Chapter 319: Gate of Emancipation through Emptiness
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 319: Gate of Emancipation through Emptiness
After hearing Vajra Divine Monk’s story, a question popped into my head.
As far as I knew, aside from the first cult leader, no Heavenly Demon had ever appeared in the Heavenly Demonic Cult.
But he said he grabbed the Heavenly Demon by the collar?
Then just how old was Vajra Divine Monk?
‘Didn’t he say the Heavenly Demonic Cult was founded a thousand years ago by the first Heavenly Demon?’
Vajra Divine Monk, on the other hand, was a man from a few hundred years ago.
I didn’t know exactly when he died, but it couldn’t have been more than 500 years.
Something didn’t add up, but I decided to just let it go.
“Kuh! This liquor tastes good!”
Seeing him chugging straight from the bottle with a beet-red face, it was hard to believe he was sober.
He probably just misspoke while drunk.
Still, I could believe he’d actually grabbed a cult leader by the collar. He was just that kind of guy.
“Stop with the useless thoughts and focus.”
“...I am.”
There it was again.
Just a moment ago, Vajra Divine Monk had been sitting on a rock, drinking. Now, he was suddenly standing behind me, as if he’d been there all along.
All I could think was how bizarre it was.
This wasn’t something that could be dismissed as mere speed.
It was as if the entire process between departure and arrival had evaporated, leaving only the result—the arrival—hanging in the air.
“Do you understand what I just did?”
“I don’t.”
I answered without a hint of hesitation.
It was better than pretending to know something I didn’t.
“Is that something to be proud of?!”
“I thought it was better than lying to my master.”
Vajra Divine Monk’s brow furrowed.
“Hah, and I have to call this thing my disciple...”
The veins on the back of his hand, which was stroking his wooden fish, bulged.
It was obvious he was debating whether or not to hit me.
What a violent, depraved monk.
Fortunately, he just sighed and didn’t swing the wooden fish.
My relief was short-lived.
Fsh!
Suddenly, Vajra Divine Monk’s figure vanished.
I urgently spread my Qi sense, trying to track his movement.
Then, something amazing happened.
His movement, which had been completely imperceptible to both my eyes and my Qi sense, became faintly visible.
When I turned my head to look forward, my eyes met with Vajra Divine Monk’s, who was standing there with a nonchalant posture.
“Do you get it now?”
I nodded.
What Vajra Divine Monk had just performed was undoubtedly the Formless Step.
But the difference between his Formless Step and mine was like that between a newborn baby and a professional athlete.
No, perhaps even greater.
I wanted to ask him how he did it right then and there, but I calmly closed my eyes and replayed the Formless Step he had shown me in my mind.
The foot extending as lightly as if on a stroll, the legs moving naturally in concert, and even the gaze fixed on the intended direction.
It was an utterly ordinary step.
But it was also the most perfect step.
The Formless Step, as its name implies, is one of the methods to reach the state of formlessness. Ultimately, it is a faint step toward breaking the chains of the Six Paths of Reincarnation and attaining Nirvana.
Of course, it was impossible for me to reach a state of formlessness simply by walking like Vajra Divine Monk did.
Unlike him, who had reached a far-off realm, my own enlightenment in the martial arts was shallow beyond compare.
But that didn’t mean there was no way at all.
‘...Instead of clinging to just one method, what if I gather everything I can use?’
I should be able to mimic the step he showed me, at least for a moment.
Crack—
The moment I thought that, lightning erupted all over my body.
I slowly opened my eyes, feeling a sense of liberation, as if I had shed my heavy physical form.
Formless Electric Body.
If the Formless Step is the walk to attain Nirvana, the Formless Electric Body is the physique to attain it.
As the saying goes, a crow-tit will tear its legs trying to walk like a stork. At my current level, it was impossible to replicate the step Vajra Divine Monk had shown me using only the Formless Step.
Therefore, the only way was to unleash everything I was capable of.
I stood up, gazed at the vast meadow, and took a breath.
It was just a single step, no different from usual, yet it felt incredibly heavy.
In all of creation, no two actions can be the same.
Because everything has its own meaning.
The step I was about to take was not just a simple stride, but a challenge of sorts—an attempt to reach formlessness based on the martial way.
Crrrack!!
‘Guuuhk...!!’
It felt like every muscle in my body was being torn to shreds.
As I endured the agony that threatened to knock me unconscious, blood slowly trickled from the corner of my lip.
As if it were the price for coveting a realm not yet permitted to me, the major and minor meridians throughout my body began to rupture one by one.
If this continued, I would surely suffer severe internal injuries.
Wooooong—
But at that moment, a familiar yet powerful True Qi began to envelop me.
“All phenomena gather and scatter according to their karmic connections.”
Vajra Qi was flowing into me from Vajra Divine Monk’s fingertips.
It was a pure and clear energy, so refined it couldn’t even be compared to my own.
“No unchanging substance exists. Therefore, one needs the meditative concentration to contemplate that all phenomena are empty.”
The existence of ‘I’ is constantly changing.
Emotions, thoughts, the physical body, and connections with others are all in flux.
Therefore, no fixed substance exists in all of creation.
That is the nature of non-self.
“A limit is merely a limit you’ve set for yourself in this moment. Discard the thought that you must move forward. Free yourself from attachment.”
They were just a few words.
Wooooong—
But the moment I heard them, my True Qi began to circulate on its own.
The power of the Vajra Qi, coursing through dozens of my minor meridians, began to amplify at an uncontrollably rapid pace.
The excruciating pain that had been constricting my body vanished, and without any thought, I took a step.
Was it because I had cast off the obsession to move forward, just as Vajra Divine Monk had said?
“Where am I...?”
When I came to my senses, I was standing about 50 meters away from my original spot.
Though it was just a faint fragment, this was undoubtedly the step he had shown me.
I realized that in the process, my Formless Electric Body and Formless Step had reached 8-stars, but that wasn’t the important part.
If I could imbue my sword with this same principle, it would surely become a strike that would never miss and always kill.
“Nothing in this world has a fixed substance; as long as connections exist, it changes ceaselessly. By deeply realizing the principle of Emptiness, the mind becomes light, and one is finally liberated from anguish and attachment.”
The True Qi gathered on Vajra Divine Monk’s finger began to carve characters into the air.
Emptiness of self, emptiness of phenomena, emptiness of both.
I didn’t know the details, but I knew they were the core elements of the concept known as the Three Emptinesses in Mahayana Buddhism.
“That is what it means to cross the Gate of Emancipation through Emptiness. It is also the realm corresponding to the emptiness of self among the Three Emptinesses.”
Having finished his explanation, Vajra Divine Monk sat back down on the rock and took out his gourd.
“...Then where do I stand?”
Honestly, I was a little hopeful.
I had managed to mimic Vajra Divine Monk’s Formless Step, even if just for a moment, and more importantly, I felt I had gotten one step closer to the essence of Vajra Qi.
But contrary to my expectations, Vajra Divine Monk wore an indifferent expression.
“If I had to say, you’re barely holding onto the doorknob. You didn’t realize the principle of Emptiness on your own, nor did you properly absorb the Prajna Divine Pill.”
“What? What do you mean...?”
I was certain I had successfully absorbed all the energy from the Prajna Divine Pill.
As proof, I had halfway opened my Ren and Du Meridians, opened my middle dantian, and ultimately reached the Transcendent Realm.
That should have been more than enough to say I had fully utilized the elixir.
But Vajra Divine Monk clicked his tongue and looked at me with pity.
“You haven’t even fully activated your Ren and Du Meridians, yet you can confidently say you’ve absorbed ten-tenths of the Prajna Divine Pill’s energy? If you had absorbed the pill in a properly prepared state, you would have reached not the Transcendent Realm, but the Flower Realm.”
“The Flower Realm... Is that even possible with just an elixir?”
As I’d said before, elixirs weren’t omnipotent.
The higher one’s realm, the more important enlightenment in martial arts becomes over internal energy.
That was why one couldn’t become the strongest under heaven just by stuffing themselves with legendary elixirs like Millennium Snow Ginseng or Clear Stone Oil.
“Didn’t I tell you before? The immense energy contained within the Prajna Divine Pill is merely a secondary benefit. Its essence lies in the quintessence of the Formless Vajra Art.”
Vajra Divine Monk, who had approached me at some point, poked my lower abdomen.
“From now on, you have one thing to do.”
At that moment, the residual True Qi from Vajra Divine Monk that had been flowing through my meridians completely vanished.
As the vitality that had filled my body drained away, I felt a strange sense of loss.
“Attain enlightenment and reach the Gate of Emancipation through Emptiness on your own.”
“...Is that even possible?”
As I groaned at the suddenly raised bar, Vajra Divine Monk tilted his gourd and waved his hand dismissively.
“This monk managed it. So stop your whining and focus.”
I pushed aside my uneasy feelings and sat in the lotus position.
If I said another word, I was sure to get hit with his wooden fish.
When I closed my eyes, a pitch-black darkness descended as usual.
‘...Now what?’
Vajra Divine Monk had only told me to attain enlightenment and reach the Gate of Emancipation through Emptiness on my own; he hadn’t given me any specific instructions.
In the end, I had no choice but to practice Qi circulation and breathing as I always did.
A day passed like that.
Naturally, I made no progress, and only then did I realize this wasn’t the right way.
I stopped circulating my Qi and, after a moment of thought, decided to mull over Vajra Divine Monk’s words.
If I could grasp the true meaning behind what he said, perhaps something would change.
A week passed like that.
*
Vajra Divine Monk tilted his gourd toward the blue sky.
A week had already passed since Kang Hyun-woo had entered meditation.
Since time flowed differently inside the formation, only about a couple of hours would have passed outside.
“He’s taking his sweet time.”
Vajra Divine Monk watched Kang Hyun-woo with an indifferent expression.
Wooooong—
For four hours now, a familiar shape had been floating above Kang Hyun-woo’s head.
Three flower buds.
Though only a little over a week had passed, he, who had been at the level of a seasoned Transcendent Realm, was now on the verge of reaching the realm of Three Flowers Gather at the Summit.
It was undoubtedly a remarkable achievement, but the problem was that one flower bud remained stubbornly unbloomed.
At this rate, reaching the state of Three Flowers Gather at the Summit was a distant dream.
Vajra Divine Monk watched the tightly closed flower bud intently.
The flowers of lightning and demonic energy on either side had bloomed beautifully, but the Vajra Qi, which could be called Kang Hyun-woo’s foundation, had failed to produce a flower.
Vajra Divine Monk knew the reason all too well.
Just as there are a hundred different kinds of enlightenment for a hundred martial artists, what people realize from the same experience is bound to be different.
Furthermore, since enlightenment is extremely subjective, advice could be more of a poison than a help.
Kang Hyun-woo’s state was exactly that.
It was a side effect born not from seeking his own enlightenment while reflecting on Vajra Divine Monk’s words, but from focusing too much on the words themselves.
Of course, the advice from Vajra Divine Monk, who had reached the highest realm, was of great help to Kang Hyun-woo.
If he had tried to set foot in the realm of Three Flowers Gather at the Summit on his own, a week would have been nowhere near enough.
It would have taken at least three months.
But paradoxically, that help had made it impossible for Kang Hyun-woo to reach the end of the path.
It was the price for receiving someone else’s help.
Vajra Divine Monk knew this fact better than anyone.
In his lifetime, the contemporary Murim Alliance Leader had come to him for advice, only to become trapped by it. Unable to cross the threshold to the next realm, he had fallen into Qi Deviation and taken his own life.
If Kang Hyun-woo failed to bloom the third flower, he too would likely fall into Qi Deviation.
For a martial artist, Qi Deviation meant death.
Yet, Vajra Divine Monk did not move.
He simply savored the liquor that filled his gourd at a leisurely pace.
“Stop wasting time and get it over with.”
WOOOOONG!!!
At that moment, the flower bud that had been tightly shut began to tremble.
A sign of blooming.
The spiritual energy of heaven and earth that filled the formation reacted, swirling around Kang Hyun-woo as its center.
An immense wave of Qi spread out in all directions.
Rumble—
In response, the Lightning Flower emitted bolts of lightning, and the Demonic Flower revealed its grotesque presence. Simultaneously, the three energies within Kang Hyun-woo began to increase explosively.
—!!!
Finally, the moment Kang Hyun-woo’s eyes flashed open, the third flower bud burst into full bloom.
Golden petals made of indestructible Vajra, which no storm could break, scattered in the air.
“Tsk, tsk, so unnecessarily flashy.”
Contrary to his gruff words, a faint smile played on Vajra Divine Monk’s lips as he watched Kang Hyun-woo.