Chapter 464
The world is… not flat… it’s round?
And… it’s connected to the Bongrae Island world?
I stared at the absurd truth, completely lost in confusion.
The reason was simple.
‘Water Realm and everything else is exactly the same.’
I had always thought that was because of destiny itself.
Even though the energy was thin and the soul’s position didn’t exist, destiny still took the form of gravity. So I figured the alleys of Cheon-saek Castle and Chun-eum Castle were the same down to the last detail.
In short, this world was either exactly like the Water Realm’s destiny or very close to it.
But what did it mean that the world was round instead of flat?
It wasn’t some pointless debate about whether Earth was flat or spherical.
‘The form of gravity had to be completely different.’
A flat world and a spherical world experienced gravity in completely different ways.
Destiny was just gravity in another form. That meant this world’s destiny was utterly unlike the Water Realm’s.
Yet I had confirmed it myself in the alleys of Cheon-saek Castle. And again after arriving in the Kingdom of Yan.
The majority of groups and locations here were identical to those in the Water Realm.
That was only possible if this world had an absolute destiny, and that destiny’s form was close enough to the Water Realm’s for things to still work.
But the world was round. What did that mean?
‘It meant there was someone who could manipulate destiny running the show.’
Of course, it might have been the owner of the Salt Mountain simply leaving this world behind with some setup. But I didn’t believe that.
Back in Deungsunhyang, the “someone” who had spoken to me by the campfire flashed in my mind.
‘That someone said if you bring a snake into this world, you’ll be forgiven nothing.’
In other words, there was something like a “manager” in this world.
And that “manager” was currently watching us in real time.
Of course, I could have told myself it was just a dream built from our memories.
But it wasn’t.
‘It’s not a simple dream.’
Recently, I had started finding evidence that this world wasn’t a dream one after another.
‘This world might be another dimension similar to the layers of the Goryeok Realm.’
So I decided that if this world was a “different dimension” rather than a simple dream, then a “manager” existed here.
‘I hope the one managing this world has no ill will toward us…’
In the middle of my confusion, I quietly prayed that the manager of this world would send us no malice.
And while I was trying to collect my thoughts, the attack from the Bandage Monster came flying at me again.
Boom!
A geyser of water shot straight up once more.
I stared down at the dead sailors, then glared at the Bandage Monster.
“Those guys didn’t do anything wrong… No, they did.”
I already knew the mindset of those bastards.
The mindset of demons who were beyond evil.
I didn’t need to understand it.
Creak, creak, creak!
The bandages wrapped around my body twisted as if they were alive.
Bang!
I kicked off into the empty air and began dancing.
Whoosh!
Starting with the dagger, dozens of bizarre weapons shot toward the Bandage Monster.
The first one to fly was the dagger.
Shing!
The dagger skimmed across the protective energy shield and passed by without touching him.
But the next weapon was the spear!
Kwang!
A thunderclap sound rang out, and the spear stabbed straight into the Bandage Monster’s protective shield.
The Monster was pushed back a little.
‘With the next attack I’ll push him even farther into open water. First I have to change the battleground so the rest of the sailors don’t die…’
Right then, the Bandage Monster smiled coldly and took a deep breath before roaring loudly.
“Uwooooooo!!”
Kugugugu!
The entire sea trembled.
Just the sound itself, without any inner energy or law power, felt like it was shaking my brain.
And from behind him, law techniques began to burst out.
Swaaaah!
It was blood.
His blood poured into the sea and instantly made the remaining sailors floating on the water explode and die.
“You bastard!”
That was when I roared.
Stab!
The Bandage Monster formed a seal.
At the same time, the sea began to move.
‘He specializes in Water Realm law techniques? Damn, since spiritual energy sensing doesn’t work well here, I’ll have to watch and judge which attribute he’s using.’
A sea of blood surged forward from all directions, threatening to engulf me.
Bang!
I kicked off into the air and flew straight up.
Swaaaah!
The blood waves that tried to trap me from every side devoured each other and shattered, then began blooming into flowers right where they had been.
‘What is that…?’
Churak, churarak!
Where the waves had calmed, red flowers bloomed and began to climb into the sky.
Charararak!
Salt.
It was red salt soaked in blood.
Salt covered the entire sea and formed massive crystals. Those crystals began to make coral.
Coral that looked like people’s limbs, faces, and torsos were strangely mixed together.
Salt crystals of that shape instantly created coral islands.
Swaaaah!
When the Bandage Monster landed on the coral island, all the moisture on the island instantly evaporated.
He formed a seal.
Kugugugu!
The coral island began to rise into the sky.
The Bandage Monster manipulated the coral island like riding a flying fortress.
Flash, flash!
Beams of light shot out from the bizarre red coral island made of salt crystals.
‘Insane!’
Ta-da!
I barely dodged the light beams from the coral island.
Even in this world where spiritual energy sensing was poor, the aura coming from the beams felt extremely dangerous.
‘If I get hit, I die on the spot.’
Creak, creak, creak!
I moved the bandages and stepped into the empty air.
Sreung—
At the same time, I pulled the sword from my waist.
The Black Stone Sword of the desert tribe.
The sword called the Howling Spirit Sword. The swordsmith of the Thousand Mile Country had gathered black stones in the desert, refined them for thousands of years, and passed them down through generations.
‘So it’s a sword made from the Black Stone fragment.’
Yang Su-jin’s Dao Fragment.
No matter what, the ability of the Howling Spirit Sword was one thing.
The more despair it ate, the sharper and more piercing it became, and the harder it became.
It could be the despair of the opponent or the despair of the owner. It didn’t matter.
Wood crack!
I poured the pain I felt in my mind into the Howling Spirit Sword.
Whoiiing—
The Howling Spirit Sword began to glow with turbid purple light and grow stronger.
‘I don’t sense the soul position, but there are techniques that use the soul position’s power out in the open… This world is truly confusing.’
I briefly analyzed the structure of the Howling Spirit Sword, then gave up and swung at the monster in front of me.
Whoosh!
The light beams from the red salt coral island split apart the moment they touched the Howling Spirit Sword.
I pierced through the beams and charged at the Bandage Monster.
Churarak!
The bizarre weapons danced around me in a whirlwind.
The power of the bizarre weapons concentrated in one spot, deflecting the Monster’s attacks or occasionally countering toward the salt coral island.
Fwaaah!
Our exchange gradually sped up.
Piiiiii—
At some point, I felt a sense of sudden silence all around.
I had broken the sound barrier.
Air was pushed away from my movements and shockwaves erupted.
Even at the moment the shockwaves exploded, they felt slow to me.
Whoosh, boom, boom!
I spun around the coral island at high speed, looking for gaps.
‘No gaps.’
Even after breaking the sound barrier, the Bandage Monster showed no openings.
‘He didn’t learn martial arts.’
What the Monster had learned wasn’t martial arts.
It was just movements for killing, skinning, and trampling people.
Not something taught systematically, but movements he had mastered by doing a lot of slaughtering himself.
‘But even without learning martial arts, he shows no gaps against me.’
Then there was only one possibility.
The Monster’s combat experience was truly beyond imagination!
‘…Was that possible? Combat experience that could show no gaps even against me who reached the Void Shatter against a Foundation Establishment cultivator?’
What kind of life had this guy lived?
I briefly circled the guy, then decided that if there were no gaps, I’d make one and press him.
Ta!
The spear struck his protective shield.
Pa!
The Monster’s hand tried to grab the spear as if he had been waiting, but in that short moment I swapped the spear for the axe.
The axe blade caught on the Monster’s arm.
I used the axe stuck on his arm as support and dropped the bandages.
Churak!
At the same time I instantly turned behind him and tied the Bandage Monster in one swift motion.
“That’s… nonsense!”
When the Monster tried to cut the bandages, my spear was recovered and stabbed into his side.
Of course, his entire body was packed with protective energy as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, so he took no damage.
But it was three times.
The spear had stabbed into his protective shield three times.
And through the two previous spear throws, I had already learned the vibration frequency of the Bandage Monster’s pure energy through the bandages tied to the spear.
Heaven and earth energy had different laws from the material world’s laws, but when it entered the body of a Foundation Establishment cultivator and became pure energy and mixed with the material world’s things, it shared a certain amount of the material world’s laws.
Even the vibration frequency that only existed in material things also existed in pure energy.
I lifted the Howling Spirit Sword.
The Bandage Monster sensed what I was about to do, so he pulled the red coral island’s energy to the maximum.
Danak Sword Art
Mountain Names Song Response!
Ting!
From the Howling Spirit Sword, a sword name like a scream burst out.
Sword qi began shaking the entire pure energy flowing through the Monster’s veins in the shape of the sword path.
“Kuaaaah!”
The Bandage Monster gritted his teeth in agony and pulled even more power from the salt coral island.
In an instant.
Pa!
The salt coral island suddenly glowed, and a giant beam unlike anything before shot toward me.
I felt a sense of déjà vu looking at that beam.
‘Sea Blood Crystal Jade?’
I began moving the bizarre weapons with the Heavenly Sleep Return Art.
Churak, churarak!
The bizarre weapons began rotating around me.
The weapons rotated around me and simultaneously released different sword arts.
Sword arts customized for each weapon to match the Danak Sword Art.
In an instant, twenty-two sword arts gathered, and I condensed and exploded the ultimate of the Danak Sword Art.
“Cut!”
Kwaduduk!
Dozens of bizarre weapons began splitting the light beam with light.
“Break!”
Drdrdruk!
The Danak Sword Art split the beam straight through and headed straight for the Bandage Monster who had exhausted the salt coral island.
Flash!
In that instant, the power of Danak struck the Bandage Monster, and I swung the Howling Spirit Sword one last time before speaking.
“I’m sorry.”
For killing you.
‘I didn’t want to kill a disciple of Cheongmun Ryeong…’
And then.
Kwaduduk!
A hand wrapped in bandages suddenly shot out from the light mist and grabbed my face.
“…Ugh?!”
Chiiiii—
The aftershock of the Danak Sword Art faded, and what appeared was the Bandage Monster covered in smoke from head to toe.
‘W-what?! Even with the Mountain Names Song Response resonating and exploding the pure energy, his veins should have been damaged… and it was a killing technique I shot at him…’
That last sword art was truly a level that could split mountains!
Yet the Bandage Monster, who was just a Foundation Establishment cultivator, hadn’t died.
The Bandage Monster’s eyes met mine.
He smiled mockingly.
“It was entertaining… but what a pompous name. Danak? Splitting mountains? Ha, hahaha, euahahahaha!!”
He burst out laughing madly.
“Just wave that little toothpick around all you want! What kind of toothpick is going to split a mountain? Sand castles break, though. Change your name. It’s not splitting mountains, it’s sand castle destruction or something like that! You! Can never! Split mountains!”
He mocked the Danak Sword Art and squeezed harder on the hand gripping my face.
It looked like he was going to crush my head and kill me.
‘I have to… use poison…’
Feeling my consciousness growing hazy, I prepared the Twin Ghost Rock Technique.
But my consciousness kept growing hazy.
In the last moment, I reflexively felt my body using the Twin Ghost Rock Technique and passed out.
Before my consciousness sank, I somehow thought of Cheongmun Ryeong.
“Stop… you can… die… treat… you killed people again…”
‘Master…’
I completely lost consciousness with Cheongmun Ryeong’s appearance as the last thing.
* * *
Blink!
The moment I regained consciousness, I felt a wet towel on my head, bandages wrapped around my body, and the smell of medicine.
“This place…”
“Lie down for a bit. Your body isn’t completely recovered yet.”
“Eh…”
A female doctor who had been treating me brought a bowl of decoction.
But I didn’t care about anything else and blankly stared at her face.
It was Buk Hyang-hwa.
“Why… are you here…”
“Huh? I’m a doctor, so I came to treat people. What are you talking about?”
“No, I mean how…”
That was when I was bewildered.
“I brought you.”
A giant stood slanted at the entrance of the room I was lying in and spoke to me.
“You…”
It was the Bandage Monster.
“Master commanded it. To treat you. So I brought the right people for you. Now receive treatment.”
“Wait, you…”
“Shut up. I know what you want to say. My hand itches to kill you too, but Master told me personally not to kill you, and according to Master’s command you participated in this disciple recruitment exam, so remember that. Recover a bit and come out with me.”
The Bandage Monster said only what he needed to and left the room without a word, leaving me alone in the room with Buk Hyang-hwa in a daze.
* * *
Inside a large estate in Cheongha County.
Looking up at the sky from the top floor of one of the buildings there, Cheongmun Ryeong spoke to the Bandage Monster who had approached him from behind.
“Did you find a doctor?”
“I attached the person he needs.”
“Good. But… I told you not to kill indiscriminately.”
“I didn’t kill indiscriminately. I’m deeply grateful to the marine creatures and sailors who allowed me to use the law technique.”
“Hah… Ah, what am I going to do with you.”
“Punish your disciple.”
“…”
Cheongmun Ryeong looked back at his disciple, Gak-am, for a moment, sighed, and looked up at the sky again.
“…It’s fine. Repent.”
“Yes, I give thanks to your kindness. Master…”
Gak-am backed away from behind Cheongmun Ryeong, and Cheongmun Ryeong muttered to himself.
“…Can this child I just brought really receive my medical lineage…”
Whoiiing—
And Gak-am, who was looking up at Cheongmun Ryeong from below, had a look that was both longing and contemptuous.