In the Wind's Embrace (4)
I walked slowly toward the palace, brushing my fingers along one of its pillars.
Unlike what I had seen before, one pillar was missing.
*I guess Yuk Rin used the Salt Crystal to polish the Inspection Jade.*
To consume so many of those precious Salt Crystals just to advance the polishing process was an absurdly low-utility method. It was shocking.
The power was impressive, but given how Yuk Rin’s mind had almost snapped, the power alone wasn’t enough. Whether his madness came from the Salt Crystal or some outside interference, the Crystal offered no help whatsoever in calming his heart.
Unlike the Mountain-Cleaving Emperor Art or its inverse, it simply did nothing for the heart’s true state.
I entered the palace.
The structure was identical to the one I had seen inside Bongrae Kingdom.
Yet where the palace inside the kingdom had been filled with the kingdom’s specialties, decorations, and treasures, this one was almost barren—only a few scrolls written by Yuk Rin lay scattered across the floor.
I entered the archive where I had once read Yu Ho-deok’s memorial service, but nothing remained.
Everything I had seen inside Bongrae Kingdom had been illusions.
I stood there for a moment, gazing at the palace, and suddenly realized something.
*This palace… is connected to the Salt Mountain of Bongrae-do through space.*
It was something I could only have learned because I had spent eighty years in direct communion with the Salt Mountain through my main body.
The connection was so faint that it was almost impossible to sense.
*And if it is connected to the Salt Mountain…*
I closed my eyes at the center of the palace, sat in full lotus, and recited the inverse of the Mountain-Cleaving Emperor Art.
Woo-woong!
The Salt Crystal pavilion inside the palace suddenly blazed with pure white light.
Then, at some point.
Woo-woo-woo-woo-woong!
The pavilion began to glow even brighter, and I felt my consciousness being pulled toward some distant place.
The next instant.
Waa-gul, wa-gul, wa-gul—
I slowly opened my eyes.
“…Where is this…?”
The surroundings were noisy.
It had clearly been empty just moments ago, yet now the area in front of the throne was filled with countless ministers standing in stunned silence, their gazes sharp and accusing.
“You crazy demon king! What the hell are you doing?! Get down here right now!”
“This, this, this is blasphemy!!”
They were all shouting at me at once.
I was dizzy from the sudden shift, so at first I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Then their meaning hit me like a bolt of lightning.
Flutter, flutter…
Something was moving beneath my buttocks.
I shot up from my seat and looked at the throne.
There sat the queen of Bongrae Kingdom, her face flushed red as she glared at me.
“…Two people suddenly appearing and sitting on the throne made me think I was going to die from shock. How can you just appear out of nowhere again!? What more do you want!”
“Hmm, just wait a moment.”
I felt a headache coming on.
It throbbed for a while, then the vision in front of me suddenly blurred, and I was back inside the empty palace once more.
“…I see.”
I had been so startled that I had paused the recitation of the inverse Mountain-Cleaving Emperor Art.
*Does the inverse Mountain-Cleaving Emperor Art send me to another world, and stopping it pulls me back?*
It seemed the Salt Crystal pavilion and the Salt Mountain of Bongrae-do had created a special situation where the two realms were separated.
I smiled at the amusing scene and stepped outside the palace.
That was when—
Ziiit!
“…!”
I suddenly felt a pounding headache.
“Grrk… what is this?”
It wasn’t just the pain from the Void Shattering clone. My main body on Bongrae-do was suffering as well.
I shifted my awareness to the main body to figure out what was happening.
And in an instant I knew.
“…Three days?”
I stood on the Salt Mountain, mouth agape in disbelief.
In the time it had taken me to enter Bongrae Kingdom and open my eyes, three days had passed.
And this kind of phenomenon was nothing new.
*…When I met [that one].*
The name escaped me, but the encounter with the [certain being] at the lowest level of Bongmyeong-ju was still vivid.
I had endured ten years inside it, yet I remembered it as an extremely short time.
Space and time distortion.
This was…
*It is related to True Immortals!*
I could tell just by looking.
*The lord of the Salt Mountain, or something connected to him, must have intervened.*
It was frightening.
But there was no choice but to face it.
I gritted my teeth and shifted my awareness back to the Void Shattering clone, then scanned Yuk Rin’s treasure vault.
*…The corpse of Jin Ma-yeol has disappeared.*
I frowned and left the vault.
Only Baek Rin and Yuk Yo remained outside the treasure vault.
The Tuma Pirates had all fled after their captain’s body vanished.
“…What happened?”
“Well… the Tuma Pirates pulled out Captain Jin Ma-yeol’s corpse and immediately fled. They probably thought that if the sect leader came out they would all be exterminated.”
“So that’s why they ran.”
I felt a headache coming on.
*Damn it… I would need their Salty Bone Boats to move Baek Rin…*
If they fled, there was nothing I could do.
Of course, I had modified the Salty Bone Boats according to Buk Hyang-hwa’s instructions, so I could still trace them if I surfaced.
But then I noticed something strange and asked.
“…What about Yuk Rin? What happened to him?”
The battle between Kim Young-hoon and Yuk Rin had looked equal, but in a long fight Kim Young-hoon would have lost.
Of course, because Kim Young-hoon had only been a clone.
If that was the case, how could Yuk Rin have simply stayed behind after defeating the clone?
He should have used the Transmission Crystal to charge straight into this Deep Sea realm.
However, when I explained, both Baek Rin and Yuk Yo exchanged glances and answered in confusion.
“First… Your Majesty. I believe we can pull Your Majesty’s main body power even from the clone body, but may I borrow a moment of Your Majesty’s main body senses?”
I followed Baek Rin’s words and pulled my main body’s power and consciousness through the All-Heaven Sword.
And at that moment, as my consciousness swept across the Deep Sea…
“…!!!!!”
I froze solid.
The Deep Sea, which should have been fixed in one place, was *moving*.
No, it was moving—but very slowly. Still, the sensation was undeniable.
“What, what is going on!?”
“We don’t know either. The distance between the mid-region of Jeongryong Island and this Deep Sea realm has become too great, so we can no longer use the Transmission Crystal. We’re trapped here.”
“This…?”
I panicked and widened my consciousness even further to investigate how the Deep Sea had begun to move.
And in the process, I realized something.
* * *
Woo-woong—
Bongrae-do.
Above the Salt Mountain.
I shifted my main body’s consciousness and, together with the clone in the Deep Sea, began reciting the inverse Mountain-Cleaving Emperor Art.
Woo-woo-woong!
The Salt Mountain beneath me began to radiate light.
And the Salt Crystal pavilion in the Deep Sea where the clone was located also began to glow.
This time, since I wasn’t inside the pavilion, my consciousness was not being sucked away.
Yet I could clearly feel it.
*We are pulling each other.*
And the force was unbelievably immense.
I smiled bitterly and said.
“…I suppose we don’t need the help of the Tuma Pirates anymore.”
The spatial force between the Salt Mountain of Bongrae-do and the Salt Crystal pavilion of Yuk Rin’s Deep Sea was pulling both realms together with overwhelming power—pulling Baek Rin and Yuk Yo, and the entire Deep Sea realm where my clone was located toward this side.
I sent a transmission to Gwanghan Realm and the entire Bongrae-do.
[Everyone, rejoice. The operation to rescue the Guardian Ghost King Baek Rin has finally come to an end.]
All that remained was for me to wait for Gyoyeom and escape Bongrae-do.
* * *
Upon hearing my explanation, Baek Rin and Yuk Yo’s eyes widened in shock.
“You, are you really returning to the sect, Your Majesty!?”
“Really returning to Bongrae Kingdom?”
I nodded to both of them.
They seemed momentarily satisfied with my answer, then looked at each other again.
I read the subtle emotions between them and sighed.
It seemed that now the question was no longer simply *where to return*, but *to where*.
* * *
“…In conclusion, all the problems that threatened this sect have been resolved.”
I explained everything that had happened so far to everyone in the Wuji Martial Arts Conference Hall.
“Fortunately. We fought Yuk Rin for a day and a night and managed to inflict serious wounds on him, yet in the end his power became that of a clone. So I was a little worried…”
“It turned out well in the end.”
Kim Young-hoon let out a sigh of relief, and Oh Hyun-seok nodded in agreement.
Jeon Myeong-hoon simply nodded stiffly, while Kim Yeon and Buk Hyang-hwa both smiled softly at the same time.
Seo Ran looked sad after hearing about Yuk Yo and Baek Rin, then received a stern glare from Siho.
“It’s all good that it turned out well. However, there is one matter we must discuss.”
I looked at Kim Young-hoon, Seo Ran, Siho, and Buk Hyang-hwa.
“Conqueror King. You said there was no progress even after researching Bongrae-do?”
“Yes. After examining the formation arrays inside Bongrae-do, I could find no clues that would allow me to rescue Cheongmun Ryeong.”
Buk Hyang-hwa spoke with a look of sorrow.
For the past eighty years she had explored Bongrae-do with Seo Ran and Siho, searching for a way to save Cheongmun Ryeong.
Yet she had found nothing here.
If that was the case, then to obtain proper clues I would either have to reunite the Salt Crystal pavilion and the Salt Mountain, or enter the formation array and gather information from people of that world.
In particular, since the queen of Bongrae Kingdom seemed to know something, asking her would be the most appropriate route.
However, there was a problem.
First method.
“The Deep Sea… what was it called again? Angryong-do? Even though Angryong-do is approaching here quickly, the distance between the dimensions of the Deep Sea is enormous.”
The identity of the mysterious hand that had trapped us was still unclear.
The spatial force between the Salt Mountain and the pavilion, and the rate at which they were closing in.
Considering the gap between the Deep Sea dimensions separating Angryong-do from Bongrae-do, it would take an absurdly long time for Angryong-do to reach here.
Roughly…
“Seven years?”
This was because the Deep Sea of the Goryeok Realm was far more unstable than the boundary regions of the middle realms.
It was said that even in boundary regions, space frequently distorted, and distances would suddenly expand or shrink.
The entrance to Jeungryong Jinin’s Pocket Dimension that I had visited before was near a boundary region and extremely stable, so it was incomparable to a true boundary region.
The deep areas of the Goryeok Realm’s Deep Sea were even more distorted.
If you fell into the Deep Sea, even Integration-realm investigators had a fifty-fifty chance of disappearing.
Fortunately, because the Salt Mountain and Angryong-do were being pulled together by spatial force, I had estimated seven years.
However, seven years was still a considerable amount of time.
Buk Hyang-hwa asked anxiously.
“Seven years from now and the day will come right away, won’t it?”
“That’s right. So when the time comes, even if the pavilion is reunited with the Salt Mountain, we won’t have time to properly investigate. Therefore…”
Kim Yeon’s face turned deathly pale.
“It’s too dangerous, Eun-hyun oppa!”
Upon hearing her, the others also showed worried expressions.
“That’s right, Seo Eun-hyun. You’re planning to enter there alone and investigate Bongrae Kingdom, right? It’s dangerous. Besides, isn’t the time scale different in that world?”
“Yeah, Eun-hyun. When you leave for Gwanghan Realm, won’t you be trapped in a deep sleep with no way out?”
After listening to everyone’s words, I looked at Kim Yeon.
“I’m fine. She will wake me up.”
I slowly explained my plan.
I had no intention of just investigating mindlessly inside the realm.
I would connect part of Kim Yeon’s consciousness through the Strange Star-Mind Scroll.
Then I would enter Bongrae Kingdom, gather information, and when time was up Kim Yeon would send me a signal through the Strange Star-Mind Scroll.
That way I could escape Bongrae Kingdom.
Kim Yeon bit her lip with worried eyes.
I, too, had no desire to take such a risk.
It was possible that some suspicious effect could activate inside the realm and swallow my memories.
Of course, according to the condition for regaining consciousness that Yuk Yo had mentioned, that was unlikely.
Still, it was a risk I would have to bear.
But I shook my head with a firm expression.
“…I’m sorry. But…”
I had to find a way to rescue Cheongmun Ryeong from the Salt Pillar.
I could delay no longer.
Cheongmun Ryeong was still sleeping inside the Salt Pillar in that world.
I could not leave him like that forever.
The Goryeok Realm especially reacted strongly to the Mountain-Cleaving Emperor Art and the power of salt.
*While I remain in this world, I must discover why.*
If not the Goryeok Realm, there would be no other chance.
The others sighed when they sensed my resolve.
Kim Yeon bit her lip and, realizing she could not stop me, lowered her head.
“…Okay. If that’s how it is… go.”
“Thank you.”
I thanked everyone in the Wuji Martial Arts Sect, including Kim Yeon.
* * *
Woo-woong—
I stood in front of the Salt Crystal pavilion, with Kim Yeon’s Strange Star-Mind Scroll connected in my mind.
I was curious about the documents from Yuk Rin inside, but right now this side was urgent.
“By the way, are you coming with me?”
I looked at Yuk Yo standing beside me and asked.
“Of course. It’s my hometown.”
“…”
Yuk Yo had decided to enter with me.
She had said it was because I was returning to Bongrae Kingdom.
However, I looked at her and then at Baek Rin.
“What are you going to do, Baek Rin?”
“I… don’t know.”
It seemed Baek Rin wanted Yuk Yo to drag him inside.
But Yuk Yo did not beg him to come along.
She seemed to know.
Baek Rin had too many precious people in this world already.
“…Why don’t you stay in this world with me, Princess?”
However, Yuk Yo shook her head at Baek Rin’s words.
“I’m sorry, Baek Rin. For me, that world is… truly my hometown.”
“…”
Baek Rin hesitated, reluctant to leave her, and Yuk Yo stepped forward and gently stroked his hand.
The two remained like that for a moment, then separated.
*…Is this really the end?*
I felt a strange sorrow as I walked toward the palace.
Yuk Yo also walked beside me.
While reciting the inverse Mountain-Cleaving Emperor Art, I placed a hand on her shoulder.
Woo-woo-woong—
The moment I stepped onto the entrance of the palace—
Pa-aaat!
With the sensation of my consciousness being pulled toward another world, I arrived in a different realm.
The scenery before my eyes changed, and I could see a new landscape.
A long corridor lined with countless soldiers.
In front of it stood the queen of Bongrae Kingdom, and the Yuk Yo I had been supporting had suddenly changed into a beautiful ancient royal dress, a human princess from the ancient Angler Fish Demon Tribe.
The queen of Bongrae Kingdom wiped her tears as she looked at Yuk Yo.
“I am glad you have returned, my daughter.”
“Mom!”
Yuk Yo rushed to the queen, and I watched their mother-daughter reunion for a moment.
A while later the queen of Bongrae Kingdom spoke to me.
“I apologize for the commotion earlier. Please believe there was a reason. Anyway, you are the benefactor who brought my daughter back. It would be a dishonor to fail to properly welcome our guests. We will hold a banquet, so please enjoy yourselves and depart.”
However, I shook my head and said.
“The reason I brought Princess Yuk Yo here is not to receive a banquet. There is something I wish to know.”
I looked at the queen of Bongrae Kingdom.
“Please tell me everything you know.”