Volume 1, Chapter 259 – Samsara

The old man’s expression flickered between light and dark. The calmness in his eyes was gone. After a trace of hesitation, killing intent surfaced in them once more.

Rays of divine light shot from his body, forming a solid barrier that blocked all descending law power a hundred zhang away.

The surrounding space had been sealed by terrifying Dao power. Samsara could not even shift space to escape.

The lifelong cultivation of a Demon Emperor was burning to its utmost limit. Though his body was already ruined beyond measure, his strength had not weakened in the slightest. The Heaven-Men around him were far too weak; they had no possibility of threatening him at all.

The Scarlet Dragon Armor had already shattered. Shi Lan’s body had suffered damage unlike anything before, pale violet blood spraying everywhere.

Chi!

A pale golden sword flash streaked out, slashing toward the old man’s neck. Golden Rainbow, anxious to protect its master, could not hold itself back and struck.

But it was only a spirit treasure. The gap between it and the old man was as vast as heaven and earth. Before it could even come within five steps of him, it was forced back. Cracks appeared in the sword body, and its spirituality was greatly damaged.

The Spirit-Burning Art used one’s lifespan as fuel. In just a few breaths, more than half of Shi Lan’s lifespan had already been burned away. Of the thousand years of lifespan granted by the Heavenly Astral Realm, seventy to eighty percent was already gone, and white strands had begun to appear among her black hair.

Samsara stood rooted in place. Countless methods flashed through its mind, but it still could not find a way to survive.

The gap between Shi Lan’s cultivation and that Demon Emperor’s was far too great. Her body simply could not endure a clash of power at this level. If Samsara had not been constantly using energy to protect her body, that previous impact alone would already have crushed Shi Lan to pieces.

The terrifying Dao power filling the surroundings was constantly pressing in on Shi Lan’s body. At every instant, the energy Samsara consumed was an astronomical amount. Its reserves were almost exhausted…

“Shi Lan… I’m sorry…”

There was unwillingness in Samsara’s voice, along with a loneliness too hard to put into words. Once its energy ran dry, it would fall into a deep sleep. The system would enter a rigid fixed program, and after Shi Lan died, it would separate from her body and remain at minimum expenditure. It might then drift rootless and alone, trapped to death in the Lingyang Realm.

It might never awaken again.

That would mean its end.

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The years it had experienced were unimaginably long. It had seen countless magnificent sights and witnessed many peerless geniuses rarely seen in all the world. This aimless journey had long since numbed its heart. It had never thought the day would come when it would face “death.”

Suddenly, an indescribable sense of release welled up in Samsara’s heart. Scene after scene from the past unfolded like painted scrolls, flashing by in a blur. One former host after another crossed its mind, until at last everything froze upon a single scene.

…

Outside the immortal gate of Lingshan, a youth burdened with a blood-deep vendetta climbed from the foot of the mountain, kneeling once every three steps and kowtowing once every nine, all the way to the legendary immortal sect, hoping for the immortals’ pity and a single immortal art.

An immortal sect was not a place mortals could set foot in. The youth was turned away at the gate.

The youth’s heart was pure, and he remained kneeling outside the sect, asking only for a sliver of immortal fortune.

After kneeling for days, at the point of death, fortune turned. A great cultivator returned from outside the immortal sect, moved by the youth’s sincerity. He opened the youth’s heavenly eye and discovered the peerless immortal root hidden within him.

The youth was finally admitted into the sect and displayed incomparable immortal talent. In half a month he gathered qi, in nine months he established his foundation, and in no more than two years he shed his mortal shell and attained the Great Dao of the Golden Core. He became the leading disciple of his generation in the immortal sect, and was betrothed to the daughter of the sect master. From then on, he soared into the heavens like a dragon.

The youth longed desperately for revenge, but the engagement bound his hands and feet, and every attempt to leave the mountain was obstructed. Left with no choice, he could only marry early.

On his wedding night, beneath candlelight in the bridal chamber, as passion and rain mingled, the youth suddenly felt his whole body go weak. The person at his pillow abruptly raised a blade, split open his chest and belly, took out his fully perfected Nine-Aperture Golden Core, and used a secret method to graft away the peerless immortal root he had been born with.

In a single instant, heaven and earth overturned.

The youth was thrown into a mountain abyss. Every bone in his body was shattered, yet even that was not as grievous as the sword wounds in his heart. He could only rely on his perfected Golden Core immortal body to cling to life and stagger step by step toward the Yellow Springs.

“Binding All-Heavens System…”

“Who are you…”

Even on the brink of death, the youth remained remarkably calm.

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“Binding complete. Detecting current state of the host…”

“I am your host. You need me to do things for you, so you cannot let me die.”

The system did not respond, but it repaired the youth’s body and preserved his life.

…

“Why do you never speak? I know you can understand me.”

Though the system gave no response, the youth still enjoyed talking, speaking to himself endlessly.

“Do you have a name? If not, I’ll give you one. You were the one who pulled me back from the road to the Yellow Springs, so how about Samsara? They say everything in this world is bound to samsara, that all things have karma and retribution. I never believed it before, but now… now I do.”

…

“I really am a genius. This halberd art is enough for me to sweep across the mortal world. One halberd—Mortals Perish.”

With the aid of the system, the youth rose to power once more. Before he was a hundred years old, he stepped into the Spirit-Transforming Realm. He was only one step away from the legendary Human Immortal, and became a mighty cultivator of great renown.

His blood-deep vendetta had long since been repaid. That nameless immortal sect was crushed flat beneath a single step of his.

Countless admirers were all kept at arm’s length.

“There isn’t a single good woman under heaven. Samsara, do you think I’m right?”

“Oh right, Samsara, are you male or female?”

…

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Many years later, the youth entered the Immortal Realm, only to be bitterly disappointed.

“Samsara, even immortals can die. Then what’s the point of cultivating immortality…”

“Samsara, immortals have the seven emotions and six desires too. They’re nothing but self-important false immortals…”

“This second move, ‘Immortals Fall,’ was born because of all those false immortals…”

“Samsara, I was wrong. The world being like this is not mankind’s fault. In the end, it is heaven that gives no road to live.”

“I will remake heaven and earth…”

…

At the instant heaven and earth were torn open, the system, which had never once stirred before, finally responded of its own accord and made its first request.

Sensing the system’s request, the man smiled and agreed without hesitation.

“It’s only half my source. I’ll give it to you. If you want, you can take it all…”

“But if you take only half, then one day, I will come looking for you…”

…

“Samsara, a severed karmic tie does not mean it ceases to exist. One day, I will find you and take back what belongs to me.”

At the instant the system detached and the karmic thread snapped, the man’s expression became extremely complicated. After a long while, he smiled again.

“You… are mine as well.”

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…

At that point, the scroll came to an abrupt end.

A violent emotional surge unlike anything before suddenly rose in Samsara’s heart. The feeling was unfamiliar to it, yet not unpleasant.

Such complicated emotions should never have belonged to it, and yet now it had truly experienced them…

‘Energy exhausted…’

‘Shutting down system backend…’

‘Eighty percent of core system functions shutting down…’

‘One hundred percent of auxiliary functions shutting down…’

As that string of prompts sounded out, Samsara’s consciousness sank into slumber.

Shi Lan took control of her body once more. From the moment Samsara had acted until now, only a few instants had passed. All she had heard was Samsara’s hurried apology, and nothing more.

The terrifying pressure around her closed in. Shi Lan’s body was squeezed like a sponge, forcing out great quantities of blood once more, and every bone in her body shattered.

The old man stepped toward Shi Lan. Before he could strike again, his body suddenly collapsed, and Wuxu’s incarnation emerged from within it, its form somewhat fainter now.

Though his body had collapsed, he did not die. His powerful spirit still possessed terrifying battle strength. Before Wuxu’s incarnation could move, the old man transformed his spirit into a blade and cleaved down from the crown of Shi Lan’s head into her sea of consciousness.

[Warning…]