A Name Spreading Far and Wide
There was a sea where savage wind and rain never ceased, not even for an instant. It was called the Howling Heaven Sea.
At the place where the entrance to Paeseongdojang lay, an abnormal phenomenon had begun.
The torrential rain that had been pouring down as if the sky itself had been torn open suddenly stopped dead.
Had the rain simply passed, leaving the heavens clear?
No.
Every raindrop that should have fallen under gravity remained suspended in place, all of them aimed at the entrance of Paeseongdojang.
Seen up close, it was a chilling sight. Each and every drop had been honed to a dagger-sharp edge, as though hundreds of millions of soldiers had leveled their spears toward the entrance of the secret realm.
In the midst of that storm, frozen in place by force, stood one of the Nascent Soul cultivators who had escaped Paeseongdojang: Nam Soyeong, a rogue cultivator famous for having reached the late stage of Nascent Soul.
She stared anxiously at the entrance and said, “The Lord of the Divine Tree... no, will Cheonzon not be coming?”
“...”
The Nascent Soul cultivator from Seongdo silently narrowed his brows. When he glanced at her as if to ask why she was bringing up Cheonzon, Nam Soyeong hurried on.
“I’m worried, that’s all. No matter how powerful the Falling Rain Heavenly Sword Formation is, it won’t be able to confine a Deity Transformation cultivator for long.”
“Do not worry. It is impossible for the Insectoids to emerge from Paeseongdojang in the first place. I am waiting here only to guard against the unlikely.”
“...And if, by some impossible chance, a Deity Transformation-level Insectoid does come out? What will you do then?”
The old man looked steadily at Nam Soyeong, who could not hide her unease, then smiled.
“Endure, I suppose. Until Cheonzon arrives. If one is willing to stake one’s life and struggle desperately enough, surely something can be managed.”
His tone made it sound like a joke, and silence settled for a moment.
Then he said, “You said this Jin Somyeong withstood a Deity Transformation-level strike.”
“Yes. To be precise, he knocked aside five of the ten pillars of light.”
The old man, who had been lost in thought, spoke in a passing, almost casual tone.
“Did you notice anything unusual?”
“What sort of scene do you mean...?”
“For instance, a radiance so brilliant it was difficult to observe even with Divine Sense, or a sword that did not seem to gather any especially fierce power, yet broke through every defense it touched.”
“Mm... I saw wings spread behind him, as though made of blood. It was only for a moment, but his energy increased dozens of times over.”
The old man fell silent briefly, gave a small nod, and looked toward the entrance of Paeseongdojang.
“Do you think Jin Somyeong will come out alive?”
“Not unless he has heaven-defying luck. Whatever took over Mok Saheon’s body was, no matter how I look at it, not at the level of a Nascent Soul cultivator. If it truly was Deity Transformation, then no matter how strong Cultivator Jin is, surviving would be difficult.”
“...I see.”
In the long silence that followed, their gazes remained fixed on the entrance of Paeseongdojang.
At that same time, Jin Somyeong, having sucked up every last drop of the hot spring water and stored it in a gourd, paused.
With the water gone, the bottom of the spring had been revealed. There lay a brilliantly colored coral, and strangely, it was constantly emitting spiritual qi.
It felt as though an entire spiritual vein had been compressed into the form of coral.
A coral that produces spiritual qi... Jade Water Coral?
It was a treasure difficult to obtain even by offering a mountain of Spirit Stones. If transplanted into the Mental Secret Realm, it would be perfect.
He carefully reached out, only for his fingers to meet a transparent curtain. As expected, it was sealed behind a restriction, which left him hesitating.
A fairly sturdy restriction.
He tapped the curtain a few times to gauge its durability, and it seemed that breaking it would take considerable effort.
After a brief moment of thought, he detonated the spiritual power within his heart.
He unfolded Hyeolyik. The body he had only barely restored thanks to the hot spring would be damaged again, but he decided to accept the cost.
Boom!
Using his amplified energy, he shattered the restriction in one blow and swung his sword. He carved out the entire floor of the hot spring and moved it into his subspace.
After thoroughly sweeping the area around the spring to see if there was anything else worth taking, he left the building.
It’s already here.
He put distance between himself and the poisonous smoke that had, at some point, drawn right up to his nose.
He began entering buildings as soon as they came into view, searching for a teleportation formation.
Huh?
He had no choice but to be startled when poisonous smoke suddenly appeared ahead of him.
The smoke that had been chasing from behind had appeared in front. When he hurriedly checked behind him, there was smoke there as well.
In that instant, he realized his mistake.
Paeseongdojang had originally been a desert where space was twisted in many places. He had belatedly assumed that after all the grains of sand disappeared and the shockwaves from battle swept through, the tangled spaces might have been undone.
They had not.
His mouth went dry.
He moved urgently, avoiding the poisonous smoke closing in from both sides.
Boom!
He released the energy amplified by Hyeolyik in every direction, smashing through the barriers of every building he could reach. Through the gaps in collapsed walls, he checked at speed for only one thing: whether a teleportation formation was there or not.
Not a single one?
Just as he seriously wondered if he would have to use a sixth-grade Realm-Breaking Talisman, he spotted an intact teleportation formation through a gap in the broken wall of a building already being swallowed by poisonous smoke.
...Go.
His hesitation was brief. He hurled the Yin-Yang Great Hand Seal with all his strength, driving back the poisonous smoke as he cut across the air.
In the heart of the dense poison, so thick he could not see an inch ahead, he poured out top-grade Spirit Stones. As he injected power into the teleportation formation, he stretched his palm toward the poisonous smoke surging in from all directions.
Wooooong!
Light surged from the teleportation formation—and at that exact moment, Jin Somyeong realized something had gone wrong.
His spiritual power, amplified beyond control by Hyeolyik; the deadly poison, powerful enough to corrupt spiritual qi; the Yin-Yang Great Hand Seal, unleashed at full force.
All those elements mingled in a complex tangle and interfered with the teleportation formation.
In a moment too brief to blink—
Flash!
Wrapped in a brilliant burst of light, Jin Somyeong vanished beyond twisted space.
Jungju.
That true sacred land of cultivation, the place that was all but the center of the world, had lately grown unusually noisy.
Ten years ago, eight secret realms controlled by Seongdo had abruptly been opened, and countless Nascent Soul cultivators who longed for Deity Transformation had entered them.
The result was blood.
So much blood had been spilled that, with only slight exaggeration, one might say only two out of ten had survived.
“A survival rate of only twenty percent? Just how many died?”
“Something absurd has happened.”
What sort of realm was Nascent Soul? Apart from Deity Transformation, it represented the strongest beings on the earth.
They were figures capable of ruling entire continents alone, yet countless monsters of that caliber had died.
“At this rate, isn’t Jungju practically empty?”
“A storm of blood will follow.”
“A storm of blood?”
“They’ll fight one another to seize the lands left vacant, won’t they?”
It was, quite literally, a powder keg on the verge of exploding. And amid that chaos, one secret realm in particular drew attention.
Paeseongdojang.
Compared to the other secret realms, its survival rate was exceptionally high. More than half of those who entered had returned alive, and everyone was astonished.
Had Paeseongdojang been less difficult than the others?
No. Every secret realm was different, but their dangers were broadly comparable.
There was only one difference.
The presence or absence of Jin Somyeong, a man whose martial might was overwhelming enough to overturn the tide of battle alone.
“Jin Somyeong, was it... To think he was that strong despite being only at the middle stage of Nascent Soul. What a shame.”
“A shame?”
“He died in the end, didn’t he? He still hasn’t come out of Paeseongdojang, so it’s obvious what happened. Tsk, tsk.”
“You never know.”
“Haha. You think he survived against a Deity Transformation cultivator? I can say with certainty—that is impossible.”
“...True. If even half the rumors about Deity Transformation are real, then opposing one at the level of Nascent Soul would be impossible. Escaping would probably be difficult too.”
“But if, by some chance—by some utterly impossible chance—he survived... then an absurd monster would have been born. No, a legendary Fighting Immortal.”
A mythical existence said to grow stronger without end through each battle, gaining enlightenment amid struggle and even breaking through great realm barriers.
The cultivator who had been thinking of the Fighting Immortal shook his head.
“I heard it from a fellow Daoist who entered Paeseongdojang. It was not a situation anyone could have survived. Jin Somyeong is dead.”
In this way, the three syllables of Jin Somyeong’s name were engraved into the minds of countless people.
Their reactions varied.
“Jin Somyeong obtained the Hongjinsimryeon? Isn’t that a Deity Transformation spiritual object?”
“...I hope he’s alive.”
“Even if heavenly luck allowed him to escape the secret realm, that would be its own problem. He obtained a Deity Transformation spiritual object. Do you think Seongdo would leave him alone? He’d be eliminated without a whisper.”
“Who knows? Jin Somyeong wasn’t the only one who obtained a Deity Transformation spiritual object, was he? I heard the Myriad Beast Alliance obtained one too.”
“I’m truly envious... If I had known this would happen, I would have entered a secret realm as well.”
“Heh. You say that even after seeing so many fellow Daoists perish? Only with time will we know who laughs last.”
“In any case, chaos is bound to unfold. I wonder how Seongdo intends to clean it up. They’ll have quite the headache.”
Some went beyond simple interest and revealed outright greed.
“Do not give up. Keep searching. If we join forces with Cultivator Jin, establishing a super-large sect would not be merely a dream.”
“Yes.”
And there were others who, in a situation where more than half the people who had ruled Jungju were dead, seriously considered what kind of influence a powerhouse like Jin Somyeong might exert.
On a certain snowy mountain, a blizzard raged so fiercely that even opening one’s eyes was difficult.
Kaboooom!
Something wrapped in dazzling light came crashing down.
Had a meteor fallen?
“Urgh...”
Amid a place where the impact had even triggered an avalanche, a human voice rang out.
The snow was piled so deep that it could have swallowed a whale and still had room to spare. From within it, a young man burst out.
Jin Somyeong frowned.
Where the hell is this now?
He looked around. The entire world was white. There was nothing to see but snow.
And it was strangely cold.
Was this what people meant by cold that cut to the bone? The chill burrowed all the way into his nerves, leaving his fingertips numb.
Having practiced body refinement, he usually perceived ordinary heat and cold merely as information rather than pain, but this place was different.
If he let his guard down, he might truly freeze to death.
This is a dangerous place.
Outside Paeseongdojang was a storm-lashed sea, yet he had fallen into a snow mountain like this. It seemed he had been caught up in the teleportation accident cultivators sometimes spoke of.
He used his Divine Sense to examine the surroundings, but there were no living creatures nearby.
First, recover my body.
He dug into the ground—or rather, into the thickly piled snow—made a simple cave residence, and sat cross-legged.
Using recovery pills and the hot spring water he had recently obtained, he spent an entire week restoring himself.
After recovering from his accumulated fatigue and mending his damaged body, he emerged again, and the blizzard greeted him.
Whoooooosh!
The snow-laden wind battered his skin like an ice-attribute spell. He pushed through it and moved about, but wherever he went, the scenery remained the same.
Large and small snow mountains and plains buried beneath snow stretched on without end.
A terrain like this... I feel as though I’ve heard of it somewhere.
In the terrible cold that seemed capable of freezing even the soul, he suddenly recalled a region called Jeolhanbingok, the Absolute Cold Ice Prison.
He did not know its details, but he knew it was a snowy plain north of Jungju.
Because of its savage cold and numerous dangers, it was known as one of the Ten Great Forbidden Areas.
Then if I head south, I should reach Jungju.
At least that was fortunate.
Whatever else happened, it meant that if he kept flying in one direction, he would eventually reach a place where people lived.
He was flying blindly south when—
A fourth-grade spiritual vein?
He discovered a rather decent piece of land.
Judging by the density of spiritual qi, it was a high-quality fourth-grade spiritual vein. There were faint traces of someone having lived there long ago, but there was no owner.
Did they leave because it was too cold to endure?
He circled the spiritual vein once and found it fairly satisfactory.
It was regrettably rather cold, and there was no market nearby where he could buy cultivation resources, but everything else was acceptable.
Its grade was higher than the cave residence he had rented in Unryongseonseong, so it was more than enough for cultivation, at least for the time being.
Good. I’ll organize what I gained from Paeseongdojang here before leaving.
Ching!
He drew his sword and swung. Cutting into the snow-covered mountain, he carved out a flat chamber.
He had made himself a cultivation room and a bedroom where he could stay for a while.