The Soul-Shaking Resonance of the Salt Mountain
The sound of a wave echoed through the space, like the flow of dimensions themselves.
I cast a dazed gaze across my surroundings.
After Yu Ho-deok had taken the Salt Crystal Palace away, the illusion array had collapsed entirely.
It seemed that none of the other sacrificial rituals or treasures I had hoped to find remained anywhere. They must all have been inside that palace.
The blessing axis of Yu Ho-deok was nothing more than a bridge to the afterlife.
Of course, I had suspected a trap the moment Yu Rin spoke his final words, yet I had been robbed of even the chance to investigate.
“......”
We stared blankly at the sky for a moment, then organized the scattered members of Gwang-eum-yeok and the disciples scattered around Bong-rae-do before gathering at a single point.
No. Not everyone had made it.
Some had vanished.
Wi-hyeon-hwi passed on the names of the missing with a gloomy voice.
“Thirteen Guardian Ghost King Baek-rin… is gone.”
“His last recorded action was flying toward Princess Yuk-yo inside the palace. Since the palace itself has now been taken by Yu-rin, it’s possible he is currently being held captive by him.”
Baek-rin had disappeared.
It seemed he had tried to rescue Yuk-yo and ended up caught by Yu-rin.
I let out a deep sigh.
This trip to Bong-rae-do had cost us far too much.
We gathered to discuss the full details of what had happened, outside the list of missing persons.
The meeting room fell deathly silent.
Yeon-wi, Jeon Myeong-hoon, Oh Hyun-seok, and the rest of us who had once lived in the dream realm of Bong-rae-do now carried an unnatural gloom. Or perhaps they simply could not bring themselves to speak because the situation felt so absurd and infuriating.
Everyone seemed to have the same thought: it was better to keep quiet.
Yet I forced myself to speak.
I could not sit here in despair forever.
Yeon-wi must have realized this as well, for she exchanged opinions with me.
“What do we do now?”
“…First, we need to find a way out.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“Brother Young-hoon and I left behind clones on the sea earlier. They’re synchronized with us in real time.”
Yeon-wi stroked her chin and asked.
“You mean you won’t use them to escape right away?”
“That’s right. The clones have already been drained of almost all their energy after clashing with Yu-rin. They’re hiding now, and I don’t think they can do much of anything. Sending reinforcements through the clones and trying to pull us through… even if they reached us, it would be useless.”
“You really went that deep.”
“Yes. The distance is simply too great.”
The sea of the Goryeok realm was an aggregation of countless dimensions.
Even if it did not literally plunge that far, what lay between us and the surface was no longer seawater—it was entire dimensions.
We would have to cross an immeasurable number of them just to reach reinforcements, and only those who had reached the Star Shattering realm could open such a path.
Yeon-wi glanced at Kim Young-hoon.
“Hamcheon Venerable is supposedly communicating with the Venerable now. Could we ask him for help?”
Kim Young-hoon shook his head with obvious reluctance.
“I’m sorry, but what I’m doing right now isn’t communication. It’s simply trying to resonate with his enlightenment. Perhaps Eun-hyun might be better at it.”
Yeon-wi’s gaze shifted back to me.
I shook my head as well.
“To help us, the Venerable’s clone would have to come here in person. From what I know, it would take him hundreds of years at least.”
“Hundreds of years… well, that’s worth waiting for.”
She nodded.
But my expression remained dark.
‘In one hundred and twenty years, Kang Min-hee will go mad…’
And Seo Hyoel’s eyes would awaken again only after several hundred years.
Being trapped here during that time was no different from a death sentence.
“Is there really no faster way?”
“If we create a neural array, we could escape immediately.”
“…Never mind.”
“I don’t like it either. Is there another option?”
“……”
I sighed again.
Nothing came to mind.
“…Then I’ll contact the Taesuhoe and see if they can provide coordinates and reinforcements.”
Even if we were stuck in the depths of the sea, we could not rise to the surface. If we could somehow leave the entire Goryeok realm behind, there was a slim chance.
“Contacting the Taesuhoe is one way. We could all try to escape into the Gwanghan realm.”
Yeon-wi nodded and smiled, calling it a good idea, then asked each of us whether we had found anything useful inside Bong-rae-do.
“Although we’re trapped now, Eun-hyun said the Venerable will arrive in a few hundred years. So we shouldn’t give up. Everyone, did you find anything while exploring?”
We all shook our heads.
Seo-ran clicked his tongue.
“I thought the salt mountains of Bong-rae-do might hide some secret, but they were just… normal salt mountains. Nothing special at all.”
“Hmm… no special minerals like salt crystals, then? So what about the sacrificial rituals we came here to find?”
I sighed deeply.
“Looking at them…”
That was when Kim Yeon pulled something from her robe with a bitter expression.
It was a single Yu Ho-deok sacrificial ritual.
“When the array collapsed, Hyang-hwa and I rushed to save as many as we could. But only one remained in my hands. The rest were like smoke and vanished.”
“!”
I stared wide-eyed at the ritual in my hands while Yeon-wi let out a disappointed sigh.
“To think the perfect chance to equip the entire Taesuhoe leadership with the Five Blessings Axis was lost!”
“We had no choice. Even the sect leader couldn’t use it. We should console ourselves with that.”
Kim Yeon floated the Yu Ho-deok sacrificial ritual toward me, and I caught it.
Although it had come from her hands, I still felt uneasy.
It was because of the warning Yu-rin had given me after I broke free from the Purple Soul Filling the Heavens art.
—Come quickly, go and gather the sacrificial rituals you desire. Once the barrier breaks, the rituals will be trapped forever in the dream world and can never be obtained again…!
Surprisingly, the words were a lie.
And if one part was a lie, the entire message had been false.
‘The fool must have believed that even if I went to the sect to collect them, I would never obtain any.’
Yet Kim Yeon had managed to collect one.
There had to be some secret here.
‘I’ll observe it more carefully before trying to learn it.’
After praising Kim Yeon publicly, I stored the Yu Ho-deok sacrificial ritual in my robes.
We discussed several more escape methods before dismissing the meeting and returning to our respective positions.
I returned to the war underground and activated the Neural Array to test it.
‘Nothing unusual about the connections to the lower realms.’
I fiddled with the Neural Array for a while, then turned my thoughts to the Taesuhoe.
‘Will they really come back for me?’
It would be fortunate if the spy hadn’t thrown a party while locked away.
“Guardian Chancellor reporting, Master.”
I received the Guardian Chancellor from Hong-beom.
It was the same one I had obtained together with the Salt Crystal when I conquered Jeongryong Palace before.
I poured my cultivation power into the Guardian Chancellor.
As soon as the power entered, the artifact glowed.
I had visited it once before, so it could now reach worlds I had been to.
The Guardian Chancellor blazed with light, revealing countless light clusters within.
The moment I sensed the qi emanating from those clusters, I knew exactly what realms they represented.
‘This is Myeong-gwi Realm, this is Noe-seong-hae, this is Ham-jin’s world, and these are the Star Realms I once sent my blessing axes to…’
Among them, a familiar light drew my attention.
I reached out toward it.
A clear, familiar sky appeared beyond the Guardian Chancellor.
‘Gwanghan Realm!’
It was a scene from the Gwanghan realm I knew well.
The name of the world Gwang-han (光寒) appeared above the Guardian Chancellor.
I manipulated the artifact for a moment and learned how to adjust which world’s consciousness it could observe.
A few adjustments later, I could see Cheon-busan, the peak of the Human Alliance.
The Guardian Chancellor flickered, then showed the front of Jun-je’s eastern border in an instant.
A deep, heavy voice rang out from inside.
“What brings the Lord of this alliance to spy on me?”
I poured my consciousness into the Guardian Chancellor and greeted him warmly.
“Jun-je, it’s me! Seo Eun-hyun!”
“……?”
I smiled at him and explained the situation as best I could.
Something complex had happened, and we had ended up in the Goryeok realm. Could the Taesuhoe provide coordinates and reinforcements so we could be pulled out?
After hearing my explanation, Jun-je sighed heavily.
“Hmm, I see. Please wait a moment, Taesu Seo. I will contact you again soon.”
“Haha, thank you very much, Jun-je! I won’t forget this favor!”
Yet I felt nothing but unease.
‘I have no idea what he’s thinking.’
Because there was no consciousness displayed in the scene, I could not tell whether he was simply being polite or secretly cheering.
After thanking him, I tried to ask for several favors, but the screen suddenly glitched violently and the connection to the Gwanghan realm severed.
“This…?”
I immediately understood what had happened.
Jun-je had shaken the space with his reinforcements and directly cut the connection.
“…This…?”
I ground my teeth in frustration.
Jun-je was the chairman of the Taesuhoe.
His will was the will of the Taesuhoe.
I realized that the Taesuhoe had no intention of saving me at all, and I clenched my jaw.
‘Damn it… If this is how it ends, how the hell do I get out!’
Although I could manipulate the Guardian Chancellor with my consciousness, I could only use consciousness to adjust it. The actual transmission was limited to sound and a few scenes, so I could not send out Void Shattering clones.
I clutched my aching head and thought for a long time.
Then I felt an odd qi above the Guardian Chancellor and turned my gaze toward it.
‘What is this…?’
A familiar qi light was glowing from above the artifact.
‘Of course it was a world I had been to, so it was familiar… but still, something felt wrong. It seemed almost…’
I heard a faint wave sound coming from within the light.
And suddenly, my Gangnyeong Axis began vibrating wildly in resonance.
I forgot all about my irritation with the Taesuhoe and reached out toward the light with a trance-like gaze.
Then.
“……!”
A very familiar scene appeared before my eyes.
The world burned.
Countless burning monsters roamed within it, along with the ruins of civilizations scattered everywhere.
Rivers and lakes that had once been filled with water.
And the name of the great world that contained all of it.
‘Kang-nyeong Bong-yang Sa-ja Jeong-ryong-ji-do!’
“Jeong-ryong Jeomul-do!”
I grabbed the Guardian Chancellor and roared.
A chill ran down my spine.
I felt an inexplicable sense of anticipation.
When one reached the level of handling reinforcements, a cultivator’s instincts became nearly prophetic.
I poured my consciousness into the Guardian Chancellor with a stunned expression.
The image on the Guardian Chancellor twisted, and it rose from the altar of the Bong-yang layer, connecting directly to the Chije layer.
The vibration of my Gangnyeong Axis reached its peak as it resonated with the qi of Jeong-ryong Jeomul-do.
In my memory, I saw Seo Hyoel’s actions.
Just as Seo Hyoel had done, I lifted my Gangnyeong Axis above my palm and twisted it with his power.
A flash!
The power of Gang-nyeong shone through the Guardian Chancellor.
“Gang-nyeong Axis, unlock.”
Kwa-kwung!
At the same moment, the sound of a hinge opening or a lock clicking echoed from the Guardian Chancellor and spread throughout Bong-rae-do.