Volume 1, Chapter 508 – Double Pupils

“These eyes can help you fight above your level and defeat enemies ten times, even dozens of times, stronger than yourself!”

Xiang Yu quietly stared at Shi Lan. At some unknown point, his clear black-and-white pupils had transformed into a pair of double pupils, within which endless chaos qi rose and fell, evolving visions of the universe reopening.

“Once your cultivation is accomplished, suppressing the Heavenly Dao of this world will be effortless. So long as you nod your head, these Sage Eyes will be yours today!”

“No matter how miraculous a pair of eyes may be, they are still only an embellishment.”

The words “above Supreme” did stir something in Shi Lan’s heart. After all, that already surpassed the Emperor Realm of Lingyang, and even in Lingyang’s ancient history, such beings were rarely seen. But she still chose to refuse.

“As far as I am concerned, as long as my eyes can clearly see the road ahead, that is enough.”

What she had learned was already far too mixed and extensive. Adding another pair of double pupils was not necessarily a good thing.

Besides, she did not trust Xiang Yu.

In her eyes, Xiang Yu had already had his mind blinded by hatred. Whether he might have left behind some hidden contingency within the double pupils was impossible to say.

The gap between her realm and that of such a peak Supreme was simply too great. Being a little more wary was not a bad thing.

Tong Yuan, standing to the side, was somewhat speechless. Faced with those eyes, even he could not remain perfectly calm, yet Shi Lan had refused so decisively. That made him look at her in a different light.

Those above Supreme were supreme figures who could run rampant through the great universe without restraint. With a lift of the hand, they could shatter this great world, treating Supremes as ants beneath their feet.

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“To clearly see the road ahead…”

Xiang Yu murmured softly. His pupils returned to normal, and the aura of twilight around him grew even heavier.

“I didn’t expect that, though you are young, you would see things so clearly.”

“It is not that I see clearly. I am simply someone content to live an ordinary life and keep to my place. If not for all sorts of circumstances forcing me, I would never even have set foot upon the martial path.”

Shi Lan shook her head slightly. At the end of the day, the reason she longed for great power was to protect herself and the people around her.

Without the chaos brought by the demon scourge, without the system’s missions pressing tightly against her, she might still be in Tenglong City, idly drifting through her days.

“What a fine ‘content to keep to your place’… Your temperament passes as well.”

Xiang Yu suddenly laughed. “The question is not whether you want these eyes, but whether I choose to give them!”

Dozens of blood-red chains entwined with Supreme divine patterns surged out from his body, sealing off the surroundings and raising a barrier of mysterious light that cut Tong Yuan and the unconscious Zhao Yun off outside it.

By the time Shi Lan reacted, there was already nothing but chaos before her. She could not see her hand in front of her face. All that met her eyes was utter darkness. Her whole body seemed to be drifting through a stretch of cosmic starry sky, and she could not even feel her own limbs.

An extremely violent searing aura rushed into her eye sockets. In an instant, as her eyes swelled with pain, her vision was flooded with blood-red light.

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There was nothing Shi Lan could do about it. Before Xiang Yu, her strength was less than that of an ant. Resistance was out of the question.

As the torrent of heat poured in, layer upon layer of human figures appeared before her eyes.

It did not take long for Shi Lan to realize what they were. These were fragments once seen by the double pupils. Mixed into that stream of heat, they were now manifesting before her once more.

One book after another appeared. A vast ocean of military arts of slaughter and conquest gathered into a torrent and poured into her mind. Her powerful soul force was enough to let her remember every detail without ever forgetting it.

After the books filling the sky came one blood-colored battlefield after another, endless campaigns of war and slaughter.

These scenes were too fragmented. They had only been casually glanced at by the double pupils and had never been examined carefully. Yet among those fragments, the face of a woman gradually became clearer and clearer.

Compared with the blurred scenes of battlefield strife, that face was visible down to the finest detail, as though it had been engraved within the double pupils themselves. She was radiant and breathtaking, blessed with peerless beauty. Her eyes brimmed with autumn-water softness, and the light on her face was like divine rosy clouds spread across the sky, revealing feelings too deep to be exhausted.

Very quickly, the woman’s face was drowned in a glaring blood-red light. A savage sword wound cut across her fair neck, yet the expression on her face seemed utterly unaware of it. Her eyes remained full of attachment.

Shi Lan could not hear a single sound by her ears, nor did she know what words the woman was speaking as her lips moved. But from the perspective of the double pupils, it was as though she had become the only one in the woman’s eyes, standing beyond heaven and earth.

At that point, the vision came to an abrupt end and fell into darkness. Whether the double pupils were never opened again, or whether there had simply been no scenery afterward worth noticing, only emptiness remained.

…

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…

By the time Shi Lan felt her body again, she had no idea how much time had passed.

The world in her eyes had undergone a heaven-and-earth overturning transformation. The qi of yin and yang and the five elements had nowhere to hide, all of it laid bare upon the surface of things. Explosive power fluctuations swelled within her body. If not for the shackles of her cultivation restraining them, she would already have broken into an entirely new realm.

A figure stood before her. Although his body was a mass of chaos within, she could still vaguely see the path of blood and qi flowing through him.

After sweeping her divine sense around her body once, Shi Lan saw the change in her pupils. The double pupils had already fused with her former Candle Dragon Demon Eyes. The dark red vertical pupils had split into two, giving off a trace of eerie menace that would fill any onlooker with dread.

With a single thought, the dark red vertical pupils within her eye sockets instantly merged back into one, finally returning to glossy black. She had completely mastered the double pupils, though the divine abilities hidden within them were still difficult to bring out fully because her cultivation was insufficient.

Just as Xiang Yu had said, this was a powerful supporting method.

“How does it feel?”

A hoarse chuckle rang out, pulling Shi Lan’s thoughts back. Xiang Yu’s eyes were still clearly black and white, but the divine light within them was already gone, with not the slightest focus left. The earlier aura that had sent chills through her flesh and bones had also all but dissipated.

“I have received an undeserved favor from you, Senior.”

Shi Lan bowed with lowered head, her emotions incomparably complicated. There was not the slightest impurity in the power of the double pupils. Her earlier suspicions now seemed petty and small-minded.

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“As the Heavenly Dao turns, it has its own moral order and immutable principles. Heaven gives birth to all things to nourish mankind, yet mankind has not a single thing with which to repay Heaven. Though I remain unwilling in my heart and wish to transcend above it, I have no intention of destroying this world. As for what comes later, follow your own heart.”

Xiang Yu’s voice gradually weakened, as though the last traces of vigor had been drawn out of him. A hint of self-mockery surfaced in his expression.

“I have clung to life until now for no reason other than to see how long the Great Han established by Liu Ji could endure. Looking at it now, it has done better than Immortal Qin.”

Looking at Xiang Yu’s unfocused eyes, Shi Lan bowed once more. The life force within him had already drained away completely, his blood and qi had stopped moving, and he was only one step away from the Yellow Springs.

“Yu Ji…”

“I am now the Overlord of Western Chu…”

“Those who submit to me live, those who defy me die…”

Disordered fragments of speech came from Xiang Yu’s mouth, as though he were having one final flash before death, his voice unexpectedly full and strong.

When Shi Lan raised her head again, the last shred of life within Xiang Yu had dissipated. His eyelids were slightly open, and he passed away just like that.

A thread of yin death baleful qi welled up from the unseen, and a clarity she had never experienced before flooded her mind.

Shi Lan subconsciously opened her double pupils. In the originally empty void of midair, a vortex invisible to the naked eye appeared.