Chapter 26

There is no such thing as a method to nourish a soul and bring it back to life. It is merely a dream, a bubble, a phantom.

Yun Yao’s lingering soul should have dissipated two hundred years ago. It was Yun Zhou who forcibly sought out the final shreds of that spirit and bound them to a puppet, which only served to cultivate an obsession within Yun Yao.

He lived in a haze, detached from the world, with only one lingering thought: to be released by Yun Zhou. He simply wished to die and find peace.

Yun Yao could no longer bear to remain trapped in this body, bound to Yun Zhou’s side, watching helplessly as he descended into madness, clinging to the impossible hope of resurrection and committing endless atrocities.

An Wuxue sighed inwardly. He, too, had once been a senior brother. He understood all too well the torment Yun Yao must have suffered over these two centuries as he watched Yun Zhou lead himself and others to ruin.

Now, having used the Essence of the Soul-Nourishing Tree to unravel the past and understand Yun Yao’s obsession, he chose to help the lingering soul depart from the puppet’s body. He knew that by acting as Su Xue, utilizing the Essence of the Soul-Nourishing Tree with such effortless familiarity would likely draw Xie Zhefeng’s attention. But once this matter was settled, Xie Zhefeng would surely not waste effort on a soul that had been dead for two centuries. He could only help Yun Yao find rest while the Essence was still in his hands.

He would not let Yun Yao wait any longer.

The lingering soul faded rapidly within the halo of the Soul-Nourishing Tree’s essence. This former head disciple of the Yun Jian Sect had finally reached the conclusion he had waited two hundred years for.

An Wuxue spoke, his voice a blend of sigh and rebuke: "Yun Zhou, everything you have sought for centuries is nothing but a delusion."

Yun Zhou’s expression contorted violently. His eyes trembled, his demeanor frantic: "Senior Brother!!! No... this cannot be... the Essence of the Soul-Nourishing Tree is a supreme treasure of heaven and earth, how could it fail?!"

He had schemed and strived for two hundred years; how could he accept now that it was all merely a fleeting dream? He stared fixedly at the soul before An Wuxue, murmuring, "Senior Brother..."

Covered in blood and grime, he crawled on the ground, his fingertips digging into the dirt, struggling to pull himself up by his sword.

Xie Zhefeng remained motionless. For some reason, he neither killed Yun Zhou nor stopped him. He gazed at the soul quietly dissipating within the glow of the essence, his expression desolate. Clad in his pristine robes, holding his sword Chunhua, he stood aside, yet it seemed as if it were not the disheveled, defeated Yun Zhou who had lost, but himself.

Yun Zhou tremblingly stood upright, suddenly bursting into wild laughter: "Hahahaha!!! Hahahahahahahaha!!! The Soul-Nourishing Tree is useless... useless—!!"

Blood streamed from his eyes as he looked toward Xie Zhefeng: "What I sought was but a delusion—what then of the Immortal Venerable Xie? You, who scoured the four seas to find the Soul-Nourishing Tree, who deliberately followed me back to the Yun Jian Sect to investigate, all to lure out my soul-chasing method, playing along with my charade until now..."

"Is what you seek not also a delusion?"

Xie Zhefeng’s gaze darkened.

An Wuxue knew that Yun Zhou was speaking of him. Yet, he felt no ripples. What did it matter if Xie Zhefeng had scoured the four seas? Had he not inexplicably awakened in Su Xue’s body, time would have flowed on, and his life would have remained frozen before the gates of Luoyue Mountain a thousand years ago, never seeing the lengths to which Xie Zhefeng had gone for him.

It was this man who had struck him down, and it was this man who had attempted to nourish his soul with the Essence. A cold, empty sensation permeated his chest; he could muster no strength.

The soul in his palm was on the verge of complete dissipation. Deprived of the spirit that maintained its spark of life, Yun Yao’s puppet body began to decay and crumble in the blink of an eye.

Within the illusion, the winds gathered and the dark clouds churned before dissipating. The Mirror Demon was dead, Yun Zhou’s fate was sealed, and the barrier was coming to an end.

While Xie Zhefeng was lost in his distraction, Yun Zhou suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood and, channeling the surrounding spiritual power, lunged with his sword toward An Wuxue!

He had managed to summon one final strike in a desperate bid to seize the last remnants of Yun Yao’s soul!

An Wuxue did not move.

Xie Zhefeng’s thoughts were jolted back; his brow furrowed, and he prepared to intervene—

But Yun Zhou’s figure suddenly shuddered and stopped abruptly.

Blood poured from his mouth as he looked back, bewildered and astonished.

Yun Wan stood there, gripping an ordinary spirit sword—the kind every disciple of the Yun Jian Sect carried—with both hands. The blade had pierced three inches into the right side of his dantian from behind. She was only at the Minor Completion stage and had never battled a formidable Tribulation-stage cultivator. Her hands shook violently, her teeth clenched so tightly she bit through her lower lip.

At this moment, she held the sword that her senior brother had gifted her years ago, driving it into the dantian of the man who once would have spent a fortune in spirit stones just to buy her a lantern.

Yun Zhou’s blood sprayed out, staining her skirts. Her hands trembling, she looked away, her eyes reddening.

A flicker of shock, anger, and resentment crossed Yun Zhou’s graying face... but in the end, there was nothing left.

He was dead.

Yun Wan pulled the sword out and stepped back, stumbling and falling to the ground. The blood-stained sword clattered to the floor alongside Yun Zhou’s corpse.

As he fell, his gaze remained fixed on the spot where the last wisp of soul had been in An Wuxue’s hands.

At the same time, the final trace of the soul within the halo of the Essence vanished completely, leaving no trace behind. In the vastness of the world and the expanse of the four seas, the person known as Yun Yao had ceased to exist.

Xie Zhefeng frowned and stepped forward, stooping to press his fingertip to Yun Zhou’s brow before his spirit could be completely annihilated.

—He was performing a soul search!

An Wuxue was stunned. In his memories, his junior brother would never resort to soul searching unless he was truly desperate. Even when the Great Demon of the Shark Clan in the Nether Sea had poisoned Xie Zhefeng, he had spent seven days in a stalemate because he did not know how to force a confession. Though his sword light was sharp, it was never cruel. Why now...

Seeing Xie Zhefeng extract Yun Zhou’s soul, his thoughts recoiled, and his heart tightened.

Perhaps it was fate intervening again; just as Xie Zhefeng began the search, Yun Zhou’s soul shuddered and disintegrated on its own. Yun Zhou had placed a curse upon his own soul—one that would cause it to self-destruct upon any attempt at a search.

An Wuxue exhaled in relief, then fell silent—Yun Zhou had met the same end as Yun Yao.

Xie Zhefeng’s expression grew even darker.

Yun Wan finally collected herself. She took a deep breath and knelt before Xie Zhefeng: "Immortal Venerable Xie!"

"...What is it?"

"The sect’s legacy is broken, and the culprit..." She glanced at Yun Zhou, "...has been brought to justice. But debts of gratitude and enmity must be settled. Though I do not know the reasons behind all this, Senior Brother Yun Yao once enlightened us, taught us sword techniques, and guided our cultivation. I wish..."

She bowed her head three times, "I wish to bury Senior Brother Yun Yao and all our sect elders here."

Xie Zhefeng remained silent for a moment.

"Go," he said.

Yun Wan performed another deep bow. When she stood up, An Wuxue noticed blood seeping from her forehead. She understood that Xie Zhefeng was no ordinary person and that the matters he was involved in were beyond her reach. Daring not to delay, she immediately used a spirit talisman to summon the other young disciples who had been hiding in the courtyard. With reddened eyes, they carefully carried away the decaying puppet body.

Perhaps they intended to bury him among the graves of their ancestors. It was, in a way, a return to where he had begun.

The surviving disciples of the Yun Jian Sect hurried away. The illusionary barrier was on the verge of collapse, and all the demons in the area had been slain by Xie Zhefeng.

The surroundings suddenly fell silent.

The Essence of the Soul-Nourishing Tree still emitted a faint golden glow in An Wuxue’s hand. He stared at the halo, his heart filled with growing suspicion.

He had originally thought that the Yun Jian Sect, in their haste to force the mortal Su Xue into becoming a cultivator, had fed him too many impure spirit medicines, inadvertently killing him. It was just as his own soul had recovered, and through a twist of fate, he had returned to Luoyue Peak, becoming Su Xue.

But he had been much like Yun Yao back then—his body destroyed and his soul dissipated, with only a shred of his spirit drifting back to the Thorns River. Even Xie Zhefeng, who had already ascended to immortality at the time, could not gather his lingering soul.

If a shattered soul could not be revived, then how did he, after drifting in a state of muddled consciousness for a thousand years, die and return to life, his spirit inhabiting Su Xue’s body?

And then there was the Vessel Mark...

In Yun Yao’s memories, the Vessel Mark was an ancient secret technique obtained by Yun Zhou. There was no cure; it could only dissipate naturally if the vessel’s cultivation surpassed that of the owner. To break free from Yun Zhou’s control, Yun Yao had not hesitated to draw massive amounts of turbid energy into his body, forcibly entering the demonic path to raise his cultivation to the Tribulation stage, thereby dissolving the mark.

Yet, the person connected to the Vessel Mark on his arm was Xie Zhefeng.

The only living immortal of the age.

In his previous life, despite his golden body and jade bones, he had been halted at the peak of the Tribulation stage, a half-step into the immortal realm, due to the excessive karmic obstacles on his path to ascension. He had never touched the immortal realm before his death.

Could it be that the only path available in this life was, ironically, to ascend using the mortal body of Su Xue?

That would truly be...

He suddenly felt a gaze land upon him and instinctively turned, meeting Xie Zhefeng’s eyes. The man was pale, his dark pupils fathomless, a flicker of cruelty passing through them. But then he closed his eyes, as if suppressing something, and opened them again.

It lasted only an instant before the man asked, "You are quite familiar with the spiritual arts used to command the essences of heaven and earth."

He replied, neither humble nor overbearing: "I have an affinity with the Immortal Venerable’s spiritual pet. When we were at the Frost Sea, Kunkun once gifted me a few leaves from the Soul-Nourishing Tree, and the method of connection is naturally inherent in them."

"You are merely at the Inedia stage. How can you understand such techniques?"

"Kunkun helped me."

In any case, whatever he said, Kunkun would cover for him.

Xie Zhefeng shifted the topic: "You previously said the paper talismans in your possession were given to you by the Yun Jian Sect."

—As expected, he would ask about this!

"...But I investigated when I first entered the illusion," Xie Zhefeng said in a low voice, "Within the Yun Jian Sect, there is no senior brother..." He paused, "...and nothing related to the talismans you held."

An Wuxue had been prepared for this and replied calmly: "Those talismans were given to me by Yun Zhou. At first, I assumed Yun Zhou was backed by the Yun Jian Sect, so I thought they were items of the sect. Only today did I realize that the Yun Jian Sect did not even know of my existence..."

As he spoke, Xie Zhefeng broke the seal on Yun Zhou’s spirit pouch without hesitation, finding several talismans that bore An Wuxue’s handwriting. These were the ones An Wuxue had specifically planted on Yun Zhou earlier.

Now that Yun Zhou was thoroughly dead, there was no one left to refute him. With the matter at a standstill, as long as he insisted he knew nothing, there was nothing Xie Zhefeng could do.

Xie Zhefeng gripped the talismans, his eyes flickering again before he put them away. Still suspicious, he asked, "According to your words, the talismans came from Yun Zhou, and the method to control the Essence of the Soul-Nourishing Tree was learned with Kunkun's help. Where, then, did you get the audacity to point your sword at Yun Yao earlier, even when facing a Tribulation-stage cultivator?"

"There are millions of people in this world, each with a different temperament. Though I come from a mortal background, I understand the boundaries of progression and the weight of life and death. Is it truly so strange to have a little courage?" A nameless fire had been burning in him ever since he saw Su Xue’s face; because the situation was pressing, he had kept it suppressed. But now, under Xie Zhefeng’s relentless questioning, it all came rushing to the surface.