The Rain That Refused to Fall
_Ting!_
The very first sword strike, stripped of all inner energy, dharma power, and human force, was deflected the instant it left Buk Hyang-hwa’s first array technique.
_What the heck?_
A strange sense of deja vu washed over me as I readjusted my stance.
—Are you truly all right?
Since ascending to Void Shattering, I could receive answers from others even when they didn’t speak aloud—provided they permitted it.
Her reply reached me.
—Yes, I am truly fine.
Whoosh!
I shot forward like lightning toward her.
Against someone at the nascent soul level, I could have ended the fight in under a second with nothing but the colorless glass sword alone. That was why I had sealed away every scrap of my own inner energy and dharma power before facing her.
Pfft!
In the blink of an eye I lunged at her, aiming my blade straight for her throat.
Yet at that exact moment a chill raced down my spine. Using only raw muscle, I executed the spirit-stepping technique of the Palace Body Art.
_Twang!_
My ankle sparked with pain.
A single strand of my hair was sliced clean off.
_What was that, just now?_
The instant before, one of the basic arrays had spun around her like a ghost, slicing my hair in a split second. I felt bad for her, but she was only a master of artifacts, not dharma techniques. The gap between them made my stomach twist.
_Her artifacts? Is she fighting with them? No… this isn’t…_
I scanned the surroundings for hidden arrays, and at last I understood.
_That was it._
_Zuuung—_
The little amulet in her hand blazed with faint phosphorescent light.
A delicate, rainbow-hued glow seeped outward from it, sustaining an array that enveloped her completely.
_The source of the unease… a dharma artifact that weaves arrays in her place…_
Yet something felt wrong.
_…No. It’s not over._
There was something else hidden here.
_…So that’s why._
Only then did the sense of deja vu finally click.
She had wanted me to awaken it through this battle.
_Then I should play along._
With my current strength, I could crush her in a single heartbeat. But I deliberately sealed even deeper, wanting to understand what she meant to say.
While sealing my inner energy, dharma power, and human force, I sealed my own awareness. I sealed my sight, briefly pierced my eardrum to block hearing, breathed through my nose instead of my mouth to seal scent, and sealed future foresight, the instincts of the sea-spirit, and the vision of will.
What remained was only touch.
I felt the sword in my grip, the vibration of the ground, the flow of wind. And in that state I gripped the colorless glass sword and fired once more toward Buk Hyang-hwa.
_Schrrk—_
It vibrated.
Countless circuits engraved in the amulet pulsed in perfect harmony, weaving thousands of dharma techniques at once.
_It wasn’t one…_
I was stunned by how overwhelmingly powerful the amulet truly was. It fed on her vitality and spat out thousands of arrays every second, encircling her.
_Cha-ra-ra-rak!_
The air itself trembled.
Countless arrays now formed around her, wrapping her in golden spell runes.
The runes began to orbit her like boulders circling Jupiter or Saturn, forging an enormous ring.
A ring of spell runes materialized around her.
_Piiiing—_
The ring spun, shearing through the air with terrifying force.
It was dharma mastery on a level no ordinary person could imagine.
_What exactly did you do to that amulet?_
I let out a hearty laugh and took a deep breath.
_Hup!_
Oxygen flooded every muscle. They swelled, then erupted with explosive power.
Boom!
In the next instant I shattered the sound barrier using only the pure strength of my body. The body-fortifying power of any body-art or water-beast art had long since been sealed; I had transcended the ultimate limit with nothing but “the human Seo Eun-hyun.”
_The one I have to fight isn’t Buk Hyang-hwa._
It was the masterpiece in her hands.
_Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!_
I darted like a spirit between the trees of the Three Wood Grove, mixing feints and slashes toward the amulet.
Each time the amulet detected me and shifted its arrays in lightning speed to defend her.
_Can it really hold?_
_Bam!_
In the next heartbeat I spread a feint directly in front of her, then flashed behind her to strike at the amulet.
The array’s defense was slightly off, but it reacted instantly.
Sixteen spell runes struck toward my feet, ankles, knees, chest, neck, and nose.
_Faster._
_Huuuup!_
I drew in one breath and forced my muscles to work harder.
_Be-bbe-beong!_
I pierced straight through the line of runes, severing the ring’s flow.
_Kwa-aaang!_
The sound barrier-piercing blade collided with the ring, and a thunderclap roared out.
While that happened the amulet wove a protective technique, then simultaneously released offensive arrays from the same defense, creating an attack-defense fusion that struck me repeatedly.
_This is…_
Changing dharma techniques in real time—that was a trick only a true master of the dharma way should be able to perform!
I laughed at how one little amulet could pull off such a miracle.
At the same time the sense of deja vu grew stronger.
I traded blows with the amulet and its defense.
It was clearly just an emotionless artifact, yet it felt strangely like fighting a person.
_Ting! Ting! Ting! Boom!_
My sword shattered three arrays and detonated her defense.
The amulet then layered seven defensive arrays around her, trapping her in an immense golden array domain.
_Why?_
Even though it was still a real battle, I felt like I was dancing.
_…I see…_
I was dancing.
Between the sword flashes, the scene of rain pouring down appeared.
_It wasn’t an illusion._
The rain I had seen the moment I first unfolded a sword strike.
It was not simply a memory I had recalled.
_Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwaang!_
Buk Hyang-hwa’s dharma power at nascent soul level flooded the amulet, which amplified it to imperial immortal level.
The surrounding terrain changed.
The earth melted into a sea of magma under her curse array.
_Shak!_
I planted one foot on a patch of magma, then spun my body and cooled the lava with a wind blade.
_Sa-ra-rak—_
_…My eyes are closed… yet I can still see._
The vision before me was not the raging Buk Hyang-hwa.
It was her—dying, dancing with me.
A dreamlike memory floated in front of my eyes.
_Shuaaaaaah—_
The rain finally stopped. So did our dance.
I spoke with her.
She exhaled curses and groans of pain…
She spoke to me.
And then we kissed.
_Paaaaat!_
The curse began to reverse.
_Ttok, ttok…_
Black curses erupted like raindrops striking the ground, transforming into pure white light.
I looked up at the sky while watching the process.
Rain is born in the sky, falls to the earth, and dies.
The sky that released it becomes clear once more, and darkness scatters.
_…Thinking about it, she has always given me water._
The first meeting in the desert.
The second meeting.
Even the final farewell when she sent rain.
And now.
_Shuaaaaaah!_
I flicked every raindrop from the amulet’s downpour with the colorless glass sword and thought.
What is rain?
Rain is dispersion.
At the same time, the clarity that follows.
…
Is that the end?
_Cha-ra-ra-rak!_
The miraculous power of rain activated inside my arms.
While sparring with Buk Hyang-hwa and remembering that moment through the amulet, I finally comprehended the Six Body Tong Arts of Integration.
Yet I had a strange premonition that this was not the end.
—_The heart dies in an instant._
The words of [She] lingered in my ears.
_Shuaaaaa…_
The rain was ebbing.
I extended my blade toward the last drop.
_Tok!_
A raindrop fell on my sword tip.
But I spun the blade, turning the drop into a dance.
Gradually the tip descended.
While adjusting the power so the drop would not burst, I finally sent it rushing to the ground.
The raindrop fell from the sky, passed through my sword, and flowed onto the earth.
Merging with countless other streams, it became part of the lake that had pooled on the arena floor.
I felt that lake for a moment.
Sight, sound, smell—all senses were unavailable. Only touch remained.
Through the vibration on my skin I perceived the entire lake.
_Paaaaat!_
The amulet fired another barrage of runes at me.
—_The heart dies in an instant._
Raindrops are born in the sky and die on the earth.
Human hearts are the same.
Born into this world, they endure all storms, then finally become transparent and scatter…
Just like raindrops.
Just like my own curse and pain in the tenth loop…
—_Did what I gave you just now count as a curse?_
Flash!
I opened my eyes.
_Chaak!_
My single sword sliced the runes apart and halved the lake created by the dharma technique.
Then, at last, I severed the ring around her.
_Paaat!_
The sword wind made her hair whip wildly.
I gripped my sword and smiled, sending a mental message to Buk Hyang-hwa.
_It was this. The thing you wanted to tell me…_
She smiled silently and nodded.
I looked at the water of the lake that had split and rejoined, then toward the sky.
Raindrops are born in the sky.
They fall to the earth.
Yet they do not die.
A raindrop born in the sky becomes a stream, a lake, an ocean upon reaching the ground.
Just as a curse becomes a blessing and rain becomes an ocean,
I had never realized that the end of the heart was not simply death.
_Whoong—_
I finally understood why the arrays had gathered into a ring around her.
_Weiiing!_
The verses of the Cold Lunar Heavenly King shone in my mind.
Spring begets all things.
Summer nourishes all things.
Autumn ripens all things.
Winter conceals all things.
These are not the workings of the four seasons alone.
The four seasons flow endlessly.
And the circulation of spring, summer, autumn, and winter is engraved in the flow of ultimate vitality, so the four seasons at the imperial immortal level correspond to the span of a human life.
The phrase “having turned the four seasons” (_Mubisaji-gong-ya_) means turning the four seasons of one’s life.
It does not mean ending at _Ka-chung-myeong_—it means that a life that continues endlessly has true meaning!
_Kwung!_
I realized that the six verses of rain, yang, warmth, cold, wind, and time lived in harmony with the Cold Lunar Heavenly King’s verses.
_The verses that begin with time end with rain. When rain falls, clouds scatter and time flows again…_
The reverse was true too.
Verses that begin with rain end in time, yet rain returns.
Endless cycle!
The verses began to revolve.
_Kwaa-ru-ru-rung!_
Lightning struck the sky, then the weather turned cloudy once more and rain began to fall.
It was the rain I had summoned—_Hwa-pung-hwan-u_.
I stood in the rain and asked Buk Hyang-hwa.
—Did you reach him?
She smiled and nodded.
I laughed.
And at the same time tears fell.
Buk Hyang-hwa had finally reached the place where she connected to the amulet.
Seo Ran. Siho. Kim Young-hoon.
And Kim Yeon.
All of them cried inside the rain.
She had burned her remaining lifespan to open a path toward the world of Cheongmun Ryeong.
_Paaaaat!_
The amulet in her hand turned completely white.
It was a pure, salt-like light.
She limped toward me and placed the amulet in my hands.
Then she opened her mouth.
Her eyes were dim, her whole body trembling, but she spoke slowly.
“Cheongmun Ryeong… Master… is still alive.”
“…I know.”
I spoke both mentally and aloud so my companions could understand, and accepted the amulet.
“Ever since I sealed the stone that came from his body into the amulet… I have been searching for a way to retrieve it. But the stone vanished without a trace, leaving only a passage to an unknown space… When I met Dou, I thought the stone was simply Dou’s miraculous power.”
_Flump!_
She collapsed from exhaustion.
I helped her up.
“But thanks to Un-yi-noon, I could interpret the power together with the Cold Lunar Heavenly King. From the very beginning, what came from Master’s body was only a passage to another world. It simply fused with the amulet…”
_Uuung—_
She placed the amulet in my hand and continued.
“This amulet is connected to Dou’s miraculous power… and Dou’s miraculous power is connected to the world where Cheongmun Ryeong lives.”
_Zuaaaaa—_
I unfolded the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram.
A hazy mist spread outward.
I gripped the amulet tighter while listening to her words.
_…I see…_
After Buk Hyang-hwa had placed Cheongmun Ryeong’s stone into the amulet and time had passed,
My Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram had become a passage to somewhere.
I looked toward the distant end of the diagram.
An aura far too familiar emanated from that place.
Bongrae Island.
The world on the salt mountain that Yuk Yo and Baek Rin had reached.
According to Yuk Yo, the place where Cheongmun Ryeong lived was probably “another dream world”…
Yet the essence was likely the same.
Only then did I understand how Kim Yeon had obtained Yu Ho-deok’s memorial document.
_Uuung, uu-uuung!_
Just as the amulet had been surrounded by rings of arrays, the dream world of the salt mountain had deep ties to the cycle of reincarnation.
On that day no one had taken treasure from inside Bongrae Island, yet only Kim Yeon had obtained what she wanted—because she carried the Cold Lunar Heavenly King’s mark.
“I have dreamed of a great bird covering me since I was a child.”
Gradually my companions approached.
Seo Ran, Siho, Kim Young-hoon, Kim Yeon.
Everyone close to Buk Hyang-hwa gathered around us.
“Thinking back… that wasn’t simply being covered by a dream. The bird… was looking at me. I only mistook the pressure for being covered… That great bird always whispered inspiration to me… Only when I was about to die did I finally understand.”
_Zzuzuzut!_
Two patterns rose on Buk Hyang-hwa’s face.
One golden, one silver.
“That was my life. Through the amulet, I consulted Master and learned from him. There exists a great being that gives birth to a living name, and that name resides in every corner of the world—becoming the greatest artisan in the land, but perishing for different reasons when it leaves the earth. That living name… is the true form of the spirit-manipulation technique…”
Buk Hyang-hwa’s breathing grew ragged.
I felt her nerves gradually go numb.
“My curse… the sudden flare-up of my Heavenly Pattern was not caused by the disaster I met back then.”
She looked at me.
“It was not your fault either. It was simply… because I began studying the amulet and trying to escape my own life. Leaving behind material things is not the only boundary of life. The real condition for the curse to activate was escaping the life that was truly imposed upon us…”
_Zzuzuzut—_
Gradually her body began to glow.
At the same time, I felt her light flowing into the amulet.
No—more precisely, into the interior of the amulet.
Into the depths of the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram.
Beyond that, her soul was moving toward the world of the salt mountain.
“I… will go to the place where Master lives. I will escape my life and finally… be truly free…”
Kim Yeon broke into sobs.
She clutched Buk Hyang-hwa’s hand tightly, and I poured every last ounce of the inner energy, dharma power, human force, senses, and strength I had been hiding into trying to catch her soul.
It was useless.
She dissolved like salt in the sea and drifted toward the world where Cheongmun Ryeong existed, beyond the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram.
“So then…”
_Pa-sa-sa-sa—_
Buk Hyang-hwa began to shatter.
Her body turned into salt.
“Don’t cry too much.”
With those final words she closed her eyes completely.
“I loved each and every one of you with all my heart.”
“Don’t go…!”
With Kim Yeon’s cry she became completely salt and vanished.
I stared at the salt that had once been Buk Hyang-hwa.
Kim Yeon screamed.
I trembled from head to toe.
The salt that had changed her did not possess mysterious power like Cheongmun Ryeong’s.
It was merely ordinary salt.
I stroked the ordinary salt, stood up, and looked at the sky.
The rain that had poured from the heavens stopped in an instant.
Kim Yeon hugged the salt to her chest and wept, but the salt only flowed down and flowed down.
Hong Beom spoke bitterly beside me.
“Xiang-hwa-seonja… should have died normally long ago. Yet even to the very end, he prolonged his life with the will to save Cheongmun Ryeong and the will to unravel the secret of the amulet, even borrowing the amulet’s power.”
“….”
“Perhaps the price of borrowing the power of another world was turning into salt and returning…”
He sighed and mourned Buk Hyang-hwa beside me, and I gripped the amulet that had turned white.
The amulet had become familiar material.
_Salt Crystal!_
Just like the palace on the salt mountain…
It had become a passage to another world.
Siho gently placed a hand on Kim Yeon’s shoulder and said,
“Kim Yeon-nim… now… let go. You must hold a funeral.”
“Shut up! Still, there’s still… hope…”
“Kim Yeon-nim…”
And I turned around and said,
“She is not dead yet.”
Everyone’s eyes widened in shock.
I remembered the raindrops that had fallen to the earth and become a lake.
Only the form had changed; nothing was ever truly destroyed.
The heart does not end in death.
Even if the form changes, it is eternal.
And so too… Buk Hyang-hwa’s soul had only moved to another world.
“We can meet again. Don’t hold a funeral.”
Kim Yeon staggered to her feet.
Salt fell from her hand.
“…How… how do we go there…? Is there a way to reach the world Xiang-hwa spoke of? There… you can only go there once you’re dead. Xiang-hwa’s research proves it!”
“Right. We can’t go.”
“Then how…?”
“So we have to call that world here.”
“…Eh?”
The others stared at me in confusion.
The world connected through the Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram and the amulet felt different from the world of Bongrae Island.
A colossal salt mountain and an enormous salt crystal.
And only by using the Bongrae Island formation had we barely entered that world.
Compared to this amulet, it was far too small.
It could only accept something the size of a human soul at best.
Therefore, living people cannot reach the world connected to this amulet.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no way.
If we can’t go to them, we can call their world into ours.
And…
If there is a technique to summon an entirely different space-time into our own space-time…
I already know it.
“Come.”
_Yeon-ui Yeon._
With that…
We could bring Buk Hyang-hwa back.
I felt the six miraculous powers fully settled inside my body and understood.
I had also reached Star Shattering through the training of the Heavenly Tribe.
“Let’s go save Goe-gun at last.”
A pathetic play that had continued for thousands of years.
It was time to draw the curtain.