The Unyielding Ghost King
Whoosh—
The moment I came to my senses,
I found myself in the chaotic borderlands of the Gwanghan Realm.
‘This place… is right in the opposite direction from the Sim Clan’s territory.’
It lay beyond the Sap-pung and Sato Territories, in the western borderlands of the region.
Crack!
As soon as I realized where I was, an overwhelming weight crushed down on me. I slammed straight into one spot in the western borderlands and stayed rooted there.
I had landed in a corner of the borderlands packed with jade stones.
I rose to my feet, witnessing the entire area being sliced apart by a terrifying force.
Creak… creak… creak!
The gravity weighing on my shoulders was even heavier than the star-gravity I had felt while sparring with Jang Ik.
Crunch!
Space warped violently with a massive explosion, and a giant planet suddenly appeared above me.
The Baek-woon Saintess had bestowed upon me the “Jae-cheon-seong.”
[I explained everything myself and told you it was for you, yet you still refuse? Obediently accept it!]
“I apologize. However, this involves the Venerables, so I cannot disclose it. I don’t need it. Please withdraw the title.”
I could not speak of anything related to the Seongmaek-an.
Just as I had felt the agony of carelessly revealing anything tied to the True Immortal when I used the Dharma-Destroying True Word or Jeong-ryeo, I knew exactly how much pain such disclosure would bring.
[There is no choice but to do it…]
“What is it?”
[Listen well, Seo Eun-hyun of the human race.]
Ku-gugugu!
A massive power began concentrating in the borderlands.
At the same time, the Jae-cheon-seong floating above me tried to forcibly link with me.
[You are my successor.]
“…!”
I was stunned and looked up at the sky.
[In six hundred years, a cultivator who has reached Integration Grand Completion through the Heavenly Clans’ assistance and achieved five layers of implementation in the Sim Clan realm has never existed before. While the growth speed may be slightly slower than the Geumsinja, the Geumsinja focused solely on the Heavenly Clans’ assistance, so it is said that your pure talent surpasses that of the Geumsinja.]
“That is merely a misunderstanding.”
[Whether it is a misunderstanding or not is irrelevant. The result speaks for itself…]
I resisted the pressure gradually approaching me from the Jae-cheon-seong and fought desperately not to connect with it.
[You must have the aptitude to reach the Seongbangi. That means you were born with the destiny to become the Saintess of the Gwanghan Realm after me. Therefore, as the Saintess of the Gwanghan Realm, I have reason to bind you to it!]
Drdrdrdrdr!
I had no time to answer.
‘This… is the Seongbangi…?’
I gritted my teeth and barely resisted the pressure of the Jae-cheon-seong.
In other words, monsters that wielded nearly omnipotent power within a single middle realm or star system.
In an instant, I could not even resist the pressure that dragged me from Cheon-ryeon-san to the borderlands, let alone defend myself.
[Accept it. Seo Eun-hyun… If you become a Saintess, the human race will become the dominant species of the Gwanghan Realm. Whether you know your place or not, you can use the Mountain-wood Clan as firewood when bored. The Bi-ik Clan as mounts, the Gyeon-hae Clan as snacks, the Bu-hyu Clan as toys, and the Tu-gwi Clan as doormats. No one will dare complain to you.]
“I don’t particularly want that, nor is there any reason for it…!”
[As the Saintess of the Gwanghan Realm, you could rule for thousands of years, perform the duties of the Saintess, and deepen your comprehension of the power of attraction to reach the Jin-in realm. Of course, you will have to find a successor, but by then, even among the Venerables of the Gwanghan Realm, usable ones will be born.]
Drdrdrdrdr!
Heavenly energy from the Jae-cheon-seong descended upon me.
Once I connected with it, I would become the Jae-cheon Venerable.
[If the name does not suit you, change it directly after you become a Saintess. Who would dare complain?]
“I had no intention of accepting it from the start. What meaning would there be in changing it later?”
[Do you not wish to become my successor?]
“If you do not name it, I will consider it.”
[Gwang-o-ha-gun. Then how about this… If you become the Saintess who tunes the destiny of the Gwanghan Realm… you could resolve your fundamental problem.]
“Yes…?”
[Your soul… is it not hot?]
“…!”
Baek-woon changed her tone gently, as if trying to lure me.
[I have watched your soul for a long time. The burning fire of the soul inside… the power of judgment in the form of a flame. Are you not suffering from that power?]
“…”
[I can still see it. Your soul trembles with the pain of pain. If you reach the realm that borrows the power of the Gwanghan Realm, you will be able to shake that fire from your body. How about it? Will you still refuse?]
“…”
I fell silent.
And let out a bitter laugh.
“It seems you are mistaken.”
[Huh?]
“What burns inside me cannot be extinguished. No matter what you do after becoming the Saintess of the Gwanghan Realm, you cannot take it away.”
[Hah… Is a Venerable like you, who is still far below me, trying to teach me?]
“It seems you are speaking of karma. It may be that your words are correct regarding ordinary powers. But… for this matter, you can never remove that suffering.”
[What?]
I looked up at the sky and shouted.
“Saintess-nim… it seems you cannot even guess the nature of my suffering. I have no intention of escaping this suffering…! So please stop forcing the title upon me!”
[You brat…]
The next moment.
I shook off my qi with full force and soared toward the sky.
Bu-wung!
The power of the Mansang Inyeondo, now truly one with me, resonated in the sword.
‘Accumulating Dust to Form a Mountain.’
Previously, I had always moved my body together when unfolding any form.
Because it was imprinted in my body.
However, after obtaining the Asim-geom,
I realized that if the power of the mind directly connects to the power of the body, I might not need to move it.
From Wol-ak to the countless forms leading to Yeong-yu Wol-gam,
I could now unfold them simply by recalling the forms of the Dan-ak Sword Art imprinted in my mind.
‘Seong-san!’
Pa-ah!
Even without the preparation motions that had already been terrifying, the form of Accumulating Dust to Form a Mountain shot toward the stars of the sky together with my consciousness.
Kwa-ddrdddruk!
The Jae-cheon-seong of the Saintess was split in half.
I crushed the Jae-cheon and rose into the heavens.
“I am sorry to the Saintess… but I will not become a Venerable of the Gwanghan Realm.”
[You scum…]
Uu-uuu-ung!
Qi began gathering in the sky.
And a familiar scene unfolded.
Crack!
The sky split in half.
At the same time, Baek-woon’s gaze covered the entire borderlands where I stood.
She looked like the arrival of a heavenly punishment.
Of course, the madness-inducing pressure from back then was not felt, but the appearance was quite similar.
‘My thoughts are not being read.’
When I thought about it, that made sense.
Chief Judge Hyeol-eum’s hands and feet.
And the Venerables I had met in the Thunder Star Sea.
The last one was the Baek-woon Saintess of now.
All of them could not read my thoughts.
Beings above Venerables might not be able to read thoughts once they entered full combat mode.
‘But it is not that there is no thought.’
Even up close to the Baek-woon Saintess, I could roughly read her thoughts.
These beings all have hearts and emotions.
Clearly!
‘And if there is a heart, there must be pain as well.’
I prepared for a counterattack and stared boldly into Baek-woon’s eyes.
Baek-woon had said I carried pain.
She must have seen the karma burning inside me.
But there was something she had misunderstood.
The karma inside me had already been extinguished long ago.
So what was burning inside me now, tormenting me?
Isn’t it obvious?
It is me.
Strangely, right after I met the Taesan Heavenly King and my sect was exterminated, the karma vanished.
I did not know why.
However, it did not seem as if the Taesan Heavenly King had extinguished it.
I did not know the conditions under which the karma would disappear either.
But one thing was clear.
Even if the karma was gone, I was still suffering.
Now, what was burning inside me was not the karma.
It was my Mansang Inyeondo, which remembered the pain of the karma and gave it to me.
Therefore, what was burning my soul now was not the karma.
It was my own self-reproach.
[As the Saintess of the Gwanghan Realm, I decree…]
She began using her power.
I raised my sword.
***
At the summit of Cheon-ryeon-san, the Baek-ok-ru.
Baek-woon gazed at some distant place from there.
Crack, crackle…
The thunder spears planted in her body flickered.
Tremble—
Her brows twitched.
In Baek-woon’s consciousness, the aura of Seo Eun-hyun fighting her power from that distant space reached her.
It causes earthquakes and tsunamis.
Explodes volcanoes and hurls lightning bolts.
It even transforms the surrounding areas into a world of the same heat as the inner core of a star.
Yet Seo Eun-hyun had cut through every single “phenomenon” occurring there and confronted it head-on.
A Saintess of a single middle realm was no different from being a world itself.
That is why, even if a Saintess chose a world inside a star system or middle realm, she could not fear even the lowest True Immortal within it.
However, Baek-woon felt uneasy.
The Dharma-Destroying True Word was something she had never thought Seo Eun-hyun would truly use.
Of course, if she truly cornered him, she could have used it, so she had not gone so far as to threaten his companions and the mortal clan.
But even without the Dharma-Destroying True Word, she could not figure out what that scoundrel was hiding.
[I must make that guy a Saintess no matter what.]
Grind…
A Saintess from places like the Goryeok Realm, Purple Gold Realm, Jinma-gye, Myeonggwi Realm, or star systems would not do.
[I must! Bind that guy only to the Gwanghan Realm!]
Throb… throb…
As if recalling a nightmare from twelve thousand years ago, she bit her lip while looking at the thunder spears planted in her body.
Even twelve thousand years ago, there had been such an existence.
A great genius from a cursed world.
Baek-woon judged that Seo Eun-hyun belonged to the same category as that great genius.
‘I cannot allow another twelve-thousand-year massacre like this time… If that guy stirs up trouble, narrowing the scope to only the Gwanghan Realm will save many living beings.’
She recalled the great genius from twelve thousand years ago who had come from the Water Realm.
Yang Su-jin, the Geumsinja.
At first glance, he had looked like a slightly melancholy human cultivator who looked well-mannered.
And now, the Seo Eun-hyun before her seemed to overlap with that Yang Su-jin.
The well-mannered, slightly melancholy man had become a terrifying slaughterer who swept across the entire sky.
Recalling the day when the Geumsinja’s little finger had been challenged and all the Saintesses and True Immortals of the Ilwol Cheonyeok had mobilized, her whole body trembled.
‘Even if I have to sacrifice my Saintess position… even if I have to turn the Gwanghan Realm into a hellish road… I must bind that guy.’
Despite suffering much from Yang Su-jin, she did not hate him.
Yang Su-jin’s evil deeds could not have been entirely his fault.
As someone who had cultivated the gravitational force of destiny and taken on the Saintess position, she knew.
Life was something that could not be changed by the will of a mortal.
That was why, if someone became a slaughterer, it was because he had been born with such a fate, not because of his own sin, in Baek-woon’s view.
And as far as she saw, the actions Seo Eun-hyun had shown now were roughly similar to those of Yang Su-jin.
Therefore, there was a high probability that Seo Eun-hyun would walk a similar path to Yang Su-jin’s.
[I will bind him!]
Recalling that nightmare, she swore that no matter what she did, she would narrow the scope of his slaughter to the Gwanghan Realm.
‘That is my duty as the one who inherited the Saintess position from [that person]!’
Uu-uu-uuu-ung!
The wingsuit floating around Baek-woon shone brightly.
[Give up. Accept it!]
Chrrarak!
A Hyeongo Paper floated behind her.
Countless titles of Venerables were written on it.
[You will definitely become the Saintess of the Gwanghan Realm.]
Her gaze pierced a distance of tens of millions of li and struck Seo Eun-hyun in the borderlands.
She began concentrating the power of the Gwanghan Realm upon him, declaring her will.
[I will definitely make it so…]
In that moment,
Baek-woon saw something in Seo Eun-hyun’s hand.
It was a pitch-black flag.
From Seo Eun-hyun’s seven openings, pitch-black darkness flowed like a river.
Flowers seemed to grow on the flag, then the flowers transformed into bizarre monsters.
Duck, duck…
The monsters, which seemed mindless, all turned their eyes and watched Seo Eun-hyun’s eyes, the one who had summoned them.
The next moment, Seo Eun-hyun began pouring power into the flag.
The monsters instantly fled.
But they were all caught by Seo Eun-hyun’s attraction and crushed on the spot, merging into the flag.
The terrifying screams of the monsters echoed from inside the flag Seo Eun-hyun held.
Tremble!
Baek-woon predicted an ominous future and poured all her strength into a single strike toward Seo Eun-hyun.
A pure white light pierced from the heavens like the end of time and struck Seo Eun-hyun.
And pitch-black darkness bit through the light and struck Baek-woon’s “eyes” looking down at Seo Eun-hyun!
Kwaji-jik!
[A, a, a…]
Baek-woon trembled as if electrified, right where she stood.
Seo Eun-hyun’s voice echoed through the soul seal, crossing tens of millions of li and reaching her ears.
[The World-Destroying Demon Curse Banner…!]
The suffering of Seo Eun-hyun, which had evolved from the Five Elements Blood Curse Banner and the Black Ghost Curse Banner, had finally evolved to the point of collapsing an entire realm by itself.
Countless sim-ma shaped as demons.
A strange flag that compressed those demons into the shape of a flagpole!
That was the World-Destroying Demon Curse Banner.
And Baek-woon began screaming.
[Huaaaaaraaaaaaaa!!!]
She tore at her hair and screamed from above the Cheon-ryeon-san.
‘This, this is…?’
Having lived for hundreds of thousands of years, Baek-woon quickly analyzed the spell of the World-Destroying Demon Curse Banner and found its root.
‘It is the High Path Thunder Curse Banner…! The torture magic technique of the Geumsinja!!! Did you evolve that into something like this…?’
Crunch…
Baek-woon ground her teeth and hardened her resolve.
‘As expected, even though she pretends to be normal like Yang Su-jin, she is the same evil seed! I must bind that guy only to the Gwanghan Realm!’
She shook her entire body and shook off the pain with desperate willpower.
‘It was fortunate that the distance was far, so the pain did not reach properly. Counterattack…’
However.
In the moment she received the World-Destroying Demon Curse Banner from Seo Eun-hyun and her mind went blank,
The exact instant when she had momentarily stopped the constant attacks on Seo Eun-hyun!
In that instant, the winner and loser of the two were decided.
Pa-ah!
[What…]
Seo Eun-hyun had arrived right before Baek-woon’s eyes.
He had crossed tens of millions of li in an instant through the soul seal.
Baek-woon’s body trembled.
It was not because of Seo Eun-hyun.
It was because of the “other man” he had brought from the Sam-mok-chong of the Sim Clan during that fleeting moment.
It was Jeon Myeong-hoon, who ignited lightning.
Again, in the blink of an eye.
Before she could even react, Seo Eun-hyun brought Jeon Myeong-hoon right in front of her and placed the thunder spear stuck in Baek-woon’s body into his hand.
“Now that I think about it, I was curious.”
[W-wait…]
“What if the successor of the Geumsinja handles this?”
Jeon Myeong-hoon read Seo Eun-hyun’s will and raised his power.
[N-no…!]
The thunder spears planted in Baek-woon’s body all began glowing bright red.
[Nooooo!!!]