Chapter 601: Bird Trapped In A Cage (2)
However, that person quickly disappears among the trees, making it impossible to determine who they are.
'Who is that?'
For some reason, I start feeling an intense curiosity about them.
At that moment, Hong Fan strokes his beard and speaks in a very glad tone.
"Oooh...! Did Master see that just now? Just now...I believe I saw Lady Kim Yeon in that mountain valley! Haw haw! So she was in this world within the painting!"
"...!"
At those words, the three of us exchange glances.
Without hesitation, we all immediately soar towards the mountain valley.I use Glass True Fire, while Jeon Myeong-hoon and Kim Young-hoon rely on the powers of fire and voice transmission they have obtained.
Reaching the location where Kim Yeon was sighted, I search for her.
Just then.
"Agio, she's already moved all the way over there?"
Hong Fan looks into the distance and points somewhere.
At the spot he indicates, a woman clad in a light pink attire is walking in the distance.
"Ham Jin, Yu Hwi! Stay here for a moment!"
I leave Ham Jin and Yu Hwi behind and quickly begin pursuing her.
Only a single crow clings to my shoulder, following along.
Once again, we soar towards the mountain.
But in an instant, Kim Yeon disappears from the mountain, and Hong Fan finds her again in the next mountain.
We continue, frantically crossing valley after valley, chasing after Kim Yeon.
How many mountain valleys have we crossed like this?
"Hmm?"
I suddenly notice something strange about the scenery.
Kim Young-hoon and Jeon Myeong-hoon seem to have sensed it as well.
Little by little, we are delving into the depths of the mountain valley.
And the deeper we go, the more the surroundings begin to change.
The contours of the world start to take on an ancient appearance.
The outline of the mountains seems to overlap with something that looks like they've been painted over with ink, and the once three-dimensional world begins to flatten into a two-dimensional plane.
Kim Young-hoon, seemingly understanding the nature of this phenomenon, widens his eyes.
It is the phenomenon similar to when he once transcended dimensions through sheer speed!
"What is this? I'm flying at the speed of voice transmission...in other words, the speed of sound. But can something like this really happen at just this speed?"
"C-Could it be that we are regaining our abilities?"
Jeon Myeong-hoon looks at the doubtful Kim Young-hoon with eyes full of hope.
But Kim Young-hoon, looking startled, widens his eyes further.
"No. This isn't happening because we got faster."
"Huh? Then...?"
"Kim Yeon! Kim Yeon, who is leading us forward ahead of us... She is accelerating us!"
"What?"
Jeon Myeong-hoon furrows his brows in confusion.
But I can feel it.
Unlike the others, I still retain a portion of Glass True Fire and the Impermanence Sword.
'I can roughly feel it through the Impermanence Sword...'
Kim Yeon's will is binding us and dragging us along.
'Where are you taking us? How far are you leading us? Yeon-ah!'
The world gradually transforms into the form of a painting, and we find ourselves flying over an enormous drawing.
Then, all of a sudden!
We feel the 'paper' the painting is drawn on rippling.
'Yeon-ah...?'
Each time Kim Yeon steps forward ahead of us in the distance, the force of her movement causes the paper to ripple.
That force, in a way, could be called attraction force.
Then, at the exact moment when the rippling of the paper reaches a certain threshold—
Paaaatt!
Kim Yeon pierces straight through one of the curved surfaces of the rippling paper.
"Eeoooot!"
"Wait! Let's go together!"
"..."
Shiiiiii!
The part she pierced through vanishes in an instant.
But the rippling remains, and for some reason, I feel like I understand how she broke through the painting.
"Everyone, gather the power of this world that you have trained!"
Jeon Myeong-hoon and Kim Young-hoon seem to understand me immediately, gathering flame and the power of sound into their hands.
I gather the power of soap bubbles.
And the moment the rippling surface of the painting blocks our path—
We unleash the power of this world just as Kim Yeon did.
Hwiiiiiiii!
The next moment.
The force we release disperses in the form of [ink].
The ink that forms this world.
That ink seeps into the surface of the painting, causing it to fade, and at a certain moment—
The painting melts away under the 'ink' we have released.
"It's now! Let's go!"
Hong Fan, using his immense strength, pushes us into the melted opening while leaping in himself.
Flash!
With that, we arrive in a new world.
In other words, the reverse side of this Liberation Peach Garden Village.
"Heooook...! Heok...!"
"Huuuuuu..."
Jeon Myeong-hoon collapses onto the ground, gasping for breath, while Kim Young-hoon steadies his breathing.
I scan the surroundings.
"This place is..."
Laughably enough, this is the exact spot where we first departed from.
Nothing is different.
The only noticeable change is that everything in the world appears slightly 'hazy.'
But even that vanishes if I focus my mind, making me wonder if there's simply something wrong with my vision.
Kim Yeon is nowhere to be seen.
"Hong Fan, did you see Kim Yeon?"
"Mm, Master. For now, you should look over there instead."
He points somewhere.
"...!"
Before we realize it, we are surrounded.
'I didn't sense them? Wait...these people!'
The figures encircling us in this hazy world all emit a presence similar to our own.
Like us, they possess the presence of those who have become 'characters' in this world.
And beyond that presence, I can faintly sense...
Cosmic authority and overwhelming power.
That's right, these people are—
"...Junior Crystal Glass Being..."
Without a doubt, they are True Immortals trapped in this world.
"Greet the seniors."
"...Welcome to the back side of the painting. In this world, the front of the painting, Liberation Supreme Deity Bong Myeong's Immortal Art, 'Liberation Peach Garden Village', can be freely observed. Here, if we use the power we gained from Liberation Peach Garden Village, we can even influence it to some extent... We have been watching you all this time."
A True Immortal wrapped in bandages all over their body looks at me with dead eyes and greets me with a forced smile.
"I am Maek Jin, a Great Net Immortal affiliated with Radiance Hall. Formerly one of the Thirty-Three Heavenly Resplendent Treasure Immortals...and once a candidate for Radiance Hall's Envoy of the Final Age of Dharma."
I do not know exactly what an Envoy of the Final Age of Dharma is, but considering that the Purple Gold Heavenly Lord Heuk Am's title in Radiance Hall was the Fallen Guiding Envoy of the Final Age of Dharma, it seems that Maek Jin was at least a candidate for an Immortal Lord.
"You must be a distinguished one."
"...Not since I got trapped here."
They let out a faint chuckle with a gloomy expression.
Looking at their face, I ask,
"...May I ask why such a promising figure like yourself is trapped in this world?"
"You seem to have already guessed judging by your eyes... Do I really need to say it myself? Kukuk..."
But Maek Jin eventually explains kindly despite their gloomy expression.
"When Bong Myeong was still a Heavenly Lord...I had a brief encounter with Them. At the time, a monster known as the Vast Cold Heavenly Lord was attempting to annihilate Radiance Hall, and I was in the midst of fleeing. That bastard made me an offer—to hide me within their Peach Garden Painting for about a hundred years... Needing those hundred years, I hurriedly stepped inside to take refuge, and to avoid being discovered by the Vast Cold Heavenly Lord, I took on the 'role' assigned by this world..."
"..."
As their words continue, not only my face but also those of Jeon Myeong-hoon and Kim Young-hoon harden.
"And on the day the hundred years were up, I asked Bong Myeong. To let me out! But..."
Their hands tremble violently.
"No answer ever came... On top of that...everything I accumulated as a Great Net Immortal...my Immortal Arts...prophecies...the power of my Immortal Treasures... Huhuhu...I could not use any of it."
Maek Jin stares at me with eyes full of despair.
"I was reduced to nothing more than a mere spirit wandering this world! And in that time, I discovered and entered this 'back side.' Hahaha! It has been 500,000 years since I came here!!! 500,000 years have passed!! No matter what I did, I could never regain my authority! Ahhh, and a couple tens of thousands of years ago, I heard from some newcomers who arrived. Bong Myeong...has become a Supreme Deity?"
Drip...
They shed tears of blood.
Seeing those blood tears, I feel my sinking feeling in my chest.
That...
That is not my story.
'I see...'
But now, we...
"That was the moment I understood...I will never be freed from this place... We have become eternal characters in this painting..."
Their body tremble.
I, too, tremble.
We have become trapped in this world.
I had suspected it ever since I realized neither attraction force, prophecy, nor revision could be used.
Even since Kim Young-hoon's Brahma Nature, the pure 'enlightenment' he accumulated became restricted, it became clear.
This world operates under entirely different rules from the outside.
We are merely being gradually consumed by this world as we conform to those rules.
Far more terrifying and powerful than even the creation of a Small Heavenly Domain once displayed by the Thirty-Three Heavenly Resplendent Treasure Immortals—that is the Immortal Art of Bong Myeong.
Uguguguk...
I try to exert attraction force.
Just like before, I try to crush and burst the world with my will.
It is impossible.
The world, which once seemed like it would squish and burst so easily...
Has now become an unbreakable prison.
I understand why it has become so solid.
Karma.
In this world, I have accumulated the karma of a human soap merchant.
Over a hundred years, that karma has gradually solidified and thickened, eventually trapping me.
The same goes for Jeon Myeong-hoon and Kim Young-hoon.
Kim Young-hoon can't draw forth the enlightenment of the Brahma Nature and martial arts that he once realized because of the same reason.
This prison—
Was built by our own hands.
Because we created it with our own hands, we even lost the power we accumulated.
As we realize this and sink into despair, Maek Jin speaks while watching us.
"At some point...didn't you notice that the Immortal Treasures and subordinates you brought here...simply turned into fools that fit this world's 'perception'...? The crow that's attached to you. That was probably your Immortal Treasure, right? Didn't that crow stop speaking at some point...?"
"..."
Indeed. At some point, Yeo Hwi became nothing more than a foolish, lust-driven crow that could only caw.
Unlike an ordinary crow, she has no lifespan limit, but she is now just a crow that can neither speak nor use spells.
The same goes for Golden Shaking Bird.
Golden Shaking Bird turned into nothing more than a hummingbird that likes to perch on Jeon Myeong-hoon's shoulder.
Ham Jin and Yu Hwi are no different.
At some point, they simply become servants following me around.
They can't recall their past memories.
That's right.
Not just me, but every being that enters this world eventually becomes characters of this world and taxidermized.
"We...within this painting...within this story...taxidermized ourselves with our own hands!!!"
This is...
A true Supreme Deity-level Immortal Art.
The power of the Liberation Supreme Deity Bong Myeong.
"We are..."
Liberation Peach Garden Village.
"Nothing more...than birds trapped in Bong Myeong's cage."
Only then do I deeply realize from whom the Mad Lord's One-Pattern Law Talent originated from.
Just as the Mad Lord made countless beings live together within his [Wonderfully Mysterious Fortress]...
Bong Myeong has made countless True Immortals live within Their [Liberation Peach Garden Village].
'I thought They felt familiar from the start...and trusted too much.'
The Liberation Supreme Deity Bong Myeong is a madman with an abyss far deeper than even the Mad Lord.