Fracture of Heaven (2)
**CHAPTER TITLE: The Severing of Heaven**
Seo Hyul stared at me with an expression of pure fury.
**[Ridiculous… Maras…]**
He muttered, his voice dripping with venom.
**[What do you think you’re doing… What are you going to do with me…?!]**
Whoosh!
His **Takhon Mancheon** accelerated with terrifying speed, pulsing like a living virus.
And then, finally, Bongmyeong Castle completed its full circuit around the Water Realm.
Uwoong!
Seo Hyul’s cerebral waves intensified once more.
Yet…
Even amplified like this, it was nothing compared to what I had seen in my previous life.
The surging waves of his cerebral activity poured straight toward the southern edge of the Water Realm, heading for the Sea Dragon Palace.
**[Sea Dragon Palace!]**
The Sea Dragon Palace.
Eyebrow!
Every ounce of his Takhon Mancheon slammed toward the **eyebrow** of the Water Realm.
I knew that level of cerebral wave was impossible to reach, yet he was forcing it through anyway.
He was feeling it too.
It wasn’t just the erosion of my **Mansang Inyeondo** that had dulled his judgment.
The overwhelming sense of crisis itself had driven him to this desperate gamble.
Even though the things inside my **Mansang Inyeondo** could be realized as **Yeon-ui Yeon**, others could not see them.
We could only sense a vague presence.
Yes.
We could feel it even though we couldn’t see it.
Seo Hyul was sensing the very history he was about to lose—the history of himself becoming a worm after his defeat shattered the world itself.
‘In any case, your defeat was always written. Seo Hyul.’
So what I could give him now…
**Fwaaaaat!**
:: : I shall change… : :
It was only by my own hand that I could sever this cruel future.
The image of Seo Hyul rising inside my **Mansang Inyeondo** glowed brightly as it began to take form as **Yeon-ui Yeon**.
At the same moment, the spacetime that materialized condensed, and from that moment of catastrophe I reshaped the **Myeongsin Geobeoncheon**.
Whoosh!
I began turning the wheel of reincarnation.
‘This is the last one.’
I had already activated change three times before.
Heon-won and Yeon Wi.
The human and the red lotus.
And the end of the Ilwol Cheonyeok.
Why this exact sequence?
Considering the urgency, shouldn’t I have stopped the end of the Ilwol Cheonyeok first?
The reason was simple.
The range of history I could personally change had limits.
Twisting the fates of Heon-won and Yeon Wi was the ceiling of what I could do—giving them the slightest chance of a better ending.
But history was always an explosion.
It was life itself, the foundation of the qi we knew.
That was why, once the first explosion occurred, history had no choice but to shake.
I had used those shakes of history to trigger chain reactions, changing the fate of Heon-won and Yeon Wi to a level higher than the Gaeyeolgi by manipulating the qi of the Gwanghan realm.
Then, through the shakes caused by the changes of the human and the red lotus, I had again rewritten the end of the entire Ilwol Cheonyeok.
And now…
I wanted to change even more powerful history by using the very shake that had postponed the end of the Ilwol Cheonyeok itself.
Uwoooong!
‘Sugye…’
I looked toward the place where the Water Realm lay.
It no longer hurt or exhausted me the way it had when my realm was low.
A vague, ominous, and ill-fated feeling rose in my chest, but I no longer lost my mind as I once had.
I couldn’t see the inner situation clearly, but the Cheonin elders of the Geumsin Cheonroemun sect inside the Water Realm were reporting everything to me and Jeon Myeong-hoon.
‘To shake the Water Realm, the aftershocks of shaking the Ilwol Cheonyeok must at least exist.’
Yet I still felt genuine unease.
Would such a change truly pass through the Water Realm…?
It was impossible, wasn’t it…!
‘When you can change history through the fluctuations of history, you develop a sense for it.’
I could roughly tell success or failure.
However, even while sensing the aftershocks of saving the Ilwol Cheonyeok, I realized I could not grasp that ‘sense.’
Still…
The Water Realm felt impossibly distant, as if beyond even my power.
And then.
**Fwaaat!**
Kugugugugu!
The **Gukgol** of the Cold Lunar Heavenly King began to rampage like a mad beast.
‘W-what…!’
I shuddered at the power boiling inside me like a volcanic eruption and tried to suppress the explosive force.
But it refused to be held back.
The **Gukgol** of the Cold Lunar Heavenly King surged with terrifying intensity.
I understood why this was happening.
‘It’s the blessing of Gwang-han…!’
The blessing I had received from his consciousness after I saved his **In-yeon**.
And according to his blessing, the goodwill I had shown in the Ilwol Cheonyeok was returning to me.
‘W-wait…!’
Yet I could only pale.
‘It’s… too much…!’
My realm began climbing wildly.
The stage of the Cheonin that had reached the peak of Seongban was now trying to pierce the ceiling.
‘If this continues, either Samokdo will be destroyed or my body will explode.’
If I wanted to avoid that, there was only one path left.
‘I must perform the Gaeyeolgi promotion ritual right now!’
Of course, the Gaeyeolgi promotion usually took time.
But seeing how high my realm had climbed, I realized I could ignore the procedure and time and advance to Gaeyeolgi.
Even though it would mean separating me from Samokdo…
I didn’t care.
After all, the power I had needed was to save the entire universe in the situation just moments ago.
My **Mansang Inyeondo** had overlapped with the entire Ilwol Cheonyeok, so Samokdo’s power had been necessary.
Now that the **Mansang Inyeondo** was focused on the Water Realm, I no longer needed Samokdo’s power.
Perhaps what I truly needed now was a higher realm.
Uwoooong!
I realized I had completed the **Pald o** exactly as I ascended to the peak of Seongban.
And then…
I added one more above the Pald o.
The success rate of Gaeyeolgi promotion for ordinary Seongban sages was only forty percent.
That was why the promotion was so simple.
The **Gukgol** of Gaeyeolgi was **Hwagyeok**.
When you added the **Hwagyeok** to the Pald o you had completed in Seongban, you completed the **Gugong**.
**Chwarararak!**
I recalled the **Hwagyeok**.
What was the **Hwagyeok**?
It could be interpreted as the virtue a ruler must possess, or the ruler’s own inclination.
Or it was what determined the direction of that ruler.
And when the **Hwagyeok** was added to the Pald o—the power I had used to manipulate fate and life—I would complete my own unique sword art!
I half-closed my eyes.
I had already decided the direction I must go.
Therefore…
What remained was simply to complete the **Paryeo-dohae-seong**!
**Fwaaaaat!**
As I began to operate the **Paryeo-dohae-seong**, a sea of transparent glass-like flames bloomed around Samokdo.
**Chwaaaaraaaaar!**
The blessing of goodwill from Gwang-han fit perfectly with the **Paryeo-dohae-seong**’s pursuit, so the **Paryeo-dohae-seing** grew explosively and began to break free from its technical limits.
Through the **Paryeo-dohae-seong**—the beginning of my sword art—I would obtain true sword art.
**Fwaaaaah!**
It gradually cleared, cleared, and cleared again.
At some point it became almost completely transparent, reaching a level that even the sage’s consciousness could barely perceive.
And finally, when my power reached its absolute peak.
**Fwaaash!**
I completed one final layer of sword art.
The sword art I had roughly shaped when promoting along the Jijok path had become even clearer and more unified as I advanced all the way to the Cheonin path.
At the same time, a volcanic eruption of qi burst from inside my body.
The **Gaeyeolgi** promotion tribulation had begun.
**Kurururung!**
Once you reached Gaeyeolgi, the amount of heaven and earth qi produced inside your body was enough to make your eyeballs pop out—unlike the Shuaeonggi era.
That was why, from Gaeyeolgi onward, the form of the tribulation completely inverted.
Up to now I had been on the receiving end of the tribulation;
from Gaeyeolgi I would have to deliver it myself.
**Kurururung!**
The dragon veins inside my body boiled, and the laws of the Ilwol Cheonyeok began pulling something from within me.
It was **Seonggyeok**—star tribulation.
The Gaeyeolgi promotion tribulation was the exact opposite of the Shuaeonggi era: I had to pull out star tribulation from my own body and implant it into every star in the entire heaven.
Squeeze!
Some law governing the tribulation was squeezing me mercilessly!
If I kept squeezing the star tribulation, eventually the body of a true immortal would be hollowed out and I would die.
Enduring that was the Gaeyeolgi promotion ritual, and because of the star-tribulation bestowal ritual, the cultivators who advanced to Gaeyeolgi completed the process over thousands of years.
They divided the star tribulation and fired it out every few years.
But I didn’t need to do any of that.
**Kugugugugu!**
The volcanic waves of power born from the Cold Lunar Heavenly King’s blessing were being expelled from my entire body and spreading wildly across every star in the universe.
The law of the tribulation was squeezing my power out like never before.
The pressure was so immense that I could see soft afterimages of a foot in front of my eyes for an instant.
‘I must not lose consciousness!’
I snapped back to my senses and pulled out the **Hwagyeol** I had received from Ban-ta.
**Uwoooong!**
The powerful exorcism power controlled my star tribulation and instantly prevented my internal energy from dissipating into emptiness.
Of course, even so, terrifying forces were still being squeezed outward from inside me.
Yet…
The blessing of Gwang-han endured every one of those monstrous squeezes and scattered star tribulation across the entire Ilwol Cheonyeok.
And I, in an instant, squeezed out star tribulation equivalent to billions and billions of oceans…
And finally reached the realm of the **Cheonji-sangsu Gaeyeolgi** promotion.
**Kugugugugu!**
The star tribulation I had expelled from my body had connected to every star in the universe.
The fact that Gaeyeolgi cultivators could manipulate starlight from thousands of light-years away was possible only because their expelled star tribulation was connected to every star in the universe.
**Uwoong!**
I smiled at the flow of sword art I felt inside my body.
It still had no name.
Yet this sword art, obtained through the **Paryeo-dohae-seong**, was clearly the one that fit me best.
I looked at my separated body floating in Samokdo.
**Kugugugugu!**
My body had become a perfect white dwarf.
It was said that from the Seongban level you could create a neutron star, a red giant, or a white dwarf.
But in truth, those Seongban beings were nonexistent.
Therefore the stars they created were nothing more than “secondary effects according to their realm” and could not be called true bodies.
The true body of Seongban was more accurately described as “inertia” orbiting around stars, red giants, and white dwarfs.
However, I now had a sword art that had taken root in my body, and the white dwarf I had created over the years had become my actual body.
Or rather…
**Uwoooong!**
I rotated the white dwarf.
As the white dwarf spun, its shape began to change.
It could instantly become a star, then turn into another planet, then become a black hole in the universe, or even a blue giant, a black dwarf, or a brown dwarf.
**Whoosh!**
I could also project my main body and create a clone as a planet.
That was the origin of the soul technique Yeo-hui had called “flourishing.”
**Kugugugu!**
I transformed my body into a flying form in outer space.
The glass evolution of the **Paryeo-dohae-seong** wrapped around my body and formed a robe of wings.
I looked at Samokdo and the surrounding planets and stars in front of me.
My flying form was already so large that it was only a little smaller than a star.
With nothing but pure physical ability I could now destroy stars and kill Shuaeonggi cultivators.
**Whoosh!**
A halo of the **Taiji** appeared behind my head.
In the Cheonin era, the **Taiji** only appeared when you aligned the three—Heaven, Earth, and Mind.
But now, as a Gaeyeolgi, even the dual of Heaven and Earth was enough to form the shape of the Taiji.
However, this Taiji did not amplify power nearly as overwhelmingly as the triple Taiji.
Of course, that didn’t matter much.
I enjoyed the feeling of having reached the Gaeyeolgi.
In truth, many sages were making a tremendous mistake.
The path to becoming a True Immortal was to stack the practices of Heaven and Earth and reach the rank of a famous immortal.
But…
It was an enormous mistake.
Reaching the rank of **Myeong** was, in fact, what we called the Gaeyeolgi realm.
More precisely, it was the Gaeyeolgi of Cheonin descent.
The Gaeyeolgi of Jijok descent did not reach the rank of **Myeong**; they mastered the rank of **Gi**.
Mastering the rank!
That was exactly the first stage of True Immortal—**Junseon**.
Gaeyeolgi was **Junseon**.
And if you performed a specific ritual here, you would board the **Jinseon-gye** and obtain the rank of True Immortal.
Because of that, quite a few beings were treated as part of the True Immortal ranks even from the Gaeyeolgi level.
However, since they had not yet formally reached the realm of Seon-gye, we often received them as lower-ranking immortals.
That was why they were called **Junseon**.
**Uwoooong!**
I floated the Taiji halo behind my head and reached out my finger toward Seo Hyul, who was racing toward his goal in the distance.
The **Mansang Inyeondo** spread over the Water Realm.
‘Possible…’
If one were Gaeyeolgi, the “sense” that I could trace Seo Hyul’s history would be faint but present.
But because it was the Water Realm, the probability was still fifty-fifty.
‘Will you succeed, or will I save you? Today, the tie that binds us—our enmity—will end.’
I spoke the **Myeong** toward the stars connected to the **Seongmaek** I was expelling.
**[In the name of the Junseon, I speak!**
Listen, stars of the myriad lands!]**