Chapter 460: Why Is This Here? (2)

Choi Kanghyuk, who had been looking at the door, turned his head again.

“First, I guess I should get that gatekeeper out of the way.”

The bronze golem whose eyes had met his stepped toward Choi Kanghyuk.

With each of its heavy steps, a dull noise echoed throughout the cave.

Boom! Boom!

As the distance narrowed, the bronze golem abruptly swung its enormous hammer.

Choi Kanghyuk had an instinctive feeling.

With his current frail body, he could not withstand that hammer.

Thus, he hurriedly used the Mountain-Shattering Divine Steps and dodged to the side.

‘Hah. I need to hurry up and raise my realm or something. Dodging like this every time is annoying too.’

Such a thought naturally came to him.

Because if he had been in his prime, there would have been no need to avoid an attack like that.

The hammer swept past with a terrifying sound of tearing through the air.

Taking advantage of that opening, Choi Kanghyuk charged toward the golem.

Choi Kanghyuk, who had coated his fist in Fist Energy, struck the golem’s bronze armor with all his strength.

Bang!!!

An explosive noise rang out, and fine cracks formed in the bronze armor.

However, Choi Kanghyuk’s expression was far from good.

‘It is damn sturdy.’

Because he had failed to burst it apart with one blow.

And now, it was time to pay the price for the failed attack.

Whoooooosh!!

The golem drove its knee upward toward Choi Kanghyuk, who had dug in close.

The golem’s leg was nearly the size of Choi Kanghyuk’s entire torso.

Choi Kanghyuk hurriedly threw himself away to avoid that absurdly huge knee.

However, he was slightly short on time to avoid it completely.

Choi Kanghyuk swung his left hand, which was coated in Fist Energy, and bought himself that minuscule amount of missing time.

Clang!!

Even though he had coated it in Fist Energy, his fist felt numb.

Choi Kanghyuk gladly smiled at that pain.

“Thanks to you, I will definitely get some good fist conditioning.”

He wanted to keep playing with that golem, but his time was not infinite.

Because if the fight continued, his internal energy would inevitably run dry.

“Haaat!”

Choi Kanghyuk once again dug in toward the golem.

It was not Choi Kanghyuk’s usual style, but this time, he intended to target its weakness.

A dense energy could be felt from the bronze golem’s chest.

That heavy energy was spreading throughout the enormous bronze golem’s entire body.

The place where the golem’s core was located.

Choi Kanghyuk thrust a straight punch toward that place with all his strength.

“Uryaaaaah!!”

Bang!!!!

Unfortunately, the golem did not collapse all at once.

Because the chest where the core was located was also covered in bronze armor.

But it did not matter.

“Let us see how long you can keep enduring this!!”

If it did not break in one blow, he only had to hit it several times.

Every time Choi Kanghyuk avoided the golem’s attacks, he continued striking the same spot.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Metallic noises and explosions echoed through the interior of the cave dozens of times.

Before he knew it, sweat was pouring down Choi Kanghyuk’s entire body like a waterfall.

Perhaps because of the repeated impacts, his fists had also swollen slightly.

Before long, they were even stained with a little blood.

That meant both of his fists would become sturdier tomorrow by that much.

Choi Kanghyuk’s training, which had seemed as though it would continue endlessly. No, his fight, was also approaching its end.

He once again thrust his fist toward the golem’s chest, which he had repeatedly struck dozens of times.

“Huaaaaaaaat!!”

And this time, a noise slightly different from before burst out.

Craaaack!!

The fine cracks that had accumulated from the repeated impacts all burst apart at once.

“My fist is sturdier than bronze!!”

It was the moment he finally won the battle of durability between bronze and his fist.

His fist, which had broken through the armor, dug into the bronze golem’s interior.

As Choi Kanghyuk had expected, a mana core was located there.

Shatter!!

The mana core shattered into pieces beneath Choi Kanghyuk’s fist, which was coated in Fist Energy.

Then the golem stopped moving while still in the posture of trying to swing its hammer at Choi Kanghyuk.

At the same time, an unpleasant noise came from the golem’s body.

Creeeeeeeeak.

The power of the core that had supported the bronze golem’s absurd weight disappeared.

Unable to withstand its own weight, the golem collapsed just like that.

Bang!!

Looking at the fallen golem, Choi Kanghyuk regulated his breathing.

“Sss. Hoo.”

Using dynamic cultivation, he gradually recovered the internal energy he had consumed.

Once the excitement of the fight subsided, his fists began throbbing.

“It really is absurdly sturdy.”

From Choi Kanghyuk’s perspective, it was even a level above the Sandworm he had faced yesterday.

At least the Sandworm could be blocked with his body, but this thing could not.

It was an enemy he had been forced to fight by using his head instead of his body, which was unlike Choi Kanghyuk.

“Sss. Hoo.”

Choi Kanghyuk, who had been recovering his internal energy, turned his head.

Toward the enormous door that was tightly shut.

What could be inside?

What if there was a monster even worse than that gatekeeper golem?

It would be somewhat dangerous for the current Choi Kanghyuk to handle.

But simply turning back after coming this far was not a particularly good decision either.

‘I fought the gatekeeper so noisily, yet there was no reaction at all from inside.’

After thinking for a moment, Choi Kanghyuk stepped toward the door.

Right.

He would open it only slightly for now.

If there was a dangerous monster inside, he could simply close it and run.

He intended to leave the gate immediately and request support from the Association.

After organizing his thoughts, Choi Kanghyuk placed both hands against the enormous door.

He tried applying strength, but it did not open easily.

“I am getting a lot of exercise today.”

Choi Kanghyuk clenched his teeth and pushed the door with all his strength.

The muscles throughout his entire body swelled as though they were about to burst.

Then the tightly shut door began to open little by little.

Creeeeeeeeak.

Along with a harsh noise, a small gap appeared between the doors.

Then the scene inside was revealed.

A very vast space stretched out within.

And at its center, a strange living creature could be seen.

“A dragon?”

To be precise, not an Eastern dragon, but a Western one.

And it was even a baby dragon.

A so-called hatchling lay sprawled weakly on the floor.

After silently looking at the hatchling for a moment.

Choi Kanghyuk’s head suddenly turned.

From the wall beyond the baby dragon, he sensed a very familiar and longed-for energy.

“Grandfather?”

The energy he had felt when Hyungwang attained Buddhahood. And only extremely faintly at that.

***

“You interfered with dimensional erosion!? Have you lost your mind!?”

A sharp shout came from beside him.

At that, the old monk dressed in vermilion robes turned his head.

Then the person who had shouted came into view.

A white robe. A white pointed hat. Hair and a beard that had turned completely white.

And an old man who had even brought along a wooden staff.

‘Had he said that he comprehended all creation through a power called magic?’

A place that only beings who had reached the truth could visit.

A place called by many names, such as the divine realm and the immortal realm.

The old monk was also a being who had attained anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. Supreme Perfect Enlightenment, and achieved Buddhahood.

“Hohohoho. That is what happened.”

At the old monk’s indifferent answer, the archmage flew into a fiery rage.

“That is what happened? Is this something that can end with merely saying that!?”

The archmage pointed his staff somewhere and shouted.

“Do you perhaps hold some deep grudge against that fellow?”

The place toward which the archmage’s staff pointed. Beyond the dimensional mirror.

A muscular man who had been sucked into the gate that opened in the gym office and was looking around with a stunned expression was reflected there.

“Hohoho. A deep grudge? He is a child I cherished while I was in the mortal realm.”

“And yet you did something this insane!? It is plainly visible that the entire law of causality has become twisted!”

“Hohoho. Why are you acting as though I did something particularly extraordinary? I merely changed the time and place of something that was supposed to happen in the first place.”

A dragon lair. The nest where an Ancient Red Dragon resided.

A gate that would later be designated SSS-rank on Earth, where dimensional erosion was progressing.

That was right.

In accordance with the gradually progressing erosion, the dragon lair was a gate that should have appeared in the future.

And the old monk had changed that timing.

So that the law of causality would not be strained too severely.

He specifically aimed for the moment when the hatchling’s mother, the Ancient Dragon, had left the lair.

And brought it to Korea, where an abnormal gate had originally been scheduled to appear.

Because the Ancient Dragon, the true master of the gate, was absent, bringing the timing forward did not have a major effect on the law of causality.

The Ancient Dragon had left, and only the bronze golem gatekeeper and the hatchling remained.

That meant it had become a gate of a scale that would not cause a problem even if it opened on Earth before the erosion had fully progressed.

Furthermore, because it was originally a gate that would have opened in Korea, slightly adjusting its location did not cause a major problem.

However, that concerned only the immediate law of causality.

“That small matter you speak of has twisted everything!!”

There was a phrase on Earth called the butterfly effect.

The influence of a butterfly’s tiny flap of its wings continued and continued until it became a typhoon on the opposite side of the Earth.

What the old monk had done was the same.

There had been no major change to the immediate law of causality, but it continued endlessly until the future became completely unreadable.

Moreover.

“Unless he is your irreconcilable enemy, why in the world did you do such a thing even at the cost of ending up in that state!?”

The old monk’s spiritual body had also grown faint.

It might have been a small interference, but interference was still interference.

It could not help but place an enormous burden on the spiritual body of the old monk who had attained Buddhahood.

To the point that he had barely avoided annihilation.

At the archmage’s shout, the old monk laughed freely.

“Hohoho. Is it not the heart of a grandfather to want to do everything he can for his grandchild?”

“Huh. You have clearly gone senile. What kind of grandfather thrusts such a disaster upon his grandchild!”

From the archmage’s perspective, that gate was a disaster.

He could not read the entire future, but there was one thing he could read.

The current interference had brought the erosion forward.

Leaving all other erosion aside, the greatest problem was the true master of that gate.

The time when the Ancient Red Dragon would appear on Earth had been brought forward significantly.

“Do you truly believe that fellow can endure the rampage of a Red Dragon that has lost its child?”

The old monk also knew this.

Even so, he had willingly done such a thing.

The old monk had already seen the future.

The future before the law of causality was twisted.

At the end of the continuing dimensional erosion, destruction would come to Earth.

To be precise, it was fated to have the land called Earth seized.

By beings that crossed over from other dimensions.

In that process, the child named Mujin would also lose his life.

The reason was simple.

By the time the originally destined future arrived, Mujin had not recovered all of his original power.

Completely blocked acupoints. Earth’s murky and sparse energy.

Several years later. After the erosion had progressed to a certain extent, Mujin was also supposed to gradually regain his strength.

Gates would overflow, and large-scale gates would spring up like mushrooms after rain.

By then, Earth’s energy would also have become somewhat clearer.

However, beginning his training only at that point would have been far too late.

Thus, the old monk had done such a thing.

He brought directly before Mujin a gate through which energy so pure that it was no different from consuming spiritual medicine every day flowed.

After waiting for a time and situation in which he could interfere with the law of causality as little as possible, he seized that threadlike opportunity.

So that Mujin could regain his power as quickly as possible.

As a consequence, the erosion also accelerated, but the old monk did not doubt it.

That Mujin would be able to overcome that crisis.

Furthermore, the old monk did not consider this a matter of personal emotion.

He regarded it as a choice in accordance with the law of causality.

Because the old monk had also been able to attain Buddhahood thanks to the child named Mujin.

After reaching Supreme Perfect Enlightenment and arriving at this place, Hyungwang realized a certain truth.

The original future in which Choi Kanghyuk had never entered Mujin’s body.

His own future, in which he would have died a futile death without reaching Supreme Perfect Enlightenment.

And furthermore, the future in which Shaolin would have fallen because of Shincheon.

That was right.

This was not personal favoritism, but merely returning as much as he had received.

‘The law of causality truly is profound.’

The old monk thought that the fact he had avoided annihilation despite interfering with the erosion was probably based on the same principle.

Because if anyone else had done such a thing, a hundred out of a hundred of them would have been unable to avoid annihilation.

The old monk spoke gently to the archmage.

“Why do you assume that Mujin will kill that dragon’s child? The future cannot be known.”

“Hah. Are you saying that until the Ancient Dragon appears, that fellow will raise the hatchling properly and return it?”

“Hohoho. He is a child who received the teachings of our Shaolin, which values life. I do not doubt Mujin.”

***

Choi Kanghyuk, who had been silently staring at the wall, tilted his head.

Hyungwang’s energy, which he had sensed only very faintly, scattered like a mirage.

He wondered whether he had sensed it incorrectly.

Then Mujin’s head turned again.

Toward the hatchling lying there in a limp state.

A hatchling.

In Eastern terms, a dragon’s child.

Such a thought naturally arose in Choi Kanghyuk’s mind.

“If it is a dragon, does that thing have an inner core too?”

Choi Kanghyuk’s mouth began to water.