Volume 1, Chapter 384 – Deity

“Life is a journey with no turning back. It is unpredictable and irreversible. Sometimes, one tiny action on your part may alter the course of many people’s lives.”

“Death is the root of all things. No matter what kind of existence one is, none can escape it. What people fear is not death itself, but the void and the unknown that death represents. That is why they fear it.”

Xiong Hu calmly set forth his views on human life and death.

“Then what is reincarnation?”

Shi Lan’s pupils were now completely flooded with violet. At some point, wind and clouds had begun to shift overhead, and threads of lightning flickered among the clouds, never quite able to gather into form.

“In heaven there is the alternation of sun and moon. In time there is the turning of the four seasons. The entire world is within reincarnation.”

At that point, Xiong Hu’s gaze dimmed slightly.

“Reincarnation also requires energy to sustain it. When that energy is exhausted, the world too will reach its end.”

“So reincarnation is not the true end, is it…”

“You can understand it that way.”

Xiong Hu’s gaze returned to calm. He lifted his head and glanced at the pale clouds in the sky, his expression complicated.

After a moment of silence, Shi Lan spoke again:

“Does true immortality exist in this world?”

“It does not.”

Xiong Hu’s tone was absolute.

“How can you be sure?”

A faint frown appeared between Shi Lan’s brows, and an eerie fire-mark surfaced there. Not far away, the surging sea was gently smoothed flat by an invisible hand, and in an instant the wind died and the waves calmed.

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“Even if your great power were enough to reverse time throughout the entire universe and overturn heaven and earth, that would still only be a change made on the basis of your own power. That is the root of it.”

“Your power will one day run dry. Even if you overturn the river of time and return to the past, that result will still be hard to change.”

Xiong Hu spoke with layered meaning. Meeting Shi Lan’s indifferent gaze, he bared his teeth in a grin.

“Still… a dragon in shallow waters is still a dragon. I cannot see your end.”

“My end…”

Shi Lan turned back to gaze over the sea, her heart filled with mixed emotions.

At this moment, the awareness of her spirit soul had fully awakened. Tempered by the terrifying torrent of stray thoughts from the past twenty-odd years, her spirit soul had become crystalline, pure as crystal water.

She had already come to a realization. On her previous martial path, it could not be said that she had wallowed in the mud, but she had always lacked a certain sharpness of advance.

When she had first entered the Lingyang Realm, if not for the system pressing her forward step by step, her martial cultivation would never have grown so quickly.

The long chain of upheavals that followed had left her always carrying a measure of caution in dealing with others and handling matters, considering too much and too carefully.

It was not that caution was bad. But over time, it had still affected the progress of her Martial Dao.

Most crucially of all, at some point she had begun to lose her awe for life. She had grown indifferent to the passing of life, and no longer felt the slightest ripple in her heart.

The Heavenly Dao turns in reincarnation. Cause and effect circle back. The Great Dao is simplicity itself.

In truth, from beginning to end, what she had sought was nothing more than that one thing: true freedom.

“What exactly are you? This world’s guardian deity? Or the Heavenly Dao itself?”

After calming the thoughts in her heart, Shi Lan sat down on the beach and asked casually.

“The world’s consciousness became unclear long ago and is now nearing the end of its road. I am powerless to stop it. But before It reaches that end, my duty is to protect it and, to the best of my ability, cast out the outsiders.”

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“Why didn’t you make a move against me?”

“Your power had already surpassed the limits of what I can currently deal with. If I offended you, this world would suffer a great calamity.”

Xiong Hu answered plainly and truthfully.

“And your purpose is different from those outsiders.”

“Were there ever people like me here before?”

“A very, very long time ago, yes. But after the world gradually weakened, they stopped coming. Barren soil is not enough to draw the notice of powerful beings or make them stay.”

“What was their purpose?”

“The world’s source energy can allow certain beings to achieve a different kind of longevity and avoid reaching their end too early.”

Xiong Hu looked up at the sky. Watching the lightning that never managed to gather fully, a trace of sorrow surfaced in his eyes.

“A thousand years ago, there was still heavenly punishment…”

Even if Xiong Hu had not mentioned it, Shi Lan had long since noticed that the barrier of this world had grown as fragile as a sheet of thin paper. It could no longer withstand much turmoil.

Shi Lan rose to her feet and lightly closed her eyes. A gentle rosy radiance overflowed from the depths of her spirit soul, nourishing this body. Her skin visibly regained its moisture, glowing once more with the luster belonging only to a young girl.

In an instant, the twenty-odd missing years had all returned to this body.

“Do you want to come with me?”

Shi Lan found herself wanting to recruit him. That purity in Xiong Hu might yet bloom with dazzling brilliance on the path of cultivation.

“It cannot leave me.”

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Xiong Hu bared his teeth in a smile and lightly thumped his chest with his fist.

“This is my end.”

Shi Lan shook her head and said no more. In silence, she murmured:

“Go.”

An invisible passage opened, descending from the nine heavens. Only spirit souls could pass through such a passage; it was invisible to the naked eye.

Yet Xiong Hu seemed to see something. He looked as if he wanted to speak but stopped himself, and the light in his eyes was dazzling.

Shi Lan turned back and cast one last glance at the world steeped in the aura of decline. Suddenly, she faintly caught the scent of new life, tiny, yet incomparably clear.

Perhaps this world had not truly reached its end. It had merely entered reincarnation.

…

My name is Xiong Hu.

This year… I do not know how old I am.

When I was born, my eyes were already different from those of ordinary people. I could see what others could not see and sense what others could not sense. In the words of people back then, I had been born to do great things.

I have seen many people and encountered many things, but I remember little of it now.

One day, I suddenly heard a sound. It came from the sky, rose from the earth, and echoed between the sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas.

It was a sound of grief.

From that day onward, an extra duty appeared upon me, and with that duty came a power beyond the mortal world.

At first, the power I possessed was terrifying. With a single thought, I could churn rivers and seas and reverse the turning of heaven and earth and the seasons.

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During that span of time, many terrifying outsiders crossed into this world and lit a war that nearly severed the lifeline of all living beings.

During those battles, I learned their purpose. The Heavenly Dao was about to fall into slumber, and the world was nearing its end.

Before the world completely broke apart, they wanted to tear off the largest piece of flesh and claim for themselves the source power that belonged to this world. It was a gluttonous feast.

Among them were extremely terrifying experts. I was no match for them and could only watch as the world gradually fell into ruin.

After nearly all the source power had been drained away, the Heavenly Dao exhausted its last strength, sealed the world, and sank it into the boundless universe.

It was a depth of darkness without coordinates, a place no one could reach.

Even so, the world’s power continued to seep away bit by bit, like sand slipping through one’s fingers, impossible to hold fast.

As the world’s power ebbed away, my own strength also declined. That power which could overturn heaven and earth at every turn was gone forever.

Even in that situation, many outsiders still traversed space to come here, lodging themselves within the living beings of this world and secretly drawing upon the little source power that remained.

The Heavenly Dao could rely on no one but me. Yet with my strength, I could never kill those outsiders completely.

As my power faded, I could only kill the hosts. I could no longer injure their true bodies, and they could return at any time.

One day, I sensed the presence of outsiders again. When I rushed over, I discovered another powerful being.

Her power clearly surpassed the bounds of this world and was incomparably mighty, but fortunately she was asleep.

I stayed by her side, preventing her from suddenly awakening due to external stimulation, and watched as she tempered herself little by little and grew ever stronger.

Only after I watched her leave did I finally breathe a sigh of relief.

What I have always wondered is why a god was dwelling inside her body…