I hold the torch candle in my hand and follow the tale.
And, I finally see the [First Light] fully take its place in Mount Sumeru.
"First Light..."
Hong Fan looks at the gathering of the souls of the Chief Gods that he caught and killed.
Refining the soul across immeasurable ages, he continued completing the mantra called Immortal Cultivation, and he chose the First Light as the power source that drives the Immortal Cultivation system.
And as a result, he came to know the truth of this world through the First Light.
'This world is a tomb, and a cradle.'
In this world, there exist beings called Creator Gods.
Those beings are omniscient and omnipotent in their respective worlds, create countless worlds, and can do and become anything within them. They are the very truth that knows every conclusion and causality of what happens in those worlds.
They create their own separate worlds and live in those worlds.
Those separate worlds can influence one another and be similar, or can be completely different worlds.
And...
For such Creator Gods, death does not exist. It is only a change in form.
Because death does not exist, there also do not exist parents or a source-like being that gives birth to them.
There is effect but no cause.
At some moment they simply are born, and at some moment they create worlds and exist.
However, though birth does not exist, the basis on which they are born exists.
Cradle of Chaos, Conception Palace of Omnipotence, Gestation world of the Creator Gods—there are numerous names, but one thing is certain.
There exists something like a cradle in the shape of an egg, filled with the medium of creation, chaos, and the Creator Gods always are born within it and make worlds of their own.
And...
The worlds within this chaos where Hong Fan and the Chief Gods are born are also such a place.
However, unlike other gestation worlds, this gestation world has something that can be called 'causality'.
'A predecessor Creator God...exists.'
Of course, if one retraces the causality of the birth of that predecessor Creator God, there is nothing before them, but at least the world as it is now is thus.
Woo-wooooong—
With the First Light before his eyes, Hong Fan reads the remnant thoughts of the predecessor through the wisdom, history, and will that he can access through the First Light.
'Did the predecessor...want to make a utopia?'
Looking at the other worlds of other Creator Gods, wandering countless worlds...
They intended to make a different Heaven and Earth.
A separate world where any being can become complete.
A place where there exists a true answer to what life is.
In all cases, each world takes what its Creator God determines as its truth and answer.
Whether that Creator God has personality or not does not matter. Because the creator is omnipotent, whatever answer they set, the world acknowledges it.
But in the end, that is only the Creator God's own answer.
The Creator God sought a fundamental truth that holds no matter what world they go to.
Therefore, they sacrificed themselves.
They collapsed their own body and authority and turned this world back to the gestation-world period.
They refined their own soul through a brazier that a great divinity among their creations, comparable to themselves, made and dedicated when leaving the world.
Through the three legs of the brazier, the soul was split into three parts.
Thus, the Creator God made with their own soul the Three Daos.
The great Daos called Fate, History, and Miracle.
And through those Daos, worlds were born even in the primeval gestation period, and living beings were born and able to live.
They refined their soul into three parts and perished, leaving a single strand of continuance.
By present standards, one would say they cut off and left behind a single thread of consciousness.
—Find the answer.
They do not want to believe that what they dictate is the answer.
An answer that holds wherever one goes.
To find it, they thought absolute beings of the same rank must constantly put their heads together and debate and discuss, sometimes opposing one another and sometimes embracing one another as they wrestle.
Something that blossoms within the dialogues and stories between one another.
They believed that is greater than a truth that a single absolute being determines.
—Refine your rank, grow your existence, and reach the Three Daos.
The consciousness of the great being thus issued a decree.
All living beings of this world were to become stronger and stronger, gain divinity, become transcendents, and obtain the qualification to challenge the Three Daos.
However, obtaining all Three Daos and becoming a Creator God—
That is, becoming a true absolute being and an omnipotent one was forbidden.
—Let a single existence grasp only one Dao and become an absolute being of Quasi-Creator rank, so that the three absolute ones forever embrace each other and at times oppose one another...thus, someday within the stories of the three beings, the truth will be brought forth.
The true truth that blossoms within the stories of three equal absolute beings.
That is what the predecessor Creator God hoped and planned for.
The answer of a true truth that holds no matter what world one goes to.
That single strand of the Creator God's consciousness, engraved deep within the spirits of all beings born henceforth, gained power and body and authority within the working of the Three Daos and became vast existences.
Starting with the first Chief God, Brightness, the Chief Gods of Water, Fire, Earth, Wood, and Metal were born within the single strand of consciousness left by the Creator God.
In other words, the Chief Gods who governed the universe were in effect the direct children of the Creator God.
They, bearing the Creator God's will on their backs, devoted each of their lives to seize an even more exalted rank, grasp the Three Daos, and manifest a Heaven that puts forth their own answers.
Even afterwards, the consciousness of the Creator God kept weaving transcendental laws to endlessly bring forth yet more Chief Gods.
Surely...
It would be so, if not for one single existence.
"Is that it...? Three Daos...!?"
Hong Fan, as he reads the will of the predecessor Creator God within the First Light he made, laughs.
"If I reach the Three Daos...can I find the answer...?"
The answer.
The answer to why he must be unhappy and suffer.
The answer to why all beings of this world are born to live such weak and miserable fates.
He wants to know it.
"It is not the Chief Gods...but the Three Daos that design fate, is that it...!?"
What is refined by the First Light in his hand is the predecessor Creator God's single strand of consciousness, the will.
"O Three Daos, if I reach you, are you saying I can find the answer...!?"
Hong Fan wants to know the exact causality.
Why must he suffer?
Why must his connections also be swept up into suffering?
Why does something called suffering exist in this world?
"If so, I will reach it. I will surely reach it...and I will receive recompense for my pain..."
Why must this world have both light and shadow...!?
It could have sufficed to have only light.
Hong Fan, to reach the Three Daos and to carry through his will, further refines the Immortal Cultivation system from that day on.
Not a world where a Chief God is born from birth, and where a divinity is born by receiving a Seat from such a Chief God...
A system where if a mortal being strives, they become strong, gains rank, and can become a transcendent equal to a Chief God.
"A world...where all can reach the light equally..."
He places the First Light at the end of the Immortal Cultivation system, and makes it so that any mortal being who follows the Immortal Cultivation system made using Fuxi as material can obtain authority.
"Never again..."
He takes something out of his embrace.
A mother-of-pearl hairpin, a keepsake of his mother.
At the same time, also the gift he gave to Yang Hwe in the first life.
To add a leopard-like pattern to the ornament to hear Yang Hwe's laughter, he once entrusted it to a merchant and asked for a bit more carving and lacquer.
If he had run to Yang Hwe in the time used to add that decoration, Yang Hwe in the first life might not have died.
"Never again...a world where a person of mine...never again has to die miserably..."
She did not die in a mythic way.
She did not die in a heroic way.
She did not die entangled in the schemes of tremendous divinities.
With no way to cure leprosy, her body rotted inside the house, then while her husband was out, the house was set on fire by thieves...
With even the legs to flee rotting away so she could not even run, she died miserably, burning in her home—that was Yang Hwe in his first life.
Because a Chief God personally bestowed a name, he thought she died entangled in the Chief God's scheme, but as it turns out, the Chief God's naming was only to awaken within Hong Fan the God of Light dwelling within him.
Yang Hwe simply died miserably.
There was no grand reason.
Just because.
Hong Fan finds that truth of 'just because' so piercing that it is unbearable.
"If she is born again..."
Therefore, he decides to make a world where all can become myth.
"And if she meets me and becomes unhappy again..."
He wanted to protect, but failed to protect.
Therefore, if he dares to say there is a next life, he cannot make the promise, 'I will protect you'.
However...at the very least, he will give her the strength to protect herself.
"At the very least...so that it is not a wretched ending where her legs for running away are rotten, that she cannot even flee...."
He wants even the people she needs to care about to not be mere ordinary village folk and a band of thieves who learned a bit of martial arts...
He wants to make them divine beings who can wield mythic power and resist to the very end.
"May it become such a world..."
The first Yang Hwe burned to death because her legs to flee were rotted.
The second Yang Hwe burned to death because the Heuk Sa Society and the village that should flee together were so pitifully weak that they held her back.
The Yang Hwe of the third cycle now...as Hong Fan now learns,
Because Hong Fan spent a long time going to meet the Chief God, she, as in the original history, contracted leprosy, was driven out beyond the village by the elders of the noble household, the young master who tried to help her was sent to study abroad in a far-off country by his elders, and in that time she could not obtain food and starved to death.
It was not as painful as burning pain, but it was long and wretched.
"Whoever it is, it does not matter... Whoever it is, instead of just sitting still and crying out only to the heavens, whoever it is, I will make a world where one can ascend to the heavens by oneself...!"
That will resounds through the Sumeru Three Heavens Great Thousand World he creates.
Dreaming of a world where people can at least become as strong as he is...
He at the same time holds another hope.
'It must be repaid.'
It is not only Hong Fan himself.
All who have suffered must be repaid.
The tale of the boy who stitches together six Heavenly Domains and creates Mount Sumeru comes to an end.
And the story reaches Chapter 9.
The very beginning is a means to call back connections such as Yang Hwe and his mother, the Heuk Sa Society, and others who suffered.
Through the Immortal Art of Light, Radiance, that was made by himself, if he wants, he can return to the past as much as he wishes, but now he does not turn back time.
For even if he turns back time, history repeats.
To have the strength to prevent history from repeating, one must at least become equal to History itself, one of the Three Daos.
Until then, he has no intention to turn time back on purpose.
Therefore, through the power of the First Light, he ladles up information from within history, and through that information, he ladles up, one by one, the hearts that are fused within Miracle.
They say water spilled into the sea cannot be returned, but if one backtraces each particle, finds it, and brings it back, one can scoop it up again as much as one likes.
And Hong Fan has the ability to do so.
He brings back the spirits of Yang Hwe and his mother in an instant, but he does not immediately revive them and repay them.
Because if revived wrongly, they might end up in a strange state.
Therefore Hong Fan chooses as test subjects the Heuk Sa Society and the villagers of Yang Hwe.
From the Heuk Sa Society to everyone who lives in that village are ladled up within Miracle by Hong Fan, with history as coordinates.
They are precious beings, but at the same time they are those who failed to protect Yang Hwe and became the burden that prevented her from fleeing.
Making them test subjects is also punishment for being a burden.
Of course, to call it punishment, it is far too blissful and luxurious...
In any case, Hong Fan intervenes in the second cycle's timeline by pulling out the spirits of those who died in the timeline and brings them back to life.
Chosen by Hong Fan's Immortal Cultivation system, they instantly reach the end of the Immortal Cultivation system when they are revived.
They again swear loyalty to Hong Fan, and Hong Fan selects ten of the outstanding ones among them and makes them guardians who protect the Immortal Cultivation system.
The Heuk Sa Society is reorganized as Heuk Sa Hall (黑蛇殿) under Hong Fan's will.
Hong Fan, together with them, continues research through scooping up old information from history on reviving spirits.
In order to not only revive his wife's spirit, but in order to confirm whether they themselves came back properly...
In that process, they also come to know about Hong Fan's past.
They also come to know about the timelines that flew away because of regression.
They all sympathize with Hong Fan and speak in one voice.
"Honored Seat, you truly live an ill-starred life."
"Do not pity me. It feels bad."
"Haha, understood. But...in any case, we hope that the Honored Seat can escape even from those ill-fated memories."
They make a symbol of Heuk Sa Hall for Hong Fan.
[Black Snake Biting Its Tail]
It is not only the symbol of Heuk Sa Hall, which conducts research digging up the past.
It is also a symbol of Hong Fan, who is held by the pain of the past.
Of course, it also becomes a symbol of the Immortal Art of Radiance that has the ability to go back to the past.
In many ways, it is a symbol befitting the very existence named Hong Fan.
"...To say I am caught by the past, it is not a pleasant thing to hear. Also...its appearance is ugly, so it is a symbol I do not like..."
Hong Fan does not like it, but as he hears the following words of the subordinates of Heuk Sa Hall, he finally nods.
"It is a symbol we purposely made ugly so that the Honored Seat does not like it. Please quickly escape from the ugly memories. And...later, you can change the symbol."
"A symbol made so that I quickly change it...?"
"Yes. Someday, please surely escape from the painful past and change it to a new symbol. Perhaps...a symbol of a snake that is not biting its tail, or a symbol of a dragon... Well, there are many cool ones. Therefore...this symbol is...yes."
The people of Heuk Sa Hall all look at Hong Fan and speak with a smile.
"Hope. It is a symbol that symbolizes hope. Though the Honored Seat is still seized by the pains of the past...it is a symbol that contains the hope that someday the Honored Seat will escape that pain and receive salvation."
"Hope..."
Hope.
Hong Fan smiles at that one word.
"Hope to come in the future, huh..."
A snake that, though now seized and suffering, will someday escape from biting its tail.
"Good. I want to see that hope as soon as possible."
Hong Fan engraves the word hope deep in his heart.
Hope also explains himself.
'Hope...yes. I want to give hope to everyone.'
Is this Immortal Cultivation system not also made by such logic?
He wants the miserable mortal beings to have the hope to cast off mortality and wish for a better life.
'I also want to give it to those past existences who died early and now sleep.'
He wants to give hope.
With that single intent, Hong Fan, together with the people of Heuk Sa Hall, finds out that past information also contains something like grudges, and he finds a way to untie them.
He gives hope to the beings of today through Immortal Cultivation, and he releases also the resentment of the beings of yesterday, giving hope to the beings of the past.
Through such achievements, Hong Fan realizes that he has reached some new realm.
Beginning with Heuk Sa Hall, to the beings who gain divinity through Hong Fan's Immortal Cultivation system, to those empty beings with no possibilities at all, the ones who were forgotten into the past and fell into oblivion.
They all look at Hong Fan as the one who gives hope and loudly praise him as the Zero King.
'What remains is the beings of the future...'
Beings who will someday be born.
The 'answer' was for them
"...I must reach the Three Daos."
To give hope even to the existences who will come in the future.
For the hope that will come in the future as well.
For Yang Hwe, who will someday be reborn by his own hand and receive recompense.
For himself as well, whose wounded heart still cannot be healed...
He reaches for the Three Daos and seeks the answer.
Although the will of the Creator God says that the true answer comes from discussion among the three absolute beings, Hong Fan thinks thus.
If one absolute being is born first, then through their own power they can bring the other absolute beings into being more quickly.
He begins to cultivate the cultivation system he himself made.
Just because he created it in the first place does not mean he obtained everything of the cultivation system. He only possesses authority over the system.
Cultivation proceeds over a long time.
During that time, all the comrades of Heuk Sa Hall fail to endure the passage of time and die.
They melt back into Miracle, are newly born, and become different people.
It does not really matter.
However, a problem arises.
Even after being born again, those who still hold the blessing of the Immortal Cultivation system proceed at a speed similar to Hong Fan...
No, some, combined with their unique aptitudes, reach the peak of the Immortal Cultivation system again at a speed even faster than Hong Fan.
Hong Fan does not particularly mind.
However...
What comes next is the problem.
Jjeoooooong—
"What is this...?"
Hong Fan sees the First Light shatter and split into many Origins.
It is the doing of one of the reincarnators who was a member of Heuk Sa Hall.
Within Miracle of the Three Daos, the spirit is melted and mixed here and there, and although they are not a complete Heuk Sa Hall being, they are clearly a being who has a very intimate connection with Hong Fan and, even going back to the second cycle of life, with Yang Hwe.
He had thought wrongly.
Because it was a good connection, he gave a blessing.
However, the connection who was newly born and became a divinity shattered the First Light, split it into many Origins, and applied modifications to the Immortal Cultivation system to find a new answer.
The apex of the Immortal Cultivation system.
A realm called Supreme Deity was brought forth by them.
Seeing this, Hong Fan thinks.
If it goes like this, great chaos will arise.
His plan to challenge the Three Daos first for everyone's hope will be thrown into disarray...!
"I...must see hope."
At least to gift hope to everyone.
The one who reaches it first has to be him.
Though, under the First Light they are able to equally reach the peak of the Immortal Cultivation, they are under Hong Fan's control within the Immortal Cultivation system. Yet, seeing the possibility of devouring the Origin and becoming an entity like a Chief God...
No...in some aspects becoming far superior beings and seeing a path to reach the Three Daos...
They become steeped in greed and ambition, and they begin to prepare to challenge the Three Daos.
Hong Fan cannot acknowledge them.
"Those who do not become transcendents for Good (善)...shall all die."
Hong Fan draws his blade once more, and the slaughter thus begins.