An Unexpected Name
Jin Somyeong had been about to draw his sword against the bandits surrounding him on all sides, but he could not help freezing where he stood.
“Are you Yeo Dongbin?”
Bandits—no, men whose identity as bandits had suddenly become far less certain—had spoken a name he never expected to hear.
Outwardly, Jin Somyeong’s face remained expressionless. Inside, a storm surged. In the span of a blink, countless thoughts flashed through his mind.
How do they know Yeo Dongbin? I haven’t used that name once since being transported to Sky Island.
Setting aside the ten thousand thoughts battering at his skull, he admitted one thing first.
I was careless.
At some point, steeped in the peaceful atmosphere of Sky Island, he had let his vigilance slip.
Jin Somyeong quietly closed his eyes, opened them again, and turned his gaze. Of the three Golden Core cultivators encircling him, he looked to the one standing at the front.
“Yeo Dongbin? I don’t know who that is, but I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
“Hm?”
The three men frowned. They exchanged glances, and from the look of it, they were conversing through Divine Sense transmissions.
Can I eavesdrop?
Keeping his face blank, Jin Somyeong consumed Boundless Great Ability to amplify his senses.
Five thousand units of that vast power vanished at once. At the same time, faint voices reached him.
“Is it not him?”
“Hard to say… Of the Golden Core cultivators who suddenly appeared nearby, he’s the most suspicious.”
“Because of that damned secret realm, Golden Core cultivators are gathering from all over the place. We can’t insist it must be him.”
“Tch. All this trouble over a single prophecy saying the disciple of the rebel Hong Seol is likely to appear here.”
Jin Somyeong’s eyes trembled almost imperceptibly as he listened in silence.
Hong Seol?
The mysterious expert who had emerged from the Boundless Divine Sword and saved him—the woman he inwardly regarded as his master. He had never imagined her name would surface here.
And rebel?
What in the world had she done to be hunted by a powerful organization capable of using Golden Core cultivators like common errand boys?
He forcibly held on to his mind as it threatened to go blank. Divine Sense transmissions moved at tremendous speed; in the time it took to blink once, entire exchanges passed between them. If he wanted to eavesdrop, he had to focus.
“I hope we aren’t grabbing the wrong man. Divination hardly has a high chance of being accurate to begin with.”
“True. Heavenly Strategist doesn’t have much lifespan left either, so the accuracy of his divination must have fallen even further.”
“A man who was only at the early Foundation Establishment stage twenty-five years ago has already reached Golden Core? Honestly, I don’t buy it. No matter how I look at it, this prophecy was Heavenly Strategist’s mista—”
“Enough! If the two of you have time to complain, focus on the mission. We capture him first. Those above us will decide the rest.”
“Tch.”
After hearing that much, only two thoughts remained in Jin Somyeong’s mind.
Kill them? Or let them live?
Which choice would be correct?
After a moment of consideration, Jin Somyeong suppressed the murderous intent rising inside him. No matter how he looked at them, these men were subordinates. Killing them would only draw stronger pursuers.
Besides… they aren’t certain I’m here.
Fighting them here and giving their organization certainty would be anything but wise.
Having made his decision, Jin Somyeong opened his mouth.
“Fellow Daoists. Yeo Dongbin or whoever he is aside, it seems you chased me because you wanted a few Spirit Stones… but I’m not such an easy target.”
Before he had even finished speaking, he swung his sword without warning.
Hundreds of blades of wind surged like a gale.
Boom!
Wrapped in wind, Jin Somyeong shot into the sky. While the three Golden Core merchants blocked the storm of cutting winds, he vanished like smoke, as if he had become invisible.
“Damn it!”
“…We lost him.”
“Lost him? What about the mark we placed on the pill?”
“It disappeared the moment he concealed himself. I can’t track him.”
As two of the Golden Core merchants scowled fiercely, the one who had been quietly deep in thought shook his head.
“Enough. There’s no need to pursue him.”
“What?”
“The spell he just used was no ordinary wind-type technique. It was closer to an innate divine ability that can only be cast by someone with a wind spiritual root.”
“…A wind spiritual root? Then he isn’t Yeo Dongbin. I suppose that’s a relief, at least.”
“Haah. Let’s go back. We don’t know when that man will arrive, so we’ll wait at Hyeonun City.”
Long after they had left, Jin Somyeong emerged from empty air. He had not fled at all; he had merely hidden himself in silence.
His eyes narrowed.
He stared in the direction the three Golden Core merchants had gone, then quietly sheathed the sword he was still holding.
It seems I don’t have to kill them.
His decision to attack with the Windfire Divine Sutra instead of Sword Qi had worked. If they had investigated Yeo Dongbin, then seeing an innate demon-beast divine ability would make them far more likely to conclude he was not the man they sought.
Which means they know that when I worked in Cheongdan City as Yeo Dongbin, I had five-element spiritual roots…
Jin Somyeong left the area and traveled for a long while. Eventually, he sat on a barren rock in an empty wasteland and sank into thought.
Too much had happened too abruptly. His mind was tangled, and he needed to sort things out.
First, those people were after Hong Seol.
The reason they’re trying to capture me… is to use me as bait?
He could not be certain, but that was the first plausible explanation that came to mind.
Second, their method of pursuit was divination.
On that subject, he honestly had no words. As far as Jin Somyeong knew, divination was an art burdened by extremely—extremely—severe restrictions.
I heard that to track a Golden Core cultivator through divination, a Nascent Soul-level expert has to sacrifice their own lifespan…
And even then, the information obtained was, frankly, close to useless. It was like choosing ten thousand possibilities from a million futures.
The fact that they had failed to learn his true name and were searching for Yeo Dongbin already revealed its limits. The number of locations where they suspected Jin Somyeong might appear was probably enormous.
Divination was an absurdly inefficient art.
Moreover, divination had not worked while he was on Sky Island. If it had, they would have stormed in and captured him long ago, so that much was certain.
Why?
When he thought about it, the sea around Sky Island was an exceptionally strange place. Spirit veins disappearing and reappearing? He had never heard of anything like it.
Perhaps… Hong Seol had known divination would not work on Sky Island and had sent him there for that very reason.
Should I return to Sky Island?
After thinking for a long while, Jin Somyeong shook his head.
That would be nothing more than avoiding the problem. It was no fundamental solution. Besides, he could not imagine Sky Island would remain safe forever.
Then what was the fundamental solution?
Become stronger.
With that alone, ninety-nine out of a hundred problems would lose their meaning.
Tap.
Jin Somyeong brushed himself off and stood, then looked up at the sky. The white clouds drifting overhead were peaceful, as though nothing at all had happened.
After staring at the heavens for a long time, he let out a faint laugh.
Good. I don’t know who you are, but let’s see how this plays out.
Snap!
He flicked his finger and consumed fifty thousand units of Boundless Great Ability. Using a fragment of omnipotence, he blocked off any possible divination.
If I add a Dharma treasure with the ability to obstruct divination on top of this, it should be enough.
Divination was an art of extreme precision. Even a slight interference was enough to prevent it from producing proper results.
Whoosh!
Jin Somyeong kicked off the ground and flew toward Gwangya Immortal City.
When a person needed to hide, they did not go to the forest—they went to the city.
The enemy had currently judged that he was not Yeo Dongbin, so there should be no issue entering a Fourth-Realm Immortal City.
Beside a quiet pond, an old man whose face was covered in wrinkles stared at the water.
No—stared was not quite the right word. There were no pupils in the old man’s eyes. He could not see anything at all.
Like a statue carved from stone, the old man had not so much as twitched. Then, suddenly, he raised his head. Slowly, like a sick man forcing himself upright, he stood and bowed at the waist.
“Cheonzon…”
A young man had appeared beside him at some point, smiling brightly. The old man spoke to him in a voice filled with despair.
“A dagger that will pierce Cheonzon has been born into the world. I apologize for failing to prevent it.”
“There was one yesterday, and there will be another tomorrow. It doesn’t matter.”
“This time is different. It has already met the whetstone and sharpened its edge.”
The old man was utterly serious, but the young man called Cheonzon merely smiled from beginning to end. He even crouched by the pond and flicked water playfully with his fingers.
“Let me be honest. I’m skeptical of this divination you speak of. To begin with, can someone of your ability truly influence my fate?”
“That is…”
“If you understand, stop wasting your life on meaningless things and enjoy what remains of it.”
“…Forgive me. I am going to die soon anyway.”
Golden light kindled in the old man’s empty eye sockets. A brilliant twilight became his pupils and groped toward a future called possibility.
How much time passed?
Pop!
The eyes staring beyond the void burst apart. Amid tears of blood, the old man let out a sigh.
“Cheonzon was right. I can see nothing. It seems this old man’s life was not enough… Please, take care of yourself.”
“…”
For a long while, the young man stared silently at the old man whose breath had ceased. Then he turned his gaze to the woman following behind him like an attendant.
“How many names did Heavenly Strategist mention?”
“Gwan Ilpyeong, Jin Gwangpo, Yeo Dongbin, Hong Seol, Mu Hwirang, Lord Cheongram, Ha Un… Excluding those who have been confirmed eliminated, there are one hundred sixty-eight in total.”
“Aigoo. So many people want to kill me. Just how many years of his lifespan did that old man burn?”
The young man burst into hearty laughter and shook his head. He tapped the old man’s corpse, reducing it to powder as he spoke.
“How tiresome. Kill everyone under heaven who bears those names.”
“…As you command.”
Seeing the woman’s face turn pale even as she answered, the young man laughed aloud.
“Hey. If I say something ridiculous, you’re supposed to stop me from the side. What are you doing, agreeing to obey? We don’t even know if those are their real names, so what would killing them accomplish?”
“Th-that…”
“Forget it. I was only joking. Go and see that the old man is given a proper funeral.”
The instant the young man waved his hand as if dismissing her, an urn had appeared in her grasp. It was unmistakably filled with the bone ash of the old man who had just died.
Meanwhile, after flying for a long time and finally arriving at Gwangya Immortal City, Jin Somyeong’s jaw fell open.
I can’t see the end of it.
The city wall was too vast, too immense. It was surely circular, yet it stretched so far that it looked like a straight line.
There was no counting the cultivators below Foundation Establishment moving in and out through the entrance, and even Golden Core cultivators appeared here and there with no great rarity.
Suddenly, he remembered something he had heard long ago.
The False Golden Core cultivator Hyeok Cheon-ung had described Sky Island as a remote, backward place—somewhere exceedingly obscure and out of the way.
At the time, Jin Somyeong had dismissed it as nonsense, but now he realized the man had been exactly right.
Sky Island was countryside.
Before the overwhelming majesty of a Nascent Soul-level immortal city, he had no choice but to admit it, whether he wanted to or not.
After observing Gwangya Immortal City from afar, Jin Somyeong concealed his aura. He altered his appearance, disguised his cultivation as Foundation Establishment, and passed through the city gate.
He was slightly tense there, but perhaps because so many people were entering and leaving, the inspection was not strict. He passed through without any particular trouble.
Immediately after entering Gwangya Immortal City, dazzling towers filled his vision, stretching endlessly into the distance.
Can a place develop this much simply because it has a stable Fourth-Realm spirit vein?
Admiring the sight inwardly, Jin Somyeong first rented an abode. He needed time to calmly consider what he should do next.
Do I really need to go to Namju?
His original objective had been revenge. He had intended to find the Young Master of the Cheonsi Sect, who should be in Damun Kingdom in Namju, and put an end to him.
But the matter connected to Hong Seol weighed on his mind.
If he went looking for the Young Master of the Cheonsi Sect now, there was a high chance he would become entangled with an organization that used Golden Core cultivators as subordinates. It might amount to nothing, but there was no harm in being careful.
What should I do?
As he pondered, Jin Somyeong replayed the Divine Sense transmissions he had overheard from beginning to end, checking whether there was any information he had missed.
Wait… they definitely said that because of some damned secret realm, Golden Core cultivators were gathering from all over the place.
That meant a secret realm useful to Golden Core cultivators was opening somewhere nearby.
He felt the need to investigate in more detail.