Chapter 341 : True Immortal and Martial God
Chapter 341: True Immortal and Martial God
Caught off guard by the tree person's unexpected actions, Jang Woo-hyun expanded his spiritual perception.
Wondering whether he had fallen into another illusion or whether this place itself was a false world, he examined the entire planet beyond the area illuminated by the light.
'Nothing really stands out... except one thing.'
Jang Woo-hyun turned his head toward the subtle aura.
Inside the gigantic tree towering high into the sky.
He sensed an extremely faint presence.
'What is it?'
It was different from the energy emitted by the tree itself.
An alien power.
It didn't seem to be hidden energy.
'Did the force that attacked this planet leave some kind of influence behind?'
For now, he could only speculate.
There was no way to determine exactly what it was.
【O God, please save us.】
Jang Woo-hyun turned at the tree person's plea.
Since there was nothing he could immediately figure out, he decided to hear the story first.
He examined the tree person bowing with his forehead pressed to the ground, but nothing about him stood out.
“What do you want from me?”
【Please save our clan.】
The tree person introduced himself as Yeop Ji-heum and began speaking.
Like Cho Ryeong, he belonged to the Wood Spirit Clan and served as the representative of those living on this planet.
【Long ago, a great war beyond our comprehension broke out.】
It had been a war between gods.
Worlds shattered.
Everything collapsed.
The weak could do nothing but struggle to survive.
【The world collapsed, and we gathered all our strength to protect our clan.】
Borrowing the power of the god they worshipped, they created the Divine Tree and gathered all of their remaining energy within it.
Through the Divine Tree's power, they barely managed to continue living upon a planet that had already died.
To survive on the smallest amount of energy possible, the Wood Spirit Clan transformed into trees and fell into slumber.
Every tree growing where the Divine Tree's light reached belonged to the Wood Spirit Clan.
Only Yeop Ji-heum remained capable of moving.
【In a world heading toward destruction, all we could do was wait.】
They waited.
And waited.
For a new god to appear.
And today, the Martial God Jang Woo-hyun had finally arrived.
【Even the Divine Tree is beginning to lose its light. We have little time remaining. O God, please save our clan.】
“Save you...”
【If you do, we shall offer you our faith.】
As Yeop Ji-heum bowed once more, the Divine Tree bearing its luminous fruit trembled.
Hundreds of thousands of surrounding trees vibrated in unison.
Every tree resonated together as a tremendous wave of power spread outward.
“......”
Jang Woo-hyun could feel Yeop Ji-heum's sincere concern for his clan within this dying world.
Those feelings were genuine.
His voice was filled with desperate sincerity.
“I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do.”
Their situation was unfortunate.
But Jang Woo-hyun only knew how to fight.
He possessed neither miraculous abilities nor mysterious divine treasures capable of helping them.
Nor could he create entirely new worlds like the True Immortals.
Although he could manifest his Microcosm, it was not a place where living beings could survive.
It existed solely for battle.
【We'll do anything! Please don't abandon us! We beg you! We will pray endlessly for you! Please help us! At this rate, every member of our clan will perish!】
As though responding to Yeop Ji-heum's desperate plea, every surrounding tree slowly bent forward.
Branches that had stretched toward the heavens lowered toward the earth.
There wasn't the slightest trace of deception in their earnestness.
And yet...
Jang Woo-hyun felt strangely uncomfortable.
'What is this?'
It was merely intuition.
But at his current realm, even intuition could not be ignored.
The unease of a Martial God was nearly equivalent to foresight.
He examined his surroundings again.
Once more, nothing appeared suspicious.
Only after expanding his perception further and concentrating did he notice a single difference.
'The energy is gone.'
The faint aura he had sensed within the Divine Tree had vanished.
'Did it disappear when they moved just now?'
Something seemed to have changed when the hundreds of thousands of trees resonated together and released their power.
Having found the source of his unease, Jang Woo-hyun questioned Yeop Ji-heum directly.
“What are you plotting?”
【Pardon? I don't understand what you mean.】
“So you're going to play dumb?”
Jang Woo-hyun chuckled and raised one hand.
Perhaps because he had concealed his power so thoroughly, they had taken him lightly.
“Let's see whether you can keep lying after half your clan disappears.”
His expression changed.
Without realizing it, he began looking down upon Yeop Ji-heum and the entire Wood Spirit Clan.
He intended to erase half of the hundreds of thousands of trees before him.
The moment he was about to release the power he had concealed—
A sudden presence made him look upward.
High above.
Two crimson moons floated in the sky.
“Huh?”
Jang Woo-hyun had arrived from beyond the planet.
He knew exactly what had surrounded it.
'There weren't any intact planets.'
Naturally, he had never seen crimson moons either.
Before he could finish pondering the anomaly—
【Found you.】
A sinister voice echoed.
Feeling an overwhelming sense of danger, Jang Woo-hyun immediately summoned Baekmu.
【Danger—】
Interrupting Lei Yunli's warning—
An immense force crashed down.
──────!!
“Urgh!”
An indescribable explosion resounded.
The terrifying impact blasted Jang Woo-hyun completely off the planet.
He instinctively raised Baekmu to defend himself, but he failed to block the attack completely.
Only after being hurled an enormous distance away did he finally regain his balance.
Standing in empty space, he turned back.
The planet he had just occupied had been completely shattered.
To exaggerate only slightly—
It had been reduced to dust.
Beyond the shattered planetary fragments—
A colossal being stood waiting.
“Ha.”
The ridiculous size drew an involuntary laugh from Jang Woo-hyun.
The crimson moons had not been moons at all.
They were two eyes.
Though unimaginably distant, the being was so massive that its appearance remained perfectly visible.
A colossal body more than ten times larger than a planet.
A giant with no skin.
Its exposed muscles covered its entire body.
Parts of its arms and legs had been torn away, exposing bones and blood vessels beneath.
Because it possessed power comparable to Jang Woo-hyun's own, he had noticed the attack a fraction too late.
'A True Immortal.'
Not a leftover.
Not a lingering thought.
Not a faint remnant of power.
The giant before him was a genuine True Immortal.
'So they summoned him.'
Only now did he understand why the energy inside the Divine Tree had disappeared.
Yeop Ji-heum had sent a signal to summon the True Immortal.
Looking upon the True Immortal whose eyes were as large as moons, Jang Woo-hyun smiled.
Fear.
Tension.
He felt neither.
A complete True Immortal—not a remnant or fragment—stood before him.
Since arriving in the Upper Realm, he had finally encountered a worthy opponent.
That alone filled him with excitement.
“So another True Immortal survived?”
The gigantic True Immortal casually waved one hand.
As though brushing away an insect, the motion erased every fragment of the shattered planet.
Yeop Ji-heum and the Wood Spirit Clan, who had desperately wished to save their people, vanished just like that.
【Did you truly think you were the only one to achieve Lesser Ascension?】
“Oh? Really? Then you're a newcomer too.”
Like Jang Woo-hyun, the True Immortal before him had only recently ascended to the Upper Realm.
The crimson eyes of the True Immortal focused upon Jang Woo-hyun.
【Opponent of the Gods. You still have not abandoned your humanity.】
His body had long surpassed humanity.
Yet Jang Woo-hyun still considered himself human.
Had he absorbed all of the shattered worlds he had passed through, he might have reached the Palace of Myriad Immortals much sooner.
But he had refused.
He believed massacring the tens or hundreds of millions of lives still living within those shattered worlds would cross a line.
And once he crossed that line...
He felt he would become something other than human.
【In that state, you cannot oppose a god. You shall die here today.】
“We'll see after we fight. You didn't come here just to have a conversation.”
Earlier, the True Immortal had said—
'Found you.'
Its target had always been Jang Woo-hyun.
It certainly hadn't found him by coincidence.
The Three Thousand Radiant Silver Treasure Heavenly Venerable had undoubtedly been pulling the strings behind the scenes.
This True Immortal had come to kill him.
【Foolish. Truly foolish. Reaching the Upper Realm was never the end.】
The True Immortal waved its hand.
A crimson sandstorm resembling red mist surged forward.
Every grain of sand was itself a supreme spell.
With a single gesture, millions of spells descended simultaneously.
The smile upon Jang Woo-hyun's face grew even wider.
Watching the countless attacks rushing toward him, he lowered his stance and released Baekmu.
He drew his right arm back.
His fist clenched.
Rumble—
The Star-Destroying Fist.
The martial art he had witnessed in Lee Tae-seong's memories.
Just as its name suggested the destruction of stars, it was no ordinary martial art.
The Primordial Unity Realm.
The realm attained upon ascending to the Upper Realm and becoming a Martial God.
Primordial Unity was not merely the opening of a Microcosm.
Nor was it the creation of a new world.
It was the stage where one became the universe itself.
Within Jang Woo-hyun's fist—
It was as though an entire universe had been compressed.
Boom!
Out of habit, he stomped the ground.
A colossal ring of power spread beneath his feet like the rings surrounding a planet.
The millions of approaching spells were instantly forced backward.
Then—
He threw his punch.
Though it was still called a martial art...
It could no longer truly be described as one.
It was destructive power capable of shattering worlds and the universe itself.
Flash!
Between his fist and the target—
A single beam of light appeared.
Piercing through millions of spells in an instant—
The light struck the True Immortal's head.
KWAAAAANG!!
A head larger than an entire planet exploded instantly.
Jang Woo-hyun's attack did not stop there.
Pulling back his extended right hand, he thrust out his left palm.
BOOM!
Space itself shattered.
The starless universe burst apart.
The True Immortal's upper body—far too massive to take in at a glance—was obliterated.
In the next instant, the True Immortal's lower body melted away.
Before Jang Woo-hyun could launch another attack, his surroundings transformed into a grotesque realm overflowing with flesh and blood.
Poisonous energy and corpse qi saturated every direction.
It resembled the Corpse Blood Realm.
Rumble!
Dozens of crimson-eyed giants with flayed skin rose from every direction.
【As expected of a Martial God. Your strength is impressive.】
Though not nearly as absurdly gigantic as before, each giant still towered above ordinary mountains.
Facing the crimson-eyed giants, Jang Woo-hyun released his own power.
Fire.
Earth.
Metal.
Water.
Wood.
The Five Elements surrounded him.
The grotesque realm filled with flesh and blood disappeared.
Earth formed.
Trees sprouted.
Leaves fell.
Then came the bitter cold of winter.
Beyond the Five Elements—
The Four Seasons.
Then Heaven, Earth, and Sea.
Finally—
His Microcosm, the Cycle of Taiji, where Yin and Yang became manifest.
Opening his Microcosm, he pushed back the world created by the True Immortal.
As Jang Woo-hyun spread both arms—
The Four Seasons, Heaven, Earth, and Sea vanished.
The world split into two.
Black and white.
Just as he was about to unite the two opposing forces—
The True Immortal attacked.
It was not a direct assault using spells or divine treasures.
【Opponent of the Gods, Jang Woo-hyun... sleep here.】
Space twisted.
An incomprehensible force rushed toward him.
【May you dream a dream from which you shall never awaken.】
Before he realized it—
The True Immortal had vanished.
Jang Woo-hyun now stood within another world.
“Hyung, wake up. You told me to wake you five minutes ago.”
A familiar voice awakened him.
Before him sat not Jin Ha-un—
But the college student Ha Jin-woon.
“What a pathetic trick.”
Having already experienced this once before, Jang Woo-hyun immediately summoned Baekmu and shattered the space.
The scene before him vanished.
Ha Jin-woon.
The classroom.
Everything was destroyed.
And yet—
“Hyung, wake up. You told me to wake you five minutes ago.”
As though he had merely dreamed it—
The exact same scene appeared once again.
Though momentarily surprised, Jang Woo-hyun swung Baekmu again.
“Hyung, wake up. You told me to wake you five minutes ago.”
Again.
The same repetition.
“Hyung, wake up. You told me five minu—”
Before the sentence could finish—
Baekmu swung.
The space shattered, yet the same scene repeated.
“Hyung, wake up. You told me five—”
Slash.
“Hyung, wake up.”
Another slash.
“Hyung, wa—”
Slash!
“Hy—”
Slash!
He cut down everything.
It was a repeating dream.
Just as the True Immortal had declared—
Perhaps it truly was a dream from which one could never awaken.
But Jang Woo-hyun had already experienced it once before.
He was not afraid.
If illusions stood in his way—
He would simply continue swinging his sword.
After cutting apart the repeating world dozens of times—
Jang Woo-hyun returned to reality.
His arms were still extended exactly as before.
The time he had spent trapped within the dream...
Had lasted only a single instant.