938 Episode 55 Giant Tree (4)

The forest was filled with majestic declarations coming from all sides.

"I'll block it! Make way!"

"No, I'll block it!"

"I'm the one sacrificing!"

People risking their lives for each other. It should have been a moving scene. If it weren't for the effect of 'Fear', it certainly would have been.

Jung Heewon, her expression hardened, called out to me.

"Dokja-ssi."

Jung Heewon seemed to have noticed something strange in the people. Perhaps it was even stranger that they didn't notice. Those who had previously been after our coins were now sacrificing their lives to clear the forest path.

"Is this the forest's effect?"

"I think so."

"You said this forest was created by the Master's stories. But why—"

"Perhaps it's that."

I said, looking at the people risking their lives for each other.

"It must be the 'story' that Breaking the Sky Sword Saint has always wanted."

I thought about Breaking the Sky Sword Saint.

That she trained with a sword that would shatter the heavens her entire life. That she was Yoo Joonghyuk's master. That she was also a god of Murim. That the martial artists revered her. That she betrayed them.

But Jung Heewon probably remembered something different from me about Breaking the Sky Sword Saint.

"That can't be true. There's no way my master would want something like that."

Looking at Jung Heewon, I slowly opened my mouth.

"What do you think justice is, Heewon-ssi?"

Jung Heewon hesitated for a moment at the sudden question before answering.

"Upholding justice."

"Then what is justice?"

"Protecting the weak."

I knew Jung Heewon would answer that way.

A place to help the weak, to ensure they never become alone.

Perhaps the 'forest' Breaking the Sky Sword Saint dreamed of—Murim was similar to that.

"A disaster that a single tree cannot prevent can be prevented by many trees. That was Breaking the Sky Sword Saint's guiding principle."

I pictured a giant tree nestled in a barren land.

The tree that first proved the land's potential.

When a plant realizes that a place is habitable, one by one, plants begin to sprout and form colonies.

"My master always said that. Heaven can never be destroyed by one person alone."

Breaking the Sky Sword Saint knew that destruction would one day come to Murim. Perhaps she dreamed that when the disaster that would destroy it came, people would become each other's trees.

"That landscape, perhaps, depicts her despair."

No matter how large and magnificent a tree grows, it cannot change the entire ecosystem.

Breaking the Sky Sword Saint must have known this too. She was the god of Murim, protecting it, but she could not change it. The scene before my eyes was the realization of that god's small wish.

The dream she had longed for was finally realized after she returned to Murim as a Fear.

"We have to stop it."

Jung Heewon took a step forward.

"We can't just leave it like that."

I held her back and said.

"It's not your place, Heewon-ssi."

"If we leave them alone, they'll all die."

"You told me, didn't you? Not everyone in this world deserves to be saved."

"I don't particularly want to save those people."

"Really?"

"I just don't want my master to kill them."

Looking into her blazing eyes, I finally understood what she meant. Jung Heewon didn't want those damned Constellations to tarnish the story of the Breaking the Sky Sword Saint.

I sighed softly at her and replied.

"Understood."

"Will you help me?"

"Yes. But blending in with them like this isn't a good idea."

"But Master—"

"The true nature of Breaking the Sky Sword Saint isn't that bush."

This forest is merely a 'phenomenon' in the story.

If this Fear truly belongs to Breaking the Sky Sword Saint, interpreting Breaking the Sky Sword Saint's desires would naturally destroy it.

If so, fighting that meaningless bush, shouting 'justice' and dying, as the story desired, could also be a way.

I looked back at the people dying, shouting for justice. Clearly, at this moment, they were sincere.

But what was that sincerity for? Can sacrificing one's life for someone always be considered noble? Can justice imposed by others truly be called justice?

Did Breaking the Sky Sword Saint truly dream of such a world?

Even though she knew humans couldn't destroy the sky, she never gave up her banner of destruction.

At least, if it were the Breaking the Sky Sword Saint I knew, if it were her, the one who had been Yoo Joonghyuk's teacher, she wouldn't have dreamed such a dream.

I carefully examined my surroundings and began walking toward a heavily overgrown area.

"Wait a minute. That way—"

It's dangerous. I knew it. At a glance, the undergrowth path over there seemed much deeper and denser than the one Reinheit and the other incarnations were ploughing through.

"The forest is where paths are created as people walk."

The moment I stepped through the bushes, vines flew in as if they had been waiting. I didn't resist, but was entangled in them. I saw Jung Heewon reach out to me as I was being sucked in.

I spoke to Jung Heewon.

"Heewon-ssi, think back to your initiation into [Breaking the Sky Kendo]."

"Huh?"

Before I could even answer, the vines pulled me into the bushes. A strong, suffocating sensation gripped my entire body. Despite feeling the vines threatening to suffocate me, I surrendered my body without much fear. The vines wrapped around me, as if examining my incarnation body, then slowly released me.

As expected, it was as expected.

The vines placed me deep within the forest.

Initiation into Breaking the Sky Kendo means understanding one's own anger toward the stars.

In other words, it means coming to a keen realization that the sky exists regardless of one's emotions.

The logic of this forest wasn't to steal 'D-Coins' or to threaten intruders.

The incarnations were robbed of their D-Coins because they feared losing them, and they were attacked because they feared the forest would attack them.

A moment later, Jung Heewon, engulfed in vines, landed beside me. She stood up, stunned, and stumbled toward me.

I extended my hand and smiled.

"You did as I said."

Jung Heewon must have successfully recalled the introductory training method of [Breaking the Sky Swordsmanship].

"The vines suddenly stopped attacking? How did you figure that out?"

"Fear is forcing a certain emotion, so I simply thought the opposite."

Breaking the Sky Sword Saint had once said something like this in the Ways of Survival.

If that sentence is true, then at least the justice Breaking the Sky Sword Saint desired would begin with a calm mind.

"It feels just like the moment when the scenario first started!"

Ooooooooo.

The eerie howl coming from afar sounded like a human calling for help, or perhaps the name of an unknown beast living in the forest.

We'd somehow passed the first barrier, but we hadn't yet encountered Breaking the Sky Sword Saint. We'd only just passed the bark of the Breaking the Sky Sword Saint tree.

"What next? Where do we go?"

"Just a moment."

I frantically read the stories circulating throughout the forest. If this Fear originated from the Breaking the Sky Sword Saint's story, there must have been a hint in the stories I'd read.

How long had I been moving, desperately recalling the 'Ways of Survival'?

"There's something ahead."

Jung Heewon was the first to stop. We hid among the nearby trees, surveying the situation.

After holding our breath for a moment, we sensed a presence up ahead.

Could it be that some incarnation had entered this forest before us?

"Breaking the Sky Sword Saint!"

Someone called Breaking the Sky Sword Saint's name. Even at first glance, it was a roar filled with majestic magic.

"We've come to save you! Where are you!"

The moment I heard that roar, I got goosebumps. Because I, too, had heard that voice before.

"Breaking the Sky Sword Saint! Captain! Answer!"

Captain. I knew well the people who called Breaking the Sky Sword Saint that way.

"They're the Transcendents."

They were the Transcendents of the Transcendents Alliance who had escaped by train.

The people who had called me 'Kim End-nim'. They, too, had visited this forest after hearing news of Breaking the Sky Sword Saint.

"Breaking the Sky Sword Saint—!"

Surely, if they were the Transcendents, they would have passed the first gate unscathed by the 'covenant' imposed by this forest.

Even in this terrifying forest, there existed a force they could trust and rely on. And above all, the fact that those Transcendents were here—

I unconsciously stepped out of cover.

Even though eight years had passed since the destruction of the Fear Realm, and even 'Midday Tryst' was impossible to communicate with, if that damned Regressor was nearby...

I slowly walked forward, just as I was about to call out to the Transcendents.

Kugugugu.

A corner of the forest trembled slightly, and something emerged from the bushes on the other side.

The Transcendents greeted it with delight and opened their mouths.

"Breaking the Sky Sword Saint!"

The figure who had emerged from the bushes certainly looked familiar.

A half-breed of the Giants. A martial arts master who had dedicated her life to pursuing martial arts that would shatter the heavens.

But the moment I saw its form, a chill ran down my spine. What the heck is that?

The feeling that something I thought I knew was becoming something I didn't know.

I looked around, and Jung Heewon was trembling too.

Alarm bells rang in my head.

I had to stop them. No, I had to run away from here immediately.

"Breaking the Sky Sword—"

The heads of the Transcendents who had uttered those words rolled on the floor like toys. The sound of something being torn apart followed.

Each and every Transcendent of the 'Transcendent Alliance' was at least a being approaching the level of a Great-grade Constellation.

Those powerful beings perished without even a scream.

I barely managed to open my mouth to speak.

"Heewon-ssi, run."

The smell of those 'Natural Disaster-level Fears' that had long rotted away in the Time Fault.

All my stories defined what she had become.

It wasn't simply that she was an Outer God. I'd faced Outer Gods countless times before. The problem was her strength.

"That being—"

A pitch-black figure spotted me and rushed towards me. Suddenly, I thought I might actually die this time.

"It possesses power comparable to a Mythical Constellation."