A Regressor’s Tale of Cultivation

Chapter 804

⟨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.

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.

⟨16th Cycle⟩

—Severing Mountain Swordsmanship.

—Secluded Valley.

—Flowing Ridge.

After a diagonal upward slash comes a thrust.

Hong Fan lightly evades the attack, steps on Seo Eun-hyun's foot so he cannot escape, then reads every single movement of Seo Eun-hyun's muscles, predicts his every action, and begins tapping at pressure points all over his body.

Seo Eun-hyun's entire body is transformed into lightning, making it physically impossible to touch, but reaching the realm of law and principle, Hong Fan directly strokes all of it and seals the spirit veins themselves.

Kaaang!

The lightning-transformed body returns.

Seo Eun-hyun's speed decreases.

Immediately after, Hong Fan slams Seo Eun-hyun's body down directly.

Shririk—

—First Quarter.

—Illusory Play under the Rosy Afterglow.

But Seo Eun-hyun also, through Yeon's Play and the Canvas of Myriad Forms and Connections, unfolds with his body countless other kinds of Manifestation and resists Hong Fan.

Hong Fan freezes for a moment under an intense desire to sleep.

Seeing that sight, Seo Eun-hyun wears an apologetic smile.

"I see, Hong Fan."

Briefly separating from Hong Fan, he begins to breathe the entirety of his Nascent Soul into the Colorless Glass Sword in order to manifest the strongest decisive technique he can unleash from the realm of Treading Heavens.

"...So you were tired."

Hearing those words, Hong Fan's pupils tremble.

He clutches his own chest tightly.

He is getting tired.

Yes.

A person who does not sleep in succession, a person who has never once rested...

A person who lives only in Winter for their entire life does not suffer.

Because they have already grown used to it.

Because their body has become numb and accustomed, soaked in that cold, that pain, that fatigue.

However...

A person who has even once found themselves in an environment where they can close their eyes.

A person who has had a chance to rest, who has once greeted Spring, suffers.

For as their body has been warmly melted, the Winter that comes again hurts all the more.

Hong Fan, who has once allowed the warmth of the heart from another, grits his teeth and concentrates the black Gang Qi even more into his hand.

The Gang Qi evolves into a throwing weapon.

'I...am tired...?'

The essence of himself being that ridiculous and petty heart of wanting to rest.

Hong Fan can absolutely not accept that.

Kiiiiing!

Seeing Hong Fan prepare a technique, Seo Eun-hyun hides using the Record of Transcending Cultivation and Exhausting Martial Arts, but it is meaningless.

—Applied Technique.

—Great.

The Gang Qi is thrown.

Tukwang!

Tukwang, tukwang, tukwang!

And the single thrown black Gang Qi splits in the air into thousands, tens of thousands of pieces, and slams down all across the Heaven-Treading Desert like a torrential downpour.

From all over, pillars of flame born from the mingled heat, wind pressure, and impact rise up and lead the entire Heaven-Treading Desert toward annihilation.

Within that black and vicious wide-area attack, in the end, Seo Eun-hyun ends up with one of his legs turned to powder by a single storm of destructive Gang Qi that flies in regardless of the Record of Transcending Cultivation and Exhausting Martial Arts.

However, he does not care.

He simply overlays the Formless Sword over the Colorless Glass Sword and waits for an opening.

What he aims for is One Annihilation to the Near Shore.

A move where he contains his own Nascent Soul in the sword strike, explodes it, and dies together with the opponent.

However, this is something that focuses on exploding the Nascent Soul.

It is not a technique that focuses on the principle of swinging the sword.

How, in what manner, should he approach and land it?

With which move should he combine One Annihilation to the Near Shore and send it out?

'What is needed when facing Hong Fan...'

Hong Fan is weary.

For some reason, the heart that he wants to rest is being conveyed.

'...Right. An attack he can predict would be good.'

There is also the desire to surprise Hong Fan with an unexpected attack.

Since his fatigue is his current weakness, driving in to stab at that weakness is also Martial Arts.

However...

He decides not to do so.

Instead, he resolves to unleash One Annihilation to the Near Shore through an attack whose path is the easiest to predict.

The reason is simple.

That fatigue, that heart of wanting to rest...

He does not particularly want to wake it up.

Because that fatigue is clearly...

Something that has arisen while Hong Fan was together with Seo Eun-hyun himself over the span of five hundred years.

His friend has grown weary because of him, so how could he do something so mean as to deliberately wake him from his rest?

'Let him rest.'

Let's help a friend rest.

Thinking such thoughts, he prepares the stance for an 'upward slash'.

⟨Present⟩

—Emptiness Sword Final Profundity.

—Hope, One-Hundred Consecutive Strikes.

He shaves himself down and spews out countless lights of Hope.

Seeing such a Hong Fan, Seo Eun-hyun thinks.

The story he heard in the Ancient Force Realm's Penglai Island from the Queen of Penglai Kingdom inside the dream world.

The one other method that lets the people of the dream world leave Penglai Island.

—The dreamers call this world a dream. So the way to leave this world is similar to the way you wake from a dream.

—What is the method to awaken from a dream?

—To violate a taboo.

The gist is that if you wish to wake from a dream, you gain the greatest effect when you commit in the dream an 'act that must not be done in reality'.

—Of course, the degree of that taboo differs from person to person, but one thing is certain. If you violate the greatest taboo, you can in the end escape from the dream.

—The greatest taboo?

—Yes. It is self-harm.

To abuse yourself.

That, from the deepest layers of the unconscious, is the act that every intelligent living being most shuns and hates, and clearly it is something that deserves to be called a taboo.

—And at the end of that lies suicide. That is right. If you wish to leave Penglai Island, drive yourself to the very brink of the extreme. And if even at the end of that it still does not work, then as a last resort, if you commit suicide...there will be a possibility.

To deny one's own existence and everything about oneself.

That is the method for leaving Penglai Island, and the method for waking from the dream.

Seo Eun-hyun looks at Hong Fan.

Hope is the technique that abuses oneself the most.

It is a technique in which he grants himself the greatest despair and pain and shaves himself down.

'You are...trying to wake up from the dream, aren't you, Hong Fan?'

Seo Eun-hyun looks at the Formless Poison that lies dormant in Hong Fan's chest and continues to spread even now.

By now that Formless Poison is passing a certain critical point.

And, by Kim Yeon's blessing, it begins to draw in the will contained in the Immortal Cultivation system.

Hong Fan is gradually becoming younger.

His beard, albeit slowly, shortens, and his dignity and majesty diminish bit by bit.

He is forcibly seeking Spring.

The season he fears the most.

It is the season in which people can rest.

'You are thinking that everything I breathed into you with the Apex of Life-Savings Arts is nothing more than a terrible dream and fatigue to you, aren't you?'

One who has never once rested does not find it hard.

The one who is always in the greatest pain and hardship is the one who has at least once tasted warmth.

Pakang!

And,

From Hong Fan's physical body, the spacetime of the 16th cycle breaks open again and returns to Seo Eun-hyun.

It is because Hong Fan can no longer endure the emotions of the Formless Poison, and even if it means returning a part of the 16th cycle to Seo Eun-hyun, he has to vent out the erosion of the Formless Poison.

A vicious technique passes between them.

—Emptiness Sword Linked Profundity.

—Zero Net.

The net that tears Heaven and Earth apart bares its fangs toward Seo Eun-hyun.

In an instant he dies once more and, barely regressing, comes back to life.

However, the Hopes continue to pursue him.

Yet for Seo Eun-hyun, who is now beginning to regain the memories and experiences of the 16th cycle, a method is now coming into being.

Tsuaaaaat!

In a single moment, his Impermanence Sword is dyed in green light.

Seeing that sight, Hong Fan hastily moves away from him.

Toward the Hopes, he throws the greatest comfort he can give.

Wiiing—

Chwah!

It is like a brushstroke.

The void becomes tinged with brushstrokes of green light.

Seo Eun-hyun grips his sword.

—Severing Heaven Sword Form.

—First Form.

—Entering Heaven.

The ultimate of Hand Commands Sword.

Holding the sword, he becomes the very cluster of dancing light itself.

The green light flares up and, like a storm, directly strikes the Hopes.

And...

The Hopes begin to melt down.

For ordinary Creator Gods to deal with hopes, they add a story onto the Hope and grant it another possibility.

They either give it the possibility of becoming even happier, or properly grant the Hope a soul or existence and separate it from Hong Fan to give it a chance to live another life.

In such cases, Hope may be broken, but it also may not.

Rather, if it is not broken, having shaken off temptation, it becomes even more steadfast, and with a far more vicious and horrible might, it tears the Creator Gods apart together with their worlds. That is the technique of Hope.

However...

Why is it?

Under Seo Eun-hyun's sword strikes, the Hopes all melt away without a single failure.

The green light comforts the Hopes and melts them away in the void.

At the same time, Hong Fan, kicking off from the space of chaos and shooting forth, scatters the Emptiness Sword.

—Emptiness Sword Linked Profundity.

—Heavenly Light.

Force of repulsion mixed with spiraling force flies toward him.

—Severing Heaven Sword Form.

—Treading Heaven.

The ultimate of Eye Commands Sword.

The sword lights that leave his hand shake off the repulsion force and, rotating around them, grind them down.

At that sight, Hong Fan once again opens some distance from Seo Eun-hyun and hurls the Emptiness Sword again.

—Emptiness Sword Linked Profundity.

—Emperor God.

A transcendent throwing technique that uses attraction force.

—Severing Heaven Sword.

—All-Heavens Righteous Understanding.

—Punishing Heaven.

As the powers of All-Heavens and Punishing Heaven link together, Seo Eun-hyun's strength amplifies madly.

On top of that, the ultimate of Heart Commands Sword, Punishing Heaven, mixes in, smacks down the thrown attack, and easily chases after Hong Fan, who tries to get away from him.

—Emptiness Sword Linked Profundity.

—Emperor Devil Nameless Rending.

Hong Fan's single sword becomes vicious claws on the level of a living Supreme Deity, thrashing in all directions and tearing the space apart so Seo Eun-hyun cannot approach.

—Severing Heaven Sword Form.

—Punishing Heaven.

—Escaping Heaven.

He responds to that change with Heart Commands Sword, and with Escaping Heaven reads the flow of Hong Fan's Martial Arts and, in an instant, enters into a 'connection' with Hong Fan.

Hong Fan's eyes shake.

For a brief moment, he again cannot maintain emptiness and comes down from the speed of Nirvana Tranquility.

—Emptiness Sword Linked Profundity.

—Great Net Radiance.

The Emptiness Sword splits apart, races in all directions together with repulsive force, and is fired in the form of planes that look similar to sword curtains.

Each and every one of them contains not only the principle of spiraling force, but also the principle of super-acceleration using the unity of future and past that Kim Young-hoon discovered, so it cannot be broken by ordinary techniques.

—Severing Heaven Sword Form Derived Profundity.

—Sword God Dance.

And, while in a state of being connected with Hong Fan, Seo Eun-hyun's eyes shine.

At the same time, he reads Hong Fan's heart essence and imbues it into his sword.

The Ultimate of Martial Arts that borrows another's power, Sword God Dance.

—Sword God Dance Revised.

—Emptiness Sword Linked Profundity.

—Light of Heavenly Net.

Together with immense repulsion force, a barrier of pure white light, similar to Great Net Radiance yet different, advances and collides with Great Net Radiance, and the two mutually cancel each other out.

Pachijik—

Something keeps breaking out from Hong Fan's body.

The spacetime of the 16th cycle that Seo Eun-hyun gave him...

...is flowing without stopping.

To expel that poison, he is returning the entirety of the 16th cycle's spacetime to Seo Eun-hyun with all his might, and yet,

That poison still does not drain away.

Hong Fan glares at Seo Eun-hyun.

—Emptiness Sword Linked Profundity.

—Devil Heavenly King.

Claws that tear the entire body apart rush in in a form where attraction and repulsion force are combined, becoming a monster that tries to bite his entire body to pieces.

Once again, Seo Eun-hyun's Sword God Dance spits out light.

—Severing Heaven Sword Form, Derived Profundity, Sword God Dance Revised.

—Emptiness Sword Linked Five Profundity.

—Divine Net Upper Heaven.

Within the throwing technique that pierces all defenses, repulsion force seems to arise, then the repulsion force is concentrated into a single point, pierces through the monster, and sends it flying all the way outside the Gestation World.

Seo Eun-hyun reads it.

Through that, he strikes back.

No matter what technique Hong Fan uses, it is useless.

'I cannot do anything with my own strength.'

If likened to personal growth, Seo Eun-hyun and Hong Fan have a difference in talent and possibility literally greater than a thousandfold.

It is for that reason that Hong Fan bothered to give about three thousand cycles of chances with prophecy.

He is the one who, after only three deaths, reached every conclusion and became the Future King.

As for regression itself, he may have rewound time endlessly many times, but three deaths are the true number it took for Hong Fan to become a transcendent.

Seo Eun-hyun likewise stepped over countless hardships, accumulated his talent by himself, and created possibility with his own strength.

He grew while receiving the help of countless people.

Therefore, even calculating in that grown talent and possibility, Hong Fan decided to grant him a thousandfold number of chances.

It is also compensation for the fact that the existence called Seo Eun-hyun, even after losing the entire chance of the 16th cycle, never once gave up and continued to believe in him to the very end.

'It is not a thousandfold.'

The talent that used to be like trash is growing.

His scope of possibility and growth is changing in a way close to evolution.

This is, yes...

He is gradually becoming like Hong Fan Gu Ju.

There is only one reason.

Even if his own talent and potential do not even reach one-thousandth of Hong Fan's, he still reaches it by borrowing from all the connections he has accumulated.

'Are you saying there are that many people behind you...?'

They collide.

It is not merely the power of True Martial Arts and martial techniques.

Everything.

He truly crashes everything against him.

The authority of fate, future rewrite, and attraction force.

Divine Art.

The act of firing Hope in a barrage.

The mantras of Splitting Heaven and Radiance that still remain to him.

He faces him containing all of this.

He confronts him containing all of this.

Seo Eun-hyun is still weak.

He has succeeded in counterattacking him a few times, but still, again and again he is torn to death, cut to death, ground to death, blown apart to death.

He dies and dies and dies again.

Before he knows it, the timeline Seo Eun-hyun has shifted reaches the 2,990th cycle.

'Within nine counts, I will settle it.'

It is splendid.

Until now, not a single being has ever made the Future King Fate Supreme Deity Hong Fan Gu Ju pour himself out this far.

Even the Salt Sea Supreme Deity, whom he regarded with the greatest vigilance before Seo Eun-hyun, accomplished no more than break Hope a few times, and that was all.

'Is it only you who can receive me to this point?'

But...

That too is now over.

Seo Eun-hyun is clearly now Hong Fan's true friend.

But...

Perhaps he has already come too far to make something like a friend.

"...The story..."

Woo-woooong!

Hong Fan begins to draw out his final full power.

"...must be completed."

Most Supreme who Opens the World, Wielder of Talismans, Ruler of Calendrics, Truth Embracing Dao Embodying Future Radiance Nine Firmaments Time Governing Myriad Daos Non-Action All-Illuminating Great Hall Vast Heaven Golden Gate Fate Great Heavenly Venerable Black Martial High Supreme Deity.

He undoes the last shackle that has been restricting the full power of the Future King.

His title title peels away.

Clang!

Kugugugugung!

Relying on his innate talent and potential, he climbed all the way up to the supreme seat.

And after that, he spent time spanning nayuta kalpas.

And after that as well, he has accumulated power.

Not only what he was born with, but what he accumulated and accumulated with his own hands...

A level of authority that comes to threaten even the position of the Creator God who is originally supposed to be born.

Kugugugung!

At the magnitude of that transcendent [power], the entire Gestation World shakes.

At the same time, the shell of the Gestation World.

The boundary of Cakravāda shakes violently.

It is an omen that a Creator God is about to be born in the Gestation World.

The Conception Palace of Omnipotence in which a Creator God has not been born.

The power that has become transcendentally strong over too long a time ignores the rules and laws fixed by the previous Creator God and now has become such that it can gain by itself the position of a new Creator God.

Even if the former Absolutes and the like are gone, if left alone, it has reached a transcendent rank of authority that can simply create a new world.

It is the power he intends to use as the driving force to manufacture a new Absolute, and his confidence.

The greatest reason that the Creator Gods sincerely sympathize with and pity the Future King.

"Myriad Stars. Just as you have accumulated, I too, since reaching the pinnacle, through nayuta kalpas, have power that I have accumulated."

Something transcendent that the Future King has accumulated by sucking in countless Supreme Deities with attraction force and gulping down chaos settles into him.

He shakes off the will with which the Gestation World begs him to use it for genesis, and he pours all that authority out solely for destruction.

Hong Fan begins to take his stance.

"What you believe in must be Formless Poison."

He at last acknowledges Seo Eun-hyun.

And, learning Seo Eun-hyun's method, he evolves once again through him.

He remembers Seo Eun-hyun's spirit.

No matter how unfavorable it seemed and how without possibility it seemed, the spirit with which he sacrificed his very own existence, wrested away from him the authority over the Enders, and at last ascended to the position of Ender Supreme Deity.

Kiririririk—

As the Radiance Mantra moves, it splits even further and rewinds the timeline of Seo Eun-hyun, who has not even died yet.

And in the process of rewinding, just as Kim Young-hoon has done, it arms himself with even more infinite possibilities by uniting future and past.

Because Nirvana Tranquility itself is the ultimate of all speed and of the cognitive world, he does not go so far as to transcend yet another dimension, but it is enough if he is just a little faster than Seo Eun-hyun.

Certainly, Seo Eun-hyun, who has received the body of a Creator God, grows stronger the more his timeline is split, but in the end the attraction force of fate grows still stronger.

The one who is killed before three thousand cycles pass is Seo Eun-hyun.

In an instant, through nine regressions, squaring nine times the infinite possibility, Hong Fan, who has raised his speed a little higher than Seo Eun-hyun's even within Nirvana Tranquility, faces Seo Eun-hyun.

Wiiiiiiiing—

"Since you have done it, there is no reason I cannot either."

—Severing Mountain Swordsmanship.

The sword for killing the Mountain Divine Spirit unfolds from Hong Fan's hand.

He, in order to understand Seo Eun-hyun,

And to make Seo Eun-hyun understand, reveals the disparity in power through the technique.

—Transcending Peaks.

A horizontal slash of Hong Fan, who has brought out all of his power.

A mythic power into which even Divine Art is integrated!

Seo Eun-hyun begins to pour in all his strength.

[I will block it.]

Even if he has to offer up all of himself!

Seizing that opening and closing his eyes to quench the Formless Poison dwelling in him, Hong Fan immediately prepares the power to deliver the final blow to Seo Eun-hyun and shatter his personality.

The Regressor's Tale of Cultivation that he wishes for is standing on the verge of a hopeful ending.

"Life is Hope."

Muttering such as if to resist Seo Eun-hyun's words...

He wraps Seo Eun-hyun's Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens technique around the Emptiness Sword and takes the posture of Great Mountain Pressing Down.

"Right now, there is only pain."

The time has come to bring an end to the Mountain Divine Spirits.

"But Hwe-ah will surely give salvation to everyone."

The light of Hope that evolves without rest changes.

—True Martial Arts Emptiness Sword.

—Seventh Move, Final Profundity Revised.

—Salvation (救援).

The evolved profundity that transcends the original Hope shines at the tip of Hong Fan's sword and illuminates the entire Gestation World.

⟨16th Cycle⟩

"That is not a good idea."

Hong Fan looks down at Seo Eun-hyun with eyes tinged with fatigue.

The choice of an upward slash is not a good choice for a swordsman.

To cut upward is a technique that does not receive the help of gravity, but rather goes against it toward the opponent.

The stance of an upward slash is not treated as a central focus in many sword schools.

Because there are not just one or two disadvantages.

Starting from the fact that the posture of the human body is not suited to an upward slash, to even the vagueness of its effect.

"When has my choice ever been the best?"

However, Seo Eun-hyun runs toward Hong Fan with a smile.

Mountain Lord Transcending Peaks Step.

With a firm lower body, he charges at Hong Fan like a tiger and heads for his chest.

In Severing Mountain Swordsmanship, there are especially many forms that slash upward.

From the third move Ascending Vein on, up through Deep Mountain and Cliff Edge.

All take on a disadvantageous position and are powers that strike the opponent up from below.

Even though Hong Fan's technique Heaven is likewise based on an upward slash, he infuses into it the power that shoots outward through repulsion force.

It is also a move that focuses more on the repulsion force itself than on the upward slash.

It is not a sword that simply, foolishly goes against gravity like Seo Eun-hyun's.

Even so, Kim Young-hoon, the creator of the Severing Mountain Swordsmanship, deliberately created forms that slash upward.

Why is that?

"...Well, alright. Then now..."

Hong Fan made a promise with Seo Eun-hyun.

And, in a way, this current duel is the price of his promise with Seo Eun-hyun.

In order to pay the price, he prepares a move that he can show to Seo Eun-hyun, a move that, at this point in time, can give him an insight that can help him even a little.

—Future King (未來王).

Accelerating and slashing down.

It is simple and straightforward.

However, its power is just as clear.

If Future King is unfolded at full power, he is confident that even in his current state, with the body of a mortal being, he can pierce a hole in the Head Realm.

In fact, it is a crazy technique that can even punch a hole in the body of a Supreme Deity with a mortal body.

A simple, clear, and strongest downward slash.

From now on, this insight will remain inside Seo Eun-hyun's heart essence and influence the techniques Seo Eun-hyun will create in the future.

Hong Fan briefly looks at the futures in which Seo Eun-hyun overcomes countless opponents through the downward slash.

'This...is the last gift I give you.'

Hong Fan also charges toward Seo Eun-hyun.

In the next moment,

Their upward and downward slashes collide.

Kaaaaaaang!

Since Hong Fan has no particular desire to smash the Colorless Glass Sword that Seo Eun-hyun likes, he reduces the sharp energy and converts the power only into a shockwave.

However, the One Annihilation to the Near Shore imbued with Seo Eun-hyun's Nascent Soul shatters and bursts apart under Hong Fan's downward slash, which has even eliminated the sharp energy.

The Colorless Glass Sword flies far off into the distance, and Hong Fan's sword, by his control, turns entirely into a shockwave, so that instead of cleaving Seo Eun-hyun in two, it only delivers impact across his whole body.

Seo Eun-hyun becomes a bloody lump and collapses on the spot.

Thud—

Hong Fan looks down at that Seo Eun-hyun, then scatters his Gang Qi.

"...Are you satisfied, Master?"

At the end of his life, Seo Eun-hyun, who has clashed his heart's content and confirmed that Hong Fan, to whom he has taught Martial Arts, has followed the same path as himself, smiles gently.

"It is...the best last moment."

"That is fortunate."

"...I will keep the promise...if there is a next life...that is."

Now, hardly any life force remains in Seo Eun-hyun.

Before long, even his remaining form is going to be transformed into lightning and scatter as a single bolt.

Hong Fan uses attraction force to naturally suppress those lightning bolts and preserve Seo Eun-hyun's form.

It is the least courtesy toward Seo Eun-hyun, who has made a promise with him.

Seo Eun-hyun, in an aged appearance, looks at Hong Fan and speaks.

"Hong Fan, are you there?"

Now even his eyes seem dim.

He is in such an exhausted state that he cannot even emit his consciousness domain.

"I am here."

"Why I chose an upward slash at the end. I want to tell you."

"Is there a reason?"

"No, then what, did you think I am a person who just lives however he feels like without thinking? I am also someone who has a reason for his actions."

"..."

Hong Fan squeezes his eyes shut.

Is it because he has experienced warmth?

The emotions that have been almost worn away...

Seem to come back to life, at least in part.

"Is it not because I look tired that you faced me only to a moderate extent?"

"Hehehe, I did not face you moderately. Why would I do such a thing? It is just that...I wanted to tell you, who has just reached Entering Heavens Beyond the Path, the meaning of Entering Heavens Beyond the Path Martial Arts, which is the basis of the name Entering Heavens Beyond the Path."

"Is it not a martial discipline meant for transmission itself?"

Seo Eun-hyun looks up at Hong Fan and continues speaking.

"Transmission, of course, is there. The wish that later generations reach a higher realm through martial discipline...but that is a means, not the goal. Entering Heavens Beyond the Path Martial Arts does not take such a thing as its purpose."

"Then what is it?"

"The purpose of Entering Heavens Beyond the Path Martial Arts is, to accomplish."

"To accomplish?"

"Yes. It is to accomplish one's wish."

"..."

"To achieve what you wish, you must look into your own heart. Entering Heavens Beyond the Path Martial Arts is...a martial discipline to make you look into your own heart and have you reflect on what you yourself want."

Gradually, Seo Eun-hyun's breathing becomes rough.

His life force is now running out.

However, even as he is dying, he does not stop passing words to Hong Fan.

"Because I longed for freedom from fate, I obtained the Formless Sword. The founder of this martial discipline, in order to go beyond cultivators and surpass everything that blocks him and return home, obtained the Surpassing Radiant Saber. And Hong Fan. As I see it, you seem to long for something else."

"...It seems you have seen my fatigue."

"Yes. You want to rest."

"...Are you going to cheer me on to take it easy?"

"No. You just do as you wish. If you want to take it easy, then do so."

"..."

"I, on the day I obtained the meaning of Entering Heavens Beyond the Path Martial Arts and reached Entering Heavens Beyond the Path Formless Sword, once cut Heavenly Lightning and reached the ultimate of all upward slashes."

—Entering Heavens Beyond the Path.

—Formless Sword.

The one strike from that time when the Formless Sword cut and split blue lightning and pierced through the clouds of the sky.

Thinking of the Formless Sword that he, at that time, slashed upward toward the heavens, Seo Eun-hyun smiles.

"The essence of slashing upward is to go against gravity. It also means the will to stand up even when the body is heavy. It is also the will to not give up no matter how much suffering and hardship comes rushing in."

Hong Fan finds it awkward to be told the interpretation of Martial Arts.

For him, Martial Arts is nothing but a technique for killing.

"Just as I have come to this realm through countless hardships, I think you too have gone through hardships like mine to rise to this place. For rising to Entering Heavens Beyond the Path has that kind of meaning. Even if you have a previous life and remember that previous life."

"..."

Seo Eun-hyun raises his hand.

His aged hand grabs Hong Fan's hand.

It is still a young and strong hand.

"You have suffered a lot. What hardships you have gone through, with what thoughts you have lived...I cannot know it all. But, because I at least know some part of it...if I dare to speak with that qualification...you have suffered.

"The path you have walked is not a meaningless path. In some way or another, it surely has meaning. So...if a day someday comes when you want to rest. When a day comes when you must rest. Rest with an easy heart. Because everything you have done has meaning."

Hong Fan's hand trembles.

His pupils begin to tremble.

"You really have suffered a lot. I wanted to say that...so I made the upward slash."

[TL/N: In Korean, it literally translates to "You have suffered a lot" but it also has the meaning of "You worked hard".]

Seo Eun-hyun does not see it.

Behind Hong Fan's back, enormous black things are pouring out, rotting the whole area.

Hong Fan's body trembles.

Consolation.

[TL/N: The word used here is 위로, which can mean both comfort/consolation and upward.]

It is not as if he used some immense power like Apex of Life-Saving Arts, Formless.

It is not as if, with some great authority, he called forth the very Origin Essence of Happiness itself and gifted it to him.

It is not as if he twisted the principle of this world and forced upon him the interpretation that spring has come to him.

Just.

Consolation.

At that one word...

Hong Fan feels as if the Apex of Life-Saving Arts, Formless...

As if that deep and beautiful position has nested deep inside his heart so there is no way for it to flow out.

Hong Fan's whole body trembles.

"...Master."

"What is it?"

"If there is a next life, I will follow Master even in the next life."

"...Thank you."

Hong Fan realizes that he can never expel this poison.

No matter how much he foresees the future...

Even if, someday, Seo Eun-hyun betrays him and thereby proves that Seo Eun-hyun's consolation in the Heavenly Void Furnace is wrong,

This poison will remain to some extent and will always become salt that gouges at his heart.

In any of the infinitely many futures, until his Divine Art reaches its conclusion, Hong Fan confirms that this poison will continue to remain in his heart and grits his teeth.

"...So, at that time as well, please teach me Martial Arts."

"Haha, even in the next life...if there is a connection. I surely will."

He has to return it.

If he does not return this Formless poison...

Someday, he will in the end lose the technique of [Hope].

Power that is made by shaving himself away is something he can never use as long as there is someone who consoles him.

Therefore Hong Fan, vowing that he will definitely return this formless teaching to him, for once acknowledges the existence called Seo Eun-hyun.

"...Even at that time, my Entering Heavens Beyond the Path will not change. My heart, even if ages of eternal unchanging time flow by, is never going to change..."

Even if there comes a day when he kills him through his Emptiness Sword.

The Martial Arts system of Seo Eun-hyun and Kim Young-hoon, into which he has entered thanks to the heart and comfort Hong Fan received from him.

He will not fall away from Entering Heavens Beyond the Path.

Realizing this, Hong Fan grips his hand and, with all his strength, tries to interpret the Formless as poison, if only to return it to him.

And whether Seo Eun-hyun knows such inner thoughts of Hong Fan or not,

Seo Eun-hyun smiles slightly and asks a question.

"...What name will you give your Entering Heavens Beyond the Path?"

Hong Fan shakes his head.

Only after he reached the Ultimate of Martial Arts did he obtain the Emptiness Sword.

He feels that for the realm of Entering Heavens Beyond the Path, a system that is only the beginning of Martial Arts, there is hardly any point in a name.

"...Mm, I cannot think of a good name, but...does a name even have meaning? I will just call it whatever comes to mind."

Unless it is for an existence that has meaning.

A blade that kills people does not need a proper name.

That is what Hong Fan thinks.

"Hmm, what are you saying? Only by having a name will it make it more satisfying when you use it. If you can't come up with one...how about I name it for you?"

But Seo Eun-hyun shakes his head and speaks.

To feel proud when you display Martial Arts.

Hong Fan has never felt anything like that, but since he knows that Seo Eun-hyun is stubborn in this sort of way, he just lets it be.

"Mm... Do as you wish."

"Alright. Do you have something you strive for? Some meaning you'd like to have in the name?"

"Nothing specific comes to mind but...if we must name it, please include the word sword."

Blade.

In Martial Arts that kill people, there must always be a blade.

That much is the only point on which Hong Fan can compromise.

"Sword?"

"Yes. Since Master's Entering Heavens is the Formless Sword, and since I am receiving it from Master, I'd like it to have 'sword' in it."

It is a completely unrelated reason, but Hong Fan answers like so, hoping that Seo Eun-hyun can go on his way feeling relieved.

"Got it. In that case..."

Seo Eun-hyun looks up at the sky of the Head Realm.

"Let's go with...the sword that cuts through the void (虛空) of nothingness."

Is it coincidence, or inevitability?

It is a clue to the name of the Emptiness Supreme Deity, and at the same time words befitting the Head Realm where the Akashic Records, the collection of all pasts, are sealed.

A sword that cuts the Void.

A name similar to the Emptiness (空虛)  Sword, but a completely different name.

Words that also make him recall a remark of a former subordinate of Heuk Sa Hall, telling him not to be captured by the past and to move forward.

"If you don't like it or if you come up with a better name later, feel free to change it. If another name comes to mind, you can use that instead."

Hong Fan chews over that name for a moment.

And then...he smiles.

"No, I quite like it. The Sword of the Void... If I later come up with a name I like more, I will return this name to Master. Of course..."

This will become the proof of the bet.

If Seo Eun-hyun trusts him until the end, he resolves to keep this Void Sword to the very end.

However, if Seo Eun-hyun's promise collapses...then the meaning contained in that will only fade once more.

'How ironic.'

"If I can't think of a better name until the end, I will continue to use this name even in the next life."

Entering Heavens Beyond the Path.

Void Sword (虛空劍).

That is the name of Hong Fan's new Martial Arts that he receives from Seo Eun-hyun.

"Is that so...? Do as you...wish..."

Seo Eun-hyun begins to close his eyes.

Now his energy is exhausted, and his body is old.

Having just now fought with Hong Fan and drawn out even his last bit of life force, he is now on his way.

Tsuaaaaat!

Light bursts out from behind Hong Fan, and he returns the Radiance Mantra he had retrieved to Seo Eun-hyun, and removes the fate of the Absolute Fragment he had reattached to him.

"Thank you."

Smiling innocently without even knowing what Hong Fan is doing as he says those words, Seo Eun-hyun...

In that way, begins to close his eyes.

Not knowing that his entire life was being toyed with, the sight of him going while smiling so purely and clearly...

...is truly a sight that is hard to behold.

In the end, as he looks at that sight, Hong Fan mutters a few words to him in his final moment.

So low, so low that no one can hear.

Some five hundred years in the time outside the Heavenly Void Furnace.

Roughly fourteen trillion years in the time inside the Heavenly Void Furnace.

At the end of that inconceivable span of time, he finishes this life.

That is Seo Eun-hyun's seventeenth return.

Seo Eun-hyun's timeline shifts, and accordingly, all the Heavenly Venerables and Supreme Deities of Mount Sumeru also shift to another timeline.

Since even the Heavenly Venerable of Time has been moved, this timeline gradually loses the driving force to let time proceed, so time gradually slows, then comes to a complete stop as it closes into a closed loop.

A closed loop that will continue to persist until Time quickly recognizes the other timelines and breathes the power of Origin Essence into those other timelines as well.

In the timeline that is going to come to a stop, Hong Fan takes Seo Eun-hyun's hand, looks at his face, and changes his own body.

Chiiiiii—

Hong Fan, who has borne the imposing appearance of an Imperial King, gradually changes into an aged appearance.

At the same time, the majority of the lightning that is inside Seo Eun-hyun is drawn into Hong Fan.

That sight looks as if he is sucking the years away from Seo Eun-hyun.

At the same time, the three faces separate again, and Hong Fan tears out his own memories, history, and reason itself.

Eventually, by following after Seo Eun-hyun and raising his realm, he will someday regain his memories again...

But for now, he wishes to forget all of his identity and reason, and simply follow Seo Eun-hyun.

And as he gradually changes into the appearance of an old man, he speaks.

"I am jealous. Of that kind of purity."

He wonders that if he too knows nothing like him, if he remembers nothing, could he become like him?

Could he repay that purity?

Could he at least draw a little closer to that attitude that is younger than himself, yet more adult?

Admiring Seo Eun-hyun, Hong Fan temporarily seals away all intellect and memories.

In any case, after having regained his reason once, he has already adjusted the settings of the Radiance Mantra and prepared the prophecies.

He has set it up so that if someone invades the Audience Chamber or the entirety of Mount Sumeru is shaken, he can in an instant regain his memories again.

He simply, with pure curiosity and the desire to become like Seo Eun-hyun, decides to take on an appearance like Seo Eun-hyun's and to try becoming someone who knows nothing, like Seo Eun-hyun.

It is as if he is trying once more to dream a fleeting spring dream.

'At the very end of all endings...'

Will Seo Eun-hyun be able to keep his promise?

Looking forward to that...

Hong Fan plops down to lie beside Seo Eun-hyun.

Right before he loses all reason for the last time.

In the eyes of him, the Future King, one strand of a far-off future is caught.

'Ah...is that so?'

Perhaps, he might be able to reach that future.

Thus, as Hong Fan closes his eyes, together with Seo Eun-hyun, he heads toward a new timeline.

He flies toward Seo Eun-hyun's seventeenth cycle.

That is the end of the entire story of the sixteenth cycle.

Pakang—

The timeline and history of the sixteenth cycle shatter into pieces.

And the shattered history, within the Gestation World full of darkness and chaos, flows to the Crystal King who sits in that far-off place.

At last, back to the present.

Receiving back all of the sixteenth cycle's worldlines that have flown into him, Seo Eun-hyun looks at Hong Fan.

He barely managed to block Transcending Peaks.

But as the price, he exhausted all of his energy.

It is the same even for Bong Hwa.

Because she has been loading her energy onto Seo Eun-hyun, even she, as an innocent party, has had her strength consumed.

Using the authority of the Life Supreme Deity, she tries to summon all the Immortal Beasts within Mount Sumeru and breathe even their life force into him, but it is no use.

Kugugugugu!

The Immortal Beasts have their life force plundered by Bong Hwa and let out groans in the chaos of the Gestation World.

And, having recovered a sliver of energy at the price of their groans, Seo Eun-hyun looks at the Future King Hong Fan, who is drawing everything in before his eyes.

Wooooong—

Woong—

A sacred ringing flows out from the tip of his sword.

—Emptiness Sword Forth Move Applied Profundity.

—Fate.

A technique that maximizes repulsion force, briefly separates the Absolute of Fate from his true body, pushes it into the Emptiness Sword, and attacks the opponent with it.

In a way, its principle is also similar to Seo Eun-hyun's One Annihilation to the Near Shore, which pushes his own Nascent Soul into the sword.

On top of that...

Hong Fan has just returned the entirety of the sixteenth cycle to Seo Eun-hyun.

The Formless Poison, which has only been spreading all this time, for the first time has its momentum checked and flows out of his body.

Just as Seo Eun-hyun sacrificed himself to reclaim the Enders,

By returning to Seo Eun-hyun the worldline and history that have become his own, the Future King for a brief time comes to be free from the influence of the Formless Poison.

In addition, as his prophecy and Divine Art mesh together, at last the Immortal Art that will put the final period on the whole story is activated.

An Immortal Art of self-sacrifice.

An Immortal Art that makes the True Emperor sacrifice himself, pour himself into another Emperor, transfer the ownership of the Absolute, and enthrone the other as a Creator God!

The moment that sword hits Seo Eun-hyun head-on.

The personality of the existence called Seo Eun-hyun will disappear, and Bong Hwa will come out and receive the Origin Essence of Fate.

And with Silver Basket, Obsidian, and Vast Cold, who are in the grasp of the Fate Supreme Deity.

And with a handful of the miscellaneous spirits of Enders, he will grant her the Absolute of Hope and make her into a new Creator God.

Only today will he at last see the end of the story and obtain salvation!

Gugugugugu!

From the very tip of the Emptiness Sword, a radiance surpassing the First Light bursts forth.

This is a story that creates a new Creator Deity.

Woo-woooong!

The very end of the 2,999th cycle.

Seo Eun-hyun, with the 3000th cycle before him, knows.

'I cannot surpass it.'

Wiiiiiiing!

Hong Fan imbues the technique of Great Mountain Pressing Down with the evolved technique of Hope, [Salvation], and strikes down.

Its speed is Nirvana Tranquility.

On top of that, it is a power that has gone through several accelerations.

Even with Seo Eun-hyun's Nirvana Tranquility, he is a bit lacking.

In terms of speed, he cannot follow.

In terms of strength, he also cannot follow.

He is defeated in skill as well.

The curse poison has also considerably drained away.

Moreover, he himself is in a state where his strength has drained away.

To win by force is impossible.

But even so, Seo Eun-hyun takes his stance and, against Hong Fan's downward slash, chooses an upward slash.

Unlike the Future King's strike, which has reached the speed of Nirvana Tranquility, his is a dull sword.

Hong Fan notices.

'Is it that technique again?'

Tsuaaaat—

The technique that blocks Hope and pierces through the Divine Art.

He grasps the principle.

Because it is a technique that resonates with the Formless Poison and is imbued with the heart that consoles him, it resists Hope and the Divine Art.

Cheok—

Once again, behind Seo Eun-hyun, two Mountain Divine Spirits appear.

Salt Sea and Great Mountain.

It is Entering Heaven.

'It is useless.'

The world is not a bright fairy tale.

A miracle will not occur.

For everything Hong Fan has accumulated is greater than a miracle.

Cheok—

Behind Seo Eun-hyun, the countless Enders and Bong Hwas who have entered the Audience Chamber are revealed.

'Has he applied the Canvas of Myriad Forms and Connections?'

Even so, it is useless.

Sometimes, there are gaps that simply cannot be overcome.

As the sword rises a little sluggishly, it becomes the principle of Treading Heaven.

Cheok—

Behind Seo Eun-hyun...

Countless existences appear.

They are all the connections Seo Eun-hyun has formed up until now.

'Are you saying you will gather all connections and stand against me?'

Even so, it is useless.

The story he has accumulated is even longer, more distant, and more desperate.

The effect of A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation is one.

The Strongest.

As long as he enforces the story, he absolutely cannot be surpassed.

Seo Eun-hyun's sword becomes the principle of Punishing Heaven.

Cheok—

The countless silhouettes behind Seo Eun-hyun reach out their hands toward Seo Eun-hyun and pour light into him.

It is the stories of all the figures Seo Eun-hyun has met.

They materialize.

Using Seo Eun-hyun's Canvas of Myriad Forms and Connections as coordinates and Bong Hwa as the flow of life...

They are temporarily taken out from the bridle of history and support Seo Eun-hyun.

—Golden Great Thousand World Transcendence Technique, Surpassing Radiance.

—Romance of the Golden Divine, Eighty Quadrillion Lightning-Tipped Spear.

—Falling Flower.

—Azure Wing Heavenly Shatter Transcendence Technique, Nameless One Fist.

—Entering Heavens Beyond the Path, Full Blossom.

—Artificial Computation Device, Agate.

All Enders throughout the ages.

—Hoho, Daoist Seo.

—Immortal Art, Tainted Soul Filling the Heavens.

—I don't know what kind of situation this is, but win.

—Entering Heavens Beyond the Path, Heart of Love.

—Win.

—Immortal Art, Fireworks.

All the connections with whom he had been hostile and with whom he had also come to form familiar, deep relationships.

The Ju family, his disciples, Cheongmun Clan, the people of Cheon-saek City, Azure Tiger Saint, Jin Byuk-ho, Heo Gwak, Azure Heaven Creation Sect, Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder Sect, Black Ghost Valley, Seo Li, the people of the Vast Cold Realm, the believers of the Nether Ghost Realm, the connections of the Ancient Force Realm, Jang Ik, Yu Hwa, Baek Yeom, Gyu Baek, and the other Heart Tribe.

The Star Shattering stage Esteemed Ones, the Sacred Masters, the Entering Nirvana True Persons, Ham Jin, Yu Hwi, Yeo Hwi, the connections of the Astral Realm, and the True Immortals he met in the Sun and Moon Heavenly Domain such as Black Dragon, Yeong Seung, and Golden Shaking Bird.

The Radiance Eight Immortals, the Sword Spear Heavenly Lord Ji Hwa, Radiance Hall Guardian Immortal Ho Woon, Radiance Hall Great Net Immortal Maek Jin, all of the Radiance Hall True Immortals up to and including the Purple Gold Heavenly Lords, Glass Peacock, Mountain-Destroying Demon Ape, White-Winged Heavenly Pegasus, Yu Soo Ryeon, Hae Nyeong, Yu Hao Te, Blood Yin, and the other Immortal Beasts. And besides them, the innumerably many Immortal Beasts he has met.

The forces of the Underworld and the forces of each Supreme Deity.

And, beginning with Time, Sal Tree, and the Underworld, the Governing Immortals such as the Liberation Supreme Deity, the Heavenly Punishment Supreme Deity, the Naming Supreme Deity, the Swallowing Heaven Supreme Deity, and so on.

The Enders of previous generations who gave him immense help, such as Silver Basket, Obsidian, Vast Cold, Yang Su-jin, and others.

And...

Master and Senior Brother.

Carrying all those connections on his back, Seo Eun-hyun continues raising his sword.

The principle of the sword reaches Escaping Heaven.

Then, Hong Fan can tell.

That it is his victory.

All those stories.

Even if all those connections are added, they still cannot surpass him.

In this world, there definitely are things that simply cannot be done.

'This world is not a fairy tale.'

A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation is absolute.

He has not met even a single opponent on whom he expended this much strength, and he has never once fought while revealing this much strength.

Even so, he can tell.

Even now, he is still inexhaustible.

On the other hand, Seo Eun-hyun, even while drawing forth and using all his connections, still falls far short of him.

'Are you going to try to recall what you received from Buk Hyang-hwa again.'

By now, even that is within his expectations.

But at least right now, logic like saying that the heart is a blessing, or that hearts connecting is a miracle, does not hold.

'Farewell.'

—Splitting Emperor Splitting Heaven.

The shadow of the Great Mountain Supreme Deity lends its strength together to Seo Eun-hyun.

All the spirits that compose the mantra of Wuji lend their strength together.

The principle of All-Heavens Righteous Understanding dwells in the sword after Escaping Heaven.

—Annihilation Advancement Mu 

The principle of Auspicious Soul Filling the Heavens dwells in the sword after All-Heavens.

[Splitting Emperor Splitting Heaven.]

With the power formed by all those connections right before him, Hong Fan looks straight into Seo Eun-hyun's eyes, and at last the two swords collide.

'Is that so? Is this...your story?'

It starts from Entering Heaven, and he enters the heavens.

It reaches Treading Heaven and he treads on the heavens.

It becomes Punishing Heaven, and he defeats the heavens,

It then becomes Escaping Heaven, he frees himself from the heavens,

And only then, he fills the heavens completely.

'It is a good story. This is farewell.'

A story that creates a new heavens.

[Separate Heaven Martial Arts (別天武).]

[Editor: 'Separate' as in 'different' or 'another'.]

Severing Heaven Sword Form.

Transcendent Profundity.

At the same time, it is Seo Eun-hyun's answer that departs from True Martial Arts, the system of the Martial God called the Future King Fate Supreme Deity.

His final enlightenment that starts from Entering Heavens Martial Arts and reaches all the way here.

The Martial Arts of a Separate Heaven.

Tsuaaaat!

Behind Seo Eun-hyun, the last silhouette appears.

Even without looking, he can tell.

It is Buk Hyang-hwa.

But, no matter how much they bless him even with Buk Hyang-hwa joining in,

They cannot stop this story.

—True Martial Arts Emptiness Sword Final Profundity.

That is what he thinks.

Until he sees the last silhouette that appears behind Seo Eun-hyun.

Seo Eun-hyun's connections.

Those are...

Connections that include Hong Fan.

—Gu Ju...your name is Gu Ju.

At the end of the 16th cycle.

There was a Three Spirits Art clone that he ascended to the heavens and a clone he scattered as insects and sowed into the earth.

But the last clone stayed together with Hong Fan in preparation for the unforeseen.

And he placed that last clone inside Seo Eun-hyun.

His purest aspect.

The story of the time when he was youngest and not yet unhappy, when he still kept the name his mother gave him.

The story of when he was most incomplete.

'Ah...'

He placed his own incompleteness inside Seo Eun-hyun.

Gu Ju, who comes out from behind Seo Eun-hyun, begins to help Seo Eun-hyun.

—Separate Heaven Martial Arts Void Sword Final Profundity.

—True Salvation.

The final trap that he placed inside the existence called Seo Eun-hyun.

The fragment of the feeling, 'I want to rest,' that Hong Fan felt while being treated by Seo Eun-hyun, and his pure true heart.

Even if Seo Eun-hyun finally brings about a miracle, the trap that would seize his ankle in the end.

That aspect, moved by Seo Eun-hyun...aims its sword toward Hong Fan.

Even now,

He still knows in his head that he can win.

For the world is not so easy that one can overcome it just with connections.

As long as he keeps running endlessly toward his goal by his own will,

A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation is definitely the Strongest.

In this at least, it is an [absolute proposition].

However...

In the final moment,

The moment when the weakest dull sword and the strongest swift sword collide,

Hong Fan, with the two eyes that face Seo Eun-hyun and the true heart of his purest time standing behind him,

Closes them by his own will.

Deeeeeeng!!

The sound of a brahma bell rings through the entire Gestation World.

The Pure-White Emperor's one sword burns the chaotic Heaven and Earth and reverses attraction force.

It snaps the Pitch-Black Emperor's one sword, and cuts apart the Divine Art and everything of the Emperor that lies behind it.

Splitting Emperor Splitting Heaven.

Separate Heaven Martial Arts.

At first, it does not even reach the lower dantian.

But the Separate Heaven Martial Arts, which grows as it carves a scratch from the perineum up to the pit of the stomach,

At its very end at last splits in half the entirety of the lower, middle, and upper dantians of the Future King Fate Supreme Deity Hong Fan Gu Ju all together, devours the Absolute of Fate in which the Immortal Art of self-sacrifice is activated, and elevates the existence called Seo Eun-hyun as an existence of Creation.

At last, his own Original Flow.

Seo Eun-hyun, who has reached the answer called Divine Arts, gives a name to the Divine Art.

Divine Art.

⟨Story's End⟩

It is the period that puts the final point on A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation.

—I prophesize. You will not complete three thousand regressions, and I will seize the entire Severing Heaven Sword Form whole from you, and you will be killed by your own Martial Arts.

The 2,999th cycle.

Hong Fan, who meets the prophecy twisted by himself, collapses within the chaotic world and laughs.

'Ah...so it was inevitable.'

Reaching the end of the story and coming to realize that in the end he cannot deceive his own true heart, Hong Fan laughs emptily yet with a sense of release and gazes at the Absolute One being born before his eyes.

The name of the Absolute One is Seo Eun-hyun.

He is the new god who finished the story called A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation.

At the end of everything.

Hong Fan realizes that the God of Connections before his eyes is truly his own Lord, and with laughter in which many emotions are mixed...he begins to cry as he quietly laughs.