot, vomiting blood.
Far away, I sensed the presence of several Yeongrin tribe members.
It seemed they wanted to investigate now that the monsters’ auras had dissipated.
I didn’t have the strength to even twitch a finger.
The Yeongrin tribe wasn’t on good terms with humans, so if they captured me, it would be troublesome.
Of course, even with my strength drained, there were ways to move, but I stayed lying down.
Kwa-rurung!
A flash of red lightning appeared, and Jeon Myeong-hoon clicked his tongue with an irritable expression.
“This bastard… please, if only you would talk and move a bit, it might heal you?”
The Yeokhwa attached to Seo Hyul through me had already been extinguished from inside Jeon Myeong-hoon’s body.
Originally it was supposed to burn only me, but since the situation where Seo Hyul was trying to take over “me” itself was unusual, it made sense that the Yeokhwa had left him.
Hong-beom, who had come flying with me attached, helped me up.
“For now, let’s head toward the human race territory, but first, let’s do some emergency treatment.”
“What emergency treatment? One good night’s sleep and you’ll be fine.”
“If you go wild relying only on your life force after reaching Four Pillars, you’ll die.”
Hong-beom took out his poisonous elixirs from his pocket dimension, mixed them on the spot, and poured something into my mouth.
Suddenly, vitality surged through my body, and I felt a surge in my regeneration.
As someone who had surpassed the cost in medicine poison, he boasted quite the effect.
“Once the treatment is done, you should leave. It could be dangerous to linger in the other race’s territory.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon grabbed the back of me and Hong-beom, and used his own Twin Thunder Technique.
Kwa-rururung!
We were enveloped in a streak of red lightning and shot toward the human race territory.
A week passed like that.
We arrived at the human race territory, officially registered “Rebirth Victory” on the system map, and Jeon Myeong-hoon officially revoked my bounty under the name of the Golden Thunder Sect’s elder.
And then, we headed toward Noeryeong-do.
Kwa-rururung!
In the previous life, I couldn’t find it because Seo Hyul had invaded and I had been in Seo Lip’s body.
I went with Jeon Myeong-hoon to the ruins of the Golden Thunder Sect in Noeryeong-do, to the place where Hong Su-ryeong had died.
The funeral was held in the lower realm, but her remains were here.
Lump… lump…
Was it because I had turned her into soil through the Eumhon Gwijumun?
There was no body of Hong Su-ryeong at the place of her death.
I swept the soil from the place where she had died.
This soil was her remains.
Jeon Myeong-hoon went to find Geum So-hae’s eastern part, and Hong-beom gave us some time to ourselves.
Crrunch—
Using my wooden shovel generated with the bone technique, I slowly dug the ground and buried the soil where Hong Su-ryeong’s body had melted.
Then I made a small mound and sat in front of it, pouring alcohol.
“It’s been a long time. I came back again.”
Gurgle… gurgle…
Thinking about it, this was something I should have done right after regaining the ability to regress in the previous life.
But Seo Hyul made me forget to think about it.
“Is it comfortable there?”
No answer.
“The god of death may be cold to us, but if he’s gentle toward others, that would be good.”
I hope you found peace after death.
Muttering can look pitiful and troublesome.
But perhaps there is a need for that pitifulness in human life.
I talked to myself for a while in front of the mound.
The grudges of ghosts cannot be conveyed to humans and pile up.
Perhaps that is why I am a ghost who cannot even die after death.
Just by muttering to Hong Su-ryeong, my heart felt a little lighter.
Evening fell.
That was when I finally finished.
“…Anyway, there were many things that happened.”
No answer.
But even if it made me sad, my heart felt at peace.
Because the regression was fixed, Hong Su-ryeong’s connection did not fade beyond time.
Because she did not disappear with longing.
I took my leave from Hong Su-ryeong and left the place with the mound.
‘Hyang-hwa…’
What if her connection had fixed after her death?
She could not move while alive, but the “that” Buk Hyang-hwa who shared connection with me would not disappear.
Suddenly, I recalled the feeling Seo Lip left for me in the previous life, that compassionate feeling.
―Even if his flesh becomes soil, his soul will return and repeat life eternally.
―Even if his flesh remains here, his soul will go to another time and never be able to recall the connections that remember him.
―Only the records stored in the Mansang Inyeondo will comfort Seo Eun-hyun warmly yet lonely.
Busseu—
Suddenly, the Mansang Inyeondo naturally spread around me.
Countless nostalgic memories remained.
To others’ eyes, they would look like a hazy mist, but to me, they were pillars of the mind that could not be exchanged with anything.
Sseuk—
Inside the Mansang Inyeondo, I laughed and played, cried and shed tears, bled and raged, and reached out to those past selves.
My hand passed through him too emptily.
It was just records, after all.
“….”
I stared at him for a moment.
And I saw an irritated gaze from inside the Mansang Inyeondo.
It was Seo Hyul.
No matter what, the bastard was inside it.
―Haha, you created such terrifying techniques but didn’t use them, so you ended up getting caught by me. It’s unfair.
I looked at the bastard and around the Mansang Inyeondo, and decided on my goal for this life.
‘This life…’
“Let’s look into the secrets of the Mansang Inyeondo.”
How had Buk Hyang-hwa connected to my Mansang Inyeondo?
Was she still inside somewhere?
What was the exact relationship with my senior bloodline?
Could it counter Seo Hyul’s Takhon Mancheon with the Mansang Inyeondo?
There was also a possibility of tracking his true form through inverse possession, so it was important to uncover the secrets of the Mansang Inyeondo.
And most of all.
Sarak—
I looked at my hand that passed through the scenes of the Mansang Inyeondo emptily and smiled bitterly.
The memory that Seo Lip had wanted to remember so much, the sunset at Nam-san with Gang Min-hee, brushed against me.
More deeply, I would dig into the Mansang Inyeondo.
Just looking isn’t sad enough.
That was Seo Lip’s thought.
The Mansang Inyeondo was so warm yet so lonely.
To feel even a little of this warmth.
The first goal of this life was to find a way to express the power of the Mansang Inyeondo externally.
It was also related to the problem with my senior bloodline, the problem of opposing Seo Hyul’s Takhon Mancheon, and the problem of Buk Hyang-hwa who had entered the Mansang Inyeondo.
It was the most important problem for now.
‘Save Kim Yeon, save Gang Min-hee, save Oh Hyun-seok.’
My strength was not lacking enough.
I had at least the qualifications to save those I wanted to save.
Saving them was not a special goal.
It was just something I no longer needed to set as a goal.
I rose into the sky and looked toward where Jeon Myeong-hoon was.
He was looking at the sky with a face lost in admiration, gently stroking the wooden box in Geum So-hae’s eastern part.
“Hong-beom.”
“Yes, Master.”
I said to the Hong-beom waiting.
“I’ll go to Cheonin-do for a while. Tell Jeon Myeong-hoon that I went to Cheonin-do to apply for the title of Heavenly Person, and deliver this martial technique book to him.”
“Yes, understood.”
I took out a vial from my pocket dimension and passed the complete record of the Six Extremes Thunder God to Hong-beom.
“I’ll be back in a few days, so get used to it before then.”
“Hmm, it looks like quite an eminent technique…”
“Even the current Jeon Myeong-hoon could not learn the Noeryeong-do technique.”
After all, there was a reason Jeon Myeong-hoon had to learn the Six Extremes Thunder God, so it was better to learn it in advance.
Then, after giving Hong-beom some instructions, I headed toward Cheonin-do.
Swish—swish—swish—
At that moment, I felt my whole body tingle again.
‘What the hell?’
Looking at the sky, the evening sunset glow and the distant moon seemed to brighten.
As the light brightened, the feeling faded.
It was clearly the same feeling I had heard before meeting Seo Hyul.
‘Is Seo Hyul doing something again? Or something else…’
I did not let down my guard and headed toward Cheonin-do.
* * *
The Zhizu Jinlong Alliance.
Eastern part of the current sound.
There, Xian-yin, who had transformed into his true form and was meditating, suddenly opened his eyes wide.
From Xian-yin’s two eyes, a faint blood light spurted out.
[The true form is communicating…? What is happening…?]
Uwooong—
Xian-yin looked at somewhere for a moment.
And the eyes of Xian-yin, who had sensed the signal spurting from a distant place, narrowed sharply.
[What…! They are waging war…? To… to prevent him from manifesting in the Ilwol Cheonyeok…?]
Fear filled Xian-yin’s eyes.
Chwarararung—
In an instant, Xian-yin transformed from a dragon’s body into a human form, trembling and clenching his fists.
His both hands were now soaked in cold sweat.
“Those wicked beings are fighting each other… It’s good. Ha, even if one wins, the other will not be able to use their power for a while… It’s good.”
He calmed his trembling voice as if trying to overcome fear and imagined a good future.
At that moment, Xian-yin, who had been communicating with somewhere distant, suddenly trembled as he looked at the void.
“Wait a minute, true form! What does that mean?! Hiding my breath for a while… What does that mean…? Didn’t you say you found a trace of authority!? Wait, don’t cut off contact! True form! Did something command me…?”
However, Xian-yin stopped, waving his hand toward the void.
After a while, Xian-yin clenched both fists tightly.
“You damn bastard…! You said you found a trace of authority and would flatten yourself like this to avoid the sparks…?”
The furious Xian-yin suddenly, as night deepened and moonlight entered his eastern part, flinched as if trying to avoid the light.
His hands trembled like a trembling camphor tree.
Xian-yin clenched his teeth as if recalling some bad memory.
“…Y-yes. Thinking about hiding my breath a little seems like a good idea. H, hahaha…”
He fled into the darkness and panted.
* * *
Cheonryeon Great Mountain.
On the White Jade Tower at the top.
Baek-woon Seongsa, surrounded by pure white light, looked at the sky with dazed eyes.
[This crazy… they are fighting at the border…? Ha, it’s fortunate that I became a saintess. By now, the people of the Star Realm would be screaming…]
Baek-woon Seongsa, whose hands trembled, panted and smiled bitterly.
[When should I calm down? If that ferocious person manifests, the entire Sky Realm will become a sea of blood… I must pray for his victory.]
Xian-yin and Baek-woon Seongsa.
And the Seongbangi saints of other middle realms.
The people of the Star Realm.
Those who knew the true myth all read the heavenly patterns and trembled in fear at the movements of the unimaginably great beings.
* * *
Using Twin Thunder Technique to go to Cheonin-do, I suddenly turned my gaze below Cheonin-do.
‘There was the Tae-yeol Temple there.’
I was considering entering the Tae-su Association and seeing her, but decided to visit the Tae-yeol Temple first.
‘If I spar with her and receive guidance from the Crown Prince’s teaching, then stabilize my realm and properly receive recognition as a Heavenly Person, that would be good, right?’
Already because of stopping Seo Hyul’s suicide, the realm of the Heavenly Race had been damaged, and my realm as a Heavenly Race member was at the mid level of Heavenly Person.
Since then, it did not seem bad to reach the Integration Grand Completion with the Heavenly Person complete record that Seo Lip had newly obtained.
‘Now that I have escaped Seo Hyul, I understand.’
Yang Su-jin said that blessing connection would receive the blessing of the strongest Terminating One, but why did I not know until now? Why did Seo Lip’s body reveal the blessing “Tianyuan Complete Record”?
The reason was simple.
The strongest Terminating One was the one who gave the blessing to “Seo Eun-hyun,” not to “Seo Hyul.”
At the time, Seo Lip was in a more advanced stage of Seo Hyul’s invasion than me, and even when obtaining the complete record, he was not fully differentiated and still identified himself as “Seo Eun-hyun,” so he could obtain the complete record.
Everything was Seo Hyul’s fault.
‘Thinking this way makes me angry again.’
But it did not matter.
Seo Hyul would be furious because of Obok-chuk because of me.
I arrived at the valley where the Tae-yeol Temple was.
Respecting her, I decided to walk there instead of entering the temple directly.
I also moved my conscious domain inside my body, thinking that checking it might feel unpleasant.
It was an act of respect for the martial artist who had reached the realm.
While walking the long valley, I felt something odd.
‘…Where are the tapestries?’
Previously, Tae Yeol-jeon had definitely drawn tapestries all over the valley.
But the valley now looked clean.
I walked the valley with a strange feeling.
And when I arrived at the place where the Tae-yeol Temple had been.
I felt a chill run down my spine.
The Tae-yeol Temple still existed.
But it looked neglected and old, with places crumbling.
Thorn bushes had disappeared from all sides, and the temple’s main gate was rotten and about to collapse.
It was like a ghost’s house.
‘How is this…’
I could not hide my bewilderment and entered the Tae-yeol Temple.
The main hall of the Tae-yeol Temple, the Tae-yeol Hall, was unmanaged and about to collapse, with piles of garbage rolling around.
I entered the Tae-yeol Hall.
Inside the hall where prayers were offered, everything was rotten, and the roof was unmanaged and collapsed.
The room where she had given me and Kim Yeon rides was completely collapsed and a ruin.
The artistic tapestries that had filled the place could not even be found.
At that moment, I suddenly noticed a presence from somewhere.
Leaving the Tae-yeol Hall, I heard someone yawning from inside the guesthouse.
I walked to the guesthouse with quick steps.
Upon closer look, the guesthouse was still somehow managed, and signs of people living there were visible.
“…Who is there?”
Before entering the guesthouse, I asked toward the presence felt inside.
Bam!
And the door of the guesthouse opened.
Flinch!
Inside the guesthouse, a woman with jet-black hair was scratching her belly and rubbing her eyes.
Her hair was disheveled, and there was a strange smell, so it seemed she had not washed for a while.
From inside, I felt the aura of the Nascent Soul. She seemed to be in the mid level of Nascent Soul.
“Uum, who is it?”
She looked at me with a sullen face and flinched.
“Eh, Senior. Hmm, hmm. I am ashamed to show a junior such an ugly appearance.”
She seemed to gauge my realm and, upon feeling my power at the Heavenly Person level, tidied her disheveled hair with a slightly bewildered face and roughly arranged her clothes.
“W-well, come inside this room… No, this room is a bit… I will escort you to the guest room.”
She moved hurriedly as if bewildered and led me to the side room of the guesthouse.
I looked at her face with a stiff expression.
Glimpsing at the room she had come from, I saw an enormous mess.
It was the opposite of the neat Tae-yeol Hall.
The guest room she had said she would escort me to was also quite messy, and I heard sounds of cleaning inside for a long time.
After a while, she invited me inside.
“Seo, Senior. Everything is ready. Please come in.”
I entered with a stern face, carefully examining her expression.
She looked at my expression and lowered her eyes fearfully.
Normally, she would have shown consideration for a lower realm cultivator, but I was not in that mood now.
I sat down and looked around.
“…You’re not offering tea?”
“Y-yes? Ah… please forgive me, Senior. There was some tea that the master used to boil before, but… because it was not managed, it completely rotted around 500 years ago…”
“…There are no tapestries in the room.”
“Ah… I am sorry. I could not receive the transmission from Master… Ah… now that I think about it, it seems I did receive it, but I never practiced, so I forgot… Hahaha.”
“….”
I asked the “woman with the same face as the Tae-yeol Hall” with a stiff face.
The face was the same, but everything about this person was different.
“What is your name?”
“Eh? Ah… I don’t have a specific name. When I was young, I was abandoned at this Tae-yeol Temple, and the monk who was the abbot of the Tae-yeol Temple took me in and raised me. That person did not give me a Dharma name so I could look for my parents when I entered the Nascent Soul… But the moment I entered the Nascent Soul and saw the wheel of life and death, my parents also abandoned me without giving me a name… Hahaha… Master called me ‘something like a delinquent’ or ‘a dirty thing’… ‘a lazy thing’…”
“….”
“W-well, Senior, you can call me however you like.”
She scratched her head awkwardly and said.
I could not keep my stiff face, and she shrank even more as she looked at my face.
“Let me see one technique.”
Booong—
I took out the All-Heaven Sword and sent an attack with the sword strike wrapped in the soul’s power.
However, she did not even recognize the All-Heaven Sword and stared blankly at me.
Sseuk—
The sword strike of the All-Heaven Sword simply passed through her and flew away.
It would have been a strike she would have happily received if she had been the Tae-yeol Hall.
But this woman did not even recognize it.
“…Who are you?”
I asked, glaring at her.
The reason I suddenly fought when the moonlight brightened earlier—could it be because of this?
She flinched at my glare, pressed her head to the ground, and trembled.
“H, hiik… Please spare me, Senior. Even if I live, it means nothing… But I do not want to die yet…! If I die, it would hurt so much… Could you forgive me a little?”
“….”
Her past was exactly what I had heard from the Tae-yeol Hall.
But why was the woman in front of me not the Crown Prince’s teaching Tae-yeol Hall, had no interest in the tapestries, did not even shave her head as a nun, and where had the proud appearance and the modest and restrained heart she possessed gone?
Was the woman in front of me strange?
Or was the Tae-yeol Hall of the previous loop an existence that had been “possessed” by something?
Instead of contempt for this woman, I raised my guard to the maximum with an unknown fear, prepared to commit suicide at any time, and glared at the woman in front of me.
“I have something to ask. The technique you have learned… what technique is it?”
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