Majestic declarations coming from all over filled the forest.

"I’ll block it! Open a path!"

"No, I’ll block it!"

"The one who sacrifices themselves is me!"

People staking their lives for each other. It should have been a moving scene. If it weren’t for the effect of this ‘horror’, it would have been.

With her expression hardened, Jung Heewon called me.

"Dokja."

It seemed Jung Heewon had noticed the people’s abnormal symptoms as well. Maybe it would’ve been stranger not to notice. Up until just now, the ones who were aiming for our coins were now offering up their bodies to force a path through the forest.

"Is this the forest’s effect?"

"Seems like it."

"You said this forest was made from Master’s fable. Then why—"

"Probably that."

I said, looking at the people staking their lives for each other.

"Is what the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint has been wanting all along—‘a story’."

I thought about the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint.

That she trained a sword to break the sky her whole life. That she was Yoo Joonghyuk’s master. That she was also the god of Murim. That Murim people revered her. Betrayed her.

But Jung Heewon would probably recall something different from me when it came to the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint.

"That can’t be. There’s no way Master would want something like that."

Watching that Jung Heewon, I slowly opened my mouth.

"Heewon, what do you think chivalry is?"

At the sudden question, Jung Heewon hesitated for a moment, then answered.

"Keeping justice."

"Then what is justice?"

"Protecting the weak."

I knew Jung Heewon would answer like that.

「Chivalry. Standing on the side of justice and helping the weak.」

A place that helps the weak, and helps the weak not be left alone.

The ‘forest’ the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint dreamed of—Murim, too, was probably similar to that.

"A disaster that can’t be stopped with a single tree, multiple trees can stop. That was the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint’s doctrine."

I recalled a single great tree rooted in a devastated land.

The tree that proved the possibility of that land first.

Once they realize it’s land you can live on, plants begin to sprout one by one and form a colony.

"Master always said it, too. That you can never break the sky alone."

The Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint knew that one day, ruin would come to Murim. So when the disaster that would destroy Murim came someday, maybe she dreamed that people would become each other’s trees.

"That scenery might be portraying her despair."

No matter how huge and magnificent a single tree grows, it can’t change the entire ecosystem.

The Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint would have known that, too. She was the god of Murim, and she protected Murim, but she couldn’t change Murim.

The scenery before our eyes now was the realization of a small wish that god had dreamed of.

「A forest of chivalrous warriors who all stake their lives for each other.」

The dream she had long desired was only fulfilled after she became horror and reincarnated in Murim.

"We have to stop it."

Jung Heewon stepped forward.

"We can’t leave it like that."

I held her back and said.

"This isn’t something you should step in for."

"If we leave it, everyone’s going to die."

"You told me that. That not everyone in this world is worth saving."

"I don’t particularly want to save those people."

"Then what?"

"I just hate that my master is killing those people."

Looking at her blazing eyes, only then did I understand what she meant. Jung Heewon hated that those damned stars were defiling the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint’s fable.

I let out a light sigh toward her and answered.

"All right."

"Will you help me?"

"Yes. But mixing in among them like this isn’t a good idea."

"But Master—"

"The Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint’s true body isn’t that thicket."

This forest was only a ‘phenomenon’ of a fable.

「This isn’t a proper interpretation of horror.」

If this horror truly belonged to the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint, then once we interpreted the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint’s desire, it would naturally be broken.

If so, then fighting that meaningless thicket and dying while shouting ‘chivalry’, just as her fable wanted, could also have been one method.

「Of course, that’s only if it’s truly ‘what the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint wants’.」

I looked back at the people dying while crying out chivalry. In this moment, they were sincere.

But what is that sincerity for. Can offering up your life for someone always be called noble. Can chivalry forced by others be called real chivalry.

Was the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint truly someone who dreamed of a world like that.

「A person who pointed a sword at an impossible sky.」

A Transcendent who never lowered the banner of heaven-breaking even while knowing that humans ultimately can’t break the sky.

At least, the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint I knew, the woman who had been Yoo Joonghyuk’s master, wouldn’t have dreamed of something this small.

「The ‘scenery’ the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint dreams of isn’t here.」

I carefully scanned the surroundings, then began walking toward a spot where the thicket was thickly overgrown.

"Wait. That way—"

It’s dangerous. I know. Even at a glance, that thicket path looked far deeper and denser than the side Reinheit or the other incarnations were breaking through.

"A forest is a place where a path forms the way people walk."

The moment I stuck my foot out between the bushes, vines flew in as if they’d been waiting. I didn’t resist and let the vines wrap around me. I saw Jung Heewon reaching her hand out toward me as I was sucked in.

I said to Jung Heewon.

"Heewon, remember the introductory course of the [Heaven-Breaking Sword Art]."

"What?"

Before she could even answer, the vines dragged me into the bushes. The sensation of my whole body being tightly constricted. Even as I felt ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) the vines threatening me as if they would suffocate me, I offered up my body without much fear. The vines wrapped around me as if inspecting my incarnation body, then slowly loosened and let me go.

Just as I expected.

[The end-of-the-world-grade horror, ‘■■■■ ■■’, reacts to you.]

The place the vines set me down was deep inside the thick woods.

「The sky remains in its place, and only humans resent the sky.」

The introduction to the Heaven-Breaking Sword Art is understanding your own anger toward the stars.

In other words, desperately realizing the fact that the sky exists there regardless of your emotions.

This forest’s logic wasn’t stealing D-coins or threatening intruders.

「This forest reacts to the ‘emotions’ of the walker who enters the forest.」

The reason the incarnations had their D-coins stolen was because they feared having their D-coins stolen, and the reason they were attacked was because they feared the forest would attack them.

A moment later, Jung Heewon, wrapped in vines, dropped down beside me with a thud. She got up with a dumbfounded expression, then staggered and looked at me.

I reached my hand out toward her and smiled faintly.

"You did what I said."

Jung Heewon must have safely recalled the introductory training method of the [Heaven-Breaking Sword Art].

"All of a sudden the vines stopped attacking. How did you figure this out?"

"Horror is forcing a specific emotion, so I just thought in the opposite direction."

At some point in Ways of Survival, the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint once said something like this.

「“Chivalry is cold anger.”」

If that sentence was true, then at least the chivalry the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint wanted would begin from a quiet mind.

"It feels just like the moment the scenario first started."

Ooooooo.

The bizarre wailing sound coming from far away sounded like it might be a human crying out chivalry, and it also sounded like it might be some unknown beast living in the forest.

Somehow, it seemed we’d cleared the first gate, but we still hadn’t met the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint. We had only just passed through the bark of the tree called ‘the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint’.

"What’s next? Where do we go?"

"Just a moment."

I desperately read the fables drifting through the entire forest. As long as this horror originated from the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint’s fable, there would definitely be a hint in the story I had read.

How long did we move while desperately recalling Ways of Survival.

"There’s something up ahead."

Jung Heewon stopped first. We hid our bodies between nearby trees and watched the situation.

After holding our breath for a while, we sensed movement up ahead.

Could there be an incarnation who entered deeper into this forest before us?

"Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint!"

Someone called the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint’s name. A lion’s roar that held majestic magic power even to the ear.

"We came to rescue you! Where are you!"

The moment I heard that roar, I got chills. Because that voice was one I had heard before, too, at some point.

"Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint! Boss! Answer us!"

Boss. I knew very well the people who called the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint that.

"They’re Transcendents."

They were the Transcendents of the ‘Transcendent Alliance’ who had escaped by taking the train.

「“Our youngest, has the end come?”」

The people who called me ‘Kim Jongeon’. They, too, had heard news of the Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint and come to this forest.

"Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint—!"

Surely, if they were Transcendents, they would have passed the first gate safely without being dyed by the ‘chivalry’ this forest forces.

Even in this terrifying forest, it meant there was a force we could trust and rely on.

And more than anything, the fact that those Transcendents were here meant—

「Yoo Joonghyuk might be nearby.」

Without realizing it, I stepped out from between the cover.

[It is currently impossible to activate ‘Midday Tryst’.]

Even though eight years had passed since the destruction of the apocalypse region, even though it was a situation where communication was impossible even with ‘Midday Tryst’, if that damned regressor bastard was nearby……

As I slowly moved my steps and was about to call out to the Transcendents.

Kugugugu.

One corner of the forest trembled slightly, and then something revealed itself from the thicket on the opposite side.

The Transcendents’ faces brightened as they opened their mouths.

"Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint!"

The one who revealed itself beyond the thicket definitely had the appearance I knew. A half-blood of the Giant race. The god of Murim who lived while endlessly pursuing the martial arts to break the sky.

「Heaven-Piercing Sword Saint Namgung Minyoung.」

But the moment I saw its appearance, I felt a fear that made it seem like my spine was freezing over.

What the hell is that?

The sensation of something I was sure I knew becoming something I didn’t know.

「■■■■ Namgung Minyoung.」

When I looked to the side, Jung Heewon was trembling, too.

「■■■■ ■■■■.」

An alarm bell was ringing in my head.

I have to stop them. No, we need to run from here right now.

"Heaven-pierc—"

The Transcendents who were saying that had their heads roll across the ground like toys. After that, I heard the sound of something being torn to pieces.

Each Transcendent of the ‘Transcendent Alliance’ was an existence that at minimum approached hero-grade constellations. Those strong ones were annihilated without even being able to scream.

I barely forced my mouth open and said.

"Heewon, run."

The smell I’d sensed from ‘end-of-the-world-grade horrors’ that had rotted away for a long time inside the time stratum.

All my fables were defining what she had become.

「Outer God.」

It wasn’t simply that it was an Outer God that was the problem. I’d already faced Outer Gods several times. The problem was how strong that thing was.

"That existence right now—"

A pitch-black shape that noticed me and charged over. Suddenly, I thought that this time, I really might die.

"It has power comparable to a myth-grade constellation."