Destiny in Cinders

”That’s not really surprising,” An Jing said, far less worked up compared to Yvelbane. This was both because he was a local of Void Embrace to begin with and also had his own guesses of the matter already. ”I already had a similar guess from the moment you told me that lifearcs can purify fiend qi. After that, Master told me that lifearcs are sprouts granted by the heavens themselves, and that martialists are akin to saplings that the Heavenly Dao plants in the world. This made it all the more clear.”

Then, Yvelbane and An Jing said in unison, ”In other words, lifearc martialists in Void Embrace are just humanoid fiend-qi purification equipment!”

”Indeed! The immortal path is one of cherishing life!” Yvelbane said agitatedly. ”Back then, the skills we cultivated were centered around survival. All we sought was a long life of carefree wandering. In those times, all cultivators had to focus on avoiding disasters and tribulations to dilute their karmic involvement, completely unlike martialists of the current day who are all too eager to bear the weight of karma!”

”That’s not the only thing, Yvelbane,” An Jing said solemnly. ”You know about martialist lifespans, right? At the Aura Realm, the lifespan increases by 120 years. At the Fortification Realm, it reaches 180 years. Clearing Realm adepts live for 360 years longer than their natural lifespans and Treasures Realm sages get another extension of 600 years.

”At the longest, sages have been said to live close to a thousand years, but that seems to be the limit that none can break through. Sanctification Realm venerateds live up to three thousand years, Pure Yang transcendents live up to six thousand, and nobody really knows the limit of Soaring empyreans. But the rough guess is around the ten-thousand-year mark. Bearers of Grand Chen’s imperial blood seem to get replaced even faster. Tell me, Yvelbane. How long do cultivators of the immortal path live for each respective realm?”

”The difference is incredibly stark. At Qi Refinement, cultivators live about as long as martialists. But once they reach the Purple Mansion Realm, cultivators of the immortal path are able to use abilities to forge an everlasting arcane corpus, immediately extending their lifespans to millennia. Sages who cultivate techniques with properties similar to those of evergreen wood can live more than ten thousand years!

”As for Goldcore cultivators, they are given the title of ’venerated’ because their nature has morphed into that of immutable metal, making their lifespan close to limitless. If they achieve immortal merit, they’ll effectively achieve everlasting life. They would no longer have to worry about their lifespan running out at all!”

”Yeah. The gap between these two paths is far too large. Purple Mansion or Goldcore cultivators of the immortal path have lifespans that far exceed that of Soaring empyreans of the martial path.” An Jing’s heart pumped quickly as he continued his nonstop run, pushing against the wind resistance as his mind connected all the dots. ”Yvelbane, try to imagine this. If martialists are saplings that are intentionally planted, there must be a time for harvest, right?”

”No, describing it as a harvest isn’t quite apt. Heaven and earth are not benevolent. The Grand Dao is not driven by emotion. In a way, heaven and earth love all kinds of life the same way. The reason that fiend qi in Void Embrace doesn’t harm all life might be the Heavenly Dao, which protects all life from it, taking on the burden instead. Without the support of Void Embrace’s Heavenly Dao, life might no longer exist in this world.

”Martialists, as the chosen people, bear an even larger responsibility. They are able to cultivate and grow stronger despite existing in a world where cultivation shouldn’t be possible. As a price, martialists have to spend their entire lives purifying fiend qi and refining it into various profound qi that they use, eventually returning all that profound qi to heaven and earth when they reach the end of their lifespans.”

”Now that you mention it, when martialists cultivate by fulfilling their lifearcs, they grow extremely quickly. Think about it, Yvelbane. The way my master was able to break through to the Sanctification Realm in a single instant shouldn’t be possible in theory according to the immortal path.”

”It is indeed impossible,” Yvelbane said, sensing where An Jing was leading the conversation. ”Back in my day, Purple Mansion cultivators had to enter seclusion for a few years to decades at a time. Some of them even seal off all their sense perception and spend 360 years refining their immutable metal nature to eventually form their core and achieve the heavenward path.

”Your master, on the other hand, achieved his sacred manifestation in a single instant. The grade of the manifested core doesn’t even matter since it all depends on the foundations he had accumulated over the years.”

”So, martialists break through way faster than immortals,” An Jing concluded with a nod. ”As a consequence, their lifespans are much shorter. They’re just like a kind of special grass that sprout and wither quickly in the wasteland. There’s a chance for those tiny blades of grass to grow into full-blown trees, but they wither and perish at the end of the day, leaving nothing but a network of roots behind, in other words, the sects and legacies that they establish. The roots hold the crumbling earth of the wasteland tightly together before they eventually rot and blend into the earth, restoring the wasteland to its former, healthy state!”

At this point, the pieces in his mind snapped into place. ”I’ve heard Master and Jin Yanhua bring up ’immortalfallen’ before, but I didn’t know what it meant back then. Based on what we know now, it seems that some martialists of Void Embrace possess cultivation techniques of the immortal path. The more they want to avert death, the stronger their desire to switch to the immortal path is!”

Yvelbane agreed. ”In a way, this is an act that goes against heavenly will. In a world like Void Embrace, if people borrow the power of lifearcs to purify spirit qi but never die, they’d only be taking without returning any of the spirit qi to the environment. That would make them an environmental hazard, and they’d be no different from heavenly fiends!”

”I see. That’s why immortalfallen are the same as fiendfallen. The moment they fall, they will become elimination targets for every human, divine being or the world itself!”

”That sounds reasonable, but wait!” Yvelbane said in a careful tone. ”What does that mean? Will you still be able to cultivate on the immortal path? If Void Embrace’s Heavenly Dao is so weak that it can’t bear the weight of a single everlasting immortal, should we stop working on the techniques of the immortal path?”

”I don’t think it comes down to that.” Though Yvelbane’s caution was fair, An Jing had a deeper insight into this as the bearer of a celestial arc. ”Immortals are clear, while martialists are turbid. Direct qi cultivation is impossible in a turbid world. But if not for this turbid world, the martial path wouldn’t have been developed.

”Cultivating using the corresponding path of the world one is born in is the most reasonable thing to do. However, I’m different and can access both worlds. I’m not just taking from Void Embrace. Not to mention, I’ve never used my lifearc’s power to purify spirit qi for cultivating the immortal path. Instead, I use my spirit roots in Skysource to gather spirit power and purchase spirit items to use their energy for it!”

An Jing’s expression was one of complete vindication. ”I didn’t take advantage of Void Embrace in the slightest. In fact, I even brought spirit qi from a different world into Void Embrace! If the Heavenly Dao of this world is sentient, it’d no doubt take my side and even bless me! Well, I bear a celestial arc, so in a way, I’m already being ’blessed.’ Either way, Seven Ruins Tribulation means that I will have to constantly face tribulations and disasters, which will only promote more and more karmic exchange. It’s in Void Embrace’s Heavenly Dao’s interest to prolong my life.”

It was a sensible line of reasoning, and Yvelbane was convinced. While it wouldn’t be a guarantee if this came from the bearer of any other celestial arc, Seven Ruins Tribulation was different. Bearers of this arc could constantly cause chaos, resulting in interweaving karmic threads that resulted in more and more fiend qi being purified. This was especially the case for a bearer that could smuggle spirit qi from a different world. Yvelbane believed that if it were in the shoes of the Heavenly Dao, it would also want An Jing to live longer. Alas, even if the Heavenly Dao agreed with them, other people in this world might not. During the upheaval of every era, bearers of Seven Ruins Tribulation were often the first to perish. It wasn’t uncommon for this celestial arc to cycle through a few bearers before it was able to overthrow the order of the time.

An Jing concluded, ”Basically, I’m able to cultivate on both the martial and immortal paths concurrently. Perhaps I’ll be able to avoid becoming immortalfallen and uncover even more of the truth behind the odd precepts of Void Embrace’s Heavenly Dao and help it solve its problems! Yvelbane, this is the karma that you helped me forge. Your ability to traverse worlds using the Grandvoid Pathway might be far more precious than either of us expected!”

This realization came from the fact that his master would have a difficult time returning to Void Embrace after losing his way in a destabilized void pathway. The Grandvoid Pathway was definitely not something that average immortals of divine beings possessed! Otherwise, Soaring empyreans could’ve just gone to a different world to take up the immortal path to extend their lifespans infinitely. The fact that they didn’t do so showed that they couldn’t!

”The power to connect worlds... Yvelbane, I think you’re far more important than you realize. Maybe that’s why your fragment was sealed so carefully within ritual altars of different worlds. That might also be why the heavenly fiends or some other mysterious power took your memories from you!”

”Indeed.” Though Yvelbane had no memory to confirm it, it was certain about An Jing’s hypothesis. ”Collecting my fragments has become even more important now.”

”That’s what I wanted to ask. You told me back at Direlife Manor that there’s another fragment of yours somewhere in the Northblack Sacrifice Continent, and it’s not that far. So, it’s probably in Xishan, Dustdawn or the northern frontier. Can you sense it?”

”Let me try.” Yvelbane didn’t seem too certain. Back then, its senses were far too hazy. However, it had recovered considerably after spending so much time with An Jing.

The broken sword in his sea of consciousness trembled slightly. Then, it stopped. Yvelbane’s shock-filled voice rang out in An Jing’s mind. ”I really found it! It’s in the northern frontier, a little far away from us, but it’s within the Hanhai Region! Not only that... I think my fragment’s growing more active too...”