Geom Mugeuk was there.
When he leapt down from the cliff and arrived at the encampment first, fortunately, the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace was not in his tent.
Thanks to that, he succeeded in slipping in unnoticed, and was able to watch and hear the entire conversation among the three of them.
The matters concerning the prophecy were things Geom Mugeuk already knew, so there was nothing remarkable there.
What startled him was the gift the Dark Palace Lord had brought.
When he took the Ice Dragon Divine Armor and the Heavenly Yin Pill from his leather pouch, Geom Mugeuk was truly shocked.
‘Those two treasures were received from the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, weren’t they?’
There was no way the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, which had joined hands with the Dark Palace Lord, would have offered protective armor and an elixir for the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace.
‘Did they mix poison into the elixir?’
At first, that was what he thought. That they must have tampered with the Heavenly Yin Pill somehow.
But after taking it, the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace confirmed that there was nothing wrong.
‘The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult wants the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace to win?’
No matter how he thought about it, that did not seem likely.
After that, the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace put on the Ice Dragon Divine Armor. Watching him, Geom Mugeuk grew suspicious once more. From the second point onward, these were suspicions the Guardian Palace Lord had been unable to harbor.
‘Did they do something to the Ice Dragon Divine Armor?’
What if the Heavenly Yin Pill was bait?
What if they had aimed for the moment he let his guard down after confirming there was nothing wrong with the elixir?
Indeed, the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace put on the Ice Dragon Divine Armor without the slightest suspicion.
What if something had been applied inside that divine armor, something even the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace could not detect?
But the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace did not seem to feel anything amiss.
Soon, Geom Mugeuk shook his head.
‘No. That could be discovered.’
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace might examine the inside of the protective armor, or he might say he would wear it later and not put it on at all. At the very least, it was not a perfect plan, and the Dark Palace Lord, filled with that ice-cold ambition, did not seem the type to handle matters in such a way.
‘Then what on earth is his intention?’
As he continued thinking on the premise that there had to be a trap there.
‘No way?’
Extreme yin and extreme yin. With that Heavenly Yin Pill and the Ice Dragon Divine Armor combined, the body of the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace had entered an indescribably extreme yin state.
At a time when he was only preparing against the extreme yang attack the Martial Emperor Divine Sword would unleash.
What if, in that state, he were struck by a surprise attack carrying extreme yin internal energy?
At that moment, the Heavenly Yin Pill and the Ice Dragon Divine Armor would act as a fatal poison.
In any case, the conclusion was set.
In tomorrow’s duel, the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace would die.
Because the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult had interfered in this way, tomorrow’s battle had not been recorded in detail in the history of the Martial Alliance. Only the record that the Martial Emperor Divine Sword killed the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace remained.
And after sending the Guardian Palace Lord away, the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace and the Dark Palace Lord exchanged a startling conversation.
“Did you bring the secret coffer?”
“Yes, I brought it.”
He brought the great secret coffer here? The moment Geom Mugeuk heard those words, the prophecy came to mind.
Darkness will lead you to the Heavenly Will.
Geom Mugeuk sensed instinctively that the prophecy was related to the great secret coffer. The Dark Palace Lord was leading him to the place where the great secret coffer was.
“Where is it now?”
To the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace’s question, the Dark Palace Lord gave an inscrutable answer.
“The secret coffer is beneath the lamp.”
* * *
Shwaaaaaaaa.
The fierce rain made it hard to see ahead. Rainwater pouring down like blades shattered against the ground into countless fragments.
Flash! Rumble!
Whenever lightning struck, the surroundings brightened, and the figures of the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace and the Dark Palace Lord, wearing bamboo hats and straw raincoats as they climbed the mountain, appeared for an instant before vanishing.
Each time lightning flashed, they were in a different place.
After walking through the rain like that, the place the two arrived at was, surprisingly, the mountainside where Baegyang Peak—the site of tomorrow’s duel—stood.
As they forced their way along a path where no people passed, the Dark Palace Lord said,
“From here begins this palace’s maze formation. From now on, please step exactly where I step.”
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace walked, stepping precisely where the Dark Palace Lord stepped.
After passing through the formation and walking deeper through the undergrowth, they came upon a somewhat spacious clearing where a temporary wooden building had been erected.
“We had to move it in haste, so we could not build it properly.”
For that, it was a fairly well-made structure.
Before entering, the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace asked,
“Why here, of all places?”
It was a question asking whether it could not have been stored somewhere in the rear.
There was a reason the Dark Palace Lord had done this.
“It was for your sake, Palace Lord.”
“For my sake?”
“I thought that if the secret coffer was kept not far from the site of the duel, it might exert some sacred power.”
Even at this moment, the Dark Palace Lord was saying words pleasant to hear.
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace knew the ambition of this Dark Palace Lord well, but he had to acknowledge at least one thing.
The only person capable of conceiving the idea of hiding the secret coffer in such an unexpected place, avoiding the eyes of their enemies, and then putting that idea into action was the Dark Palace Lord.
“Please go in. I will wait here.”
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace nodded once, then entered the building.
Inside was the secret coffer.
The very secret coffer that had been the beginning of all this.
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace stood before the secret coffer.
How urgent must his heart have been for him to have had the sacred treasure of the Heavenly Will Palace brought all the way here?
When the great secret coffer had first produced the small secret coffer, he had never imagined a moment like this would come. He had rejoiced, believing that Heaven’s will had reached him.
As he gazed at the secret coffer, remorse for days past flickered through his eyes. His Heavenly Will had begun when he was very young.
“Do you know this? Since I was a child, I grew up looking at you.”
He spoke as if the secret coffer were a person.
“Since I was young, I was told that protecting you was the mission of this palace. Because you were a sacred treasure containing Heaven’s will, I did not dare even look at you directly. I have lived with the mission of protecting you.”
At this moment, he did not honestly confess one fact. That the reason he had believed in and protected the secret coffer so deeply was neither to uphold the will of his family, nor because of the secret coffer’s sanctity.
Unification of all under heaven.
It was to fulfill that true dream. He had believed that if only the secret coffer awakened, he would be able to achieve that dream.
“Even as I grew older, I strove not to let that feeling change. You are not a dust-covered statue of Buddha. I believed you were not merely an ancient symbol handed down in this palace.”
The voice of the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace, who had been staring at the secret coffer, suddenly grew louder.
“And then you awakened. You, whom I had watched over my entire life, whom I had believed in my entire life.”
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace took the small secret coffer from his bosom and held it high.
“So grant me strength! Convey Heaven’s will to me!”
But neither the great secret coffer nor the small secret coffer showed any change.
The expression of the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace hardened.
He had held a thread of faith that if he conveyed his sincerity, the secret coffer would convey its sincerity in return.
This time, he brought the small secret coffer to the great secret coffer. He grew tense in case it might absorb the small secret coffer again, but once more, nothing happened.
He did not give up.
He circled around the secret coffer, and even tried injecting internal energy into it.
In the past, touching this sacred secret coffer would have been unthinkable.
“If you are not going to grant me power, then why did you awaken at all!”
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace’s cry rang out thunderously.
But the thing he had hoped for never occurred. Suddenly, the Divine Maiden’s prophecy came to mind.
—Heaven’s will does not lie with you, Palace Lord.
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace did not abandon hope until the very end.
“I believe in you.”
When the fierce battle erupted, when life and death hung in the balance, power would be transmitted from the secret coffer.
After all, the birth of a great hero who would unify all under heaven could not come so easily.
After leaving those final words, the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace went outside.
Outside, the Dark Palace Lord was waiting for him in the rain. Because he had heard the words from within, he knew that the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace had failed to obtain power.
“Let us go.”
The Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace walked out into the rain.
The Dark Palace Lord followed behind him. A look of regret appeared on his face, but his true thoughts were different.
‘The prophecy has abandoned you, so how could the secret coffer respond?’
It was clear that the Dark Palace Lord believed in the Divine Maiden’s prophecy.
He interpreted the awakening of this secret coffer in this way.
‘The secret coffer did not awaken as Heaven’s will for you. In the end, it was to seat me as the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace.’
Seeing that the secret coffer did not grant him power was enough for him to believe his thoughts were correct.
Thus, the two men, sharing the same bed but dreaming different dreams, disappeared into the rain together.
After they left, before long, one person revealed himself.
Of course, it was Geom Mugeuk. Using the Divine Eye Art, he had tailed the two of them from afar. Thanks to the pouring rain, he had been able to succeed in following them.
Truly, this rain seemed like a gift Heaven had sent for him.
Geom Mugeuk had followed them from a distance, using the Divine Eye Art to confirm where the two stepped as they went in.
And so, after the two left, he entered this place. Geom Mugeuk stepped into the building where the secret coffer was.
The secret coffer that would change everyone’s fate was there.
The three people who had come here today were each sensing their own Heaven’s will.
Geom Mugeuk was no different.
“You, three hundred years from now, brought me here.”
Geom Mugeuk slowly approached the secret coffer and spoke to it in a friendly tone. Since he had spent so much time treating the secret coffer in his bosom like a friend, this great secret coffer was also easy for him to face.
“There must be a reason your future self brought me to your present self, right?”
Geom Mugeuk placed his hand on the secret coffer. It looked exactly the same as the secret coffer beneath the Yellow Dragon Martial Hall that he had seen earlier with the Sword King, but the aura he sensed from it was somehow different. This one was more vigorous, more brimming with vitality.
“You’ve changed a lot in the meantime. Well, if you suffered for three hundred years, I suppose it’s only natural that you’d change.”
Geom Mugeuk decided that when he returned, he would comfort the secret coffer of the future and tell it it had suffered much. Did that feeling reach it? The secret coffer trembled faintly.
‘The secret coffer is sensing me.’
If so, what he had to say to the secret coffer at this moment was surely this.
Because he believed that the reason it had called him to this world was not only to show him the past, but to convey these very words.
With his hand resting on the secret coffer, Geom Mugeuk spoke calmly.
“Darkness will lead you to the Heavenly Will.”
Now that I have reached you, show me my Heaven’s will.
The moment Geom Mugeuk uttered the prophecy, the small secret coffer in his bosom trembled.
The next instant!
Papapapak.
A strange, thunderous noise came from the great secret coffer. It was the very response the Lord of the Heavenly Will Palace had longed for so desperately.
Startled, Geom Mugeuk sprang backward.
The next moment, an astonishing sight unfolded.
Chiiiiing.
With a sound he had also never heard in his life, something began to be engraved on the wall of the secret coffer.
They were circles. A black circle, a white circle, a blue circle, a red circle, a yellow circle, and finally, a purple circle.
Upon seeing the circles engraved on the secret coffer, the energies he had already absorbed all awakened at once and began to writhe.
The next moment!
Light seemed to burst forth from the six circles all at once, and that light formed words in the air.
—This mind art is completed only when the six energies are moved as a single energy. In moving true qi, be as free as the wind, yet as heavy as the earth. You must be able to surge hotly like fire, yet stop like ice. You must be as deep as darkness and as powerful as lightning. If you can unite these six energies into one, you will be able to possess the greatest power of all ages, past and present.
The moment he read those words, Geom Mugeuk’s heart surged.
This incantation was undoubtedly the mind art formula that would allow him to use the energies he had obtained through the secret coffer.
At that very moment!
Riiiiip.
The empty air directly before Geom Mugeuk’s eyes tore open. The space where there had truly been nothing split apart as if pulled from both sides, and darkness unfolded within the gap.
From within that darkness, white smoke rose and began forming words.
‘It’s a mind art formula!’
But he could not understand what it meant. There were unfamiliar words mixed in, seemingly terms used in the martial world of ancient times.
That was the beginning.
Rumble!
The ground beneath his feet overturned, and a crust of earth surged up from below. The formula was written in soil upon that earthen crust. Some of these words, too, he could recognize, while others he could not.
At the same time, something pressed down from the ceiling.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang.
What descended from the air were enormous icicles. As though carved with an awl, formulas glowed white upon those icicles as well.
Fwoooooosh.
Flames soared up from all directions.
Within the flames that spewed scorching heat, formulas wavered.
Truly, the spectacle that continued to unfold was enough to inspire awe merely by witnessing it.
Whoooooosh.
Wind whirled above his head. Astonishingly, letters were drifting within the wind as well.
Craaaack!
Lightning struck down. Even in the scorched place where the lightning had fallen, traces of the formula remained.
In a form he had never seen in his life, the formulas revealed themselves. Geom Mugeuk could feel just how extraordinary this mind art was.
But no matter how intelligent Geom Mugeuk was, he could not memorize all of it when it was filled with words he did not even know.
A brief silence flowed.
The small secret coffer at Geom Mugeuk’s chest trembled.
Wooooong.
The next moment, the characters of the formulas all around began shining in their respective colors.
Shwaaaaaaaaaang!
Six streams of light, each containing its own formula, began pouring into Geom Mugeuk’s body.