Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Slowly putting down his saber, Tang Jie sat back down by the table and released Zuo Quanming.

Zuo Quanming exhaled in relief. He wanted to explain himself, but Tang Jie waved a hand and stopped him. "I know what you want to say. Don\'t worry. I won\'t kill you for this."

Yiyi came over and whispered to Tang Jie, "Big Brother, don\'t worry. Remember: I saw you going with me to see Bao\'er."

"But it could be another me, right?" Tang Jie replied.

Yiyi immediately fell silent.

There existed the main body and the avatar, so why couldn\'t it be that Yiyi had gone to see Bao\'er with the main body after the avatar died here?

In the past, it wouldn\'t have been all that important if the avatar had died.

But now, after so many years of adventuring, the avatar had grown just as much as the original body, and Tang Jie could no longer treat it as just an avatar.

The main body and the avatar were like his hands, and there had ceased to be a difference between them long ago. Losing either one would be a heavy blow!

Tang Jie fell silent, closing his eyes as he began to think.

He once more used his reserves of Karma power, trying to work backward from the effect to the cause.

Countless scenes flashed in front of him, episodes of tough and gruesome battle playing out before him. He saw the Blood River Lord madly laughing, saw him and everyone else locked in a bitter struggle against the Blood River Lord, saw them fighting a hopeless battle, saw all of his intricate arrangements being obliterated in front of the Blood River Lord.

Suddenly, a scene appeared in front of Tang Jie that made him freeze in shock.

"Did you think of something?" Liu Qianyi urgently asked.

And then she saw a shocking sight.

Lights were spinning in Tang Jie\'s eyes, his white sclera and black pupils becoming black and white Yin Yang fish, spinning like a Taiji diagram.

Liu Qianyi was entranced, and she felt the world spinning around her.

She felt like she had returned to her childhood, watching as she ran barefoot through a meadow, a man and woman lovingly watching on. Suddenly, an eagle swept down from the heavens, stirring up a mighty gust. In the middle of the whirling dust, the eagle seized her in its claws and flew off to a distant mountain, leaving behind cries of grief and misery down below. She was carried by the eagle for a very long time, until she saw a nest built on a cliff. She saw two chicks waiting to be fed, hungrily looking at her. The eagle dropped her into the nest, but just when she was about to land, she heard a voice shout, "Beast!"

There was a boom, and when she opened her eyes, she found that she had fallen into the hands of a middle-aged beauty.

"Master!" Liu Qianyi was stunned.

These memories from her childhood had long ago faded into the past, but now, it was all being replayed before her without a single error or omission.

As she watched her master embrace her, she began to cry.

"Miss Liu, Miss Liu, what\'s wrong?" Anxious cries woke Liu Qianyi up, and she discovered that she was still seated at the table. Tang Jie\'s spinning eyes of black and white had disappeared, and he was looking at her in concern.

"Ah!" Liu Qianyi blushed. She looked down and said, "It\'s– it\'s nothing."

Tang Jie looked at her and softly said, "I was reversing Karma to try and find the cause from the effect. The power of Karma might have affected others."

"I see," Liu Qianyi softly whispered. "Young Master Tang possesses astonishing insight, understanding the Dao of Formations, Yin Yang, Five Elements, and even Karma and Fate."

"I would not dare to claim that I know about Fate, and I only have some meager understanding of the Dao of Karma. In fact, today\'s events have increased my understanding of it a little more," Tang Jie indifferently replied.

Unlike other Daos, the Dao of Karma primarily relied on understanding. If one understood it, one passed, and if one didn\'t understand it, one could waste all the time in the world to no avail.

Ever since Tang Jie had comprehended Karma back in the academy, though he had tried to work on his understanding, he had found it difficult to make progress. It was for this reason that he hadn\'t expected that his attempt at reversing Karma would let him make so much progress in this long-stalled Dao.

Because of this, when Liu Qianyi looked into his eyes, she was inadvertently pulled into the past and re-experienced her childhood. What she didn\'t know was that Tang Jie had also seen her childhood, but Tang Jie was simply acting dumb and pretending not to know.

Na Shan asked Tang Jie, "So?"

Tang Jie replied, "I have an inkling, but I can\'t be too sure about it."

Na Shan smiled. "The future is constantly changing and has never been a sure thing. If you have some inkling, at least we can take precautions."

"Of course!" Tang Jie nodded.

"So then, what do we do next?" someone asked.

Tang Jie looked around. "Have all of you finished recovering?"

"My spiritual energy is all recovered. I can go three hundred rounds without a problem!"

"Then what are we waiting for?" Tang Jie stood up and shouted, "Let\'s fight to our heart\'s content!"

"Yes, let\'s fight that old man to our heart\'s content!" Everyone stood up and cheered.

Liu Qianyi had recovered from her shock by now, so she smiled and said, "If that\'s the case, I will stop the formation."

She lightly waved her hand, and a silvery light flowed out from it.

Everyone started to fly up into the air, leaving that thriving city far below them. It was the exact opposite of when they first entered the formation, and they flew higher and higher, up into the clouds, into the stars, through the domain barrier and into the infinite void.

And then, everything began to shatter.

It was like shattered glass, shard after shard falling away before their eyes!

Tang Jie and the others felt like they were standing at the very edge of the world as they witnessed this all.

Entering had brought forth new life, and leaving had brought forth destruction!

Tang Jie cried out in shock, "Wait a moment!"

Liu Qianyi replied in shock, "\'Wait\' for what? The simulation formation is in the middle of closing. It can\'t be stopped!"

Tang Jie stared at the shattering world, feeling like he was on the verge of grasping something: this process of life to destruction was suffused with the essence of the simulation formation.

It was the foundation stone of the world, the core of change, the source of all things, the pivot of the Great Dao!

It was Fate!

Tang Jie suddenly rushed forward.

"Tang Jie!" Liu Qianyi cried out in fright.

The simulation formation was in the middle of collapsing, and if Tang Jie charged in at this moment, he was bound to be obliterated along with the formation, so dead that not even dregs would be left.

With the world crumbling around him, Tang Jie charged in, his body flickering like it might also crumble at any moment.

Tang Jie suddenly flung out his hand, and a beam of light issued from his body into the world below. In response, a beam of light rose up from the crumbling formation, and then a point of light flew out of the world, shooting toward Tang Jie like a lightning bolt and disappearing into his body.

Tang Jie\'s body flashed, and then he seemed to freeze, along with the entire world.

After a split second, the world returned to normal, but began to collapse even faster. Tang Jie could feel more and more spatial fissures appearing around him.

This was an omen of a world\'s destruction, a complete collapse in the fabric of space. If he didn\'t leave now, he would join the simulation formation in the void.

"Tang Jie!" Liu Qianyi frantically shouted.

Tang Jie turned and flew upward.

Almost at the speed of light!

As he flew upward, space crumbled behind him, turning into an absolute void.

In front of him, the figures of Liu Qianyi and the others began to fade.

They were withdrawing from the formation.

"Hurry!" everyone shouted.

Tang Jie flew as fast as he could.

Everyone grew fainter and fainter, and Tang Jie knew that when they completely disappeared, the passage out would be severed, and he would be trapped.

"Big Brother!" Yiyi shouted.

She flung out a small hand, sending a green vine flying toward Tang Jie, but this vine still wasn\'t long enough.

As Yiyi threw out the vine, her body turned completely transparent and disappeared.

The transparency traveled along the vine, a streak of green flying across the sky while an invisible monster gobbled it up from behind.

As the green was just about to completely disappear, Tang Jie suddenly lunged forward, leaping through that corridor of space and grabbing the end of the vine.

The invisible monster rushed up and swallowed Tang Jie whole.

In a flash, Tang Jie was gone.

Emptiness and darkness rolled forward, completely engulfing this world and wiping it from existence.

――――――――――

Thud!

Tang Jie dropped to the ground on his knees.

He looked up and found that he had returned to the Hall of Three Immortals.

Around him were clouds and celestial palaces, and in the distance, his original body was fighting with the Blood River Behemoth. These two had been far too big for Liu Qianyi to dare bring them inside the formation, or else the formation would have crumbled long ago.

But Tang Jie didn\'t mind. One could share two bodies, but there was only one Fate to be obtained.

Even if his original body had entered the simulation, the Fate simulation wouldn\'t have changed, for in the eyes of the simulation, his two bodies were still one person.

Regardless of what others saw, in the eyes of the Heavenly Dao, the soul was that which decided what was a life.

Otherwise, wouldn\'t the Blood River Lord with his thousands of avatars have thousands of lives?

"Tang Jie!" Liu Qianyi rushed up and shouted into his face, "What were you doing!? You almost killed yourself!"

"I know," Tang Jie indifferently replied as he stood up. "But I was willing to take the risk for such a great reward."

"What sort of great reward would be worth risking your life?!" Liu Qianyi shouted.

"What do you think about a reward that can help us defeat the Blood River Lord?" Tang Jie raised his hand, and a light slowly rose from it.

This light seemed to be a living creature, wriggling around like a worm. But it was unable to escape Tang Jie\'s palm, only radiating dazzling beams of light.

"This is…" Everyone was flabbergasted, unable to comprehend what they were seeing.

"A Fate Standard," Tang Jie replied. "A remnant of the Fate Celestial Compass, the core of the simulation formation."

This was a stunning revelation. Tang Jie had actually managed to take that thing out with him?

Hei Yan called out, "What can it do?"

"A lot," Tang Jie answered.