Book 25 Chapter 23

When the southern sky opens

-Beyond the Veil

"I, Bai Xiaochun, have gone to the Black Heavenly Blind."

There was another man who received the same report that Xu Tian had received, and he listened to it while seated behind the curtain with the words Destruction written on it.

The man who made the report, prostrate at a distance of about a mile from the tabernacle, had the number "twelve" written on his back and an iron mask over his face.

"A request for a visit from Nabechuan?"

"None."

The iron mask reported back.

"His movements?"

"Not much movement yet."

"You don't mean to tell me you're going to enforce the 'Thousand-Burning Welfare System'?"

The first hint of agitation escaped his lips.

"It's certainly possible, otherwise I don't think he'd be heading to the Black Panther Party out of the blue after his daughter was kidnapped. He must have had a hand in it."

It was a plan that had been decades in the making, and it was unacceptable for the man to go off on a tangent, yet he did it anyway. Without a second thought.

"Do you want to stop it?"

Minimizing surprises is key to the success of your plan.

"……."

The man behind the curtain thought for a moment. Decades of hard work could be undone all at once. A million cautions are never enough.

The plan was to literally move heaven and earth. There could not be the slightest error in its execution. But when the wheels of the stationary cart began to turn, should this be seen as a sign?

"Is this a provocation, is this a call to action to implement the One Thousand Islands Welfare System as soon as possible, that this opportunity will never come?

But the most important ingredient for that was missing here.

"He hasn't even woken up yet……."

It was difficult to continue with the plan, but it was also impossible to stop the chariot once it started running.

"The plan is……."

At last, the command fell from his lips, and after expending a great deal of energy to make that single decision, Beitou slowly sank back into his chair. And a quiet word flowed from his mouth.

"No one can stop me now."

* * *

Eunmyung entered the underground interview room after being ordered to do so again, but she still felt uncomfortable.

As I always feel whenever I come here, the air is heavy and it is hard to breathe. I feel this pressure because I have a strong sense of the presence on the other side of that curtain that says 'Abomination'. I had never thought that there was any kind of affection between a parent and a child, even though they actually shared blood. Had he ever truly felt parental love in his life? He hadn't even crossed the veil yet.

'Even though it's a child…….'

Beyond the dim candlelight, the thin black curtain seemed like a giant barrier.

He doesn't remember his mother's face. She died when he was still a baby, before he was old enough. He was raised by a nanny from an early age, but it never made his father sad.

My father had lived a hundred years, but his hair was still gray, as if to show the level of mastery he had reached. My mother was one of the many women he had passed through in those hundred years. It was unclear if they were even formally married. There was no one around to teach him about such things.

Growing up, he rarely saw his father's face. It wasn't until he was seven years old that he realized he had a father.

"Now I can learn martial arts."

His father appeared before him not because he wanted to see his child, but because he needed to teach him martial arts.

"You will be a child of heaven."

I was ten years old when I heard those words, and from then on, I constantly learned about the greatness of the Heavenly Demon Blood God and the corruption and foolishness of this powerhouse. I practiced martial arts relentlessly. It was his mission as one of the 'Children of Heaven' to work wholeheartedly for the resurrection of Heaven. It was not until five years later that he learned that his father was the first and foremost of the Four Heavenly Fears, the four mighty men who had guarded the supreme legendary Heavenly Blood God.

How surprised he was when he realized that it was his own father who had been the leader of the Four Heavenly Terror, which had become an almost forgotten legend after the deaths of East Heaven, South Heaven, and West Heaven at the hands of the Godless Tiger God Army, the Godless Horse Pathfinder, Gal Zhonghyeok, and the Three Heavenly Terrorists during the uprising a hundred years ago, and whose leader, North Heaven, had disappeared, leaving him gravely wounded and incapacitated! He had heard the fearsome legends and horrors of the Thousand Frightening Spirits from the stories that were told around the city. And now, one of those weathered legends was his own father……. But then, as a boy, he thought.

-Great!

Answer.

When he realized that his father was one of the legendary figures, he thought, "Awesome!" for better or worse. From that point on, he felt that resurrecting the Celestial Spirit was the mission he was born to fulfill. He was even willing to betray those he admired in order to do so. He even became a demon to steal the eyes of those he loved.

It's all for the 'heavens'. It's all for the new year to come.

But while all of that seemed like justice to me before, now I don't know what's right and what's wrong. He knew that black wasn't black, white wasn't white, and red wasn't red. The world was far more complicated than he realized. How ridiculous it was to cut it up and divide it into compartments. But even if he knew that, what could he do now? There was no way back for him now. There was nothing left to do but move forward. He could not resist the fate that had been dealt to him. He had only rebelled a few times.

He was never told he had a brother. But I always thought about it. It's just something that comes to mind.

How many women had he passed through in the last hundred years, and was it possible that none of them had produced a single child? What if some woman had produced a child from his seed? Where were they now? Was it possible that there were others like him, with the same father, scattered all over the world, and that they were just getting along, not knowing each other, and that the only one who knew their identity was their father.

"Maybe I'm just one of hundreds of children.

And those hundreds of children could be a handy pawn for their father.

'Just like I am now…….'

Although he sometimes has impure thoughts, he can't bring himself to rebel. He is like a child, craving his father's love and attention, unwilling to be seen as anything but submissive. But it is impossible for him to escape his father's shadow; it is his destiny as a child to be born under such a father. Just as a baby cannot choose the parents it is born to, it cannot escape its destiny.

'Maybe humans can't escape fate after all…….'

His few defiance of fate had all ended in failure, with disastrous results for him. He didn't have the heart to try it again.

Today, however, his fate was about to take another major twist, but this time it was not of his own making.

"The time has come."

Where did it come from? The voice came from the dark basement, from behind a curtain labeled Abomination. I could feel his presence, as if he had suddenly appeared in the room, when he had clearly not been there a moment ago. At the same time, the pressure increased. It became difficult to breathe, as if her heart was being squeezed by an invisible hand. Eunmyeong's entire body tensed as she cowered about a foot away from the curtain.

"……."

What are we talking about?

But he wasn't allowed to ask questions yet, so I couldn't.

"Practice the Fourteenth Precept!"

The Fourth Plan? No way, the Fourth Plan? So soon?!

"That's too fast, please reconsider!"

Forgetting his position, Eunmyeong shouted.

"Too fast? Reconsider?"

"No, I wouldn't say we're ready yet."

If you start thinking after the fact, it's too late. In a job where time is of the essence, even time to think is a luxury. So here, a number of tactics were waiting in the wings, labeled in order. In case they need to be used someday. You don't create a strategy for a situation, you choose a strategy for a situation from hundreds of strategies in reserve. Because they are situational, they vary as much as the heavens and the earth in size and impact. Some are designed to eliminate a single person, while others are designed to destroy an entire school of thought. Among them, the Fourteenth Plan was a different kind of plan. It was a plan to overturn the entire system of power that had been maintained for the past hundred years. Therefore, the name of the plan was "The Fourteenth Plan for the Welfare of Heaven and Earth" in that sense. Knowing the true content of the plan, which meant turning the heavens and earth upside down, made Eunmyeong even more terrified. He could see that the past hundred years of stagnant time would accelerate in an instant, and the torrent of time would begin to run wild, swallowing up the entire river.

"Most of all, 'He' hasn't woken up yet."

The plan was always there, ready for that moment. There had to be someone to hold back the torrent of time. Otherwise, all would be lost, for an endless maelstrom of blood would sweep away all, black and white, leaving no foundation stone unturned.

"That's why I say the time has come, my son."

Son." It was the first word he'd heard since entering this 'underground interview room', he continued.

"A hundred years since then, we have waited, but it was wrong. We should not have waited. We should not have waited for our master, the true master of this horde, to return. We must prepare a place worthy of his return. We must prepare the way for his return. If we sit still, nothing will change. We must be the first to move and receive Him."

"We first……."

"Yes, we will, before anyone else. We must show the fools of peace that He still stands. We must end this rotten old history and begin a new one. The fourteen rituals. Geography and printing were already in place. All that was needed was a heavenly time. And now, finally, we have it. Now that the heavens and the earth have been prepared, all that remains is to execute!"

Eunmyeong shivered involuntarily. Something irreversible was about to happen, and he couldn't tell if it was the excitement of a new era, or the fear of changing the familiarity of the present.

"I didn't expect the opportunity to come so soon after the failure of 'Volcanic System' either. Are you afraid?"

"……."

Yin Ming didn't answer. Then Bei Tian asked again.

"Are you afraid, that you will seal the fate of the Warlords? But there comes a time when everyone must make a decision. Can you make the decision?"

Eunmyeong knelt down and bowed her head even further.

"My destiny is with the heavens. Turning the entire Martial Realm against its enemies is a fate that has been set in stone since my birth. No matter how frightening it is, I will make a decision."

"Good! Come closer."

The words startled Eun-myung again; this had never happened before.

"What are you doing, come closer."

Rising from the well, Eunmyeong approached the tabernacle and stopped just in front of it. The black curtain had always stood before him like a great wall. To go any further would be unforgivable, but today was different.

"What are you doing? Come closer."

Looking at the hesitant Eunmyeong, Beitou said.

"Ha, but……."

Beyond this curtain of abomination was an absolute no-go zone that could not be crossed. There were no exceptions, not even for children. As far as Eunmyeong knew, there were only two kinds of people who could cross that barrier at will.

One is the Lord and master of the heavens, and the other is…….

"It doesn't matter. Come on over."

Eunmyeong's eyes widened. His fate was twisting with a creak and a crash. Something was about to change, and then he realized.

"This curtain is a boundary line!

If he crosses this line, there will probably be no turning back. He had already plucked out the eyes of the woman he loved with his own hands and murdered her existence. It was as if she no longer existed in this world. There was no place for him to return to, for he had destroyed it himself.

"Are you afraid? If so, turn back. We don't need cowards who flail at fate."

The idea was that if you don't have a strong enough willpower to make a decision, you're not going to get anywhere.

Honestly, Eunmyeong was afraid. Something unseen and huge was waiting for him. Something that would make Eunmyeong and the Grand Duchess Bi disappear in one fell swoop, and create a new him. He had a strong feeling that he would no longer be himself. But he didn't want to be called a coward; he needed to be a useful son. Finally making up his mind, Eunmyeong answered.

"No, I will go forward, father!"

He had no choice but to move forward, even if it meant turning all of them against him.

He broke through the barrier.

It was the first time he had ever seen the sights inside. It had always been an unknown place, shrouded in darkness. Eunmyeong looked around with small movements. There was nothing special about it, aside from the fact that there were no objects on either side of her that could shine. Up ahead, however, was a different story. It was much different than he had expected.

As he moved closer to the heart of the darkness, he saw the "throne" where his father sat, but it was not a single throne. There were four chairs side by side, three steps high, each labeled Southeast and West, and a man sitting in the seat that should have been labeled North. Behind these four chairs, six steps higher and deeper into the interior, still shrouded in darkness, was a throne, now empty, with a translucent curtain between them. In the center of the curtain was the word "Heavenly Fear" in large, bold red letters.

'Right behind him is…….'

The mere sight of the words filled her with fear and awe, and she stifled a shudder as she stared beyond that final curtain, but there was no sign of life behind it.

'It's empty……. Also…….'

The throne had been empty for a hundred years, waiting for the return of a master worthy to sit upon it. Barely controlling her uncontrollable trembling, Eun-myung drew ever closer to the monk. She stopped at the bottom of the three flights of stairs and tried to rise again, but Beichuan stopped her.

"You don't have to kneel. Come up."

Eunmyeong shuddered.

"Come up? Why? Why?

The place itself, behind the curtain, already felt like the wrong place for him to be, and the top of these stairs was even more out of place. Up these three not-so-high steps was a whole other world.

"Why, you don't know what it means to cross that veil, do you?"

"Oh yeah, that's it!

The fate that awaited him was heavier than he could have imagined, and Eunmyeong could barely keep his wits about him. He had this terrifying feeling that he was becoming something he wasn't, but he also realized that there was nowhere to turn. Pushing against her shaky legs, she climbed the stairs.

"I'm going to be away for a while. I'm going to be gone for a while because I need to be there to execute the plan."

"Yes."

"But before that, let me give you this."

A box floated silently to the top of a spot labeled "South" next to it. It was a trick of the Thin Thing. Bei Tian's gaze never left the box. The box moved of its own accord and floated in front of Yin Ming. With a trembling hand, Yin Ming accepted the box. On the box was written in large letters, "Nan Tian.

"I have recovered the secret weapon of Nantian and his poison weapon. It also contains the necessary elixirs for cultivation. You have laid a sufficient foundation in the martial arts of the heavens, and should be able to achieve some success with the secret weapon alone. The rest of your progress is up to you."

"Yes, thank you."

"Wake up!"

Eunmyeong rose from his seat. Beichuan was the first to rise, and he lifted the cloth that had been wrapped around the Southern Heavenly Throne and draped it over Eunmyeong's shoulders. Then, finally, he placed a bronze mask over his face.

The copper mask slowly covered her face, and in that moment, it was as if she had become someone else. And Eunmyeong realized that she would never be able to escape this fate.

When all the rituals were completed, Beitian declared.

"From this day forward, you are 'Nan Tian'."

For the first time, there was a tinge of pride in the sound.

"The Second Coming of the Heavenly Blood Tax Blood God! I will sacrifice my life for the sake of the world!"

Eunmyeong shouted.

"This day has finally come. I have been teaching you all this time to make you a Nan Tian. Your martial arts are also based on Nan Tian's martial arts, so it should be a good match. Now that you have the arcane and arcane weapons, you will truly become a Nan Tian. Your martial arts will also improve by leaps and bounds, incomparable to what it is now."

Bei Tian burst out laughing, as if he couldn't contain it.

"Hahahahahaha! With the end of the South Heaven, all the Four Heavenly Fears have finally gathered to create the World of Heavenly Fears, to write the New Murimachi, and to put an end to the history of the Old Murimachi."

Once his hot and confused head had cooled down a bit, he began to take in his surroundings. The first thing that caught his eye were the two spots labeled East and West.

"Who are the owners of those seats?

It was clear from our earlier discussion that he had the full complement of Sichuan Terrors. That meant he was at the top of his game. By age, experience, and skill, it was a given. He had no intention of disagreeing. He still couldn't believe that he had been chosen to sit at the seat of the Southern Heaven. It had happened so suddenly.

So who are the East and West Heaven that were filled before then?

Looking at the two empty seats, Eun-myung was tempted to ask who they were.

But he couldn't ask him directly. Even if he had just received the status of Nan Tian, he was still only halfway there. If he didn't gain the progression of a Nan Tian, there was nothing to be said for being abandoned. Talent, not status, was the teaching of the Heavens. It was a truth of the heavens that the weak would be culled.

For the time being, those two digits would remain a mystery.

With the seats of the Four Heavenly Fears filled, the Descendants of the Four Heavenly Fears have finally begun to move in earnest.

A hundred years of peace.

The bank of peace had cracked, and it was bursting at the seams, and the raging torrent threatened to swallow the world. The fate of the Murim was about to be swept into the raging torrent.

<Continued from Book 26 of Fault Tolerance