627 Sealed & Consequences

[POV: Da Wei]

The Dao Domains of the Supreme Heart and the Supreme Bearer clashed.

On one side, the Tower was forcibly tearing itself away from the Dark Veil, the dark shell that encased the Hollowed World. On the other, the cathedral born from my power struggled to sustain my existence, reflecting every harm directed at me back toward its source. Yet despite the resistance, I could feel myself slowly unraveling. It was as though something was reaching into my soul and ferreting away the very essence that defined my existence. Piece by piece, something fundamental was being stripped from me.

“Not a trap, my ass. You gaslighting whackjob,” I hissed, realizing he was forcing me to 'own' the Tower.

If I let Heart do as he pleased, he'd let out the Supreme Void through the Tower. The only way I could stop it was to accept the Tower. I reached into the authority that recognized me as the Tower's owner and seized control. I hated every second of it, feeling remorse at the idea that I 'won', but I was still losing. I did everything right, but everything was still wrong. It was unfair, and I hated it.

“Stay right there.”

The Tower shuddered violently before beginning to descend back toward the Hollowed World.

I immediately evacuated the mortals and various presences surrounding the Tower, using the Dark Veil's authority to pull them away before they could become casualties. The effort drained me further. The reserves of divine qi within me were disappearing at an alarming rate, but I continued forcing the Tower downward.

After a tremendous struggle, I finally managed to force it back into place. When I thought the worst was over, the Tower snapped in half. Through my Ophanim, I saw what was coming. The future sight that had been frustratingly blurry suddenly became clearer. The weight of existence surrounding Heart was rapidly dwindling, and with it came clarity.

I saw myself being sealed and my Supremacy Trait being ripped away.

“You’ve bitten off more than you could chew,” Heart remarked.

He raised one palm.

My consciousness was projected from my body in an instant, my soul dragged along with my mind. I screamed, but no sound escaped me. I could do nothing as I continued falling through the void. When I finally left the vacuum of space and reached the bricks and fragments of the Tower, I sensed the runes embedded within every piece. They were glowing. They recognized me as their master. And they demanded that I work.

The 'existence' that made me 'Da Wei' continued to fall, slowly being stripped away, while the shattered pieces of the Tower began crawling back toward one another. Bricks, walls, pathways, and countless fragments pulled themselves together, reconstructing the Tower around me.

It was mending itself and preparing to trap me inside.

When the last pieces finally connected, I found myself falling through a constellation of stars and strange pathways that seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction.

I forced myself to calm down and took a deep breath.

Once I had centered myself, I decided to do something terrible.

“Jue Bu.”

I paused.

“I want my body back.”

I looked toward the strange pathways surrounding me.

“Save me.”

The Tower was a formidable artifact shrouded in mystery. I had been severed from it so completely that even my Origin Art could no longer reach beyond its walls. But I was its owner. That gave me privileges I had never possessed before.

Now, I could cast my eyes beyond the Tower. As I inspected it through my authority, I finally began to understand what this thing truly was.

The Tower had once been the Wheel of Reincarnation.

“Can I ask you something?” asked Jue Bu through the faint connection.

“...”

“You didn’t need to ask for my permission to do this, but you still did. Why?”

“I consider you a friend.”

There was silence on the other side.

“When I allied myself with you, I always imagined that something like this would happen.”

“I am sorry,” I said, clenching my fists. “When a gift is given, it is only right that you do not take it back. What I am about to do could lead to terrible fates for you. Your soul is still at the mercy of the Supreme Void. I know what I am asking of you, Jue Bu. If you say no, I understand. I will find another way out of this Tower.”

It was stupid. Perhaps even absurd. I had never considered that becoming the Tower's owner would mean being bound to it like this. Yet now that I had inspected the artifact through my authority, I understood enough to realize that its ownership was far more complicated than I had imagined.

Jue Bu was silent for a while, and then he laughed. “Da Wei.” His voice carried an odd mixture of amusement and resignation. “I call myself the King of Fools, so hats off to you. I have never seen someone as foolish as you. There’s no need to overthink this. Take it back. Take this body back. It was never given. It was stolen. It is rightfully yours, no matter what I feel or think. So take it back.”

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As a Ruler of Laws, new avenues of resurrection had opened to me.

Conquest had demonstrated that much. He could escape my grasp by allowing himself to die, only to resurrect somewhere impossibly far away. I could do the same through the physical body Jue Bu now possessed. But if I did that, Jue Bu's soul would not survive. Even with my divine power, preserving him through the process would be incredibly difficult. The moment I reclaimed the body, it would be remade to accommodate my existence rather than his. His soul would be treated as an impurity, something incompatible with the existence being reconstructed.

Jue Bu would die.

His soul would fall back into the cycle of reincarnation, where it would once again be at the mercy of the Supreme Void's whims.

It was that bad.

Through the Ophanim, I dissected countless possible futures, desperately searching for even one path where Jue Bu could persist. I searched through possibilities that should never have existed, forcing my vision deeper and deeper into the branching river of fate.

Nothing.

No matter how I searched, every road eventually reached the same destination.

Jue Bu's soul would wither away.

…

..

.

[POV: Jue Bu]

Jue Bu returned to New Willow, walked straight into Da Wei's office, and began pouring himself the most luxurious liquor in the cabinet.

It had been crafted by the Workshop, a drink potent enough to affect even Da Wei.

Though that had only been true before Da Wei reached the level of a Ruler of Laws.

Da Wei had never possessed much of a taste for liquor, but Jue Bu was different. He lifted the gourd and took a long gulp, allowing the alcohol to burn its way down his throat as he stared blankly into the distance.

He thought about the life he had lived.

Then he thought about the countless lives he had relived through Da Wei's memories.

“It was fun while it lasted.”

He could still faintly remember the times he had been reincarnated as livestock, sometimes an insect, and other times something as pathetic as a worm. There had been lives where he retained enough of his sanity to cultivate, eventually fighting against the fate imposed upon him.

“Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any regrets.”

Jue Bu took another drink.

“Was this what Wen Yuhan felt when she perished?”

When Jue Bu had first learned about the existence of the Ancient Souls within the False Earth and discovered the miserable state they had been reduced to, he had honestly felt a wicked sense of liberation.

At least he had gotten a better deal than them. Looking back now, however, perhaps that was not true.

Those Ancient Souls might forget most of their previous iterations. Jue Bu did not have that luxury. He remembered too much. Every life, every death, every moment of helplessness had accumulated within him, leaving behind memories that refused to disappear. He lowered the gourd.

“Do it.”

His voice was quiet.

“I am ready.”

A strange heat suddenly spread through his chest.

Jue Bu frowned faintly, but the alcohol had already dulled his senses too much for him to realize what was happening.

…

..

.

[POV: Da Wei]

I desperately tried to grab Jue Bu's soul.

I tried to pull him into myself, perhaps transforming him into a Holy Spirit or finding some other means of maintaining his existence through mine. Surely there had to be a way. I had become a Ruler of Laws. I had surpassed countless limitations that once seemed absolute.

Yet no matter what I tried, I could not do it.

A greater power had already laid claim to his existence.

I was left kneeling within the Tower, curled inward like a shrimp as an unbearable heat spread throughout my body.

It felt as though I was about to explode.

Anything my existence deemed an impurity was being purged. At the same time, whatever remained was being reforged by the heat, my body reconstructed from the tiny amount of divine qi I could still muster in this shape.

In the past, I could regenerate an entire body with nothing more than a divine spell. Even after becoming an incorporeal spirit, I could simply reconstruct myself. That was why I had never bothered retrieving the body Jue Bu had stolen from me.

Why would I?

I could make another.

But now? Forget regenerating a complete body. I could barely maintain myself.

I could feel the multiple Ezekiels I had scattered throughout the Hollowed World slowly winking out of existence, one after another. Connections that had once felt as natural as breathing were being severed.

Only then did I truly understand.

My Supremacy Trait had never been some insignificant bonus attached to my existence. It had been responsible for far more than I had realized. So many things I had once considered natural abilities, so many powers I had assumed belonged simply to Da Wei, had actually been supported by that single trait.

And now it was gone.

I gritted my teeth as the heat continued consuming me. I felt truly helpless, which was not new to me. However, I feared that this time, it might be really the end for me.

The Hollow Star suddenly manifested above my head.

“YOU ARE NO LONGER WORTHY!”

I froze.

“YOU ARE NO LONGER WORTHY! VENGEANCE! WE SEEK VENGEANCE AGAINST THE SUPREMES! FULFILL OUR DEMANDS! MAKE THEM PAY! SALT THE EARTH! PURGE THE UNIVERSE!”

“This is bad.”

The Hollow Star had always been temperamental, but this was something else entirely. My Supremacy Trait disappearing was probably affecting everything connected to my existence, and apparently, the Hollow Star was not exempt.

I needed to get out of here.

I left New Willow and soared into the sky. My cultivation had yet to finish reconstructing itself, and I immediately noticed how pathetic my flight had become. I tapped into my dantian and accelerated its mending, forcing my damaged cultivation to recover faster.

Shortly after, I summoned Red Hare.

The crimson horse emerged beneath me, and I mounted it without hesitation before riding away from New Willow at full speed. I continued until the land gave way to an enormous ocean.

I fell, feeling dizzy.

My body crashed toward the water as I fought desperately to maintain control, but the Hollow Star had begun doing something far worse than screaming. It was trying to take over my body.

“Damn it!”

Starshroud forced her way out from within my soul. Dark armor rapidly formed around me as she manifested, her voice filled with panic.

“Master! Wake up!”

She tried to suppress the Hollow Star, but it was useless.

The crown was a wellspring of seemingly infinite qi, a self-sustaining dragon vein that never ran dry. Starshroud could usually assert her own form against the Hollow Star, but this time, the sheer amount of power pouring through it overwhelmed her.

The helm covering my face began to boil, and then it cracked, showing the vestiges of a crown peeking through.

I felt the flesh beneath it melting.

“Fuck!”

I reached up and seized the Hollow Star with Starshroud's assistance. We tore it from my head together, ripping away hair and bloody pieces of scalp in the process. I hurled the crown into the ocean.

Red Hare immediately dove after us.

The crimson horse disappeared beneath the waves before returning moments later, swimming beneath me and catching my falling body. Starshroud wrapped herself around me, using Searing Smite to warm my rapidly deteriorating body before transforming herself into a robe.

I coughed, flecks of blood spilling from my mouth.

The migraine refused to stop.

“Master, I don't feel so good,” Starshroud whimpered.

The armor dissolved into an inky silhouette of a woman, and she held me tightly against her chest as though she could somehow protect me from what was happening.

Suddenly, the ocean began to darken. I stared at the spreading darkness beneath us. My expression sank. This time, it wasn't the Hollow Star. It was the Dark Veil going out of control.

“Fuck.”

I closed my eyes. I was beginning to regret hounding Heart quite so relentlessly.