Chapter 35: Destroying What Oes

  “……Who are you?”

  Still partly immersed in his past memories, An Jied swiftly. He did not ahat question but instead asked iurn, “Why are you asking?”

  【What is your desire?】 That gentle voice tio inquire, paying o An Jing’s question.

  An Jing narrowed his eyes, then suddenly ughed. “So that’s how it is—this is the ritual?”

  He teased, “Lord Fuxie, isn’t this the Heavenly Demon you cut down? Why isn’t it dead yet?”

  【Heh, nothing but a defeated foe. It just hid a wisp of its lingering soul.】 The Sword Spirit rarely showed such emotion. It sneered and then solemnly instructed An Jing:

  【You tihe ritual. I need my full tration to search for where my fragments are scattered, so I won’t be able to help you for a while.】

  “Uood.” At that moment, An Jing clearly sehat the ht individuals lio his spirit were all falling into different forms of desire.

  For instance, Gu Yeqi, wharded him as an older brother, wanted nothing more than to return to the Northern Region with enough food t to her father, to find her missing mother, and to let the whole family enjoy a hearty meal. For some reason, his shadow even appeared in her dreams.

  For instance, Qin Yuhe short-statured girl, trained harder than anyone else just so she might grow taller, bee stronger, and someday protect her parents and kin—able to kill those evildoers rather than being hiddeh pine needles, watg as bandits murdered and devoured her parents.

  Then there was g Linzu. He loved martial practid wished only for a quiet pce to train, with enough oppos to temper and improve himself. Life in Hanging Fate Manor was exactly what he wanted most: daily drills, training, sparring, meals, a. If possible, he could have lived that way forever without pint.

  If he could…g Linzu also wao challenge An Jing. He did not believe he would win, but he longed for An Jing’s aowledgment.

  Seeing all of this, An Jing could not help but shake his head slightly. He had long since reized these panions of his, but perhaps to hide his true trump cards, he had shown them only a rather aloof demeanor.

  There were others, too—other familiar people. After leading this group for over three months, An Jing might not have known his “little panions” pletely, but at least he was well aware of their pasts.

  All their wants, their aims, their hates now y exposed before his eyes like words on a page. As these teammates gradually sank into their illusions, strands of pitch-bck demoniergy flowed into their minds, dragging them even deeper.

  That was the demoniergy tained in the “demonic beast flesh.”

  Without demoniergy ag as a catalyst, the Heavenly Demon could not bewitch them. sequently, from the start, those who were too easily affected by demoniergy were elimihis was not sidered a “waste,” because demoniergy could also provoke an automatic response in a person’s Heavenly Fate, maing its Divine Marvels. Thus would they bee raw materials freat Medie.”

  At the same time, even physiques capable of resisting demoniergy—after years of ing demonic beast flesh—would accumute too much of it, making it easy for the Heavenly Demon to seize their minds.

  Su oute invariably meah, a fate that not even An Jing could alter—an end long si in stone.

  Fortunately, ever sin Jing had discovered the truth about the demonic beast flesh, he had secretly taught his group how to use quiet meditation to dissolve the demonic thoughts in their hearts. Because they did not have to traira hours with him and could instead enjoy that rare moment of inner cultivation, they practiced with diligence. sequently, the demoniergy in the first group was not overwhelming—at least not to the point of certaih.

  What’s more, the links formed by the ritual bound them together, allowing them to pull one another bad slow their dest into corruption. Each person’s mind could help a teammate escape from a maze that he or she alone could not break free from. That was the meaning of “teammates.”

  Still, even teammates had limits. Uheir souls shone forth with their own radiance, An Jing was certain that as the ritual tinued, at least one person in his group would be utterly corroded by demoniergy.

  As for An Jing himself, his soul was bright and his miirely clear, wholly ued by the ritual.

  【What is your desire?】 that voice asked again. In the darkness, tless illusions welled up.

  Some showed An Jiurning to the Northern Region with no Frost Camity or barbarian armies, living peacefully with his parents and being a renowned mert family.

  In others, he mastered the family’s martial cssics, brought his Internal Energy to great heights, a home to travel the world in search of his Heaven-Ordained Fate while his parents bade him farewell.

  Others showed him studying the Eight Literary and Thirteen Cssics, embarking oh of the imperial examinations, going from litiate to provincial graduate to metropolitan graduate, ultimately entering the Divine Capital, receiving the imperial legal decree, meeting the Sages, and gaining loy.

  And so there were tless other An Jings, each with differing clothing, physique, age, and temperame all shariain traits—like offshoots of infinite parallel worlds brang endlessly.

  But An Jing’s eyes remained ever bright, unmoved. He knew clearly that none of these illusioruly him, nor were they the choices he would make.

  He was no ordinary youth of the Northern Region; he carried an innate wisdom from another world. Moreover, with the Sword Spirit’s aowledgment, he could travel to yet another world. The choices he would make, the path he would walk—none of it would be so mundane.

  【What is it you despise?】 That voice seemed to sehis and ged its question.

  This time, one crete image after another appeared: cauliflower, carrots, a vagabond who had tricked him out of his died hawthorns in childhood, a picky horse that spat drool when it ate… All of these figures were ephemeral and vague, drifting and indistinct.

  An Jing merely furrowed his brow, then smiled as though he uood. “So it turns out that her I nor the horse likes eating carrots or cauliflower.”

  But , the images that took shape became far more real, causing the once rexed smile on An Jing’s face to fade, his expression growing solemn.

  He saw them.

  Bandits who torched ty towns and stole their supplies.——Blood-stained bdes.

  Starving refugees trading lives, boiling human flesh and blood.——Gnawed white bones.

  Haughty guards who refused passage.——The people on their knees.

  Gentry bribing soldiers to drive out the famiri.——Those ptuous, sful looks.

  And…most crucially:

  Children who had died, the medie cauldron on a rainy night, the dungeon, the horrors in his dreams.——Those lives that ended unnoticed and were fotten, their final moments spent in fearful wandering.

  One figure after another, some blurred, some vivid, whether a mere gnce or a living, breathing person:

  Screams, white bones. Wails, flesh and blood. Bdes, corpses. Averted eyes, oblivion.

  Jackals, wolves, tigers, leopards—a of natural disasters—yet none so ruthless as the city gates smmed shut.

  War and sughter, mortal peril—yet none so grim as the gradual fading of memory.

  At that moment, An Jing could no longer smile.

  He paid no mind to Heavenly Fate, for he did not believe in an illusory future—only the path beh his feet.He did not care about whatever he desired, for what he truly wanted was far greater than anything jured by the darkness.

  But…when fronted by those people and things he hated—those arrogant, desding stares, that reality which filled him with rage and grief, sorrow and unwillingness, which he cked the power to ge yet refused to close his eyes to…

  He could not ighem or remain indifferent.

  He could not let them go.

  (End of Chapter)