I'm Terrified!

Han Li was dead. Along his escape route, he had run into a blade artist named Pei Jin. Yu Xian had still been watching round two of the chase battle between Li Zhenlong and the Mechanical Dragon Knight when a sharp sting suddenly flared in the corner of his eye, splitting his left canthus. He immediately looked at the screen to his left, only to see Han Li drifting in the void, his body severed cleanly in two. The one who had drawn the blade slowly sheathed his weapon, then departed without looking back. Fortunately, Yu Xian had a habit of recording screen footage. Hurrying to replay the footage, he watched as Han Li, mid-flight, came upon Pei Jin grilling chicken wings on a boulder. Purely on instinct, Han Li regarded Pei Jin as an obstacle in his path and struck brazenly, launching dozens of flying swords at him all at once. Next came Pei Jin lifting his head slightly. Just as the dozens of flying swords were about to strike him, he flickered abruptly right in front of Han Li. A blade appeared naturally in Pei Jin's hand, as though it had always rested there. "I have no interest whatsoever in the Calamity Origin." "Still, since you made the first move, I'll deliver a single strike in return!" Pei Jin didn't speak aloud, yet his will was transmitted directly to every target that laid eyes on him. The blade flashed from its scabbard. In that split second, it seemed as if everything in the Tree Universe would be cleaved in two; merely watching made Yu Xian feel a faint ache between his brows. Without surprise, Han Li was slain in a single stroke. Pei Jin sheathed his blade and departed. Watching up to this point, Yu Xian couldn't help drawing a sharp breath. A Mighty One instantly slaying another Mighty One. Leaving not even a chance to flee—that was utterly terrifying. Yet on careful consideration, it became obvious that this was by no means impossible. After all, as long as one couldn't attain Origin Return, Oneness, or carefree transcendence, a Mighty One could indeed advance indefinitely. Level 100 was a Mighty One, Level 1,000,000 was still a Mighty One, and Level 100,000,000,000,000 could just as well remain a Mighty One. When a Level 100 Mighty One crossed paths with a Level 1,000,000,000,000,000 Mighty One, getting instant-killed was perfectly normal. Alright. The above was purely theoretical. While a Mighty One could theoretically grow stronger without bound, the vast majority in fact reached a ceiling. Once their power hit its limit, they would remain stuck in place forever. They had run out of paths to take; whether in breadth or depth, there was nothing left to cultivate. Their natural talents could carry them only this far, and no matter what they did, they could no longer feel themselves growing stronger. This was precisely why so many Mighty Ones pursued Origin Return, Oneness, or even transcendence. Back to the matter at hand. The moment Pei Jin departed, Yu Xian cheered with a "Hell yeah!", whipped out the Legacy Gourd, and prepared to reap the harvest. He had assumed Han Li was certain to escape alive, but who knew fate could be so abrupt? Out of nowhere, another blade had sliced through the gloom, cutting Han Li down on the spot. In the next instant, he steered the Zhen Realm to teleport near Han Li's remains and promptly stepped outside. "Huh? You're not completely dead yet?" Stepping closer, Yu Xian discovered that Han Li was dead, yet not entirely dead. By now, Han Li was split in two. Pei Jin's terrifying blade intent had eroded all of his vital force, yet his life had not fully snuffed out. It was hard for humans to comprehend such a state, so no one could truly say whether he was dead or alive. "In the beginning, I killed a person... and felt afraid." "Later, I killed a crowd of people, living in constant terror day and night." "I kept wondering... is it really alright for me to kill so many people?" "Gradually, the people I killed grew in number—a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand..." "When killing became second nature to me, my fate had already been sealed. It turns out I had already died right here, died at this very moment, beneath his blade." The pupils in both halves of Han Li's split body quivered violently. After a good while, his body abruptly disintegrated. "Learning self-reflection right before dying? What were you doing before this?" Yu Xian remarked dryly, then uncapped the gourd and shouted, "Han Li, get in here!" After vacuuming up everything that remained of Han Li in a tempestuous sweep, Yu Xian promptly returned to the Zhen Realm. The subsequent procedure went without saying: after sacrificing one clone of the Dimwitted Puppy, Yu Xian successfully inherited Han Li's legacy. "He was actually a Sword Immortal?" Sensing Han Li's abilities, Yu Xian murmured in mild surprise. He had expected rules like the Dao of Farming or the Elusive One, yet the man had turned out to be a Sword Immortal. Soon, however, a smile broke across his face. Once this Battle of Origin Return concluded, he could gift this power to Zhang Shou, fulfilling Zhang Shou's dream of becoming a Sword Immortal. "I used to think Mighty Ones were peerless figures." "Yet over this period, looking across the Tree Universe, Mighty Ones seem as common as stray dogs—and they drop dead in an instant. It's truly... too cheap." Watching Yu Xian fiddle with several tiny swords, the Death Emperor let out a sigh, speaking with boundless emotion. "In localized terms, Mighty Ones are still fairly rare," Yu Xian replied with a chuckle as he used a miniature celestial sword to peel an apple. "The problem is that the Tree Universe is simply too vast. Even if a single branch can host at most one Mighty One, they add up to an uncountable sum across the entire Tree Universe. It's just that in the past, Mighty Ones were usually in secluded cultivation or living in seclusion, or pursuing whatever interested them. Very few stirred up trouble, which created the illusion that Mighty Ones were rare." In truth, the Mighty Ones currently vying for the Calamity Origin were far from all there were in the Tree Universe. Someone like Pei Jin, for instance, had no interest in the Calamity Origin whatsoever. They had their own aspirations for Origin Return—becoming an Origin Returner of the Blade, for example, or something else entirely. "Master, many Mighty Ones possess strength comparable only to you or me. Why would they fight over the Origin? Don't they know how dangerous it is?" The Death Emperor noticed another monitoring feed where a Mighty One had fallen, and asked with a slight furrow of his brow. Seeing that Mighty One perish, Yu Xian immediately pulled out the Legacy Gourd and answered, "I'll be right back." A second later, he appeared not far from the fallen Mighty One. Coincidentally, the Mighty One who had slain him had just finished extracting the Calamity Origin and departed. Yu Xian shouted without hesitation, "Chi You, get in here!" Thus, Chi You—who had defied the era's meta to defeat the Yellow Emperor, proved his Dao through sheer strength, and ascended while riding a giant panda—was swept up in a tempestuous draft straight into the gourd. Yu Xian replaced the stopper, gave it a shake, and returned to the Zhen Realm. Holding the gourd in high spirits as he waited for it to refine Chi You into a pill, he remarked casually, "Old Death, do you know? Every Mighty One is essentially like the protagonist of a novel. Everything went smoothly for them, and while they ran into dangers, their luck was good enough to turn every calamity into a blessing. Expecting a Mighty One who's never died before to fear death—isn't that a joke? No matter how cautious they pretend to be, no matter how much they lay low, at the end of the day they still cling to a gambler's mentality. In the past, every fortune fell right into their lap, and now the opportunity presents itself again. Naturally, they think... if not me, then who?" "Then what about you, Master?" the Death Emperor asked, looking at Yu Xian. Yu Xian fell silent for a moment. He uncapped the gourd, tipped out the Legacy Pill inside, and sighed deeply. "I'm roughly the same. That's why I'm actually terrified!" He wasn't afraid of dying himself; he was afraid of Nora dying. That was why he grew stronger by any means necessary, frantically and shamelessly inheriting the legacies of those fallen Mighty Ones, obsessively looting their corpses to empower himself.