The Unbreakable Pact of the Sea Dragon
I let out a small sigh as I looked at the youkai in front of me.
The amount of lies he had spewed made me think he must be Seo Hyoel at first.
His fake appearance especially was so close to Seo Ran’s that a wave of killing intent surged up inside me.
Jeon Myeong-hoon, sensing my killing intent, roared in fury.
You damned insects!!! How dare you lie to me!!!
The Core Formation servant Baek Rin’s thunderous voice sent the youkai shrieking as if his soul were being torn apart.
“Enough.”
I raised my hand, and Baek Rin fell silent. Hong Beom stepped forward to translate for him.
“One more lie and I’ll kill you.”
“….”
I had no intention of doing so, but the youkai before me looked so full of lies that I decided to be a little firmer.
Hong Beom’s threat worked. The youkai resembling Seo Ran’s appearance spasmed violently, foaming at the mouth, and convulsed.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness! Please forgive me! Ah, finally it’s over!”
Steam rose from the figure, and the youkai transformed into a silver carp in the mist, then instantly reverted to its original form.
“…For now, tell me your real name.”
I addressed the silver carp youkai whose true appearance was that of a woman with iridescent scales on her face.
She sighed in resignation and opened her mouth.
“…My name is Yuk Yo, Your Highness. And the one named Seo Ran… I met that person briefly when he visited Seongran Island before.”
“Oh? I see. How, exactly, did you meet?”
“Th-that…”
Seeing her hesitation, Hong Beom gave Baek Rin a signal.
Baek Rin let out a vicious aura, stepped forward, and grabbed the youkai by the neck.
“Hik… I’ll speak. In truth, that person instructed us to guide him because he was looking for something on Seongran Island.”
“Hmm…”
I read her true intent and frowned.
Another lie.
I signaled Hong Beom, who relayed it to Baek Rin.
Baek Rin exploded in rage and clamped his bony hand around the youkai’s head.
Hong Beom spoke.
“This is your last chance. The Patriarch can see through lies, so speak properly.”
“G-Gah… Understood. I’ll speak. In truth, to steal the appearance of the Seo Ran who wears a dragon’s form, I approached him to deceive him!”
“….”
My stomach churned at her answer.
“So, what did you do to Seo Ran?”
“N-Nothing much. I simply observed his appearance and conduct, took a little of his qi….”
“Speak without hiding anything. What else are you concealing?”
“Ah, no… In truth, to absorb his qi I fed him a weak drug and just… a little more in his bed.”
“….”
“Anyway, after receiving that qi, he was nearly driven to his death by his wife, and he tore out a handful of her waist. While fleeing, he stole about ten high-grade stones from the pocket dimension of Seo Ran, but nothing else. Please believe me! Look! There are still marks from his wife on his body!”
Yuk Yo showed her abdomen as if proving her innocence.
There were clear teeth marks on her belly, as if torn by a ferocious beast.
Whether the youkai had drugged Seo Ran and stolen his qi, or taken his treasure, the fact that Seo Ran had married was shocking.
I didn’t know what expression to make, so I asked him.
“So, after that, what happened to Seo Ran?”
“He fled while avoiding his wife, and later he left for another island after finding what he was looking for on Seongran Island.”
“Do you know which island?”
“W-Well, as far as I know it’s Ngudo Island. It’s not too far from here, but…”
“In which direction?”
“Southeast from Seongran Island. It’s in that direction. An island famous for its pure white spirit crystal formations floating in the sky.”
I told Hong Beom.
“Hong Beom, bring Seo Ran here. I saw the dragon form of the youkai just now, and now I’ll tell you the human form. It’s…”
“Ah, it’s fine. I remember the person from my childhood days.”
“Eh? Really?”
Hong Beom was originally from the Water Realm, and the youkai had faced Seo Ran and Song Jin in his youth.
Yet he remembered events before even attaining his Heavenly Physique?
I was a little surprised, but Hong Beom had startled me a few times already, so I nodded.
“I see. Then go and return quickly.”
“As you command.”
Hong Beom vanished through the movement technique toward the direction Yuk Yo indicated. I asked her.
“Despite what you’ve seen, we have not fully understood the situation in the Goryeok Realm since we crossed over from the Ghost Realm. Tell me what those high-grade stones are, how the power structure of the Goryeok Realm is roughly organized, and what features this place has.”
“Ah… Yes, I’ll explain. First, the high-grade stone…”
She pulled out a couple of gems that glowed like jewels from her pocket dimension.
“These are high-grade stones. They are treated as currency in the Goryeok Realm.”
“They don’t seem to be spirit stones that replenish qi. What kind of rock is it then?”
“Ah, high-grade stones are a special substance that only appears in the Goryeok Realm. They can only be obtained from deep within the deep sea or from deep sea monsters. The unique feature of high-grade stones is ‘return.’”
“Return?”
“Exactly. High-grade stones are also called ‘stones that accumulate history.’ They endlessly record the path they have taken, and when given a specific stimulus, they display the path they have walked.”
A stone that records the wearer’s entire path through history. Stimulate to display the route traveled. Each stone is unique. Ten or more stones can summon ‘attraction’ to return to the surface.
However, using them on living beings causes the body to be pulled into the stone’s recorded path and crushed. The true horror is that the recorded path is the path of their own death.
She crushed one high-grade stone, and light erupted from it. Faint threads of light appeared along the path leading to Jeon Myeong-hoon.
“Oh…”
“However, stimulating even one only displays the path. If more than ten are stimulated simultaneously, the high-grade stone will erupt with ‘attraction’ and return you from the deep sea to the surface in one go. That is why they are also called ‘return stones.’”
“Remarkable. But if the sea bottom is so dangerous, why do Spirit Realm cultivators need return stones?”
However, my words left Yuk Yo puzzled for a moment.
Soon realizing we had come from the Ghost Realm, she nodded.
“Ah, I’m sorry. People from other worlds and non-spirit beings wouldn’t know. They say that in other worlds the sea is filled with ‘water,’ which is why a few non-spirit beings who have just arrived sometimes jump into the deep sea to swim and cause tragedies they can’t laugh about.”
“…So, your meaning is that the sea below is not filled with water?”
It was strange.
Not only did I see it, but the entire sea held thick water qi as if it were a real sea.
It was a place full of water qi, yet it wasn’t the sea at all. How bizarre.
Yuk Yo nodded and explained.
“Yes. What exists below is shaped very much like water, but it is not water. It is ‘dimensions.’”
“What?”
I was startled and asked, and Yuk Yo continued calmly.
“The deep sea of the Goryeok Realm is formed by countless ‘dimensions’ overlapping. The density of the dimensions is so high that they settle into shapes resembling water, but they are fundamentally different. If you go deeper, space twists instantly and you lose all sense of where you came from. The deep sea is full of rare treasures from countless dimensions, but it also has countless deep sea monsters. One wrong step and you fall into some unknown dimension deep below. Therefore, a return stone that allows you to return is ‘necessary’ when entering the deep sea.”
“Ho…”
I felt overwhelming wonder and looked down at the sea below.
After staring at the sea for a long time, I suddenly spotted something glowing like a star from below.
It wasn’t a star. It was a ‘true star.’
Below the sea, I could see a ‘sky’ floating.
However, the night sky I saw was shattered as if submerged by waves, and soon other twinkling forms appeared.
“Why does the Goryeok Realm have such a thing?”
“Um… I don’t know well, but according to the legends that descend, they are traces of a fallen world.”
“Traces of a fallen world?”
“Yes. They are called the ancient world that no longer exists. The dimensions visible in the deep sea are worlds that fell in unimaginable times long ago. The deep sea of the Goryeok Realm received fragments of those fallen worlds and formed itself from them.”
“….”
I could vaguely understand the conditions for crossing over to the Goryeok Realm.
“Did the Goryeok Realm also have non-spirit beings?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know the conditions for crossing over to the Goryeok Realm?”
“Yes, I roughly know, but…”
I felt as if I knew why I had arrived in the Goryeok Realm, so I asked her my conjecture.
“Is it possible that those crossing conditions involve ‘traces of a fallen world’ or items from it?”
“Ah, yes. That’s what I’ve heard.”
I had heard the owner of Salt Mountain’s password and used the Taesan Yeolje Art to confirm it.
The owner of Salt Mountain was a dead existence.
And True Immortals were beings so vast they could be called worlds themselves.
That meant the traces of a fallen world were…
‘Traces of dead True Immortals, or something of equal weight. That must be it.’
I felt uneasy as I sensed the sea below.
I had thought the Ghost Realm, where dozens of Gaeyeol True Immortals watched, was the most sinister and bone-chilling place, but it seemed I was wrong.
The Goryeok Realm had True Immortal corpses piled up like the sea, so it was even more chilling.
She didn’t seem to sense my unease and rolled her eyes while continuing.
“Anyway, next is the basic regions of the Goryeok Realm. The Goryeok Realm is divided into three main regions. First, the Water Flow region where Your Highness and I are. Well… people from other worlds often get mistaken for…”
“First, look at the sky.”
“Eh?”
I looked up at the sky as she spoke.
Unlike the Ghost Realm, it was a blue sky.
Unlike the Ghost Realm with no sun or the Demon Realm, the Goryeok Realm still had something resembling a sun.
It was an elongated ring surrounding the sky.
However, while looking at the sky I was startled.
I was startled, and she explained.
“First… the sky of other worlds is said to be endless void. I don’t know what it feels like, but in the Goryeok Realm there is an official name when calling the sky. It is called the Vaulted Heaven. And the Vaulted Heaven is not empty void but ‘another’ deep sea. If you keep going up into the sky, you will reach the Vaulted Heaven and fall into the deep sea.”
“…So…”
I immediately understood her words.
The sky, the earth, and the sea were all the same.
How could such a structure exist?
It was simple.
“This world, the space we are breathing in, is a kind of air bubble inside water, isn’t it?”
“Exactly!”
That was right.
This world was a kind of air bubble.
An air bubble inside a vast sea.
Inside it, the creatures of the Goryeok Realm lived.
“First, I’ll finish explaining the Water Flow region. Such an ‘air bubble’ is called one ‘sea area.’ And the countless sea areas gathered together make up the Goryeok Realm. The Water Flow region refers to the sea areas on the outer edge of the entire Goryeok Realm.”
Her explanation continued.
“And the closer you go to the center, the larger the sea area becomes. That is, the size of the air bubble increases. Among them, the largest sea area is at the very center. Think of a very large air bubble in the center of a small air bubble. And that large air bubble is called the Dao-Leave region.”
“Eh?”
I suddenly recalled the familiar name and paused.
Water Flow.
Dao-Leave.
Then what came next…
“So the next region is the Bongyang region?”
“No, it’s not.”
“….”
“There is no Bongyang region, but… um. Anyway, the Dao-Leave region is the largest sea area and itself possesses attraction, pulling in other small sea areas to prevent them from scattering into the deep sea. And the final region is the Chi-Je region.”
“…!”
“The Chi-Je region is the enormous continent in the center of the Dao-Leave region. In fact, all the sea areas of the Goryeok Realm are only islands, so the continent is unique to the Chi-Je region. Anyway, the Holy Sea Lord of the Goryeok Realm, the Holy Sea Lord Haerim, resides there and oversees the entire Goryeok Realm. If the Dao-Leave region feels like the capital, the Chi-Je region is especially revered land visited during important times like the Heavenly Tribulation.”
“….”
I fell into thought.
She said there was no Bongyang region, but if I overlooked it, it was Water Flow, Dao-Leave, Chi-Je.
Familiar names.
‘Jeungryong Jinin’s pocket dimension.’
His pocket dimension also had Water Flow layers, Dao-Leave layers, Bongyang layers, and Chi-Je layers.
And in his pocket dimension, the Bongyang layer was a middle zone between Dao-Leave and Chi-Je, so the real layers were only Water Flow, Dao-Leave, and Chi-Je.
‘Right, thinking about it, the Goryeok Realm is… and the successor of the owner of the strong peace, Sunwoo Haetae, was Jeungryong Jinin…’
I signaled Yuk Yo as if urging her to continue explaining.
“Yes, then I’ll explain the power structure of the Goryeok Realm. First, there are no great powers in the Goryeok Realm. The only supreme power is the Sea King Palace ruled by the Holy Sea Lord Haerim. When the Venerables of the Goryeok Realm fought over factions before, several sea areas were destroyed. After the Holy Sea Lord crushed the Venerables, he forbade any great powers other than the Sea King Palace. Thanks to that, there are no great powers in the Goryeok Realm other than the Sea King Palace, and only the palaces that rule the sea areas exist, and under the palaces there are dozens to hundreds of islands, and the island lords called Island Masters exist. They only engage in minor internal struggles, and there are no great power struggles.”
“I see… So the Holy Sea Lord does not interfere in the minor struggles at the sea area level?”
“That’s right.”
Of course, the reason the Wugeuk Sect succeeded well in the Ghost Realm was because it provided physical bodies, and it would have no meaning for Goryeok Realm creatures, so it wouldn’t take root. But it meant we could retaliate when a sea area lord was troublesome.
I asked Yuk Yo.
“By the way, I have a question. If the islands below are not water but dimensions, then the islands are floating on top of dimensions, so how can they be stable?”
“Ah…! Those islands are islands where high-grade stones have gathered. High-grade stone veins are buried everywhere so they never sink. Moreover, high-grade stones remember their original position and emit attraction there, so even if the dimension shakes, they stick in place.”
“You said high-grade stones are currency, right? If everyone digs them all up, won’t the islands sink?”
“Yes. Therefore, mining high-grade stones on islands is strictly prohibited. If caught doing it, you become bait for deep sea monsters and are hung there by the island lords. Using the bait, deep sea monsters come running and you hunt them to obtain high-grade stones from the monsters, returning the amount you mined to the bait. When you have ten times the high-grade stones you mined, they let you go. Of course, the bait is mostly dead before that, so it’s a kind of death sentence.”
“Hmm, I see.”
I nodded.
“Stay floating near here for now. After hunting enough deep sea monsters to obtain high-grade stones that prevent the entire Ngum region from sinking, you will land! Understand?”
“As you command!”
The surrounding Guardian Ghost Kings answered in unison.
I told Yuk Yo.
“I’m grateful for the explanation. Anyway, since you gave useful information, escort you to the VIP room.”
“Ah, no. I’m useless, so just throw me nearby and I’ll disappear on my own. Hehe…”
“I’m sorry, but we need a local informant. Hey, Baek Rin. Take this fellow to the VIP room.”
“As you command, Patriarch!”
Baek Rin answered loudly and dragged Yuk Yo away.
Yuk Yo stared at me with a terrified face, but I ignored it because I knew Baek Rin’s warm heart and simply looked up at the sky.
Heavenly Qi was not detectable.
Then it would be extremely difficult for the Heavenly Race to survive here.
Of course, even in the dimension fragments, starlight could be seen, so the Chilseongje could probably be endured, but without proper Heavenly Qi detection, we would lose overwhelmingly in information warfare.
It was an interesting place.
And at that moment, a familiar shadow flew in from afar.
A dark snake youkai was slicing through the sky toward us.
Cunning, obsessive, tragic
LT__span style="color:#ffd700">Level: Core Formation
Hong Beom landed in front of me.
“I have returned, Master.”
“Good work. And…”
I looked at the two figures sitting on Hong Beom’s head.
“Long time no see, friend.”
The half-dragon in black clothes.
Seo Ran.
* * *
The Northward Fleet headquarters.
The old ghost who had been lying on the ground until a moment ago was crunching his fingers and wandering around the room.
“Damn it, my disciple is in the Ngudo Sea Area. Is there a being from another world invading the Ngudo Sea Area? I don’t know if it’s a deep sea monster or a void poet, but if the shock reaches the neighboring sea area, it must be an enormous existence… My disciple must survive… Ho, is there still a Thousand-Li Eye left?”
The woman in white clothes looked at the old ghost and gripped her burning jade bead.
She took out her pocket dimension and searched inside.
“Um, I used up all the Thousand-Li Eyes when we occupied this sea area before. There aren’t any more.”
“Gah… Ah! Didn’t we plan to make a position-tracking device before that?”
“Yes… But Master Song told us not to make it because there was a Thousand-Li Eye-like object, so we shouldn’t make more.”
The woman in white clothes looked at the old ghost with a slightly sullen expression, and the old ghost fidgeted and said to her.
“Um, I’m sorry. Everything I have is useful… So, was nothing developed at all?”
“Hmm… There is a prototype. However, it was halted in the middle of development, so it doesn’t have the clear effect of a Thousand-Li Eye, and it only roughly measures Seo Ran’s position.”
The woman in white clothes pulled out a small crystal from her pocket dimension.
She blew qi into the crystal, and it shone. A map of the sea area floated above it.
A large dark sphere floated on the map.
“Th-this…”
“It’s the situation in the Ngudo Sea Area. Something ominous has appeared in the sky above the Ngudo Sea Area. Moreover, this size… if it’s a living being, it’s at least the level of a Core Formation master, maybe even higher.”
“My, my disciple? Where is my disciple?”
“There are evil spirits granted to Seo Ran? Do you have evil spirits with the same aura as the one granted to Seo Ran? We need a specific aura.”
“Here! This is the Ghost-Suppressing Bell made as a pair with the one I have. It’s a bit old, but…”
The old ghost took out a withered, rusty bell from his bosom that looked shabby.
“The essential qi is definitely the same.”
“Yes, that’s enough.”
The woman in white clothes received the bell from the ghost and placed it on the map floating above the crystal.
The map reacted and created a single red dot.
The old ghost’s eyes widened.
The red dot on the map was located in the center of the large dark sphere that had appeared on the map.
He tore at his hair and shouted.
“Right now! Send out the Northward Fleet immediately! We must head to the Ngudo Sea Area! My disciple is inside the body of an evil being from another world!!!”