HBWnovel Chapter 493: Eve of the End (終末前夜) (4)
Chapter 493: Eve of the End (終末前夜) (4)
Chapter 493: Eve of the End (終
'I' have become a very small being.
No, saying 'become' feels a bit strange.
I have been small from the moment I was born.
But something feels odd.
It's as if I used to be a big being.
A being capable of destroying the entire world, of moving between stars, possessing authority even greater than those of gods...
I don't know why, but I feel like I was that kind of being.
Perhaps it's just a delusion.
After all, I am merely a tiny microorganism.
I live by photosynthesizing, absorbing surrounding materials for nutrients, and in this way, I live my whole life.
Then, I die.
...
I have become a microorganism.
But this time, a slightly larger microorganism than before.
Now, I am able to prey on other microorganisms.
Unlike last time, I live by devouring microorganisms.
While doing so, I am eaten by a microorganism larger than myself and die.
...
When I come to my senses, I am once again a microorganism.
But this time, I am not just a slightly larger microorganism.
I exist as multiple microorganisms 'simultaneously.'
In other words, the microorganism at the eastern edge is me, and the microorganism at the western edge is also me.
I have become multiple microorganisms and gather them together.
As the collective consciousness of the microorganisms, I make them cooperate to find food.
This time, I am neither eaten as before, nor do I live as briefly as before.
But eventually, I also reach the end of my lifespan and die.
...
I come to my senses once again.
In this world, there are many beings like my previous self, entities that have become the collective consciousness of microorganisms.
And I, too, have become a part of one of those collective consciousnesses.
These beings with collective consciousness survive by consuming countless microorganisms.
Sometimes, there are even cases where one collective consciousness consumes another.
In the past, I think I once called these collectives of microorganisms 'bugs.'
...But what is a bug?
And what is a 'past'?
I can't quite remember.
While I am lost in other thoughts, I am eaten and killed by another 'bug.'
...
When I come to my senses again, I perceive that I have grown larger.
I have become a large bug.
I realize that I am able to prey on other bugs.
The moment I understand this, I keep moving to avoid being eaten by other bugs.
Endlessly, I devour other bugs, flee, and struggle to survive.
But then, I am crushed to death by a massive rock that falls from the sky.
...
When I come to my senses again, I am alive.
In front of me is a stone, and underneath it lies a small bug, crushed to death.
By the standards of the 'past' era, it's a stone smaller than a pinky finger, but to bugs, it's a large rock.
'What exactly is this past era standard? And what kind of organ is a pinky finger?'
I briefly drift into these other thoughts, but then I quickly stop myself.
In the Great Nature, losing myself in such thoughts could lead to death or being eaten at any moment.
I need to quickly prepare to survive.
As I move my body, I perceive that my 'domain' has expanded again.
I have become 'bugs.'
Just as I was once a collective consciousness of microorganisms, I have now become a collective consciousness of 'bugs.'
I lead the bugs that have become a part of me and set out to survive.
Though I end up dying again, death no longer fills me with dread.
In the days of being a microorganism, I didn't know this, but now I do.
I am gradually growing.
With each experience of death, I am gradually evolving.
So death is not something to fear; rather, it is just another opportunity.
Thus, there is no need to fear anything.
...
'I' continue to grow larger and larger.
At first, a microorganism.
Next, a bug.
Then, a big bug that eats other bugs.
After that, a small beast that preys on big bugs.
Then, a large beast.
An even larger beast.
A monster that devours beasts.
...
Eventually, I become the collective consciousness of monsters.
...
Huarururururuk!
The entire world is ablaze.
The place where 'I' live is right here.
The ground is mostly clear and transparent.
Of course, there are also many areas dyed in various colors.
But I have to be careful, as sharp and jagged things stick out across the ground.
If I'm not cautious, the body could be torn apart in an instant.
But what I need to be even more cautious of is the 'mountain fire.'
The high places on the ground are called 'mountains,' and at the summit of these mountains, flames sometimes erupt that are the same color as the ground, turning the surroundings into a sea of fire. ȑ
When that fire touches my body, a pain as if my mind is being torn to shreds, no. Pain that is much more excruciating than that is felt.
Of course, it doesn't actually harm the physical body, so survival isn't a problem.
But if I remain in that fire, the pain grows so intense that I would rather die than live, so I must be cautious.
If I'm not careful, merely touching that fire could be so painful that I might commit suicide.
If that fire is a threat to the 'mind,' then there is something else that is a threat to 'life'.
Kwarururururru.
A black stream flows before me.
It is a 'river.'
If any being comes into contact with that black stream, they slowly die, regardless of the reason.
Fortunately, there is no pain, but even so, it's terribly frightening.
The one small relief is that, over time, the black energy dissipates from the water, and it becomes just 'water.'
The 'water' created in this way is extremely precious.
Because that 'water' symbolizes life itself.
Fortunately, in the distance, I can see a lake where 'water' has pooled.
'I' lead the bodies towards the lake, guiding them to drink from it.
It is then.
Kugugugugu!
The sky turns bright red.
Curious about what's going on, I look up, only to see a ball of fire descending from the sky.
And it's not just one.
Instinctively, I sense that I must not get hit by those fireballs and try to avoid them, but they crash into the distant mountain slope before I can even react.
Kugwagwagwa!
Along with that, the world trembles.
A massive shockwave sweeps us all away, and every race, without exception, is completely wiped out.
...
Gradually, life begins to sprout on the ground.
And as expected, 'I' return as well.
However, 'I' sense something has changed.
The bodies gradually stop listening to me.
These bodies now possess something unlike before.
"Uu! Uu! Uu!"
"Uwoah! Uwoah!"
They are beings with scales on their bodies, hair on their heads, and smooth faces.
My bodies use their tails to bring 'fire' and manipulate it.
At the same time, they combine 'river' and 'fire' to create unusual phenomena.
They begin to combine the black river and the colorless fire to refine the earth, creating something called 'tools'.
Around this time, I realize why the bodies don't listen to me.
It is because they have developed something called 'ego.'
Now, I can only guide their 'ego.' I can no longer control them directly.
However, after discovering their ego, I feel my boundaries expand, growing wider and broader.
My mind melts into their ego, becoming them themselves.
I am both a mother and a father to someone, and a child and parent to another.
I am their prey and their predator, their daily sustenance and their tool, all at once.
As 'they' gradually grow stronger in ego and reason, they use tools and begin to use 'writing.'
For some reason, the writing is Hangul.
...
What is Hangul again?
I think I remembered it once, but it doesn't seem very important.
In any case, I evolve together with them, struggle alongside them, and at times, harmonize with them.
As their ego develops and their intelligence arises, I gradually melt even deeply within them.
To the point where I can no longer even remember my original self.
...
My original self?
Just what exactly is that supposed to be?
It's of no concern.
It doesn't seem important.
What's important is that they are me, and I am them.
They are constantly filled with fear.
It's due to the primal terror of death.
But I am not afraid.
Because I know that death is merely a part of the process by which I am reborn.
I whisper wisdom to them.
Among them, the perceptive ones receive my wisdom and, at the same time, try to seek out me who gave them the wisdom.
Those who had bought land and buildings on my surface wail, but that is none of my concern.
Then, at the moment when the spinning of the seven stars reaches its peak.
Boo-woong!
I gradually narrow the rotating orbit of the seven stars.
The moment the stars reach the center of the Wheel—
Flash!
The spinning stars explode all at once.
I feel my mind growing hazy.
Just like advancing to the Star Shattering stage, advancing to the Sacred Vessel stage boasts staggering difficulty.
Even if a Grand Perfection Star Shattering Esteemed One prepares meticulously and chooses the auspicious timing, the success rate for advancement might not even reach 10 percent.
However, compared to advancing to the Star Shattering stage, it is noticeably easier.
For Star Shattering advancement, one must destroy 'everything' of oneself.
In contrast, for Sacred Vessel advancement, one compresses the Sacred Vessel (Disc) and detonates it, but one's Immortal Art remains intact afterward.
'The advancement to the Sacred Vessel stage...involves dividing oneself into countless fragments, merging oneself back together within an Immortal Art, and through that process, creating a rotating orbit through consciousness.'
Then, compressing that orbit and detonating it is the essence of the Sacred Vessel advancement ritual.
Kugugugugu!
As cosmic space vibrates, an immense nebula forms.
During the Star Shattering stage advancement ritual, this nebula is compressed to create a star.
However, it's different for the Sacred Vessel stage advancement ritual.
Wo-woong!
Centered around the Immortal Art I have created, the nebula begins to gradually spin.
Soon, dust clouds gather at the center of the nebula, and the temperature at its core starts to rise.
Paaatt!
A Tribulation (劫) begins to sweep over.
'...! Something is off.'
Normally, the Heavenly Tribulation for the Sacred Vessel advancement ritual arrives from the Four Realms.
Underworld, Interdimensional Void, Source River, and Eastern Heaven Flower Field.
Heavenly Tribulation converges from these realms of four and forces the Sacred Vessel-becoming Esteemed One to 'perceive' all Four Realms. That is the purpose of the Sacred Vessel advancement tribulation.
Just as the purpose of the Star Shattering Star Tribulation is to connect the star and the Esteemed One, the Sacred Vessel advancement tribulation aims to link 'existence' and 'the state after death.'
Kwarurung!
From the Source River, star veins writhe, and a Heavenly Tribulation that erases spacetime itself pierces me.
From the Underworld, a Heavenly Tribulation composed of the same 'death energy' accumulated within my soul strikes me.
From the Eastern Heaven Flower Field, a Heavenly Tribulation that instantly transforms my body to the fates of the Eastern Heaven Flower Field and scatters me to death penetrates me.
Then, finally.
From the Interdimensional Void, something terrifying and utterly unknowable stabs me.
The one certainty is that if I lose my focus while enduring these Heavenly Tribulations, I will be immediately pulled into the corresponding realm and die.
'Something...is off.'
As I withstand the Heavenly Tribulations, I am struck by an odd feeling.
'It's too strong!'
Dududududu!
The number of Sacred Vessel stage Heavenly Tribulations that come from each world is four.
That means I am supposed to endure a total of sixteen Heavenly Tribulations.
However, even after finishing all sixteen rounds of Heavenly Tribulations, I break out into a cold sweat, feeling the unending onslaught of Heavenly Tribulations with power far beyond what I heard from Baek Woon,
'The Heavenly Tribulation has become weird!'
Normally, one can tell how much Heavenly Tribulation remains by looking at the sky.
How many Heavenly Tribulations passed and how many are left can all be seen from the celestial energy.
But...
'The Heavenly Tribulation...has gone crazy!'
No matter how much I try to read the celestial energy, I can only see a future where 'Heavenly Tribulation keeps striking continuously,' with nothing else discernible.
The Heavenly Tribulation that has always fallen in precise amounts up until now seems to have suddenly lost its mind.
The standard of the Heavenly Tribulation has disappeared!!
'Just why...?'
I grit my teeth inwardly as I continue enduring the blows of the Heavenly Tribulation.
The more the Heavenly Tribulation crashes down, the stronger the force pulling me towards each realm becomes.
The Underworld.
The force pulling me from that deep, dark place grows even stronger.
'Ah, no...! If I keep getting hit by the Heavenly Tribulations like this, I'll really die!'
The issue isn't the power of the Heavenly Tribulation, but its nature.
Its nature to drag me towards death is unendingly striking me!
How many weeks have I endured, holding on against the Four Realms Tribulation like this?
Pajijijijik!
Finally, the Heavenly Tribulation subsides.
'Huuuuu...'
Kugugugugu!
As the nebula spins. my consciousness settles at its center.
An astrolabe (星盤/성반) of spinning nebula, a holy Sacred Vessel/Disc (聖盤/성반) of rotating reincarnation!
If the Star Shattering stage is the realm where one becomes a constellation,
Then the Sacred Vessel stage is the realm where one becomes a 'rotation.'
At the center of this rotation is my soul, centered on Immortal Arts, while my true body has become a 'spinning nebula.'
As I continue my Sacred Vessel cultivation, the center of this spinning nebula will gradually grow hotter and stronger, transforming into a fixed star that emits its own light.
In the early stage, it is a spinning nebula.
In the mid stage, a fixed star.
In the late stage, a red giant.
In Grand Perfection, becoming a white dwarf is the typical cultivation path of the Sacred Vessel stage.
[Huuuu...]
I open my eyes.
From the Sacred Vessel stage onwards, one's very heart essence becomes a world.
The Colorless Sword Mountain Treading Sea Great Star Enclosure has now become a world within my mind, and from now on, as long as I spend time within this world, I can extract anything from it into reality, creating sustaining existences in the world.
At the same time, I recall the time I have spent on this evolution.
In terms of real time, it was a brief period, not even fully spanning 2,000 years.
Yet, during that time, my mind had shattered into at least ten thousand pieces, slowly merging back together.
Each of those fragments lived as microorganisms, that's difficult to say if they even have souls, on the surface layers of my Origin Stars and underwent countless lives.
Therefore, although it was an incredibly short period of time in reality, my 'subjective experience' as I underwent the cycle of reincarnation and created the Candle Dragon Race amounts to around twenty million years.
Wo-woong!
As I focus my consciousness, the ring of the nebula, the Sacred Vessel compresses.
I create an incarnation and place the Sacred Vessel within it, then half-open my eyes.
[It was long...]
It was a long, and even longer time.
The miracle achieved by learning both the Flawless Mantra and the Phenomena Extinguishing Mantra simultaneously.
Instead of the usual cultivation method of splitting one's mind and unifying it under an Immortal Art,
The masters of the two Immortal Arts allowed me to rise to the Sacred Vessel stage by splitting my mind and living countless lives as microorganisms to evolve a species.
[It was you two.]
In the depths of darkness, faintly pulling at me from there, the [Oldest One].
And a mountain built up with pure white salt.
The two visions pass fleetingly before my eyes.
[I don't know what it is you want from me. However, I will walk my own path.]
I quietly express my resolve to the void.
No response comes.
But that alone is enough.
Two hundred thousand years.
In subjective time, after 20,190,000 years, I have finally reached the Sacred Vessel stage.
[Now then...]
It's time to prepare for the End.
Inside the Lightning Sacred Sea.
In the bedchamber of Golden Shaking Bird and Jeon Myeong-hoon.
There, Golden Shaking Bird clutches her head, trembling uncontrollably in a corner of the bedchamber as if she has lost her mind.
[Nonononononononononopleasepleasepleasepleaseplease... Someone,pleasetellmeit'sadreampleasepleaseplease...]
Pajik, Pajijijik!
Red lightning crackles over Jeon Myeong-hoon's body, which is covered in countless small footprints with his upper garment removed.
Golden Shaking Bird trembles, trying to pull open the bedroom door as if desperate to escape, but the red lightning repels her hand.
[Th-Th-Th...]
She looks back at Jeon Myeong-hoon with a face twisted in terror, trembling like mad.
[They are resurrecting...inside his body...! Ah, no. I need to get out. I need to get out. I need to get out...!!!]
But she cannot leave.
Unable to leave and unable to approach Jeon Myeong-hoon, Golden Shaking Bird can only tremble in horror.
Bright Cold Realm, Heavenly Lotus Mountain.
At its center, Baek Woon smiles faintly while looking off into the distance.
[...He's done it. That monstrous child. But this...]
As she glances down at the black paper in her hand, her faintly smiling face turns grave.
[...This is serious.]
Ancient Force Realm, Sea King Hall.
Nether Ghost Realm, Black Ghost Palace.
Purple Gold Realm, Ban Ta Castle.
True Devil Realm, Blood Sacrifice Altar.
The Sacred Masters there.
And Blood Yin's clones all stare at the black paper in their hands with solemn expressions.
Moments later,
Hae Lin of the Sea King Hall in the Ancient Force Realm wears a grave expression.
Pasasak!
The black paper held in his hand.
The Black Ancient Paper crumbles to dust.
He lets out a low groan and clutches his face.
[Ahh...! Has the tyrannical Devil God devoured Them as well...!? Next, it will be the turn of the [Hungry One]. Is Mount Sumeru's fall inevitable...? What are the Heavenly Venerables doing? Where has the so-called Heavenly Craftsman vanished to, and just what is the Snake doing now? Are the Radiance Eight Immortals only good for putting on airs and unable to do anything in the face of that Devil God!? Ahhh, the world will be overturned.]
Hae Lin sighs deeply, tears of anguish streaming from his eyes.
After devouring the Elephant Nose Heavenly Domain and the Owner of Names,
Next came the Bearing Tree Heavenly Domain and the Earth Boundary Heavenly Domain.
The Great Mountain Supreme Deity, who has devoured a total of two Supreme Deities and four Heavenly Domains, now sends Their will towards the Good Sight Heavenly Domain.
: : C O M E F O R T H V O I D : :
Raising both hands, They speak.
: : I F Y O U D O N O T R E V E A L Y O U R H E A D I S H A L L D E V O U R Y O U W H O L E : :
But no response comes from within.
With a faintly simmering anger, the Great Mountain Supreme Deity slowly brings Their hands together.
The Good Sight Heavenly Domain begins to crumple.
: : D I S G U S T I N G S L A V E C O N T I N U E T O F A I L A N D R E P E A T E D L Y F A C E D E A T H : :
Dududududu!
Thus, after crushing and swallowing the Good Sight Heavenly Domain, the Great Mountain Supreme Deity, now having devoured five Heavenly Domains, heads toward the Twin Holding Heavenly Domain while muttering quietly.
: : W H I L E Y O U L I E D O W N T H I S S E A T S H A L L F E A S T O N H U N G E R L A Y D O W N A C A R P E T W I T H T H E S N A K E ' S B L O O D A N D R E A C H T H E A U D I E N C E C H A M B E R D O N O T R E G R E T : :