The Boundary Between Life and Death

When it came to death, Xu Yuan was probably not the person who had pondered it the most, but he was likely someone in this world who truly understood it. After all, returning from the dead, much like reincarnation, was an outright technical feat. Ever since that resurrection, whenever the night grew deep and still and he found himself alone, Xu Yuan would unconsciously ponder what kind of fucked-up thing life actually was. As part of the world's absolute ruling class in the Chancellor's Manor, Xu Yuan had actually read many internal reports concerning research on life. In his past life, related research was constrained by modern morality and impossible to carry out, but a feudal dynasty had no such concerns for human rights or beast rights. Ten thousand years ago, aberrant ghosts had not only brought a catastrophe that left nine out of ten houses empty, but had also introduced the maddening technique of flesh editing, allowing researchers to replicate a living, breathing human being at a one-to-one ratio. Wielding the authority of the gods was something cultivators had never stopped striving toward. Yet the results were doomed to failure. They did not create new humans; they merely produced a horde of mindless flesh-and-blood puppets. Even if they shaped someone according to a subject's template without the slightest difference inside or out—from bone to flesh, from meridians to the brain—it still yielded only a mindless puppet. Having read plenty of such material, Xu Yuan had actually felt a sense of relief. These failed experiments proved that he was still himself, rather than another entity replicated after death that merely shared Xu Yuan's thought patterns. Because of this, Xu Yuan was certain that an anchor point had to exist between life and death—the so-called soul. In his previous life, Xu Yuan had never believed the rumors about the weight of a soul, for modern medicine had proved that human thought arose from the firing of neurons in the brain, and a human being was essentially nothing more than a hive-mind entity composed of a cluster of cells. Yet in this life, Xu Yuan remained uncertain. Though an intent soul shared a similar definition to a true soul, the two were entirely different matters. It was merely a vessel—a vessel no different from physical flesh. The only thing in this world that could truly be considered a soul was likely the soul imprint, yet soul imprints remained shrouded in a mist of the unknown. And so, Watching the surging gray mist gradually form a storm eye with him at its center, Xu Yuan had no idea what was about to happen. Anyone who had experienced death would know that prior to dying, one would not encounter mythical figures like the Ox-Head or Horse-Face, nor would one see a revolving lantern reel summarizing one's entire life. There was only the endless negative emotion that engulfed the entire soul, making death feel far preferable to living. Fortunately, This state lasted only an instant. Once death was absolute, all sensation ceased. Unfortunately, Ever since the eye of the gray mist formed, Xu Yuan had remained trapped in this living hell. If he had to use a phrase to describe this state, Xu Yuan felt it could be called The boundary between life and death. One side of the line represented life; the other represented death. No one in this world should have been able to remain in this state. The process of death was irreversible. Once standing upon this dividing line, life could no longer retreat; it could only plummet toward the darkness known as death. Chaotic overlapping voices whistled in, layer upon layer. Whenever Xu Yuan tried to discern what they were saying, they would suddenly drift away, slipping like sand between his fingers. Xu Yuan felt as if his head were going to burst. He was rapidly being mutated, swiftly adapting to this state. And in that process, Standing upon that dividing line between life and death with agony churning through his emotions, Xu Yuan gradually came to understand many things. He understood Mu Nuo's existence. He understood why it so urgently wished to devour him, and why it possessed no concept of death. The living beings of the world moved from life toward death, while it alone moved from death toward life. From the moment it was born into this world, Mu Nuo had stood upon this dividing line, desperately trying to cross it, striving to move from death into new life. Yet this process was doomed to failure. Even if Mu Nuo devoured every living being between heaven and earth, it could never cross this natural chasm. This was the gulf of the boundary between life and death. The kinship Xu Yuan had once felt did not stem from the ghost willow yin origin he had assimilated, but from something on an even higher plane: His very existence. That existence itself had gone from life to death, and then from death back to life. Once Mu Nuo swallowed him, it would be able to cross that line dividing life and death. Amid the clamorous whispers, Xu Yuan inexplicably thought of Tianyuan's prophecy of calamity, and then felt an urge to laugh. Had it not been for that assassination, he would never have gained the chance to return from death to life, and Mu Nuo would never have acquired the condition necessary to complete itself. Lifting a stone only to drop it on one's own foot. Yet he didn't know what kind of transformation Mu Nuo's existence would undergo if it truly devoured him and crossed the boundary of life and death. Xu Yuan figured its health bar would probably light up. He truly had no idea what Mu Nuo was thinking; who in the world would go out of their way to weaken themselves? Going from death to life was hard, but going from life to death was easy. All it took was a little help from someone else. Without a visible health bar, that bunch of bosses outside couldn't kill you; the moment you dared show a health bar, no matter how thick it was, they could punch right through it. Yet when Xu Yuan looked down and saw the faint golden glow drifting from his body, he suddenly understood the little brat's motive. The boundary between life and death spelled despair for any existence. That he could still retain his thoughts amid the maddening whispers in his ears was because the Heavenly Yan divine soul was protecting his core mind. Though the protective power of the Heavenly Yan divine soul was waning at a visible rate the longer he stayed within the gray mist, it still endured. It seemed that he, Xu Yuan, was likely not the first person in this world to cross between life and death. At the very least, Whoever created the Heavenly Yan Art had entered this boundary between life and death as well. Thinking of this, Xu Yuan suddenly froze. His thoughts had just caught onto something, and bits and pieces of information in his mind began linking together. Wait... Overseeing Heaven Pavilion... The calamity... Mu Nuo's instinct-driven actions to cross the boundary of life and death by devouring all living beings... If he had died on that autumn-rain night, Mu Nuo would have been the textbook archetype of a calamity. Tianye would not have emerged from the Qionghua Secret Realm, and without the ghost willow yin origin as support, the time Wan gave birth to Mu Nuo would have been pushed back several years or even over a decade. By the time it came into the world, unable to fulfill the conditions to complete itself, driven by instinct to devour living beings and create a dead zone of life, the human race would likely have been severely weakened by civil war... But if Mu Nuo truly was the calamity itself, Then didn't the deliberate, artificial factors in the creation of this catastrophe seem far too pronounced? The woman who gave Wan human consciousness. The circumstances of Mu Xingyi's birth as the son of the Insect Saint. The love at first sight between Wan and Mu Xingyi. And... The sudden appearance of that unknown flicker in the memories of the night the two united and brought Mu Nuo into being. A calamity ought to be born of heaven, yet Mu Nuo's birth seemed to bear artificial handiwork at every turn... At this point in his thoughts, Xu Yuan felt as though he had caught hold of a thread. Yet right at that moment, the golden radiance enveloping him dissipated, the Heavenly Yan divine soul shredded by the whispers of death. The murmurs by his ears swelled, and churning negative emotions surged tempestuously. In an instant, The malice from the boundary of death engulfed Xu Yuan like a tide. He began sinking toward death, plunging into purgatory. In that process, For a fleeting moment, Xu Yuan wanted to have a talk with Mu Nuo. To tell it about his discoveries, about the possible karmic connections. But the moment he saw the venomous hatred in Mu Nuo's eyes, he abandoned the thought completely. This brat no longer had any attachments; it was not someone one could reason with at all. It was rather exasperating. Xu Yuan truly hated the feeling of being orchestrated. As the mastermind behind its parents' deaths, Regardless of the reasons, Nothing remained between him and Mu Nuo except a fight to the death. Both of them now stood on the dividing line between life and death. Xu Yuan had no intention of stepping toward the other side for now; he still wanted to get to the bottom of what he had just realized. Therefore, he had no choice but to ask this brat to die. But before that, He had to make it live before he could bring about its death. Feeling the clamor and madness of the boundary between life and death, recalling the eternal peace on the other side, the torso Xu Yuan had condensed within the soul imprint began frantically absorbing the cursed gray mist that had accompanied Mu Nuo's descent into the world.