If the beings of his past life experienced three deaths—physical, social, and spiritual—then in this life, one likely had to add another: the dissipation of the soul imprint.
Cultivators of this era had never studied soul imprints deeply. They had merely discovered their existence and knew that every living being possessed one.
It recorded everything a being saw and heard from birth to death, along with every joy, anger, sorrow, and delight of their existence.
A soul imprint was the sole proof that a life had once existed in this world.
Some thus regarded it as a piece of romance bestowed upon all living beings by the heavens.
Yet this romance would slowly decay once a being turned to dry bones, gradually fading until it ultimately dissolved into nothingness.
As information about soul imprints flitted through his mind, Xu Yuan was suddenly reminded of something.
He recalled the sensation when the memories of this life had first awakened—
The instant the memories of the pure-hearted youth named Xu Yuan and the profligate scion named Xu Changtian had merged.
Possession did not steal memories because one could not touch the soul imprint, but when the Blood Yuan Heart Calamity Art reshaped the physical body, it had seemingly fused the soul imprint of the living Xu Yuan with that of the deceased Xu Changtian.
Lowering his gaze to glance at his own palm, a complicated, strange look surfaced in Xu Yuan's eyes.
The missing details from back then were finally pieced together. Looking back now, an indescribable emotion welled within his heart.
A fusion of soul imprints...
So was he currently Xu Yuan, who had transmigrated and possessed a body, or was he Xu Changtian, whose soul had been harbored and reborn?
It was a philosophical question.
Yet thinking carefully, the signs had long been there.
He had always believed he chose to inherit Xu Changtian's identity because he coveted his old man's authority. After all, the temptation of being a top-tier scion in this world was truly hard to resist.
But had that truly been the case, he most likely would have run off with a fortune in wealth and resources to enjoy life on his own. There was no way he would have plunged headfirst into the very center of this maelstrom for the Chancellor's Manor.
After all,
The Xu Yuan of his past life had been a bona fide slacker.
In his mid-twenties, he had still lived like a salted fish, only budging when prodded by others.
He had cared nothing for the family company. Even when the old man beat him in a fit of rage, his only thought had been that a professional manager could run it anyway.
Perhaps the merging of their soul imprints had quietly and imperceptibly altered every action of the Xu Yuan who believed himself to be a mere transmigrator.
Or more likely, from the moment he stepped out of that cavern, the two independent individuals, Xu Yuan and Xu Changtian, had already become one.
*Hum—*
Amidst his sprawling thoughts,
A sword light soaring to the heavens swept across the sky. Across the neck of the mountain-like youth, a bloodless slash mark swiftly appeared.
This time, black smoke continued to seep out in an attempt to mend the wound, but this time, the black smoke was utterly ineffective.
Standing far above in the void, Xu Yuan looked down as the colossal head crashed rumbling to the ground.
This was his soul imprint space. Mu Nuo, as an intruder, had no chance of victory whatsoever.
Any fluctuation within this space was fed directly back into Xu Yuan's mind by his soul imprint.
Even if Mu Nuo could simulate his thought patterns in combat, against this precognitive ability, any scheme laced with deadly intent was entirely futile.
The severed head did not dissipate as Xu Yuan had anticipated. Instead, its ominous, pitch-black eyes stared up at him, a flicker of anxiety seeming to flash within them.
Xu Yuan had thought Mu Nuo incapable of such emotion, but the reality was that Mu Nuo was genuinely panicked.
There were no fatal wounds in the soul imprint space. Theoretically, severing a neck was no different from severing an arm. Yet the clash just now had forced it to reach an unwelcome conclusion.
If this continued, its very existence would dissipate at Xu Yuan's hands.
Its attacks could not touch Xu Yuan. Even if one landed, it was only because the man had willingly traded a blow to damage its foundation.
Just like that sword strike that had severed its head.
Mu Nuo could not understand why things had turned out this way.
It had clearly absorbed the soul intent within this space to simulate Xu Yuan's thought patterns.
Governed by this mode of thinking,
No matter how deep its hatred ran, no matter how uncontrollable its fury became, even at this life-and-death juncture, it was still calmly analyzing counterstrategies.
Mu Nuo had initially liked this feeling.
Calm reasoning, meticulous calculations, and a rational allocation of saint origin had made it believe itself invincible.
Yet now, trapped in absolute disadvantage, this very calm brought it profound discomfort.
Within Xu Changtian's thought patterns, it sensed an emotion called fear—a terror cut deep into the marrow of his bones.
This nauseated Mu Nuo, for it had never known fear, but it also stirred a trace of mockery within it.
It had never imagined that a man so calm and detached on the surface would harbor such cowardice at heart.
A blustering coward.
No sooner had the thought crossed its mind than Mu Nuo realized something else.
Even in this state, it was still thinking calmly. Even with terror mounting beyond measure, it was still searching for a way out of this dead end...
Mu Nuo's gaze shifted.
Under its watchful eyes, Xu Yuan's aloof, imperious gaze fell upon it, seeming to see right through its thoughts:
"Fear is nothing to be ashamed of. Fear is an instinct of living beings. But under pressure, one must learn to remain graceful."
With those words,
Xu Yuan lightly raised a hand. The markings on the back of his hand surged, and four giant swords condensed above his head, radiating waves of divine brilliance as they locked onto the limbs of the headless torso below.
Their shared thought patterns allowed Mu Nuo to deduce what Xu Yuan planned to do: he was going to dismember it, then destroy the severed parts one by one.
Checkmate was set.
Yet upon realizing this, Mu Nuo's bodiless head suddenly laughed.
Faced with a dead end, the thought pattern belonging to Xu Yuan birthed a mad notion within it.
This thought finally made Mu Nuo understand why this man before it was so repulsive, and why, when six Saints attacked the city and the odds were hopeless, he had still dared to stay behind and defend it.
This man was a thorough, unadulterated gambler. A manic gambling instinct was rooted deep in his marrow.
The only difference was that while others gambled with coin, he gambled with his life.
Plunging into certain death to seek survival.
Looking up at the figure standing in the sky, at the four giant swords suspended beneath the firmament, and sensing that sliver of emotion buried at the deepest recess of his thoughts, Mu Nuo suddenly spoke:
"You are an absolute lunatic."
Hearing this, Xu Yuan gave a light chuckle.
"Coming from a genuine lunatic like you, I'd say that sounds a bit rich."
Mu Nuo replied placidly,
"Xu Changtian, you were right earlier. I did simulate your thinking. So do you know what emotion I'm feeling right now, facing this dead end?"
Xu Yuan frowned slightly.
The corners of Mu Nuo's lips curled into a smile as it uttered a single word:
"Excitement."
Xu Yuan's brow knitted even tighter.
Seeing this, Mu Nuo appeared somewhat surprised.
"It seems you've never been conscious of this yourself. You love taking risks. You love gambling with your life. You crave the terror of skirting death and the thrill of knowing you could die at any moment.
"Xu Changtian, you revel in it.
"Everything normal people find unimaginably dangerous brings you pure pleasure."
After listening intently, Xu Yuan fell silent for a moment, then murmured,
"Perhaps you're right. But what are you trying to say by bringing this up? Putting myself in your shoes, I can't see any way out of this for you."
"Truly none at all?"
Mu Nuo's childish voice echoed, laden with deep amusement. "Naturally. Some things can't be grasped simply by putting yourself in someone else's shoes."
A bluff?
Xu Yuan wasn't sure if the brat was trying to fool him, but it hardly mattered.
Within his soul imprint space, Mu Nuo's demise was merely a matter of time.
With that in mind,
He lightly waved his raised right hand downward.
Yet to his surprise,
Mu Nuo merely watched in silence as the four giant swords dismembered its body. Throughout the entire process, the soul imprint relayed no reaction to Xu Yuan.
Throwing in the towel?
Doubt rose in his mind, but his hands did not pause.
As spell after spell shot forth, billows of black smoke erupted across Mu Nuo's body.
As this black smoke dispersed continuously into the soul imprint space, Mu Nuo's mountain-like form rapidly diminished.
Taking Xu Yuan's body as the normal standard, the giant that had stood several hundred zhang tall was quickly whittled down to half its original size in a short span of time.
When the final blade of light completely shattered Mu Nuo's right arm, Xu Yuan finally halted his assault.
Frowning, he deliberately descended before Mu Nuo's head without any guard, staring at the closed eyes and asking in a deep voice,
"I don't believe I would simply give up like this. If you're simulating my thoughts, you should still be searching for a way out. What are you planning?"
Mu Nuo slowly opened its eyes. From its ink-black gaze, wisps of black smoke trailed outward, accompanied by a smile.
"I didn't want to waste time, so I accelerated the process. But now, it seems the time has just about come."
Looking down at the head lying on its side, the markings on Xu Yuan's right hand materialized a hundred-meter blade of light, pressing the tip against its brow.
"The time has come? For your death?"
There was not a shred of fear in Mu Nuo's eyes. It replied flatly,
"My death? If you dare, it will indeed be my death. But before that, you might want to look around."
Xu Yuan cast it a glance, then turned his gaze toward the soul imprint space. His pupils constricted slightly.
"It seems you've noticed."
Mu Nuo's voice arrived right on cue, asking, "Before my existence completely dissipates, this soul imprint space will first be thoroughly corrupted. Do you still dare kill me, Xu Changtian?"
"..."
Xu Yuan paid no heed to the brat's arrogant taunts. He merely stared fixedly at his soul imprint space—at this realm that had, at some unknown point, been draped in a layer of gray mist.
An ominous, murky vapor spread along the edges of the space, ceaselessly eroding the flawless white.
Mu Nuo's leisurely, gentle tone sounded just like a second Xu Yuan, laced with mockery:
"The conclusion I couldn't reach earlier can now be settled: your very existence is the nourishment heaven cultivated for me."
Xu Yuan pulled his gaze back and swung his hand, cleanly cleaving the noisy head in two with a single blade strike.
The black smoke drifting from it merged into the soul imprint space in an instant. Simultaneously, as if fed by some nourishment, the black mist at the edges surged forward slightly toward the center where they stood.
His soul imprint space truly was being polluted by the black smoke emanating from Mu Nuo.
Though he did not know what mutation this corruption would bring, Xu Yuan was certain it could not possibly be a good thing.
After a moment's contemplation, Xu Yuan transformed into a streak of light and bolted toward the mist at the perimeter.
Seeing this, Mu Nuo chuckled with reckless abandon:
"Xu Changtian, it's useless. Everything you're doing is in vain. Your cultivation is far too weak; you can only become the nourishment that mends the Heavens for me."
Reaching the boundary between the gray mist and the stark white space,
Xu Yuan watched the wall of mist churning like tentacles, the gravity in his eyes deepening by the second.
From the very start, he had guessed that devouring Mu Nuo would cause his own mind to undergo a degree of mutation, and he had prepared countermeasures accordingly.
Yet with this mutation taking place directly inside his soul imprint, all his prepared methods were rendered completely useless.
To current cultivators, the soul imprint was far too mysterious; relevant research was practically at a standstill. It was entirely possible that Xu Yuan was the first cultivator in this world to ever enter his own soul imprint space.
Everything was unknown. Everything required him to test the waters himself.
Hesitating for a moment, Xu Yuan reached his left hand into the gray mist.
*Hum—*
Almost in an instant, a wave of nauseating, frantic whispers echoed through Xu Yuan's mind, nearly tearing his sanity apart.
Yet beyond that, Xu Yuan also sensed a faint presence within it—one that was both intimately familiar and strangely foreign...
Before he had time to investigate, and before madness could fully spread through his thoughts, Xu Yuan yanked his hand back. But the sensation of being immersed in the gray mist remained etched into his heart.
It was death.
Beneath those maddening whispers
Lay the very same tranquility that had embraced him during his own past death.
As the thought crossed his mind, Mu Nuo's childish voice carried over from a distance once more, brimming with mockery:
"How was it? That sound must be quite pleasant, isn't it? Why not walk your entire body in and give it a try?"
"..."
Xu Yuan directly tuned out the brat's clamor.
Gazing at the boundless wall of mist, the heavy weight in his heart pressed harder. He had also pieced together Mu Nuo's plan.
Judging by the changes just now, if Mu Nuo's existence were completely shattered, the gray mist would swallow his soul imprint space entirely.
Once his existence was completely enveloped by it, Mu Nuo would possess him and be reborn with absolute certainty.
With this in mind, Xu Yuan cautiously manipulated the saint origin from the markings, condensing an orb of light a few inches wide, and hurled it into the churning wall of mist.
What happened next made Xu Yuan's eyes light up.
The instant the orb entered the wall of mist, it rapidly reacted and neutralized the vapor. In the blink of an eye, a cavernous breach a hundred zhang across opened in the mist before him.
It worked.
The surge of delight was fleeting, for Xu Yuan instantly realized this method was unviable.
Not enough.
He had to annihilate Mu Nuo's colossal form while simultaneously preventing this boundless wall of mist from spreading throughout the entire soul imprint space. The saint origin in the markings simply wasn't enough.
No matter how conservatively he used it, it would never be enough.
Sensing Xu Yuan's actions, Mu Nuo's mocking voice rang out like an inescapable shadow:
"Xu Changtian, if you want to purge my presence, you must neutralize it with an equally immense origin source. And the Ghost Willow given to you by that golden-eyed woman is nowhere near enough to accomplish this..."
Halfway through its sentence, Mu Nuo's voice suddenly pitched upward, tinged with astonishment:
"How is this possible?!"
Before its eyes, Xu Yuan had gathered an orb of light no larger than a grain of rice from his own native cultivation and sent it into the wall of mist.
Immediately afterward,
A gaping void a thousand zhang across ripped open in the mist wall!
It was far more potent than the saint origin had been.
Xu Yuan's own cultivation and this gray mist were natural nemeses.
A breakthrough.
As long as he broke through in the middle of battle and combined it with the willow wood saint origin, he could break this impasse!
As the thought flashed by, the corners of Xu Yuan's mouth curled upward. Just as he was about to shoot a retort back at Mu Nuo, the breach in the mist seemed to suffer some sudden agitation, violently surging forward by more than a thousand zhang!
Had Xu Yuan not reacted swiftly and retreated at maximum speed, he would have been swallowed by the mist then and there.
Subconsciously looking back at Mu Nuo's severed head, he saw its eyes brimming with playful malice:
"Just kidding. I'm using your thought patterns right now, Xu Changtian. Did you really think you would ever let slip such an astonished tone?
"'Under pressure, maintain your grace,' heheh.
"Still, I'd advise you to give up early. This mist is linked to my Saint Domain in the outside world. The Saint Domain will continuously devour heaven-and-earth Source Qi to fuel the growth of this gray mist."
Infuriating.
Only when his own habit of mocking others was turned against him did Xu Yuan realize just how sickening it felt.
And most crucially, what Mu Nuo said was no bluff; it was the reality he currently faced.
Annihilating Mu Nuo's existence would allow the gray mist to corrupt his soul imprint completely.
Purging the gray mist would allow Mu Nuo to devour his existence.
Even maintaining the status quo was impossible, because the gray mist would continue to grow.
Under this ebb and flow, even if he forcibly broke through to the Origin Realm, it would merely buy him a little more time before his doom...
A dilemma on all fronts.
How was he to break the deadlock?
Just as he was weighing his options, Xu Yuan suddenly noticed that Mu Nuo, who had seemingly given up and waited for death, was abruptly making a new move.
Above its head, it condensed an orb of light ten zhang in radius, laughing loudly:
"It seems you can't make a choice. How about I lend you a hand?"
Seeing this,
Xu Yuan fell silent for a brief moment. Turning around, he walked slowly toward the boundless wall of mist and sighed,
"I suppose I truly am a lunatic. So you won't need to trouble yourself over a life-and-death choice like this."
Seeing Xu Yuan's actions, a trace of confusion crept into Mu Nuo's voice:
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Didn't you say my gambling instinct is cut into my very marrow?"
Xu Yuan stopped in his tracks, looked back over his shoulder, and smiled.
"I'm going to make a wager with you right now. The stakes will be our lives."
Hearing this, Mu Nuo seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world.
"In this war, whether you live or win, your existence will ultimately be replaced by mine.
"Xu Changtian,
"In this gamble, I cannot possibly lose.
"Your soul imprint, your existence—I will take them all."
Xu Yuan nodded noncommittally. His steps never faltered, and just as half his body sank into the wall of mist, he suddenly cast a sideways glance and said,
"Under normal circumstances, you'd be entirely right.
"Yet Mu Nuo,
"The whispers within this gray mist conceal death. You treat it as a curse, but I understand it far better than you."
Chapter 686