Chapter 328 : Truth and Memories
Chapter 328: Truth and Memories
"Just go back. Return and join one of the Three Great Families. Live an ordinary life."
"What are you talking about? I came all the way here. At least tell me why—"
"Just go. Please, just go. Just go! I said go!"
Kim Min-soo suddenly shouted.
Yet no emotion could be felt within his voice.
It was as though he had squeezed out every last bit of strength just to force those words out.
After that, he tightly shut his mouth.
Only after Jang Woo-hyun questioned him over and over did he finally speak again.
His voice was even louder than before.
"Just go! I said go! This is the very least consideration I can show you."
"At least tell me the reason before telling me to leave—"
"It's all a lie! There's nothing! You must have uncovered a few secrets on your way here, haven't you? What should I explain first? The difference between Ascension and Forced Ascension? That the heavens assist those who Ascend? It's all bullshit! Every last bit of it is a lie!"
Jang Woo-hyun simply stared at Kim Min-soo without replying.
"It isn't the heavens' choice. It's not the laws of the world helping martial artists! We were used! The heavens helped martial artists Ascend because they needed us. Why did they need us? Because they needed weapons to fight the cultivators! They needed puppets to wage war against them! They needed soldiers to eliminate the monsters who defied the natural order and cast off the destiny bestowed upon them by the heavens! That... is why the heavens allow martial artists to Ascend."
The difference between Forced Ascension and Ascension had always been a mystery.
Everyone believed that Ascension allowed one to reach the Middle Realm through the heavens' assistance without undergoing Heavenly Tribulation.
But everything Kim Min-soo was saying completely denied that theory.
"...What are you talking about?"
"What do you mean? It means everything is a lie. Everything is a complete mess. Everything I've done was meaningless too. None of it was my own will. Someone else's intentions interfered—"
"Senior Kim! Tell me properly! Do you think I'd simply leave after coming all the way here? What exactly did you see? What truth did you discover? I need to know before I can decide whether to react or fight!"
Unable to contain his frustration, Jang Woo-hyun finally shouted as well.
"..."
Kim Min-soo looked at him for a moment before nodding.
"You're right. You deserve to know too. I wasn't thinking clearly. You must have done everything you could to make it here."
Kim Min-soo chuckled to himself.
Even that laughter contained no emotion.
It was dry and withered.
Nothing more than an imitation.
He raised the glowing orb in his hand toward his mouth.
Before swallowing it, he quietly added,
"You're going to regret this."
Crunch!
The orb shattered inside his mouth.
Kim Min-soo absorbed the memories of the Projections Jang Woo-hyun had encountered.
Light returned to his dull eyes—
But only briefly.
As he stared blankly into space, tears began gathering in the corners of his eyes.
"Senior Kim? Why all of a sudden..."
His lifeless eyes had become filled with tears...
And pity.
Jang Woo-hyun had met Kim Min-soo's Projections on the Dawn Continent and in the Central Heavens.
Now, in the Demonic Spirit Realm, he had finally met the original body.
How many hardships had he endured to come this far?
Kim Min-soo, having already experienced that journey himself, could clearly see the path Jang Woo-hyun had walked.
"...Junior, you've worked hard to make it this far."
"You've suffered far more than I have, Senior."
Hearing those words, meant to reassure him instead...
Kim Min-soo finally broke down in tears.
He had always been lonely.
He had longed to meet someone else from Earth.
Someone who, like him, did not originally belong to this world.
At the same time, he had hoped someone with talent greater than his own would appear and make proper use of everything he had left behind through the Nayuta Avatar Technique.
Otherwise...
His entire life would have been unbearably meaningless.
"We've finally met."
Someone talented enough...
To follow the traces he had left behind.
He wanted to smile sincerely and welcome him.
He wanted to embrace him and pat his back while telling him he had done well.
But he couldn't.
Because everything was a lie.
And because he had to personally tell Jang Woo-hyun the truth.
"Why are you crying all of a sudden? You're making me nervous."
Kim Min-soo forcibly lifted the corners of his mouth.
His emotions had long since worn away.
His will to live had already disappeared.
The only gift he could still give Jang Woo-hyun...
Was that forced smile.
"Junior. No... Woo-hyun. Listen carefully. Don't panic."
"Yes."
Seeing Kim Min-soo so serious for the first time, Jang Woo-hyun tensed.
"Everything is a lie."
"..."
"Everything I've done. Everything we know."
"What do you mean..."
Kim Min-soo raised a hand.
A small sphere of light floated above his palm before repeating words they had heard long ago.
【...Fo...re...■◆ ◆҉■҉fra҉gme҉nt...҉ ◆ ҉■҉ ҉insec҉...҉ ҉ ◆ ts.......】
It was the lingering thought of the True Immortal.
Previously, it had been distorted by static and impossible to hear clearly.
"This is the complete sentence."
Kim Min-soo clenched and opened his hand.
The sphere shone even brighter.
The static disappeared.
A clear voice echoed through the space.
【Insects that obtained the fragment of the one who came from another world.】
"...What?"
The completed sentence was completely different from what he had expected.
He had assumed it referred to them as beings from another world.
But it didn't.
'The one who came from another world' was singular.
It wasn't referring to both Jang Woo-hyun and Kim Min-soo.
In that sentence...
The two of them were the "insects."
The context made it obvious.
The moment he heard it, he instinctively understood.
While Jang Woo-hyun stood frozen, unable to say a word...
Kim Min-soo revealed an even more shocking truth.
"We never crossed dimensions."
"...What?"
"We've always belonged to this world. We're not Transmigrators. We're Reincarnators."
"...You're joking, right?"
The words were too unbelievable.
For a moment, Jang Woo-hyun rejected everything happening before him.
He wanted to believe this was merely another elaborate prank Kim Min-soo had orchestrated.
"Your name is Kim Min-soo. Anyone can tell that's a Korean name."
The name Kim Min-soo didn't fit the Central Plains at all.
How could someone with that name possibly be a reincarnator?
"You're misunderstanding something. The place we lived wasn't the Central Plains from those novels."
There had been no Bodhidharma.
No Zhang Sanfeng.
It resembled the Murim Jang Woo-hyun had known...
Yet it was also different.
Like a parallel world.
"My name was an ordinary one over there. You still don't believe me, do you? Then do you remember your parents' names? Or your friends? Your family and friends from Earth."
"..."
It hadn't even been centuries since he came to this world.
Yet...
Not a single name came to mind.
"You should know this if you've followed my trail. Back then, I searched for a way to return to Earth."
The Gyoma Divine Art had indeed said so.
Yet none of Kim Min-soo's Projections had ever spoken about it.
Nor had any of the traces he later found.
"There was no need to return. Life on Earth was simply your previous life. The same goes for you. Think about it."
"No. That's impossible..."
He wanted to deny it.
Yet memories surfaced one after another.
When he met the first Projection, he had regretted not talking about Earth.
He had even thought that next time, he would discuss his life there.
But when they met again...
He never even brought it up.
Even when he told Jin Ha-un everything...
He had mentioned Earth only briefly.
The longer he thought...
The more forgotten details surfaced.
Despite believing he came from Earth, there had been times he naturally thought like someone born in the Central Plains.
—Those people have different eye colors, so they're Color-Eyed People...
The term Color-Eyed People wasn't used on Earth.
Yet when he met Ian within the cultivators' domain, he had naturally used exactly that expression.
In the first place...
Jang Woo-hyun had never seen a Color-Eyed Person in the Central Plains.
For someone from Earth, terms like Westerner or foreigner should have felt far more natural.
And that wasn't all.
He had always measured time using shichen, ke, meal periods, and traditional time divisions.
Never once had he used hours, minutes, or seconds.
As though the former had always been the natural way.
'No... that alone isn't enough to prove anything.'
Jang Woo-hyun rejected the thoughts rising within him.
He had also used words like cliché and experience points.
Those weren't expressions used in the Central Plains.
There was no reason to reach conclusions based solely on Kim Min-soo's words.
He had to consider everything.
If necessary...
He would even search through his own memories.
'Using a technique to examine my memories... Huh?'
As his thoughts continued...
Something suddenly came back to him.
Once before...
He had tried recovering forgotten memories.
After Ascending.
When the Wind-Passing Great Sage had helped him.
—What was that just now? All my old memories suddenly came back.
—It's a review of your life. It allows you to recover memories that were sealed away or forgotten.
His memories had indeed resurfaced.
"Ah..."
But...
Those memories had not begun on Earth.
They had begun...
In the mining village.
Thinking back...
Everything had been strange from the very beginning.
He had fallen into a world where Murim and martial arts existed.
Yet until he left his village...
He had never encountered martial arts.
Not even a common Third-Rate Martial Artist.
It was as though he had lived somewhere no martial artist had ever visited.
With Jang Woo-hyun's talent, merely encountering a Third-Rate Martial Artist or a Third-Rate martial art should have been enough for his talent to awaken.
Yet until entering the White Tiger Martial Academy...
He had known absolutely nothing about martial arts.
'The wooden sword in the Attendant Cave was the same.'
The Attendant Cave of the Thousand-Year Nine Islands Garden.
A place where one could revisit every martial art they had learned.
Before meeting Yang Hyo-myeong there...
Jang Woo-hyun had seen a wooden sword.
And a hand taking it away.
Back then, he had assumed he must have practiced kendo as a child.
But that wasn't it.
Someone who knew about Jang Woo-hyun's talent...
Had deliberately taken the wooden sword away.
"Urgh."
A splitting pain pierced his head.
Then...
His true memories surfaced.
As a child, he had settled in the mining village with his parents.
His father died first.
Then his mother.
Before dying, she left him with one final request.
Never become involved with the Murim.
That was when it began.
The desire to learn martial arts took root in Jang Woo-hyun's heart.
While living an ordinary life in accordance with her dying wish...
He accidentally obtained a fragment of Lee Tae-seong, the True Martial God who had come from another world.
At that moment...
His memories of his previous life awakened.
Then came the confusion.
He believed he had come from Earth.
He believed this world was another world.
He forgot his mother's final wish.
And he began dreaming of learning martial arts.
"Ghk..."
The flood of memories and the overwhelming shock made the world spin.
He could barely remain standing.
Jang Woo-hyun stretched out both arms and braced himself against the ground.
"Urgh!"
He retched violently.
His head felt as though it were about to split apart.
It had nothing to do with strength.
Everything he believed to be true...
Had just been denied.
'Was the path I walked even real?'
Everything had been denied.
His memories weren't real.
He wasn't someone who had come from Earth.
Was the real me even myself?
As Senior Kim said...
Was I nothing more than a puppet?
The fragment left behind by the True Martial God.
Maybe I didn't obtain it.
Maybe...
I was that fragment.
Then am I really Jang Woo-hyun?
Or am I Lee Tae-seong?
Or perhaps...
One of Lee Tae-seong's Avatars?
Did someone called "me" ever truly exist?
If everything Senior Kim said was true...
Then wasn't this entire world itself nothing more than an illusion?
One negative thought led to another.
A gloomy, sinister aura wrapped around Jang Woo-hyun.
His Inner World, once filled with silver blades...
Began to be consumed by black smoke.
The blades corroded.
Everything decayed...
And crumbled away.
Just as his Inner World was being stained black—
A refreshing breeze blew through.
At the same time...
A gentle voice echoed.
—You are not a sword.
Jang Woo-hyun repeated the words he had engraved into both his mind and heart.
'I am not a sword.'
I'm not some puppet.
This is my life.
This is the path I've walked.
His mind gradually became clear.
The gloomy aura slowly faded.
—Think of those bonds that helped you reach this point. Think of the people who walked beside you.
This time...
A deep, powerful voice echoed.
It was something his master, the Sword Immortal Lü Dongbin, had once told him.
'I didn't come here alone. I came with my companions. I reached this place because of them.'
This wasn't a path someone else had created.
It was a path they had walked together.
Even now...
The Wind-Passing Great Sage was outside fighting for him.
Within the silver blades of his Inner World...
The images of countless people appeared.
Jin Ha-un.
Hwang An.
Master Craftsman.
Maeng Ye-ju.
Kang Yung.
Seo Ryeom.
Mak Ya-wol.
The Wind-Passing Great Sage.
Seon Tae-gyeong.
And every companion who had journeyed with him.
The blades once again shone with brilliant silver.
The gloomy black smoke vanished.
His Inner World became filled once more with silver blades.
Jang Woo-hyun, who had been collapsed on the ground supporting himself with both hands, let out a deep breath.
When he closed his eyes and opened them again...
The familiar light had returned to them.
'I will see it with my own eyes.'
His gaze turned toward the sphere of light floating behind Kim Min-soo.
That...
Must have been where Kim Min-soo had obtained his information.
He would touch the sphere himself.
He would see everything.
And judge with his own eyes.
If the True Martial God...
Or the beings of the Upper Realm...
Had truly interfered with his destiny—
'Then I'll cut them down too.'
He had never avoided a fight.
That was how Jang Woo-hyun had always lived.
If someone believed that possessing power gave them the right to manipulate another person's life...
Then he would stand against them.
No matter who they were.