Chapter 386: Greater Self (3)
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“Are you curious about what karma accumulates when an immortal kills an immortal?”
The Palace Lord of the Palace of Heavenly Worship asked teasingly. Without bothering to react, I nodded.
“What is it?”
“Naturally, no karma accumulates. Because an immortal has already become a part of nature. Does water putting out fire generate karma?”
“Are immortals not half human? But can one become like that right away just by attaining enlightenment?”
“Immortals do not harm nature.”
I could not understand it in the slightest. The laws and regulations of nature created by god were things that even I, having reached the realm of the Greater Self, could hardly fathom.
I was now someone who had gone beyond nature to become one with the universe. Yet even so, the laws that existed before the universe remained unknown.
That was something closer to the ultimate truth in the truest sense. For me to obtain that, I would ultimately have to ascend to immortality and be forgotten by everyone.
“…”
Suddenly, the gaze in everyone’s eyes before I left Wuhan came to mind. Gazes worrying that I might disappear. Their sincerity was potent. Potent enough to reach even me, who was now far removed from humanity.
Having come this far, I too wanted to know the truth. That was one of the few human natures remaining within me. Ignorance and curiosity. That was what was driving me forward.
And to look past that ignorance and catch a glimpse of the truth, I ultimately had to resolve the tasks facing me right now. Such as the Palace Lord of the Palace of Heavenly Worship right before my eyes.
“Therefore, you have no need to be conscious of karma right now. In the first place, it is because you have accumulated immense good karma right now.”
The Palace Lord said as if envious. I tilted my head.
“Me?”
“Yes. In the current war, is your share not immense? The people who died here become your good karma. Surely you can feel it as well.”
Indeed, the souls of the imperial army had returned to me as the Greater Self. But was that truly good karma?
If so, it meant being born human was evil in itself, but where else could there be something so unjust for humans? I could not empathize with the so-called laws of nature in the least.
“Whether you intended it or not, you are truly an extraordinary fellow. In truth, all immortals desire war, but making it happen is no easy feat, after all.”
“Is desiring war not evil?”
“It is evil only from the perspective of humans. From the perspective of nature, when the things that harm it voluntarily self-destruct on their own, what greater good could there be?”
“If nature cannot embrace humans and ostracizes them to such an extent, it seems the level of nature isn’t all that remarkable either.”
“Nature simply exists as it is. It does not attempt to do anything. When we exert force to pluck a leaf, it falls. It does not resist trying not to fall.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to know any more. It was preposterous. Did that not mean that simply becoming an immortal granted one a free pass for the karma of slaughter? The gradually revealed laws of nature were vastly different from human justice.
“You seem uncomfortable about something. But I understand. Since it is so different from what you used to know. Yet you will eventually adapt.”
“Don’t speak as if you know me.”
“My apologies. But knowing the truth is originally a painful thing.”
The Palace Lord laughed heartily.
“Why do you think I am explaining every little detail to you like this?”
“Because you’re an idiot?”
“Because you are about to die by my hands soon.”
The Palace Lord’s laughter came to an abrupt halt. Next, a tempest swept through the Forbidden City. It was not a tempest of qi, but literally a raging storm. Clouds gathered in the clear sky, and suddenly rain and thunder poured down.
He had said the formation the Palace Lord deployed was at the realm of Heavenly Evasion. It was of an immense scale and might that made that vividly felt.
Normally, the distortion of weather by formations was restricted to inside the formation. But upon reaching the realm of Heavenly Evasion, it seemed capable of influencing reality itself.
I, too, suspended my sword before me. Radiating ripples, the sword pushed away the wind and rain so that it would not touch my body. Even amid this raging storm, not a single hem of my sleeve was dampened.
Right then, with a flashing roar from the sky, an immense energy instantly converged above my head. I immediately raised my sword upward.
Kwang!
The surroundings brightened in an instant. Lightning had struck right above my head. Lightning qi flooded my sword, causing the blade to tremble.
“Hooh.”
The Palace Lord’s eyes were dyed with astonishment. Lightning had descended literally at the speed of light. Yet I had sensed it in advance, raising my sword to block it.
“You are truly not ordinary.”
I gripped the sword hilt. The lightning qi surged tinglingly through my whole body, but it was bearable. Slicing diagonally with my sword, I gathered the lightning qi into the blade.
And immediately, I appeared before the Palace Lord. Just as the Palace Lord had drawn down lightning, I had become the wind and stood before him.
Raising my sword, I slammed down the lightning qi imbued with thunder. Gathered in the blade, the lightning burst outward with a roaring boom. Returning the opponent’s strength right back at them. It was exactly what I had learned at Wudang.
Kwakwakwang!
Lightning poured forth from my sword. Startled, the Palace Lord surged into the sky. From the scars of the lightning, the ground was gouged out bizarrely. But this was not the end.
I pursued him immediately and swung my sword at the Palace Lord. The Palace Lord also raised his sword to block me. Every time sword clashed against sword, an explosion of Sword Force erupted with a thunderous roar. We fought using the sky as our battlefield. Without the earth as a foothold, the variations of combat multiplied exponentially.
As we flew around and grazed past each other, deafening explosions rang out. Simultaneously, the storm weakened and the rain began to dry up.
No matter how much he twisted human souls to draw upon the power of nature, because we were borrowing and expending that much natural power, the surroundings were drying out.
The more we clashed, the more leaves turned brown and fell, and the ground began to fissure. Life force was vanishing.
Gradually, we too had no choice but to descend to the ground. Since we were soaring through the sky riding the energy of the wind, once that power was exhausted, we could not fly either.
From this point on, it was time to use the internal energy we had accumulated as martial artists. Without Sword Force, sword and sword began to clash purely against each other. Sparks produced from the collision of steel danced between us.
Naturally, the Palace Lord had also unmistakably been an outstanding martial artist before becoming an immortal. Had he not been so, he would never have attained the enlightenment required to become an immortal.
“It has been a long time since I experienced a proper battle!”
The corners of the Palace Lord’s mouth twisted upward. Indeed, after becoming an immortal, there had been no cause to fight due to the Penglai Covenant, and even if they fought, it would have stopped at manipulating the energy of nature against each other, so clashing blades directly must have been a long time coming.
Sword clashed against sword, interwoven with fist, palm, and kick arts. Before we were immortals, we were martial artists. And martial artists who had reached the absolute peak. Because it was a battle between the two of us, all manner of sublime techniques naturally began to pour forth.
It was the first time in a long while that I used my physical body so intensely and found my breath running short.
We continued to clash our swords. Clashing for nearly two shichen, the Palace Lord’s martial arts were profound enough that not a single martial stance among them was ever repeated.
“Haah, haah.”
Gradually, my breath became strained and my lungs felt squeezed. It was a physical limit I had not experienced in a long time since transcendence. And looking at the Palace Lord, who was biting his lip tightly while dripping with sweat, the same appeared true for him.
We could no longer waste precious breath on conversation. From here on, it was a battle of concentration. A battle over who would succumb to their increasingly ragged breathing first.
In a sense, pushing myself to such physical limits was a first as well. Until now, hitting a limit had been my own limit, not the limit of the human physical body.
Yet now, because two who had transcended the mortal flesh were fighting, the limit of the human physical body was arriving. I felt my heart beating frantically, blood coursing through my entire body, my lungs constricting, and my senses growing razor-sharp.
Only our rough breathing echoed through the Forbidden City. Now, there was no magnificent Sword Force, nor any lightning or storms.
And I felt that my limit was not far away. Within fifty exchanges, my limit would arrive. I had to finish this within fifty exchanges.
Of course, I did not engage in obvious actions such as shifting purely to an all-out offense or suddenly turning defensive. Rather, I continued to exchange blows just as I had done all along. Perhaps the Palace Lord was doing the same right now. Whether the Palace Lord did so or not, I chose the Middle Way.
I would do my utmost until the very end, without aiming for lucky flukes. Extending when it was time to extend, and withholding when it was not. And when my end arrived, I only needed to humbly acknowledge both myself and my opponent, and close my eyes in peace.
In truth, because I possessed the soul of a god, there was no need to engage in a mortal battle so seriously. Shedding the mortal flesh was, rather, akin to returning to my true home.
Thus, fifty exchanges passed. Clashing in the final exchange, I knew my limit had arrived. Though the Palace Lord also appeared to have practically reached his limit, he seemed to have a few moves left in him. It was truly a difference of two or three moves.
“This is the end!”
The Palace Lord’s eyes shone. He too had been eagerly anticipating my end, and had now noticed my limit.
Having finished the final exchange, I indeed saw the limit, the end of a human. And astonishingly, the moment the Palace Lord’s blade flew toward my neck, I felt an overwhelming wave of deep emotion.
At the end of humanity, I saw a human. Immortals were people who chose to become gods without ever witnessing the end of humanity.
At the very end of the end, I saw the nucleus of life. Even as the crisis of death approached—no, precisely because it approached—the nucleus of life was burning ever more fiercely. The flame burning from that nucleus of life was truly the pinnacle of beauty.
“…Ah.”
And that flame of life spread out into me, reigniting my body that had exhausted all its strength.
Life possessed infinite potential to deny its own demise. That was life, the very beauty of existence.
Seeing the vitality suddenly return to my eyes, the Palace Lord’s eyes widened in shock. He likely did not know. What beauty life standing at the brink of its limit possessed.
Had the Palace Lord approached his limit earlier, the one to obtain this power would have been the Palace Lord. Because the flame of life burned equally in anyone.
However, the Palace Lord still had a tiny bit of firewood remaining, while I had none. And a flame burning without firewood was truly worthy of being called a pure flame.
Moving with strength, I took a single step forward. Life had not granted me strength so that I would retreat backward. And before the Palace Lord’s sword could sever my neck, my sword pierced straight through the Palace Lord’s heart.
“…What wonder is this?”
The Palace Lord’s eyes opened wide in disbelief.
“Such a wonder… I have never heard of…”
It was understandable that the Palace Lord spoke so. Even I now knew the laws of nature. All power was bound to diminish. Flames were bound to extinguish, water was bound to dry up, and wind was bound to cease. There was nothing in the myriad things of this world that defied this law. Or so I had thought.
Yet something that defied those laws of nature had made its appearance. It was none other than the life existing at the very end of a human being. That small, pure flame possessed by everyone held the potential to defy the laws of nature.
The Palace Lord perished without finishing his words. Interestingly, his final gaze held curiosity rather than despair. Curiosity toward something he had never experienced before. He, too, had still been a human after all.
Only then did I realize that the term ‘immortal’ was merely wordplay for them to distinguish themselves from others. They were simply people.
Upon the Palace Lord’s death, the energy remaining in his body spread out into the earth. The Palace Lord had been part of nature. Therefore, upon death, returning to nature was only natural.
His corpse decayed rapidly. In contrast, the dried earth of the Forbidden City regained its moisture, trees sprouted new leaves, and the wind began to blow.
Rain fell. Looking up at the sky for a moment, I looked back at the spot where the Palace Lord’s corpse had been. The Palace Lord’s corpse had already cleanly vanished, as if it had never existed in the first place.