Chương 841: Side Story - Mythical Relic (6)

Splash!

Hyeon Rang lifts her and flies away, then plunges her straight into the hot spring behind the mountain.

"Kuaagh! It's hot!"

"Hahaha, what an exaggeration! Anyway, wash up properly, Junior Sister Tae! I have to attend our the Jegyo Dharma Assembly, so I'm off!"

After finishing, he quickly flies off somewhere again, and Makli Hyun-ah gurgles and flails in the boiling hot pool, unable to come to his senses.

"Kuaaagh! S-Save me! Save me, please! This isn't even at the level of a hot spring! Kkeuugh!"

Makli Hyun-ah tries with all his strength to draw out the power of the Confucian Family Method and the Naming Family Method, but no matter what he does, the power of the methods do not rise.

It is then, Flash!

All of a sudden, he notices an energy he has never seen before surging inside his body, and he quickly calls it out to strengthen his body.

Paaatt!

Makli Hyun-ah's body is quickly engulfed in golden light, and he soon escapes the heat as his body starts to recover.

"Whew... I lived. This is... the Buddhist Family Method?"

Makli Hyun-ah feels the unidentified spiritual power within his body and thinks.

This feeling is the power of the Buddhist Family Method.

The Buddhist Family Method is gentle and warm, and at the same time, like a strange wheel, it endlessly cycles through the spirit vein within his body.

"It's a distinctive method, hmm..."

He runs the Buddhist Family Method for a while, and little by little reads the memories of Tae Yeol-jeon, the owner of this body.

"Let's see. The owner of this body is Tae Yeol-jeon, and... when she was young, the Buddhist nun named Bong Hwa, the owner of the temple, brought her in and raised her, and she has a senior brother-junior sister relationship with Hyeon Rang, Bong Hwa's successor... Rather than an ordinary temple, it feels strongly like a kind of cultivation sect.

But even if it is a cultivation sect, it isn't that famous, and aside from Tae Yeol-jeon and Hyeon Rang, there is no one at all who visits, so it's a place that's just being abandoned..."

Hyeon Rang, the temple's successor, runs around diligently after the death of Bong Hwa, the previous abbot, and Tae Yeol-jeon seems to live a life of shutting herself in her room and lazing around every day, knowing that no matter how much she tries, it has no real meaning for the temple.

It seems her hobby is using up the spirit stones the previous generation accumulated and staying stuck in her room while reading new novels or books.

"... There isn't much information about the world, and only talk of novels or fairy tales fills her head."

Starting from classic fairy tales like <The story of an old man who could not raise his realm so he accumulated an altar and pierced the heavens> and <The story of Lord Heavens and Lord Stars> and <The story of the Senior Brother and Junior Brother Mountain Divine Spirits>, all sorts of miscellaneous fairy tales fill Tae Yeol-jeon's memories.

"Both Hyeon Rang and Tae Yeol-jeon are around the Qi Building level... No, this kid—even though she only lazes around in her room, her realm is similar to Hyeon Rang who works so hard? Hah, damn, she's a kid who rots her talent away. More importantly..."

Makli Hyun-ah feels like he is about to explode with frustration because there is no useful information at all within Tae Yeol-jeon's memories.

"No, eighty percent of her life is just shutting herself in a room, roasting and eating chestnuts while reading novels! Why does someone like Senior Brother Hyeon Rang even keep this thing alive? If it were me, I'd beat her up and kick her out right away! Where is the information worth knowing about this world!?"

With so little information he can get through Tae Yeol-jeon, he vents his frustration and thinks he needs to gather information quickly.

"Fine. First, let's wash up and go out and get some information from other people. Let's see..."

After thoroughly cleaning up Tae Yeol-jeon's body, Makli Hyun-ah grows used to circulating the spiritual power of the Buddhist Family Method, and heads to the nearby village he glimpsed briefly when he flew up with his Senior Brother.

'The Innate True Methods. I can't use the Naming Family Method and the Confucian Family Method. But... when I focus, I can slowly use consciousness. And strangely, I can see signs that the Innate True Methods are trying to return, too.'

Woong!

Among the mortals in the village, Makli Hyun-ah looks for someone who seems easy to burrow into with consciousness, and with his consciousness, picks one of them.

It is then, Shururuk!

Makli Hyun-ah enters the mortal's body in an instant.

'Huh, what is this? Is switching bodies this easy? No, more than that...'

Makli Hyun-ah feels an enormous discomfort and repelling force from within that mortal's body.

'Why does this mortal's body reject me like this!? No, should I say it doesn't fit...? It feels way too uncomfortable. This won't do. I need to read their memories quickly and return to Tae Yeol-jeon's body.'

After making a quick decision, he smoothly reads the mortal's memories, copies only the information that seems necessary into his consciousness, and then quickly returns to Tae Yeol-jeon's body.

"Heheok... heok..."

Makli Hyun-ah feels an enormous comfort and coziness inside Tae Yeol-jeon's body.

'Why is it this comfortable!? It even feels more comfortable than my original body?'

Feeling a strange puzzlement, Makli Hyun-ah slowly reads through the information he obtained from the mortal.

'This world is a world called the Chained Light Realm (鎖光界)... It is a world with a similar size and similar conditions to ordinary Decaying Corpse Realms, huh.'

It is called so because during the day, a pale blue-white light called sunlight shines over, and at night, a chain-like moon called the Chained Moon rises.

The greatest characteristic of the Chained Light Realm is religion.

'The three great religious orders of the Chained Light Realm...'

The grandest among them is the Star Moon Religious Order that serves the Chained Moon.

The second is the Great Forest Religious Order that serves sunlight.

The least grand is the Jegal Religious Order that serves a divinity called Mikhail.

It seems the three religious orders steal followers from each other and fight over control of this continent, and in the neutral zone that those three major religious orders cannot conquer from each other, Buddhist Family and Immortal Family sects like Tae Yeol-jeon's Grand Nirvana Temple seem to be settled here and there.

The moment Makli Hyun-ah hears information about the Jegal Religious Order, he lets out a deep sigh.

"... Found you, Jegal Mikhail. So you were playing god here..."

Then the identity of the 'Fourth Earthling' that Ahn Geum is looking for becomes clear.

'With this, Ahn Geum shouldn't bother me as much anymore.'

Of course, Makli Hyun-ah still has to clearly prove the existence of Jegal Mikhail.

"All right. First, let's find Jegal Mikhail's shrine and try praying once."

Makli Hyun-ah finds where the shrine of the Jegal Mikhail Religious Order is and walks there slowly.

Human Race territory.

Inside the Ghost Mother's Tomb.

At the shrine of the Immeasurable Life Buddha Religious Order built there, Ahn Geum communicates with a True Immortal for a while, and receives a firm promise that the True Immortal will unleash a single strike.

However, because the Vast Cold Realm is a special domain, they cannot wipe out the puppet legion in one go with a direct attack, and it seems they will help them with a supportive Immortal Art.

Since even that is enough, Ahn Geum can set down her worry about rescuing Makli Hyun-ah to some extent.

But Ahn Geum's face does not brighten.

She takes out divination tools like a divination bowl and divination sticks from her storage scroll and begins to cast a divination.

This is not something she learned after coming to this world, but something she learned half as a joke from her mother, who is a shaman on Earth, and then evolved in this world.

Because this divination is far more accurate and concrete than the usual Heaven Tribe's celestial energy calculation, it is also the reason she has been able to survive fairly well even after betraying the One Qi of the Primordial Chaos Religious Order and Black Ghost Valley.

Clack!

Ahn Geum calculates celestial energy through the divination sticks, and as she divines the future, her expression hardens.

A great inauspiciousness hangs over the not-too-distant future.

However, it is not about the puppets. Rather, it is something familiar to her.

Lee Seo-ah.

It seems Lee Seo-ah will soon follow after her.

'That monstrous thing. I didn't know a Three Great Ultimates cultivator could be that strong.'

And the size of this great inauspiciousness means that Lee Seo-ah has become stronger than last time.

'She probably broke through to the Integration stage:' Last time, she was at the Grand Perfection Four-Axis stage Three Great Ultimates, but now she is surely at the Integration stage Three Great Ultimates.

With a high probability, having reached the Grand Perfection Integration stage, her actual power, combining her constitution and talent and so on, will be stronger than Ahn Geum, whose real strength nearly reaches beyond the Integration stage.

'If her actual strength is beyond the Integration stage, and if you add the ability of her talent, the Wind-Painting Sword Sea Impermanence Body... then with a high probability she is at the Quasi-Star Shattering stage level.'

If Lee Seo-ah chases Ahn Geum into the Vast Cold Realm, it is certain that Ahn Geum will not be able to put up any resistance at all and will be chopped to pieces, becoming Ahn Geum tartar.

'If I don't want to die, rescuing Hyun-ah is one thing, but... I also have to seek my own way to live.'

If Ahn Geum is the Saintess of the Immeasurable Life Buddha Religious Order, Lee Seo-ah is the Saintess of the One Qi of the Primordial Chaos Religious Order.

Of course, the One Qi of the Primordial Chaos Religious Order does not have a position called Saintess, but since the True Immortals who believe in the One Qi of the Primordial Chaos dote on her immensely, Lee Seo-ah is a Saintess in all practical terms.

If Ahn Geum asks a True Immortal for help, the other side will also ask for help, so the status advantage she has no meaning.

With a high probability, if she meets Lee Seo-ah, she will be slaughtered before she can resist!

'But there is an opportunity for a breakthrough.'

Ahn Geum recalls her master, Gongmyo Min-hee of Black Ghost Valley.

—Someday, go to the Vast Cold Realm. In the Human Race territory of the Vast Cold Realm, there exists a Ghost Path inheritance left behind by an existence from distant antiquity called the Ghost Mother.

Her master is someone who cherishes her disciple.

Because her teacher cherished her like a mother, Ahn Geum was able to fill, to some extent, the absence of a mother's love she could not receive while her mother stayed confined in a psychiatric ward.

'Master…'

Gongmyo Min-hee is like a mother to Ahn Geum.

And so, Ahn Geum had no choice but to abandon her.

If she stayed together with Gongmyo Min-hee, she felt like she would forget her real mother on Earth and end up treating Gongmyo Min-hee as her real mother.

Maybe on the day Ahn Geum betrayed Black Ghost Valley, the reason Gongmyo Min-hee quietly let Ahn Geum slip away while pretending to pursue her is because she noticed that feeling in her.

"Huuu..."

Recalling the story Gongmyo Min-hee passed on, Ahn Geum begins to resonate with the Ghost Mother's Tomb.

This Ghost Mother's Tomb is, with a high probability, an alternate space that the Human Race of the Vast Cold Realm made by altering the Ghost Mother's 'inheritance' that Gongmyo Min-hee talked about.

In other words, inside this space, Ahn Geum may be able to approach the Ghost Mother's inheritance far more easily.

"I will survive."

Ahn Geum sets gaze able to escape the future where Lee Seo-ah butchers her to death.

"I will survive... and return to my mom again."

Gongmyo Min-hee said this.

—Geum-ah. Your talent is clearly one of legends. They say the legendary Ghost Mother also had legendary talent. And this master, too, received an inheritance about the Ghost Mother and studied it. If your master's research and your talent combine, when you go to the place in the Vast Cold Realm where the Ghost Mother's inheritance lies... if you operate this formula, you will surely be able to reach the Ghost Mother's inheritance.

From within her memories, Ahn Geum begins to recite the formula Gongmyo Min-hee taught her for reaching the Ghost Mother's inheritance, and begins to communicate with the Ghost Mother's Tomb.

Tststststs...!

Ahn Geum's mind resonates with the Ghost Mother's Tomb and begins to melt into it.

Her consciousness sinks into deep darkness, and at some moment...

... she arrives at a strange space.

'This place is...'

Chwaruruk!

A faint image seems to brush past the corner of her eyes.

In the image, someone wearing black clothes weaves rules in the darkness and murmurs.

—Through [Bridle Creation], for the sake of later generations... I will make a space where inheritances can be left behind.

Someone's voice.

Somehow, like her mother's voice... somehow, it is a familiar voice.

—Avoiding the eyes of the [Heavens]... so that they, too, can continue their story for later generations.

'The true identity of the Ghost Mother's Tomb is...'

It is a gateway leading to the space that someone left behind for later students.

—This is a space of inheritance. Receive what we leave here, and you, too, pass it on to later students.

All of a sudden, Ahn Geum feels as if the someone in that illusion turns to her and meets her eyes.

The someone smiles faintly.

With dark blue-blue eyes, they look at Ahn Geum and smile warmly.

—At the same time, this is a space of memories. Leave behind the traces you remember as well. So that your stories... are remembered for ten thousand generations.

For some reason, Ahn Geum feels that person's eyes are truly comfortable.

—I, too, will leave the story within my memories here...

Paaaatt!

At the same time, the illusion cuts off, and Ahn Geum realizes she is falling into an endlessly spread-out black space.

'This place is... the Ghost Mother's inheritance. Is it an alternate space where you can leave an inheritance or store items?... But is this the end? Do you just come and...'

It is then.

Thud, thud, thud, thud!

She suddenly feels goosebumps rise across her whole body and turns around.

Far away, from behind, an existence wrapped in immense [death] is approaching her.

'Th-This is...!'

Ahn Geum feels herself seized by fear without realizing it, and swallows hard.

Each time that existence comes closer, her body, which learned the Ghost Path Method and absorbed piles of ghost souls and wandering souls, trembles violently, and the ghost souls within her body begin to struggle like crazy.

Moreover, because Ahn Geum's body is also in a state of being half-ghostified, she cannot help but feel an unknown fear toward the death-like existence approaching from afar.

Half-ghostified, she trembles with the instincts of a ghost.

Thud!

And finally, the identity of those footsteps reveals itself before Ahn Geum's eyes.

It is a mad Ghost King who pulled out the heads of eighteen fellow cultivators of the same level and went around with them embedded into his shoulders as if on display.

The mad Ghost King opens their mouth.

[I am Seo Li.] And the moment that Ghost King opens their mouth, she realizes she cannot possibly endure it.

That being is death.

The [death] they contain is a direct counter to her.

The million wandering souls inside Ahn Geum, and Ahn Geum herself, are engulfed in instinctive fear and terror as a ghost.

[Later student who seeks to obtain this inheritance space. If you wish to obtain Madam Ghost Mother's inheritance, surpass me, the examiner.] Ahn Geum and the wandering souls inside her body all scream at once, seized by fear.

[A big ghost!!!!! Huaaaaaaaah!! I don't want to die!!] From the shadow of that mad ghost, the attraction force of the Underworld stretches out and pulls her in.

At the appearance of a monster that is no different from a living [gate] of the Underworld, Ahn Geum screams and begins to run away like mad.