Chapter 228
Arahan.
A group of practitioners, also called Rahan for short.
The weight that name carried was by no means small.
The highest ideal a practitioner could achieve.
A title bestowed upon those who honed their pure skill and completed their realm.
The exact origin—where it began and how—was unknown.
However, one thing was certain.
‘They are beings who oppose demons.’
Arahan stood at the opposite pole from demons.
Even demons loathed that name.
And Park Chan-woo had heard about the First Arahan.
‘The Pandarian King I met at the Temple of Death. He once mistook me for the First Heavenly Demon.’
Heavenly Demon!
One of the former masters of the Sealed Demon God’s Grail, and the First Arahan.
Charpham held deep feelings of rage toward the Heavenly Demon.
Perhaps because the Heavenly Demon was the one who sealed Charpham, an Outer God.
And at the Temple of Death, the Pandarian King said the last survivor of the Pandarians was in the Mountain of Practitioners.
– “The last survivor of the Pandarians will be in the ‘Mountain of Practitioners’ where the Arahan gather. Please relay just one message to him. Tell him he was right.”
With those final words, the Pandarian King handed the Radiant Sage’s Stone to Park Chan-woo and dissipated on his own.
‘I didn’t expect to come here so soon.’
Who would have thought the Land of the Golden Nuck would be the Mountain of Practitioners?
If this was truly where the Arahan gathered, it would be humanity’s first approach.
Park Chan-woo slowly looked around.
‘The deepest place.’
It was like a dark cave.
A clammy, unpleasant humidity seeped into the air itself.
Hardly a place you’d call a mountain.
There wasn’t even a trace of human presence, let alone any sign of people.
It felt like somewhere far below the mountain where no one would ever come, but…
Whoosh—
In an instant, a beam of blue light from his bosom illuminated the center of the cave.
‘The Radiant Sage’s Stone is showing the way.’
He took the Sage’s Stone out of his inventory.
The line of light grew brighter.
The Sage’s Stone was made from the Gem of Wisdom possessed by the Pandarian King.
The Gem of Wisdom was a treasure trove of wisdom that could read all phenomena, coveted by every demon.
And since it contained the essence and soul of the Pandarian King, it was likely guiding him to the “last survivor.”
Park Chan-woo followed the light, advancing through the dark cave.
—
The cave seemed endless.
Even after walking for a long time, it felt like he was just circling the same place.
The same scenery continued without end.
Yet little by little, each time he passed through a certain section, trivial things changed—one by one.
He’d return to the same spot, but a fresh scratch would be carved into the wall where there hadn’t been one before.
Or the position of a pebble would be slightly shifted.
Changes so subtle you could miss them easily if you weren’t memorizing the details.
What those changes pointed to was one thing.
‘A kind of wandering barrier… It’s a maze.’
A wandering maze designed to make intruders wander forever.
But he was sure he was on the right path.
Because the route indicated by the Sage’s Stone couldn’t be false.
There had to be a pattern to escaping it.
‘It’s larger than any wandering maze I’ve ever experienced.’
But the problem was its scale.
He’d encountered wandering mazes a few times in past Creation Abysses, but this was on an entirely different dimension.
Even after walking for what felt like countless hours, he kept looping back to the same places.
And he couldn’t even grasp the flow of time properly.
An ordinary person would have gone mad long ago.
‘Seeing the same places repeat… it really is vicious.’
Just in case, the marks he’d carved into the wall appeared again and again.
And then, as he passed the same section once more, something happened that he hadn’t experienced before.
On the wall, a phrase he had never carved was inscribed.
Though discolored now, the characters—clearly written in blood—filled the wall.
—Save me
—Please, get me out of here!
—Why did you lock me in a place like this?
—Getmeoutgetmeoutgetmeoutgetmeoutgetmeoutgetmeoutgetmeoutgetmeoutgetmeoutgetmeout
…It reeked of madness.
Only then did he realize.
‘A prison.’
This cave was a prison built to grind despair into those trapped inside.
Who had built it—and for what purpose?
The Mountain of Practitioners.
Why would practitioners with lofty spirits create such a vicious place?
He passed through the madness-filled area.
After a certain section, the exact same place revealed itself again.
But the writing was different.
—How long do you think you can keep me locked up!
—I’ll destroy everything. I’ll kill everyone.
—The completion of the Divine Art is right before my eyes! I will blow this entire cave away and become the true Supreme One!
It seemed like a different person from the one who wrote the previous phrases.
And it wasn’t just the writing that had changed.
A single skeleton lay slumped against the wall.
Was this the one who wrote those lines?
Judging by the shattered skull, they must have struggled in despair, smashed their head into the wall, and ended their own life.
“Divine Art.”
An old book lay at the skeleton’s waist.
A book with only those two characters—Divine Art—written on it.
When he took it and opened it, it was filled with contents related to Martial Studies.
“…Impressive.”
Even at a glance, it was a significant level of Martial Studies.
Raw realizations and research regarding martial arts were left throughout.
He could guess how powerful the being who wrote this had been, even without meeting them.
In fact, it felt like he had already met them.
…Judging by the similar handwriting, it was probably this skeleton.
He examined the book for a long while.
Then—
Ding!
[You have encountered high-dimensional Martial Studies.]
[Intelligence increases by 5.]
[Your insight broadens.]
His stats rose just from reading it.
If reading alone did this much, what kind of change would happen if he fully understood it?
But when he reached the end, the final page was blank.
‘Is it incomplete?’
Had they died without completing it?
A pity.
It felt like you needed that final page to understand the whole.
Everything before it seemed to be preparation for that last step.
Without it, the context was difficult to grasp.
He closed the book.
In that instant—
Swish.
Swish. Swish.
“……”
The title Divine Art faded away.
And in its place, another phrase surfaced.
—Even if completed, you cannot leave.
Blood-red letters steeped in resentment appeared above it.
So that was why he’d given up on completion.
He had been right on the verge of completing it, then realized that even if he did, he still couldn’t leave—and so he let himself go.
Park Chan-woo’s expression hardened.
For a prison to be so formidable that someone capable of leaving behind Martial Studies at this level would give up…
The realizations left behind were far beyond what his past self could reach.
Deep and profound—a world he hadn’t yet touched.
‘That means the one who created this maze is even more remarkable than him.’
A sliver of doubt crept in.
Was he truly on the right path?
Could he really find the exit by relying on the Radiant Sage’s Stone?
He forced himself to shake his head.
Right now, there was no other way.
He pocketed the book and moved on.
—
「This is a hellishly terrifying place.」
Chronos clicked his tongue.
Even he, who dealt with evil spirits, thought this cave’s viciousness was excessive.
「One area is roughly a thousand steps. We’ve already passed over 5,000 areas. Even excluding the repeated sections, we’ve seen nearly two thousand areas. It seems we must surpass a number of possibilities approaching the infinite just to reach a single correct answer.」
It was a mad cave.
Tangled and connected haphazardly like an anthill.
A place built so that once you were trapped, you could never escape.
「The creator of this cave is not commendable.」
Chronos tutted.
This place was filled with nothing but malice.
And there was no way to forcibly break through or escape.
The sense of time had long since disappeared.
Still, it wasn’t entirely without gain.
‘Quite skilled individuals were imprisoned.’
Of course, they were all dead.
Instead, Park Chan-woo was able to access the Martial Studies they left behind.
Sometimes on the walls, sometimes in books, sometimes carved into their own bones.
A kind of testament.
He had found nine skeletons so far, and reading what they left behind felt like his eyes were being opened.
However, he couldn’t accept them easily.
Because they all had one thing in common.
‘They’re all Demonic Arts.’
They were studies of Demonic Arts—power steeped in chaos.
Knowledge unbefitting the name Arahan.
Were those who had encountered power they shouldn’t have touched, during their cultivation, imprisoned here?
Yet while trapped here, their realms seemed to have advanced significantly.
Just by reading their testaments, he felt he could see things that had once been invisible.
And although it started as Demonic Arts, the deeper the realm became, the more paradoxically pure it seemed.
Park Chan-woo kept walking.
And in the next area, the “tenth” appeared.
‘A skeleton… no, it’s not.’
Dried out without a shred of flesh.
It looked no different from a skeleton, but—
‘…He’s alive.’
For the first time, he was seeing a living person.
「Be careful.」
Chronos warned him.
But Park Chan-woo felt nothing.
He was merely alive.
A living corpse.
Even when Park Chan-woo approached, there was no reaction.
An old man stared down at the floor, head bowed low.
There wasn’t a single spark of light in his eyes.
He looked like someone who had resigned himself to everything long ago.
However, on his finger, he wore a single old ring.
‘Heavenly Demon?’
…The words Heavenly Demon were engraved on it.
It didn’t make sense.
One of the former masters of the Sealed Demon God’s Grail.
The very one who sealed Dimensional Interloper Charpham—the monster said to have been able to hunt Outer Gods that emerged from the Great Rift!
…Could this old man possibly be that Heavenly Demon?