⟨Present⟩
Light bursts forth.
Through the secret art of Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception, I briefly send the Hopes flying into another world.
They will soon chase after again, but there is nothing better than this to buy time right now.
Kiriririk!
The Emptiness Sword rings.
It makes a sound like a snake hissing as it rips apart and pushes away the chaos.
As if they are specks of dust, things drift between me and Hong Fan, floating and flickering.
Each and every one of those countless specks of dust is a Heavenly Domain.
Just by us standing facing each other, the principles of the world clash, and universes are born and decline like dust in a dust storm.
And then, the Emptiness Sword bares its fangs.
I swing the sword of star clusters, imbued with the power of chaos and the Turning Wheel, and block the Emptiness Sword.
Paaatt!
What echoes out is not so much a simple sound as something that should be called a vast vibration or a transcendent resonance.
Artsen zijn verbijsterd: deze groente verbrandt vet terwijl je slaapt!Open
The first strike.
As my sword and his collide, countless clusters of light burst out like a sandstorm, like fireworks.
Each of them is a new timeline and a parallel world.
And the more worlds come into being, the more the body of the Creator God called Mount Sumeru is completed and strengthened.
Gugugugu!
The great divinity holding Mount Sumeru in one hand sucks in the countless Heavenly Domains and parallel worlds being generated around it and throws it within the primordial chaos.
Wiiiiing—
Inside the Gestation World.
Mount Sumeru spins.
Kugugugu!
The Mount Sumeru that is spinning falls straight toward us, flickering.
And in the midst of it all, Hong Fan once again swings the Emptiness Sword.
The Hopes are mercilessly fired in a barrage.
At first I could block the Hopes, but now that I too have drawn out every last bit of final power I can use...
'Those powers endlessly evolve in accordance with their opponent.'
They have already evolved to match me, and because they are evolving even now as they fly toward me, I am actually no longer able to block them.
'The essence of Hope is...'
Only after I became a half-step Creator God...
Only now am I able to understand that principle and secret.
No, I should rather say that it 'comes to mind'.
Because even when he whispered it to me, I could not bear it and could not understand it...
⟨16th Cycle⟩
Kiriririk—
Black Gang Qi surges up from Hong Fan.
That is Hong Fan's Entering Heavens Beyond the Path!
Just like my Formless Sword, those things that seem to have no form or rule fly toward me under his will.
—Final Profundity.
It is Hong Fan's nature that, if he has the chance, he immediately pours his greatest, strongest, ultimate technique onto the enemy to put them to death.
As if proving this, he immediately unfolds the final profundity of his Entering Heavens Beyond the Path.
—Hope.
'Uh...'
The black Gang Qi becomes bright light.
For a moment I blankly flinch as I watch the mass of Gang Qi flying toward me, then I hastily respond.
My instincts move.
It feels as if someone is whispering by my ear.
—The current Hope is something whose power I have held back and restricted by a large degree in order to try crossing hands with you. But its essence is the same.
Why is it?
Inside Hong Fan...
Some voice resounds.
'Is this...Hong Fan's heart?'
I don't know why.
Yet for some reason, right now I feel as if I'm connected with Hong Fan himself.
Up until now, the vision of Treading Heavens only reads the opponent's heart essence more deeply.
But Hong Fan is different.
'As if...'
—The essence of this is a story. It is a story that unfolds in order to ruin the opponent I have taken as my enemy.
'It feels like I'm inside Hong Fan's heart.'
It feels as if a part of my mind has went into Hong Fan's heart essence, connected with his mind, and is telling me the answer sheet.
Does Hong Fan know this?
For some reason, I get the feeling that he does.
Wiiiiing—
Tukwagagagang!
From the cave residence where the Heavenly Void Furnace is located, at the center of Ascension Path, a gigantic tunnel is bored through all the way out beyond Ascension Path.
It is that Hong Fan's secret art pierces the Ascension Path, which is on the scale of dozens of mountain ranges, in a single instant.
Walgak!
Though my completely aged body cannot endure taking that technique head-on, it boils up.
"Is this your Entering Heavens!?"
Even though it is Entering Heavens, its fearsome power far surpasses my Formless Sword of Treading Heavens.
This is rather...
It even feels as if some transcendent existence, in a state of having reached the Ultimate of Martial Arts, is humoring me by insisting that it is Entering Heavens Beyond the Path just to have a match with me.
I even feel doubt as to whether this is really power at the level of Entering Heavens...
'Hong Fan said it is Entering Heavens.'
If so, then it is Entering Heavens.
I simply believe it.
If my friend says so, then so it is. What need is there for any reasons or tricks!?
Pachijijijik—
The more I draw out power, the more lightning boils up throughout my whole body.
For hundreds of years, the curse of lightning was never released in the end.
But...
At the same time, it also strengthened my full power.
Kururung!
In an instant I transform into a form like a spirit of lightning.
I become a single streak of lightning, itself.
It is a movement at true lighting speed that an ordinary Nascent Soul stage cultivator cannot move at.
I advance at a speed that far surpasses my realm and crash toward Hong Fan.
But Hong Fan stamps his foot.
—Stepping technique, Black Heaven.
—Movement technique, Future.
Shiririririk—
He flies toward me in an instant.
The sight of the black Gang Qi brushing through space as it flies in looks just like a single black snake.
'He surpasses...lightning speed...!'
In an instant he surpasses lightning speed and accelerates even more, and at some point his speed becomes such that I, a Nascent Soul stage cultivator, am no longer able to follow.
Kiiiiiing—
He accelerates to the extreme.
And, for a single instant!
Kwaaaang!
My entire body crumples as I go flying toward one part of Ascension Path.
"Keheok!"
Even though I possess a lightning body, the very [concept] of [lightning] itself crumples and is torn away.
I barely, only by instinct, understand what has happened.
'For an instant...he surpassed light speed...!?'
A speed that, by interfering from the future to the past, makes a sure hit succeed.
It is a speed so far, so distant beyond something like lightning speed.
A terrifying Entering Heavens Beyond the Path with no answer in sight.
That is Hong Fan's fearsome Entering Heavens.
However, as I see that fragment of his unfathomable talent...
As I see the gap I can absolutely not overcome, I smile.
Because it feels just like fighting Kim Young-hoon.
In the very first cycle, I fought Kim Young-hoon and despaired and despaired again.
However, if I think back on it now...
It seems I was happy just to chase after someone so far beyond my reach that I could never catch up.
"Huhahahaha!"
With a face full of delight, I once again restore my body and unfold the Severing Mountain Swordsmanship.
As Hong Fan, wrapped in a mass of black Gang Qi, flies toward me, for some reason, he begins to transmit to me his realizations of Martial Arts while remaining connected to me.
—If you wish to face Hope, there are two or three strategies of attack. This derives from the principle of Hope...
Kiiiii!
From his black Gang Qi, clusters of light burst out, and once again his final profundity spews toward me.
Why is it?
The sight of him driving me into a corner using such fearsome techniques...
It even feels like he simply wants to give me a thorough beating.
Is there perhaps something about me he has been dissatisfied with?
Perhaps in the 500 years we have spent together, I only trained with him and treat him too stingily.
'In the next life...I should at least let him eat some delicious potato dishes.'
Right now, the only thing that comes to mind is potatoes.
The clusters of light of Hope suddenly swell to an immense degree and then rush in to tear me to apart.
And I, striving somehow to digest the realizations of Martial Arts that Hong Fan has conveyed, begin to oppose Hope with all my strength.
⟨Present⟩
Kiriririk—
As I look at the Hope that, though I drove it away with Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception, once again chases us across the timeline, I recall the principle of Hope.
Only now does the knowledge in my head become unsealed.
Because the knowledge itself about what is called Hope has belonged to the Future King all this time, it seems he has kept it sealed until I reached a realm where I can endure it.
'Thank you, Gu Ju.'
Back in the 16th cycle, I was in a realm where I knew nothing, so I actually did not receive any influence at all, but...
Now I perfectly understand the principle of Hope.
If I had come to know this in days of Great Net Immortal or below rather than at the level of a Governing Immortal, I would have gained a powerful Heart Demon from the shock toward the thing that is called Martial Arts that I have known until now.
I would have ended up trying to reproduce Hope at my level even though I could not, have my personality split into thousands, and have gone mad and died.
The principle and essence of Hope are as follows.
Recalling the Martial Arts insights I gained back then, which are only now unsealed, I adjust my grip on the Impermanence Sword.
—Hope is the maximization of sword control.
I remember the time when I first learned sword control.
I input and input actions into sword control, and at some point, the sword control moved by itself, and in the end I even copied myself into it, becoming Sword Gang.
—It can be called the maximization of a clone.
And if Gang Sphere is maximized, it becomes one with one's heart essence and allows one to project that heart essence itself into the world.
However, the heart essence thus projected can at some point be compressed again and 'shot out'.
The power of Seated Detachment, Entering Hope that Yu Hwa or Jang Ik had shown.
The realm of First Step Before the Throne.
In that realm, you can compress your heart essence and shoot it out, unleashing a powerful single strike that surpasses your realm.
And through that single strike you can create a clone, or lodge it in the other's heart essence so that the other can use it.
Hope is, in essence, First Step Before the Throne, yet [the power of a Single-Strike Clone that evolved beyond the extreme into the domain of transcendence].
What he had called sword control at the time was merely his consideration for me, who could not use a Single-Strike Clone.
—You copy your own personality and breathe it into the sword. Here, the range of what you breathe in is literally everything. All of one's talent and heart, and even one's talent and possibility, emotions and even parts of one's soul...
These are things that, in the 16th cycle, I could not understand even when I heard them.
Only now do I understand.
—And then...you modify the personality of yourself that you have breathed in, and you breathe in a goal to annihilate the opponent. What is thereby completed is another self of yourself that sincerely wants to kill a single target...
That other self is thereby duplicated from the moment it unfolds only to kill the set target, and it uses all of the possibilities and talents, personality and strength of yourself that you have breathed in only for killing that fixed target.
You duplicate and modify a personality that reproduces all of yourself, and you use it as a mutual-destruction bomb that makes it think only of killing the target.
That self so created for killing, from the moment it unfolds, agonizes over how to kill the opponent and devises methods and authorities optimized for them.
And even as it flies toward the opponent, it unceasingly torments itself with delusion and anguish...
At a speed of undying that surpasses Araya Consciousness, no, perhaps even beyond that, for a 'time close to infinity' it ponders how to ruin and kill the opponent and brings the opponent to death.
Because the goal is thus set, it has the trait of being alive, so even if you evade, it chases, and even if you send it flying beyond the timeline, it comes back again.
The more the opponent evades and runs away, the longer the time of agonizing over murder becomes, so instead of its power decreasing as its airtime passes, it is a bizarre profundity that 'continues to evolve' and grows even more powerful.
A single story that exists to destroy one target, and in doing so destroys even oneself.
In a way, it is something that can be called a 'Pseudo-Divine Art', something that transcends authority and martial techniques.
It is a cruel and pitiful ultimate technique full of self-torment and self-hatred, that can only be satisfied after abusing, remodeling, and torturing oneself to the end, and watching the opponent and that other self die.
That is the essence and principle of Hope.
A sound like a snake hissing rings out.
—Therefore, the methods for attacking Hope are about two or three in number. The first is to show Hope a possibility other than killing, and to melt Hope away before Hope hits you. However, with this method, if Hope rejects that possibility and, in the end, still charges in, there is also the danger that Hope's speed of evolution accelerates instead. It is a method that only someone on the level of a transcendent who uses the power of chaos as the medium of an authority can use.
Back then, I did not know it, but it seems to be a method that beings such as Creator Gods or great divinities of other words can use to defend themselves a few times.
—The second is, since Hope ultimately evolves by accepting my talent and possibilities, if you have confidence that you can evolve and grow stronger faster than I can. If you evolve and change faster than Hope, which evolves endlessly in order to face you, you can break Hope head-on.
It is a method possible only if you evolve and grow at a speed that surpasses Hong Fan's talent and possibilities.
—And lastly...the time when Hope is weakest is, in the end, the moment it unfolds. Hope at that time cannot even use the Absolute of Fate or the Three Great Mantras, so if you can change and progress even a little at the moment it unfolds, you can block Hope.
In other words, to fight the Future King, who fires Hope in a barrage, the possibility of ranged combat is forcibly sealed off, and you must fight him in ultra-close-quarters combat, endlessly facing his sword with your own.
Puhwaaaak!
The Turning Wheel Mantra and the chaos of the Outer Sea are manipulated by my will, unraveling countless stories.
And in an instant,
Kiiiiik!
I once more evolve at a transcendent speed.
At a speed that surpasses Hong Fan's talent...!
[Win, Seo Eun-hyun...!]
Jeon Myeong-hoon melts down his own personality and possibilities inside me.
At the same time, the Red Lightning Heavenly Tribulation dwells in my hand.
Kwarururung!
Jeon Myeong-hoon is the inheritor who received all the legacy of the Owner of Heavenly Punishment.
The Owner of Heavenly Punishment Do Gon was the god who gave the name Indra's Net to the Law of Causality.
Because their rank and weight class did not suffice, what Do Gon could do was nothing more than easily interfering with Indra's Net at about a Heavenly Venerable level.
However, if a being that has the weight class, rank, and enlightenment even receives the authority of Naming...
Kururur!
The power of what has been Named can be seized in my hand and wielded as much as I like.
Jjeoeong!
Indra's Net is the net of principle.
The entire law of causality is wielded by my hand and, together with chaos, tears Heaven and Earth apart.
Once again, the Hopes that could not, for an instant, catch up to me, who has evolved through the power of everyone, all burst apart as they are.
I close the distance with him.
Kurururur!
However, that distance does not shrink.
Wiiiiiing—
Endlessly rotating, he cuts and pushes away the law of causality.
By it, everything, including chaos, is pushed away with him at the center.
The mantra of Immortal Cultivation lodges in the Sumeru Three Heavens Great Thousand World and endlessly pushes everything away.
The countless Heavenly Domains that look like dust shine and are born within it, rejecting us.
An existence that is not tolerated by the world itself must disappear.
—Existence Deletion.
Mount Sumeru and the authority unfolded by the body of the Creator God.
And on top of that, the power of Immortal Cultivation that dwells in Mount Sumeru activates together.
—Existence Absorption.
The entirety of the Immortal Cultivation system is governed by Governing Immortals, and if one does not pass each realm, one is absorbed by the Governing Immortals.
The Immortal Cultivation system is, in the end, a system for devouring and being devoured by someone.
Even when one reaches the end of the Immortal Cultivation system, it is a history of repetition of karma that cannot escape the bridle of being summoned to the Supreme Deity Grand Banquet and gluttonously devouring the world, eating and being eaten.
That essence sucks us in, trying to devour our very existence.
[In the name of History.]
[In the name of Miracle.]
[We are here!]
Inside me, Bong Hwa shouts, and I also shout together, and with the power of Absolutes, we defend against the Existence Deletion being carried out by the Creator God.
Against the authority of Existence Absorption, I endure by using the authority over the Immortal Cultivation system that I have come to govern.
Immortal Cultivation itself belongs to Hong Fan, but in the end, I too have a decent share in the Immortal Cultivation system itself.
On top of that, Bong Hwa resists Immortal Cultivation through the power of Reincarnation, and thanks to it, we are able to endure even that.
But in the next moment, during that fleeting instant when we endure Immortal Cultivation and Mount Sumeru, the power of Splitting Heaven that comes flying tears our whole bodies apart.
Kiririririk!
Time is turned back.
As we once again enter onto a new timeline, we fly toward Hong Fan in the midst of chaos.
For long range, with Hope.
For mid range, with the powers of Immortal Cultivation, Mount Sumeru, Splitting Heaven, and the like.
For close range, distorting spacetime, dimensions, and the future at will with the Radiance Mantra and the attraction force of Absolute of Fate, seizing control of the entire battlefield. That is Hong Fan Gu Ju.
The moment we enter close range, we once again die, struck by the future rewrites of fate and by his throwing technique, Upper.
Kiririririk!
We regress again.
We go on dying.
We die, and die, and die.
Countlessly, I and the Underworld.
Melting the souls and personalities of our comrades into one, we pour out everything we have.
Even so, it is not enough, and we must continue to die.
In an instant, the number of regressions soars before we know it to around the 2,900th cycle.
There are about a hundred or so cycles left until we reach the Future King's prophecy.
The closer we get to that fate, the stronger the attraction force becomes.
In other words, the closer it gets to the 2,999th cycle, the probability that I will be defeated increases exponentially.
But I do not give up.
I merely look only forward as I keep on dying.
And at last.
Cheok—
I arrive.
Into that distance where I can fight Hong Fan at point-blank range.
Right in front of him, who sweeps across long, mid, and close range all at once.
I at last begin to properly clash blades with him.
What happens if you break through long, mid, and close range and reach the ultra-close range?
It is obvious.
What awaits is the True Martial Arts Emptiness Sword.
It is the ultimate of killing.
Hong Fan Gu Ju's eyes focus on us.
His eyes, which for a moment were tinged with fatigue and anguish, shine with emptiness again.
However, this emptiness is different from the emptiness up to now.
To face me, he focuses only on this [moment] and turns a single instant into emptiness.
The same method by which Kim Young-hoon reached Void Shattering.
It is not a method of remaining in emptiness continuously, but one of entering emptiness only in the necessary instants.
Yes, he, in this moment with me before him!
He too has been dragged into the domain of [now].
He recovers Void Speed.
He once again moves at the speed of Undying.
And I also use Kim Young-hoon's power.
—Golden Great Thousand World.
I become a golden wind, chase after him, and crash into him.
At point-blank range I pour out everything.
And!
—Future.
He once again super-accelerates and tears my entire body apart.
I instantly turn back time with Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens and recover, but because space is distorted by the Radiance Mantra, before I know it, I am again flung far away from the Future King.
Once again, a barrage of Hope continues!
'He is pushing me away.'
However, through the flow of the battle I can be certain.
He's pushing me away.
He pushes me away without proudly colliding with me at close range.
That can mean only one thing.
That in his heart, an anxiety towards me has arisen.
And anxiety always comes from the unknown.
To him, I, we...are becoming existences of the unknown that even insight into the future cannot grasp.
We become distant again.
However, we only have to go again.
[Well then. From the very beginning once more.]
To pierce through the Hopes that once again fly toward us and reach him, we stand up once more.
⟨16th Cycle⟩
He grows distant.
To the point I cannot reach.
Innumerable black spears fall from long range.
Kugugugugu!
Innumerable black arrows.
Kugwagwang!
Even things like some unknown projectiles like stones.
Hong Fan's black Gang Qi endlessly transforms into countless black weapons and presses me.
He looks like a monster wrapped entirely in black bandages.
Even without Entering Heavens Beyond the Path, even without something like a heart, a secret art that, with just 'technique' alone, lets him charge in and clash with me, who is of Treading Heavens Beyond the Path.
Heavenly Silkworm Controlling Ghost Art!
They are the terrifying killing techniques that the existence called Hong Fan said he learned in his previous life in order to survive.
And that killing technique, which fights me, who is of Treading Heavens Beyond the Path, even before reaching Entering Heavens Beyond the Path, now reaches all the way to Entering Heavens.
They become thousands of black snakes that cover Heaven and Earth and bring down the entirety of Ascension Path.
Shikagagagak!
The Darkness World modified from the Star Extinguishing True Chapter slices away the rules and principles laid over all of Ascension Path as if cutting tofu, and destroys the laws of Ascension Path.
Kuuuuuu!
All the seals placed on Ascension Path explode.
The Ascension Path, which was before a Sky Island, falls down.
The dragon veins that are in Ascension Path spread out again into the Heaven-Treading Desert, and in the place where Ascension Path used to be, only the Heavenly Void Furnace, which proudly keeps its position, remains bathed in light.
Kururururu!
When Ascension Path, which has a mass on the level of a small nation, falls into the desert, the entire continent shakes.
Jagged rocks and windblown sand seem to shoot up into the sky, then melt in our heat and turn to glass, turning into a scene that is nothing but bizarre.
It does not end with just that.
Urururung!
Hong Fan's black Gang Qi downpour falls toward where I am and collapses Heaven and Earth.
Countless downward slashes fall like a waterfall and delete everything along their path!
Kwakwagwang!
A hole opens in the center of the Heaven-Treading Desert.
An enormous magma layer is exposed wide inside it, and scorching heat gushes up.
I do briefly wonder why something like that exists when the Head Realm is a flat land, but I have no time to care about such things.
—Future.
Hong Fan, endlessly accelerating, comes before me and begins to pound me.
—Apex of Killing Techniques.
—Heuk Sa.
Tudududududu!
Originally it is a technique that is unfolded with a sword or something sharp that tears the opponent apart in a single blow.
But now he just batters me with fist, palm, and kick techniques, and begins to turn my whole body into rags.
For some reason I feel a kind of pent-up resentment from it, as if he really does hold a grudge against me.
'I have to escape.'
Then, how?
It is simple.
If I cannot do it with my own power...
'Then I borrow another's strength if I must.'
Star Extinguishing True Chapter, Cutting Principle.
Through it, I strike and distort the principles of reality and draw out a story from the past.
Immortal Art, Yeon's Play.
Now, I can more or less use it through Cutting Principle.
On top of that, the Canvas of Myriad Forms and Connections merges with Yeon's Play.
The end of the 15th cycle.
The possibility I discovered at the very end of my previous life.
"If I am lacking..."
Kurururung!
In my hand, I grip the podao of destruction that tears everything apart.
At the sight of that green light, Hong Fan's expression twitches hard and he flinches, as if some unpleasant memory is surfacing.
"...then I can just receive the help of others."
Jang Ik's enlightenment, which substitutes the intent of consolation with the power of destruction, slams toward Hong Fan.
Hong Fan tries to evade, but I add another enlightenment together with it.
—Four Treasures Annihilating Heavens Blade.
—Collapsing Immortals Annihilating Heavens.
—Entering Heavens Beyond the Path.
—Surpassing Radiant Saber.
Golden light is infused together with the green light.
'I feel a little sorry.'
It will add more Heavenly Tribulation, but surely this much is no problem for Hong Fan.
The saber that destroys everything and the saber that surpasses all light fuse in a single instant, and they fly and slam into Hong Fan, who has stuck to me at close range and is beating me.
A halo of light explodes, and for the first time Hong Fan takes a clean hit and is blown all the way to the Black Castle.
⟨Present⟩
[I am lacking.]
Woo-wooooong!
As I see that torrential rain of Hopes pouring down toward me, I reach out my hand toward the heavens.
[So, as I said. I have no choice but to receive the help of others.]
Tsuaaaaaaat!
From inside my chest, a pale pink thread surges endlessly out.
It is Yeon.
Until now she has not properly participated in the battle and has only been drawing a circle with both hands.
At first, I thought it was just power to call down the Liberation Supreme Deity, but only after I became one with her did I understand.
Kim Yeon appears as a shadow behind my back and smiles warmly.
[Spring (春), Summer (夏), Autumn (秋), Winter (冬). At their end, a year ends, and life comes to its close in Acceptance at Fate's End (考終命).]
Only now can I see the true arrangement Vast Cold has left behind.
Kim Yeon looks at Hong Fan.
[Jeon Myeong-hoon said it. That you fear connection. And...it seems that in that connection, even you yourself are included.]
Without a word, Hong Fan lowers his hand.
Hopes pour down.
[At first you were with us in the form of an old man.
[You gradually grew...but you stopped only at the appearance of an Imperial King. You never became younger or looked youthful beyond that. It is a strange thing. You have never shown us your young appearance. The closest to your younger days was Hyeon Mu, whom you mocked as a defective product.]
Tsuaaaaaaat!
In Spring, All Things Are Born (春則萬物始生);
In Summer, All Things Are Nurtured (夏則萬物長養);
In Autumn, All Things Are Matured (秋則萬物成熟);
In Winter, All Things Are Conserved (冬則萬物閉藏);
None Are Beyond The Merits of The Four Seasons (無非四時之功也).
The formula of Vast Cold Heavenly Circle swirls above her hands.
Everything cycles.
At the end of death, new life arrives.
So, even if the end of life is cold and a piercing pain, someday...
Spring is bound to come to life once more.
[You are afraid of Spring coming, are you not?]
Light pink bursts out and completely twists one of the Immortal Cultivation systems that Hong Fan has seized.
Splurt!
Something black flows from the corner of Hong Fan's mouth.
It is the same thing that appeared when he was hit by the Apex of Life-Saving Arts, Formless.
It is Hong Fan's pain and dead blood.
[I wish...to give you Spring.]
Deeeeng—
The sound of a brahma bell rings out.
At the same time, light gushes out from the Head Realm, and the afterimage of Yu Hao Te, who had been holding his ankles for a brief moment, faintly appears.
Behind Yu Hao Te, the figure of a woman who seems to be Yu Soo Ryeon and the phantoms of all the other Five Blessings Immortals can faintly be seen.
The power of all the Five Blessings Immortals does not gather as before.
What is felt is purely goodness.
However, that goodwill seems instead to bite into Hong Fan even more strongly than anything until now.
It is the spirit of Vast Cold that Hong Fan has retrieved and brought back that is exerting its power.
Hong Fan hurriedly tries to seal Vast Cold's soul with an even deeper attraction force, but it is useless.
The Five Blessings Immortals brought in order to give happiness to Hong Fan.
And the Vast Cold Heavenly Circle, made to give spring to Hong Fan again.
As all those clusters of light gather...
Jjeoooooong!
They twist the Immortal Cultivation system itself.
Kim Yeon, who had fixed her name in order to unfold this one move that the Tridacna Vast Cold Heavenly King personally planned, is reborn as a new Heavenly King within that great achievement.
Kim Yeon awakens her true name as a Heavenly King.
Tridacna Yeon Heavenly King (硨磲然天王).
Hwarurururu!
As her name blazes up, it merges with my authority and strongly pulls the Immortal Cultivation system and Mount Sumeru itself.
The Formless Poison that is embedded in Hong Fan's chest runs wild.
The Immortal Art Immortal Cultivation turns into an extreme poison meant to console Hong Fan.
Is it because he senses that, following my 16th cycle, if he bears the love and goodwill that have become imbued in the Immortal Art Immortal Cultivation, he will completely let go of the sword?
In the end, there is only one choice that he, who is full of self-torment that cannot acknowledge himself being saved, can take.
Decision wells up in Hong Fan's eyes, and just like that he temporarily abandons the authority of the Immortal Art Immortal Cultivation.
For if he does not give up Immortal Cultivation, it means he has to accept the love directed toward himself.
In other words, it means that Hope would end up being sealed away.
And...
All of Mount Sumeru, which has been bound to Immortal Cultivation, temporarily comes to lose that authority.
Woo-woooong!
I, who hold the largest share in the Immortal Cultivation system, and Bong Hwa, who bestowed the grace of reincarnation upon all living beings of Mount Sumeru, join our strength together.
The Immortal Art Immortal Cultivation is dragged over by me.
Mount Sumeru is dragged over by Bong Hwa.
Kugugugugu!
By means of Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception, after I once again send the Hopes flying in toward us off to a faraway place for a while to postpone them,
I then strongly pull back the authority over Mount Sumeru and the Immortal Art Immortal Cultivation.
And then, a cold, mocking laugh shakes the gestation world.
"As you all, as namers, handle causality as you please, you dare try to claim the rights over what I have named?"
The Namer of Immortal Cultivation.
At the same time, the Namer of Mount Sumeru.
Hong Fan raises his hand and once again takes back the authority.
As if to say that, even if he cannot use it for a moment, at least he will not let it be taken away.
"My children. Unfold the authority over naming and prove it."
Woo-wooong!
The souls of the Naming Supreme Deities that are stuck to Mount Sumeru and burning.
They are the expectations for the future that Hong Fan dreamed of together with Bong Hwa in his first life, and the happiness he imagined.
The Western Zero Kings all open their mouths at once and claim authority over names.
: : Ender that was born by combining all the powers of the Heavens and Names. Return thy existence before the Heavens. : :
Woo-wooong!
: : Let the Seven Treasures Speed Cycle Flower Nameless Yeon Auspicious Heavenly Kings hear. As the grace of the Heavens already dwells in thy name... : :
Heavenly Kings.
Yes, through the power of the heavens, the kings that are refined and transformed into fate.
As all the Heavenly Venerables and Heavenly Kings contain in the very name 'Heaven,' they receive at least in part the grace of the Future King.
: : You shall not dare escape from beneath the Heavens. : :
Kim Yeon and I, who have been trying to nullify the Immortal Cultivation system and drag it over by scattering it, in reverse begin to have our side's power taken away again by the declaration of the Naming Supreme Deities.
There is power in a name.
Fate is contained in them.
Therefore, everything that bears the name [Heaven] in some sense has received at least a trace of the Future King's help.
Not only the Heavenly Kings but even Splitting Emperor Splitting Heaven Annihilation Advancement Mu.
Even names like Entering Heavens Beyond the Path Martial Arts have their strength absurdly sucked away by that effect.
[Let us switch the main personality for a moment. I have spent my whole life wary of him and have not accepted even a single Heaven, so right now I have a chance.]
She has not acknowledged even the name Heavenly Venerable.
The owner of the land, who has made it so that, at least for herself, she is to be called only Imperial Venerable, makes a proposal to me.
But at that moment.
Another personality inside me responds.
[Master. It is all right. I...think I can resolve this.]
At those words, Bong Hwa immediately grasps the situation and smiles.
[Understood. Come to think of it, if he ends up sacrificing himself right away in a situation where I hold the personality, that would ultimately be his aim.]
Smiling, Bong Hwa once again sinks below the surface of my consciousness, and behind my back the shadow of Kang Min-hee appears next to Kim Yeon.
[Please get ready.]
[Got it.]
The shadow of Oh Hyun-seok likewise appears beside them.
Then, the enlightenment gained as the disciple of the Owner of Names and Oh Hyun-seok's Primal Chaos World stirs inside me and begins to mix together the power possessed by all the names within me.
All those names that have borrowed the power of Heaven.
All that debt becomes one and—through Oh Hyun-seok—becomes an even larger and sturdier rope that tightens around me.
The power of names acts so that it draws out our strength even more powerfully.
The will of Jeon Myeong-hoon, which has melted down, gets a bit frightened, and the others who have been influenced by him also become bewildered.
Kim Young-hoon also rides on that confusion and shouts half as a joke.
[Hyun-seok-ah! What are we supposed to do if you betray us?]
[No... Hyung-nim...]
I, who am the one who is the subject of the personalities, can read everyone's hearts and plans, so there is no problem, but since among themselves they still have not completely mixed and their communication with one another is not perfect, such a joke is possible.
Oh Hyun-seok becomes a bit embarrassed, but, clearing his throat, entrusts his back to Kang Min-hee.
[Sever it.]
[Yes.]
Oh Hyun-seok's personality completely melts into me.
Puhwak!
And the successive strikes of Hope that I have sent away to postpone once again transcend spacetime and fly toward me.
But at that moment,
Finally, Kang Min-hee's mantra, after a long time, activates a curse.
A truth that none among us had known.
[A flower that has fallen once does not bloom again.]
[Only before the flower falls does one remember the Spring.]
A flower that has fallen once does not bloom again.
Among the many names of the Heavenly Kings that the Naming Supreme Deities have mentioned,
A change occurs in the name of Lapis Lazuli Flower Heavenly King.
Lapis Lazuli Falling Flower Heavenly King.
[We are already petals that have fallen away. We will not go back again.]
Falling.
That very concept reverberates through the entire gestation world and severs the constraints of names that have been imposed upon us.
The Western Zero Kings try to intervene once more, but I raise my sword.
—Nameless.
The nameless technique that has no name.
The fate for my child that was completed in the Sal Tree Heavenly Venerable Battle.
The single sword stroke meant to commemorate that fate that overcomes fate completely blocks the intervention of the Zero Kings.
Thus, the power of the Zero Kings that has been surrounding all of Mount Sumeru and blocking what is being dragged toward us is itself directly pulled over to us.
Besides the Western Zero King, Hong Fan tries to move the other sacrificial offerings to control Mount Sumeru, but it is useless.
Regarding Northern Gang, just like what Master did, is being made to pay debts to my side.
The Eastern Twin Sal Tree is paying debt to Bong Hwa regarding the power of history.
The Southern Twin Sal Tree, the Heavenly Venerable of Time who should have become a sacrificial offering symbolizing fate, has fled and is not here now.
In the end, the power of Mount Sumeru falls down to us.
Indra's Net completely seizes Mount Sumeru and entrusts its dominion into my hand.
And...
Tsuaaaaaaat!
It becomes one with us.
The Absolute of Life, Bong Hwa.
The Absolute of Miracle, me.
And by drawing power from Hong Fan and concurrently holding the position of Heavenly Venerable of Fate, we reached half-step Creator God.
Upon such an us, the body of a Creator God is overlaid.
Wooo-woooong!
The relic of Salt Mountain that Master left behind.
The authority of a Creator God, Salt Sea.
The spirit of the Creation God we obtained, consisting of two-thirds of Absolute. On top of that, even part of the power of Fate.
Lastly, the body of a Creator God, Mount Sumeru.
All of that now comes into our hands.
Kugugugugu!
'I feel it.'
What form this thing called Divine Art has.
How I can resist it.
As I become one step closer to omniscience and omnipotence, at last...
My Original Flow.
I realize that I can blossom something that can be called my Divine Art.
'This is...my story.'
And perhaps, a story foretold from the time our Enders began to be created.
My Divine Art cannot be the strongest.
In terms of power, it is rather closer to the weakest.
Perhaps, if it clashes with Silver Basket's Divine Art of Awakening, it might even lose.
However...
This is enough.
To face the Future King Fate Supreme Deity Hong Fan Gu Ju, only this alone is likely to be the most effective.
Jjeooooooong!
At the same time as I realize it, we shake off the countless light masses of Hope that rush at us.
The distance from a true Creator God is now but a single step.
Woo-wooong—
As Hong Fan begins to execute the story through his Divine Art, he draws up bottomless power.
"We are almost there now. Once I erase only you, it will truly be complete."
Woooooo—
Hong Fan looks at me, who has at last come close to Creation, and raises the Emptiness Sword.
"I will erase you. And I will complete Hwe-ah."
[No, Hong Fan. I'm sorry, but the story does not end like that.]
"When you have not even become a true Creator God, you already dare to be so confident."
[It is not confidence. It is only a fact.]
"You must simply want to believe it. At best, you are nothing more than a single Creator God that is not even complete. Do you really think you can dare to oppose me?"
Kugugugugugu!
What stands before my eyes is the incarnation of the very story called A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation.
The origin of the world we live in.
The parent who gave birth to us all.
The God of Light and Hope.
"Hope is right in front of me."
From the Emptiness Sword, a terrifying light I have never seen until now bursts out.
"Therefore I, right now, am supreme."
He, for the first time, speaks of the present and focuses the entire mass of light into his own emptiness.
"You cannot dare catch up."
—True Marital Arts Emptiness Sword.
—Linked Profundity.
The light of hope that has reached the pinnacle explodes.
The speed of the Future King, who has regained Void Speed, accelerates once more.
—Hope of the Future (未來希望)
A place one reaches only after arriving at Araya Consciousness and passing through the Undying of Infinity.
The domain of a Creator God.
A speed that reaches omnipotence.
Nirvana Tranquility (涅槃寂靜).
A transcendent domain that beings who have not opened Creation, no matter how strong a great divinity they are, cannot reach.
The essence of Future is to temporarily transcend even such limits and, for a very brief time, reach the perception domain of a Creator.
It is a speed that I, who have still not become a true Creator God, cannot produce.
Right.
I cannot become one.
Because I alone can never do it.
[Come, let's catch up.]
Kim Young-hoon's personality, which has not yet completely melted down, appears behind me as a dharma form.
Wiiiiing!
A saber is held in Kim Young-hoon's hand.
A weapon made from the previous Golden Body's body.
The authority the previous Golden Body awakened is Causality Reversal.
A mass of light that transcends spacetime and sends events that happen in the future to the past.
[While looking at the light of the future, I finally realized it. What one must do to become the fastest...]
Tsuaaaaat!
My whole body, for an instant, becomes dyed in golden light.
And I, at last, once again understand causality and realize where Kim Young-hoon's soul is.
[So that's how it is...]
Kim Young-hoon's soul is in the past.
The moment his soul was generated is probably the point in time when he came to the Audience Chamber together with Jeon Myeong-hoon.
According to his words, it is probably when he first directly beheaded the Future King's technique, Light.
He attained enlightenment and gained a soul, and with the previous Golden Body's ability, he sent his soul flying to the past.
Causality has been flipped.
Kim Young-hoon's soul was not the last to be created among us.
On the contrary, it was the one created before any of us.
Everything...
On the day he completed Entering Heavens Beyond the Path Martial Arts...!
Huarururuk!
The insight of Martial Arts that Kim Young-hoon attained while watching Light flows into me.
Light is the extreme of spiraling force.
The technique of the Emptiness Sword that is based on the power of rotation.
It is his enlightenment about all rotation in this world.
And that rotation does not end as simply rotating in reality.
Once one reaches a certain realm, anyone can transcend spacetime and go to the past.
It is just that it has been impossible because it was blocked by the Radiance Mantra.
If one is the original owner of the Radiance Mantra, such a thing would always be possible.
Thus, knowing that spacetime as well can be rotated infinitely, he must have applied that to Martial Arts.
'That is...'
I use the move.
And, through that move, I reach faster-than-light speed and briefly return to the past.
As I reverse through spacetime once, I go back against time, stand above time, resist the flow of time, and connect the me who is beginning the motion in the past and the me in the future who has reached faster-than-light speed.
The me who has obtained acceleration at faster-than-light speed in the future reaches the past before I am just about to reach faster-than-light speed and grants that acceleration.
As the above is repeated again, the speed reaches the infinite.
No, even the word 'repeated' is strange.
It is merely [finding the possibility of infinity] with a person's body.
[The circle that links future and past. The true ultimate of rotation. This, truly...is Heart-Mind Six Harmonies (心意六合) in which causality is joined.]
Kim Young-hoon's voice rings out clear.
And...
His entire life begins to flow into me.
His soul, which has gone to the past, becomes Martial Arts.
Transforming into Martial Arts that is endlessly succeeded and passed down, it accompanies every step of the journey he takes to come this far.
And then, it reaches this very moment again.
As future and past connect and causality becomes one, it transforms into the principle of Six Harmonies, the origin of all things.
In that moment he, we, become infinite.
In the Golden Great Thousand World that has already once reached the speed of Undying by its own principle, the enlightenment and principle of Heart-Mind Six Harmonies are embodied, and it accelerates [once more].
Kiririririk—
The saber obtained from the previous Golden Body, formed of their body, loses its golden light and changes.
I look at that shape and understand.
'I see.'
In this moment, future and past connect.
The 17th cycle...
It is that old, chipped iron sword he has been carrying ever since, after the 12th cycle, I left Kim Young-hoon behind, ascended, and then met him again.
Shiririririk—
The iron sword that was used once went to the past and was driven down into the Head Realm of the past.
Kim Young-hoon's soul dwelled in the saber and has been together with him for his whole life.
As causality merges into one, we square infinity with infinity.
And...
Wiiiiiiing—
At last,
We are able to stand at the same eye level as Hong Fan.
Nirvana Tranquility.
And the Hope that comes crashing in with that omnipotent speed.
Toward it, I stretch out my hand at the same speed.
—Golden Great Thousand World, Transcendence Technique
—Surpassing Radiance
Going round and round, once again to the very first name.
I escape from the Light of the Future and that Hope which has not yet come.
Through a speed that escapes all causality and spacetime, we reach that moment when Hope has not yet fallen from Hong Fan's sword.
Blocking Hong Fan's Hope through the final strategy of attacking Hope, we are at last able to meet Hong Fan's gaze at point-blank range.
The Emptiness Sword and the Impermanence Sword collide.
[Hong Fan!]
As we crash at a distance where our noses almost touch, as I feel Kim Young-hoon's personality completely melt into me...
I squeeze out everything in my whole body and shout.
[Pour it out!]
Kwaaaaaaang!!!
Hong Fan's power, containing the authority of Divine Art, tears us apart.
We have already caught up to Future, which is at the speed of Nirvana Tranquility.
But that is as far as it goes.
In the end, the Divine Art that remains can absolutely not be blocked.
But it does not matter.
No matter how many times I am torn apart, I am Miracle.
Bong Hwa is Life.
The two of us combined can come back to life as many times as it takes.
Kiririririk!
Turning Wheel and Reincarnation, as our mantras that have come infinitely close to Creation combine, they are being born under a new name and are granting us an opportunity.
Its name is Great Balance (鴻鈞).
It is a symbol that symbolizes the chaos of primordial times, and it is the pinnacle of the will that tries to make a wheel and roll the era forward.
As long as this exists, my Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens is certain to succeed.
In this one battle, no matter how many times we turn time back, we can come back to life!
"You are growing tired."
Then, the transparent eyes of Hong Fan instantly see straight through my inner thoughts.
The being that has reached the peak of slaughter swiftly sees through the state of the one to be slaughtered and gleams.
"To bypass the will of a Creator God is a tiring thing. Even I split myself into three faces to bypass the law of the predecessor. Yet, you really think you can dare break that law and so easily maintain that fusion?"
Tsuaaaaat!
Hong Fan's black eyes reflect me.
And within the me reflected in those eyes...
My pupils are gradually changing to golden.
"Because your talent and potential are not even one-thousandth of mine, I gave you three thousand cycles of time to see your possibility."
Even my personality can no longer endure and is gradually collapsing.
If I collapse, in the end Bong Hwa's personality is bound to burst forth.
"When the time of prophecy comes, in the end, your ego will collapse and Hwe-ah will appear. If that happens, it is my victory. Do you truly not know why Silver Basket told you that method in the beginning?"
Kagagagagak!
His Emptiness Sword imbued with Divine Art gradually presses me down.
By means of Divine Art, he overwhelms even me, who has become close to a Creator God.
"You all voluntarily becoming one is merely the move that most raises the chance that I pull my attention away from Silver Basket. Seo Eun-hyun."
He calls my name and speaks.
"Together with me...let us see the ending of the story. Here is your end. The end of you all. And my end."
[The end...]
Inside the Gestation World where chaos unceasingly boils over.
Around it, countless worlds and worlds break into fragments and powder and shine.
In that strange yet beautiful world of light...
I feel his sincerity.
He now truly wants to see the end of the Divine Art together with me.
Because now, to him, I too,
Am a friend.
[...You already know the answer.]
"Is that so?"
Hong Fan stares straight into my eyes and begins to breathe Divine Art into the Emptiness Sword.
A true irrationality that cannot be seen, cannot be felt, and cannot be controlled crushes us down.
Words are unnecessary. Our fight continues to grow more and more intense.