TBISF 342

Chapter: 342

Closing the Forest Gate

“Are you saying there is another realm below the Azure Ash Realm?”

“Above and below are merely directions we assign so we can understand it. It may lie deeper than the ley lines of the Azure Ash Realm. Or it may exist behind the space to which the Azure Ash Realm belongs. It could even be a crack that no longer belongs to any realm after its collapse.”

Eun Heoja paused before looking at Kang Hyun.

“What did you hear just now?”

Kang Hyun saw no reason to hide it.

“At first, it asked where it was.”

The middle-aged female cultivator’s expression stiffened even further.

“And after that?”

“It asked for it to be returned.”

“What was it referring to?”

Hyeon Baekjin asked.

“I couldn’t tell that much.”

Kang Hyun retraced the intention he had sensed from the Void.

There had been no anger or murderous intent.

But neither had there been any goodwill.

Only an obsessive persistence remained, as though it would seize and tear apart anything in its path to recover what it had lost.

“However, I don’t think that question was directed at me or the three familiars.”

“Then what was it directed toward?”

“The forest inside the Mystic Realm. Or perhaps… it didn’t matter where the forest was, as long as it was a forest.”

Hyeon Baekjin’s face hardened.

Kang Hyun continued calmly.

“The Void saw the Mystic Realm through the three familiars. It sensed the countless trees and familiars within it. I think it found something in that forest I possess that resembles what it lost.”

“It could be the Azure Wood Spirit.”

The middle-aged female cultivator spoke cautiously.

“The Azure Wood Spirit was searching for the forest of the Azure Ash Realm. If the Void is also searching for the heart of that forest…”

“Searching for the same thing does not mean they are the same existence.”

Eun Heoja cut her off.

“What I felt from the Azure Wood Spirit was hunger and longing. But what that thing showed us just now was obsession. We still don’t know whether it seeks to recover something it lost… or reclaim something that was stolen.”

Kang Hyun nodded.

The Void’s intent was different from the Azure Wood Spirit’s.

The Azure Wood Spirit longed for the forest.

But whatever lay beneath the Void was not searching for the forest itself. It was searching for something specific that should have been inside that forest.

Eun Heoja gathered the silver needles.

“That concludes today’s observation.”

“Will you not examine it again?”

the middle-aged female cultivator asked.

“Not in the same manner. Now that we know it occupies any empty gaze we create, there is no reason to open that same path again.”

Eun Heoja turned toward Kang Hyun.

“Keep the three familiars from seeing the Azure Ash Realm for the time being.”

“I’ve already closed the connection. I intend to let all three sleep until the injured one recovers.”

“Good. But do not kill them.”

Kang Hyun looked at Eun Heoja with slight surprise.

Only moments ago, she had been the first to ask whether he could kill the familiars.

Eun Heoja explained,

“The three familiars may have become the Void’s eyes. But they are also the only beings that remember what the Void was trying to see. Once we confirm that every trace has disappeared, it will be better to keep them alive.”

“I agree.”

Kang Hyun bowed his head.

“However, isolate them from your other familiars. Their roots must never reconnect.”

“I will.”

Hyeon Baekjin let out a long sigh.

“We meant to see what remained inside the wound, yet it seems the wound looked at us first.”

Eun Heoja shook his head.

“No.”

Hyeon Baekjin looked at him carefully.

“Do you mean something else?”

“There is a high possibility that it had been watching us from the very beginning. What we accomplished today was not drawing its attention, but confirming that we had been watching each other all along.”

Silence settled over the stone chamber once more.

Kang Hyun stared at the circular platform where the image of the Azure Ash Realm had vanished.

The Void was not the center of the Azure Ash Realm.

It was the shadow covering the place where the center had once existed.

And beneath that shadow lurked something whose name and appearance were still unknown.

Something that had torn the roots of the Azure Ash Realm away from its center.

Something that had spent countless ages searching for whatever had disappeared.

Something that had seen the forest inside the Mystic Realm through the three familiars and sent the thought:

Return it.

He still did not know what it sought to reclaim.

But one thing was certain.

The overlap between the Gray Spirit Realm and the Black Pine Mountain Range had not been a coincidence.

The grayness of the Azure Ash Realm had wandered in search of a living forest, and at the end of that search it had encountered the Azure Five Spirit Realm and Kang Hyun’s familiars.

And now, even whatever lay beneath the Void had become aware of that connection.

As Eun Heoja walked toward the exit, he spoke.

“Kang Hyun.”

“Yes?”

“For the time being, do not open the gate to the Mystic Realm.”

Kang Hyun’s gaze darkened.

That meant even the passage inside the Forest of Life and Death had to be closed.

Every road connecting the Mystic Realm to the outside world had to be severed.

“Do you believe the Void has seen the path?”

“The Void does not know where your Mystic Realm is.”

Eun Heoja cast a contemplative gaze into empty space.

“But it now knows that somewhere there is a living forest… perhaps one it may someday reach.”

Kang Hyun remained silent.

Eun Heoja’s words settled heavily over the chamber.

“And so, from this moment onward… it will begin searching for you first.”

After leaving the stone chamber, Eun Heoja did not stop Kang Hyun again.

The middle-aged female cultivator remained behind to erase the traces left on the circular platform, while Kang Hyun and Hyeon Baekjin returned to their quarters through the long corridor.

For a while, neither spoke.

The night at Eunryugwan was quiet.

Thin mist drifted between floating mountain peaks, while silver lanterns glimmered faintly beneath the eaves of distant halls.

The scenery was peaceful.

Yet Kang Hyun could not stop thinking about what lay hidden beneath it.

The concepts of above and below they had discussed today were not directions in space.

They could be the backside of a realm.

Or the gap left by a collapsed one.

If that was true…

How far away was whatever lay beneath the Void of the Azure Ash Realm?

Or had it always been much closer than they imagined, unable to reach them only because no path existed between them?

“Cultivator Kang.”

Hyeon Baekjin finally broke the silence.

“Do you truly intend to close every gate to the Mystic Realm?”

“Eun Heoja has spoken. I must follow his instructions.”

“And what of the people living inside the Mystic Realm?”

“What does that matter? There’s no need to send them out. I’m only closing the gates connected to the outside.”

Many people lived within the Mystic Realm, including those in the Primordial Garden.

They had already adapted to life there and had no reason to leave.

The real issue was the passage inside the Forest of Life and Death.

It was the clearest route connecting the Mystic Realm with the Azure Five Spirit Realm.

It was also a symbol Kang Hyun had engraved into that realm.

A gate he had left behind so that those who needed it could reach the Mystic Realm when necessary.

“Will simply closing the gate be enough?”

“It may not.”

Kang Hyun knew that himself.

What the Void had seen was not the location of the passage.

It had sensed the life force of the Mystic Realm beyond Kang Hyun’s divine consciousness, connected through the three familiars.

If so…

Would merely closing the spatial gate truly erase every trace?

“First, I’ll close the gate. Then I’ll withdraw every resonance extending beyond the Mystic Realm, one by one.”

“Even your connection to the Forest of Life and Death?”

Kang Hyun did not answer immediately.

The Forest of Life and Death was not inside the Mystic Realm.

It was a forest rooted in the Azure Five Spirit Realm, with only a passage leading into the Mystic Realm.

Yet it had grown by receiving Kang Hyun’s will and life force, becoming deeply intertwined with the Mystic Realm.

Now he had no choice but to weaken that bond.

“I won’t sever it completely.”

Kang Hyun finally said.

“Instead, I’ll suppress the resonance until it’s barely detectable. Unless I call first, nothing over there will be able to sense the presence of the Mystic Realm.”

Hyeon Baekjin thought for a moment before nodding.

“I don’t know what the Supreme Elder would think, but to me that seems wiser. If you cut it off too abruptly, it might leave an even greater trace.”

After returning to his quarters, Kang Hyun immediately sealed the room.

Hyeon Baekjin entered as well and took a seat in one corner.

If anything went wrong while Kang Hyun closed the Mystic Realm’s gate, he would respond immediately.

Kang Hyun sat on the bed and closed his eyes.

As his divine consciousness sank inward, the familiar landscape of the Mystic Realm unfolded before him.

Vast land.

Forests.

Countless spiritual herbs and towering trees.

He felt all at once the lives of those dwelling throughout the realm, along with the vitality of the familiars whose roots stretched deep beneath the earth.

This was what the Void had tried to see.

Not a single tree.

Not two.

But a place where countless living beings were connected, forming one immense current of life.

Kang Hyun first directed his awareness toward the outskirts of the Mystic Realm.

The three familiars carrying gray energy stood separated from one another.

The last familiar, whose three roots had been severed, leaned to one side, while the first and second familiars supported it by holding the surrounding earth in place.

One by one, Kang Hyun withdrew the lingering resonance between them.

He closed the vision of the first familiar.

Its gray leaves slowly folded shut, and the senses once directed outward turned inward.

He also reclaimed the divine consciousness left within the second familiar.

The roots that had been tracing faint echoes of vitality came to a halt.

The dim light flowing through its trunk disappeared.

The last familiar proved far more difficult.

Though the Void’s trace had vanished, the senses that had once been forcibly opened remained unstable.

It appeared motionless.

Yet the tips of its gray leaves trembled almost imperceptibly.

Kang Hyun did not rush.

He examined its roots, trunk, and leaves in order, making certain no foreign presence remained.

The grayness was still there.

But it was only the original gray aura it had carried ever since the Black Pine Mountain Range.

It was different from the alien intention that had seeped in from the Void.

Kang Hyun gently poured a tiny amount of his own life force into the familiar’s core.

Not to force its wounds to heal.

Only enough to remind it that it was still connected to him.

A faint response returned from the leaning trunk.

It hurts.

It is empty.

But it is alive.

After confirming that simple feeling, Kang Hyun slowly calmed the familiar’s consciousness.

Sleep.

Do not look for now.

Do not listen.

Do not seek.

His will spread through its roots and trunk.

The gray leaves folded shut one after another.

Even the highest branch, which had trembled until the very end, slowly drooped.

Kang Hyun then raised the surrounding earth.

The strata along the outskirts of the Mystic Realm shifted, forming a circular hill around the three familiars.

He erected layers of stone so that outside life force could not flow in, then reinforced them with the True Jade Earth Technique, creating one thick wall.

He left only an extremely narrow channel of life force, enough to keep the three familiars from touching one another while preventing them from withering to death in complete isolation.

Finally, he left a single tiny path through which only his own consciousness could pass.

Even that path would remain closed under normal circumstances.

After putting the three familiars to sleep, Kang Hyun turned his awareness toward the passage leading to the Forest of Life and Death.

Beyond the gate at one edge of the Mystic Realm, the breeze from the Azure Five Spirit Realm drifted in faintly.

The gate had never appeared as a massive spatial rift.

It was a passage hidden among intertwined trees, roots, and vines, opening only when touched by Kang Hyun’s will.

As his consciousness approached, the familiars guarding the gate reacted.

Roots shifted.

Vines slowly parted, trying to open the closed path.

Kang Hyun stopped them.

“Close it.”

The trees within the Mystic Realm moved first.

Thick roots wrapped around the edges of the passage.

Then dozens of layers of vines covered the gap in space.

A response came from the Forest of Life and Death as well.

The familiars beyond the passage understood his intent and began withdrawing the roots that had been holding the path open.

The flow connecting the two worlds gradually thinned.

The wind ceased.

Even the scent of soil and trees drifting in from the Forest of Life and Death disappeared.

In the end, only a crack thinner than a strand of hair remained.

Kang Hyun did not close it immediately.

Through the familiars surrounding the passage, he made one final inspection of the Forest of Life and Death.

The forest was peaceful.

There were no signs of gray energy spreading anew.

Nor could he sense anything reaching in from the Azure Ash Realm.

A few familiars, sensing the gate about to close, sent faint questions.

Kang Hyun answered with a brief thought.

Wait.

I will call you again.

Only then did the familiars on the other side completely withdraw their roots.

Kang Hyun closed the final gap.

Tap.

An almost imperceptible sensation spread.

Yet at that moment, the entire Mystic Realm seemed to hold its breath.

It was the change brought about by closing a gate that had remained open for so long.

Several familiars within the realm shook their branches.

Even in the distant Primordial Garden, people instinctively looked toward the sky.

Nothing visible had changed.

But the most sensitive among them unconsciously realized that one subtle current flowing in from the outside had vanished.

Kang Hyun did not explain anything.

There was no need to cause confusion.

His Mystic Realm had always been capable of existing independently, even without outside connections.

Yet even after closing the passage, he did not withdraw his consciousness.

Instead, he examined every resonance extending beyond the Mystic Realm.

Not only the Forest of Life and Death.

There were also countless branches, roots, and trees he had left behind across the many realms through which he had traveled.

Most felt only faintly now because of the immense distances and the separation between realms.

But none of those connections had truly been severed.

Kang Hyun observed each one.

He could not close them all.

They were not mere passages or techniques.

They were the traces he had left behind over countless journeys through many realms.

Lives that had grown alongside him.

To cut them all away simply to avoid the Void…

That would be denying the path he himself had built.

I can hide them… but I cannot abandon them.

Instead of severing the outward resonances, Kang Hyun concealed them within.

He left the paths by which his familiars could find him.

But he erected layer upon layer of barriers so that no one could follow those paths through him into the Mystic Realm itself.

He also separated each connection so that none could serve as a bridge from one forest to another.

The Mystic Realm was hidden behind every one of those links.

The work took a long time.

His divine consciousness wavered repeatedly.

Combined with the strain from the earlier observation, Kang Hyun’s face gradually grew paler.

Hyeon Baekjin watched from across the room but did not interfere recklessly.

Only after a long while did Kang Hyun open his eyes.

Outside the window, dawn had already begun to spread across the sky.

Hyeon Baekjin asked,

“Is it finished?”

“The gate is closed. The three familiars have been put to sleep.”

“And the other connections?”

“I concealed only the paths leading to the Mystic Realm. I did not sever the bonds connecting me to the familiars outside.”

At the very least, even if the Void reached the Mystic Realm, it would no longer be able to spread outward through it.