Crack—

A strange sound filled the air, one of immense pressure cracking at the edges of reality itself.

It wasn’t just a sound.

An overwhelming force bore down, compressing the body, constricting it like a vise.
The sensation was suffocating.

‘Urghhhhh…’

The pressure intensified, bringing with it a searing pain.
The scream clawed at my throat, but my mouth wouldn’t open, forcing the agony to remain a silent one.

How long has this been going on?

I don’t know. It’s hard to measure time when you’re lost in this.

‘Goddamn it. Seriously.’

Regret festered in the depths of my suffering.

Entering this place had been disorienting, flipping my stomach upside down and bringing waves of nausea.

But leaving…
This was something else entirely.

The contrast was stark—unbearable, even. The sensation this time was incomparable to my last reincarnation.

Back then, entering and exiting had caused nothing more than mild nausea, maybe a bit of dizziness.

Why was this different? Was it because I ignored that warning just before I returned?

—Sado.

After everything was said and done, The World Tree had spoken to me.

—The pain of returning will be immense. Be prepared.

—I’ve already been through it once. I can handle it.

I had laughed at the World Tree’s warning, dismissing it easily.

Now, here I was, regretting that decision with every fiber of my being.

‘What the hell…!’

It’s ridiculous.

The level of pain I was experiencing was on an entirely different scale from last time.

And why was the return taking so much longer?

As I mused over this, a thought began to form.

‘Is this all just karma?’

A memory of something the World Tree had told me surfaced, and I began to understand why this was happening.

The world in which the World Tree resided was an illusion, a false world created as a prison for its sins.
Ordinarily, no one should be able to enter or leave.

I hadn’t known the full truth when I went there.
But, regardless, I had needed to go.
I had wanted to learn the truths I didn’t know.
And I had unfinished business—Jang Seonyun.

But above all, there had been one key reason.

The time difference.

In the Illusionary Realm, years could pass, but only days would slip by in the present world.
I had needed that time.

Once I stepped into that place, there would be no going back.

So, with that limited opportunity, I had to do everything I could—especially when I found myself stuck at a bottleneck.

To be precise, I needed time to train.

After concluding my conversation with the World Tree and receiving the knowledge I sought, I asked for one more favor:
I requested to train within the Illusionary Realm.

My internal Qi, enhanced through countless fortuitous encounters and battles, had reached a point where no amount of experience or innate talent alone would allow me to progress.

Despite having restructured my body from scratch, I found myself trapped, unable to break through the barrier in my path.

So, I decided to use the Illusionary Realm to push through it.

After hearing my plea, the World Tree didn’t object.
I immediately began training.

Even though the world was false, the five senses remained sharp.

I felt pain. I felt hunger. Everything was almost indistinguishable from reality.

The sensation of reaching out, the Qi flowing from my dantian, the heat surging through my body—everything was just like the real world.
It was perfect for training.

As the days passed, time itself became an afterthought.
The feeling of time slipping away stopped mattering as I focused on every punch, every movement of my Qi.

A day passed.
Another.
Soon, a year went by.
By the time six months had passed, I had stopped counting altogether. The World Tree informed me it had been over a year.

I didn’t feel anything when it told me that.
The only thing that mattered was that I hadn’t yet broken through the barrier.

Instead of dwelling on it, I swung my sword again.

The only downside of the Illusionary Realm was that physical growth was slightly slower.
It didn’t matter.
I wasn’t focused on growing taller or strengthening my body at that moment.

What mattered was mental fortitude and breaking through the barrier in my path.

And so, time continued to pass.

Eventually, the World Tree stopped telling me how much time had passed.
Day turned to night and back again in a seemingly endless cycle.
Perhaps it was because I trained so close to the World Tree, but the creatures of the realm didn’t bother me.

It was strange.
What exactly were the monsters in this false world?
I wondered about that briefly, but quickly pushed the thought aside.

Right now, what mattered was reaching out one more time, honing my Qi, and controlling my breathing with precision.

I remembered the compression techniques taught by Shin Noya, how to use them to strengthen my body and adapt to my evolving fighting style.

I had to focus.
Forget everything else for now.
Forget the responsibilities weighing on my back and the chaos unfolding outside the realm.

In that moment, all that mattered was refining my body, my Qi, and my state of mind.

And in doing so, I finally reached the point I had been striving toward.

‘It didn’t take long,’ I thought, in the grand scheme of things.

But I was wrong.

Breaking through that barrier took far longer than I had anticipated.
I hadn’t kept track of the exact number of days, but enough time had passed that it had probably only been a few days in the real world.

It had taken far longer than expected.

But now that I had broken through, it was time to return.

And that’s when the excruciating pain began.

‘Damn it.’

My entire body felt like it was being crushed.
As I crossed back into the present world, the agony surged like a tidal wave.

The reason for this was simple:
Everything I had gained in the Illusionary Realm couldn’t be brought back.

In my previous life, even after spending countless years in that place, all of it had disappeared upon returning to the real world.

My memories had faded, and my body had reverted to the state it was in before I had entered.

That was the rule.

The only thing I could retain was my memory.

So, what was this pain?

It was backlash.
A reaction to the forces of the Illusionary Realm, stripping away all the strength I had gained there as I returned to the real world.

It was, simply put, excruciating.

I felt as if my body was being pummeled with blunt weapons.
And yet, I couldn’t even scream, because I knew that if I moved wrong, I might shatter completely.

All I could do was endure.

Through the flames and lightning, as though my entire body and limbs were being scalded and electrocuted simultaneously.

Time passed.

In that hellish moment, time stretched out endlessly.

Finally, I heard the sound of something crumbling away.

Crack.

And then—
My feet touched solid ground.

The sensation of the wind brushing against me returned.

A wind I hadn’t felt in what seemed like an eternity.

At last, I managed to speak.

“Goddamn it.”

A curse slipped from my lips.
But it was understandable.

“I almost died…”

I had almost died.
It was that close.

This time was far different from the last.
If I had even taken a breath wrong, I might have been torn apart in that void.

“Never doing that shit again.”

Time had been against me, which was why I’d taken that reckless path.

But if I had known the risks, I would never have chosen that method.

I ran my hand through my hair, sighing heavily.

Even a simple action like that felt heavy.
My body was sluggish, my limbs weighed down.

‘First things first.’

I would deal with this fatigue later.
The important thing right now was to assess the situation.

After all—
I still had to find Jang Seonyun.

I may have burned her to death in the Illusionary Realm, but that didn’t mean anything here.
When I asked the World Tree if there was a way to prevent her return, it had said no.
The laws of the realm prevented such things.

Which meant Jang Seonyun was likely alive and back in the present world.

I had expected this much.
If she was alive, I’d simply have to kill her again.

There were plenty of monsters around to help with that.

As I surveyed my surroundings, I muttered to myself,
“So, what the hell is this place? What’s with this mess?”

I had assumed I would reappear where I had first entered the Illusionary Realm.

But instead of the forest clearing, I was standing in the middle of a building.

Luckily, I recognized the structure.
It was Sinryong Hall.

But—
It looked like a disaster had struck.

‘What the hell happened here?’

The once-grand building that had cost a fortune to build was now covered in cracks, barely holding itself together.

‘Could it be…?’

A chilling thought crossed my mind.
I had assumed only a few days had passed.

But could time have flowed differently?

If it had, then all my carefully laid plans would have fallen apart.

If that was true, this could be a real problem.

Thud.

As my thoughts raced, I felt the presence of someone nearby.

I turned my head.

“Huh?”

There, a familiar old man sat on the ground, bleeding heavily, missing an arm.
In front of him stood a massive old man, holding a saber, staring at me.

What the hell was going on?

I frowned deeply at the scene, and as I did, the man holding the saber flinched.

Why was he so surprised by my face?
What was his problem?

Ignoring him for the moment, I turned my attention to the bloodied old man.

‘Cheonghae Ilgeom?’

I recognized him immediately.
I hadn’t seen him in a while, which is why it took me a moment to place him.

What was going on?

With my senses fully returning, I became aware of the overwhelming stench of blood and the thick aura of killing intent and Qi swirling around.

It was nauseating.
The foul stench of the Sapa, those twisted martial artists who practiced dark arts.

Just from that alone, I could tell that something had gone terribly wrong.

“Looks like something bad’s happened.”

I couldn’t fully grasp the situation yet, but I could feel that something had gone horribly wrong.

My gaze shifted to the elderly man in black standing in front of Cheonghae Ilgeom.
Clearly, this guy wasn’t from the Orthodox sects.

No, he was something else entirely.

He must have sensed my interest, because he looked at me with wary eyes and spoke first.

“…Who are you?”

How should I answer?

I took a step forward, feeling the Qi within my body stir.
It was the same feeling as before—the sensation of being trapped, unable to break through the wall blocking my progress.

I took a second step, drawing the Qi up to my middle dantian.

In an instant, it filled to the brim.

“Why do you care? You don’t look like you belong here anyway.”

“You speak rather informally for someone so young.”

The old man’s eyes were locked on me, wariness evident in his gaze.
He couldn’t figure me out.

He should have swung his saber by now.

I took a third step.
The Qi from my middle dantian surged upward, flowing toward my upper dantian.

Fwoosh.

“…!”

The old man’s expression shifted as he sensed what was happening.

“You…”

It must have been strange to see, watching someone break through a wall like this in real time.

With every movement, I could feel the resistance fading.

Unlike before, it no longer posed a problem.

With careful control, I pushed through.
This was the reason I had endured hell in the Illusionary Realm—to harmonize my body and mind and break through the barrier.

My meridians opened.

The tiny trickle of Qi that had once been a mere stream now surged like a raging river, sharper and more focused.

It pierced through the wall to my upper dantian.

Whoooosh—!

The quality of the Qi flowing through my body changed.

What had once felt like powerful Qi was nothing more than child’s play.
Now it was dense, heavy, and all-encompassing.

I let it spread throughout my entire body.

With the opening of the upper dantian, my perspective shifted.
The sounds I heard changed.
The flow of Qi through my body became something else entirely.

At last—
I had broken through.

I had reached the Flowering Realm—the level known as the graveyard of martial artists, the so-called end of the road.

But I had surpassed it.

I smiled faintly.

“Why do I speak so informally?”

Of course, there was no time to savor this moment.
It was clear that something had gone wrong, so I had to act.

“I’ve never been one for politeness when it comes to the likes of you Sapa scum. I guess it’s my Orthodox blood.”

I grinned, letting the old man take in my words.

Perhaps it was my smile that irked him, because his demeanor changed.
The man tensed, his killing intent rising.

He was clearly strong, but with my Qi now fully integrated into my upper dantian, I felt an overwhelming sense of calm.
The fear I had once felt was gone.

“So, what’s with the sky? Why does it look like this?”

It wasn’t night, but the sky was dark, filled with strange energy.

As I observed the sky, the old man made his move.
I could feel the intense Qi surging from him.

But I didn’t react.

I simply lowered my gaze, locking eyes with the old man.
With a single thought, I manipulated the Qi in my upper dantian.

It wasn’t night, but I didn’t like the way the sky looked.

So—

I decided to brighten it up.

Whoooosh—!

As the heat radiated from my body, the old man took a step back.

He shouldn’t have.

Even if he was scared, he should have pressed forward.

Seeing him retreat, I whispered quietly,
“Red Sky.”

And with that, the night shattered.