Chapter 3849: A Circle

“It’s true that your feelings for her are real, and yet you care more about your own obsession. So tell me—are you clinging to love, or merely to your own nature?” Lu Yin asked.

Yuan Huo shouted, “That’s not it! Kui Niang has never left this city. She doesn’t understand how vast the outside world is. I want to take her to see the world and the universe! I want to spend a marvelous life with her!”

“To her, the world consists of every flower and blade of grass in this city. Each stream and tree forms her universe. Just by stepping out of her home, she’s already living the most splendid life that she could ever want. That is the life that she desires.”

“No! No!” Yuan Huo roared.

“If you showed her the world and she still wanted to return here, what would you do then?”

Without hesitation, Yuan Huo replied, “I would stay here and spend the rest of my life with her.”

Lu Yin nodded. “Very well. I’ll give you an answer.”

With that, he used karma to manifest Yuan Huo’s experiences and weave them into Kui Niang’s past. In this manner, she lived part of Yuan Huo’s life and witnessed the vastness of the world and the grandeur of the universe through the power of karma.

Kui Niang stepped out from her house once more and went to find Yuan Huo. “Brother Yuan, I saw the glow over Changbao Mountain. It was truly beautiful.”

Yuan Huo was bewildered. “Kui Niang, what are you talking about?”

Kui Niang showed a radiant, beautiful smile. “I also saw that fanged tiger you liked. It was so adorable.

“I saw the desserts of Qinuo City, the waterfall at Meilu, the lights of Bing City, I saw all of it. I saw the waterfall that falls from the Sea of Karma and the winding golden sand seas that stretch across the land. Brother Yuan, you’ve seen all these things before, haven’t you?”

Yuan Huo stared at Kui Niang in disbelief. How was this possible? How could she have seen all those things? He looked back at Lu Yin, but Lu Yin was looking at Kui Niang. “Do you still want to leave with him now?”

Kui Niang raised her hand, gently caressing Yuan Huo’s face. “Brother Yuan, would you be willing to stay here with me?”

Yuan Huo trembled, staring blankly at her. “You... want me to stay?”

Kui Niang nodded with a smile.

Yuan Huo’s eyes flushed red with emotion. “Alright. Alright, I’ll stay. I’ll stay. I’ll stay here with you.”

“Thank you, Brother Yuan.” Kui Niang hugged Yuan Huo tightly.

Lu Yin smiled. Yes, this was the man’s true obsession. He had just wanted to hear that one sentence: “Brother Yuan, would you be willing to stay here with me?”

That sentence embodied all of his obsession.

Yuan Huo had wanted to take Kui Niang away, but she could not bear to leave her home city. They had spent eight years entangled with each other, tormenting both themselves and the people of the city.

Finally, they were free.

The truth was that Yuan Huo had always been waiting for Kui Niang to ask him to stay. That was the true root of the issue, as well as his true obsession.

Not even Lu Yin had realized what the man’s obsession was at first. It was only when Kui Niang had asked the question and Yuan Huo let go that Lu Yin finally understood.

People were shrouded in delusions. There were many powerful cultivators who claimed to be able to see the truth of their obsessions, but was that accurate? If people could truly understand their obsessions, then even an ordinary human could transcend. Why was that not possible?

It was because people could never see the truth of their own obsessions. In fact, the more a person experienced, the less they actually understood it.

What people believed they had seen through was nothing more than the surface of their obsessions. Even with Lu Yin’s cultivation, he had needed both Word Manifestation and the power of karma to see through the obsession that tormented Yuan Huo and Kui Niang. How could others hope to see their own obsession?

That was precisely why overcoming Dukkha was the most difficult path to the Immortal realm.

Only by overcoming Dukkha could one enter the Immortal realm, and yet all creatures remained blind to their own obsessions.

But ironically, it was mortals who were able to overcome such things.

Lu Yin could not decide if such a thing was tragic or laughable.

It was possible that cultivation had always been a backward journey, but it was nonetheless one that needed to be walked.

Isn’t life the same for everyone? We chase fame and fortune, only to ultimately let go of such things. We go full circle, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Cultivation is a circle.

Lu Yin had ultimately seen that his power of Word Manifestation could never truly change the human heart.

Even weaving karma was not capable of altering destiny.

When Lu Yin left the city, Kui Niang and Yuan Huo remained there. They had not left. It was as if nothing had changed.

Lu Yin lounged on his bamboo raft.

So then, what is my own obsession? How am I supposed to see through it to overcome my own Dukkha?

After the matter with Yuan Huo and Kui Niang, Lu Yin knew that it would be far, far too difficult for him to see through his own obsession. This was not something that cultivation or experience could help with. What he perceived as his obsession might be his Dukkha, but it also might not be.

Occupied with these thoughts, Lu Yin continued to lay on his raft for three days, ignoring all the requests for his fortune telling.

Only after three days had passed did he finally sit up and write the Obsession (执) character. It was a word that would accompany him for the rest of his life.

...

In the Sea of Karma, Greater Sancte Green Lotus withdrew his gaze, a slight smile touching his lips. The results were even better than he had expected.

The child seems to have clearly seen something.

There were some things that might appear to be perfectly ordinary to ordinary humans, but to others, they held extraordinary significance.

Despite how brief the young man’s cultivation journey has been, he still has managed to see such things. Truly, he is worthy of being a chosen one who can comprehend karma.

With this, his desires can be set aside.

...

Another year passed, making it two years since Lu Yin had left the Sixth Night Pillar.

In the Tianyuan Megaverse, an endless sea of bugs stretched out. There were occasions when strange and powerful bugs would tear through the void, leaping from one parallel universe to another. Battles frequently broke out. Human cultivators used either pure strength or technological weapons to eradicate swarms of bugs, and there were times when even multiple parallel universes would be purged, only for the bugs to reclaim them a short while later.

Emperor Slayer sat on a shattered planet, watching the ground below break apart and drift into the stars or smash into other planets. He lay down and thought back to what had happened in the Aevum Inch.

This... Is this really what that guy considers “peace”?

He had reached the Tianyuan Megaverse a few years earlier after crossing the Aevum Inch. Upon arriving, the first thing that the beast had seen were bugs: endless, countless bugs.

At first, he had simply believed them to be a characteristic of the megaverse, or that powerful cultivators had raised the bugs.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. After entering the Tianyuan and encountering the bugs, Emperor Slayer had been drowning in an infinite sea. While none of the bugs posed any real threat to him as he could wipe out swaths of them with the wave of a hand, there had simply been too many. On top of that, there were times when a truly powerful bug would appear.

There were even some weak bugs that possessed bizarre and absolutely infuriating abilities, while others simply looked revolting.

While tirelessly exterminating bugs, Emperor Slayer had eventually found members of the Heavens Sect, only for them to mistake him for a bug. If those people had not known about Lu Yin and regarded him as their master, Emperor Slayer might have simply slaughtered all of them.

Instead, he had followed them back to the Heavens Sect. He had been forced to admit that it was a magnificent place. Its grandeur rivaled even that of Ascendant Hall’s. The moment the beast laid eyes on it, he had instinctively pulled out a Virtue banner, ready to hang it.

He had then shared his story with the Heavens Sect, also mentioning that he had encountered E' Nan. Even so, the people that he had spoken to had been extremely wary of him and had not fully believed him. That was fine with him, as Emperor Slayer had never expected them to fully trust him. As long as he could erect his Virtue banners and act however he wanted within the Tianyuan Megaverse, what would he care about how the people there perceived him?

Unfortunately, Emperor Slayer had underestimated the Heavens Sect.

A man named Lu Yuan, despite only being an Ortuser, had proven himself capable of fighting against Emperor Slayer. Even though they had the same level of combat power, Emperor Slayer was still confident that he could defeat Lu Yuan. No matter how formidable the man’s strength might be, he was incomparable to Lu Yin. The Spirit Nidus was home to countless Ortusers and Dukkhans, while Emperor Slayer considered himself second to only the likes of the High Seraph and Emperor Wu. How could it be difficult for him to sweep his way through this megaverse?

However, Lu Yuan had used some kind of innate gift that enabled him to summon an entire group of powerful fighters. He called it something like a Champions’ Stage or an Investiture of the Gods. It had all been strange and flashy, and while the summoned experts had not been individually impressive, the sheer numbers had made it difficult for Emperor Slayer to handle them all. He had actually struggled to subdue the summoned army.

For an Ortuser to fight Emperor Slayer to a draw, there was no denying that Lu Yuan was a prodigy with terrifying combat intuition. If he could advance just one step further and become a Dukkhan, Emperor Slayer was not confident that he could win.

After that, some man called Ancient God had returned and fought against Emperor Slayer, and the beast had not been able to physically overpower the man.

Ancient God had relied on something called Wielder-realm battle force, and it had actually left Emperor Slayer struggling to land any blows. It had been ridiculous.

Finally, a guy named Jiang Feng had shown up, and then things took a turn for the worse. That man’s combat power was terrifying and strange. Emperor Slayer had been left completely helpless. He had felt even worse than when he had fought against the High Seraph, though he could not explain why.

After that, his Virtue banners had been confiscated, and he had been forced to swear that he would help the Heavens Sect fight the bugs. He had not expected things to end up in such a strange situation.

Had it not been said that there were no real experts in the Tianyuan Megaverse? Was it not supposed to be a peaceful megaverse? Had it not been filled with the old, the weak, the women, and the children who had been left behind? Why had the terrifying experts that Emperor Slayer had met here not gone to the Spirit Nidus?

What is that Jiang Feng even doing here? Go to the Spirit Nidus already! Go infuriate the High Seraph!

With all that Emperor Slayer had suffered, it almost felt as though Jiang Feng had stayed here just to enrage the beast.

Emperor Wu Slayer was thoroughly frustrated by both the bugs and the humans of the Heavens Sect. He did not want to fight anymore. He rolled over and buried himself underground so that no one could find him. In the worst case scenario, he would just stay hidden in the same manner he had in the Spirit Nidus.

At that moment, his wireless jincan started vibrating.

The beast glanced at it and then simply ignored it.

It continued to vibrate. He became annoyed and was about to put it away, but then his eyes bulged as he stared at the thing.

Boundless... is back?

...

At the Spirit Nidus’s boundary, someone suddenly shot through a gate and proceeded to race into the depths of the megaverse.

Many cultivators tried to intercept that figure, and space shattered. Blood flew everywhere as the intruder risked his life to charge through all obstacles. That person was E' Nan.

He pulled out the Nest that he had been carrying and hurled it deep into the Spirit Nidus. After that, he turned and fled in a different direction.

There was blood at the corner of his mouth. “Mission accomplished! I really hope that I’ll see the day when those bugs appear here in the Spirit Nidus. Hahahaha...”

...

Time flowed on, never stopping for any person or event.

In the blink of an eye, ten years passed.

Lu Yin’s reputation had spread far and wide along the river that wound through the East Domain. For ten years, countless souls had come seeking his divinations, some asking questions, others offering characters for him to read. During that time, he had seemingly set aside his own burdens, and instead focused on the echoes of other people’s pasts and feeling the weight of their struggles. He had watched a hundred thousand lives unfold and had come to know the infinite faces of the mortal world.

He discovered that happiness shared a single pattern that was the same for everyone. Misfortune, however, had no template, as each individual’s suffering was unique.

Whether cultivator or commoner, all were equal before emotion. Every heart could taste joy and grief, anger and regret, and everything in between.

Those ten years may have appeared fruitless for Lu Yin, but in truth, they were priceless. He had once set out to grasp some obsession, only to learn how to let go. He could not see through every mystery of the world, yet he felt that he had uncovered something essential: sometimes, the most powerful act was to simply let things run their course.