Kneel Before Me. (5)
I knelt.
Reversed flow.
And the nameless disk.
Three treasures resonated.
I had guessed at the disk’s identity.
‘Got it. This is the failed mock-up that Jin-in made.’
I had heard there were three. These had to be it.
Just as I thought that—
Whoosh!
Clang, clang, clang!
Pure white divine Reverse Flow.
Scarlet divine Reversed Flow.
The nameless disk.
The three treasures converged into one place and merged into one, radiating clear light!
And what appeared was…
“The South-Pointing Plate?”
The South-Pointing Plate.
Or what was commonly called a compass.
The Reverse Flow pointed north.
The Reversed Flow pointed south.
Boom!
I stared at this enormous South-Pointing Plate larger than my own body and clicked my tongue.
“…What is this?”
A sudden legal treasure.
Truly the remnant of civilization after a long time.
A mark of wisdom, yet instead of joy I felt only disgust and a chill crawling up my neck.
I had first obtained Reversed Flow in Yuk Rin’s treasure vault.
But thinking back, Reversed Flow’s performance was insane: simply as a weapon it generated power rivaling the Integration stage.
Not as monstrous as Goe-gun’s Wondrous Castle, but still a vicious legal treasure in its own right. No matter how much Yuk Rin avoided using legal treasures, simply leaving one like this in a treasure mountain was impossible.
On top of that, something had felt off during my fight with Jin Ma-yeol.
Salt crystals were a fine mineral, but not that hard.
They possessed the properties to be used as pillars in his palace or processed from the bones of the Sea Dragon Lord Yuk Ung.
Yet the Reversed Flow made from them left not a single wound even when I slashed with total annihilation power before my body weakened. It was the only weapon that did not shatter like the others and was merely flung away by Jin Ma-yeol’s hand.
And next came the divine Reverse Flow.
It had been placed right beneath where a fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword had been hidden.
As if someone knew I would come looking for it and had hidden it.
The disk was the same.
It had appeared the moment the cave collapsed after I took out the last fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword, waiting for me.
The three legal treasures merged in an instant and became the compass.
It almost felt as if some existence was guiding me to place this compass before me.
The problem was, if I felt that way, it could not be imagination. The odds were overwhelmingly high that great beings were guiding my fate.
‘What kind of existence is doing this to me now?’
Through this compass.
What was its purpose?
It could have been simple goodwill, but I knew better.
This world was nothing but a lump of karmic retribution.
At least for us, goodwill could never return.
None of us could trust anyone.
I affirmed Yeon Wi’s thoughts with even greater resolve than before and unfolded the harmony domain.
Whoosh!
All spiritual energy and dragon veins inside the harmony domain.
I mobilized human intent, gripped the total annihilation sword with the Triple Taiji core, and swung the South-Pointing Plate together with the first style of the Mountain Heart Afterglow Dao.
Crack-crack-crack!
The South-Pointing Plate struck within the harmony domain, pierced through the domain’s boundary, and embedded itself straight into the planet’s core.
Yes. It had not shattered there. It had bounced and lodged itself.
I withdrew the harmony domain and glared at the South-Pointing Plate.
Not a single scratch marred it.
With my current power, I could exchange blows with a Void Refinement expert.
It had to be a legal treasure of Integration stage or higher.
But the strike I had just swung, assuming it would land a direct hit, was not even a joke. It could have sent the sound itself to hell.
Yet the South-Pointing Plate had not left a scratch from that strike.
I clicked my tongue and stared at it intensely.
I understood.
This was not a legal treasure of the Integration stage.
It was something like a failed Gaeyeol Quasi-Sage treasure, but honestly, I had no idea what it really was.
Although not as massive as the other legal treasures, from it I felt the same nameless pressure as from Bongmyeong-ju.
The legendary discarded treasure in the tales—the head of the corpse of the Sea Dragon Lord, Bongmyeong-ju.
Its initial presence had been truly awe-inspiring.
And it was releasing that same level of pressure.
After staring at the South-Pointing Plate for a long while, I ignored it and headed toward the planet in the opposite direction.
‘Fine, throw this away.’
I did not know if some True Immortal or high existence was trying to mock me again, but there was no reason to accept it so willingly.
Just as I thought that, I passed another planet.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
“…!”
I collided face-to-face with a full-body frog-shaped Jin-in covered in eyes that had been clinging to the back of the planet.
Blink—
The Quasi-Sage frog-shaped Jin-in looked at me and opened its mouth.
Swoosh!
“You crazy bastard!”
My blood froze. I dodged its tongue.
Or should I say tongue?
It resembled a fish tail and was shimmering with faint starlight.
It felt exactly like if Changhoza’s Changryeong Seonggwang Ochae Daebop had taken the shape of a tongue.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
The starlight fish-tail tongue chased after me.
‘Damn it!’
Normally it had no aggressive tendencies. Why was it suddenly targeting me? I could not understand.
I hurriedly fled back to a nearby planet.
When I looked back, it was exactly where I had discarded the South-Pointing Plate.
Boom-boom-boom!
The fish-tail tongue of the Quasi-Sage writhed in the sky.
I searched for a hiding place and jumped into the spot where I had drilled all the way through the planet’s core with the South-Pointing Plate.
Boom!
I fell to the core in an instant and landed on the South-Pointing Plate.
Whether fortunate or unfortunate, the Quasi-Sage frog did not even swing its tongue in earnest and quickly withdrew it, disappearing once more.
I gritted my teeth and tried to leave again.
This time a continent-shaped Gaeyeol Quasi-Sage pursued me. I returned to the South-Pointing Plate and hid once more.
After experiencing the same events twice, I finally understood.
“…It must be fate.”
I had experienced something similar before.
When I was still young.
The same feeling I had felt while desperately trying not to entrust my companions to Seo Hyoel, Goe-gun, or the three Heavenly Persons in Deungsunhyang.
No matter what I did, fate would move to block me and guide the flow back to how it had been originally.
No matter what I tried, my companions were always pulled toward people they were connected to.
Recalling that time, I now understood how the existence guiding me with this compass had manipulated my fate.
“…Yes. It wants me to use the South-Pointing Plate.”
I pondered for a moment, then let out a bitter laugh.
In any case, I had nothing left to lose.
I placed my hand on the South-Pointing Plate with a rueful expression.
Whoosh!
When I infused my intent, the name and usage method of the South-Pointing Plate flowed into my mind.
The South-Pointing Plate was called the South-Pointing Plate.
Its ability was to guide the best path for beings connected by human intent.
I laughed in disbelief.
It was artificial.
Just as I could not find the last fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword,
just as a legal treasure that could help me find it appeared right in front of my eyes?
It felt obviously like someone’s scheme. My heart was not at ease.
But I had no choice but to place my hand on the South-Pointing Plate and register the human intent of the Colorless Glass Sword.
Someone was moving me through the South-Pointing Plate.
And the power and fame of that existence could not be escaped no matter what I did with my current strength.
Then.
Honestly, I hated this next sentence, but I had no choice but to obey.
“This world is a play staged beneath the threads of fate, and we are merely actors playing our roles within the play.”
“Act like actors and simply fulfill your assigned roles. Otherwise you will be kicked out of the stage.”
Seo Hyoel’s words.
Yet I accepted his words even while irritated. I stared at the South-Pointing Plate.
‘Fine. I do not know who is trying to do what to me, but I will play along with the role you assigned.’
I would obediently play my part in the role you have given me for now.
* * *
Whoosh!
I flew across the universe on the South-Pointing Plate.
Whoosh!
The needle of the South-Pointing Plate pointed to a certain direction, and I manipulated human intent to fly there with the levitation method.
Whoosh!
And a while later.
The South-Pointing Plate sent a signal that it had reached its destination.
The South-Pointing Plate was like Earth’s navigation system. It had set a goal and provided the best guidance to reach that goal. When it arrived, it sent such a signal.
I landed before a rocky cave on a planet guided by the South-Pointing Plate.
Using my intent to sweep the surroundings, I first activated the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram across the entire planet to search for the fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword.
It was nowhere to be found.
Even after pulling with the human intent of all the Colorless Glass Swords registered on the diagram, nothing appeared.
“…”
After recovering the Colorless Glass Swords, I re-registered their human intent on the South-Pointing Plate and said,
“Guide me, South-Pointing Plate.”
The needle spun around and pointed toward a distant place in space.
The fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword was somewhere else.
I felt blood rushing to my head, but I calmed my anger and flew toward the place the South-Pointing Plate guided me to.
Yet no fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword was there either.
And once more the South-Pointing Plate pointed somewhere else.
I wanted to smash the South-Pointing Plate, but it did not break.
If I got angry and threw it away, the strange calamity would immediately chase me to the Quasi-Sages or Quasi-Sages, tying me next to the South-Pointing Plate.
Even with the calamity, I could not dispel it like before.
Using the Dharma-Destroying True Word to dispel the calamity would make the owner of Taesan come looking for me again.
For now, I had to play along with this incomprehensible puppet show.
And countless years had passed.
* * *
100,000.
It was my hundred-thousandth birthday.
I sighed at the South-Pointing Plate’s foolishness that kept pointing to weird places and once again adjusted it to travel through the universe.
How many tens of thousands of years had it been?
What was the purpose of the existence that sent the South-Pointing Plate to me?
Without any explanation, it had tied me to the South-Pointing Plate and dragged me around like a dog, forcing me to travel through every corner of the universe.
“Another dog’s hole today?”
I had traveled with the South-Pointing Plate for tens of thousands of years.
Through the countless trials I had done along the way, I had already entered the middle stage of the combined Heavenly and Earthly Dao.
Perhaps it was because the new Heavenly Domain had only recently been born.
Spiritual energy in the universe was overflowing enormously.
Thanks to that, after tens of thousands of years I could reach a suitable realm.
With a hollow gaze, I arrived at yet another star guided by the South-Pointing Plate and, as always, did not give up hope. I moved the planet’s dragon veins with the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram to search for the last fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword.
Boom-boom-boom!
The planet’s dragon veins surged under my command and operated for a very brief moment according to the diagram of the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity.
“Still nothing here.”
I sighed and launched toward the place the South-Pointing Plate pointed again.
And that was when—
Whoosh—
“…?”
I suddenly saw a landscape where the aura of the dragon veins that had boiled across the entire star extended beyond the star.
‘What? Did I see it wrong?’
When I rubbed my eyes, the scene vanished.
But after checking the records I had stored in the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram, I realized it had not been an illusion.
‘I definitely saw it properly. What the hell was that?’
I looked at the planet again. Its dragon veins were peacefully sleeping inside the planet.
* * *
Time passed.
I gradually traveled through the universe with the South-Pointing Plate. The frequency of seeing the illusions I had seen before increased, and at some point I could clearly tell they were not illusions.
Whoosh-whooosh—
The dragon veins extended beyond the star.
The dragon veins extending beyond the star were connected to other stars like enormous pillars.
And the other stars were also vaguely connected to yet more stars.
It was not an illusion.
“…I see.”
Only then did I understand why the South-Pointing Plate had been dragging me through every corner of the Heavenly and Earthly Domain universe.
‘Was it trying to give me this vision?’
It had to be.
The vision of these dragon veins was special.
All the stars in this universe had spiritual veins flowing inside them, veins of Heavenly and Earthly spiritual energy.
Anyone who reached even the Core Formation stage could see them.
But the pillars of spiritual veins extending ‘beyond the star’ were not easily visible.
Only those who had traveled millions of stars, analyzed the auras of those stars, and constantly activated the dragon veins could see these pillars.
At first I did not understand the vision because I was unfamiliar with it. But after becoming accustomed to the vision, I began to grasp the true nature and origin of these pillars.
“The dragon veins of the stars have reached their extreme, transcending the tiers and spanning the fame tier.”
Because the infinite spiritual veins of the stars had simply allowed my Soul Tier to leap over, I could not recognize it at first.
Although the stars seemed far apart, they were not. In reality they were tightly connected through the human intent they emitted at the fame tier, and through the spiritual veins that soared to the fame tier I could faintly glimpse it.
All the stars in this universe were connected by countless pillars of light.
In other words, this was the Indra’s Net.
I gave one name to these pillars of light—the dragon veins connecting the stars.
Star Vein Eye.
Whoosh-whooosh!
I flew toward the place the South-Pointing Plate pointed, following the Star Vein Eye.
Again, I could not find a fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword.
But after acquiring the clear Star Vein Eye, I understood that the South-Pointing Plate was not dragging me meaninglessly.
With each journey with the South-Pointing Plate, the Star Vein Eye strengthened further.
I could see the dragon veins of even more distant stars in greater detail.
160,000.
I was now a living fossil that had lived 160,000 years.
My lifespan as an Integration realm expert was almost exhausted, and wrinkles began to appear on my skin and face.
I would probably die within three more tens of thousands of years.
Crack—
My realm was now the late Integration stage.
The achievement of Sitting Liberation and Standing Death was now a stage where I could freely unleash strikes.
‘How much longer will this journey continue?’
Before I died, could I find the Colorless Glass Sword?
I continued traveling through the Star Realm with the South-Pointing Plate, unable to hide the faint despair in my heart.
* * *
The Star Vein Eye was, in a way, even harder to obtain than the Underworld Sense.
Anyone with the Guido Gong method or a dead person could see the Underworld Sense, but to obtain the Star Vein Eye one had to have traveled hundreds of millions of stars, analyzed the auras of those stars, and experienced drawing out their dragon veins—enormous prerequisites.
Unlike the Underworld Sense, the Star Vein Eye did not grow easily.
Even after wandering with the South-Pointing Plate for tens of thousands of years, which was presumed to help cultivate the Star Vein Eye, I could only see the constellation network spread across the entire universe for a long time.
However, one day.
After finishing a journey with the South-Pointing Plate, my Star Vein Eye broke through an ‘critical point,’ and beyond that threshold I could see things that were simply astonishing.
It was history.
Through the dragon veins I could see how the constellations had moved until now.
One might ask what was so special about that record.
It was not like Oh Hye-seo, who could read all records as they were. It was a record of constellations?
Yet it was certainly astonishing.
The records of the constellations all pointed toward the initial great explosion and the [path] leading to the starting point of the Heavenly Domain.
Whoosh-whooosh—
I finally understood as I looked at that [path].
Where the last fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword was.
It had been beyond that [path].
And I could guess what lay at the end of that [path].
There was probably an exit through which I could leave this Heavenly Domain.
Yes. The last fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword had existed outside this Heavenly Domain from the very beginning.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
Only then did the South-Pointing Plate begin to guide me precisely along the [path].
My current age was 192,202.
There remained 400 years until my lifespan ran out.
* * *
It took exactly 400 years to reach the entrance that could lead out of the Heavenly Domain.
The timing was so precise that it felt artificial.
I stroked the wrinkles and beard on my face.
My realm was currently at the peak of the Heavenly and Earthly Dual Path, with all the power of the True Immortal stage combined into the Integration late stage.
In other words, it was on par with or superior to my prime [her].
My death was not far off, and my realm had been pushed to the limit of its power.
Yet even so, I felt a sense of fear looking at the [door] before me.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
The [door] that could lead out beyond the Heavenly Domain.
I realized there were two paths branching out beyond it.
One was the ordinary path leading simply outside the Heavenly Domain.
The other was a strange path leading somewhere unknown.
And the last fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword lay on the side of that [somewhere].
I was not afraid of the unknown.
What truly terrified me was—
‘The being that exists beyond that…’
I knew.
Beyond there was an existence that had given me the South-Pointing Plate, dragged me through hundreds of thousands of years with fate, and forcibly granted me the Star Vein Eye.
I could feel that existence wanted to meet me.
Even now.
Even now the image of the owner of Taesan slaughtering all my companions and returning the universe to its primordial state did not leave my mind.
But even so, I headed there on the South-Pointing Plate.
In any case, I had nothing to lose.
All I could lose was my memory.
Even a tiny fragment of the Colorless Glass Sword.
Even on the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram.
All the history of me, and all of us.
I stepped onto the South-Pointing Plate and placed my foot outside this Heavenly Domain.
Whoosh-whooosh!
The Heavenly and Earthly Domain turned pure white.
* * *
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
The galaxy!
The center of countless galactic rivers.
There was a jade throne there, and the South-Pointing Plate brought me before it.
And at some point—
Flash!
The South-Pointing Plate that had carried me all this time turned pure white and transformed into an old man.
I looked at him indifferently.
“…Are you him? The one who wanted to see me?”
I felt it.
The being before my eyes was at least a True Immortal.
“No, I am only the incarnation of my true self. I let you see me directly so you would not go mad.”
“…If you have something to say, why did you make me wait through such a long time?”
“Haha, a long time.”
The old man stroked his beard and asked.
“Do you know who I am?”
I cautiously asked the old man.
“Who are you?”
“There are many titles. Some call me the God of Calendars, others the Master of Time.”
Snap!
When he snapped his fingers, the surroundings transformed into a palace like the Peach Garden of Wu.
He sat on a throne and said,
“From now on, call me the Heavenly Venerable of Time.”
His solemnity made me kneel.
“Kneel before me. I have been watching over you for a very long time.”