The Last Night Before the End (Part 3)
Path. I had seen it.
That path was vast and boundless. If I walked it, I knew I could achieve everything I desired.
Yet it was hidden.
That was precisely why no one could simply take it.
I reached out my hand toward the wall blocking the way.
From my palm emerged a white light dot and a dark circle. Without hesitation, I gently opened the wall I had erected.
The wall became a door I could enter, and I stood before it.
“This is the small achievement.”
I turned to look behind me.
Having reached the small achievement, I would receive a temporary respite.
But after that brief respite, I would have to step into the depths where eons of time had been compressed.
“Can I enter?”
Fear gripped me.
Still, if I walked the full length of that path, I would achieve everything before the end and seize at least a minimal lead in rescuing Jeon Myeong-hoon, Kang Min-hee, and the one who had lost their voice, Kim Yeon.
I briefly gazed beyond the path and steeled my heart.
“Let’s go.”
After the respite of an instant, I would return there and grasp everything once more.
I…
Because the things I wished for were far too vast, I would have to pay the price to obtain them.
In that moment, before stepping onto the path, I awakened my consciousness to savor the familiar faces.
***
“Master.”
Whoosh!
“Master… Sir…”
For a moment I remained dazed, scanning my surroundings, when familiar cries roused me.
“Master!!!”
[… Ah… Hong… Beom… is it?]
My mind was slightly muddled.
I could hardly believe I had trained for eight thousand years, nor could I grasp how much the world had changed in that time.
And yet… I remembered everything I had done over those eight thousand years.
[Uhm… I’m a little… foggy…]
I gathered my scattered thoughts.
Reciting the Dharma-Destroying True Word inwardly, my mind gradually coalesced, and my senses returned.
“Eight thousand years… Yes. I was clearly chanting the Flawless True Word… inching forward step by step through the darkness.”
Someone beyond the darkness had spoken to me.
I could cross in an instant and immediately attain the Flawless True Word…
“But why… did I fail to attain it for eight thousand years?”
I murmured softly as I pondered.
“Ah, I see.”
Reciting the Flawless True Word while simultaneously self-restraining with the Dharma-Destroying True Word.
Restraining myself and endlessly drawing circles in my heart according to the quintessential method of the Flawless True Word.
I had heard a voice urging me from that distant place, but I simply ignored it and advanced resolutely toward the darkness while practicing the quintessential method of the Flawless True Word.
Whenever I considered it, I felt that reaching the highest power by crossing into the darkness quickly and attaining the ultimate ability would be better.
But every time, the recitation of the Dharma-Destroying True Word helped me.
Immortal cultivation was restraint.
Just as countless tiny grains of salt gather to form an ocean,
build mountains through restraint.
I chanted those scriptures and kept seeking and seeking myself within the circle.
Of course, practicing the Flawless True Word did not necessarily require that process.
It seemed unnecessary and meaningless.
Yet because I had repeated that meaningless act countless times, I perhaps took eight thousand years to reach here.
“But… it’s fine.”
I had no need to approach that boundless darkness.
I had already accomplished it with my own power.
Whoosh!
[Hong Beom…]
Whoosh whoosh!
[Look…]
The Flawless True Word.
Having reached the small achievement,
[the cart wheel is rotating.]
A cart wheel composed of the Dharma-Destroying True Word and the Flawless True Word rotated above me.
No, more precisely, above “me.”
Already for eight thousand years, while chanting the Flawless True Word, I had almost instinctively reached the end of the middle phase of the Void Shattering realm.
Five stars had been formed.
That is, the cart wheel rotated above the star system where I existed, slowly growing larger.
“I feel it…”
My consciousness revolved through the five worlds, cycling.
“I see. When I created the Sumiyeolmudo, I only understood the phenomenon of my consciousness reaching the pure side by drawing circles. I couldn’t grasp the reason.”
Now I understood.
My consciousness spanned the five worlds.
Drawing circles in that state.
That itself was one of the ways to ascend to the pure side.
“The Void Space, the Origin River, the East Heaven Flower Garden, and the Underworld. All four of these dimensions are related to death. The Star Realm is related to life, and…”
I now understood where the concepts of Core Formation and the “external law qi pillars” had come from.
“Every single thing in this world has a soul. Even each of my cells. And my soul possessing self travels to the Underworld, while my cells without self, scales, or clothes or swords go to the post-death Origin River. The ‘me’ who exists is divided after the realm of death. And all things are rearranged and reborn in the East Heaven Flower Garden.”
We already possessed the gravitational pull toward every world.
Merely afterward, my own existence was decomposed, rearranged, and divided.
But…
If I, as myself, remained whole across the five worlds?
“One world cannot fully hold the ‘whole me.’ And the gravitational pull of the next world grows gradually stronger.”
From the Underworld to the Origin River, from the Origin River to the East Heaven Flower Garden, from the East Heaven Flower Garden to the Void Space, from the Void Space back to the Underworld…
Of course, it need not always be this order, but the very existence itself would revolve around the Star Realm, drawing circles through the four worlds.
I would experience brief cycling within the world.
And in doing so, my consciousness would rise above the cycle.
That was precisely the principle by which I ascended my consciousness to the pure side through the Sumiyeolmudo.
“Master! Please come to your senses! We cannot rotate the cart wheel! It is a path that invites immense suffering! Please, Master, heed my words and awaken!”
Hong Beom’s voice reached me faintly.
[…Hong Beom.]
I smiled warmly toward him.
A smile graced the lips of the avatar body I had prepared for later Void Shattering practice.
“Ah… yes. I see.”
Five stars, each carved from the same five-colored jade. Now, rather than a single star constellation, the colorless sword mountain steps into the sea had become a great star field.
The colorless sword mountain steps into the sea.
The colorless sword mountain steps into the sea great star field.
Just as in the Core Formation realm the golden pill domain had been called the Heaven Void, the Great Mystery Void, and the Purple Mystery Void.
I was the owner of the colorless sword mountain steps into the sea great star field.
Shorthand, the owner of the colorless sword field.
Through continuous cultivation, one becomes a heavenly star constellation!
This was the essence of practicing the Void Shattering realm.
At the same time, I gradually approached the realm of names.
“The realm of ‘heaven’ no longer seemed so distant.”
“Soon… I should reach the realm of names.”
No, even now, through the Chongcheon-geom I could interfere with the realm of names far more easily than before.
The only problem had been that I could not hold a sword after seeing Hyeon-gwi’s dance.
“Now! Everyone. Since Master has largely regained his senses, we must definitely awaken him. If that art is not dispelled…”
While I pondered various things, Hong Beom kept shouting noisily as he watched the cart wheel I had raised.
The Venerables of the Gwanghan Realm gathered around me…
And my companions, who had long since reached Venerable level, came into view.
Kim Young-hoon had completely ascended to Void Shattering, and Oh Hyun-seok had seemingly succeeded in containing the power of the stars within his body.
And Kim Yeon… her lifespan had reached the Four Pillars level, yet her cultivation realm was the Heavenly Person realm.
She had probably reached the Four Pillars and deliberately dispersed her realm to lower it to the Heavenly Person realm.
I could not understand why she had chosen that.
After all, around her hovered twenty-eight artificially created stars, compressed and floating, supplying her with power.
Regardless of realm, her combat strength was close to that of two Void Shattering great Yuanman stages.
“Everyone… were you worried about me falling into the Void Annihilation state?”
The end was still far away.
And from the aura I felt, Kang Min-hee’s Star Plate ascension ceremony had not yet ended.
Looking down from Myeongyunsung, Kang Min-hee was still wandering the various places of Myeongyunsung with Hyeol-eum, Seo Hyeol, Seo Ran, and the others, absorbing fragments and increasing her cultivation.
Probably because absorbing fragments caused madness to erupt, but Seo Hyeol had been eating Hyeol-eum and preventing her from going berserk.
The only thing worrying me was that the rascal Seo Hyeol seemed to be preparing something to break the art placed on Seo Ran through Gwagwam and Yu-o.
But it still seemed far from broken, so I decided it was not urgent.
Anyway, it was good to see the familiar faces again after eight thousand years.
Now, it was time to walk the path again.
[I will now… enter cultivation once more…]
“No! Master, please come to your senses! You have remembered the Flawless True Word. I do not know what cause led you to master its counterpart, but if you do, Master may not be able to rescue your companions. You may not overcome the end! You may lose yourself!”
[…Hong Beom.]
I said to him.
[I received whispers from some existence beyond the darkness while chanting this true word. That existence said it would allow me to immediately attain the true word if I followed them. But… I did not follow the whispers of that existence.]
“Well done. Whatever the existence was…”
[Instead.]
The avatar body sat on one of the stars of the colorless sword field, facing Hong Beom, who was trembling before me, eye to eye.
Had Hong Beom entered the Void Shattering realm as well?
He now appeared to be in his early fifties.
Perhaps by the time he reached Fissure Opening, he would be in his early to mid-forties.
[I advanced by the quintessential method. Regardless of what the darkness whispered, I ignored it… and through the quintessential method I mastered this true word and saw hope.]
Hong Beom grasped my hand, unable to understand.
“What do you mean by that? Hope? If so, Master will be stolen by that art, never reach a refuge during the end, and simply vanish. He will die!”
[If I cultivate this true word more deeply, I can save Kang Min-hee. That is certain.]
“Then what about Myeong-hoon? Two thousand years later, didn’t you say you were going to save Myeong-hoon and Seo Hyeol?!”
[I planned to rescue Jeon Myeong-hoon with Takhon Mancheon of Seo Hyeol. But… that alone is insufficient. The rascal is a True Immortal. And to confront a True Immortal, not like me… something beyond what I currently possess is needed. Besides, I am still bound by Hyeol-eum’s prophecy…]
Geum-jin-jo and Hyeol-eum.
The enigmatic existence who gifted Kim Yeon a new form of Gi-moonbaeja.
Without handling them somehow, I could not save my companions.
Jeon Myeong-hoon, Kang Min-hee, Kim Yeon, and myself.
To save all of us, I must not look away from hope here.
[With the power we possess, there is nothing we can do. So we must gamble. Because you passed on the true word… I could see hope. Thank you, Hong Beom.]
“It is all my fault… I was wrong. I could not recall the memory of that true word and carelessly passed it on to Master… Master. This subject Hong Beom humbly begs, please do not entrust yourself to that art. Why are you staking your life on an uncertain gamble?!”
[Because…]
I smiled faintly.
[In the end, life is for my own sake. Therefore, if protecting something precious within my life… I can stake my life.]
Most importantly.
Although it was gambling to Hong Beom, I knew.
As long as I did not lose myself within this art, I could achieve everything before the end.
[So, do not worry. I will definitely return before the end. Thank you, Hong Beom. And thank you all…]
I bowed again to Hong Beom and to everyone I had not seen in eight thousand years, then closed the eyes of the avatar body.
Now, deep within that darkness.
The time had come to follow the path prepared in the darkness.
“No… no.”
It was not the path prepared by the darkness.
A mountain of pure white salt.
And darkness.
Two things combined to form the cart wheel.
Therefore, this was… the path prepared by two existences.
Though my companions and Hong Beom had tried to draw in the power of the Gwanghan Realm to try to handle my consciousness, the awakening after eight thousand years had only been a temporary respite after reaching the small achievement…
…
…
Now he was the wheel and the axle.
He had entered the path we had made.
A precious opportunity created by two Venerables who tricked themselves.
A careful arrangement that allowed only the successor to reject the temptations of the two Venerables and walk the proper path.
This was not prophecy.
It was not the power of fate, nor the power of history.
It was simply an impossible miracle.
So, you black snake.
No matter what you do, you will not be able to bestow any blessing in this succession.
This successor will walk alone…
Thus, within someone’s wish, Seo Eun-hyun once again ascended a path to the Void Annihilation state.
And Seo Eun-hyun’s time began to flow differently from then on.
Ten thousand times.
Within the lifespan in which time felt ten thousand times faster, Seo Eun-hyun created the Returning to Heaven great achievement and the Ascending to Heaven great achievement, becoming a Void Shattering great Yuanman stage.
But that did not matter.
Through the mediation of Kang Min-hee’s Star Plate ascension ceremony, the [someone] deep within the darkness connected to her scattered Seo Eun-hyun’s consciousness.
Originally, if he had succumbed to the darkness’ temptation, he would have been in the same situation as Kang Min-hee.
But Seo Eun-hyun, having not succumbed to the temptation and steadily drawing circles,
the [someone] beyond the darkness began to cycle his consciousness between seven stars to fulfill the promise.
In this way, Seo Eun-hyun’s consciousness began revolving around the stars, drawing the Star Plate.
And finally…
The eve of the end was beginning to approach.
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Author’s Note: I apologize for this build-up chapter. Please forgive me only until today… From the next chapter onward, the proper development will begin…!