Chapter 80

Chapter 79

Jincheon Joonshin lay in a wretched state, barely managing to steady his mind on the verge of fainting, and was desperately gazing at the distant clock tower.

After observing the extent to which the gears had turned, he realized that only two hundred years had passed.

Those two hundred years felt to him like twenty thousand years.

Who was he?

A being who had existed for over a thousand years!

A being who, as a mere human, had transcended all human suffering and烦恼, truly deserving the title of a revered deity (尊神).

He was proficient in almost all martial arts in the Central Plains and his mental strength, honed to perfection, surpassed even that of the immortals in the Heavenly Realm.

“Grrrrr...”

Yet, he was making a sound like a beast.

Every time he looked at Xiaojianxin, who was dozing off against the transparent wall, all his thousand years of cultivation seemed to vanish, leaving him nothing but a fierce, savage beast.

Eight thousand two hundred and twenty-six battles (戰).

Eight thousand two hundred and twenty-six defeats (敗).

This was the reason why his self-esteem had hit rock bottom, and he could only howl in anger like a beast.

His martial arts knowledge was almost beyond imagination.

Nangong (南宮), Tang Family (唐家), Shaolin (少林), Wudang (武当), Huashan (华山), and the Beggar Sect (丐帮).

Of course, the martial arts of such Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families could not pose a threat to him.

The problem was that the one wielding those martial arts was Xiaojianxin.

Moreover, the ultimate fusion technique of the Three Deities (三神) that always came at the end...

The immense pressure of that will almost tore his spirit apart, crushed it like tofu, and brought him to the brink of annihilation several times.

Of course, he knew one thing.

That guy was not a great being like a creator!

If he were truly a creator, he wouldn’t torment a mere human, insignificant as an ant, to such an extent!

Just as he was about to secretly assassinate him, regardless of the rules of engagement,

“Hold on, come to think of it.”

Startled!

Jincheon Joonshin, who was about to secretly attack Zhaohui, quickly regained his composure.

“What, what is it!”

“Eh? Look at this guy’s evil expression. Are you trying to take advantage of me while I’m sleeping? Even as a revered deity (尊神), you wouldn’t do that, right?”

“What are you talking about! It’s a slander!”

“Never mind.”

Zhaohui lay down again, gazing idly at the empty space outside the rectangular room.

“... It’s about Tongtian. I suddenly remembered what he said to me.”

“What...?”

Although they were both experimental subjects and disciples of the Divine Seat, they had almost no interaction with each other.

They occasionally met once every few decades, but it was just for light information exchanges. After the disappearance of Yuandao (原道) and Guiyan (鬼暗), they hadn’t met a few times.

“The seat you know and the one he talked about are different. He clearly said that he didn’t choose the seat when the moment of choice came.”

“What, what?”

“He had a completely different philosophy from you. He said that even if he ascended to the seat and became a cosmic being, all he would face was endless emptiness. The only thing he could do was project his will onto mortals and observe them. That’s all there was to it, like a perverted pleasure.”

“Blasphemy!”

What is a seat?

It is the absolute divinity that a human cannot dare to face.

Who could casually belittle the great beings who have transcended the mortal coil and finally grasped the eternal and absolute?

“Of course, that’s how it was! He chose to remain in the world and toy with all humans rather than spend his time pointlessly.”

“Dare you!”

Jincheon Joonshin was truly furious, his whole body trembling.

However, Zhaohui’s voice continued without a care.

“The most curious thing is why he chose you, his most hostile and closest disciple, as his avatar.”

“Avatar?”

“Yeah, avatar.”

“Is that guy the avatar of the Divine Seat?”

Zhaohui answered brusquely, as if bored.

“Damn, have you been fooled all this time? I even had a direct conversation with that Divine Seat guy.”

“You heard the divine words of the Divine Seat directly?”

“Well, he just kept saying names that are hard to express in human language and then ran away, but it was definitely him.”

“Mad! Impossible!”

An avatar (化身) is the most perfect means for a being who has reached the seat to manifest their will.

Then, the position of the avatar should have been his.

He was the only one who had faithfully carried out the commands of the Divine Seat, manifesting as water, fire, and wind.

If what Xiaojianxin said was true, what was he to the Divine Seat?

Zhaohui looked at Jincheon Joonshin with a disdainful expression.

“Is it so shocking that another disciple became the avatar of that sinister Divine Seat? Why are you so flabbergasted?”

“I... I...”

“What did the Divine Seat promise you? The wealth and fame of the mortal world mean nothing to you... If there’s anything, it’s only eternal immortality, right? From the looks of it, your life is running out. Did he promise you a way to reach the seat?”

The contorted face of Jincheon Joonshin, like a demon.

What a devil!

“Why don’t you just worship me as a god?”

“What do you mean?”

Zhaohui laughed sarcastically.

“I can feel it.”

Zhaohui gazed at the distant clock tower again.

“Among the countless disasters of the Law of Heaven’s Thunder, this ‘Void Main Realm’ is the only answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the Law of Heaven’s Thunder is an array, this is the only gate of life (生门).”

Zhaohui laughed maniacally.

“Hahahaha! Can’t you see the path to the seat right in front of you?”

His hand pointed to the massive stone slab at the very bottom of the clock tower.

“Can’t you see the names written there?”

The stone slab Zhaohui pointed to.

It was densely inscribed with the names of countless beings who had achieved the rank of the seat.

However, Jincheon Joonshin could not read the inscriptions on the stone slab.

The meanings were transmitted to his mind, but the strange names could not be read in human language.

When he first experienced the Void Main Realm, they were not visible, but now, with Jincheon Joonshin present, they were clearly visible.

The stone slab was inscribed with countless names, each exuding an absolute divinity.

“Can’t you feel it this time?”

“... No.”

At Jincheon Joonshin’s response, Zhaohui finally began to seriously ponder.

Regardless of the reason, since he had arrived at the Void Main Realm with him, it meant that the same cosmic law of causality applied to him.

But what did it mean that the law of causality regarding the constraints of the Void and the names of the seats that had already visited this place were invisible to him?

“Isn’t it absurd no matter how I think about it? Since you entered here with me, you should be subject to the same law of causality. Why is the tower a secret to you? Can cosmic laws be so capricious?”

“It seems to be a matter of choice.”

“Choice?”

Jincheon Joonshin’s expression seemed calm, but a trace of fear clearly crossed his face.

“If, as you claim, this is the final gate to the seat, the Law of Heaven’s Thunder’s only gate of life (生门), and if this gate only allows and chooses you, then all the current phenomena can be explained correctly.”

“Hmm...”

As he spoke, his eyes seemed to fill with a meaningless void, as if he was becoming depressed.

“It means you are already a seat, or a predestined being with only the final step left.”

“I’m already a seat?”

If he wasn’t a seat, how could all of this be explained?

Xiaojianxin, who had been treating him like a child with mere will, was the one who had been honing his existence for over a thousand years.

“Damn it!”

Meanwhile, Zhaohui immediately spat out the six-character incantation.

As the elders of the spirit realm had said, once he reached the seat, dealing with the Divine Seat would be much easier, but why did it feel so repulsive to be called a seat?

For some reason, he felt a sense of shame and humiliation when he heard Jincheon Joonshin’s words.

It felt like all the filth in his stomach was rising up in disgust.

What was certain was that, given this overwhelming feeling of disgust, he was definitely not a seat.

Zhaohui shook his head firmly.

“Shut up. No, I have no intention of becoming a seat.”

“... Just a seat?”

Jincheon Joonshin’s expression was one of extreme bewilderment.

Even the great First Emperor, who had conquered the Central Plains and held the power of life and death over all the people, had spent his entire life searching for a single herb of immortality.

The seat, which transcends life, aging, illness, and death, and finally grants the qualification of eternal immortality from the cosmic law, is the ultimate realm!

Jincheon Joonshin felt a sense of reverence for Zhaohui, who dared to call such a transcendent realm “just a seat.”

If this Void Main Realm was the only gate of life (生门) of the Law of Heaven’s Thunder, there must be an unimaginable being overseeing it.

“Are you not afraid?”

“What should I be afraid of?”

Jincheon Joonshin, extremely tense, slowly looked around.

“If, as you say, this is the final gate to the seat, there must be a being overseeing it. Are you saying you don’t care about the scrutiny of such a transcendent being?”

Zhaohui responded brusquely.

“What does it matter?”

“No, no, what does it mean to deny the seat on the stage of the seat’s test...”

Jincheon Joonshin’s face turned dejected as he spoke.

Upon reflection, this Xiaojianxin had no intention of becoming a seat, did he?

He was not someone who feared not reaching the seat.

Jincheon Joonshin’s dejected gaze turned to the vast universe.

The countless stars (星光) burning like flames.

The transcendent realm called the constellation (星座), whose existence transcends the great stars.

It was the name and dream he had pursued all his life, the ultimate aspiration.

Feeling powerless and miserable, he could do nothing despite the only path to the seat being right before him.

If the seat required the selection of a great being, regardless of human effort...

He honestly wished he had never known about this Void Main Realm, the final gate of the seat.

It felt as if his long, harsh life of over a thousand years had been negated in an instant.

Especially, the feeling of looking at Xiaojianxin, who regarded the path to the great seat as trivial as a pebble, was indescribably miserable.

“Hey? What’s that look? It seems like your mental state is completely shattered.”

“Shut up...”

Faced with the reality of the path to the seat, Jincheon Joonshin felt like he wanted to die right there.

Even if Dharma was a Divine Seat, he could not predict or control the immense disaster of the Law of Heaven’s Thunder.

His promise to grant the seat was a deception from the start.

“Yeah, yeah. Life is like that. Deception and revenge. So, tell me. Why did you spread the Dharma Sutra?”

Jincheon Joonshin, who had firmly closed his mouth, suddenly burst into a bitter laugh, thinking what was the point of all this.

He was going to suffer torture for the remaining two thousand eight hundred years, so it was impossible to keep a secret for such a long time.

But when he tried to answer, he realized he didn’t know much.

“I can only guess it’s related to his descent (降臨), but I don’t know the details.”

“Descent (降臨)?”

As the worst answer came from Jincheon Joonshin, Zhaohui’s face turned extremely rigid.

“It’s not just a martial arts manual, is it?”

“You seem to be misunderstanding. The Dharma Sutra is not a book containing knowledge of martial arts or philosophy.”

What kind of absurd statement is this?

Isn’t it called a sutra (经)?

A high-minded text usually refers to a scripture that compiles thoughts, philosophy, techniques, and theories.

“Wait, have you studied the Dharma Sutra?”

“He never allowed me to read it.”

“What?”

Then, did he publicly reveal a scripture that he never showed even to his disciples?

“Let’s see it directly.”

Then, Jincheon Joonshin searched his robe and pulled out something strange from his bosom, thrusting it at Zhaohui.

“What is this?”

Since he fell into the world of martial arts, Zhaohui had never been so shocked.

Zhaohui, with a look of sheer panic, picked up what Jincheon Joonshin had handed him.

“This is a semiconductor chip (chip), right?”

“You use strange terms. I don’t know what you mean by that strange thing, but this is the Dharma Sutra.”

“Ah! What are you saying!”

No matter how he looked at it, it was a semiconductor chip, a shape familiar to a modern person.

However, the appearance of the electrodes attached to the bottom was not the usual shape.

The bottom of the semiconductor chip was densely covered with microscopic needles that were almost invisible to the naked eye.

But such a type of adhesive semiconductor chip did not exist in the modern world he had lived in.

“Wait...?”

Is this really a scripture (经书)?

A scripture is a tool for transmitting knowledge.

In a world without any IT infrastructure, it was impossible to transmit knowledge using such a high-dimensional semiconductor.

The only possibility was a neural link (Neuralink).

A cutting-edge scientific technology that connects devices directly to the numerous neural synapses of the human brain to exchange vast amounts of information.

But such an advanced technology had not been realized even in the modern world he had lived in.

It was a concept far beyond wearable devices, which were just beginning to emerge.

It was a cutting-edge scientific technology that he, a modern person, could hardly imagine, which is why he was so shocked.

To confirm his thoughts, Zhaohui asked Jincheon Joonshin again.

“Is this... something you attach to your head?”

Jincheon Joonshin was as surprised as Zhaohui.

“How did you...?”

“Wow.”

As his suspicions were confirmed, Zhaohui became even more curious about the true identity of this Dharma.

Isn’t this too unfair?

To think of spreading a future cutting-edge technology like a neural link across the entire martial arts world!

Compared to him, who had only managed to create things like cola, hamburgers, bicycles, suspension bridges, delivery services, and apartments, this was a bold attempt.

Is he someone who can freely travel through time and space?

“How many of these did you spread in the martial arts alliance?”

“The number doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

“I gave them a magical treasure that can produce the Dharma Sutra.”

“What, what?”

Zhaohui was once again utterly shocked.

What they called a magical treasure (法寶) in the Central Plains, which could not be explained by their knowledge, was clearly a cutting-edge future technology, such as a 3D printer or a nanomachine that could divide like cells.

“Wow.”

Zhaohui felt a sense of reverence for Dharma for the first time.

Even without the ability to freely travel through time and space, the thoroughness of his actions made Zhaohui want to acknowledge him.

As Zhaohui repeatedly marveled, he suddenly brought the semiconductor chip to his head.

“Can I put it on? Where do I attach it?”

Instantly, Jincheon Joonshin’s face turned pale with fear.

“Do it if you want to die!”

“Die?”

Zhaohui’s head tilted in confusion.

“If it were possible, I would have explored the sutra countless times already!”

“You mean you never tried it?”

What kind of absurdity is this?

Why would you need permission to attach a neural link semiconductor to your head?

“We six disciples are not fools. Attempting to unlock the Dharma Sutra was something