Chương 844: Side Story - Perfect Harmony (2)

Tududududududu!

The barrage from the puppets continues.

Within that barrage, Ahn Geum stands at the forefront and moves her shadow, devouring the barrage.

As if it leads into a strange alternate dimension, That shadow, without distinguishing between Integration stage puppets and Star Shattering stage puppets, swallows every puppet attack as it is and erases it.

"What in the world is that, Ahn Geum?"

Makli Hyun-ah clicks his tongue as he watches the convenient art that summons the entire Human Race grand army to the Overseer Factory, teleports through space at will, and sends every attack beyond the other space.

"You definitely didn't have that before..."

"... It's from a fortuitous encounter in the Human Race's domain. They say it's related to the legacy of the Ghost Mother from the distant past."

"Aha..."

Makli Hyun-ah accepts it at the mention that it is the Ghost Mother's legacy, who is one of the Three Calamities.

'The legacy of the Mad Lord, one of the Three Calamities, turned the entire Vast Cold Realm into a wasteland. If it's the Ghost Mother's legacy, it has to be at least this much.'

Kwagwagwang!

Integration stage puppets shoot out like bullets and attempt self-destruction attacks, but they all get sucked into Ahn Geum's other space and simply never come out again.

Ahn Geum and Makli Hyun-ah's group breaks through the puppets' blocking line and at last reaches the front of their destination.

Overseer Factory, control tower.

In front of it, countless Star Shattering stage marquis puppets are deployed, and the Star Shattering stage puppets that follow Makli Hyun-ah also prepare attacks toward them.

The Star Shattering stage puppets all growl and shout at Makli Hyun-ah.

"Do not try to rule us! After kidnapping us when we were living well and turning us into bodies like this, are you saying you will deprive our freedom again?"

"Give us our freedom!"

And at those words, Ahn Geum lets out a snort.

Jiiing— Her eyes are dyed a strange deep navy.

"Freedom? You are putting on a strange act of being victims. As the Saintess of the Immeasurable Life Buddha Religious Order, and as the apostle of the Executor, I obtained this Rain Dew Eye. It is showing the karmic sins you wretches committed, yet you sure are good at spilling excuses."

At Ahn Geum's cold voice, they try to protest all at once, but Ahn Geum doesn't listen to their words and dismisses them.

"I have learned the Ghost Path Method that handles wandering souls, and even among the True Immortals of the Immeasurable Life Buddha Religious Order, I am one who serves the Executor. That is why I can read, to some extent, the causality of the karmic sins accumulated in your spirit.

You were kidnapped by the puppets and modified, and your spirit flew backward into the inside of the puppet and you regained self-awareness and personality, but isn't the principle nothing other than each and every one of you being Devilish Path bastards that are disgusting beyond limits?"

"What...!?"

"Is it not obvious? For some reason unclear to me, the puppets modified living beings and drove their souls into the spirit jade... yet among them, the souls of devilish ones with vile and turbid heart essences, or the souls of hypocrites, were pushed out from inside that spirit jade, so they flew back out of the spirit jade and gained self-awareness. Am I wrong?"

"What is that...!? My memories from when I was a living being are not even complete, and you are saying I should pay even the price of sins from when I was a living being!? After I became a puppet, I only tried to evolve all living beings into superior existences like us!"

"Memories and the price of sin..."

At those words, Ahn Geum turns back, glances at Ha-eun and Jo Yeon for a moment, then asks.

"... If there is no memory, then do you have no sin?"

"Is that not obvious? Whatever sin I committed when I was a living being, by what pretext do you demand a price for sins from me who cannot remember!?"

"... First, setting aside the fact that it's a lie that you can't remember your time as a living being..."

Tststs— Ahn Geum's shadow changes.

The surrounding air begins to turn pallid.

Makli Hyun-ah begins to get goosebumps, and Jo Yeon and Ha-eun also feel a vicious aura and stop breathing for a moment.

"Even if there is no memory, as long as the ill connection with those who suffered because of you does not disappear, you must pay the price of sin. Even if personality is forgotten, connection must continue. If, without connection, only personality remains, then that is merely... nothing more than a tool."

Through Jo Yeon and Ha-eun's story, she was able to fully grasp the insights she obtained while facing Seo Li in that other space.

"Connection and causality. Depending on whether you accept it or not... the difference between a soul and a mere personality that is not a soul opens up. Are my words correct?"

Ahn Geum flicks her eyes backward, and the transformed shadow behind her laughs.

[Correct, Ghost Path cultivator.] A shadow with eighteen heads.

The shadow that introduced itself as Seo Li's personality, summoned by the being called the Ghost Mother, cackles.

[If there is neither connection nor causality, then it is merely an arrangement of information, and nothing more than a lump of pure power that has directionality. It cannot be defined as an existence.] At the shadow's words, Makli Hyun-ah flinches in surprise and is able to deepen his enlightenment once again.

'I see. Now I understand what Jegal Mikhail meant.'

Without a soul, only a personality exists.

That means it must exist only as someone's tool.

It exists only as a system that transfers some kind of power, and as a tool or the power itself that someone merely handles.

Jegal Mikhail despaired over that.

[On the other hand, even a personality that is nothing more than an arrangement of information can exist as a soul if it accepts connection and causality. The Integration stage is the stage of laying the foundation of Immortal Arts. Child, do you understand now?] Ahn Geum closes her eyes.

The Star Shattering stage puppets begin to pour attacks on her, but the puppets on Makli Hyun-ah's side block them.

In the chaotic battlefield, she accepts Seo Li's words.

"... All tools in this world... if connection accumulates and they accept causality... then they become an existence in and of themselves. That is the same for Immortal Arts as well."

[That is right. Immortal Arts is precisely spreading personality across the world. For an innate Sacred Vessel stage that is born through Immortal Arts to have a soul is to accept connection and causality.] Seo Li's shadow places a hand on Ahn Geum's shoulder.

[I am an existence where the personality within the Ghost Mother's memories was copied. An ordinary person would feel confusion of identity, but because Seo Li, the personality within her memories, had enlightenment, I inherited the wisdom of that enlightenment and defined myself.] Wo-woong!

Resonance (共喻).

Ahn Geum's flesh body and Seo Li's ghost fires resonate.

[I am a copied personality. The connection and causality within the memories are what Seo Li, the main body, had, so there is nothing that remains for me. But I only need to accumulate them from now on.] Huarurururuk!

The Ghost King with eighteen heads transforms into a human form.

That form has the face of a beauty, but soon that face melts away, and it becomes a visage similar to Ahn Geum's face.

[I am Seo Li. I am your Immortal Art. Wield me, and teach me connection.] Seo Li's body and Ahn Geum's body overlap.

At that moment, Ahn Geum half-opens her eyes and raises her hand.

"... Immortal Art. Ghost-Face Killing Heaven."

Curse and pain.

The greatest enlightenment about resentment poison blooms from her body.

But that is not the end.

Through the method she learned while facing and learning from Seo Li in that other space, she begins to bring about reversal of that sorrowful and dreadful resentment poison.

"The greatest curse is the greatest blessing. The best cure is the worst poison."

Enlightenment about blessings and curses blend with the talent she possesses, and it covers the entire Overseer Factory.

"K... uuuugh... Kuaaaaaaaagh!"

A wave of blessings and curses that cannot be described in words whirls through.

The wave of blessings embraces the allies behind Ahn Geum and the spirit jade where the spirits gathered deep inside the Overseer Factory are, and the wave of curses clings to the puppets with souls standing in front.

"Kuaaaaaaaagh!"

In the distant mythic age, The curse of one who sharpened enlightenment of blessings and curses to the extreme is manifested in this era and begins to eat away at the minds of villains.

Sinners who committed evil deeds, grew up with hypocrisy and twisted hearts, abused countless living beings, and in the end, even after being modified into puppets, cruelly captured living beings and deliberately modified them in vile ways.

Within unbearable, dreadful pain, they begin to melt away under Makli Hyun-ah's puppets.

Makli Hyun-ah looks at his puppets.

Puppets that have personality but have no soul.

'Someday, if those also accumulate connection and accept causality, will a soul be born?'

For now, they are nothing more than tools.

As Seo Li explained, as Jegal Mikhail lamented.

To puppets without causality, there is no choice, and there is no will to resist the one who has authority.

But if they too accept causality, then maybe it will be different.

Someday, they too might become Makli Hyun-ah's people.

Chwaaaaaak!

The enemy puppets that take the curses and bombardment from Makli Hyun-ah's puppets collapse, and within the Overseer Factory, only a pure white shining blessing remains and sweeps across the entire factory.

And the blessing that circle throughout the entire factory head to the factory's center.

To the spirit jade where the spirits are gathered.

At that moment, Jjeojeojeok, crack!

The spirit jade shatters, and the spirits of everyone who was captured by the puppets for twenty thousand years, modified, and sealed, begin to awaken.

As countless souls are liberated in an instant, it is as if the entire Overseer Factory is engulfed by spirits that cry out in jubilation.

Ahn Geum continues to move ahead, and Makli Hyun-ah, Jo Yeon, and Ha-eun finally reach the control tower.

Jo Yeon staggers up to one part of the control tower and begins to control the entire Overseer Factory, and the moment she connects something she brought with her to the Overseer Factory, Tudududududu!

The puppets fighting outside the factory all stop at once.

The puppets rampaging across the Vast Cold Realm all stop as well, and the factories across the Vast Cold Realm come to a halt.

"Now... never again will the Mad Lord's puppets harm living beings. Unless someone takes the puppets and misuses them."

Only now, as if she has finished everything she must do, Jo Yeon leans her body against Ha Eun's chest with a somewhat relieved face.

"However, the celestial calculation device is dead, so I cannot stop the factory's self-destruction. Soon the factory will explode. The power sources of hundreds of Star Shattering stage puppets will explode all at once, so please hurry and evacuate."

"What will you do?"

"We..."

At Ahn Geum's question, Jo Yeon, held in Ha Eun's arms, holds his hand and smiles.

"With the Yin-Yang Family Method, we will suppress the explosion as much as possible at the factory's center. As the task has been finished anyway, and we are forcibly extending our lifespan... it rather feels relieving, so please do not worry."

"... Are you really fine with that? Your traces in this world will disappear."

"It is fine. We accepted death long ago. We simply could not accept failing to accomplish the task. Now everything is over, so we will close our eyes."

"..."

Makli Hyun-ah looks at Ahn Geum and asks.

"Can't you transfer all of this explosion into your alternate space?"

"... It's impossible because of the range. If it's an explosion of several hundred Star Shattering stage power sources... setting aside whether the alternate space can endure it, the size of the entrance to the alternate space that I can open at my current realm is limited, so I can't block it all. I can use it to escape, but that's the limit."

"..."

Makli Hyun-ah looks at Jo Yeon, who sits on the floor and rests in Ha-eun's eyes, closing her eyes comfortably.

The past.

Two lovers who have sacrificed their entire lives in order to repay the karmic sins of a previous life whose memories do not remain and whose personality did not continue.

Because their karmic sins are still not erased, the two who must still burn again in flames.

Their end leaves a very deep impression on Makli Hyun-ah.

"... Let's respect them. It seems the puppets that follow your orders are not the ones Jo Yeon stopped, so I think it would be good for us to take the puppets as spoils and evacuate."

"... Alright."

Makli Hyun-ah bows to the two people inside the control tower, who hold hands comfortably and begin to exchange the energy of yin and yang, and even until the moment he exits the control tower, he cannot take his eyes off them.

At the last moment, Makli Hyun-ah feels as if those two look like a single Taiji.

'The Yin-Yang Family Method... is it a method of love?'

Perfect symmetry of Yin-Yang Taiji.

Within that beautiful harmony, for some reason, Makli Hyun-ah is able to feel the emotion called 'love'.

"Let's go."

"…Mm."

Makli Hyun-ah gathers the puppets and several major pieces of equipment from the factory, then leaves.

Kugugugugu!

At the same time, the Overseer Factory begins to self-destruct.

And at the center of the Overseer Factory, there, a form of Yin and Yang rises and begins to rotate, and that rotational force grabs the explosive force and pins it there in a spherical form.

Ahn Geum quickly withdraws the army of the Human Race Grand Alliance to the Human Race territory through the alternate space.

"Come quickly, Makli Hyun-ah. Now there's only us left!"

As it seemed that the situation was resolved well, the True Immortal of the Immeasurable Life Buddha Religious Order that appeared in the sky returned, and now what remains is only the exploding Overseer Factory, Makli Hyun-ah, and Ahn Geum.

However, Makli Hyun-ah does not follow Ahn Geum.

"I said come quickly, what are you doing!?"

"That... Ahn Geum."

"What!?"

"That... explosive force. Even though those two are blocking it, doesn't it seem kind of big?"

"... Huh?"

It is as he says.

For some reason, the Overseer Factory's self-destruction is growing at a speed beyond imagination, and its power is far more ferocious than they thought.

At this rate, even if they deal with the factory, the Stable Realm region of the Vast Cold Realm seems like it is going to turn into a total wasteland.

"Th-This, what is going on!? That isn't the level of several hundred Star Shattering stage power sources exploding!"

At Makli Hyun-ah's words, the Star Shattering stage puppet Black Marquis, who is guarding the two nearby, answers.

"That is only natural. After all, the Overseer Factory planned to begin a full occupation of the Vast Cold Realm once this quarter ended and it finished identifying the cultivators of the Hundred Schools. So it stockpiled six thousand Star Shattering stage power sources in advance."

"... What?"

Makli Hyun-ah and Ahn Geum's expressions go blank.

The technical prowess that the Mad Lord left behind had reached, beyond what they imagined, a truly devil-like level.