Chapter 250. Within Ten Paces, You’ll Find A Fragrant Flower (21)

“Ahh... Ahh!”

Five people had tried to attack the Martial Heaven God, and Woo-Moon had taken the counterblow in their stead. He soared into the air, bleeding heavily, before crashing into the ground like a puppet with the strings cut.

‘N-no, I don’t want this. If he dies..’

“No! Stop it!”

Cho-Ah’s throat-tearing scream echoed through the quiet air.

The Martial Heaven God, who had been staring at Woo-Moon with a questioning look, turned his gaze to Cho-Ah.

“Oho!”

As soon as she matched the Martial Heaven God’s gaze, Cho-Ah’s eyes widened.

‘H-he’s not human. I’m scared... scared...’

However, at that moment, someone walked between them, blocking the Martial Heaven God’s sight from Cho Ah’s eyes.

It was a young man with incredible muscles and unusually long arms—Ah Sam.

He didn’t say anything. He just silently stood in front of Cho-Ah and faced the Martial Heaven God with his teeth clenched.

The Martial Heaven God looked at Woo-Moon.

“If I’m not mistaken, that girl is the one I experimented on with the Solar Physique. Is that right?”

Woo-Moon was lying there like a dead dog, but when he heard the Martial Heaven God’s voice, his fingers twitched. Then, he slowly woke up from his dazed state. For some reason, the Martial Heaven God simply waited for him to get up without doing anything.

“Cough, cough!”

After spitting out more blood, Woo-Moon barely raised his head and looked at him.

“Yes, that’s right... I healed her.”

The Martial Heaven God started laughing. For a moment, his laughter held a tinge of anger, but that quickly dissipated as he continued to laugh.

“Hahahahahaha! How interesting. Well, I suppose that was my loss then.”

While Woo-Moon wanted to say something, he simply didn’t have the energy to speak anymore.

“I didn’t know that someone could actually cure the Solar Physique. Not even I am confident in doing so. I see. Well, that was one loss, and this is one victory for me. Want to make this a two-out-of-three? Since we still haven’t had our final battle yet, I guess it’s fine to say that your title of Undefeatable-whatever is still intact.”

The Martial Heaven God looked at Woo-Moon with newfound appreciation.

“Three months. I’ll give you three months, and not a day more. If you don’t do anything, I’ll put my plan into action and kill all martial artists. I hope that you’ll be able to stop me before then. We’ll have our final battle at that time.”

After finishing everything he had to say, the Martial Heaven God was silent for a moment before speaking up again.

“A long time ago, when I first decided to become a god and create my own world, the first thing I looked at was the

murim

. If you think about it that way, martial artists live outside the rules of the world, don’t they? They are the very representatives of this idea. So, I thought to myself... Since I am the representative figure of destroying the rules of reality, why not go ahead and create a new world? In doing so, I would also eliminate the very martial arts that allowed some people to gain power over others.

“So, I slowly changed Martial Heaven, the force I created myself. I planted arrogance in their hearts, making them think that they were fundamentally different from ordinary people. It was easier than I had expected. I mean, to be fair, they thought that way in the first place. They just never expressed it specifically. But when I tried to carry out my plan using Martial Heaven the first time, Woo Bok-Hee stopped me.”

Woo-Moon had already heard what happened next from the Martial Heaven Emperor. After several attempts and failures, the Martial Heaven God had started to carry out preemptive actions to reduce the damages his forces took.

“... and that’s how we’ve come this far. Now, my plan is only one step away from being realized. Are you curious as to why I’m telling you all of this? It’s because I’m worried that you might misunderstand me. You see, I have no intention of leaving Martial Heaven behind, and my conviction is firm. Please use these next three months carefully.”

When he finished speaking, the Martial Heaven God disappeared. Like a mirage, like an illusion, he vanished from the sight of everyone gathered.

At the same time, Woo-Moon’s eyes closed.

“Woo-Moon!”

Woo-Moon’s wives took turns staying by his side through the night, the next day, and then the following night...

He only woke up after three days and three nights.

He opened his eyes, his pupils dark and listless, and as soon as he woke up, he immediately sat upright and circulated his qi without saying a word. He had to heal the internal wounds he had suffered fighting the Martial Heaven God.

One month passed, and then another.

After an entire sixty days, Woo-Moon finally woke up from his meditation with an extremely haggard face.

“Are you okay, senior brother?”

“Woo-Moon...”

“Gege! You’re awake!”

Woo-Moon didn’t respond to his three wives’ affectionate greetings. He just walked out of the room like a dull-eyed ghost, snatched a longsword from a nearby Heavenly Demon Cult member, went outside, and started swinging it.

He was training. However, his movements lacked strength.

Woo-Moon shook his head while swinging his sword, his expression betraying his dissatisfaction with something. But he simply continued, minute after minute, hour after hour, forgoing food and rest, and just swinging his sword without a word. Although his family tried to talk to him, Woo-Moon just continued to do his thing as if he couldn’t hear anything.

Five days passed like that.

There were now only twenty-five days left until the deadline. The mouths of those watching Woo-Moon became increasingly dry.

Dae-Woong and Jin-Jin brought food and handed it to their daughters-in-law.

“I’m so sorry for all this. You’re having a hard time because of my son....”

“It’s nothing, Mother,” replied Si-Hyeon, shaking her head.

The five of them could do nothing but stare at Woo-Moon; the meal they were eating felt like sand, almost impossible to swallow, but unlike him, they had to fill their stomachs. After finishing the meal, Dae-Woong thumped his chest, as if he was feeling stuffed.

“How frustrating, it’s so frustrating. It feels like we’ve gone back to the past. This really reminds me of when Woo-Moon was a fool obsessed with that landscape painting.”

Suddenly, Woo-Moon froze.

“Huh?”

Dae-Woong looked at his son with surprised eyes. Woo-Moon looked back at him.

“Father, what did you just say?”

“What, what, you little brat?”

“What you said just now, that!”

“I said it feels like we’ve gone back to when you were a fool obsessed with that landscape painting, you brat!”

Woo-Moon laughed and shouted, “The landscape painting!”

He seemed to have realized something.

His wives and his mother clasped their hands together in anticipation as they looked at him.

“What is, isn’t, and what isn’t, is!”

Woo-Moon’s listless gaze had vanished; his eyes now sparkled like stars in the night sky as he looked at his family.

“There’s a place I have to go right now. I’ll be back!”

Woo-Moon transformed into a beam of light and flew across the sky, arriving at the Baek Family in what felt like the blink of an eye.

“Oh, Uncle!”

Baek Ran noticed him and ran over with a bright smile.

“I’m sorry, but see you later!”

Woo-Moon ran to the now-empty Song Residence as if he was being chased by demons and started rummaging through his room.

“Where is it? I have to find it, I have to find it quickly!”

He was going at it manually, like a normal person, when he belatedly realized that there was an easier way and quickly expanded his qi senses. His nieces and nephews, who had just come running in, looked at him with strange gazes.

“Uncle, what’s wrong?”

“Are you looking for something? Can we help you?”

But right then, he found it.

Woo-Moon used Spatial Manipulation to pull it out and bring it into his grasp, bursting with laughter.

“Hahahahahahaha! I found it, I found it!”

What Woo-Moon held in his hand, completely delighted, was a roll of blank paper. Judging from its shape, it looked like a piece of paper meant for drawing.

“Huh? What is that?”

“Did you come all the way here just to get that paper? Are you giving up martial arts and starting to paint for a living? You could have just gone to the market to buy some... wait, Uncle, did you run out of money? Should we give you some pocket money?”

Woo-Moon couldn’t respond to his nieces and nephew’s jabs. His mind was completely focused on something else.

“Hahahahahaha!”

Kicking off the ground and launching himself through the air, he broke through the roof of the residence and flew into the depths of an unknown mountain far away, leaving behind the flabbergasted Baek Family youngsters.

There, he hung the blank landscape painting on a tree and suddenly... dropped to the ground and started to kowtow.

Thud, thud, thud.

He kowtowed three times, as was the custom when dealing with one’s master.

When he got up, he was smiling brightly. Then, he spoke to the former landscape painting—now a blank paper—as if he was talking to a person.

“Absolute nothingness is everything in the world. I’ve now realized that truth. And I’ve also realized that... the very landscape painting that had become blank when you left, Master, literally contained everything in the world.”

Woo-Moon still had a smile on his face. He could see the scenery in the landscape painting.

A cliff towering high into the sky, a waterfall flowing under the shade of a majestic pine tree, deer running around... Everything was so vivid it was almost as if... no, it wasn’t “as if.” Everything was actually moving.

The scenery within the frame of the landscape painting broke out of its bounds, spreading out even more.

Eventually, it covered everything around Woo-Moon, and he found himself in the very fairyland that he had once stared at for years.

An old daoist riding a crane flew in front of him. It was none other than the old Daoist who had created the landscape painting for Woo-Moon.

“Master!”

Woo Bok-Hee, who looked somehow more gaunt than when they had first met, got off the crane and immediately started grumbling.

“I haven’t had a single day of peace because I have to take care of the seniors. Yes, yes, it has been a long time, my child.”

Woo-Moon could guess as to who the “seniors” were—from the perspective of Woo Bok-Hee, who had ascended to the Heavens, people worthy of being called “seniors” could only be the others who had ascended before him and become sages.

Woo-Moon chuckled as he realized that the world beyond wasn’t much different from the human world, at least in some aspects.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it?”

“I realized a long time ago that even immortals aren’t that much different from people.”

“Haha. That’s right. That’s why evil immortals exist, after all. Right, looking at your face, I can tell that you’re suffering because of those brats that call themselves Martial Heaven.”

Woo-Moon lowered his head without answering. Woo Bok-Hee looked at him with a kind expression for a moment, then spoke up again.

“Fine, fine. Did you learn the last form of the Gentle Celestial Sword?”

“If you’re referring to All the Myriad Things in the World, then yes, I have.”

“Is that really the case?”

Woo-Moon was at a loss for words for a moment. Then he opened his mouth with great difficulty.

“Actually, that’s why this disciple of yours has fallen into despare.”

“You’re saying that you don’t think you can’t defeat the Martial Heaven God with All the Myriad Things in the World, is that it?”

“Exactly.”

Woo Bok-Hee shook his head, chuckling, and said, “I left you two things in the landscape painting: the Celestial Sect’s Forbidden Divine Art and the Gentle Celestial Sword, right?”

“Yes.”

Woo-Moon wondered why Woo Bok-Hee was asking such a question. Was he being sarcastic? Was there more that Woo-Moon hadn’t discovered yet?

But Woo Bok-Hee’s response was completely unexpected.

“I did no such thing.”

“What?”

“I didn’t leave you any techniques. All I did was create a place for you to practice.”

It felt as if a light suddenly shone upon a deep, dark corner of his mind.

“That’s... what are you saying?”

“In the end, people are the universe. There’s a universe within every being. At its core, the answer to even the worst of tribulations that the Heavens might cast upon you is within yourself. I realized that and helped you achieve it, but that was merely lending you a hand.

You

have accomplished all of this, everything on your own. What you learned in that dream wasn’t my martial arts; I didn’t teach you anything of the sort.”

Countless explosions rang in Woo-Moon’s head.

Everything he had ever known, the facts,

the truth

, was crumbling.