Confrontation (1)
Sssssssshhh...
Above the ghost island Noeryeong-do, the last remnant of the heavens...
I gazed down upon the territory of the ruined humans.
An oddly unsettled feeling weighed upon me.
“Hey, Seo Eun-hyun.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon approached from my side and spoke.
“...Jeon Myeong-hoon.”
“Why do you look like death? You did all this.”
“......”
He stared down at me with somewhat hazy eyes.
“...Did I do well?”
“In the end, Kang Min-hee will come out soon. So in the end, you did well.”
“...Do you know why I left Noeryeong-do behind...?”
Jeon Myeong-hoon fell silent, his eyes dark and heavy.
Yes.
I had boldly turned the entire human territory upside down.
Thanks to the All-Heaven Sword’s property of ignoring injuries, there were no deaths.
But I had not turned Noeryeong-do.
It was the most selfish decision.
I razed someone else’s territory and hometown to the ground, then left my own cherished place of memories untouched.
The land I destroyed had surely been someone’s grave, where someone remembered.
I crushed everyone’s homeland yet could not bear to let go of mine alone.
To me, that proud and protective image of mine seemed unbearably vulgar.
“What are you moping about like that?”
Jeon Myeong-hoon gently stroked the wooden box held by Geum So-hae and spoke.
“Are you going to die clutching your hometown, or are you going to roll around in the dung field after being smashed to pieces? Which one is better, you ask? It’s obvious. Stop whining uselessly and get up to prepare for Kang Min-hee.”
“...Understood.”
I fell silent for a moment, then brushed myself off and stood up.
No time to linger in melancholy now.
I had gone near Noeryeong-do.
I went to where the Black Ghost Valley side and the Changcheon Gaebyeokmun side were.
The Changcheon Gaebyeokmun people were busy with physical training on one side, while the Black Ghost Valley side sat with their mouths shut, kneeling as if they had come to a flea market.
I looked at the black-clad elder at the front, Heo Gwak, and spoke.
“Elder Heo. Rise. Why are you all like this?”
“......”
Kung!
Heo Gwak gave no answer and instead banged his head against the ground in response to my words.
“First, we declare that we never invited the Venerable to spar of our own will.”
“...I roughly knew that much.”
A Seopmyeong Ship with working power devices and dozens of Void Refinement ghost kings.
On our side, one Seopmyeong Ship without power devices and two low-level monsters. Four Gate Dharma Refiner Oh Hyun-seok and Changhoza. We had fought dozens of ships with no choice.
Yet none of the Changcheon Gaebyeokmun people, Siho, or Seo Ran were captured as prisoners by the Black Ghost Valley side in an instant.
The Black Ghost Valley had clearly been generous.
“Did the Black Ghost Valley not intend to oppose us from the beginning?”
“...How could we oppose Venerable-nim? It is no different from an ant claiming to oppose the king of a nation.”
“...?”
I felt a flicker of doubt at Heo Gwak’s attitude.
“Why the formalities? Because I razed the human territory?”
Something was off.
Even the Taesuhoe had looked at me as an Integration-level powerhouse and burned with fighting spirit, yet the Black Ghost Valley acted strangely subdued.
However, his next words allowed me to understand immediately.
“...We have been in contact with the main branch of the Myeonggwi Realm.”
“Ah...”
In that case, everything I had done in the Myeonggwi Realm had reached their ears.
“We are mere insects unworthy of even glancing at Venerable-nim’s shadow. If the Venerable were to meet the main branch again, the Venerable would be instructed to follow their words after assessing the situation.”
So...
Was it because I had driven out fifty Gaeyeol True Immortals?
It seemed the Black Ghost Valley side viewed me as something close to a True Immortal or a human avatar.
I was about to speak when I realized time was short and nodded.
“...Well, understood. Then for now...”
I was about to order something of the Black Ghost Valley side when...
I trembled and glared around me.
Jeon Myeong-hoon’s body also trembled, as if sensing something, and Seo Ran, who had mastered the Ghost Dao Techniques, shook violently.
The sky was filled with thick yin energy.
The spiritual veins around us were gradually turning into ghost energy.
My expression darkened.
The places where spiritual veins turned and yin energy gathered...
I chased the source of these phenomena.
The space below the former Black Ghost Valley site on the heaven island was violently shaking.
‘If I had evacuated the humans just a moment later, it could have been disastrous.’
I looked at the direction the humans had fled.
Among the humans of the Gwanghan Realm, there were no culprits.
Thanks to my rampage, they had all gathered onto flight arrays and quickly escaped their own territories.
At one time I had regretted that the lack of cultivators slowed our martial arts progress, but now I thought it fortunate.
They had escaped this quickly.
But I could not be satisfied with this alone.
“I’ll make this easy. First, the disciple of the Ghost Dao Melody Line who was accepted by you. She will go berserk soon.”
“Y-yes?”
“You can feel the yin energy? Soon she will burst out from the place where your sect was. She will emerge from the outer fringe of the Myeonggwi Realm and descend into the Gwanghan Realm through the shortcut. Her territory is at least Void Refinement level. Or...”
I bit my lip, recalling Jang Ik’s assessment of Kang Min-hee in her prime.
“It would be better to see her as a pseudo Void Refinement, lacking only reason.”
“T-that...”
Heo Gwak looked unconvinced.
However, the next moment, an earth-shaking ghost valley roar echoed from somewhere in the human territory.
“Kuhk!”
“Kuuuuh...”
Those who had mastered Ghost Dao Techniques spat a mouthful of blood each, ignoring me.
I stared at the source of the roar with a hardened face.
In about an hour or two, Kang Min-hee would descend.
“I know the true purpose of the Seopmyeong Ship.”
I spoke, looking at Heo Gwak.
“To gather the souls of the entire Heavenly Tribulation when the end comes. And for that, spatial transmission and dimensional shifts. Originally created not for attack but for ‘evacuation.’ Isn’t that right?”
“How could the secret passed only to Black Ghost Valley disciples... Ah, no. If it’s Venerable-nim, of course you would know.”
He readily admitted the truth, and I steadied my spirit while looking at the place where Kang Min-hee would descend.
“Immediately take the humans fleeing in that direction with maximum speed and load them all onto the Seopmyeong Ship.”
I spoke to them with a hardened face.
The number of Gwanghan Realm humans belonging to the Human Alliance was roughly 30 billion according to the Sium-do estimates.
It was possible to cram 7 billion Earth humans into just one state of America.
And the spatial compression on the Seopmyeong Ship was enough to fit an entire Dabcheon Desert.
Since the size of the Dabcheon Desert was similar to the North American continent I knew, it was theoretically possible to fit 30 billion insane people.
At my words, Heo Gwak nodded with a somewhat hesitant expression.
“However, without power devices doubled, we cannot guarantee speed. And even if it is spatial transmission to a different region, since the disciple who has lost reason is at Void Refinement level, the Zhuji Technique will surely catch up...”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll be moving through dimensional shift anyway.”
“Even if it is dimensional shift, we need to know where to go... the Demon Realm hates humans because of the current human-demon war, the Purple Gold Realm is far, if we go to the Myeonggwi Realm then all humans must die, and if we go to the Goryeok Realm then we need special individuals...”
“Not to another realm, but to the Nether Region. In the Nether Region, the spatial coordinates are chaotic, so she won’t be able to chase us with Zhuji Technique so easily...”
“T-that... Then we need fixed spatial coordinates in the Nether Region, but... there are no fixed spatial coordinates in the Nether Region to begin with, and...”
“There are.”
I cut him off and handed him the spatial coordinates I knew.
“Th-this...”
Heo Gwak’s face turned deathly pale at the coordinates, and Heo Ryeong’s face flushed red upon seeing them.
“T-this...”
“Do you have a complaint?”
I looked down at Heo Ryeong. Heo Ryeong rubbed his side and lowered his head.
“...I will follow Venerable-nim’s words.”
“Good. Then let’s move quickly! Immediately fly in the direction the humans fled and prepare spatial jumps!”
The Black Ghost Valley took the people from Changcheon Gaebyeokmun and flew in the direction the humans had fled.
The coordinates I had given them were those of Jang Ik’s Pakdo.
In other words, the coordinates of the Heart Tribe region.
I released the floating array on Noeryeong-do and let the floating array drop downward.
After that, I retrieved Kim Young-hoon from the region and asked him and Jeon Myeong-hoon.
“The two of you, please check if there are any remaining people while patrolling the human region.”
At my words, Jeon Myeong-hoon and Kim Young-hoon nodded, then each disappeared in front of me with the speed of light and the speed of lightning.
I confirmed the remaining people.
Seo Ran, who had many things to say to the Black Ghost Valley. And Siho.
Changhoza, who was sent first with the Changcheon Gaebyeokmun people. And Oh Hyun-seok.
Kim Yeon, who needed to check Kang Min-hee’s condition, and Buk Hyang-hwa, who had followed her.
Hongbeom and others who followed me were also still there.
Wisehorn, Eonwa, and Yeon-jin had boarded the Seopmyeong Ship and gone with the Black Ghost Valley.
I spoke to them.
“Thank you for staying behind. But from now on, what I will do is simply to stall for time. In other words, the opponent is now in an extremely terrifying state, so I need to stall. Therefore, if any of you find yourselves in grave danger, you must obey my commands.”
All the comrades nodded.
In a truly urgent situation, they would be placed into Jeon Myeong-hoon’s region, then sent to the Black Ghost Valley Seopmyeong Ship that had already departed, using Jeon Myeong-hoon’s and Kim Young-hoon’s strength.
Kururung!
Flash!
Lightning and golden light flashed as Kim Young-hoon and Jeon Myeong-hoon returned.
Jeon Myeong-hoon showed countless humans inside his region.
“They were in closed cultivation or had urgent matters and could not evacuate in time. I gathered them all with Hyung-nim’s help.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon, who had started calling Kim Young-hoon “hyung-nim,” showed the people inside his region after that and pointed at one person inside the region with an irritated expression.
“H-heu haak!”
A woman pulled outside the region by Jeon Myeong-hoon’s power struggled and flailed, screaming.
“......”
Tae Yeol-jeon.
No...
The woman who had been Tae Yeol-jeon in the previous loop.
“During all that, this woman knew you and tried desperately to stay here, so I ignored her and brought her. Do you know her?”
“H-heu haak Venerable-nim! D-do you remember me?! Save me! This person is clearly taking me to some strange place and trying to turn me into a human pill...”
“I don’t know. And Jeon Myeong-hoon is not that kind of guy, so shut up.”
I ignored her and snapped my fingers.
She was flung back into one side of Jeon Myeong-hoon’s region.
Hongbeom covered his nose and shook his head as if irritated at her.
It seemed he had mistaken Jeon Myeong-hoon, who suddenly appeared with an intimidating aura, for a demonic investigator collecting materials for human pills.
Anyway, thanks to her, the mood lightened for a moment and we laughed heartily.
After telling Jeon Myeong-hoon to take the comrades into the Seopmyeong Ship in an emergency, I looked at the land where Kang Min-hee would descend.
“Well then. Everyone, stay alert.”
And.
Kugugugugu!
With an overwhelming presence, Kang Min-hee.
Was descending.
Paat!
I found myself in some strange space.
A place filled with pure and clear spiritual energy.
Ossh!
Above a high mountain that seemed to overlook the entire Gwanghan Realm.
I stood before a grand white jade pavilion in that place.
[Come here.]
A clear voice echoed from inside the pavilion.
[I am Baek-woon. I have summoned only your consciousness here because I wish to speak with you for a moment.]