Irang gave him four more precautions.

If he met another Daemudo disciple, they were to travel together.

If he encountered a stranger, he was to strike first and subdue them.

The place richest in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was the heart of the secret realm, and he was to make his way there.

If he encountered any mechanisms or formations he could not identify at his level, he was never to touch them.

"Senior, may I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Why are only Qi Refining Cultivators able to enter the secret realm?"

"You really did crawl in here knowing nothing."

Irang let out a barely perceptible sigh. Hall Master U Yuhee's description of him as someone with a death wish was perfectly apt.

"This secret realm is the remnants of a battlefield."

"Yes, I heard that."

"During the Thousand-Demon War three hundred years ago, or at some point before it, a portion of the heavenly realm where a battle was taking place was severed by the aftermath of a clash between True Immortals. Most secret realms called 'remnants of a battlefield' were created that way. They drift through the universe, and whenever they approach the human realm, an entrance opens."

"...?"

"Since the space is imbued with the power of such mighty beings, countless wondrous and auspicious things have formed within it. Sometimes ancient objects from thousands of years ago are buried there, too."

What kind of fight could possibly sever space itself? It was utterly beyond Yise's understanding.

"An immense spiritual pressure left by the True Immortals' battle remains in that space. If someone with highly compressed spiritual energy, such as a Dharma-Transformed Dantian or a golden core, enters it, their spiritual root bursts and is destroyed."

"I see..."

Ever since he had entered the cultivation world, it had been one incomprehensible thing after another.

"Don't try to understand it. These are matters of the heavens above."

"Yes, Senior."

"All you need to do is fight your enemies, overcome them, and return safely. If you find any spiritual herbs, dig them up with the soil and bring them back in this."

Irang handed him a green pouch. It was a spiritual-herb pouch, a storage pouch that kept spiritual herbs alive to preserve their spirituality.

"Will I have to... return this?"

"Bring back spiritual herbs and turn them over to the Spirit Beast Forest, and you can keep it."

"Understood."

Blue-black darkness writhed in welcome. A strange pressure seeped from the rift, a pulling force as though space itself meant to swallow him.

Yise took a breath, then stepped forward. The black space enfolded his body.

* * *

"He's taking so long. Nothing's happened to him, has it?"

Meanwhile, at Dine Before You Depart on the main mountain, Seol Ryeong lay slumped with her cheek against a table. She stopped by from time to time to ask after Yise, but his seclusion seemed never to end.

Pi Garam and Bu Chun were just as eager for news. Would he reach Great Attainment? Would someone from their intake finally become the first to attempt Foundation Establishment?

As those questions mounted, Park Gangseo rushed into Dine Before You Depart.

"News! Big news!"

All three turned toward him at once. There was only one thing that could make him kick up such a fuss.

"He's out?!"

"How did it go?"

Park Gangseo caught his breath, raised an index finger, and gave them a meaningful look.

"He's out."

"Then why are you alone? Where's Yise?"

At Seol Ryeong's question, Park Gangseo gave a hollow laugh. Even he found the news absurd.

"Apparently, he went into the secret realm."

"...?"

What on earth was that supposed to mean? All three minds briefly ground to a halt.

He had gone where?

"You know the Dark Heaven Secret Realm that opened a little while ago? He heard about it as soon as he came out and went straight in."

They had heard the news about the secret realm opening. Of course, it had nothing to do with them, at no more than Middle Stage Qi Refining, and they had thought Yise would miss his chance this time because he was in seclusion. Yet he had gone in. He had emerged at an astonishingly opportune moment.

"A secret realm isn't some neighborhood walking trail... Did he at least prepare properly?"

"I doubt he prepared at all. They said he left as soon as he came out."

He might be a prodigy people called a monster, but this was a secret realm. Rumor had it that such places were nothing short of a hell of carnage.

"What about my ritual implements?"

"He must have taken them with him."

"Is he out of his fucking mind?"

* * *

Immense pressure bore down on his body. Just as he began to worry that he might actually burst, the black space spat Yise out. His toes touched solid ground. He bent his knees slightly to absorb the impact, balancing on the balls of his feet.

At that very moment, a wedge-shaped spell charged with killing intent came flying from his right, aimed at his neck. He raised the Yellow Grand Parasol, and the shield took the spiritual energy head-on. A vibrating impact traveled into his wrist, but his spirit-boned body did not budge.

He swiftly located his opponent and lunged a step forward. The assailant's eyes shook as though an earthquake had struck when Yise closed in, unfazed by the ambush.

Without even taking time to gauge the enemy's realm, he drove the Yellow Grand Parasol toward their head. Seeing his opponent hastily summon the metal element for a defensive spell, he abandoned the shield strike—a feint—and sliced through their waist with his hand axe. The change in his line of attack was unimaginably fast for a Cultivator.

SHICK!

The Cultivator, a head shorter than Yise, was cut cleanly in two. Yise withdrew his axe and looked down at the corpse.

'Weak.'

The ambush itself had been a fine tactic, but the response to an unorthodox attack had been woefully inadequate. With spell control at that level, the assailant could not even react to a Cultivator trained in body-refining methods. Such pitiful skill hardly befitted someone who had entered a secret realm. The spiritual energy dispersing from the corpse was only around the seventh star, too. Someone must have brought this Cultivator along, or they had recklessly entered hoping to strike it rich through a fortuitous encounter.

Yise brought down his hand axe, severing the Cultivator's head. He impaled it on an Earthen Spear, then searched the robes and found a storage pouch. But there were no ritual implements. Judging by the scorched and torn robes, the Cultivator had apparently already lost a fight and been stripped of everything.

Just as Yise was feeling disappointed, he detected a fluctuation of spiritual energy behind him. He turned. Beyond the black rocks, a figure was rapidly fleeing into the distance—a figure identical to the Cultivator he had cut down.

His gaze returned to the corpse at his feet. The fabric of its robes was unraveling into fine strands, as if dispersing. It was a double. As might be expected of someone who had entered a secret realm, the Cultivator had apparently possessed at least one means of saving their life.

'... Quite the welcome.'

Yise smacked his lips. His opponent had been fleeing at full speed from the moment the ambush failed. Judging by that speed, they had even learned an escape spell.

He looked away and slowly surveyed his surroundings. The secret realm's landscape was alien. Dark Heaven—just as the realm's name suggested, a black sky stretched overhead. A midnight sky without moon, stars, or clouds would look exactly like this.

He could not even tell whether he was indoors or outdoors. Black sand lay beneath his feet, and the rocky hills jutting up here and there were pitch-black as well. It was difficult to distinguish earth from sky. Each time he looked up or down, dizziness swept over him as though he were trapped in an illusion formation.

There seemed to be not a single speck of light, yet he could see clearly. Dark light, contradictory as that sounded. There was no other way to describe the place.

He walked on, examining his surroundings. He had landed in a rocky area, hardly an environment where spiritual herbs could grow. In places, chunks had been gouged from the rocks. Someone had apparently already cleared out all the unusual minerals. Most of the nearby area would be no different.

Yise headed toward the stronger spiritual energy. As Irang had advised, he intended to reach the center of the realm, where the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was abundant.

As he went, he began finding bodies, one after another. Every one lay amid signs of fierce combat. Some had merely been beheaded; others had their torsos split apart. Broken fragments of ritual implements lay scattered beside them, and some corpses were riddled with holes as though something had pecked at them. The times and manners of their deaths varied widely.

Among the bodies were some stripped of their outer garments. Yise frowned slightly. At first, he suspected rape and murder. But on closer inspection, the stripped bodies included both men and women, and apart from their missing outer garments, they bore no particular signs of abuse.

'Someone took their robes?'

Yise committed the sight to memory. Was it simply some sexual deviant's Demon-Expelling Mark? Or was the rule here to count even robes as resources and literally take everything? Or was there some other reason entirely?

A little farther on, he spotted a familiar hem: pure white Daoist robes bearing the Crane Bird and Haechi emblems. It was the corpse of a Daemudo formal disciple.

The entire center of the disciple's abdomen had been blasted away. The scorched burns around the hole pointed to a fire-element spell. Though Yise had never met this person, he knelt and carefully turned the body onto its back. Then he joined his hands and recited a Consolation Prayer.

"Though your body crumbles in a foreign land, may your soul return home."

Yise removed the pendant—a necklace—from the corpse and placed it in his storage pouch. It was not a ritual implement, so it must have been worn as a memento. He intended to return it to Daemudo's main mountain as a personal effect to be placed in the Hall of Remembrance.

He would have liked to return the body as well, if possible, but he could not put a Daoist's remains in the Demon-Sealing Album. Treating a fellow disciple's corpse like a Demon would be desecration, not a Consolation Ceremony. He stood, leaving the body where it lay.

He pressed on. After following the flow of spiritual energy for roughly two hours, he stopped. His Dokkaebi Senses had detected someone watching him.

Since reaching Great Attainment of Qi Refining, his Dokkaebi Senses had grown considerably keener and sharper. His watcher had concealed their presence and spiritual energy perfectly, yet he could distinctly feel their gaze fixed on him like a predator eyeing prey.

Yise slowly looked around, readying himself to block any spell that might come flying at him. He waited a long time, but his watcher did not show themselves. They seemed quite cautious.

Flames he conjured with Flame Release floated into the air. If they insisted on hiding like a skulking little rat, he would simply have to tear the place apart and flush them out.

WHOOSH!

Just before the swelling flames swept across the surrounding area, a voice called out.

"Fellow Daoist. Stay your attack."

A Cultivator slowly emerged from the shadows, both hands raised overhead. Yise narrowed his eyes. The stranger wore white robes bearing Daemudo's emblem.