No Cheonmyeong, who had been blinking as if at a loss for words, let out a hollow laugh.
“Wow... Hey, Paewoon.”
“Is this bastard seriously fucking insane?”
I cut off the exchange between the two master and disciple before it could continue.
More precisely, I had to.
Gunggeukjicheoha (窮極之處何), Bonwongwihujeok (本源歸虛寂).
Where lies the seat of the ultimate? It is where the origin returns to void and silence.
As the chant flowed from my lips, No Cheonmyeong and Paewoon fell silent at once.
Paewoon tilted his head in confusion, but No Cheonmyeong’s eyes were trembling like mad.
“You... what was that just now...? No—what did you just say...?”
“The seat of the ultimate, and the place where the origin returns to void.”
“...Ultimate... origin... void...?”
“When it continues , the remaining chants are completed.”
“I already told you—I don’t want to say. What I do want to share is the next set of incantations. May I speak them?”
“...Yes, speak. No, go ahead.”
I nodded and continued calmly.
Jingahajaejeuk (眞假何在則), Ilchegwigongjeok (一切歸空寂).
Where lies truth and illusion? All things return to emptiness and silence.
There was not a single breath to ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ be heard around us.
No Cheonmyeong’s expression looked exactly like that of a sage witnessing the birth of heaven and earth.
There might not be anything more shocking than this.
“...Truth and... illusion... the answer was in the question itself.”
Tears rolled down from the corners of his eyes.
“...The seat of the ultimate... had already been within me all along?”
I gazed at No Cheonmyeong in silence.
“I cannot give you the answer to that question.”
“What I can offer is the completion.”
I raised the paper in my hand.
“The Heaven-Human Embodiment Technique written here is not a completed form.”
“Even if the later incantations are finished, it does not mean the chant itself is complete.”
No Cheonmyeong’s eyes flew wide open.
“No... don’t tell me...”
“Yes. There is more before this.”
“Then... are you saying I spent fifty years... trying to solve only half of it...? That I... that I...?”
Why did No Cheonmyeong take his own life?
He must have decoded the chant.
He must have fully completed it in the end, and at that moment realized—
That it was only half.
Meaning, he had wasted fifty years, and that lost time would never return.
He must have felt hollow. Depressed.
And so No Cheonmyeong ended his own life, and his disciple Paewoon followed him in death.
This was one man’s record—and his regret.
And I had deciphered the earlier half of the Heaven-Human Embodiment Technique.
I opened my mouth quietly.
Yujungsaengmu (有中生無), Mujungsaengyu (無中生有).
From existence arises nonexistence, and from nonexistence arises existence.
Cheoninhamilcheo (天人合一處), Muradongchesi (物我同體時).
Where heaven and man become one, when self and all things become a single body.
Simsugidong (心隨氣動), Gisusimjeon (氣隨心轉).
The mind moves with qi, and qi shifts with the mind.
Cheonjijahaengji (天地自行止).
Heaven and earth move and halt of their own accord.
No Cheonmyeong could no longer speak.
He simply stared at me in a daze. I slowly placed a hand on his shoulder.
The realm of unity between heaven and man does not arrive through endless striving—but in the moment one lays down all striving.
“The essence of the Heaven-Human Embodiment Technique is not in building existence for the sake of nonexistence—but in discovering existence within what already is nonexistence.”
“I don’t know who created it, but the person who first composed this chant must have surpassed even the state of Sole Sovereign of the Primordial Chaos. What is a martial artist? What is the world, and what is qi? What does it mean to become one with the flow of heaven and earth?”
“...” Read full story at N()velFire.net
“It is not simply a study of ascension—but a direct penetration into the nature of the world itself. Senior No.”
“Please let it go now.”
No sooner had I spoken those words than an incredible light erupted from No Cheonmyeong’s eyes.
And that wasn’t the end.
A monstrous surge of energy exploded outward as the entire manor was blasted apart, and I was thrown back by the immense pressure.
Barely managing to land, I lifted my head.
At some point, Paewoon had drawn his sword and driven it into the ground to brace himself, and Commander Seong had caught Wonyang just in time before her head struck a sharp cliff edge.
As if everything inside him had burst forth all at once, as if a dam had collapsed, as if he had transcended nature itself and become one with heaven and earth—
His inner energy, blocked for fifty years, now surged like a waterfall.
The first of the Five Realms of the Martial God.
He had ascended to Heaven-Human Unity.
My mind, which usually ran like a well-oiled machine, seemed to have shut down in this moment.
But even if my thoughts stopped, my heart did not.
Hot tears streamed down both of Paewoon’s cheeks.
In that moment, Paewoon recalled the day he first came here, twenty years ago.
A bloodied seventeen-year-old boy—No Cheonmyeong had asked him a question.
“Do you have anywhere to go?”
It was a simple question. Paewoon had shaken his head.
“I, too, am here... but I’m still lost.”
No Cheonmyeong had smiled bitterly and said, briefly—
“If you have nowhere to go, then just serve me.”
That was the beginning.
How did the world view No Cheonmyeong?
A withered flower. A former genius who, failing to break past the wall of the Five Realms, had completely faded.
A stubborn old man, stuck for decades, unable to accept his own limitations.
A living lesson of the martial world.
They didn’t know. The burning passion buried in No Cheonmyeong’s heart.
How deeply he had wandered through torment, chasing truth.
“Disciple, what matters is not reaching the end—but walking the path.”
Those were his words to Paewoon on the darkest day.
Even in that moment—offering comfort he himself didn’t believe—No Cheonmyeong’s gaze never wavered.
“Someday... I will decode this... no matter what.”
Holding a cold cup of tea, repeating the same chant a thousand, ten thousand times.
Practicing qigong again and again deep into the night.
Pushing his body to its limits under the guise of training—a kind of self-inflicted torture.
And now, from his entire body, that same master's form radiated a swirling blue aura that rose higher and higher.
It was like watching the heavens open.
No Cheonmyeong’s face was serene. No—this was more than peace.
It was a stillness so vast, so deep, it overwhelmed like an ocean.
The master, calmly cultivating his qi in that moment, was more beautiful than anything else in the world.
Paewoon lowered himself into a deep bow on the spot.
He engraved this moment into the depths of his heart.
The moment when his master’s fifty-year wandering had finally come to an end.