Chapter 169: Cruel Duality of the Heart
Yaan's progression through the Tower of Mortal Dao was more arduous than for others. He did not try to protect his heart, instead, he knowingly allowed the tower's pressure to land upon him, doing nothing to shield his heart from its weight. In a way, he was making things more difficult for himself, but in another sense, this was the only way that Yaan was able to climb the tower.
He did not turn away from the difficulties he faced, he did not try to block the suffering he felt, he allowed it all to land upon him, braving the pain without any doubts towards his way.
The heart was something that all cultivators would do their utmost to protect and nurture, but Yaan's treatment towards his own heart was ruthless. Perhaps, denying the existence of his own heart was his most ruthless action yet.
However, the continual raining down of the tower's pressure caused him to grow weary and exhausted. His heart was worn down by the ongoing assault, growing tired and detached, until eventually, he seemed to become entirely exhausted, unable to go on.
It was at this point that Yaan lost consciousness. His heart was so tired, so weakened, that it threatened to collapse at any moment; truthfully, pushing himself to this extent was extremely dangerous!
And yet, Yaan did not give up. Even as his heart seemingly wanted to stop, another part of him refused to grant himself such luxury!
Yaan ended up falling into a semi-comatosed state, a state where he conserved the last remnants of his energy, allowing him to persevere on the brink of defeat for a while longer.
Ever since his heart began to grow tired, a feeling of pain spread outwards. This agonising aura that made others become filled with a sense of dread was not caused directly by the tower's pressure, but by Yaan's actions of ignoring his heart.
His dao heart, the core of his being, was crying out!
But Yaan ignored this cry, he ignored the pain, convincing himself that it did not exist. Because of his self-imposed illusion that he was unknowingly sinking deeper into with every passing moment, Yaan was able to overcome the usual limits of a Foundation Step cultivator, persevering until the point that he was quite literally about to die from the collapse of his dao heart!
When he finally lost consciousness, his desire to push forwards, his determination to overlook his heart, continued to rage on. With his heart split in two, one part crying out, begging him to acknowledge his true self, the other part ruthlessly crushing down all other noise and attempting to replace it with ruthless indifference, the aura of agony swept outwards.
Whilst the crowd was enraptured by Xuqi Laila's shining brilliance, Yaan's agonising aura actually began to lessen. Or, more accurately, it began flowing backwards, returning to Yaan's body, then sinking deep inside him.
Crack!
Suddenly, a noise heard only to Yaan echoed out like a deafening roar within his soul. The internal turmoil shattered into countless fragments as an enormous crack reflecting the abyss spread across his dao soul. The giant crack spread across his dao soul, before branching out, then again, and again, countless times, until Yaan's entire dao soul became covered in these dark cracks.
The dao soul was neither a physical nor spiritual entity, it possessed no innate appearance, other than that of its owner's perception of themselves. Typically, cracks on the dao soul represented damage caused by a heart demon. But then again, a heart demon which was allowed to grow to this degree should be more than to enough to completely obliterate a cultivator's dao soul…
And yet, at this moment, Yaan did not die. Instead, he opened his eyes.
The moment Yaan opened his eyes, the crowd instinctively looked towards him, no longer distracted by Xuqi Laila's incredible performance. The crowd fell silent as chills ran through their bodies. Almost every single person present felt their skin crawl, their hearts began palpitating wildly, even Origin Soul realm cultivators were no exception to this!
Whilst the immortals of course weren't affected to such an extreme extent, they were still shocked beyond reason.
Whoosh!
At the exact same time, all three immortals stepped forwards, reappearing right besides the tower. They stared inwards, focussing on Yaan with serious expressions.
Yaan's physical eye colour was red, but he had been concealing his eyes subconsciously, making them appear brown until now. In this moment though, his eyes were neither red nor brown. In fact, one eye was emanating a blindingly bright white light, whilst the other eye was pure black like the abyss, depleting all light from the surroundings.
The pressure being released from Yaan's body right now was no longer a formless aura which could only be felt within the tower. The pressure exuded from his body could no longer be restrained by the Tower of Mortal Dao!
Or more accurately speaking, the Tower of Mortal Dao was simply not designed to block such an aura, because this aura…contained immortal power!
Black and white illusions surrounded Yaan. As he looked upwards slowly, his feet left the ground, and under the disbelieving gazes of the crowd, he slowly began to drift upwards…
In this tower that suppressed all cultivation, leaving those inside as helpless as mere mortals, Yaan was actually flying!
But really, the fact that he was able to fly was the least shocking matter. What shocked the immortals more than anything else, was the power Yaan was currently displaying.
"Pseudo-domain! This is a complete pseudo-domain!" The Xuqi Sect Immortal Lord cried out in disbelief. She was simply unable to contain her shock, this completely overturned her world view!
How could a mortal cultivator utilise an immortal ability?! How could this child use a power that even she had not yet attained?!
Gradually, she began to feel that this child whom she had previously only considered a talented prodigy, was actually somewhat unfathomable…
Slowly, the female immortal turned to the Immortal Ancestor.
"Pristine Qi Immortal, just who is this 'disciple' of yours, really? Is he a reincarnated immortal?"
"I said this before…he is my successor." The Immortal Ancestor replied calmly. He did not look at the shocked immortals besides him, but kept his gaze focussed on Yaan.
As Yaan ascended upwards, the illusions surrounding him became increasingly vivid. Unlike previous times that he had displayed his incomplete pseudo-domain, the illusions this time were far more chaotic, far more agonising, and less coherent.
Figures formed from white light were continuously born, screaming out whilst clutching their heads in pain. The reason for their pain were the black cracks which endlessly spawned upon them, tearing them apart and releasing waves of anguished aura. The endless cycles of birth and death contained traces of the dao of life and death, but the illusion itself was sustained by the dao of illusions…
This was proof that Yaan's illusion dao had reached immortal stage comprehension!
It was difficult to classify the minor differences in levels of dao comprehension, but there was a very clear boundary between mortal stage dao comprehension and immortal stage dao comprehension. At the mortal stage of dao comprehension, tiny aspects of the earthly dao were comprehended. All Foundation Step cultivators comprehended different aspects of the earthly dao; they might comprehend a larger, single portion of the dao, or they might comprehend various minor aspects of the dao.
Mortal stage comprehension was unordered and incomplete, but immortal stage comprehension was different. To comprehend an earthly dao to the immortal stage, was to comprehend a complete fragment of that earthly dao! Someone with this stage of comprehension would still only understand a single fragment of that earthly dao, but they understood this portion of the dao in its entirety! Their comprehension was complete, it was ordered, it gave them a clear view of the dao as a whole. With dao comprehension at the immortal stage, it became far easier to manipulate this dao comprehension, allowing them to use their dao comprehension as the foundation to form a complete pseudo-domain!
Comprehending an earthly dao to the immortal stage was a prerequisite to becoming an immortal, but even so, not all immortals were able to form pseudo-domains. To do so, their portion of comprehended dao needed to be compatible with the formation of a domain, but even then, deducing the method to form the domain using this comprehension was a huge undertaking in and of itself.
So naturally, the immortals felt stunned that Yaan, a young Foundation Step cultivator, was actually able to achieve such a feat.
The Immortal Ancestor showed nothing on his face, but his heart was truly stirred. The reason for him pushing Yaan into this trial, was exactly because he wanted to see the full extent of his dao comprehension talent for himself!
After coming to understand Yaan, he also wanted to see the direction of development of his dao heart…
'It is just like she said, his talent in perceiving dao is unreasonably high…the Primordial Devil originally did not comprehend dao, but after fragmenting into the five fragments, the Fragment of Dao retained the greatest dao comprehension talent. This fragment is indeed suited to becoming the core…but this dao heart, why is it like this? Is it because his heart is incomplete? This makes some degree of sense, the Fragment of Dao would naturally be most affected by the incomplete nature of our dao soul…but there is an alternative possibility.'
The Immortal Ancestor narrowed his eyes, staring at Yaan intently, trying to see through the secrets that even Yaan did not know that he held.
Yaan drifted upwards slowly, passing through the centre of the tower, ascending past the stairway which spiralled around him.
He reached the 21st floor, then the 22nd…
23rd, 24th, 25th…
The tower's pressure weighed down on Yaan's heart, but this only caused the white illusory figures to scream out with greater intensity. The figures expanded, until they encompassed the entire floor surrounding Yaan. The black abyssal cracks continued to wreak havoc, tearing apart the white figures without mercy.
It was difficult to see clearly due to the chaotic nature of the illusion, but if one were to look closely, they would see that the white figures resembled the many people Yaan had wronged in some way throughout his life.
If one listened closely, they would hear that the figures were not actually screaming at Yaan with hatred, but rather, they were begging him to stop…
But the dark cracks contained no mercy, they resolutely obliterated the figures, not caring for the pain and devastation left in their wake. The entire atmosphere around Yaan was now filled with thick black cracks, partially obscuring his body from view. Flashes of Yaan's rising figure could be seen now and then, ascending through the tower silently, as if everything around him was simply irrelevant.
Quietly, Yaan ascended.
Yaan's will to ascend manifested in the form of greater, larger black cracks, causing chaos to rampage all around him. In his pitch black eye, only ruthlessness could be seen. This was the portion of himself that Yaan focussed on, everything else was irrelevant, he believed that only this darkness could help him to ascend further. Even though he was in a dazed, semi-conscious state, this idea lingered on his mind, driving him to embrace this destructive force which was tearing apart his very dao soul.
All Yaan could feel was ruthlessness, he refused to acknowledge anything else.
The audience felt the same way as they watched him, they were thrown into a sensation of overwhelming terror by this ruthlessness, unable to speak, unable to move, unable to look away.
Were it not for the immortals shielding them from Yaan's pseudo-domain, these Foundation Step cultivators would not be able to endure it. After all, Yaan was currently using an immortal power; those below the Immortal Step could not withstand such might!
The nature of the domain was to form a region around the self which manifested as the power of the dao heart. Whilst a pseudo-domain used an earthly dao as its core, the power of the dao heart was still a key component. To push one's domain onto another being, was to impose one's dao heart onto them! As such, those within the vicinity of the domain would clearly feel the power of its master's dao…
Out of the many Foundation Step cultivators in the crowd, only one person was able to see through the ruthlessness of the black cracks. This person was by no means extraordinary compared to the others around her, but she was able to see through something within this chaos for a simple reason…she knew Yaan better than any of these people, and thus, somehow, she was not all that shocked by his sudden burst of might.
Whilst Zue Yin could not claim to share a close relationship with Yaan, she had known him through the various phases of his life. She had seen him grow, change, develop…she had seen him fall deeper into the demonic path.
So when she saw past the ruthless façade, gazing deep into the contrast created between his white and black eyes, letting her peer into the true desolation around Yaan's small body, two streams of tears unknowingly fell from her eyes. She could not look away from the young child floating silently up through the screaming ghosts and the merciless abyssal cracks, as if this was simply where he had always been.
"I misunderstood him,…he never became a demon, not truly…but he was never righteous, either. He was always just…Yaan…"
Suddenly, Zue Yin felt like the very concept of righteous and demonic was nothing but a joke. Who in this world could truly be defined by a single word? Who in this world was truly aligned with a single extreme ideology?
Zue Yin bit her lip, staring at Yaan with pity in her eyes.
"Yaan…why do you do this to yourself? Why does it have to be this way…? It's not fair…you are far too cruel to yourself…"
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