Chapter 366 ·Side Story 2 – An Unintended Journey (2)
Chapter 366: Side Story 2 – An Unintended Journey (2)
The Six Great Heavens(六大天).
They were the legends of the Central Heavens Martial Realm, absolute beings said to possess power approaching that of gods.
Demon Heaven Lord, Temporal Heavenly Demon Muk Geom-yeong.
Sword Heaven Lord, Supreme Purity Divine Sovereign Zhang Sanfeng.
Dream Heaven Lord, Ninefold Nine Heavens Chu Ok-yeong.
Dragon Emperor Heavenly Lord, Divine Dragon Emperor Yong Cheon-myeong.
Blade Heaven Lord, Eight-Direction Tathagata Divine Blade Seonwoo Baek-rin.
After his Ascension, Jang Woo-hyun had become entangled with five of the Six Great Heavens.
Although one of them had now lost his power, Jang Woo-hyun had even defeated him.
There was only one of the Six Great Heavens whom he had never met.
Fist Heaven Lord(拳天主), Invincible Divine Fist(無敵神拳) Ak Do-gyeom.
He was regarded as the most accomplished practitioner of fist and kicking techniques in the Central Heavens Martial Realm.
Even within the Central Heavens, where countless mysteries and legends lived and breathed, the Six Great Heavens were difficult beings to encounter.
Yet Jang Woo-hyun had now come face-to-face with all six of them.
‘Strange.’
That was the first thought that came to mind after meeting the Fist Heaven Lord, Ak Do-gyeom.
‘Sharp.’
No.
To describe it more precisely, he was not sharp like a blade, but pointed like a spear or awl.
He was undoubtedly someone who stood at the pinnacle of fist and kicking techniques, yet he gave the impression that he could pierce straight through anything.
“Hahaha! I heard you lost your strength, but it seems your eyes are still as sharp as ever.”
“What? What do you mean by—”
“They call you the Invincible Divine Sword, don’t they? I came to see what sort of fellow uses an alias similar to mine. But that old man from the Taiji Sect and that monster kept shielding you so fiercely that they wouldn’t hand you over easily.”
“I don’t understand what the Fist Heaven Lord is talking abou—”
“Ah, there’s no need to understand. You just need to take one hit.”
Ak Do-gyeom seemed to be in such a hurry that he did not even let Jang Woo-hyun finish speaking.
He grinned and lowered his stance.
At that moment.
Boooom!
“Ugh!”
The ground sank as if an earthquake had struck.
It was enough to create the illusion that the world itself had collapsed.
Ak Do-gyeom clenched his fist.
It was nothing more than a simple movement, yet what followed was anything but simple.
Every trace of energy in the surroundings was sucked into his hand.
“I heard your strength declined. Then let’s start by seeing if you can take one hit.”
“You suddenly appeared and started spouting what kind of nonsen—”
“Wahahaha! Here I come!”
Seeing Ak Do-gyeom laughing loudly, Jang Woo-hyun was reminded of a friend who was not human.
‘That monkey?’
There was no way it was a coincidence that Ak Do-gyeom overlapped in his mind with that insane monkey who could never resist a fight.
‘There’s another one like him?’
Even as the thought continued, Jang Woo-hyun’s body moved automatically.
“Brother!”
Jin Ha-un raised his two swords and used Yin and Yang Energy to create a Taeguk before the group.
At the same moment, Ak Do-gyeom thrust out his fist.
And the entire world was dyed in light.
---
His vision was completely black, as though he had been locked inside a basement where not even a single ray of light could enter.
Beeeeeeep────
Even when he focused his senses, all he could hear was ringing in his ears.
He could feel nothing else.
How long had he remained like that?
Eventually, someone’s voice pierced through the ringing.
“─Brother!”
His vision slowly returned.
“Jang─!”
‘Hwang An.’
He still could not hear properly, but he knew it was his friend’s voice.
Since there was nothing else he could do immediately, he focused on recovering first.
A short while later.
“Brother Jang! Are you all right? Brother Jang! Say something!”
Hwang An’s face came into view, and Jang Woo-hyun could finally understand what he was saying.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“You’re finally coming around? I’m fine because you protected me, Brother Jang. This isn’t the time to worry about someone else. We’re surrounded.”
“What?”
At Hwang An’s words, Jang Woo-hyun pushed himself upright.
He then pulled out a handful of recovery pills from his Inner Robe Dharma Tool and tossed them into his mouth.
The effects were immediate.
Smoke poured from his entire body as his wounds healed.
At the same time, he expanded his senses and took in his surroundings.
Far away, people who appeared to be Cultivators were glaring at Jang Woo-hyun and Hwang An while holding Dharma Treasures.
Strangely, although they remained wary, they did not appear inclined to charge in immediately.
With a little breathing room, Jang Woo-hyun examined the surroundings.
The area, surrounded on all sides by towering mountain peaks, was enormous enough to comfortably contain an entire city.
Just as before, the ground was completely covered in writhing flesh, while several altar-like structures made of bones and blood vessels stood scattered throughout.
And directly ahead stood a gigantic structure formed from a grotesque mass of bones and flesh.
“A gate?”
Just as Jang Woo-hyun thought, it resembled an enormous gate.
Strangely, cracks and shattered traces hung in empty space around it, as though a dimension or the world itself had split apart.
Along the straight path connecting Jang Woo-hyun to the gate, there were neither altars nor writhing masses of flesh.
It was as though someone had erased everything in the way.
Behind them stood two more gates similar to the one before him.
The sky visible above those enormous gates was completely blood-red, unlike the sky of the Central Heavens.
‘Is this the Corpse-Blood Realm?’
He had unquestionably been in the Central Heavens Realm only moments ago.
How had this happened?
“How long was I unconscious?”
“Not even a quarter of an hour.”
He had not been unconscious for very long.
‘Can someone reach this place from the Central Heavens Realm that quickly?’
He had crossed into the Corpse-Blood Realm before, during the battle against the Radiant Light Sect.
Back then, the Radiant Light Sect had poured an enormous amount of time and effort into doing so.
Yet this time, he had arrived far too easily.
‘Could it be because of that?’
Empty space had cracked and shattered like glass struck by a stone.
It did not seem capable of recovering easily even through the World Restoration Force.
“Where are we? It seems a little different from the Central Heavens Realm.”
“It’s probably the Corpse-Blood Realm.”
“The Corpse-Blood Realm? That world of corpses? How did we suddenly end up here?”
“Because of that.”
Jang Woo-hyun pointed ahead.
“It looks like some kind of gate. Did we pass through there? But when did we ever…… Ah!”
As Hwang An listened to the explanation, he realized what had happened.
Faced with the sheer absurdity of the situation, he could only gape.
“You’re probably thinking the same thing I am. That single punch shattered a gate connecting dimensions and hurled us into this place.”
A short while earlier.
Jang Woo-hyun’s group had discovered a gate connecting the Central Heavens and the Corpse-Blood Realm on the Floating Continent.
While they stood with that gate behind them, the Fist Heaven Lord, Ak Do-gyeom, threw a punch that shattered the narrow passage and created an even larger opening.
In the end, Jang Woo-hyun and Hwang An had fallen into the Corpse-Blood Realm.
“Monster…….”
Hwang An’s assessment was exactly right.
The Corpse-Blood Realm and the Central Heavens were neither close enough to travel between easily nor worlds that could be connected without great difficulty.
Yet although a small passage had already been opened, the Fist Heaven Lord had still sent Jang Woo-hyun and Hwang An across dimensions and into this place with a single punch.
‘Now I understand why those bastards aren’t attacking.’
The Cultivators surrounding them from every direction merely watched cautiously.
Jang Woo-hyun now understood why they neither approached nor attacked.
They could not move carelessly after witnessing the absurd destructive power Ak Do-gyeom had displayed.
“Ha-Ha-un is here too, right?”
“No. He got blown away back then.”
“When did you even see that?”
Before losing consciousness, Jang Woo-hyun had seen Jin Ha-un leap forward and attempt to block Ak Do-gyeom’s attack.
The Taeguk Pattern he created at the time had failed to stop the attack.
However, it had definitely protected Jin Ha-un himself.
Even if he had been sent flying away at a tremendous speed.
“So only the two of us need to return.”
“Yeah. Though it won’t be easy.”
It seemed like they simply needed to leave through the gate they had entered.
However, they did not even know whether they could return through the shattered gate, so the situation was not that simple.
More importantly, there was another problem.
‘The Corpse-Blood Realm bastards won’t just stand there and watch once we move. Huh? But why am I fine?’
The Corpse-Blood Realm rejected the living.
Last time, even breathing had been difficult before Lee Ahn helped him.
For a moment, Jang Woo-hyun wondered whether it was because this was his second time crossing over.
But one look at Hwang An made it clear that was not the case.
‘Either this place is somewhat unusual, or there’s another reason.’
Jang Woo-hyun tried to determine the cause, but his thoughts could not continue any further.
Craaaack!
Along with the sound of something breaking, the cracks in the empty space ahead rapidly spread.
Then, with a deafening explosion, the enormous gate and the surrounding space shattered apart, and someone appeared within the area.
“I swear, this place feels unpleasant every time I come here.”
Naturally, the person who appeared was Ak Do-gyeom.
“Oh! You really are alive. Good. Then let’s go again.”
“What? No, hold on. Hold on a moment. Please wait. You clearly said one hit earlier, didn’t you?”
Hwang An hid behind Jang Woo-hyun and hurriedly poured out his words.
The pressure was immense and impossible to resist, but as long as he remained behind Jang Woo-hyun, it was somewhat bearable.
“That one didn’t count because the guy from the Taiji Sect interfered. This time is the real one.”
“How does that make any sense?! Even for someone of your stat—”
“Enough.”
Jang Woo-hyun cut Hwang An off and raised his sword.
“If I block this one, you’ll send us back to the Central Heavens Realm.”
If Ak Do-gyeom had a personality similar to the Wind-Passing Great Sage, this would never end easily.
And although Jang Woo-hyun’s strength had declined, losing consciousness from a single strike had still wounded his pride.
“Hehehe. Good. You need at least that much guts. Let’s have one clean exchange, then we’ll head back together. I have something to discuss with you anyway.”
The two stared at each other with smiles on their faces and assumed their stances.
Jang Woo-hyun swung his sword.
Sometimes quickly.
Sometimes slowly.
At times simply, and at other times with dazzling complexity.
The movements continued one after another before suddenly coming to a halt.
A magnificent Mandala Pattern appeared before him.
At the sight, Ak Do-gyeom clenched his fist.
“Huh? Hey, I’ll have to put a little more power into this one.”
“Aaaaaaah!”
Before Hwang An’s scream could even end, Ak Do-gyeom’s fist collided with the Mandala Pattern.
Once again, the world was dyed in light.
‘Ah!’
And Jang Woo-hyun realized there was another gate behind him.
---
Jang Woo-hyun lost consciousness once again from Ak Do-gyeom’s second attack.
When he regained consciousness, what greeted him was not Hwang An’s voice, but a desperate scream echoing from far away.
Thinking that Hwang An might have fallen into danger, Jang Woo-hyun launched himself toward the sound without even taking the time to examine his surroundings.
The moment he arrived at the scene, he saw an enormous dragon attacking a group of people.
Without hesitation, he cut off the creature’s head.
‘And that brings me to the current situation.’
The corpse of an enormous dragon resembling a lizard.
And people who appeared to be foreigners.
‘I was blown into another place again.’
Jang Woo-hyun did not know what objective the Cultivators of the Corpse-Blood Realm had.
However, one thing was certain.
They had opened gates leading to several different dimensions.
Because of Ak Do-gyeom’s strike, Jang Woo-hyun must have passed through one of those gates and arrived in another world.
‘They definitely said the Corpse-Blood Realm was also connected to the world of the Ascenders.’
Lee Ahn, someone from the Corpse-Blood Realm with whom Jang Woo-hyun had ties, was a necromancer and an Archmage.
She was also an Ascender.
Then there was a high probability that this place was a world inhabited by people from the World of Magic, the realm known as the Western Heaven.
While Jang Woo-hyun briefly organized his thoughts, the group, including the woman he had first spoken to, cautiously approached him.
They repeatedly bowed their heads while speaking, but naturally, Jang Woo-hyun could not understand a word.
“One moment.”
Jang Woo-hyun held out his hand in a gesture telling them to wait, then opened his Inner Robe Dharma Tool.
-Take this with you. You’ll have plenty of occasions to use it while traveling, so keep it on you. Don’t just fight everything you see. Try talking first. What is it? It sends my Will directly into the other person’s mind. It also receives their intentions and thoughts. Think of it as a kind of translator or interpreter? If something has enough intelligence, you can even communicate with Monsters, so don’t start fighting them blindly. It doesn’t work every single time, but always give it a try first.
It was one of the Dharma Treasures that Cho-su had given him before he set out on his journey again.
Its shape resembled the famous Golden Headband cut in half, though it was much thinner.
Jang Woo-hyun fitted the interpretation Dharma Treasure around the back of his head.
His hair completely concealed it.
“Ah, ah. Can you understand what I’m saying?”
When he spoke, the people nodded vigorously.
““Strangely thank save inside head! Echoing save seems but thank you can understand. Thank you!””
As several voices poured into his mind simultaneously, Jang Woo-hyun furrowed his brow.
“Wait, wait. One person. Please have only one representative speak.”
“Ah, understood. On behalf of my companions, I offer you our thanks. You saved our lives. A-Are you perhaps from the Chimera Alliance?”
‘Chimera?’
The word was completely different in nature from anything he had heard until now.
Jang Woo-hyun’s suspicion was rapidly turning into certainty.
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