The Path of the Venerables (2)
Seo Eun-hyun stared blankly as the words “Teseus’s ship” spilled from Seo Hyoel’s mouth.
“What…?”
Comprehension slowly dawned, and he nodded.
“You learned that term from Oh Hye-seo?”
“Indeed. I studied her homeland’s language extensively. The heroes of our time—Seo Do-woo and his companions—are certain to remain the central figures of this age. One must master the words if one hopes to understand them.”
“…Fine. Continue.”
“Do you know what Teseus’s ship is?”
“The old man called you foolish for not knowing.”
“Just explain it quickly.”
Teseus’s ship.
A massive vessel where, whenever an old plank fell away, a new one was nailed in its place and the process repeated.
If every plank in the end was replaced, could it truly be the ship Teseus rode when he slew the Minotaur?
“The Star Shattering stage is when the soul begins to transform into a law. From Star Plate onward, the law reaches its absolute peak and the soul itself becomes the law. That is why the ascension ritual from Star Shattering to Star Plate demands that one replace one’s entire existence with a law.”
“So how did Kang Min-hee manage to reincarnate?”
“Strictly speaking, she did not cross the River of the Dead to the Underworld for judgment and rebirth. She simply shattered her every accomplishment, spirit, soul, and cultivation base across an entire Star Realm and scattered it like dust. In short… it is a form of clone or remnant. Unlike ordinary clones or remnants, which number only in the dozens at most, the Star Plate ascension ritual produced thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of them.”
Seo Hyoel’s explanation continued.
“The Star Plate ascension ritual is the stage where one scatters one’s entire being—accomplishments, consciousness, authority—into countless clones and gathers them again beneath one’s chosen law, fusing them into one.”
“You mean fusing the clones around a law?”
“The simplest example is right before you.”
“Ah…”
Seo Eun-hyun felt the meaning of Takhon Mancheon click into place.
One unfolds the chosen law, lays one’s body beneath it as scattered clones, then gathers every clone around the law and fuses them.
He confirmed his understanding.
“You have grasped it.”
“Just a moment… if that is so, then unless it is something like Takhon Mancheon, ascension to Star Plate should be nearly impossible, no?”
“Hahaha, you misunderstand. One merely becomes slightly vulnerable during the Star Plate ascension ritual. It is not impossible. Because one entrusts one’s personality to the law.”
“That is another strange thing.”
“Take the example of scattering one’s entire being beneath the law. The law no longer exists merely as a law. Instead, it is born in the very region where the clones have been scattered, carrying the personality of the original body. The law, now carrying the original personality, gradually absorbs other clones, recovering strength, authority, and memory until it reaches Star Plate.”
“I understand.”
“Then the figure in the crystal ball…”
Seo Eun-hyun looked at her inside the orb.
“That is not Kang Min-hee herself, but the law that contains her personality?”
“Precisely.”
“…”
“Truly, it is Teseus’s ship.”
Entrusting one’s personality to a law and letting the law become one’s original body.
What would existence be like after Star Plate?
“…All right. Thank you for locating her. Please also give me the records of her movement and current position.”
“You are welcome. Here are the records and current location you requested.”
Seo Eun-hyun accepted the documents from Seo Hyoel and Oh Hye-seo, rose from his seat, and stepped out.
Fortunately, the distance was only about fifteen light-years.
Ordinary Star Shattering cultivators could travel at most 1.5 light-years in a single bound with the displacement technique.
Having heard that his cultivation base was equivalent to the peak of Star Shattering, he estimated he could reach her in eight or nine days.
“Then I will take my leave. I must also prepare for your own Star Shattering ascension, and besides, being apart this long makes me quarrelsome. We will meet again… ten thousand years from now, at the Thunder Star Sea.”
With those words, Seo Hyoel melted into the darkness of space and vanished.
He watched him for a moment, then cast the displacement technique toward the distant stars.
Flash!
Bracing every ounce of power he possessed, he leaped toward the vast cosmos.
The impossible distance vanished in an instant. He emerged half-drained and sat to rest.
A day of recovery would suffice.
Seven days would be enough.
Just wait a little longer. I will come to help.
***
The place he reached was familiar.
Mongun Continent.
The world he had first contracted with when he ran the Wuji Sect and performed Four Pillars cultivation.
For convenience, I shall call it Mengun Star.
Mongun Star was everywhere laced with ghost qi.
Centuries ago.
While he performed Four Pillars cultivation, he had lent strength to Yu-hwi, one of Mongun Star’s capital cultivators, who was then known as the Wuji Ghost King.
Yu-hwi had later accompanied him, trained in the Ghost Dao Skill, and become one of Mongun Star’s esteemed capital cultivators.
Perhaps because of that influence… the Ghost Dao Skill has become popular across the entire continent thanks to Yu-hwi.
Kang Min-hee must have scattered her ascension remnants here for the same reason.
I should find Yu-hwi.
He swept his consciousness across the entire continent and soon found Yu-hwi, who had entered the Core Formation stage and was in seclusion facing a crucial tribulation.
Hmm… I could help, but such matters are better settled by one’s own strength. He does not seem near death yet.
Seo Eun-hyun decided not to interfere with Yu-hwi and surveyed the entire stellar system of Mongun Star.
Since I will be watching over Kang Min-hee for a long time, it would be best to perform Star Shattering cultivation here as well.
Finding an appropriately sized planet in orbit would be ideal.
Yet after searching the entire stellar system, he realized no planet large enough to contain his enlarged body existed.
This… is a problem. Enlarging the body is already difficult enough.
After days of exploring neighboring stellar systems, he finally understood.
With my body this large… I cannot perform Star Shattering cultivation on an ordinary planet. What then…
After long deliberation, he looked toward the star.
The star—also called a sun—was a massive cluster of light.
Hmm…
He finally decided.
It should be possible on a star…
Quietly selecting an orbital path, he placed his body on it.
Fortunately, the body assimilated naturally into the stellar system, and the star’s stellar veins accepted him without resistance.
Star Shattering cultivation appeared possible.
He summoned Seo Ran and Hong Beom from his inner space and explained the situation.
“Ah, I see.”
“Yes. I will need your help, Seo Ran.”
“Certainly. I can lend as much as you require.”
“Thank you!”
Seo Eun-hyun placed Seo Ran, Hong Beom, and one of his clones aboard Seo Ran’s Seopmyeong Ship and sent them toward Mongun Star.
***
On the eastern coast of Mongun Continent, in the northern district of Baekju City within the mountain nation of Baiju under the Jeryeong Sect.
In that unusually ghostly region, a ghost with disheveled hair sat cradling a single baby and sang a lullaby.
[Our baby, lullaby lullaby. The stars and moon are quiet. Our baby…]
A young man who was emitting ghostly energy appeared at the spot.
A Core Formation cultivator of the Jeryeong Sect, he had come to exorcise the ghosts recently rampant in Baekju City.
The man raised his fly whisk and struck the ghost.
“Wretched ghost! Are you a disciple of the evil Ghost Dao Sect? This is the territory of the mountain nation under the Jeryeong Sect! Disappear at once or I will reduce you to ash!”
The ghost ignored him and continued humming while holding the baby.
The man frowned.
“…An irrational stray ghost. Not a disciple of any other Ghost Dao Sect, but a naturally born remnant. How did such a stray ghost even enter Baekju City, which is protected by the Jeryeong Sect’s formation…?”
As he approached the ghost, he was startled.
“W-what? The child is emitting ghostly energy? A spirit-attracting constitution! A spirit-attracting constitution in a city protected by a spirit-removing formation… What a wretched being!”
Crack!
The man swung his fly whisk, dispersing the ghost.
The baby tumbled to the ground and began to wail.
“Forgive me, but you are a wretched constitution like me. In these times when the influence of the Death Spirit King Yu-hwi is swelling the power of the Ghost Dao Sect… a being like you should not exist. Disappear. And attain Buddhahood…!”
He lifted his fly whisk, crackling with lightning.
Thud!
Someone seized the man’s wrist.
“Who—?!”
[Do not look directly upon the origin.]
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
The Core Formation man’s eyeballs burst, and glassy flames erupted from the sockets.
No—his entire body began to burn with glassy fire.
“Kyahaaaaaaa! Hwahk! Kuhahahaha! Kwhahaaaa!”
[Oh dear. You looked directly. But do not worry. It is not the original body’s glassy evolution, nor even one ten-millionth of its power. It is merely the remnant of a glassy evolution. You will never go mad, nor suffer any aftereffects. Moreover, your chance of reaching Core Formation in this lifetime has risen to seventy percent. Consider it a blessing.]
The voice fell silent.
The flames consumed the man, who was then hurled skyward.
He soared into the heavens, and as the flames died, he was imprisoned inside a large glassy crystal and fell straight back into his own sect, the Jeryeong Sect.
The being who had hurled him was a man in white robes.
He looked at the weeping baby and beckoned toward the distance.
The ghost that had scattered moments earlier reconvened and, cradling the child gently, began to soothe it.
After a while, the baby fell asleep again.
The white-robed man calmed his cultivation base and gazed at the child.
“It has been a long time, Kang Min-hee. For now… I will remain by your side for a while.”
He stroked the baby’s hair.
“I will find a way to save you. Just wait a little longer.”
Seo Eun-hyun, the man in white, sat beside the baby who had become his former lover and looked up at the sky.
A new star appeared in the heavens of Mongun Continent.
The Core Formation Venerables of the continent observed the new star and recognized it as the inauspicious star symbolizing immense suffering.
They anticipated an unprecedented calamity that would engulf the entire continent—and perhaps the entire world.
And in the turmoil of a war-torn Mongun Star, ten years passed.
***
“Min-hee, eat your meal.”
Ten years had passed since he arrived on Mongun Star.
He had built a home in a remote mountain village on the eastern side of Mongun Continent and raised Kang Min-hee there.
Thud thud thud—
He heard distant footsteps running toward him.
“…Min-hee, I told you not to run upside-down before eating.”
“Uuu…”
She jumped lightly from the handstand position, her face slightly listless.
Ghosts appeared around her to catch her, and she flew toward the dining table cradled in their arms.
“Uuu, uuuu.”
As she mumbled, the ghosts each fetched water and washed her tiny hands.
“Then let’s eat.”
“Uuu!”
She stuffed a small handful of rice and vegetables into her mouth and chewed noisily.
Over the past ten years, Seo Eun-hyun had observed Kang Min-hee and learned one crucial fact.
She could not speak.
She also could not walk on two legs.
Instead, she either stood in a handstand and walked or flew on the backs of ghosts while muttering incomprehensible gibberish.
At first I did not understand, but only recently did I learn she speaks only the highest dialect of the Underworld language.
Kang Min-hee mumbled something as she chewed her meal.
The moment she spoke, the heavenly energy surged wildly.
Her mumbles rendered all laws, authorities, and qi useless across the entire stellar system.
“…Min-hee, you must be quiet while eating.”
“Uuuuu…”
She sighed as if displeased that he did not understand her, then continued chewing.
…That must be the law at the heart of her Star Plate ascension ritual.
Only recently had he deciphered her words and learned the name of her law.
The law was called Mugyeol Jin-eon—Flawless True Word.
It was not something she had originally learned but a True Word presumably transmitted to her by the powers of the Underworld through the Ghost Dao Sound Harmony Sect.