Innate Fate, Acquired Fate
For a long time, the voice trapped within the stone tablet had sounded like a groan forced through stone, and it wailed for what felt like an age, pouring out all the frustration it had accumulated over those years.
At last, it began to form something that might properly be called speech.
“Five hundred years! Five hundred years have passed in such a futile and miserable fashion! It is bitter, bitter indeed! Yet my will has not broken, and when the time comes, I will surely repay this grudge! Young cultivator, do you dare even guess what sort of being I am?”
It seemed the soul residing in the stone tablet was no ordinary mortal’s.
And yet, if that was true, the qi flowing out of the tablet was far too meager.
Either the soul of some powerful being had been trapped in the stone tablet for so long that its strength had withered, or the sealing formation carved into the tablet was far stronger than I had imagined.
“What I know is that, thanks to me, you’ve gotten to see the world again.”
At that, the cold seeping from the stone tablet deepened all at once, and a voice far heavier than before came drifting out.
“You would claim that I, Seop Myeong-gyeol, who has reached the Nascent Soul realm and stands as the greatest artifact refiner of Musang Alliance, received help from a mere Qi Refining brat? Nonsense! The reason I can see the world again is not because of you, but because the Dao of Heaven led me here.”
If the soul within the stone tablet truly was a Nascent Soul cultivator, then the difference between us was as vast as the heavens. From what I had heard, even in this Hyeondo Sect, where more than a thousand cultivators resided, only the sect master himself was said to be a Nascent Soul cultivator.
Considering how hard I had struggled against Foundation Establishment cultivators until now, my opponent was someone I could not even begin to imagine fighting.
And yet, having spent long years standing above others, I sensed at once that I held the upper hand in this exchange.
If the other party truly possessed such tremendous power, there would have been no need to ramble on like this; they would simply have shown a sliver of that strength.
Not only was the qi he gave off unimpressive, but the power he could actually muster right now was not much to speak of either.
So I answered again, calm as ever. “Then am I not your heaven?”
This time, a hazy aura wrapped around the stone tablet, and the entire slab began to tremble.
Clatter—clatter!
At first it looked as if something remarkable might happen, but as time passed, his limits became painfully clear.
The soul in the tablet, who called himself a Nascent Soul cultivator, could do no more than rattle the stone a little and wag his tongue with great enthusiasm.
“Was that all you had to show me?”
But this time, the cultivator’s soul answered with something rather interesting.
“You insolent fool! How dare a Qi Refining cultivator look down on me? I’ll use my Heavenly Eye Insight to lay bare just how wretched your innate fate truly is!”
So that was what he meant—he claimed he could see my innate fate, the destiny I had been born with. I had no idea whether that was merely his bluff or something Nascent Soul cultivators truly could do, but it was certainly an intriguing claim.
And yet, the words he began spitting out as he peered into that fate were anything but ordinary.
“Heavenly Fighting Genius…? That can’t be… Then what is this? Overpowering Heaven Catastrophe and Bloodstained War Song? You have all of these absurd destinies in one human body? You! What in the world are you?”
Heavenly Fighting Genius, Overpowering Heaven Catastrophe, Bloodstained War Song.
I knew nothing at all about this thing called innate fate.
And yet, if even one of the three that voice had named was real, then it was clear enough that I had been born with an extraordinary destiny. Each of those fates carried a grand, almost excessive name.
So I asked him directly, “Is this so-called innate fate really that remarkable?”
As soon as the words left my mouth, he launched into another long-winded explanation.
“Heavenly Fighting Genius means exactly what it sounds like: a genius in battle, granted by heaven. It means you were born as someone naturally adept at gaining strength and wielding it.”
That much, I had to admit, I agreed with. I carried intact memories of a past life in which I had stood at the very summit as the Heavenly Demon, so if I were not a genius in battle, that would be far stranger.
But what came next was harder to accept.
“However, that is not the only innate fate you possess. Overpowering Heaven Catastrophe means a being like a disaster that conquers heaven itself, and Bloodstained War Song means a destiny that sings of battle through blood. If a demon lord were to arise in this world and dye the whole earth in blood, overturning all under heaven, then that would be you.”
Of course, if I considered the life I once led—when I made the entire world kneel before me—then the other two destinies he mentioned were not entirely incomprehensible. My life back then had not been all that different from those names.
But that had only been the past. It was a different matter from the me of now. The me of now had a different fate…
“Hm? What’s this now? Defeat Heart Imprint and Chain Soul Seal? Look at this! Now I understand why you look so utterly insignificant! With such miserable acquired fates hanging all over you, how could your growth not be slow?”
Once again, I did not fully understand the words the man was reciting.
And yet the moment I heard them, my heart began to pound violently in my chest.
“Those things… what do they mean?”
At that, the fellow began boasting again, as if he had found a weakness that would crush my spirit.
“It means the mark of a slave engraved upon you is strong enough to twist your innate fate!”
His voice rang with excitement, as though he had finally found something to make me bow my head. At once, another face rose in my mind.
Sansu Jin Myeong…
The one who had given me the humiliation of a year’s torment—more bitter than any defeat I had ever suffered. I had thought that by killing him, I had erased him completely, but it seemed I had not.
No, in truth, I had to admit it. After experiencing the power he possessed, even my attitude toward cultivators who practiced sorcery had changed.
Until then I had merely lied to myself, saying I had learned humility and shed arrogance, but in truth all that had happened was that my will to make powerful cultivators my enemies had been broken.
Defeat Heart Imprint. Chain Soul Seal.
The heart of defeat had been carved into me, and the brand of slavery engraved deep within my soul had been hidden there, so all the time since then, I had never been my true self.
Whether the opponent was Foundation Establishment or even a Core Formation powerhouse beyond that, I would have to stand my ground and not retreat before them. Only then could I call that the real me.
The arrogance I had shed and the humility I had newly learned were, in truth, nothing but illusions. I was the one who stood above all others and ruled over the world—Heavenly Demon Ak Bi!
As if I had gained an insight while practicing martial arts, a bolt of understanding ran through my body and shattered the knot buried in my heart.
Crack!
With that gratifying sound ringing within me, my body lifted clean off the ground.
Then, as though he had been waiting for it, the voice trapped in the stone tablet spoke again.
“As expected of a Heavenly Fighting Genius! With nothing more than a few words, you break your acquired fate and force your way through the bottleneck! Others have to swallow countless spiritual pills before they can cross such a threshold, yet you do it with a single moment of insight. Heaven truly is unfair.”
At first it felt as though his babbling voice only reached my ears, but before long it was as if I were hearing it through my entire body.
In an instant, my realm surged upward, and with it my senses sharpened dramatically. At the same time, the connection between my law-soul and my flesh grew even more precise…
Chaos Heaven Secret Law, fourth realm: Expand Soul, Condense Form. The soul took shape and extended the roots of earth; the shadow of the Great Dao would soon fall.
Together with the fourth realm of the Chaos Heaven Secret Law, which I completed in an instant, my own cultivation also stepped clearly into the mid-stage of Qi Refining.
But just as I was gathering my insight and slowly settling back toward the ground, that fellow delivered another shocking truth.
“A cultivation art meant for livestock… So you must be a mountain hermit with no sect to call home?”
He was belittling the cultivation art I had diligently practiced all this time as though it were something worthless.
And yet, even after hearing such words, I could not bring myself to strongly deny them. Because it was true—just as he said, the Chaos Heaven Secret Law was the cultivation art taught to me by Sansu Jin Myeong, who had treated me like livestock…
With a slight furrow in my brow, I said evenly, “I’m not a mountain hermit. I simply don’t know a cultivation art more useful than this one.”
“You have a sect, and you still practiced something like that? Then why would you learn such a thing in the first place? No foundation art should be worse than that. Do you know why the cultivation art you learned is fit only for livestock? Because the art you learned purifies the soul and condenses vital energy. In other words, it is no different from the alchemical process of purifying your soul and then condensing the qi within your body into a single spiritual medicine.”
The moment I heard his words, the latter verses of the Chaos Heaven Secret Law, which I had never once doubted until now, surfaced in my mind.
In the tenth realm, Expand Soul, Condense Essence: when the soul gathers the essence, the cultivator’s inner world shall be filled with the essence of heaven and earth.
In the twelfth realm, Expand Soul, Become Unblemished: when the soul is unblemished and casts away all impurities, the light of the Great Dao shall dwell in the body.
In the thirteenth realm, Refining Qi, Merging with Dao: when the soul becomes one with the Great Dao and flows eternally, that existence shall contain all principles.
Once again, the fellow was right. What Sansu Jin Myeong had wanted was not to make me into a cultivator of outstanding ability, but to turn me into a usable spiritual pill…
It was almost laughable, looking back now: I had practiced a cultivation art meant for livestock while mocking the orthodox Hyeondo Sect’s foundation methods simply because the early stages of my art produced greater power.
But by now I had regained the essence of who I was—Heavenly Demon Ak Bi—so rather than despairing or sighing in frustration, I sought another way.
“If you really are a Nascent Soul cultivator, then you must know plenty of usable cultivation arts as well.”
At that, the fellow replied at once, full of confidence. “Of course. Our Musang Alliance may be famous for its excellent artifact refining arts, but that doesn’t mean we lack decent cultivation methods. If you become my disciple and respectfully ask for instruction, I might even tell you a few Qi Refining techniques.”
He spoke as though he held absolute superiority.
But he was badly mistaken about something. In this conversation between us, the one holding the initiative was not him—it was me.
“Good. If I use your soul to make a puppet, I can get myself a decent cultivation art as a bonus.”
A puppet is, after all, a being that moves only by my command. No matter how much this fellow knew, once I made him into a puppet, he would ultimately have no choice but to obey my orders.
Ghost Wood Human Illusion Method, third form!
“Black threads bind the bond. Blood brands the master. You are my shadow. You are also my hand.”
As I recited the verses of the Ghost Wood Human Illusion Method and drew my sword across my palm, bright red blood immediately dripped onto the stone tablet.
And the drops of blood, falling there, transformed once more into black smoke, beginning to become the stubborn cord that bound me to the puppet.
At once, the fellow grew anxious and raised his voice again.
“Wait! I’ll tell you a decent cultivation art right now, so stop for a moment!”
But I ignored his words and immediately began reciting the final verse.
“Breathe within illusion. Walk within shadow. You live, yet you are dead. You are dead, yet shall live.”
The instant my words ended, the wooden body of the puppet made from ghost wood began turning pitch black. Even the inside of the puppet where the stone tablet was embedded filled in with a smooth motion, as though wood were growing there.
And at last, the blackened wooden puppet slowly rose to its feet.
---