Chapter 759: Those Who Refused Ascension (1)

Thud.

The wound caused by the knife I had swung.

Unable to withstand that shock, Sarin’s body collapsed to the floor.

I stared blankly at that sight and thought.

'Even if I had been hit by that poison...... it wasn’t as if there was no way for me to survive.'

The blood that had burst from the wound.

No, the blood-poison made of blood.

Even if I had been hit by that poison, there was a way for me to survive.

However.

'If I did that...... my goal would have failed.'

I had already eaten three dishes here.

If I even used that method here.

I would become unable to execute the plan I had envisioned for that "inside."

My goal had not been to defeat Sarin, but something inside there.

And Sarin’s goal had been to stop me from doing that.

When seen from that perspective.

'I lost this fight.'

The loser of this battle.

Was clearly me.

No, to be precise.

'I should have been.'

It should have been...... a fight I had lost.

At the final moment.

The energy that burst out explosively from deep inside the mansion.

Because of that energy, Sarin’s final poison could not reach me.

And that energy had not erupted by mere coincidence.

{Hurry, come here.}

My appearance.

And Mirinae, who had realized that I was heading toward it.

'......The seal weakened.'

As a result of its survival instinct beginning to run wild.

Its energy had broken through the seal of this world and leaked out.

'This is a little.'

It was certainly something that helped me.

However.

'It hurts my pride.'

Having a predetermined defeat overturned like this.

Was also something that hurt my pride a little.

{Hu, hurry.}

Whether it knew my thoughts or not.

Mirinae’s instinct cried out for me to come.

{Hurry, free me.}

Perhaps because it was a cry of instinct rather than reason.

It seemed certain that I would release it.

“......Yeah.”

At that voice.

I nodded weakly and said.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Dragging my poison-laden body.

I moved my steps toward the depths of the mansion.

***

Whether I should call it fortunate.

Sarin’s poison...... among them, the poison energy of the Formless Ultimate Poison was far too powerful.

But the vampire blood that had begun circulating rapidly through my body due to [Berserk].

With that recovery ability, the power of the poison energy was offset to some extent.

After quickly reaching the inside of the mansion like that.

I sensed a presence in its deepest area.

“......You two.”

Once I confirmed that presence, I looked at them with a little surprise.

'Jeochil...... and Woojin, was it?'

Unlike the five beastkin at the entrance, they had not shown themselves, so I had wondered what they were doing.

Only for them to suddenly appear here.

If there was a problem.

“Are you alive?”

“.......”

It was the condition of their bodies.

The man with a pig’s face carrying a gigantic spear.

Jeochil was unconscious, slumped in a corner.

The man with a ponytail.

Woojin was also collapsed on the floor, vomiting blood.

“......I wondered why Master’s energy had gone berserk.”

Unlike Jeochil, who was unconscious.

It seemed Woojin at least still had some consciousness left.

With blood smeared around his mouth, he looked at me with a pale face.

“So it was because of you.”

It was a short statement.

But I could roughly understand what had happened.

“Did this happen because of me?”

A moment ago.

That shock that had allowed me to avoid Sarin’s poison.

They had also failed to avoid that shock.

“......No. Saying it was because of you may be too harsh.”

It was the result of Mirinae, having recognized my existence, going berserk.

Perhaps he knew that.

Woojin looked at me with resentful eyes for a moment.

Then lightly lowered his head and said.

“Even if you had not come, there was a high chance this would have happened someday. Rather...... if you had not awakened us a little sooner, by now the situation might already have become uncontrollable.”

At those words.

I looked in front of the place where Woojin was sitting collapsed.

What lay before Woojin was a main hall that originally seemed to have been fairly spacious.

Perhaps in the past, someone would have sat at the innermost part while receiving many guests there.

But.

'A hole.......'

What was there now.

Was a gigantic hole occupying most of that wide main hall.

A hole that would look merely black to other people’s eyes.

But to me.......

No, to awakened people, it was a little different.

[Common Trait]

[Combat Power Meter]

Because from beneath that hole.

An enormous purple light, enough to send chills down the spine, was flickering.

“It is quite an impressive hole, but I doubt this hole was here from the beginning.”

“That is correct. Originally, this was the place where Master resided.”

“How did it end up like this?”

At my words.

He opened his mouth with a bitter expression.

“It is called qi deviation.......”

***

The homeland of the beastkin.

When the Beast World faced the crisis of ruin.

“Our Master fought against that ruin at the forefront more than anyone.”

The imperial family, the Heavenly Heart Alliance, the Black Demon Union, and the Great Radiance Cult.

Every force that might have been capable of resisting this ruin had declined due to the sudden attack that occurred at the beginning of the ruin.

There were extremely few forces left on this land capable of opposing the ruin.

The number of enemies the martial hall’s master had to handle had also increased.

“......The immortals?”

In the past.

I had once heard from Miho how their world had fallen.

At the time, I had simply accepted it and moved on.

But thinking about it now, there was something strange.

“I heard there were immortals besides your Master who underwent something called ascension. Those who held and shook the laws of this world...... It should have been them responding to that kind of attack, not your Master.”

“......The immortals of the heavens are restricted and cannot easily interfere with matters on the earth. Also, it was not as if they did nothing.”

Unlike the other beastkin.

Woojin had assisted the Master beside him while the Master communicated with the immortals, and heard what the Master said at that time.

“I heard that they were sealing powerful beings attempting to descend upon the earth so they could not act...... and devoting all their strength to responding to the invasion from the "outside."”

“.......”

Come to think of it.

Their world had not had the parasites...... the zombies of our world appear.

Perhaps that, too, was the result of those heavenly immortals having accomplished something.

'The seal is the same.'

According to what Seohwan and Miho said.

Even in this world, the monsters that appeared grew stronger as time passed.

Their world did not have a system like ours either.

So that must have been the result of the immortals who manipulated the laws of this world intervening.

However, even if it was true that they had not been doing nothing.

In the end, the fact remained that they could not give help to the earth for a long time.

“We also acted to help Master, but there were limits. In particular, only Master could deal with the powerful beings that escaped the immortals’ gaze. No matter how powerful Master was, it was not easy to handle the endlessly swarming enemies alone.”

“So?”

“When Master’s strength began approaching its limit, he had no choice but to find a way to replenish that strength.”

At those words.

I recalled what the countless Mirinaes had said.

“By devouring enemies, he made them his nourishment.”

For some reason.

Many Mirinaes had been obsessed with devouring someone.

The martial hall’s Master fought the invaders.

To make up for his depleted strength, he devoured enemies.

By doing that, he became able to fight for a long time.

But.

“The more he did so...... the more bad things accumulated inside Master.”

He had simply devoured too much.

Things that were not him began to mix inside him.

Because he was a great martial artist no different from an immortal, even his disciples did not easily notice that change.

But even that had a limit.

“At some point...... Master’s personality began to change little by little.”

A change occurred, very gradually.

“As if he had multiple personalities...... woman, man, young person, old person.”

The number of enemies grew larger and larger.

And that number reached the point where even the martial hall’s Master could not handle it.

“Despite the efforts of the immortals, the stars beyond the universe descended upon this land. The gigantic stars trampled the continent and cruelly ravaged our home world.”

Like that, the entire world was being destroyed horribly.

And the last place left was this place.

Cheonsan, the mountain closest to the heavens, became the final battlefield.

“In the end...... when the situation reached the point where even the heavenly immortals had to descend to the earth through this Cheonsan.”

I recalled the past Miho had told me about.

The final battle that took place on this Cheonsan.

Seohwan had not seen it because he lost consciousness halfway through.

But when even the heavenly immortals descended, and a literal great war that tore the continent apart broke out.

“At that time, Master became a beast.”

Devouring that great evil.

The martial hall’s Master became a beast.

'Martial arts were clearly...... a discipline meant to suppress the instincts of the beast and cultivate reason.'

Combat ability was ultimately only secondary.

Their martial arts were techniques meant to train their minds.

Even though their Master must have been someone at the very summit of that.

Because he had eaten far too many things, in the end, he became a beast once again.

“......And Master, having become a beast, devoured everything.”

And.

After hearing the words that followed, I could not help but feel a little puzzled.

“......Everything?”

“Yes. Everything.”

At the end of that fight.

In the end, their homeland lost.

Right, I had already heard and knew that much from Miho.

“All the stars beyond the universe that trampled and destroyed this continent were devoured by Master’s teeth. Every enemy that invaded our world became Master’s prey without a single one left.”

But.......

I had never heard the exact circumstances of that defeat.

“And.”

What I had heard was only that there had been a great war.

As for what happened after that, everything I had assumed came from the scenery of this martial hall.

“The rivers and lakes of our world, the trees and soil. The land and mountains...... the continent and sea. The survivors who were still barely alive.”

“......What?”

“And finally...... even the heavenly army and the great immortals.”

Unexpectedly, that ending.

“All of them.”

Seemed to have been a little different......

From what I had imagined.

***

The mountain closest to the heavens in the world.

The sky above that mountain opened.

BOOOOOOM.......

The first things to appear from the opened sky were bodies shining with a beautiful jade light.

Dark-blue manes flowed down along their spines, and long white whiskers grew from the bridges of their noses.

Their bodies were long and flexible like snakes, and they swam freely through the sky as if unaffected by gravity.

Those who had cast off the instincts and bodies of beasts.

They were immortals who had gained enlightenment and ascended.

In their sharp claws, the inner cores that had accumulated their power in life had transformed into beautiful beads.

And.

What stood behind those immortals, who possessed such mighty power...... was a gigantic yellow dragon shining not with jade light, but golden light.

A dragon king of golden scales so enormous that even when one turned one’s head left and right, the end could not be seen.......

The emperor of the heavens descended from his jade throne and came down to the earth.

The immortals who had achieved transcendence through great enlightenment and risen to the heavens.

The emperor who had existed since the beginning.

And the heavenly army that emperor had personally created.

There was only one reason they opened the gate of heaven and descended in person.

Unlike those who had originated from the sky of this land.

The stars of the universe that had invaded this land from beyond the outside.

To fight against the wave of that great evil.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Around Cheonsan, the final great war unfolded.

The breaths of dragons covered the earth, and the magic power of the stars shook the laws of the world.

Even the enormous continent was torn and shattered to pieces by the aftermath.

Within that massive war, those who had not yet become immortals could not even dare to join in and had no choice but to hide in the mountain.

Even though all the army of heaven had descended to the earth, the war turned unfavorable for the dragons.

Though the history of the world was long, few had gained enough enlightenment to become dragons.

By contrast, their enemies were the stars of that universe.

Their number seemed endless.

The only reason a war could even be established.

Was the emperor of the heavens, the dragon king of golden scales, who had raised his rank while placing countless transcendent beings beneath him.

And.......

The power of one more dragon.

That one dragon had an appearance a little different from the immortals.

The immortals who walked the sky had no legs except for their hands with claws.

Those who personally manipulated the laws of the world.

Since they freely controlled even gravity and had no need to step on the ground, they had no need for legs either.

But that one was different.

Unlike those who flew through the sky with long bodies.

It was a being with four legs meant for crawling along the ground.

Unlike the others, who directly manipulated the laws of the world and did not even need wings.

It was a being that swung gigantic wings and traversed the sky with that power.

[Those Who Refused Ascension]

......A being who had gained enlightenment, become a dragon, and earned the qualification for ascension.

But because it loved the lives of the earth, it had given up ascending to the heavens.