The God of a New World
In the northwest of Beijing’s Shunyi District, luxurious villas dotted the landscape, each taking advantage of the area’s pristine natural surroundings.
Among them stood one particularly grand and imposing residence. A man in his forties was just entering its gates. His rounded jawline gave him a gentle appearance, and his face carried the look of someone who smiled often, as if a grin might break across it at any moment.
He offered only a perfunctory nod to the greetings of the Public Security Ministry’s security personnel, then crossed the meticulously maintained garden and stepped inside the villa. Familiar with the layout, he walked down the hallway and stopped before an ornately decorated door.
After a respectful knock, the reply came only after dozens of seconds, faint and almost reluctant.
The man opened the door and stepped inside. A foul, fishy odor immediately assaulted him, but he kept his expression neutral. He paid no attention whatsoever to the naked women sprawled across the large bed on one side of the spacious, opulent room.
His focus remained solely on the elderly man seated on the central sofa, clad in a loose robe. He bowed deeply.
“I’ve verified the information you requested. It’s clear the Korean authorities did not discover this first and then probe into it.”
“Hmph…”
The old man let out a short, incredulous laugh.
“Then how in the world did that civilian informant catch wind of it?”
“We were unable to determine that. The only connection we could find was some link to the Ability Management Bureau.”
The man then concisely relayed everything he had uncovered. The report was brief by necessity, yet the fact that they had obtained information not yet released to the public demonstrated the formidable reach of their intelligence network.
“How strange… This feels off somehow…”
The old man fell into a long silence, his face clouded with contemplation. Eventually he looked at his chief secretary.
“What is your opinion?”
“It must be coincidence. That individual does possess several other coincidental traits, after all.”
“Is there any chance it resembles our own situation?”
“There were no particular clues whatsoever.”
After another brief silence, the old man sighed.
“I’d like to run a check. What do you think?”
His tone had shifted, dropping the semi-formal speech for something far more casual. It spoke volumes about how close their relationship truly was.
The man began to speak, then glanced toward the women on the bed.
“Pay them no mind. None of them are in their right senses.”
“Better not to invite trouble where none exists. Especially when they’re foreigners.”
The old man countered with an idiom of his own.
“Yet they also say caution in small matters paves the way for success across a thousand years.”
The secretary could not argue further. In Korean terms, the old man’s authority rivaled that of a vice-minister, yet nearly all of it flowed from the man before him. Their fates were bound together so completely that it was no exaggeration to call them absolute partners in life and death.
“I will select suitable emissaries.”
“Avoid anyone too exceptional. We may need to dispose of them with our own hands later.”
The man bowed in acknowledgment, turned, and left the room. The old man sighed once more, then rose and headed toward the bed.
Having gained a massive amount of karma unexpectedly, Han Yujin had advanced to the Dharma Soul stage far sooner than anticipated. This required several adjustments to the plans he had originally laid out.
Yet instead of diving straight into those changes, he spent the next two days simply resting, focusing only on the night classes for the Hunter Preliminary Education program.
He rested by doing all the ordinary things he no longer needed to do. Though meals were unnecessary, he tracked down and devoured ramen, kimchi, and every other dish that caught his fancy. He spent hours scrolling through MyTube Shorts. He met up with his friend Park Heewon again and engaged in utterly pointless chatter.
Playing with Mu-yong was simply part of daily life, so it barely warranted mention. All of it served one purpose: to reclaim the sense of reality that had grown distant. After devoting more than five years in the Primordial Forest solely to cultivation, he had felt strangely unmoored from the world.
This is my hometown. My main base.
No matter how much time he spent in other worlds or how he spent it, he could not forget that he always began here and always returned here. Moreover, karma could only be obtained in this reality.
Fortunately, regaining his grounded perspective did not take long.
On the morning of the third day after his return, he opened a computer notepad and began organizing his thoughts and plans.
Until now, my mindset was simply to grow stronger first.
It had not been a bad approach. In fact, it had been the most critical priority.
But the time had come to establish more concrete, far-reaching objectives. The question was no longer how to become strong, but what he would accomplish with that strength.
He had already become an S-class hunter without informing anyone. In this world, at least, that made him an undeniable apex powerhouse.
So… do I simply live as an S-class hunter? Accumulate karma, release bits of knowledge to gather more, spend the money on luxuries, find a lover, and do whatever I feel like in the moment?
If Earth were guaranteed to remain peaceful, that life would not be so terrible. Yet the lingering mystery of the post-apocalyptic Earth refused to be ignored.
Resolving that mystery would therefore become his primary objective. He would need to move with greater purpose.
And if he continued advancing at that pace, he would naturally grow strong enough to leave even S-class hunters far behind.
At that point, ordinary hunter work would no longer suffice, whether for accumulating karma or for personal satisfaction.
I will make this place… this Earth… my territory.
The idea had come to him suddenly, yet nothing fit more perfectly.
Earth was his hometown, his headquarters, and his only source of karma. Since he could not settle permanently in other worlds with his true body, he had no choice but to achieve and develop something here, whether he liked it or not.
I will protect and develop the entire planet as my own domain. I will carefully release knowledge from countless worlds, including everything I have learned about cultivation.
Someone once said that great power comes with great responsibility.
To earn even more karma with greater efficiency, this goal seemed inevitable. Strangely enough, he felt no dissatisfaction with it.
A past conversation with Park Heewon suddenly resurfaced in his mind. When Yujin had asked what would happen if someone awakened xianxia-style powers in reality, his friend had laughed as though the answer were obvious.
You’d become a god, obviously.
A god…
To think he would become the very figure the entire world had once feared: the appearance of an absolute being.
It had not happened yet, but with his ability, he believed it was only a matter of time.
Considering the military strength of other worlds, such an event could occur eventually even without me.
Earth’s humanity had barely taken its first steps into the realm of mysticism. And as that field developed, the inevitable trend was the growth of individual power.
If it is destined to happen anyway, why shouldn’t I be the one to claim that role?
And so, inside an ordinary, shabby, cramped one-room apartment, an exceedingly grand and audacious goal took shape.
I… will become the god of a new world.
When the preliminary education ended, he would announce his ascension to S-class hunter and hand over the neatly organized knowledge he had prepared. He would order a faster and wider distribution than originally planned.
It would undoubtedly draw enormous attention, but he had been prepared for that from the beginning. Having reached the Dharma Soul stage, he saw no reason to hide his strength.
They said the nail that sticks out gets hammered down? Then the S-class criminals currently reigning as dictators across Africa, flagrantly violating every international law, should have been hammered first.
If those men remained untouched, what reason was there for him, safely cooperating with the South Korean government, to fear the hammer?
Of course, someone might still attempt it. But first they would have to pierce the shield of the Republic of Korea itself, and second they would have to overcome the power of Han Yujin, a Dharma Soul stage expert.
Moreover, they could not afford to be slow. With sufficient karma, he could grow stronger in leaps and bounds, even overnight, climbing like stairs, no, like cliffs.
Complacency was dangerous, but excessive caution was equally foolish. He did not lack confidence in his own strength.
Having reached this conclusion, Han Yujin ended his rest and immediately set to work.
First came the task of organizing the knowledge he intended to distribute. Once he began in earnest after reaching the Dharma Soul stage, his efficiency proved seven or eight times greater than before.
While continuing that work, he attended the hunter preliminary education course, which had only a few days remaining, and was now on his way home.
There is some genuinely useful information here.
The classes were currently teaching primitive applications of dharma scripts, or what Earth called glyph utilization. They were basic techniques useful in places without light or where breathing was difficult.
He felt a tingling excitement at the thought of the upheaval that would follow once his own knowledge began to spread in earnest. Apart from his grand plan, he was not entirely uninterested in wealth and fame.
With visions of a beautiful future rapidly transforming for the better, he stepped out of the taxi and headed toward his one-room building.
Suddenly, something triggered the divine sense net that a Dharma Soul cultivator should always have deployed. The moment they were detected, they were already attacking him.
His thoughts accelerated instinctively. The world seemed to slow.
Dust drifting on the night breeze froze almost motionless in the air. The alley branching off the main road was not particularly dark or secluded, yet here he was, ambushed.
Two monstrous humanoid figures shrouded in pitch-black energy charged toward him, claws raised with murderous intent. Observing them in meticulous detail within the slowed world, Han Yujin’s heart sank into icy calm.
Ghosts.
They were exactly the same entities he had seen on the post-apocalyptic Earth. Their appearance and the aura they emitted were virtually identical.
Moreover, these were no mere weak spirits. The power he sensed suggested the pair together could easily overwhelm an A-class hunter. Had he not reached the Dharma Soul stage, simply detecting and responding to this surprise attack would have been difficult.
Unfortunately for them, however, he had grown at least ten times stronger than the previous night. He also knew precisely what they were and how to deal with them.
In that fleeting instant, shorter than a single second as they closed in, he raised his hand. Several simulations of the aftermath were already running through his mind. He was even forming hypotheses about the background of this incident.
The only plausible reason for these ghosts to appear and attack him was the pseudo-religious international drug cartel he had reported, which had subsequently been wiped out.
As I thought. My intuition was correct.
That cult was definitely connected to Ghost Wonhee. The drug operation had merely been the tip of the iceberg. It was clear now.
Perfect.
He had been struggling to find clues about the post-apocalyptic Earth. He had even considered making a dangerous scouting trip there after steeling his resolve.
Instead, the clue had come to him.
If they wanted to catch me, they should have brought at least the suited ghost, if not Wonhee herself.
A barrier of blue lightning formed around his body. At the same time, a sword tip thrust out from within it, flashing with blue-white dharma script restraints.
A thunderous roar that shook the entire quiet residential street erupted into the night.