Chapter 1131

In time brought to a standstill, amid a silence that seemed to last forever, I slowly opened my eyes.

It was a strange feeling.

My mind was hazy, as though lost in thick fog, yet I could see more clearly than ever. Clearly enough to wonder if all of this was a dream.

But the low voice that reached my ears a moment later reminded me that this was no illusion.

“Did you see it?”

I looked up at the old man, dazed.

Then, recalling the formless qi that had flown across the space moments ago, cleaving it in two and missing me by no more than a thread, I parted my lips.

“Yes. I saw it.”

Everything felt natural. The respect that had crept into my voice, and the way the old man accepted it as if it were only right.

“What did you see?”

“A ray of light. A line.”

The old man stroked his snow-white beard, which hung down to his knees.

“How could that be? It must have been formless.”

“It had a form. For that moment, at least.”

“Even with your eyes closed?”

“I didn’t see it with my eyes.”

“You saw it, but didn’t see it. Then what was it?”

“That…”

I faltered.

Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because the thought that had flashed through my mind sounded absurd even to me.

My silence was as good as an answer, though. The old man’s unfathomable gaze was already looking into my heart.

“People often have the truth right before their eyes and still pass it by because they cannot believe it. What a pity.”

Step.

One step was all it took for the old man to close the distance between us. He whispered:

“You saw what cannot be seen, and dodged what could not be dodged. Why can’t you believe you did it?”

“…!”

“Sit cross-legged.”

Still hazy as though in a dream, I sat as he instructed, almost without knowing what I was doing.

Then I heard his voice again—not in my ears, but inside my head.

—Clear your mind like a stream. Hold your focus and let yourself follow the flow.

A thought came to me. I’d heard something like this before, somewhere.

But it was gone in an instant as my awareness sank deeper.

Fwoooosh.

Light and darkness flickered without end before my eyes, leaving me disoriented.

Amid that overwhelming confusion, I forgot everything.

Where I was. Who I was.

Yet the voice coming from somewhere remained astonishingly clear.

—Remember what you saw. How it felt in that moment.

I took a slow, deep breath.

Then I spoke the name of the thing with no shape, color, or scent in my mind.

Qi.

Everywhere and nowhere.

The source and seed of all things in the world.

Yes.

For a brief moment, I had seen it clearly—through a new realm beyond the senses.

And the owner of the voice echoing deep within my soul was someone who had already set foot in that realm.

—I’ll ask again. What did you see it with?

Right. I still hadn’t answered the old man’s question.

This time, though, I could answer without hesitation. That other eye hidden within me—the one even I hadn’t believed in—

My heart. No…

The Mind’s Eye.

The moment those two words came to me and were branded into my mind—

—Good judgment, as always.

Flash!

At the sound of the old man’s low voice, the light and darkness that had kept flickering before my eyes scattered.

Or rather, everything around me did.

“Ah.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding and looked around.

Crack. Crack.

Why was this happening? How was it possible?

The vast, endless gray-white space was shaking.

Cracks spread in every direction like a pane of glass about to shatter, and the figure of the man standing beyond it twisted along with the shifting space.

“Don’t be alarmed. The time we were granted is simply coming to an end.”

His voice was calm, at odds with the impossible sight before me. I stared at him as though entranced.

Then, recalling a fragment of a memory I’d long forgotten, I finally spoke.

“I’ve met you before. I’m sure of it.”

The old man smiled faintly.

“Is that what you think?”

Neither a yes nor a no.

But now I was certain. The gray-white space and the old man might look different from how they had then, but neither had changed at the heart of it.

I knew whose voice had come to me now and then like an auditory hallucination ever since my Bone Transformation.

“You’re…”

I could barely force the word out as I looked at the old man smiling silently before me.

No.

The Helper.

The one who had first taught me to circulate my qi when I’d only just stepped into the unknown world of Murim.

The mysterious being I’d taken for part of the tutorial System, and forgotten for so long because of it.

“…Who on earth are you?”

Was this what it felt like to have lightning strike the top of your head?

Faced at last with a truth this immense, I trembled as the shock washed over me like a tidal wave.

At the same time, I knew it instinctively. The old man would never answer, and even this brief meeting was drawing to a close.

“No need to answer. I already know.”

Grgrgrk.

The space contorted. I could no longer make out the old man’s face, but I shouted toward him.

“Then what—what happens now?”

“Who knows? I don’t know what lies ahead, either. For now, we have no choice but to return to our respective places.”

“What does that—”

“Jin Taekyung.”

His voice was low. Cutting me off, he spoke.

“Do your best. Only then can you save everyone—and yourself.”

“…!”

“Now it’s time to go. To the place where you belong.”

My eyes widened as I understood what he meant.

Whoooosh.

The world in my sight rushed past as I was drawn away. Something glimmering touched my hand, and the old man’s final words rang through my head like a voice I was only imagining.

—Take it. This is the last gift this old man can give you.

I instinctively clenched my hand around it.

As my consciousness faded, I heard a sound from somewhere. A clear bell chime I’d been certain I would never hear again.

Ding.

A brilliant light came rushing from far away and filled my vision.

Left alone, the old man gazed in silence at the empty place for a long while.

To the person who had just vanished, it must have looked as though the entire gray-white space was disappearing. But the old man knew better.

This space would last forever. Jin Taekyung had only been a guest passing through.

And the old man would once again have to wait, with no telling when that wait might end.

“When will I be able to finish this?”

He murmured to himself. After so long alone, talking to himself had become a habit.

“No. Will it ever end at all?”

A bitter smile touched his wrinkled lips as he looked around.

Gray-white space stretched endlessly in every direction. Cold and pale, it was his only home—and a vast prison with neither bars nor an exit.

The emptiness that thought brought lasted only a moment. His gaze soon grew calm again.

After all, no one had forced him to become a prisoner here. He had chosen it himself.

“Yes. So that’s enough.”

He murmured the words as though renewing a promise to himself, then started walking.

Then, suddenly, he stopped and turned to look back along the way he’d come.

Or, more precisely, at the place where the guest who had visited after so long had stayed.

“Jin Taekyung.”

The name left his lips, and he wondered if Taekyung could do it. If the choice he had made had truly been the right one.

And if he’d made the wrong choice, how terrible and cruel would the future ahead be?

But all those worries were meaningless.

The old man had already made his choice, and thanks to his help, Jin Taekyung had been given another chance.

“I suppose I’ll have to put my faith in you.”

The words would never reach Taekyung. The old man began walking again, slowly crossing the endless gray-white space as he always had.

The Fire King, Jeok Cheongang, was crying.

He held his Disciple’s lifeless body and sobbed quietly. Nothing around him mattered anymore—not the shouts and clash of steel that still rang out, nor the people watching him.

The Master who had lost his only Disciple did not hold back his tears.

He couldn’t.

Two years.

Only two years out of a life that had lasted more than a hundred. Yet his time with Jin Taekyung had shone brighter than any other.

Taekyung had been the only light to find him when he was at his darkest.

And now Jin Taekyung—his Disciple—was dead.

Despite his Master’s plea for him to live, he had gone somewhere far away.

I’m sorry, Master.

That final voice wouldn’t leave his ears.

The corners of Taekyung’s mouth, raised with effort into a smile for his grieving Master. His half-closed, empty eyes. Even now, the sight seared into Jeok Cheongang’s heart like a brand.

Grief overwhelmed him until he could make sense of nothing. Tears kept filling his eyes, hiding what he needed to see.

Plip.

A tear rolled down the Master’s cheek and fell onto the back of his dead Disciple’s hand.

Sss.

The surface of the blood rippled with a sudden tremor, and the finger submerged in it moved.