The Ancient One
It was the very beginning of this life.
My goal was simple: to ascend in cultivation and protect my companions.
And to survive the end of the world.
But as I became a Saintess and reshaped the world, I gained a new perspective and witnessed new sights.
And in that process, I revised my original goals.
Escaping from Hyeol-eum, rescuing Kang Min-hee, and neutralizing Seo Hyoel had all been accomplished.
In the end, the only thing left was surviving the end.
I changed my goal of surviving the end.
Saintesses of the middle realms like Baek-woon had already found the Symbol and gained the ability to protect their realms from the end.
Unlike in previous lives, where I had to gather the Venerables and Saintesses to weave complex barriers, I only needed to strengthen the absolute nature of the middle realms.
They would surely survive.
But...
Then what about the spirits of the Ilwol Cheonyeok—the smallest heaven at the very bottom of Sumi Mountain?
And the residents of Samokdo, who lacked the absolute nature of the middle realms?
And the people of the Water Realm?
And the people of Meng-woon Star?
The middle realm residents would survive, but the rest of the Ilwol Cheonyeok would fall into ruin.
To them...
I wanted to give a fair chance.
And at the same time, I wanted to save my beloved companions.
That was why I moved Oh Hye-seo into the dream world, toyed with her, and began to plan.
My companions were all shocked when they heard the plan.
It was only natural.
The plan was far too unrealistic.
Especially Oh Hye-seo, whom I had captured earlier, laughed so hard at my plan that she nearly flipped over.
No matter how great a genius I was, was such a thing impossible?
I struck back harder than I had been struck.
No matter what others said, I intended to succeed in my plan.
With Seo Hyoel’s help, the plan would proceed even more smoothly.
So, while I set aside memories of what he had done to me and demanded his loyalty, he showed no intention of bowing his head to me.
Reluctantly, I tied Seo Hyoel and Oh Hye-seo to my world and began the work.
I had lost Oh Hye-seo’s clone earlier, but it did not matter.
Since I had obtained the Triple Taiji as a Star Plate cultivator and reached the Saintess realm, broken the pressure granted by the Master of Void, and regained my martial path, Seo Hyoel and Oh Hye-seo were no longer my enemies.
If Oh Hye-seo had listened to Seo Hyoel from the start and scattered her soul into thousands of pieces, it would have been troublesome.
But she had created only one clone out of fear of losing her identity.
That was enough for me to handle.
I attached Seo Ran’s split soul to that clone.
Oh Hye-seo must have thought it was Takhon Mancheon sent from Seo Hyoel.
But it was not.
It was simply something I had prepared so that Seo Ran would easily gain enlightenment.
Seo Hyoel and Oh Hye-seo were now completely in my grasp.
I proceeded with the plan, all-out effort to transcend the end and save my companions.
***
Seo Hyoel awoke in the darkness with a blank face.
Inside the inner heart of Takhon Mancheon.
A lump of viscous malice surrounded him.
A space only those called Seo Hyoel could enter.
From there, he opened his mouth.
[Oh Hye-seo is impossible to revive.]
[That person tore the Takhon Mancheon attached to her split soul and replaced it with Seo Ran’s split soul.]
[It was probably prepared as a tool so that Seo Ran could gain enlightenment to control the Takhon Mancheon.]
[We can no longer defy that person. All the great plans we had prepared will collapse.]
[He is on the level of Goe-gun. Even Goe-gun, who cultivated the power of the Gwanghan Realm and twisted my history, has never been able to grasp me so perfectly.]
[Then, instead, should we form an alliance with that person and achieve our goals?]
Each Seo Hyoel pondered deeply on their own.
[The person is suspicious. In less than a thousand years, he reached Star Plate level with the paths of heaven, earth, and mind. He has already rewritten the legend of the Golden Deity.]
[That is true. He has connections to techniques of unknown origin and to the [Great Beings].]
[Perhaps he has descended to realize a prophecy of the [Great Beings] or to back up a Venerable or True Immortal.]
[That is possible. The probability is 99.99 percent.]
[Again… will we repeat the pain from that time?]
Upon hearing those words, the other Seo Hyoels fell silent once more.
The mention of “that time’s pain” stirred countless Seo Hyoels.
[If the main body were in its normal state, the decision would have been easy.]
[Since the main body was contaminated by Yu-o’s mother, everything began to twist.]
[When will we find the main body? It has been far too long since the main body, now contaminated, recalled the promise from that time. In another two or three thousand years, we will collapse.]
[We must find the main body quickly.]
[Should we ally with that person? Should we cooperate to achieve our goals?]
Opinions from countless Seo Hyoels circulated.
At some point, after endless meetings, the Seo Hyoels reached a conclusion.
[First, allying with that person is impossible.]
[That person loves Seo Ran. And in that state, he offers to help our goals freely.]
[Our goals can only be reached if Seo Ran is completely erased. That is the only path to our goals.]
[Yet that person does not understand this and tries to accept us.]
[Therefore, we cannot ally with that person or swear loyalty to him.]
Ssssst—
In the darkness.
Countless red eyes opened.
The red eyes gathered and formed one man in a jet-black robe.
[In conclusion, I will never ally with Seo Eun-hyun. Our goals are completely opposite since he cherishes what I do not. But opposing him is impossible. In fact, in the Ilwol Cheonyeok, only Hyeol-eum and the True Immortal from the Thunder Star Sea can challenge his main body one-on-one. Therefore, I will abandon direct resistance to him.]
The man in the jet-black robe smiled faintly, as if wearing a mask.
With that kind smile, he left the darkness and replayed his goal in his mind.
[But… he is clearly a powerful being, yet he is not a True Immortal. Therefore, I will not defeat him directly, but instead, by avoiding his gaze, I will kill Seo Ran.]
The man in the jet-black robe.
Seo Hyoel advanced beyond the darkness space and looked back.
Inside the inner heart of Takhon Mancheon.
The place surrounded by the deepest darkness.
His eyes reflected the memories of his childhood that even Oh Hye-seo had not been able to read, hidden inside.
And from the darkness, a voice whispered to him.
—Isn’t that just a gamble? Instead, by infiltrating the Saintesses of the middle realms, borrowing their absolute nature of the middle realms to fix his identity, even with the connection to Seo Ran severed, the Takhon Mancheon could maintain for tens of thousands of years… Why throw the decisive move so quickly?
Seo Hyoel looked at the being lurking behind his childhood memories and said.
[…The Seo Eun-hyun of now cannot be dealt with unless he gambles. To set up a plan for tens of thousands of years and move history, then only then claim Seo Ran and achieve his goals? Would a being who has reached Star Plate with the Triple Taiji in just eight hundred years wait that long?]
And behind Seo Hyoel’s childhood memories, a being laughed.
Kik… kikikikikikikik.
It seemed to know everything about Seo Hyoel’s true thoughts.
But Seo Hyoel showed no sign of agitation.
That being was not even trash.
It was simply an array.
A simple computational reaction that responded according to the form Seo Hyoel moved.
Of course… compared to the ancient computational device given by Goe-gun to the Star Shattering [she], it was primitive.
But even so, it was a being of empty essence far inferior to Seo Hyoel who possessed Takhon Mancheon.
He did not need to react to the laughter of that being.
—Wrong. If you are the Seo Hyoel I know, you would never gamble. It is normal that gambling does not exist for you. Yet you are gambling. How twisted a response.
Seo Hyoel stared blankly beyond the darkness.
—You too. You are “contaminated” like Seo Ran, the main body.
[That is not possible. I simply grew enough, and now the time has come when I can judge myself without your measurement. Judging by my own standards, I am not contaminated. Contamination only occurs in the mother or father. Since I have already been contaminated, the mother who exists as a speck in every one of my clones has been fully poured into Seo Ran previously. Therefore, this is a reasonable judgment.]
—Hoo… Wanting to deny the heart, you know nothing about the heart, Seo Hyoel. You are still a child like that time. Do you know that you look younger than Seo Ran? Do you know that the heart of parents is completely different from what you think? Do you even understand my words even a little?
[According to my judgment, it is you who are buried in uncertain elements like emotions. I will suspend your movement.]
—Isn’t the reason you gamble because you have been buried in that emotionless being without even knowing? Foolish…
The next moment, the voice vanished with Seo Hyoel’s gesture.
Seo Hyoel, inside his childhood memories.
He activated the ancient powers remaining inside.
He turned around again and left the darkness, thinking.
He did not need to listen to the irrational voice of the Goryeok power he had gained since birth.
[Sco Eun-hyun is currently scheming something. And the scale of that scheme is the entire Ilwol Cheonyeok. Taking advantage of that scheme, I must eliminate Seo Ran while avoiding Seo Eun-hyun’s eyes.]
Seo Hyoel left the darkness space and woke up in one of his body forms held captive on Yuri Samok Mountain of Samokdo.
The laws of Samokdo bound Seo Hyoel and nearly controlled the ability to move his other clones.
That was why he was being monitored by Seo Eun-hyun every time he used Takhon Mancheon to transform the world.
[Oh Hye-seo used the anti-Goryeok power. In the end, that Goryeok was all destroyed by the power of the Touch Dragon Seo Eun-hyun possessed, but through that, I was able to confirm it. The Touch Dragon power Seo Eun-hyun possesses is a type of Goryeok.]
Goryeok.
According to the information in Seo Hyoel’s mind, Goryeok was simply “unfolded dreams.”
The dreams of True Immortals that had not been unfolded and died, leaving only their corpses in the form of power.
Although only true Xian beasts knew the true method of using Goryeok, Seo Hyoel knew the origin of Goryeok.
[All Goryeoks ultimately come from the Water Realm.]
In the end, the Xian King was closer to selecting the being who could best borrow the power of the Water Realm.
[The power and authority of the dead old True Immortals, the “dreams” themselves are Goryeok. And… the being who reached the peak of those powers is the previous Xian King Ban-go. And that the Goryeok power of that Ban-go was destroyed by Seo Eun-hyun’s Touch Dragon authority… means that Seo Eun-hyun’s Touch Dragon True Blood has even closer contact with the essence of the Water Realm than Ban-go. In short, through Seo Eun-hyun’s Touch Dragon True Blood, I can contact Seo Ran more easily than borrowing the power of Ban-go.]
Seo Hyoel opened his eyes and knelt toward the top of Yuri Samok Mountain.
Because Seo Eun-hyun hated his smiling face, this time he wore an expressionless mask instead of a smiling one and spoke.
“…I have thought a lot. And the result is that it is reasonable to cooperate with you. I will join your plan.”
[This is a gamble.]
Seo Hyoel bowed to Seo Eun-hyun and reported to him.
“My childhood story cannot be told even if I want to. It is because my main body placed a restriction on me. If you want to break that restriction, give me Seo Ran. But you do not want that, do you? Then there is only one way. You rise to the True Immortal realm, use your Xian King authority and that terrifying power called Mansang Inyeondo, break my Takhon Mancheon, and force-read my past.”
[I will entrust everything to Seo Eun-hyun. I will fully cooperate with him. And… by any means, I will connect to the Touch Dragon authority he possesses. And in the moment he shows a gap, through the Goryeok power of the Touch Dragon that touches the essence of the Water Realm… I will contact Seo Ran and erase him.]
To prevent Seo Eun-hyun from reading his true thoughts, he added random thoughts like the recipe for Ban-ta’s three-dragon dragon fire pot in the Purple Gold Realm to the manifestation of thoughts and completed his plan.
“I will do my best to help you, Saintess, rise to the True Immortal realm. I swear on my “childhood” in front of the name of the Great Venerable Taesan Sangje Gwang-am, Sangryeong Godo Cheonsa Myeongbo Saengcheon Sangdaeje.”
[Whether I can erase the essence of Seo Ran through the Touch Dragon authority without being eroded by the terrifying technique of Mansang Inyeondo belonging to the monster Seo Eun-hyun… is the key to deciding the outcome. It is a gamble, but this is the only way to resist that person even a little.]
Seo Hyoel bowed completely to Seo Eun-hyun and presented his gamble.
The opportunity was only once.
He had to find a gap to strike.
Seo Eun-hyun called Seo Hyoel, who swore loyalty before the master of his name, brought him in front of himself, blessed him, and laughed.
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