Chương 789: Protagonist (主人公) (4)

In a far-off past.

In the days when I was nothing more than an ordinary mortal being.

I once saw a Buddhist nun.

That Buddhist nun went around helping people with good deeds even though it brought no benefit.

At times with a shaven head, and at times with grown hair because there was no chance to cut it, she wandered the world and continued her good deeds.

Why was it? That sight of her endlessly helping people...

It also looked as if she craved something.

I asked her what she was seeking, and she answered.

—Dao. I walk the world to obtain the true Dao.

Such a her looked so beautiful to me.

She said that until she attained enlightenment, she would share affection with no one.

And yet, why was it?

Such a thing did not matter.

I, whose blood always boiled and embraced regardless of man or woman, felt that with her, I must not recklessly apply such a measure.

I did everything I could to draw closer to her.

I cut desire out of myself and created everything imaginable.

However, I, to the very end, could not know what the Dao she wanted was.

I could not make what she wanted.

Perhaps...

Even if I devoted my whole life, it felt like it may be my fate to never satisfy her heart.

But even so, it did not matter.

Even if I devoted my life and achieved nothing, it did not matter.

Just once, If only once, I succeeded in opening the path before her, A mere life in which I do not even know what the Dao is...

I could throw it all away.

16th cycle.

Riding on the back of [General Seo], I feel a powerful being tailing us as I leave Red Moon Island.

Kugugugugu!

It is the owner of the 'gaze' that always watches Red Moon Island.

[Stop.] The great inspector who oversees and monitors the entire Human Race territory, The Integration stage Grand Cultivator, Wi Ryeong-seon!

The being who scatters countless clones to watch all the Sky Island areas begins to send his will toward me.

'After the half-step Heavenly Being stage, is it immediately the Integration stage?'

I give a bitter smile, and without even looking back, I immediately spur the Four-Axis stage [General Seo] to accelerate even harder.

Kwagwagwawang!

Only two-tenths of power remain, so attacking is impossible, but moving at the speed of a Four-Axis stage cultivator is possible.

And from far away, a clone of Wi Ryeong-seon flies toward me.

A clone of Heavenly Being stage cultivation!

'Just one clone is a Heavenly Being... that is an Integration stage Grand Cultivator!'

It is a fearsome realm.

Moreover, the Heavenly Being stage clone should carry the enlightenment and battle experience of the Integration stage, so its strength would not fall behind the Four-Axis stage.

[Devilish cultivator Seo Eun-hyun of Red Moon Island, hear this. Because you used the techniques of the Heart Tribe, you must hereby be detained on suspicion of being a Heart Tribe spy. Submit peacefully to the bindings of the Human Race Grand Alliance!] At the stern cry of Wi Ryeong-seon, I only drive [General Seo] faster.

It seems that as I pierced the Heavenly Tribulation and used Cutting Principle, the Formless Sword briefly revealed itself.

Kugugugugu!

In the far distance, the edge of the Sky Island zone comes into view.

'I will go straight to the Flying Immortal Platform like this.'

The cultivation of Cutting Principle proceeds in this way.

At first, one whose ties are shallow.

Next, one whose ties are slightly deep.

Thus gradually cutting ties with those whose ties are deep, and in the end cutting ties with the world itself.

Wo-woong!

While riding General Seo and fleeing, I also send several strikes of Cutting Principle toward Wi Ryeong-seon who chases me.

However, perhaps because even if inferior it is the split soul of an Integration stage Grand Cultivator...

I feel that no matter how many times I throw them, the effect of Cutting Principle is small.

'It doesn't matter.'

Since in any case I do not plan to stay in the Bright Cold Realm in this life, if I drop away from the Bright Cold Realm itself and cut my ties with the Bright Cold Realm, my ties with Wi Ryeong-seon will naturally fall away as well.

Of course, for now rather than cutting ties, it is only to the extent of cutting 'attention', so it will not make him forget me completely...

Even so, before long it will be to the extent that he clears me completely from his mind.

Kugugugugu!

Continuing to send Cutting Principle toward Wi Ryeong-seon who keeps chasing me, I continue my Cutting Principle cultivation as we wage a chase for several days and nights.

And at last, the Heaven-Earth Palace with the Flying Immortal Platform comes into view.

Kugugugu!

I sense the presence of powerful cultivators at the Four-Axis stage and above from Heaven-Earth Palace, but I ignore it and execute a forced breakthrough.

'This is... Star Extinguishing True Chapter!'

Perhaps because Wi Ryeong-seon sent word to seize the suspicious being that is me, several Four-Axis stage inspectors appear from Heaven-Earth Palace and start to exert attraction force to capture me.

'I won't get caught. Anyway, being near Heaven-Earth Palace is enough.'

I see innumerable nets of connection and causality.

I still cannot touch those nets.

However, if it is only to pry through the gaps and slip out of the world...!

Tsuaaaaaat!

The Formless Sword wedges through the plane and cuts space.

And beyond the slit of space, I observe the vulnerability of the Bright Cold Realm's dimension that is revealed in Indra's Net and move toward that gap.

Chwaaak! Pong!

[Youuuuu!] A shout from behind by Wi Ryeong-seon reaches me, but I simply turn my back and put my palms together.

[In the deepest part of the master's Dao Heart, connect the divine power of Cutting Principle. Just as when Master reached the realm of Treading Heavens Beyond the Path, you connected the inner core and the Formless Sword. If Master connects Cutting Principle to Master's soul itself...] Knowledge about Cutting Principle that Hong Fan advised gets quickly digested, and I look upon the immeasurably vast 'connection' that links the Bright Cold Realm and me.

The breaths I inhaled in the Bright Cold Realm.

Spiritual energy, rays of light.

The earth I tread there, all the wonders I saw there.

All of that is the connection that links me and the Bright Cold Realm.

'Cut.'

Kiririririk...!

Toward the principle of the connection that lies between my own spirit and the Bright Cold Realm, I use the divine power of Cutting Principle and slice it.

Of course, I still do not slice the principle itself.

However, I manage to make the apparition of the principle a little blurry, And it seems that much is enough.

Flash!

Outside the Bright Cold Realm, I fall past the Interdimensional Void and, together with Hong Fan, head toward a place where a familiar attraction force is felt.

[As I see it, the best way to slow the curse of the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment is to go to a place where the True Immortal of Heavenly Punishment's perception of Master is most delayed.] [If it is a place that where the perception is most delayed.] [A place where the traces of another True Immortal are. The Head Realm.] Kugugugu!

Beyond the Interdimensional Void, I grasp what the attraction force that drags us is.

'This is...!'

It is a familiar attraction force.

Back when I was in the Head Realm, it was also energy I felt so utterly sick and tired of.

In the far distance, [something] that resembles a hard-to-recognize head seems to come into view.

And the moment I perceive it.

Before I know it, Hong Fan and I find ourselves in a familiar sky.

Chwaaaak!

"Keheok, keok!"

"Uuumm...!"

Wadangtang!

Tearing in from the Interdimensional Void into some space inside the Head Realm, we are flung into one spot inside that space.

"This place is..."

I squint and look around, and I soon know where this is.

"... Serving Command Palace...?"

Yes.

The topmost floor of the Head Realm's Serving Command Palace.

It is where the Serving Command Seal exists.

"Mm, it seems the attraction force of that Serving Command Seal pulled us in. Originally, they say that returning to the Decaying Corpse Realm you originally came from at the Nascent Soul stage is like picking stars from the sky, but seeing that we returned this easily, it is probably due to this."

"Ah, I see."

I realize how the Serving Command Seal helped us.

'From the beginning, Hong Fan is a being designated by the Serving Command Seal.'

The Serving Command Seal summoned heavenly fortune.

Hong Fan also descended from the heavens under the influence of that heavenly fortune as the one expected to be the most necessary to me.

'Since the one the heavens send through the Serving Command Seal is Hong Fan, the Serving Command Seal may have strongly pulled in the existence called Hong Fan.'

Thanks to that, it seems we arrived in the Head Realm more easily than expected.

"General Seo was almost unnecessary. Haha."

We are quite lucky.

Normally, we would have had to avoid the Vestiges of the Interdimensional Void and descend over several days while fighting with a Four-Axis stage puppet, but we descended to the Head Realm in an instant without consuming much of General Seo's durability.

It feels like heavenly fortune is following.

The heavens that always drove me into extreme environments seem, this time, to take my side a little.

I smile as I look at the Serving Command Seal before my eyes.

Immortal Treasure Serving Command Seal.

Why is it?

I strongly feel that this thing called an Immortal Treasure is alive and deliberately helped us.

"Thank you."

For designating the connection that is Hong Fan, and again helping us with heavenly fortune.

As I offer that brief thanks, I examine the curse within my body.

'Indeed...'

The speed at which the curse of lightning transformation progresses has decreased!

"At this level..."

On the assumption that I live only in the Head Realm, it seems I can endure five hundred years.

"Five hundred years in the Head Realm... If I continue progressing in the divine power of Cutting Principle... surely, there may be a possibility."

If it were another method, I would not speak like this.

But this method called the Star Extinguishing True Chapter suits me better than any other method.

If it were an ordinary method, it would be nothing more than me setting a target value, but the Star Extinguishing True Chapter is different.

It truly feels like there is a possibility.

"Master, it seems you have now reached the realm where the 'net' is visible..."

"That's right. The shape of the 'net' is visible."

As I attempt to exit the Serving Command Palace, I converse with Hong Fan about the progress of the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.

"In that case, rather than earnestly cutting connections, how about Master makes it his goal to cut the law itself?"

"Cut... the law...?"

I ask again in disbelief, but Hong Fan nods with a serious tone.

"I am not speaking of something like the principles of the world. Just trying to cut a few simple principles that apply to Master. Conveniently as the Serving Command Palace is helping, it will probably go well, no?"

"The Serving Command Palace? Ah, right."

The Serving Command Palace with the Serving Command Seal is also called Liberation Palace, and it is said to possess the ability to release prohibitions nearby.

The very law called 'liberation' exists in the Serving Command Palace.

If so...

"If, while leaving Serving Command Palace, I cultivate by using Cutting Principle to cut the restrictions that bind me in Serving Command Palace...!"

"That is correct. As the power of liberation and the cultivation of Cutting Principle interlock, Master will be able to advance the progress of the Cutting Principle cultivation even faster."

"Indeed, excellent, Hong Fan."

I did not think to use the power of liberation itself from the Serving Command Palace.

My creativity did not reach it.

Hong Fan filled in the parts I lack and helped me choose better options.

'Thank you. Truly...'

From that day, I practice cutting the laws of prohibitions laid in the Serving Command Palace, or I personally unfold a formation and lay prohibitions, then, borrowing the law of liberation, practice cutting the fundamental 'law' of the prohibition itself.

The Cutting Principle cultivation of the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.

Its progress rises very rapidly, and I gradually become accustomed to touching the fundamental law.

And one day, I finally succeed in perfectly using the law of 'liberation' itself.

Shukagagak!

As the power of liberation is added for an instant to the line of Cutting Principle, I ignore all prohibitions laid inside the Liberation Palace and move outside Liberation Palace in a flash.

"Huff...!"

A truly immense marvel.

A transcendent method that touches fundamental laws.

That is precisely the Star Extinguishing True Chapter.

At the same time, I realize something.

'The moment I cut the law of prohibition by the power of liberation... I felt something.'

It was like the 'attention' of the faint connections I severed countless times when I was in the Bright Cold Realm.

'In the law of liberation... there is the 'heart'?'

At this strange sensation I feel for the first time, I look back at the Liberation Palace.

The Liberation Palace drifting through the void space of the Head Realm.

At the center of that Liberation Palace, the seal called the Serving Command Seal contains a powerful law of liberation.

At the same time, from that law of Liberation, I seem to feel a certain 'heart'.

'This is...'

Is this also a coincidence?

Or is it someone's intention?

On the first day I apply the law of liberation to Cutting Principle, I shudder as I feel the intense 'heart' felt from Liberation Palace.

'What in the world... is this 'heart'...!?'

Who on earth is the maker of the Liberation Palace?

Just who are they, that they breathed such a powerful heart into a liberation seal that is no more than an object?

And, for what reason, do they harbor such... a desperate heart?

The wave of heart I feel from Liberation Palace is something like an obsession close to madness, similar to the heart with which I once prayed and prayed in desperation to kill Yuan Li.

For a long time, Without knowing whether it is coincidence or guidance, until that wave of heart I came to feel by chance can no longer be felt, I look endlessly at the Liberation Palace, And I only think about the maker who created Liberation Palace.

Present.

Heaven and Earth divide into two.

I am not simply speaking of the sky and ground.

The world itself that all of us have known until now is split apart.

A divine technique that surpasses by thousands of times the strike with which I barely surpassed the Great Mountain Supreme Deity in the Great Mountain Battle and scratched the boundary of Cakravāda.

By that divine technique, the entire boundary of Cakravāda is torn away, and the scenery of [Outside] enters the eyes of all Governing Immortals including me.

Some glittering presences with a feeling far too remote exist beyond the dense void.

And in between, a wind called Vairambha Wind (毘藍風), which appears when a Heavenly Domain is generated, blows in.

Wo-woong— Before I know it, a golden silhouette that escapes from the Impermanence Sword looks toward somewhere beyond the Vairambha Wind, far across the void.

In that far-off place, a ray of shining light enters his eyes, enters all our eyes.

From the scenery of [Outside] beyond the domain of Cakravāda, a familiar nostalgia is reflected.

It is the nostalgia of Earth.

I can tell instinctively.

The dimension where the Earth we lived in...

It exists beyond those glittering worlds.

Tsuaaaaat!

Seeing that, we all firm our sentiments.

Hong Fan, seeing us like that, lifts the sword.

As if asking, do you think you can go back?

No answer is needed.

"The single strike just now is something we barely evaded by combining Golden Great Thousand World and Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens, plus Heavenly Escape and Oh Hyun-seok's Primal Chaos World."

Kim Young-hoon speaks.

It is as he says.

Only by combining each of our Martial Pinnacles and even adding Heavenly Escape and Oh Hyun-seok's authority could we barely let that radiance strike pass through.

However, Hong Fan is a monster who evolves with each single move.

The evasion method we just used will no longer work.

"We can't keep dodging."

"We have to face it."

"Do you have a combination in mind?"

"For that, I ask you, Hyung-nim. I will compose the breaking formula."

In the end, to defeat Hong Fan, we have to join forces.

I begin to pour my all into analyzing the martial arts of the Emptiness Sword, reinterpreting them, and devising a breaking formula, while Kim Young-hoon begins to pour his all into composing combinations that, through the combination of his martial arts and mine, can deflect or counter Hong Fan's attacks.

Immediately after, Hong Fan moves the Emptiness Sword.

—Emptiness Sword Sixth Form.

—Future.

Peobeong!

Including me, Kim Young-hoon and our comrades are annihilated in a single blow.

But as we pass into the 2102nd, I can at last discern the essence of Future.

'Acceleration... is it?'

The base speed being speed of Undying—that is Future King Fate Supreme Deity Hong Fan Gu Ju.

And accelerating one step more from the state of Undying.

That is the essence of the True Martial Art Emptiness Sword's Sixth Form, Future.

Only after dying several times do I roughly grasp the composition of the Emptiness Sword.

The basic composition that I grasp is as follows.

First Form, Zero.

A killing technique that maximizes 'scraping', extending even to cutting, tearing, and ripping.

Second Form, King.

A killing technique that maximizes 'downward slash' displaying great force by using the power of attraction force itself.

Third Form, Light.

A killing technique that maximizes 'coiling force' (纏絲勁), digging into 'rotation' of force itself.

Fourth Form, Heaven.

A killing technique that maximizes 'upward slash', attaining a property that transcends spacetime through repulsive force by inverting attraction force.

Fifth Form, Upper.

A killing technique that maximizes 'force emission' (發勁), expanding the concept even to throwing techniques that shoot out force.

Sixth Form, Future.

It appears to be a technique that maximizes 'acceleration,' becoming even faster than a state of having reached the domain of Undying.

I still cannot know the detailed principle.

And the final profundity of the Emptiness Sword, the Seventh Form, Hope.

'This is still impossible to analyze.'

I cannot even tell what kind of property that is.

The only certain thing is that Hope, despite being a mere decisive move, is 'alive'.

Possessing a living characteristic, it holds a trait that, once its first target is marked, it pursues to the end and kills. It is something that can be called a martial doctrine that transcends martial doctrines.

Based on the above basic forms, it appears to use applied decisive techniques or applied profundities through using the basic forms innumerable times or drawing the power out to the extreme.

And the terror of the Emptiness Sword is that, while linking the above forms with applied decisive techniques and profundities, it shows infinite combinations.

I think like a madman on the weaknesses of the Emptiness Sword and breaking formulas, and on Kim Young-hoon's side, he devises combinations of decisive techniques to attack Hong Fan Gu Ju.

And, each gripping our sword and saber, we take a step forward.

The gold sword and the silver sword are raised and aimed at Hong Fan Gu Ju.

In an instant, we take our step.

Clang— Kang Min-hee constrains our ranks, and once again drags Hong Fan Gu Ju's whole body down into the realm of the physical.

And within the familiar world of the physical, our martial arts begin to encircle Hong Fan.

I am defense, Kim Young-hoon is offense.

We together form a Taiji formation and surround Hong Fan, unleashing attacks.

Kiiiiing!

—Apex of Movement Techniques.

—True Martial Arts, Black Heaven.

As the movement technique that reaches True Martial Arts is performed, Hyeon Mu's divine method, faster than Kim Young-hoon, takes our rear.

However, we also have a technique reaches a fragment of True Martial Arts.

Heavenly Escape!

Kiing!

At the moment the rear is taken by the True Martial Arts Black Heaven, I hide our presence with Heavenly Escape and conceal the body, and Hong Fan begins to use a wide-area technique with an expressionless face.

"Splitting Heaven."

Kugugugu!

Pure white radiance blooms from his hand, and the entire area of the Audience Chamber is torn away.

However, even before that absolute violence, Kim Young-hoon and I do not yield and keep pressing Hong Fan.

Hong Fan mutters as he looks at Kim Young-hoon.

"Why has a soul still not arisen? This generation truly is full of errors."

Yes.

In Kim Young-hoon, something one could call a soul has still not appear.

Even though he audiences the Future King Fate Supreme Deity!

"Well again, miracles are always irrational and unequal."

Woo-woong!

The Emptiness Sword resonates.

At the same time, a chilling sense throughout my whole body rings an alarm.

—Emptiness Sword Third Form.

—Applied Profundity.

Wo-woong!

The Origin Essence of Light settles in the Emptiness Sword.

The Emptiness Sword, merged with the Origin Essence itself, brightly dyes Heaven, Earth and the Heavens Above, boiling the surroundings!

Light whirls around Hong Fan as the center.

And immediately after, —Bright (明).

Heaven and Earth brighten, and within the surging light, without even time to fully dodge surging strikes of slashes, Kim Young-hoon and I are shredded and killed.

Somehow, I feel drowsy and in a daze.

However, I confirm that my consciousness still remains.

Even though not only the true body but the prophecies and the Heavenly Domain itself are shredded, my consciousness alone remains, aiming to resurrect.

At that tenacious life force, Hong Fan looks at one strand of my consciousness and mutters.

"You are second only to Silver Basket in tenacity."

He raises the Emptiness Sword.

If I take his technique one more time like this, I will be completely annihilated.

I can tell instinctively.

However, I do not worry.

Rather, through the single strand of consciousness, I slowly begin restoring the vanished body.

It is not over yet.

For I am not the only one on this battlefield.

Flutter— A faint flapping sound is heard.

It is Kim Yeon.

She half-opens her eyes in silence and looks somewhere.

The place she looks at is none other than the inside of the cage where the Western Heavenly Venerable, the Netherworld Queen Mother Bong Hwa is confined.

And at some point, Wo-woong!

Kim Yeon raises her hand.

Something rises from above her hand.

It flies in the shape of a small bird and begins to approach the cage.

Perhaps noticing the sign, the Future King's technique flies toward Kim Yeon even while it faces me and Kim Young-hoon.

With each of those attacks, holes open in Kim Yeon's entire body, and the bird that rose from her hand staggers, yet the bird does not fall.

The Splitting Heaven Mantra flies in, and the technique of Future flies in as well, but even after taking those terrifying techniques, the bird keeps flying.

Only then does Hong Fan sense something, turning his gaze to Kim Yeon as his face starts to twitch.

"Vast Cold. Are you giving aid? You prepared a method to escape my sight, but will you truly be satisfied with expending that method on that child?"

Having realized something, Hong Fan raises his hand toward the void and mutters quietly.

"But it is foolish. With the level of Bong Myeong's Liberation Law Talent, it can never become the key."

Woo-woooong— Darkness blooms centered on Hong Fan, and the rank that Kang Min-hee constraint begins to be released again.

He is again being released into a metaphysical existence.

At the same time, the Future King begins to use his authority.

"This amusement now bores me. If there are truly no more stories to be told, let us end."

Woo-woooong!

Reality begins to shatter to pieces.

At the same time, everyone present begins to feel it.

The future is being rewritten.

It is not merely on the level of history rewriting that the Underworld and I do.

Reality twists, and the scene of the next moment is engraved into everyone's mind.

With no causality at all, a future in which all the Heavenly Kings gathered are cleanly beheaded is fixed.

Just like when Oh Hyun-seok was made into an egg, a reality manipulation that needs no causality of any kind.

The authority of Future Rewrite begins to be properly exerted.

Thus, in the next moment, all of us are to have all heads cut off and, with no way for Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens to save us, die.

But Hong Fan and I, in an instant, feel the energy of a 'different existence' that intrudes upon our battlefield, and we look at them.

That existence inhabits Oh Hyun-seok's body and sheds silver light from the eyes.

"Silver Basket. O Hollow God who has lost the qualification of creation. I do not feel the need to insult you again and again. Return to Mount Sumeru. If you are to be buried inside the Cradle of Chaos, I will not defile you with my own hand."

"O great Owner of Fate, you are one close to omnipotence, but you are not all-knowing. How arrogant. Your complacency grants us possibility."

"Do you hope for possibility?"

"..."

Silver Basket, possessing Oh Hyun-seok's body, glares silently at Hong Fan and speaks.

"I too am an Ender. Thus, I too can cause a miracle."

"O vagrant of Absolute origin who has fallen into thievery. Do not dare to usurp what is mine."

"Do I truly need to show you for you to believe?"

Silver Basket seems bitter at Hong Fan's words.

However, in an instant, Flash!

What Silver Basket has been subtly covering, the bird sent by Kim Yeon, The bird that Hong Fan called the 'Liberation Law Talent' begins to shine with an enormous halo of light.

In an instant, through insight nearing on omniscience, Hong Fan perceives Silver Basket's stratagem and lifts the Emptiness Sword.

—True Martial Arts Emptiness Sword, Final Profundity.

—Hope.

Flash!

By Hope, even as Silver Basket's spirit is torn to shreds, they draw out to maximum output Oh Hyun-seok's fate, the power of Primal Chaos World, and through the [dream], they swap the position of the Liberation Law Talent with [someone else] who exists in a far different dimension.

And the existence swapped with the Liberation Law Talent, summoned by deceiving the eyes of the Future King and arriving before the birdcage, is a [bird] shining in all of Heaven's natural colors.

The Liberation Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek.

That great Heavenly Craftsman descends as the main body and meets eyes with the existence inside the birdcage.

Immediately after, The will of Gongmyo Cheon-saek begins to spread inside the Audience Chamber.

—My mere life that does not even know what the Dao is.

The symbol of the Liberation Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek.

The symbol of the [Bird Trapped in a Birdcage] rises above him.

Soon, Gongmyo Cheon-saek and his symbol overlap.

The symbol starts to shine, and upon the shackles that bind Bong Hwa, imprisoned inside the cage, One point of the shackles formed of the Emptiness Supreme Deity resonates.

Inside the Emptiness Supreme Deity, within the Serving Command Palace, the Serving Command Seal shines brilliantly and exerts the authority of Liberation.

—If it is for you, I can cast away everything!

Bong Hwa gently closes her eyes.

Jjeoeoeok!

Hong Fan, with expressionless eyes, perceives what the Liberation Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek has done.

"What was put inside the Serving Command Seal was not the split soul, but the Origin Essence of Liberation. Was it your very essence itself? Astonishing. To lay a stratagem of this degree within the body of Myeong Won, the most distant from my gaze. I give my respect."

He speaks toward Gongmyo Cheon-saek, to Bong Myeong in a tone that seems slightly surprised, and he gives him time as if to offer respect.

And at last, Flash!

The Origin Essence of Liberation of the Serving Command Palace bursts forth, and the entire body of Gongmyo Cheon-saek, assimilated with the symbol of the [Bird Trapped in a Cage], explodes.

At the same time, the birdcage that imprisoned Bong Hwa bursts open together with the true body of Gongmyo Cheon-saek, and the shackle that restrained her is released.

Thud!

Bong Hwa, who was trapped in the birdcage in the form of a small doll, begins to reveal herself.

Her presence grows immense, and as soon as she steps out of the cage, she becomes vast enough to place the former Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek on one hand and stroke him.

Bong Hwa strokes the dying Gongmyo Cheon-saek and opens her mouth.

"I will remember."

"Please attain the Dao. O Imperial Venerable."

Tsaaaaa— With those words, Gongmyo Cheon-saek scatters into dust.

The authority of the Liberation Supreme Deity Gongmyo Cheon-saek, the Owner of Liberation, collides with the multicolored birdcage and keeps trying to liberate the 'something' that is compressed into the form of the cage, and Hong Fan, perhaps as a gesture of respect, grants a reprieve and speaks.

"You have kept a loyal retainer, Hwe-ah."

"While I was held by the Emptiness Supreme Deity, I reread the histories that you tore away each time I came to the Audience Chamber."

"Have you read them again."

"I understand both your past and the beginning of the tale. I have read more history than you, so the advancement condition of the Life Supreme Deity is satisfied."

"Do not advance, Hwe-ah."

Hong Fan, with eyes full of self-loathing, looks at Bong Hwa and speaks.

"Will I not have to tear you apart with my own hands yet again?"

However, Bong Hwa only smiles faintly.

"O pitiable one. This girl dares to report. This time will be different."

"You said so every time you came."

As if words are unnecessary, Bong Hwa closes her mouth.

Immediately after, she shouts.

True to the name Western Heavenly Venerable, three shouts toward the west.

Kugugugung!

At the same time, her appearance begins to change.

Her once-tidy hair becomes disheveled.

Her lower body changes to that of a leopard, her hands and feet grow jagged and large like those of a ferocious beast, and her teeth and gaze become a vicious visage.

The Western Heavenly Venerable, the Netherworld Queen Mother properly reveals the true form of her Gandhara, and becomes death and darkness.

She begins to transform into the very system of the Cycle of Reincarnation.

And into her two hands, a golden aggregation of information is drawn.

The Origin Essence of History, Omniscience.

The compendium of all knowledge and history gradually begins to become one with her.

Seeing this, Hong Fan Gu Ju once again merely raises the Emptiness Sword.

—Emptiness Sword, Final Profundity.

—Hope.

Rays of light surge like waves and sweep over Bong Hwa.

Hong Fan stares at her expressionlessly.

Once again, she is to be torn apart, As has happened many times before.

But in the next moment, As if something else is caught in Hong Fan's insight, his eyes twitch.

"You are being a nuisance. Silver Basket."

Woo-woooong!

Centered on Oh Hyun-seok's body, the spirit of Silver Basket, which has been torn into hundreds of strands, gathers power from the [Outside].

The Gods of the Otherworlds are lending their power to Silver Basket.

Mount Sumeru, Thirty-Third Heaven, Audience Chamber.

Before the audience of the king, the strange powers and chaotic deities that come from outside the cradle begin to intrude.