Chapter 3394: The Inner Clarity Technique

At that moment, the world spun, and countless voices echoed in Lu Yin’s ears.

He heard a distant voice call out, “Harmonious with the common people, when the Dao of Heavens is not present, leap into the cosmos and crouch, when the Dao of Heavens is bestowed, leap into the boundless skies and crouch, gather the energy inwards, devour the hundreds of rivers...”

The Origin Sutra rang out as Lu Yin punched the ground. The area around him trembled, and when he opened his eyes once again, he found that he was still in the forbidden region, still surrounded by the same tall trees.

The fruits were still hanging on the trees.

The images of Nightking Zhenwu and all the others surrounded him, manifestations of his karma.

Sweat streamed from Lu Yin’s forehead. He had been right on the brink. Just a little more, and he would have succumbed to his inner demons.

He spat out a mouthful of blood.

Blood poured from his mouth, his face growing pale as he clutched at his chest and sat down. Everything that he had just experienced was karma.

His relentless attempts to explore karma had been destined to leave him lost within it.

If not for hearing those familiar words, Lu Yin might have never been able to escape from the Karma Sanctum, let alone grasp the threads of karma.

He finally understood why Astral Anura had kept shouting about his great-great grandmother while coughing up blood.

This forbidden region was absolutely terrifying.

Far away, another figure stepped out from the aeonic fog. Lu Yin looked over, and his entire body quivered as he spat out yet more blood, a searing pain ripping through his chest.

Long Xi had appeared, and she was holding Little Xiaoxuan in her arms.

They were the result of one of his attempts to alter karma, and they appeared in front of Lu Yin like all of the others.

Lu Yin could not bear the sight of them, and he spat out still more blood. He wanted nothing more than to take Long Xi and Little Xiaoxuan with him; they were his wife and child, and he had lived with them both in a cycle of karma, but he could not even touch them.

Karma... karma...

Lu Yin panted heavily, staring at the ground, a bitter expression on his face.

If this was the path to Immortality, then he was incapable of continuing down it.

Attaining Immortality was harder than reaching the celestial heights.

This was why Yong Heng had been trying to reset the megaverse in order to achieve Immortality. To him, even if resetting the megaverse would destroy all the creatures living in it, that was the smallest and most selfish price that could be paid.

Lu Yin clenched his fists tightly. He had almost stepped onto that same path.

What was cultivation? What was being cultivated? Was it selfishness? No, that was not what it was.

The principles that Lu Yin had adhered to all along were correct.

Before him, scenes played out again and again. Slowly, he uttered, “Illumination, reverence, everstone, self, essence.

“Without me, someone else will benefit and take my place! When I alter my fate, existence itself dissolves into void!

"Clarity of heart, unshaken by selfishness, steadfast as Everstone, fearless of the self—my true essence will shine across the cosmos!

"The wheel of karma: I stand above, gazing upon the endless cycles of all beings. I vow to safeguard the return of life across the stars and the heavens!"

...

As the words left Lu Yin’s lips, the figure of Yan Gang transformed into a spiral that rose up into the sky. After that, Jenny Auna, Nightking Zhenwu, and Long Xi all became spirals as well. They all spun up into the sky, connecting the earth and sky as they spun around Lu Yin.

Lu Yin’s body started to spin as well, slowly at first, but then faster and faster. He was completely immersed in a profound enlightenment, and the sound grew louder and louder.

Across the Mirari Realm, throughout the forbidden region, more spirals spun up and disappeared into nothingness. The entire sky seemed to be interconnected by an endless array of spirals.

In an unknown place, a pair of eyes opened and stared at the Mirari Realm. "How is this possible? Has he comprehended the Dao of Karma? Have things gone out of our control?"

At the Immemorial Citadel, both the Origin Progenitor and Mister Mu were shaken, and they stared out into space. What was it that they were feeling?

They could not describe the sensation; it was familiar, yet also somehow completely foreign.

It was a sensation they felt that they should understand but had never truly grasped.

It felt as if the megaverse itself had come alive.

Astral Anura blankly stared at the starry sky. How could this be happening? It was the return of that same feeling. "Great-great grandmother, don’t come here! Please, Great-great grandmother, stay away!"

Within the Mirari Realm, Wei Nu stared at the Karma Sanctum in complete shock. "Impossible! He actually comprehended karma? That’s impossible! He’s not even an Ortuser! How could he comprehend karma? Just what has he experienced? What has he comprehended? Could it be true? Could karma really be the path to Immortality? Was that really true?

"No, this has to be wrong! It’s a lie! It can’t be real! That path can never be taken! It’s impossible to walk down it!"

Wei Nu failed to notice that there was suddenly a new branch in the River of Aeons. This was not a branch created by Destiny’s ambush, but rather one formed by Meng Sang’s departure from the Tianyuan Megaverse, and this branch led away from the Tianyuan Megaverse. The appearance of this branch caused cracks to appear in the dam in the River of Aeons that was formed from Mister Mu’s Origin Tracer that had anchored the Mirari Realm.

However, the appearance of this branch alerted the Spirit Nidus, separated from the Tianyuan Megaverse by an Aevum Inch; it was infinitely far, yet barely separated at all.

The experts in the Spirit Nidus were startled. They could not understand what they were feeling, where it came from, or even why it had appeared at all. All they knew was that they had only ever felt something similar from a single person: the High Seraph.

In the Ascendant Hall’s Apex Palace, the High Seraph opened his eyes. "We can’t wait any longer."

With those words, he took a step and vanished.

In the Tianyuan Megaverse, within the Mirari Realm, Lu Yin almost could not be seen, due to the spirals that coiled around him, rising up into the sky. There was no telling how long it would take before things finally stopped.

After landing back on the ground, Lu Yin’s eyes snapped open, and he looked over in a particular direction. He was being watched.

As he had expected, he was being watched. In the past, he had not been able to sense it, but now, he could. He could feel it through the threads of karma.

If someone was watching him, there was a cause. Through that cause, he could touch the effect.

Was that... a blood-red sword?

There was a sharp sound of the air being cut through, and the blood-red sword moved along the threads of karma, its blade gleaming coldly. Instantly, a spiral of karma was sliced off, and the feeling of being watched quickly vanished.

Lu Yin reached out a hand to grab the blood-red sword, but he stopped.

The sword was not directed at him, nor had it appeared within the Mirari Realm. Instead, it had attacked from an unknown location and targeted karma that had been tethered to Lu Yin, severing that connection.

From that moment on, he was no longer able to trace his observer through the threads of karma.

However, there was also no need for him to search for that person.

The blood-red sword belonged to the one referred to as the Fated One. Was it really Master Qing Cao?

The Karma Sanctum was completely transformed in Lu Yin’s eyes. Everything in the region, from the karma that followed him to the towering trees, had become spirals of karma. These spirals shrank as he looked at them, but there was no denying that they existed.

Threads of karma surrounded everyone, some more than others, but almost no one could see the threads.

All around Lu Yin were countless threads of karma. The longer a person lived or the greater their influence, the more karma they would accumulate.

If Lu Yin tried to observe all of his own karma, the entire sky would be blotted out.

This was the ability that he had comprehended within the Karma Sanctum: the ability to observe karma. This was the technique he had developed, the Inner Clarity Technique.

The Inner Clarity Technique had been born out of Lu Yin’s repeated attempts to alter the path of karma. Ultimately, due to the emotional impact of seeing and losing Long Xi and Little Xiaoxuan, Lu Yin had nearly succumbed to karma. But instead, he had succeeded in creating this technique.

He had nearly been destroyed by karma, not because it had overwhelmed him, but rather because he had not wanted to leave it.

He had not wanted to leave his wife and child, but they had been nothing more than an alternate reflection in one of the unending cycles of karma.

The piercing pain in his heart left Lu Yin struggling to even breathe.

Emotion was a defining aspect of intelligent life. The Aeternals believed that emotions were humanity’s greatest weakness, but emotions were often what made progress possible.

Lu Yin had comprehended the Inner Clarity Technique because of his emotions, though he would rather miss out on this comprehension and lose himself in the cycle of karma.

Taking a deep breath, Lu Yin rose to his feet. He stopped, closed his eyes for a moment, and then reopened them.

There was an indescribable look in his eyes, and as he stared out, spirals of karma spun up into the sky, vanishing from sight.

Lu Yin started probing his karma.

The blood-red sword had severed the karma that had allowed someone to observe him, but Lu Yin did not believe that that was all that his watcher had done. If anything else had been done, there had to be a karmic tie, and he intended to trace that for information.

For the observer, any karma that had been created from watching Lu Yin was to their benefit, but for Lu Yin, it did not matter.

He could allow those threads of karma to be severed. He could bear such losses.

Thread after thread of karma appeared, countless and endless. Lu Yin needed to slowly organize them all. It was a daunting task, but it would help ease the sorrow from the cycles of karma he had just experienced.

Days passed in the forbidden region. The Seraph was relentlessly searching for the exit, surrounded by an ever-increasing number of figures that represented his own karma. He was unable to see through the figures, unable to escape from them, and unable to find a way out of the Karma Sanctum.

Progenitor Ku was still sitting cross-legged, his body growing increasingly withered. No one knew what he was doing.

Not even Wei Nu, who had passed by earlier, could understand what Progenitor Ku was doing.

Progenitor Ku possessed a peerless talent, and he had developed Extremes Must Be Reversed. He had truly stood at the peak of his era.

Had he lived during the Heavens Sect era, even if the Origin Progenitor had not accepted the man as a disciple, Ku Jie would have still reached the same level as the Three Realms and Six Daos.

Wei Nu acknowledged Progenitor Ku’s ability, which was why Zhao Ran had approached him.

Progenitor Ku believed that he was not the person Zhao Ran had been waiting for, but in a way, he was. Rather, he was one of the people Wei Nu had been waiting for.

The Origin Progenitor, Lu Tianyi, and even Progenitor Chen, who had each lived at the same time as Progenitor Ku, were all people that Wei Nu had waited for.

No one kept track of time in the Mirari Realm. It was practically impossible to even perceive it.

Time was irrelevant within a cycle of karma.

One day, Lu Yin suddenly focused on a specific thread of karma. He had finally found it.

Was it the battle that had been fought in the Mirari Realm? When the River of Aeons had surged, a small boat had appeared. That had been Wei Nu’s doing.

This moment was exactly why Lu Yin had pursued Wei Nu. He had been right; there was indeed something suspicious about the battle that they had fought in the Mirari Realm. Wei Nu had to have been plotting something that Lu Yin still did not know about.

However, was this thread of karma also connected to the blood-red sword?

A spiral of karma spun around Lu Yin’s fingertip. With a flick of his finger, he sent the spiral flying across the Karma Sanctum. If this failed, he would spread it across the entire Mirari Realm. There had to be another thread of karma that crossed this one, and Lu Yin wanted to see what this thread of karma had produced.

As the spiral of karma flew across the forbidden region, Wei Nu entered the Karma Sanctum, curious to find out just what Lu Yin had accomplished.

She was unable to perceive karma, yet she desperately wanted to. At this moment, she was hoping that the path did not lead to Immortality. It had to be impossible.

As she stepped into the forbidden region, the thread of karma flew past, piercing her body and colliding with another thread of karma that was inside of her.

Wei Nu felt as if she had been struck by an invisible attack. She suffered no injuries, but the sensation of being stabbed chilled her to the bone. What was this feeling?

At that moment, Lu Yin looked at Wei Nu. He had found it.