From the end of the world

Chapter 310 Becoming the Great Impermanence

All body and soul were destroyed, and I thought I was doomed, but somehow I was not dead yet.

No, actually now I understand why I didn’t die…

Because my spirit has merged into the natural heat. This integration is not to regard the natural heat as a house and the spirit to move into it. The actual situation is more profound. My spirit has merged into the natural heat. To put it more thoroughly, now I am the heat itself.

This ability did not suddenly appear now. From the beginning, I have the ability to transform my spirit into natural heat to sense the surroundings. Because I have this property, I have also thought about under what circumstances I would be killed. One of the possibilities I came up with is that unless I do not set up "fireflies" and heat energy marks, as well as other power derivatives in other places, the enemy creates an absolute zero environment in a large area with me as the center, otherwise I will never die.

Later, this idea gradually disappeared from my mind. Regardless of the fact that it was just a wild guess that had never been tested in practice, I found it hard to believe that under the premise that my soul was completely killed, I could make a comeback simply by relying on the magic heat that I spread outside, or by completely transforming my spirit into natural heat.

Ying Lingyun, or rather the Monster Maker, once told me in battle that no matter how good I am at turning my spirit into flames and heat, I cannot turn my soul into power 100%, because I always need to divide myself into "the subject that controls the power" and "the controlled power". If I turn myself into the latter, my consciousness will lose its main structure and become a pure natural phenomenon that disappears between heaven and earth.

——Unless I am a true "apparition", a real god and immortal.

So… since I didn’t die, am I really a “spiritual manifestation”? But there is a lot of evidence to prove that I am not a “spiritual manifestation”, so I felt that I could not maintain my consciousness and survive when my soul was completely destroyed.

The idea that the soul can be destroyed but still maintain consciousness is really contradictory. Soul, consciousness, mind, spirit... these words should be equated.

Moreover, now on Yueyin Mountain, the flames and heat that I summoned with my supernatural powers have also gone out. Not only have my body and soul disappeared, but everything that can symbolize me has disappeared. In this situation, I really can't understand why I can still perceive things.

Or in other words, what exactly am I?
This seems to be more like a philosophical question. In the scientific worldview accepted in the past, the self is considered to be the "emergence" result of the electrochemical reaction of the brain. The so-called "emergence" means that after simple individuals are piled up into a complex collective system, they will show properties that simple individuals do not have. For example, the surface tension of the water surface is a property that water molecules do not have. However, applying it to the formation of the self always reveals a sense of forcing and far-fetched.

Some people argue that humans are essentially biological machines and that the so-called "I" is just a complex illusion. I cannot accept that argument because even if it is just an illusion, there must first be an "I" that can produce the illusion.

I think, therefore I am. The self is something that is self-evident. Because of this, the self seems to be something that is difficult to prove. The most that humans can believe is that they have a self. Furthermore, even among billions of humans, it is impossible to prove whether a second person other than oneself really has a self or is a biological machine that seems to have a self.

Since the scientific worldview cannot find the location of "I", can we find it from the worldview of the demon hunter? For example, is "I" in the soul?

I used to believe that, but as the soul gradually became visible and tangible to me, or in other words, something that can be observed and intervened, the soul became more and more like another kind of matter and energy in my mind. In the worldview of ancient religions and myths, the soul is also considered to be the body after death, and it is even believed that the soul should have a clear structure like the body, with three souls and seven spirits. If so, where is the self specifically in this body? Or is the self also formed through some complex energy reactions of this body? If the self that cannot be verified in the physical body can be verified in another "material" body, it is really unconvincing.

I remembered the knowledge that Zhu Shi had explained to me before. It is said that in the ultimate realm that demon hunters dream of, there is a realm called "true spirit". The requirement to reach this realm is to verify and touch the existence of "me".

In addition to these ultimate realms, such as "dreams" and "apparitions", all seem to be related to this "true spirit" to a certain extent.

The "reincarnation" achieved by Shan Liangyi is likely to be related to the "true spirit" - or in other words, to the "verification of self".

Thinking about these things, I looked at the navy Xuanwu again.

Now I can't tell where I am. I say I am looking, but I have no body or soul, so I can't see or hear anything. I can only imagine the scene in my mind in the darkness. Because it is imagination, I can outline his face and back at the same time in my mind. This is not a third-party perspective, but a God's perspective.

At the same time, perhaps it was because I had lost my entire body and soul, and because Water Master Xuanwu had brought me closer to death than ever before, that I once thought that I was really dead... Now, I seem to have been freed from all the shackles.

In fact, all the power has been completely liberated.

The navy Xuanwu stood on the wasteland covered with rubble and looked around. Half of the mountain was shattered by his trick. If it wasn't for the wrong angle, perhaps the whole mountain could have been razed to the ground. Even the legendary Tsar Bomb could not do something like this.

Even the mist covering Yueyin Mountain was torn apart by Xuanming's attack just now. Now, if you look up at the sky, you can even see the silver moon hanging high in the night sky.

He raised his right hand, and another "golden pill" appeared in his palm. However, compared with the previous one, the pressure from this "golden pill" was far less. As this "golden pill" appeared, a large amount of black water appeared from all directions. It was the dark and mysterious magic power formed after the previous "golden pill" was broken.

Countless dark and mysterious magic powers poured into this "Golden Pill", giving it the same oppressive feeling as the previous "Golden Pill".

(End of this chapter)