Chapter 345

Chapter 345

From childhood, Baek Riseon was a genius.

—M-marvelous, Young Master. To already master Yangwongong and Eumwolgong to this degree!

—Why can’t you do it?

—P-pardon?

—I’m asking why you can’t do something so easy.

Age seven, less than two years after entering martial arts.

Baek Riseon achieved mastery of the Baek Ri Family’s Two Great Basic Techniques. Martial arts where common people would be praised as fast if they achieved mastery by age twenty, and even prodigies or geniuses couldn’t easily master both by age twelve.

Naturally, the Baek Ri Family celebrated. An achievement surpassing even his father, who was called the greatest genius in Baek Ri Family history; a brilliant mind that could see a thousand li while sitting. Nothing was lacking for him to become the next head of the Baek Ri Family.

Completing the Four Books and Three Classics at age six, mastering both great basic techniques at seven, and by eight, penetrating the fundamentals of Imperial Studies to the point of conversing with the invited Grand Scholar as an equal.

Though the Baek Ri Family deliberately didn’t spread this news externally, prepared for the child to crumble under attention, nevertheless Baek Riseon’s genius gradually spread throughout the Central Plains. Everyone praised and looked up to Baek Riseon.

Eight-year-old Baek Riseon really didn’t like that. Because.

It was unbearably tedious.

—It’s not fun.

He easily surpassed opponents in everything.

With exceptional innate talent, he experienced no difficulties. Without difficulties, there was no sense of achievement. Just as a full-grown adult gains no particular impression from being praised for walking well, Baek Riseon’s perspective was the same. A situation where he felt the surroundings praised him for doing what he could naturally do.

He felt no interest in anything. He abandoned martial arts, abandoned studies. And.

—Take this.

—Mother. What is this?

Then Gongsun Yeonbi, who called Baek Riseon, gave him a small bead.

—It’s a Divine Artifact.

—……This tiny thing is a Divine Artifact?

—Yes. Something passed down by Mama’s ancestors.

Precisely, a bead ‘that can see the future.’

—I heard it called a Divine Artifact, but even Mama doesn’t know if this is truly a Divine Artifact. This bead occasionally shows the future to truly talented people, they said.

—Shows only to talented people? Then I’ll see it.

—Who knows? I’m not sure. Mama hasn’t seen it yet so I don’t even know if it’s true, and moreover, my eldest is a know-it-all.

—Hehehehe. Who knows?

—Look at you. What kind of laugh is that for an eight-year-old…… Mama told you not to laugh so creepily, didn’t she? Anyway, keep it. If you’re lucky, you might see the future…… Even if not, you can pass it to your child later.

—Alright.

Though he received it, he didn’t consider it credible. Well, he thought seeing the future was nonsense.

Baek Riseon, already possessing Grand Scholar-level knowledge, knew that only practitioners of various mystical arts could read Heavenly Destiny to know the future in a limited way, and thus knew how absurd it was to perfectly observe the future.

It’s merely superstition. Since Divine Artifacts overflow in Kangho, to imbue anything with symbolism, they probably lied calling anything a Divine Artifact that sees the future and passed it down through generations.

Thinking little of it, Baek Riseon fell asleep, and that night.

Baek Riseon saw one future.

A future where the world perished.

—…….

A future where the world perished by Yowang Heukya.

The first day, he saw one, and spent all day denying what he saw.

The second day, he saw five branches of futures, and was dismayed that all five futures were desperate.

The third day, he saw three hundred twenty branches of futures, and learned that among them, there was one future where he survived. What about the fourth day?

The same. The fourth day, he saw seven thousand eight hundred fifteen branches of futures, and among them, revealed that there were fifteen branches where he survived, one branch where even his relatives survived together.

—……No.

Five days. Six days. Seven, eight, nine, ten days.

The futures he could see gradually increased. By a month, the futures he could see numbered six billion eighty-four million two hundred fifty thousand, and among them, he confirmed the future where the most people survived.

One tenth.

Among all futures, the future where the most people survived was exactly that much. A future where everyone dies except a handful. Though he succeeded in saving his relatives and those around them, countless others died, and ultimately, all of them met miserable ends.

‘This is my limit.’

He intuited. That even with his overwhelming talent, he couldn’t create any future beyond this.

The branches he now sees are all branches in the world that Heavenly Destiny permits. No matter how outstanding the talent, one cannot create what doesn’t exist, so he thought he should settle for this and move to the next step.

—It’s interesting.

Until he discovered himself finding this situation interesting.

—I’m a selfish bastard.

He was different from his younger brother Baek Riyun. Different from Baek Riyun who pursued the best out of altruism.

The reason he pursued the best was only one. Because it was the most difficult path.

Because it’s most difficult, he must stake everything. Immediately, Baek Riseon excluded futures where he definitely survived, and saw ninety-eight more branches. And.

He found it. A future where nine tenths and nine parts of people survived excluding himself. An extreme future where his survival probability dropped below one tenth.

—This will be interesting.

A future worth challenging.

The moment he saw it, he immediately stopped martial arts training. Didn’t learn mystical arts either. What he learned was only Yeomwon.

—Neither Form nor Style is needed.

To truly become omnipotent, one must be omniscient, and to be omniscient, one must first be ignorant.

To fill, he first emptied. Taste, smell, touch, hearing, even sight.

All speaking sounds were heard as crackling noise, and his vision was dyed black and white. Whatever he chewed, a gritty feeling like chewing sand filled his mouth. When he fell asleep, his eyes forcibly opened as if someone was waking him.

—Heaven. Heaven. The greatest genius of all time offers all possibility and talent. I’ve staked my entire life to overturn you.

Whenever it became unbearable, he mocked heaven and ridiculed himself for having no choice but to endure. Even with talent transcending the mortal world, establishing will wasn’t easy.

Whenever young Baek Riyun clung to him asking to teach martial arts, he wanted to kick him away. Asking what do you know, do you know how hard I’m struggling? Telling him to suffer like this too.

But he didn’t. Because that wasn’t what he wanted to do. Because it was what his weakness commanded.

Five years passed, ten years passed.

Fifteen-year-old Baek Riyun left to find the truth about their mother’s death. And that night, Baek Riseon learned he had reached a realm where he could twist part of the world with Yeomwon alone.

***

──And so time passed.

Reaching now.

“It was a dreadfully long time.”

There’s a foul smell.

Baek Riseon, inhaling the terrible stench he’d smelled all his life as if it were sweetly fragrant like flowers, smiled bitterly as he lowered his head. The form of Yowang Heukya, frozen with time, staring at him.

“Heukya, you don’t know me, but I’ve seen your form even in dreams. Over several hundred million times.”

Burning, devouring, tearing apart, scattering.

Heukya in dreams was literally a god. Like a Heavenly Emperor delivering divine punishment, she punished and destroyed humans. Monsters were no exception either.

The world’s end.

That was Yowang Heukya. How much time did he spend trembling in fear, staying awake to confront her?

“Sinseonggok, no, now it’s Sinseongyeong.”

—…….

“Inside Sinseongyeong, anyone is granted qualification for omnipotence. However, there’s a hierarchy in that omnipotence. What determines it is precisely the size of will.”

The size of Yeomwon.

Heukya’s, who lived tens of thousands of years, differs in magnitude from other monsters. There might be monsters who lived similar or longer years. However, Heukya’s willpower, having lived tens of thousands of years with one goal, needless to say, competes for first place.

Competes means it’s not definitively first.

“I’m only thirty years. However, it’s probably far more concentrated thirty years than yours.”

How can a mere thirty years of Yeomwon match tens of thousands of years of Yeomwon?

Live with a thousand-fold density. Every moment, a thousand-fold hatred, a thousand-fold joy, a thousand-fold rage, a thousand-fold pain.

“I thought a thousand-fold might be slightly insufficient.”

There’s no way to calculate the quantity of emotions, the quantity of Yeomwon.

Therefore, he discarded everything discardable. Emptied everything emptable. He felt instants like eons, and ten years seemed to pass in a day.

“Now, shall you guess what I’ll do?”

—……What are you planning?

“Good question.”

In stopped time, watching Heukya question through Uinyeom, Baek Riseon smiled faintly.

“I pondered continuously for thirty years. What should I do and how so both I survive and everyone survives? Should I kill you right here?”

Too many have already died for that.

“Should I turn all of this back to nothing?”

The same thing would merely repeat.

“Or should I send Unyun, who finally became capable of overwhelming you, to the past?”

The past he goes to would become a different world from this one. This world wouldn’t be saved.

“The answer was simple. Very simple.”

Turn back time. Not one individual’s time.

Turn back the entire world’s time with everyone’s memories and souls contained in this body. So the dead remember their deaths, the living remember Heukya who became Yowang, and Baek Riyun doesn’t forget the martial principle he realized.

—How could that be possible……!

“It’s possible.”

It must be possible.

“Because I lived solely for that.”

Because that was the meaning of his existence.

Gently.

Baek Riseon, wearing a smile, pulled the fan from his waist, threw it to the ground, spread both arms, and looked at the sky. Dark clouds dropping raindrops one or two at a time on Hwangdo as if symbolizing miserable Heavenly Destiny.

“Heaven.”

Here is the genius you sent down.

“Heaven.”

Here is the humanity you tried to break, and here is the Yowang you tried to make your agent.

“Heaven!”

You will not welcome this rebellion. Because the flow of Heavenly Destiny always flows in the same direction. Because there’s no reverse flow.

However, that is your arrogance. I, the most arrogant human in this world, will grasp that arrogance’s handle backward and offer it to you.

Because I lived for that.

[The Seal of Fate resonates powerfully!]

Far away.

Confirming the will resonating with his own from the direction where Uicheonjang is, Baek Riseon opened his mouth wearing a smile truly welling from his heart. And.

“Three Thousand Worlds.”

The moment Baek Riseon’s next words fell.

“Reverse Flow.”

The stopped time flowed, and raindrops began falling.

Toward the sky.