Almighty God of War - Chapter 205

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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205

A heavy silence flowed through the room.

Geumdan Sutra, Gongnyeonggyeong, Simcheon Gyeong, and Life and Death Realm.

To think that beyond Hwa Gyeong, such distant mountain ranges stretched endlessly like layered peaks.

Guyang Cheongang realized he had been a frog in a well.

Neungnam Gwang continued with a bitter tone.

“The specific phenomena of these four realms are unknown. However, each is said to be divided into early, middle, and late stages, forming a total of twelve layers.”

“Ah…”

“Breaking through a single layer is so difficult that it would be hard to reach even if reborn a million times, but once broken through, the reward is said to be absolute.”

“What kind of reward makes Elder Brother speak so emphatically?”

“It’s said that with each layer breakthrough, internal energy increases by at least double.”

Guyang Cheongang’s eyes widened.

“Double?”

“Yes, though it’s not confirmed… theoretically, it’s impossible for a martial artist of a lower stage to match a master of a higher stage, even if heaven and earth were to change. Moreover, lifespan is said to increase by over a hundred years.”

He stared intensely at Guyang Cheongang with burning eyes and continued.

“But you… are saying you already hold in your hands the evidence of reaching Geumdan Sutra, the first stage of those legendary Four Great Realms – the Geumdan itself. And with a body that’s only at middle-level Hwa Gyeong where even the upper dantian hasn’t opened. This shakes the very foundation of martial studies.”

Guyang Cheongang sighed and responded.

“Elder Brother, I truly did not know.”

A bitter smile appeared on Neungnam Gwang’s lips.

“In Gangho, only geniuses who appear once in a hundred years reach Geumdan Sutra, only peerless talents who appear once in a thousand years reach Gongnyeonggyeong, and Simcheon Gyeong and Life and Death Realm… are difficult to find even in historical records.”

Silence descended upon the room again.

Guyang Cheongang pondered each of Neungnam Gwang’s words carefully.

The fact that he had formed a Geumdan at middle-level Hwa Gyeong.

What it meant for him to have formed a Geumdan at Hwa Gyeong was now clear.

It was a miracle that mocked Murim’s common sense, an unprecedented anomaly.

Guyang Cheongang could finally fully understand why Neungnam Gwang had looked at him with such shock and the true nature of that astonishment.

“Elder Brother…”

Guyang Cheongang began to speak but couldn’t continue his words.

In Neungnam Gwang’s gaze toward him, shock, envy, respect as a martial artist, and bewilderment were strangely mixed together.

He wore a complex expression for a long while before letting out a long sigh.

“You are…”

Neungnam Gwang spoke with emphasis on each word.

“Wearing the shell of Hwa Gyeong while already possessing the essence of Geumdan Sutra. It’s a deformed achievement unprecedented in Gangho history. A Geumdan formed without even opening the upper dantian, crossing the threshold of Geumdan Sutra without even passing through upper-level Hwa Gyeong…”

He paused briefly, then added in a whispered, lowered voice.

“This incompetent elder brother cannot even imagine how far you might reach. Perhaps you are…”

An indescribable light flashed in Neungnam Gwang’s eyes.

“Someone who might reach the Life and Death Realm that exists only in legend.”

“Do you know anything about martial artists who have reached that realm?”

At Guyang Cheongang’s question, Neungnam Gwang shook his head.

“There are tales that the Ten Greatest Masters of All Time in the past reached the edge of Gongnyeonggyeong, and that the Heavenly Martial Emperor was an absolute master of Simcheon Gyeong, but even that isn’t confirmed fact. Life and Death Realm is truly the realm of myth.”

Guyang Cheongang’s heart began to pound.

Life and Death Realm.

A realm where one could unite with heaven and earth and manifest the principles of the universe.

Could he climb to that distant peak?

For now, it was unknowable.

But one thing was certain.

The journey that had been walking through fog had finally found a clear signpost.

The path had just opened, and infinite possibilities spread vastly beneath his feet.

Returning to his room, Guyang Cheongang quietly closed the door.

Only the faint, regular breathing sounds of Baek Muok, still immersed in deep energy circulation and breath control, could be heard.

Sitting on the bed, Guyang Cheongang crossed his legs in lotus position and placed his hands on his knees.

As soon as he closed his eyes, the internal energy of Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art surged from his lower dantian, passing through his middle dantian and beginning to circulate throughout his body.

Meanwhile, he employed the mysteries of Dual Mind Divine Art to begin deconstructing and reassembling the stories he had just heard from Neungnam Gwang in his consciousness.

Guyang Cheongang could now understand the strange changes that had occurred within his body when he reached middle-level Hwa Gyeong.

At that time, an extraordinary phenomenon beyond common sense had occurred in his dantian.

The vast internal energy approaching four cycles had suddenly decreased to one cycle, as if it had evaporated.

But strangely, the power he unleashed when performing martial arts retained the explosive force of his four-cycle days.

The key to that mystery lay in the secret of Geumdan Sutra.

Unlike the existing martial studies system that simply accumulated internal energy to increase the quantity of qi, Guyang Cheongang’s dantian had compressed the ‘density’ of qi to its limit under Akasha’s precise computational guidance.

The gaseous internal energy had formed a solidified essence beyond liquid state – an internal elixir.

Because four cycles of internal energy were condensed into a single point of Geumdan, the outwardly apparent quantity seemed reduced, but its qualitative value had already transcended ordinary qi flow.

The internal elixir drew maximum output with minimum consumption like an infinite fusion reactor.

And that was the fundamental reason Guyang Cheongang could overwhelm Hwa Gyeong masters at the entrance of Geumdan Sutra.

‘Did the accumulation of quantity bring about a qualitative leap?’

His gaze deepened.

‘But how did I reach Geumdan Sutra? It was said to be possible only when the upper dantian opens…’

It was the first question and the greatest wall.

The only passage to upper-level Hwa Gyeong, the stagnation point where even masters like Neungnam Gwang had wandered in despair for forty years.

Guyang Cheongang delved into what the essence of that which couldn’t be broken through by merely accumulating internal energy truly was.

‘That place isn’t simply an energy storage.’

At some moment, a small realization suddenly flashed through his consciousness.

From the beginning, the upper dantian had not been a realm of physical strength.

Located at the center of the brain, touching the mind and consciousness – a place to cultivate human ‘spirit.’

It was a training ground for the soul that transcended the physical body to resonate with the principles of heaven and earth and intuit the laws of the universe.

The upper dantian not opening meant the connection with the universe was severed.

Only when the physical strength of the lower dantian and the energy flow of the middle dantian united with the spirit of the upper dantian could a complete Geumdan be conceived and the door to Geumdan Sutra open.

‘But I formed a Geumdan with a middle-level Hwa Gyeong body where the upper dantian hadn’t opened. It’s a logically impossible phenomenon.’

Doubts led to more doubts.

‘But have I really not opened my upper dantian? Or is something else entirely replacing the role of the upper dantian?’

The moment that hypothesis formed, a thrill swept through Guyang Cheongang’s entire body.

‘Akasha!’

His heart pounded violently.

Akasha, the superintelligence coexisting in his brain.

An entity that calculated universal-scale physical laws and processed complex data in an instant that would take thousands of years for a human brain to understand.

Akasha had integrated with Guyang Cheongang’s consciousness and was essentially functioning as one soul.

‘Could Akasha have been entirely performing the function of the upper dantian…’

Beyond doubt, conviction arose.

If the essence of the upper dantian was resonance with heaven and earth’s energy and understanding universal laws, Akasha had been performing that function beyond human limitations.

The ‘principles of heaven and earth’ that ordinary martial artists could hardly obtain even dedicating their entire lives, Akasha had been analyzing with precise formulas and physical laws, providing them to Guyang Cheongang in real time.

The effect of uniting the three dantians appeared despite the upper dantian not opening because Akasha’s computational ability had perfectly coordinated the energies of the lower and middle dantians.

Artificial intelligence had technologically replaced the most noble realm of martial studies – ‘spiritual enlightenment.’

‘But… something’s lacking.’

Guyang Cheongang’s gaze flashed coldly in the pitch-black darkness.

The mere fact that Akasha had performed the role of the upper dantian couldn’t fully explain this earth-shattering Geumdan formation.

If theory supported it, there had to be a concrete methodology to materialize it – a ‘framework’ of martial arts.

His thoughts naturally converged on one source.

‘Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art…’

This supreme art that he and Akasha had created together was not simply an internal energy cultivation method.

Its extreme purity and overwhelming density, different from other martial arts, was like a massive furnace designed from the beginning to form the crystal called Geumdan.

And there was a separate flame that formed the core of that furnace.

‘The hologram pupil of the Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade…’

The third realization struck Guyang Cheongang’s consciousness like lightning.

The afterimage of light discovered deep within the Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade.

The essence of that mysterious martial studies that Akasha had analyzed and integrated into the Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art at the time was now clearly understood.

‘That pupil was a divine art meant to forge a golden core from the beginning.’

Certainty transformed into a thrill.

The secret contained within the hologram pupil was the essence of enlightenment left behind by an absolute master beyond the Geumdan realm to unify the three dantians.

Akasha had decoded that high-dimensional formula and transplanted it into the Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art, and as a result, he was able to obtain the core of the Geumdan realm with a Transformation Realm body.

‘Then who exactly was the one who left behind that secret technique.’

It must have been an existence that reached at least the Geumdan realm, or perhaps even the Gongnyeonggyeong or beyond.

The secret technique that an unnamed pioneer who had reached the pinnacle of martial arts had sealed within the Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade for future generations had been resurrected after crossing eons by meeting the superintelligence called ‘Akasha’.

‘Everything was connected.’

At this belated realization, Guyang Cheongang let out a quiet sigh.

The superintelligence called Akasha, the ancient secrets of the Ten Thousand Year Warm Jade, and even the Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art that synthesized them all.

The scattered fragments of coincidence were threaded together by the string of inevitability, forming perfect harmony.

The miracle of forming a golden core at the intermediate level of Transformation Realm was no longer an unknown phenomenon.

It was an inevitable product born from the meeting of ancient wisdom and future technology.

Guyang Cheongang slowly opened his eyes.

The room was still immersed in silence, and the moonlight seeping through the window cracks softly illuminated Baek Muok’s peaceful face.

The surrounding scenery remained unchanged, but the world that Guyang Cheongang viewed had become completely different from before.

The abyss of martial arts was understood more deeply, and the path that had been shrouded in fog became transparent and clear.

‘Someday I will definitely cross the threshold of the Life and Death Realm and confirm with my own eyes what exactly lies there.’

The path from Transformation Realm to Geumdan realm, and eventually beyond the Gongnyeonggyeong and Simcheon Gyeong that he would face in the future to reach the Life and Death Realm, was not simply an enlargement of internal energy.

It was a great process of destroying the vessel called human and newly redefining the laws of the universe within one’s own body.

Endless cultivation and trials that transcended life and death would block the path in layers.

However, instead of fear, burning fighting spirit took root in Guyang Cheongang’s heart.

He was already one who had mocked Murim’s common sense and made the impossible into reality, one who had crafted miracles at the boundary between technology and martial studies.

A miracle achieved once was no longer coincidence, and the treacherous path leading to the pinnacle was not an obstacle to overcome but merely a process to prove.

Guyang Cheongang fell into a state of selfless absorption.

Pure internal energy rippled like waves through the meridians of his entire body, and the golden core positioned at the center of his dantian rotated slowly while emitting brilliant light.

Thus the night deepened.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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