Chapter 309 : Each Person’s Goal
Chapter 309: Each Person’s Goal
[Thirteenth Version]
[One Hundred Twenty-Seventh Version]
[Fiftieth Version]
.
.
.
Though he had no idea what it meant, only the first line differed like this.
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven stared at the writing for a long while.
Naturally, he understood nothing.
“Why does this piss me off so much?”
He did not know what it said nor what kind of writing it was, yet that was simply how he felt.
For some reason, it seemed as though whoever carved those words into the stone tablets was laughing at him.
‘Since the rest all seem the same, I’ll just take a few.’
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven opened his mouth wide and gulped down three of the stone tablets resting atop the table.
The stone tablets were far larger than his mouth, but such a thing posed no difficulty for a Great Demon.
“Well now, I wondered which lunatic had broken into my house, and it turns out to be Elder Brother?”
Just as he swallowed the tablets, the owner of the house returned.
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven turned his head toward the voice.
A blue monkey demon wearing clothes filled with so many colors it hurt the eyes came trudging over.
The Nine-Body Great Sage, Woo Yung-wang.
One of the Seven Great Sages and a Great Demon who was also the younger brother of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven.
“Why’d you come into someone else’s house without permission?”
“What do you mean without permission? I announced it before coming in.”
“You announced it?”
“Yeah. I said I was coming in before entering.”
“…….”
How could he say so confidently that he had announced himself to an empty house with nobody inside?
Dumbfounded, Woo Yung-wang nevertheless decided not to pursue the matter further.
Conversation only worked if the other party possessed reason and common sense, but the being before him fundamentally lacked both.
“Forget it. The more I talk, the more I feel like an idiot. But why are you taking someone else’s belongings?”
“There are plenty of them.”
“No, I mean, even if there are plenty, they still belong to someone else—”
“Why are they someone else’s?”
“Then what?”
“We’re brothers, so we can share.”
“Bro……thers?”
“Yeah.”
At the Great Sage Equaling Heaven’s shameless confidence, Woo Yung-wang found himself speechless.
As far as he knew, his sworn elder brother was not the sort of demon who said things like this.
What exactly had happened for him to casually call them brothers?
“So…… uh, Elder Brother, have you lost your mind? Ah, right. You being insane is already famous. Then are you actually sane? Why are you suddenly saying things like that?”
The Seven Great Sages called one another elder and younger brothers, but they were not real family.
The title Seven Great Sages was simply a collective term for seven powerful demons.
They interacted often enough, but not all of them got along.
They did not care for one another or look after one another either.
Yet now the craziest among them, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, was speaking this way, so naturally Woo Yung-wang was bewildered.
“Th…… no. If we keep talking, I’m the only one who’ll feel stupid, so let’s stop here. If you need them, take them. It’s not like there’s only one.”
“What are these rocks and pieces of wood? They all seem to say the same thing.”
“I don’t know either. I haven’t found all of them, but that’s not the end of it. There should be far more than these. They were scattered all over the place from the beginning. Almost as if someone wanted them to be discovered.”
“And have you deciphered whether these are letters or symbols?”
Woo Yung-wang shook his head.
“I don’t know. They seem closer to writing than symbols, but at the same time they lack any rules for writing. Yet calling them scribbles doesn’t feel right either.”
“Really? Then whatever. I’m leaving now.”
“So you came just to steal those?”
“Yeah. I saw them before and thought they were interesting, so I wanted to figure them out too.”
“Did you discover something?”
Since the Great Sage Equaling Heaven traveled around constantly seeking battles, Woo Yung-wang asked just in case.
“No. I’m just keeping them for now. If we figure out what they say, that’ll benefit you too, right?”
“That’s true enough. Fine then, forget that. I’ve got something to discuss. I was planning to seek you out anyway.”
“You were looking for me? Why? To fight?”
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven bared his teeth in delight, but Woo Yung-wang’s expression immediately hardened.
“You just called us brothers, so why are you talking about fighting again?”
“You grow stronger by fighting.”
“No thanks. We’re not children. Stop talking nonsense. Elder Brother, let’s work together on something. You’ll like it too.”
“What kind of thing?”
“I’m thinking of crossing into the Central Realm. All we have to do is kill a single human there.”
Though he could do it alone, Woo Yung-wang preferred certainty.
To increase the odds, he intended to move together with his brothers.
“The Central Realm? Why there?”
“I made a contract with a True Immortal. He said that if I killed one human, he’d let us go anywhere we wanted.”
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven’s brows furrowed.
Unlike before, his expression gradually stiffened.
“Kuhuhu… kuhuhuhu, UHAHAHAHAHA!”
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven suddenly burst into loud laughter.
A moment later, he abruptly stopped laughing, and the atmosphere completely changed.
“He said he’d let us out of here? And you believed that?”
RUMBLE!
At the same time he spoke, the ground suddenly trembled.
Woo Yung-wang’s fur stood on end as though struck by static electricity.
Soon not only the ground but the entire surrounding space shook as if it might shatter.
The playful and carefree atmosphere always surrounding the Great Sage Equaling Heaven vanished, leaving only madness within his blue eyes.
A fitting appearance for a Great Demon.
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven’s body slowly floated upward as storms raged in all directions.
An immense pressure crushed the surroundings, but standing before him was no ordinary existence—it was another Great Demon.
“Tone it down a little. You’re going to collapse my house.”
As Woo Yung-wang waved his hand, invisible pillars rose around the Great Sage Equaling Heaven.
The raging winds could no longer escape beyond those pillars.
“Listen to the rest before you lose your temper. Did you really think I’d make a contract with a True Immortal without preparation? He’s not saying he’ll free us completely. He means he’ll allow us to move our original bodies. Even a True Immortal’s ancestor couldn’t do anything about our True Bodies anyway. Just being able to move our original bodies freely would already be incredible. You’d like that too, Elder Brother. You could wander around with your true body and enjoy all the battles you want.”
Though the bodies they currently possessed were considered their main forms, the true bodies of the six Great Demons were separate entities.
Except for the youngest among them, the True Bodies of the Six Great Sages formed the Demon Realm itself, meaning no one could extract them.
And because they possessed such True Bodies, even the True Immortals and Martial Gods of the Upper Realm could not ignore the six Great Demons belonging to the Middle Realms.
“We’ll receive a Dharma Treasure created by the Upper Realm. We’ll judge based on its performance before making further negotiations. If its power is insufficient, then we simply won’t hand over the human we capture. We don’t even need to kill him.”
“…….”
“We just need to cross into the Central Murim, but there are troublesome humans there, so I’m thinking the two of us plus one more should each send a clone. Around Demon King level strength should do. We just go there, quickly capture the human, and return. Elder Sister will probably scold us a bit, but the reward’s worth it. And you said you can’t send any more power because you’ve crossed over too many times? Don’t worry about that. Since it’ll be over quickly, I’ll go first and personally summon you. So what do you think of my plan?”
The more he listened, the more the plan actually sounded decent, and even the Great Sage Equaling Heaven found himself slightly tempted.
“……Which bastard made this contract with you?”
“Someone called Silver Light Thousand Hands— Ah! You remember that giant silver hand you asked about before? The one you called Three Thousand Silver Radiance Jewel Heavenly Venerate. It’s him.”
“Huh?”
The blue eyes filled with madness widened in shock.
“Th…… then who’s the human you’re targeting?”
“Someone called Jang Woo-hyun. Apparently he’s an enemy of the True Immortals.”
“…….”
A completely unexpected name.
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven’s floating body descended back to the ground, and the sharp winds surrounding him disappeared.
He simply stood there blinking several times.
“Kuhuhuhu. Huhuhuhuhu.”
Then he suddenly began laughing to himself.
‘My brothers are targeting Jang Woo-hyun?’
He knew this would happen.
As expected of Jang Woo-hyun.
He had not even arrived in the Demon Realm yet, and problems were already brewing around him.
The most entertaining human.
No, not merely among humans.
Even including demons, beasts, and True Immortals alike, he was probably the most entertaining existence among them all.
While Woo Yung-wang stared at him in confusion, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven continued laughing.
Just waiting around was already piling up rewards like candy fruit.
---
A world filled entirely with blades.
Within that place, Jang Woo-hyun walked through empty space.
‘The Chaos Origin Realm.’
The next realm he had learned about through Baek An.
‘Come to think of it, I didn’t experience it this time.’
Every time Jang Woo-hyun advanced to a new realm, he would experience a realm one stage above the one he was about to attain.
When he ascended to the Absolute Realm, he experienced Transcendence.
When he reached the Infinite Realm, he experienced the Minor Universe.
But this time was different.
‘Maybe because I broke through multiple realms at once.’
Chaos Origin was a completely unknown domain.
Jang Woo-hyun stopped in midair and stretched out his hand before clenching his fist.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The countless blades filling the world gathered together.
As though they sought to become one.
Then Jang Woo-hyun opened his hand once more.
The innumerable blades immediately returned to their original positions.
‘This won’t work.’
The final move he had unleashed to defeat Yong Cheon-myeong.
Mountain of Blades and Forest of Swords Unification.
Though it managed to defeat the Boundless Ten-Thousand-Mile Dragon, it had been a power beyond his control.
Using it a single time had destroyed the arm of Jang Woo-hyun, who had already stepped into the Immortal Realm, and in truth, it was not even a technique he performed alone.
Just as Yong Cheon-myeong transformed into the Ten-Thousand-Mile Dragon through the power of the World-Opening Sword, Jang Woo-hyun had united the power of the Mountain of Blades and Forest of Swords using the Hundred Martial Arts.
That force, which unified Minor Universes into one, imposed an enormous burden not only upon himself but also upon the Hundred Martial Arts.
If he tried to use it again now, he could not even predict what would happen.
‘Still, I found a clue.’
A power capable of slaying the Boundless Ten-Thousand-Mile Dragon—something that could practically be called a god—with a single sword strike.
He could not be certain, but perhaps unifying the power of the Minor Universe was the path toward the next realm.
Jang Woo-hyun contemplated alone within his inner world.
Then, sensing someone approaching nearby, he returned to reality.
What he saw were Seo Ryeom, Mak Ya-wol, and Gongson Jung-rak walking toward the training ground.
“Captain, we have something to say. No, that’s not right. More accurately, we have a request.”
After Jang Woo-hyun nodded for them to continue, Seo Ryeom spoke.
“Please teach us martial arts.”
“Excuse me?”
Seo Ryeom was already famous throughout the Central Murim and had established himself as a master.
Hearing someone like him speak as though he were a complete beginner naturally startled Jang Woo-hyun.
“That’s not how you should say it. What I mean is, take a look at our martial arts. We know your talent is completely different from ordinary people, so you’re not very good at explaining things. But you’re now a martial artist of the Immortal Realm. You could still help those of us whose growth has slowed.”
The Six Heavens were essentially living legends of the Central Murim.
Jang Woo-hyun now stood on the same level as them.
For a martial artist, receiving guidance from such an expert was tremendous fortune.
“Once the Captain leaves for the Demon Realm, we have no idea how long it’ll take for you to return.”
It could take several months.
Or perhaps several decades.
“I can’t just sit around during that time either, so I’ve set myself a goal.”
“A goal?”
“Yes. By the time the Captain returns, you’ll have to call me Assembly Master Seo.”
Gongson Jung-rak and Mak Ya-wol quickly turned their heads.
Both stared at Seo Ryeom with wide eyes.
“Why are you so shocked? In the Hundred Martial Assembly, the strongest person naturally becomes Assembly Master. There’s no reason I can’t rise to that position too.”
To Seo Ryeom, the Assembly Master of the Hundred Martial Assembly had once been an unreachable existence.
That was how powerful and incredible the position was.
But now his standards had changed.
‘No matter how strong the Assembly Master is.’
Compared to Jang Woo-hyun, even the Assembly Master of the Hundred Martial Assembly was nothing special.
From now on, for someone to impress Seo Ryeom, they would need to be at least one of the Six Heavens.
As he roamed together with the Demon-Extinguishing Brigade, Seo Ryeom’s goals had changed.
He resolved to climb even higher and become even stronger than before.
“The next time we meet, I’ll be Seo Ryeom—the Left Wing of the Demon-Extinguishing Brigade and the Assembly Master of the Hundred Martial Assembly.”
“Ha…….”
“Haha.”
At his confident declaration, Mak Ya-wol and Gongson Jung-rak looked utterly dumbfounded, while Jang Woo-hyun merely smiled.