Chapter 374
**CHAPTER TITLE: The End Approaches (Part 2)**
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Ten thousand years seemed like an eternity, but to anyone above the Sachuk realm, it was a blink of an eye.
“W-Why is the end happening?!”
“Hmm, I don’t know the full details, but according to what I’ve heard, when the Heavenly Decree’s influence reaches its peak, the Star Realm contracts and the end comes.
“…What?”
“His Venerable called it the Great Sinking or something similar. My title and techniques all stem from there.
According to Jang Ik, the Heavenly Decree we lived in kept expanding, but at some point it began to contract, eventually returning to a single point of primordial chaos.
“The exact cause is unknown. As far as I know, even if the Great Sinking occurs, the Middle Realm will never be destroyed.
“The Middle Realm won’t be destroyed?”
“Yes. But according to His Venerable, once the Great Sinking triggers the end, the Middle Realm might remain intact, yet this Heavenly Decree will be filled with scorching heat and light. No living being will survive. Everyone will turn into the primordial light of the beginning and vanish. Even if you’re not a Semi-Linear level, you won’t be able to resist at all and will die. Even those who merged with the Middle Realm will be left to their fate—whether they perish or endure. It’s terrifying beyond words.
I shuddered at the terrifying news.
Then I have to grow strong enough to survive the end within ten thousand years.
But even after ten thousand years, I had no idea whether I would reach the Star Shattering stage.
“I understand about the end. Then let me ask one last thing.
“Go ahead.
“To enter the next stage, I’ve heard one must sever everything.
“Correct. Ho? Did you snatch the thread of the next stage?”
“No, I just overheard it.
“That alone is a feat. …Right. If you want to enter my level, you have to cut them loose.
I asked with a serious gaze.
“How do you sever them?
Jang Ik seemed to have read my intent.
“I see. You can’t sever them?”
“Yes. The reason I dispatched my clone to the Thunder Star Sea after crossing the middle zones of the Goryeok Realm was precisely this.
I spoke my inner thoughts without hesitation.
“Is there a secret method to reach that level without severing? Or do you have to truly sever everything to arrive? I came here to ask.
“Umm…
Jang Ik stroked his chin.
“Let me explain the difference between a general Star Shattering cultivator and my level first. Those guys become useless with emotions and bonds after reaching the Star Shattering stage. In contrast, I had to tear those things away to reach this realm.
I pondered the difference between us.
Star Shattering allows emotions and bonds during advancement, but after reaching the realm, they naturally disappear. Beyond Sitting Liberation and Standing Death, this realm requires severing bonds and emotions upon crossing the threshold?
Yet something felt off, so I asked.
“But Venerable Jang Ik… you seem to have emotions.
“How do you know if I have emotions? Are you claiming you can read my intent right now?”
He laughed smugly and picked up a golden apple from the campfire, asking me to take one.
Whoosh—
Oddly, even though it looked like an apple, it wasn’t juice—it was fleshy, meat-like juice dripping out. And it smelled like protein.
Jang Ik bit into the thing that was half apple, half meat, and stared at me.
His mouth moved greedily, but his eyes were cold and empty.
Indeed, reading Jang Ik’s intent was nearly impossible.
It felt too hollow, too hazy, and it was questionable whether he even existed.
To someone at Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown or above, Jang Ik was not a living person but a finely crafted meat puppet.
Crack—
While I was locked in his gaze, I felt myself being sucked into the void of his eyes.
The moment I snapped back, I was floating in a universe where every star glowed in a sickly green light.
It was an illusion caused by Jang Ik’s oppressive pressure.
Crack—
My mind felt like it would shatter.
Feeling terrified, I looked up. A green nebula hovered above, staring down at me with Jang Ik’s face.
This… is the size of Venerable Jang Ik’s mind…
It was not merely the size of a spirit.
The very will he had pushed forward his entire life was on that scale.
Is he trying to break my mind like this…
I couldn’t maintain my senses amid that pressure.
Yet I knew.
Jang Ik had emotions!
And he valued bonds too!
“I once heard someone say—”
I refused to yield to his pressure and spoke.
“I was mocked for saying the heart is only a weak metallic reaction. He then told someone else that same mockery, and that person replied:
“If the heart is like iron, then in the classification of cultivators, gold corresponds to Qian. The heart never disappears like the sky.
I recited the words of previous-life Jang Ik right in front of this life’s Jang Ik and shouted.
“Isn’t that right, Venerable? A human’s heart can never be erased, can it?”
After I delivered that rebuke and purified my consciousness, I had already returned to the campfire.
“Hmm… that’s an interesting object.
Jang Ik crossed his arms and smiled.
“True. You can never sever emotions. That’s why even those who reach Venerable status all have emotions—greed, fear, and so on. I said the other Venerables have lost their bonds and emotions, but in truth they haven’t truly vanished. They’ve simply changed their perspective…
“…! Then, does that mean the path to the next realm is not truly abandoning the heart, but properly acknowledging and refining it?!”
“Eh? No.
He bit into the golden apple with a crunch.
“You have to sever what cannot be severed. Understand? To reach this place, that’s the only way.
“Then how do I sever the unseverable?
“I already told you. You can’t sever it.
He laughed at something only he understood.
“You can only enter if you can sever the unseverable. So how do you sever the unseverable? Finding that answer will become your training method from now on.
“…”
“Strictly speaking, I said I would accept you as my disciple, but I can’t teach you much. I can only offer advice as someone who has already walked the path. Each individual in the Heart Tribe is completely different.
He pointed somewhere.
“When entering the Thunder Star Sea, you would have fallen into a region where even prayer rituals can’t be used, wouldn’t you?”
“Correct.
“How did you escape?”
“I pulled up the All-Heaven Sword as my nominal realm and severed the space to come out.
“When I first arrived there, I stimulated my body to expand my perception range, drew in the Qi from outside that space, shattered it apart, and escaped. You and I have completely different ways even to leave one single place. I could recite my realizations one after another, but that method wouldn’t suit you and would be useless.
Slink—
Jang Ik stood up and spoke.
“So even my disciples in the master-disciple relationship don’t have anyone worthy of being true successors. What I can do is simply assign training tasks that suit my disciples well.
I listened to his words with a serious expression.
“Then I’ll give you a training task as well. The first one.
He smiled wickedly.
“Leave the Thunder Star Sea, sever one star. You can use your Heavenly Tribe and Earth Tribe powers, Dharma treasures, or even seek someone else’s help. Use any method you can to shatter one star. By star I mean a planet that no living being can survive on. Don’t recklessly slam into a barren planet and wipe out its civilization.
Boom!
He swung his staff, and Jang Ik’s staff became a blade of light that pierced my soul and lodged itself in my mind.
Crack!
Just like before, Jang Ik’s staff settled on one side of my Sword Mountain.
Flash!
When Jang Ik waved his arm, I was already blasted far from the campfire, rushing through countless voids.
Crack—
Countless scenes flashed past me, and I found myself in a realm filled with countless stars.
Whoosh—
And directly in front of me.
The place I had escaped from was now wrapped in a dimensional curtain—a vast bubble realm.
That must be Yang Su-jin’s remains.
That bubble realm was shaped like a giant finger nearly the size of Earth, every joint massive.
It looked like a left-hand ring finger.
Is this Yang Su-jin’s Dharma treasure—a ring?
Inside that bubble realm shaped like a left-hand ring finger, a circular hollow remained where a ring would have fit. The mark of someone who had worn one for a very long time.
Since that Thunder Star Sea was the entrance to the space containing his Dharma treasure, if I passed through it I might find the giant ring.
But severing a star…
It seemed the training method was simply to hand me the task without getting too involved, unlike what I had expected from Jang Ik.
A star…
I recalled how Jang Ik had halved a planet.
With my current strength, even if I use the Triple Taiji, I could flip entire continents on the surface and create cracks in the planet…
That was my limit.
It was also the limit of a general Integration stage cultivator.
If I raise Sitting Liberation and Standing Death and Heavenly-Earthen Tribe cultivation all the way to Integration stage levels, and borrow the power of Dharma treasures and formations…
It might work.
I seemed to understand what Jang Ik meant.
He wants me to raise the level as far as I can first.
Of course, at the beginning of Sitting Liberation and Standing Death I only simulated Integration stage with Heavenly-Earthen Tribe body and consciousness size, but my actual level was Sachuk.
Good. First I’ll go back, raise the level as high as possible, and come back.
I made that decision and looked for Ham-jin, my projection form.
Whoosh!
Since I had crossed into the Star Realm through Ham-jin in the first place, he and I were connected, and finding him was not difficult.
Flash!
Ham-jin had fallen onto a planet where life could survive near the Thunder Star Sea.
He was on one side of the planet’s continent.
There he had established primitive tribal kingdoms, become the chieftain of those tribes, and was diligently working to increase his descendants’ numbers.
“…Ham-jin.”
“Hic! Wha—?!”
Hearing my presence, he came out of his stone house and greeted me.
“W-Who is the Supreme Sovereign! Are you here? I’ve been spreading the teachings of the Mugeuk Sect here as well! I’ve also announced the Supreme Sovereign’s Sacrifice Ceremony to worship you, Supreme Sovereign!”
“…Ugh, good. Well done. Thanks to you, returning will be a little easier. Let’s head back now.
“Ah… Actually, I’ve made thirteen wives here. I’ve only been able to love three of them so far. Shouldn’t I give them all love equally…?”
I laughed in disbelief and said,
“Come back after reaching the Sachuk stage.
“Ah. Understood. Then I’ll say goodbye to my wives a little…”
He called the chieftains and spoke something to them, received bows from dozens of chieftains and wives, received countless treasures, rare goods, and bizarre items as gifts, and then flew back to me.
For some reason his expression looked a bit gloomy.
“…No one comes to catch me. Everyone celebrates me so highly and sends me off with double applause and even bows… These people are too much. Still, the hometown is good. I want to go back to the hometown and see my wives again.
“…Enough. Let’s go.
I entered Ham-jin’s body.
“The one called Jang Ik said the planet with the Goryeok Realm transmission array is this one.
“Right.”
I moved the Heavenly Decree power and descended onto the planet with the middle zone of the Goryeok Realm.
All worlds with middle zones are the bodies of Primordial Humans, they said.
So this planet was also the body of a Primordial Human.
And… the world where Ham-jin is should also be a Primordial Human body that has turned into a bubble realm.
I wondered how the Star Shattering cultivators’ battles had occurred without destroying the world, but apparently because it was the body of a Primordial Human, there was no problem.
Jang Ik telling Ham-jin the location of the Goryeok middle zone was probably to tell me to use it. And telling me to use it means the Primordial Human who had reached out to catch us at this moment has gone back to sleep.
So there was no problem going back.
Whoosh!
Ham-jin and I once again began crossing countless voids.