As the panic reached its peak, reason finally clawed its way back.

Wang Chen sucked in a sharp, uneven breath, forcing the air deep into his lungs as if it might anchor his spiraling thoughts. His heart was still pounding violently, each beat echoing in his ears like a war drum, but he clenched his teeth and held on.

"Now… the situation might not be as bad as I think it is…"

The words sounded weak even to him, but repeating them helped. Slowly, painfully, his breathing steadied. A long, exhausted sigh escaped his lips once he finally regained a semblance of control.

Yet no matter how hard he tried, the vision from moments ago refused to fade.

Again and again, it replayed in his mind.

Just a short while earlier, it was as if his consciousness had been torn away from reality and cast into an entirely different world—one so vast that even his cultivated mind struggled to comprehend it.

He had seen a man.

No—something wearing the shape of a man.

Its body was so immense that scale itself lost meaning. Galaxies spiraled within its form, star clusters burning and collapsing beneath its skin as though they were nothing more than decoration. Its eyes—those terrifying eyes—resembled bottomless black holes, devouring light and meaning alike. Within those abyssal pupils lingered an overwhelming sense of danger, as if death itself were staring back at the universe.

But even that was not what truly shook Wang Chen to his core.

It was what followed.

That being… was afraid.

Wang Chen didn't know who or what the entity was, only that it faced something so terrifying that even an existence of such magnitude chose flight over resistance. To survive, it committed an act so unthinkable that Wang Chen's soul recoiled just remembering it.

The colossal body exploded.

Not violently—but deliberately.

It shattered into trillions… no, quadrillions of crystalline white fragments, each one scattering into the endless fabric of reality like falling snow. Time lost meaning as those fragments drifted apart. Slowly, imperceptibly, they began to change.

They multiplied.

They transformed.

What began as lifeless shards of light evolved into the simplest forms of existence—primitive, single-celled organisms. Over billions of years, those organisms grew, adapted, merged, and diverged. Life became complex. Worlds bloomed. Countless races were born.

Even humanity.

That revelation alone should have been enough to destroy Wang Chen's sanity.

But it wasn't.

What truly froze his blood was the realization that struck afterward.

That original white light…

It was a soul.

"…Every living being has a soul…"

The words left his mouth in a whisper. His hand trembled as his consciousness instinctively turned inward.

Deep within himself, he saw it.

The same faint, crystalline white glow.

His soul.

The sight sent a wave of cold dread through his chest.

The soul he had always believed to be his—his essence, his identity—might never have belonged to him in the first place.

Unaware of how long he had stood motionless, Wang Chen fell once more into heavy contemplation. Questions piled atop one another, growing sharper with each breath.

Who was that man… that incomprehensible existence?

Why did this vision appear while he was trying to comprehend reincarnation?

One thing was clear.

Whatever that being was, it was inseparably tied to the reincarnation cycle.

"For now, I can't afford to think about anything else," Wang Chen murmured hoarsely. "If I don't understand the truth… I'll never make sense of any of this."

He knew it instinctively—overthinking would only stall his progress. Doubt and fear would become shackles. Gritting his teeth, he forcibly cast aside the swirling thoughts that threatened to drown him.

Slowly, he sat down.

Once again, Wang Chen closed his eyes and sank into deep contemplation, returning to the most fundamental question.

What… is reincarnation?

At its simplest, it was said to be the rebirth of the dead into a new body.

But after what he had seen…

Was it truly that simple?

Whatever Wang Chen believed about reincarnation collapsed completely after that vision.

If reincarnation truly existed, then the soul did not perish.

And if the soul was immortal—

Then why were cultivators desperately chasing immortality?

The question struck like a nail driven straight into the core of his Dao Heart.

Wang Chen did not attempt to answer it immediately. He knew better. Some questions were not meant to be solved with logic, but endured until understanding arrived on its own. So he cast aside everything else and devoted himself entirely to comprehension.

No distractions.

No emotions.

Only wisdom.

Time flowed.

Ten years passed.

Then a hundred.

Then, in what felt like the blink of an eye, a thousand years slipped away like dust through open fingers.

Wang Chen did not move.

His body sat unmoving, his posture rigid, his presence so still that it began to resemble a statue carved into the landscape itself. After nearly two thousand years, the area around him had transformed into a silent forbidden zone. Even resentment ghosts—creatures born of madness and hatred—instinctively avoided the region, as if something invisible yet absolute warned them away.

Time, indifferent and merciless, continued forward.

Year followed year.

Century devoured century.

And then—another eight thousand years vanished into nothingness.

Ten thousand years.

Wang Chen had been in meditation for ten thousand years.

It was the longest he had ever devoted himself to a single pursuit. And yet, to him, it felt no longer than a brief closing of his eyes. Once the first crack in understanding appeared nine thousand years ago, the resistance began to crumble. The path revealed itself, and comprehension followed like water rushing downhill.

What once made no sense now aligned with terrifying clarity.

That man.

The one who shattered himself.

Wang Chen still did not know his identity—but now he understood his purpose.

That existence had split his soul into quadrillions of fragments not out of madness, but out of intent.

He was learning.

Each soul, once separated from the origin, lived an independent life. Each life developed its own worldview, its own suffering, its own joy, its own understanding of reality. And when that soul completed its reincarnation cycle, it returned—bringing with it everything it had experienced.

No two souls perceived the world the same way.

No two lives produced identical comprehension.

Through reincarnation, that being harvested infinite perspectives.

Cultivation, then, was not merely about power.

It was the immortalization of individuality.

As long as a soul remained isolated from the origin, it became an individual—an existence like Wang Chen himself, no longer a mere fragment, but a complete being with identity, will, and self.

"Araghh!"

Wang Chen nearly tore at his own hair, a hoarse, unhinged sound ripping from his throat. The more he understood, the worse the pain became. Every answer spawned ten new questions, each sharper than the last.

"Argh… all of this is so fucked up."

If a cultivator succeeded—if they achieved true immortality—they would retain their individuality forever.

But if they failed?

No matter how long it took, no matter how many lifetimes passed, they would eventually dissolve and return to the original creator.

Then why did the creator allow this system to exist at all?

The answer surfaced with brutal indifference.

Because the creator did not care.

Those who achieved true immortality were few—vanishingly rare. But the stronger a cultivator grew before failing, the richer their comprehension became. Their deaths fed the origin even more profound understanding.

Loss was irrelevant.

Only accumulation mattered.

"Fuck!"

Wang Chen cursed once more and shut his eyes tightly.

He was not giving up.

Not now.

Not ever.

If this was the truth of the world—

Then he would walk it to the very end, even if it meant staring directly into the abyss that birthed existence itself.

Time continued to flow—silent, merciless, indifferent.

The Wisdom Rune suspended before Wang Chen slowly dimmed, its once-brilliant radiance fading imperceptibly with each passing era. Forty thousand years slipped away like dust in the void, and by the time they passed, the rune had lost nearly half its light.

Fifty thousand years.

In that unfathomable span, Wang Chen had comprehended half of the reincarnation cycle.

One percent every thousand years.

A pace that would have broken the Dao hearts of countless geniuses.

Yet Wang Chen remained unmoving.

His breathing was calm and even, steady as the ticking of a cosmic clock. His brows were drawn tightly together, carved into an unyielding frown of concentration. Around him, the world itself had changed.

Wind carried grains of sand and fragments of stone across the barren land. Slowly, relentlessly, those particles accumulated. What began as a shallow rise became a ridge, then a hill, and finally a mountain range. By the time fifty thousand years had passed, Wang Chen's body sat buried deep beneath layers of earth and rock, sealed at the heart of a mountain formed by time itself.

And still—he meditated.

Yin and Yang.

The truth revealed itself with brutal simplicity.

Everything in existence possessed its opposite.

Light and darkness.

Sun and moon.

Life and death.

The Original Demon had the Original Angel.

Balance was not mercy—it was inevitability.

Wang Chen's lips moved.

His voice echoed through the depths of the mountain, calm, ancient, resonant with authority that did not belong to a mortal.

"Reveal the shadow of the spiritual space…"

As he spoke, the faint outline of a vast, inverted spiritual domain shimmered into existence behind him—an intangible reflection, neither fully real nor fully illusory.

"Condense it through true fire."

A core ignited.

Not blazing outward, but burning inward—black fire folding into itself, forging form from negation.

"Use this shadowed space…"

The air trembled.

"…to establish Yama Palace."

Runes spilled from his mouth like living entities, ancient symbols intertwining with the surrounding world. They embedded themselves into stone, air, and void alike, merging with reality itself. Where they passed, invisible tension unraveled—as if centuries of silent suffering were being gently, methodically unthreaded.

From afar, Mo Huyan watched.

For fifty thousand years, her gaze had never once left Wang Chen.

She stood at the edge of the ruined land, unmoving, witnessing an act that defied reason. Runes of reincarnation converged around his buried figure, weaving laws that should have shattered any sane mind.

Her expression was impossibly complex.

Awe.

Unease.

Recognition.

Fear.

This young man…

She narrowed her eyes slightly.

He is only the second existence in history who did not immediately descend into madness after touching the truth of reincarnation.

Neither Wang Chen nor she herself were meant to approach such knowledge. Reincarnation was not a law—it was an abyss. And yet, unlike countless others who had screamed, broken, or erased themselves upon seeing it—

They endured.

They bent—but did not shatter.

Just who… are you really?

Mo Huyan's fingers curled unconsciously.

When Wang Chen had comprehended Non-Existence Authority, she had already known he was no ordinary cultivator.

Now—

Her curiosity had transformed into something far more dangerous.

Suspicion.

And anticipation.

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