Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 385 Ouroboros

The moment the thought crossed his mind, he felt his consciousness being drawn to him faster.

Actually, it was already very fast; everything he saw and thought happened in the blink of an eye. However, with the enhancement of his Nascent Soul cultivation through the Great Calamity Sword Sutra, his keen senses seemed to slow down time—white mycelium was still growing on the hand that was in contact with the dragon's chin. The mycelium had already wrapped around three fingers and was spreading towards the fourth.

As he pondered all this, he could see tiny white tentacles trembling and extending in mid-air, trying to cross the gap between his two fingers. And when he thought about how Li Ye had become the Eastern Emperor Taiyi, in his vision, that trembling tentacle seemed to speed up and immediately touched his ring finger.

He realized he might be about to break through a certain boundary—the Great Lord Tai Zhuo within the dragon's body was like peering into the world through a thin tube, only able to see what it wanted to see. And he was just a tiny speck of dust in that thin tube, drawn to the other end, using its supernatural powers to perceive everything he had just known.

But the secret related to Donghuang Taiyi seemed to be a powerful force, rapidly pushing him towards the other end of the passage, and he had an unmistakable feeling that once he broke through that boundary and crossed a certain critical point, perhaps, at least for now, there would be no possibility of returning.

However, he had a second, undeniable concept: once he got past that, he would be able to figure out exactly what happened... and find out how Li Ye had become a Golden Immortal!
He hesitated for only a very brief moment. In that instant, two thoughts flashed through his mind.

My first thought was a saying: "If I hear the Way in the morning, I can die content in the evening."

The second thought was self-consolation—it wasn't such a big deal. This wasn't his original world, and neither was his current destination. If he could come, he could return; if the Great Lord Taizhuo could come, he might be able to come again!

He immediately abandoned all distracting thoughts, allowing his mind to soar, to see that wisp of smoke representing the fortune of humanity!
So he stepped over it, and saw even more clearly. Like peeling away the layers of an onion, or turning the pages of a book, the laws and principles of this world were laid bare before him. The wisp of wisp of smoke revealed countless subtle layers, ultimately transforming into something he could understand—

That wisp of humanistic fortune was indeed very small, seemingly insignificant, but it was not dim! Like the other faintly flowing spiritual energy on this giant sphere, it was actually a thin white. The reason it appeared black was because there was so much of it!

Layer upon layer, strand upon strand of human fortune piled up, just like white clouds gathering into dark clouds!
Every layer, every strand, is filled with people from this world! The same people!

Li Wuxiang was only shocked for a short while, but in that very short time, he came to his senses—

Li Ye!

The Great Calamity Mountain!
Earthfire will destroy the world!

When Li Ye used his power to rewind time, he said that he had done this countless times, so many times that he had exhausted every crevices of cause and effect, and thus perished in the future.

What did he do next? He reshaped the world and saved everyone in it!

At that time, Li Wuxiang didn't realize what Li Ye's words truly meant, but now he understood—

The Central Continent where he was now was no longer the Central Continent before the Great Calamity Mountain Fire destroyed the world. Li Ye did not reshape everyone; his methods were more like peeling the human fortune from that cause and effect before the Great Calamity Mountain Fire destroyed the world, and then creating a new layer, just like the layers of soil accumulating on the earth!

Li Wuxiang could hardly imagine the immense calamities his past retraces had caused to the world, but he was certain that each time, like the last, he had reshaped the destiny of humanity! These layers of destiny, stacked together, were like… layers of worlds stacked upon each other. To use the concept of the otherworld he came from as an analogy, it was as if Li Ye had created a new “parallel world” each time, except that this “world” only contained the destiny of humanity!
If one world has too few people and insufficient fortune, what about the human fortune of countless worlds?
The layers of fortune accumulated repeatedly, eventually forming what we see before us: so dense it's almost black. Although small, its power is comparable to the immense spiritual energy condensed by the six great emperors of the Xuanjiao sect!
This is how Li Ye attained enlightenment! He traced back cause and effect, reshaped countless strands of human destiny, and finally gave himself the power to become a Golden Immortal?!

If that's true, he can finally understand the Blood Sea of ​​Mount Ling.

In the bottom of Mount Ling, in the sea of ​​blood, there are endless corpses. But those are not the corpses of mortals, but those of cultivators—only cultivators who do not wish to re-enter the cycle of reincarnation after death go to Mount Ling, hoping to gain one last chance.

From the time Taiyi created Mount Ling to the present, only three thousand years have passed. Cultivators of the Six Departments of the Mysterious Sect go to the "Wonderful Realm" after death, while only a portion of the cultivators of the independent sects and the Thirty-Six Sects go to Mount Ling after death.

Therefore, the question that had always been in Li Wuxiang's mind was: there weren't enough people!
Even if all the cultivators who died in the past three thousand years were filled into Mount Ling, it might not be enough to fill the boundless number of skeletons he saw when he once entered it!
But now he understands. The corpses in Mount Ling didn't just come from this world, but also from countless other worlds that had suffered great calamities and were reshaped by Li Ye using the power of Taiyi!
Can someone who has cultivated to the Golden Immortal level using the Great Calamity Sword Scripture achieve this level?

Li Wuxiang felt his mind was completely confused, and he couldn't help but ask himself the same question he had asked Li Ye before—if you hadn't become a Golden Immortal, if you hadn't become the Eastern Emperor Taiyi, how could you use the authority of Taiyi to reshape the human destiny of a destroyed world, and how could you make them pile up together like countless parallel worlds?!

It's like an ouroboros, but how did it manage to bite its tail in the first place?

But he knew he no longer had the time or opportunity to think about it, because he had reached the other end of the pipe and could see what was on the other side—

Then one last thought popped into his head—I know what to do.

Li Wuxiang abruptly withdrew his hand. In that instant, the mycelium that had just climbed onto his ring finger withered, and the mycelium on the dragon's body before him withered along with it. The enormous body seemed to have been severed; its head suddenly drooped, its body suddenly relaxed, and the aura of the Great Lord Taizhuo vanished—as if it had only come here to cast a gloomy glance, convey a message to someone below, and then, with a meaningful cold smile on its lips, retreated back into the darkness.

The Wanhua Fangli was silent for a moment. The change was too fast. Zhao Qi's expression of horror was still on his face. It took him a moment to react.

He looked at the motionless dragon body—it seemed that because it had lost what it carried, it began to shrink rapidly, eventually turning into a tattered animal hide covered in scales, floating in front of Li Wuxiang.

Then he looked at Li Wuxiang: "You... my god, how did you kill it?! You just killed it?! You killed it and Xu Zhen?! You only touched it with your hand?!"

Li Wuxiang turned to look at him, then slightly twitched the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile. He didn't speak, but simply picked up the Xie Zhi's hide and put it on like clothing. Immediately, many pale golden tentacles sprouted from the hide, accepting and absorbing it, quickly making it part of Li Wuxiang's outer skin.

He let out a soft breath: "Brother Zhao, look, I got the bones of the Xie Zhi before, and now I've got its skin. Wrapped in the skin, I've truly become a Xie Zhi now."

Three stars—red, blue, and white—shone overhead, and the corpses in the far distance of the zenith reflected light, so it wasn't exactly dark. Yet, upon hearing this, Zhao Qi felt a chill inexplicably run through him, as if he were just an ordinary mortal walking alone in a dark, dense forest where wild beasts lurked.

He felt that Li Wuxiang's tone was a bit off.

He was too calm. The old Li Wuxiang was always this calm, but when he was summoned down from the Myriad Transformations Formation today, his temperament had changed slightly—somewhat erratic, somewhat fanatical. And now he was back to the old Li Wuxiang, which might be a good thing, but Zhao Qi felt that something must have happened just now to make him like this… “You… I say, you haven’t been possessed, have you?” He cautiously stared at Li Wuxiang’s face and asked, “If you… are still that thing from before, but now inside Li Wuxiang’s body, let me tell you, no, I’m advising you, although Li Wuxiang isn’t as skilled as you, he’s very useful! His senior sister is the strongest Yang God in the mortal world, you should keep him; he’s still very useful…”

Li Wuxiang laughed: "Stop guessing, it's gone."

“…left?”

Li Wuxiang flew downwards, and Zhao Qi immediately followed. He heard Li Wuxiang say ahead, "I guess that was the Great Lord Taizhuo. When you were in the Crimson Heaven, was there something restraining you? Do you remember?"

"I don't remember. My mind was unclear then, just like when I had just died. Now that you mention it, it seems so."

"Think about it again, does it feel similar to what you felt just now?"

Zhao Qi frowned and thought for a while: "Hey, don't ask me how you got rid of it. Okay, let's say it got rid of it. But what about Xu Zhen? How did you kill it?"

“I didn’t kill Xu Zhen. He was probably killed by the Treasure Bottle—the Treasure Bottle took away his soul, leaving his body empty, which is why he was possessed.” Li Wuxiang glanced back, but not at Zhao Qi. Instead, he looked at the things in the distant void that resembled the remains of the Great Lord Tai Zhuo. “This should be a cemetery. Those things should be the corpses of the Great Lord Tai Zhuo who came earlier.”

"I guess it's dead, but its spirit is still alive. Just now, it was its spirit that possessed Xu Zhen's body."

Zhao Qi stared at his back, frowned and thought for a while: "Who was it talking to just now?"

"We'll have to ask Aquarius about that."

"Then... I still feel like something's off about you."

Li Wuxiang landed in the courtyard and remained silent for a moment: "Just think of me as having a bad mood, no, I should say it's rather complicated."

Then he called out, "Li Guichen, Bao Ping, where are you?"

The door to the east wing opened, and Li Guichen came out first, followed by Xue Baoping. Both of them looked disheveled, as if the cellar had just collapsed.

Then another one came out. But it wasn't Hu Wei, who had fainted earlier and been taken inside with them; it was a small beast. It was about the size of a goat, covered in bluish-green scales, and had a single, milky-white horn on its head that seemed to tremble slightly if you reached out and touched it.

Xue Baoping looked somewhat uneasy: "Did I just... cause trouble?"

Li Wuxiang glanced at Zhao Qi, then shook his head with a smile: "It's none of your business. You should be considered a great help, otherwise I would have had to fight Xu Zhen—you just extracted Xu Zhen's soul into your talisman and brought it back to life?"

Xue Baoping breathed a sigh of relief: "Yes, that's right."

"Look, Brother Zhao, it's exactly what I was talking about." He then looked at Xue Baoping, "It seems you used to only be able to handle the living and the dead? Now you can handle the living too?"

Xue Baoping hesitated for a moment, then looked up at the dragon corpse in the sky: "Seeing that thing made the supernatural powers my master taught me stronger. I was able to do it after trying it myself. That thing up there is probably my master's corpse."

"But you still can't say who your master is?"

Xue Baoping nodded.

Li Wuxiang laughed again: "Alright, it doesn't matter. In any case, he should be a Golden Immortal or a great god. The thing that possessed you just now should be your master's enemy. They probably fought here sometime and died together. When you extracted Xu Zhen's soul, you triggered your master's supernatural powers, and that thing came smelling the scent and said a few harsh words—"

"Brother Zhao, can you accept my explanation now? Do you still think I've been possessed?"

Zhao Qi stared at Li Wuxiang suspiciously for a moment, then shook his head: "Alright... then that's how it is. So what's wrong with you?"

He pointed to the small beast following Xue Baoping: "Aren't you surprised to see this thing?"

The little beast had big, bright eyes. It rubbed against Xue Baoping like a newborn lamb or calf, nudging her arm with its head, as if wanting her to pat its head. Occasionally, it would paw at the ground with its front paws, as if it also wanted to run around.

Li Wuxiang glanced at it: "A Xie Zhi, huh. So this is what it looks like after losing its supernatural powers and cultivation. Not bad. I was worried that it was really dead or had run away, and I wouldn't be able to borrow its supernatural powers anymore, and the world he created in the Myriad Transformations Cube would disappear. Now I don't have to worry about that—I'm a Xie Zhi now, so I don't need to borrow from it. If I raise it well, maybe I can raise it into something good."

Zhao Qi was about to speak again when Li Wuxiang sighed, "Brother Zhao, I'll talk to you about it later. I have other things to do right now."

He walked up to Li Guichen, stared at him for a moment, and waved his hand: "Shall we talk over here?"

Li Guichen glanced at Zhao Qi, a hint of doubt on his face. But Li Wuxiang had already walked more than ten steps away, so he had no choice but to follow.

"Do you remember why you named yourself Li Guichen?" Li Wuxiang turned and asked him. His gaze was earnest, serious to the point of being harsh and sharp. "Do you remember... how you came back?"

(End of this chapter)