Chapter 288: Great Ming (1)
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When we were sucked into the formation, a massive demonic qi engulfed us. Naturally, Myeong-gyeong, who had trained orthodox martial arts, collapsed in shock, while I was unharmed.
I was startled by Myeong-gyeong rolling his eyes back and fainting in an instant and checked his pulse, but fortunately his life was not in danger.
“Hoo.”
After confirming Myeong-gyeong’s pulse, I looked around. Inside the formation, a dense bamboo forest stood where nothing like it could be seen in the Great Desert. When I turned my head, I could see outside through the boundary of the formation. The old man who had kicked us in with his foot was still there, lingering without leaving.
What exactly was that old man’s identity? I thought I had seen my share of monsters in the martial world, but that monster was truly beyond coping with.
“Hey! Old man!”
I shouted toward the outside. But the old man acted as though he could not hear.
Inside the formation and outside were thoroughly separate worlds. Looking closely, the outside seemed somehow distorted. When I reached out, an invisible wall resisted and pushed me back.
“Hmm.”
For now, there was much to think about. That old man had clearly come to the Four Sons Banner in advance and been waiting.
There was no doubt the Emperor had sent him. But why had he been reluctant to kill us directly? The old man had said that killing people directly accumulated evil karma.
Then it made sense why he had guided us into the formation at the Four Sons Banner where the Mad Buddha was imprisoned. Because he did not want to kill directly, he had shoved us into a formation where we would be imprisoned for life.
I had confirmed the Imperial State’s overwhelming hostility. For me, that was not a bad thing. They were people I intended to overturn anyway.
Still, as though uneasy that he had not killed us directly, the old man glared into the formation for a while before leaving.
Once the old man was gone, it was my turn to move. But apart from the demonic qi I could feel, I was at a loss.
Because demonic qi filled the inside of the formation, my own energy surged as well, but what was I supposed to do with it?
I decided to carry Myeong-gyeong and look around. What I must not forget was that the martial-world criminal known as the Mad Buddha was here.
The bamboo forest was so dense that it was not easy to kill every sound. As I advanced over fallen bamboo leaves on the ground, a cool breeze unlike anything in the desert brushed past us.
‘What a strange harmony.’
Was a formation the ability to create a new world? A breeze this refreshing in the desert.
I slowly made my way through the great forest. But the forest was too vast. I had clearly circled the formation once. A forest of this scale should have been impossible. No. I corrected my thinking.
If there were formations that could control the flow of time, could they not also expand and shrink space generously enough?
I must have walked for half a shichen. Soon I was able to leave the great forest. The moment I emerged, a cliff appeared, and I nearly fell from misstepping.
Barely keeping my balance, I looked down from atop the cliff. The cliff was quite high, so I could see far into the distance. What stood out most was a fortress. A fortress with high walls.
Its walls were red and its roof tiles golden. Just like the Forbidden City of Beijing.
I poured as much internal energy as I could into my eyes to sharpen my vision and looked again. Astonishingly, it was not a fortress resembling the Forbidden City.
It was simply the Forbidden City.
Within this small formation of the Great Desert, there was another Beijing.
* * *
This place, filled with gold and red ornamentation, was the Emperor’s residence. Ordinarily, not even the Emperor or consorts could dare enter, yet there stood an old man who did not belong, shabby and wretched.
“So, is the work of Emperor going well?”
It was an astonishing remark. To speak to the Emperor in such a disrespectful manner, in the position above all men. It was the sort of thing for which one could be executed immediately for insulting the Emperor.
But the Emperor before him laughed heartily instead.
“Master. It has been long since I last saw you.”
“Originally there should have been no occasion to meet. Why did you leave my records intact?”
“I forgot.”
“Hmph. How am I to believe such words?”
The old man snorted. Normally, upon entering the Immortal Realm, all records were supposed to be erased. But the Emperor had not erased the old man’s records.
As the Emperor the old man had personally taught, he knew. The Emperor had known such a day would come someday and had not erased them.
“How was that fellow?”
“He was a bastard. At that age, his upper dantian was already open, and he even knew how to use immortal qi.”
“Is that so?”
“He has tremendous talent. If left alone for just ten years, he would have entered the immortal realm.”
“To that extent?”
It was the first time the Emperor had heard his own master, the Grand Tutor, praise another person like this. Even the Emperor himself had been a possessor of talent that would go down in the history of the Imperial State, yet he had never heard such praise.
“How does he compare to me?”
The Emperor, feeling a pointless competitive urge, asked obliquely. Hearing the question, the old man looked at the Emperor and snorted.
“The great peng is not a bird one chases carelessly. The auspicious bird appears only to the chosen. To ordinary men, it is an ominous bird.”
“Are you saying the Emperor of this Imperial State is ordinary?”
“In my eyes, all humans are the same. Do not be angry.”
Emperor Zhou Liubai laughed hollowly inside. What exactly was the Immortal Realm that they weighed people to this degree? And before the Emperor at that. But they were people who did not follow the laws of the Imperial State. There was nothing to gain by provoking them carelessly.
“You too are studying the immortal path, Yu-bai, so if you enter the Immortal Realm, you will come to know.”
“I understand.”
The Emperor too did not truly know the true face of the Immortal Realm. He did not even know how many were there. He simply did not touch the Immortal Realm because the records of previous emperors, including the late emperor, endlessly repeated the warning never to provoke the Immortal Realm.
“By the way, there will be no returning, will there?”
“You mean that fellow? That is a formation made by an immortal. Even if I entered, I could not escape. A mere human cannot get out.”
The old man spoke. He was talking about Muk Hui-yeong and Myeong-gyeong, who had been drawn into the formation.
“But know this one thing. This too is a violation of the Penglai Covenant.”
“Was the Penglai Covenant not that immortals would not interfere in matters arising in the Central Plains?”
“Think of the position the New Justice Association Leader now holds in the Central Plains. That is tremendous interference. It is closing one’s eyes and plugging one’s ears.”
“Is that so?”
The Emperor clicked his tongue as though displeased.
“If this is discovered, the Central Plains will fall into chaos. You must know that.”
“I will bear it deeply in mind.”
The Emperor nodded. The old man looked at the Emperor with disapproving eyes.
He was the Emperor he had taught since his days as crown prince. He knew well how many schemes he carried within him. Seeing him again after so long, those schemes seemed not only to have multiplied, but to have aged as well.
‘…A storm of blood will rise in the Central Plains.’
The old man swallowed his words. If the Penglai Covenant were broken, it would not end with the Central Plains alone.
* * *
“When did we come to Beijing?”
Myeong-gyeong opened his eyes after we had already entered Beijing.
Even so, it seemed they had not been able to move all of Beijing, for it was a scaled-down version. It felt as though the streets of Beijing had been shrunk to one-fiftieth. Only the Forbidden City retained its proper size.
“It is not Beijing.”
“What are you talking about? This place is…”
Myeong-gyeong stepped on the ground and looked around. Before long, sensing something wrong, his eyes narrowed.
“There are no people.”
“That is right.”
“This is inside a formation.”
“There is a place like this inside a formation?”
“It seems so.”
“Wow…”
Myeong-gyeong let out an exclamation of wonder. Setting aside the fact that we were trapped here, he was marveling at the mere existence of such a magnificent formation.
“By the way, the demonic qi here is too severe.”
Myeong-gyeong frowned. Even so, perhaps because he had been exposed to demonic qi while unconscious, his nausea seemed to have subsided somewhat. Humans truly were creatures of adaptation.
“Junior Brother, are you all right?”
“Ah, yes. No. I am considerably not all right. The nausea is severe.”
“I thought so.”
Myeong-gyeong’s pitying gaze stabbed at my conscience. I was sorry, but as one who had received the Heavenly Demon’s aura, there was no place more familiar to me than this.
“By the way, could there really be not a single person?”
“The energy is so strong that I cannot even spread my senses.”
“Exactly.”
I was the same. Though this place was filled with demonic qi, a formation was fundamentally a distortion of energy. Whenever I spread my senses, they were distorted and scattered.
Since there was nothing to learn through senses, I relied on my eyes as much as possible and stayed on guard. According to what people said, the Mad Buddha was imprisoned here. He might be dead, of course. I still knew nothing, so I had to remain cautious.
Then it happened. A faint rustling sound came from somewhere. It was so slight that I would not have heard it if I had not been on guard.
I immediately drew Bright Elegance and scanned the surroundings. Myeong-gyeong, who had not heard the sound, froze in surprise.
“Why? Is something there?”
“Just a moment. Stay behind me for now.”
Martial artists relied heavily on their senses, so they often failed to use the five senses they originally possessed. That made me even more tense, and sweat broke out. But there was no way I had heard wrong.
“Come out.”
After a brief silence, people began emerging hesitantly. Astonishingly, there were quite a lot of them. There seemed to be at least a dozen.
“Who are you?”
They all held halberds, so their words were not gentle. But they seemed wary of us as well.
“We asked first. Who are you?”
“People who somehow ended up inside the formation.”
“How are we supposed to believe that?”
“Is there any reason not to?”
“How are we supposed to believe that a martial artist as strong as you somehow made a mistake and ended up here?”
“You cannot sense my presence, so how do you know I am a martial artist?”
“Anyone can tell just from seeing you draw a sword and swing it. Whether you carry one pretending to be a martial artist or not.”
That much I had to concede. When I saw them holding halberds, I too could tell who was a martial artist and who was not. In fact, they were a mix of martial artists and non-martial artists.
“If I said some insanely strong old man suddenly came and kicked us in with his foot, you would not believe me, would you?”
“Of course not.”
“I see.”
I clicked my tongue in frustration. Even to my own ears, it was not an easy story to believe.
“Then what will you do? Will you subdue us?”
“We will not be subdued easily.”
“Say it twice and it hurts.”
I raised my sword. Even if my momentum did not fully reach them, it was enough to threaten them.
The standoff continued like walking on thin ice. They did not charge easily, and neither did I. Myeong-gyeong had also drawn his sword and was glaring at them. But I hoped he would not actually swing it.
“What should we do in a situation like this?”
“It has been so long since anyone came…”
The people across from us also seemed flustered as they spoke while aiming their halberds at us.
If anyone took one step forward, blood would be shed.
In that moment, I felt a stir among them. Before long they parted to both sides, and someone emerged from between them.
The moment I saw him, my eyes widened. Astonishingly, he still bore the face from the time of the Demon-Subduing Assembly.
“…Mad Buddha.”
Far from seeming mad, the monk who carried quiet composure pressed his palms together.