During the time within this secluded plane—where time had long since lost all meaning—many more forms had gathered. No, they had not come on their own… they had been drawn forth, one by one, from the River of Life Essence itself. Pulled from the depths of forgotten existence, these formless remnants—neither souls nor living beings—drifted silently, yet consciously, in the shadows. And from afar, they watched.
Thanks to Death's omnipotent will, they could see everything within Yun Che's heart—every trembling emotion, every agonizing thought, every stubborn refusal to change… and every moment when despair consumed him, again and again. These ancient vestiges bore silent witness to it all.
And finally, when Yun Che's actions shifted—when his choices no longer stemmed from wrath or recklessness, but from tempered resolve—the stillness broke.
As if bound by some ancient pact, these beings—these fragments of who they once were—began to nod in silent approval, one by one. There was no grand applause, no thunderous proclamation, only a deeply personal understanding.
Then, with the same quiet they came, they faded away.
One by one, they were reclaimed by the River of Life Essence, vanishing into its endless current—never to return again. It was not death. It was liberation.
And through it all, Li Suo stood.
Thanks to Death, who had carefully isolated the corrupting aura of this plane and redirected streams of purer, gentler energy toward her, her form had begun to shift. What was once only a soul wrapped in the light of life was now something more. Her body was no longer just a vessel of will—it had become tangible once again, radiant and alive.
Yet even so, she remained incomplete.
Her life, after all, was still intimately bound to Yun Che, and as long as his cultivation had yet to break through that final veil, her power remained sealed. She was no longer the full might of the Goddess of Life, not yet… but the distance was no longer immeasurable.
It would not be long.
One different choice led to another… and then another… and another still, until the cascade became a torrent. Through unrelenting pain and countless rivers of tears, he walked a path shaped not by strength alone but by understanding, and along this path—soaked in failure, in loss, in unbearable grief—Yun Che grew. His rage became clarity. His impulse became control. And his once-blinded heart began to see.
And now—at last—it had led him here.
"You... You..." Xuanyuan Wentian growled lowly as his bloodies body fall.
Standing above the broken figure of Xuanyuan Wentian, the man who had haunted this trial endlessly, Yun Che's hand clenched tightly around his sword. The edges of his soul, once brittle and chaotic, now shone with terrifying calm. With a single, final stroke, his blade flashed through the air—clean and decisive—severing the head of the man beneath him.
As Xuanyuan Wentian's lifeless body crumpled into dust, Yun Che's eyes gleamed—not with satisfaction, but with purpose. The torment had ended. Not with vengeance… but with growth.
Then, without warning, the illusionary scene shattered like fragile crystal, scattering across the void as the echoes of Xuanyuan Wentian's twisted trial faded into silence. In its place, Yun Che's true memories began to return—not all, not yet—but enough to reorient his soul toward one point of his past. The once-dominant memories of endless death and regret were now sealed deep within, buried like a dormant flame in his heart. What surfaced instead were memories from a crucial moment in his life... the one just after his miraculous rebirth through the grace of the Fire Phoenix.
He was traveling, riding the skies once more—but this time, through the cold air of the Snow Song Realm. At his side stood his master, the peerlessly cold and beautiful Mu Xuanyin, her presence as familiar as breath. Nearby, two other women accompanied them—Shui Meiyin, his betrothed, eyes full of stars and warmth; and Xia Qingyue, the Moon God Emperor herself, whose ethereal gaze concealed countless secrets.
They were on their way to the Eternal Heaven God Realm.
!!!!!!!!
When he arrived in the Eternal Heaven, where countless profound practitioners and God Emperors gathered in radiant majesty, Yun Che bowed with the grace and composure befitting his station. Polite, respectful, measured. Yet behind those bowed eyes… his soul watched.
And then—he felt it. A gaze. Cold. Deep. Vast.
Dragon Monarch Long Bai.
The mighty monarch's demeanor was as refined as ever, his face unreadable as stone. But Yun Che—though stripped of the Xuanyuan Wentian trials in memory—felt it.
That killing intent.
No matter how subtly Long Bai masked it, no matter how well he concealed the poison in his heart behind the veil of regal calm… Yun Che saw through it all. As clear as daylight.
Even if he could no longer remember why...his soul had learned.
From that moment forward, every choice Yun Che made diverged—drastically, sharply—from those in the path he once walked within the real world.
In that former life, it was other that paved his road. He climbed to the summit of the God Realm with unyielding support others, and unstoppable ambition of the Devil Queen. His name became law, his wrath a divine calamity. None dared oppose him. All because of the support of those beside him. But this time, it was different. He, with his better judgement and cunningness, reached the peak on his own.
Even when the Abyssal Knight Mo Biechen descended from the mysterious void alongside his dreadful squires, the confrontation that once shook the heavens played out... differently.
Because this time, Yun Che had changed.
With eyes no longer clouded by arrogance and rage, with a heart tempered by ten thousand years of pain and endless trials, Yun Che acted not just with power—but with precision, cunning, and calm decisiveness. He saw through schemes before they could unfold. He made no reckless moves, took no bait, gave no enemies the chance to strike. His decisions were swift, yet wise, sharp as the sword but deep as the sea.
And thus, not a single life was lost.
His family, his lovers, his sworn allies—they all survived, untouched by the storm that once devoured them. And with the calm of a true monarch, Yun Che stepped into the Abyss on his own terms, not out of desperation... but sovereignty.
Then—
the scene shattered.
Like glass under divine pressure, the vision fell apart, and Yun Che's awareness snapped back into the lifeless plane where he had been seated for so long. His body trembled violently as his true memories surged back, crashing into him like a tidal wave of truth. Every piece returned—the pain, the victories, the sacrifices, the faces, the blood, the despair.
For a brief moment, his mind reeled, caught between timelines, caught between what was and what could have been.
But then...
he accepted it.
He accepted the truth of his journey. He accepted his flaws. He accepted the unbearable weight of the past.
And with that acceptance, his gaze—once confused and burdened—now burned with clarity and unwavering resolve.
In life, he had stumbled more times than he could count. He had placed his faith in the wrong hands, misjudged hearts cloaked in kindness, and trusted too blindly those who walked beside him—only to watch them fall, one after another, their lives extinguished because of his own folly. His path was littered with the corpses of loyalty, of love, of sacrifice. His soul, once proud and unshaken, now bore scars that no divine power could erase.
This... this was not the same as the dreams he had seen, nor the trials Death had cast him into.This was real. It was truth. It was the weight of all that he was, laid bare.
But he did not run from it.
He did not scream. He did not weep. He stood.
And in that stillness, as his heart ached with the agony of remembrance, Yun Che closed his eyes and whispered—not to the sky, not to the world, but to his very soul.
"The past... I cannot change it.""It may not be beautiful like the dream.""It may be filled with countless regrets and failures.""But from this moment onward... here, and into whatever future may come—I shall hold fate and destiny in my own hand!"
Those words, though quietly spoken, rang like a divine decree.A vow not of desperation... but of absolute will.
And as if the heavens themselves bore witness, the realm around him rumbled, a deep, ancient echo vibrating through the fabric of the world—as if the very Heavenly Laws had stirred to his vow.
Yun Che's soul began to tremble. The very core of his being, once marred by immaturity, now pulsed with a profound golden light—serene and endless, like the eternal radiance of the Great Way of the Buddha.
And then, it happened.
A soundless shatter—like the cracking of an old shell—rippled through the void.
His mortal soul, which had carried him through life until now, fractured under the weight of his growth. And from its golden shards, a new soul began to rise… a soul that pulsed with the power of understanding, of compassion, of restraint and strength combined.
He was being reborn.
The stagnant death aura that had filled this world—the weight of decay, of endings—suddenly convulsed, as if startled by the very thing it could never touch: true life.
All at once, the abyss stirred.
The Death aura, the Laws surrounding it, and even the slumbering forces of this forsaken realm began to tremble violently as they surged inward, spiraling and collapsing like stars into Yun Che's ascending soul.
And then—RUMBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
A divine roar echoed across the void as Yun Che's soul broke through the final barrier… and soared into the Divine Realm of the God Soul.
Once Yun Che's soul broke through into the Divine Realm, the lingering traces of his mortal self—his flawed, impulsive nature, his human aura—vanished like mist before the morning sun. In their place, a divine radiance surged forth, untainted and boundless. Even in this forsaken plane, where the Law of Death reigned supreme and life had long been extinguished, Yun Che's aura of life and rebirth blossomed like a lotus in the abyss, blooming defiantly against the decay.
From his infinite inner worlds, a transformation began.
The countless realms within him stirred—each world, once dormant, now vibrated with divine resonance. Rivers of divine energy began flowing through their skies and lands, drawn by his breakthrough.
And then, Yun Che's eyes slowly opened.
In that moment, the entire realm—this lifeless dominion suspended in eternal silence—seemed to pause. His gaze, no longer clouded by confusion or chained by fear, pierced through the void like divine lightning.
He looked around, and the lines of fate—golden, silver, faint as whispers—now shone clearer than ever before. They wove through time and space, binding people, worlds, and destinies together. And now, they responded to him, as if acknowledging his ascent.
Then his divine gaze shifted, landing on Death—who stood calmly, watching him with a faint, unreadable smile.
Unlike before, Yun Che no longer trembled. Though discomfort still lingered—as if his soul brushed against an existence that defied the very definition of life—he no longer recoiled. He stood tall, eyes unwavering.
And then, he turned… toward the distance.
There, surrounded by faintly glowing barriers of light and life, sat Li Suo.
She was different now.
Her once-spectral form had taken shape once more, her divine beauty returning like the first dawn after endless night. Her long hair shimmered with strands of divine green, and her aura pulsed with life, though still delicate—like a flower slowly remembering how to bloom.
Her features were no longer veiled in soul-light or obscured by the haze of fading divinity. Under Yun Che's gaze, Li Suo now appeared in her truest form—pure, luminous, and transcendent. She was, after all, the one whom even the exalted Creation Gods had once pursued in desperation and reverence. Her beauty was not merely skin-deep or ethereal—it was the kind that made even the heart of the world pause in awe.
It was said in ancient myth that the Ancestral Goddess, in her boundless grace, bestowed three-fourths of all worldly beauty upon a single being—Li Suo.
And now, that being sat quietly before him, her skin like divine jade, her every breath a ripple of life's essence. Even within this plane of death and stillness, where no wind blew and no light dared move, her presence shone as if creation itself had taken form.
Yet this time, Yun Che did not falter.
His breath remained steady, his heart firm. No turbulent desire, no distraction of thought shook him. The soul that once trembled and raged like a storm-tossed sea now moved like a calm tide under moonlight. With a slow exhale, he turned his gaze back.
Back to Death.
And with quiet solemnity, he bowed low from the waist. "Thank you, senior."
As if responding to the thought behind those words, Death—still in his quiet, unassuming human form—lifted a finger, and in the next breath, the world shifted.
In a blink, all sound, all sensation vanished.
Yun Che and Death now sat far away—beyond time, beyond space—in a plane untouched by the past or presence. Here, even the Laws could not reach. The infinite void stretched before them like an eternal canvas of silence.
The two figures did not speak. They simply sat, side by side, staring out at the endless dark… one who had walked from mortality into divinity, and the other—Death itself—who had seen all things begin and end.
The ten thousand years Yun Che had endured within that soul-tempering plane—years filled with pain, regret, rebirth, and growth—had ultimately reshaped him into something far beyond what he once was. His mind, once driven by impulse and emotion, was now forged in the fire of countless tragedies and tempered by the clarity of endless repetition. His soul, once turbulent and splintered, now glowed with an inner stillness akin to divinity.
And as his consciousness settled into the real world once more, Yun Che immediately sensed the difference.
Those ten thousand years he had lived… they had not passed in the outside world.
Time had moved differently here.
Yun Che did not ask why.
He didn't ask what Death's purpose was for bringing him to this place.
Afterall, in Death's gaze, Yun Che already saw Death's reasons and his answers.
Side by side, Death and Yun Che sat upon the edge of existence, gazing into the endless void—where stars never formed, and no light had ever touched.
It felt like an eternity before the stillness broke, and Death finally spoke.
His voice was no longer the cold echo that shattered souls… but quiet. Heavy with memory. Worn by time.
"Long, long ago… upon my creation, I was merely a law among many others."
"We watched… from the beginning. As countless beings came into existence under our quiet guidance. We watched them grow. Fall in love. Build. Destroy. Die."
"That was our mission. To observe, to guide. That was the order Mother gave us."
His voice drifted like a breeze through a forgotten hall. And as Yun Che listened, he did not interrupt—he only listened, with a heart that had finally learned stillness.
Then, Death turned. His eyes met Yun Che's—those lifeless, depthless eyes that once made gods tremble.
"But me… I was Death. The law meant to tend to the end. To usher souls from one existence to another, to guide them through the River of Samsara and return them to silence."
"I watched… again and again. Lives blooming like stars… and dying like embers."
A pause.
Then, quietly, he said something that no one—no being—had ever heard from the mouth of Death.
"And one day... I wanted to live."
"I wanted… to feel. To laugh. To cry. To walk among the living, not only watch them die."
His gaze turned once more toward the infinite void as if he were staring through time itself.
"So…I struggle... as my conscious grew; I struggles more and more and eventually one day… I broke free."
"In order to create a form to enter the Realm of the Living..." Death continued, his voice low and hollow, like a forgotten wind echoing through a crypt of stars, "I drew power from the world of living itself. I absorbed the essence of the living realms, the energy that sustained the Heavenly Laws... and in doing so, I weakened them."
"Then one day… I tried to break free," Death continued, his tone now colored with a faint trace of resentment—not toward another, but toward the immutable truth that bound him.
"I tore through the silence of this realm, surged toward the boundary that separated death from life… but before me, a wall stood. A barrier… so absolute, so flawless, that even I—Death itself—could not breach it."
His voice paused, as if he were remembering the countless times he had struck that barrier in vain.
"No matter how many times I tried... no matter how much power I gathered... it rejected me. It knew me. It denied me."
Yun Che, who had remained still and silent, suddenly shivered.
His mind reached back to the sea of Endless Fog, back to the moment when he approached the threshold of this strange, lifeless realm. The Abyssal Dust had grown denser the deeper he went—but there, in one specific place, before the pure waters that served as the gate into the world of Samsara… there had been a wall. The Wall of Abyssal Dust, a pressure, decay and rejection so immense, so suffocating, that it felt like the will of a world itself pressed down upon him.
If it weren't for his complete mastery of his comprehension of the Law of Nothingness, and the inheritance of the Ancestral Goddess's body... and the Great Way of the Buddha, he would never have made it through.
And now, hearing Death's words, it finally made sense.
That was her doing. That wall… It was a seal. A barrier woven by the Ancestral Goddess herself.
She had known. She had foreseen that even Death would one day seek to leave its place… and she prepared for it.
"…She expected it…" Yun Che murmured under his breath, eyes wide. "…She knew…"
And then, as if in response to his thoughts, Death continued—his voice now more resolute, colder, but no longer hopeless.
"If I could not enter the world of the living…" he said, his words echoing through the void like a thunderclap of finality, "…then I would create the world myself."
"A world of my own."
"A world that needs no permission to exist."
"With that stolen power... I tried to create. Creating life, in the world of death!" His gaze remained distant, fixed on memories only he could see. "I tried to build worlds, as Mother once did. I tried to shape life from nothingness, to fill it with breath, with purpose... with beauty."
A long silence.
"But in the end... I am Death."
"Everything I touched… everything I made… withered. Died."
"No matter how much power I poured into them, no matter how perfectly I wove the patterns of existence, it all ended the same." His voice turned heavy, but unwavering. "Because death… cannot create life."
The void around them pulsed ever so slightly, like a sigh that belonged to the cosmos itself.
"And eventually…" he said, his voice dropping to a low murmur as his eyes gently closed, "I thought of something…"
"If I cannot create life here… and I cannot leave this place… then what if I created a world… one that could host life, one that would suit the living… and push that world beyond the barrier that confines me?"
His words echoed with both quiet desperation and the trace of a long-forgotten hope.
"It was crude. It was reckless. It was…" he paused, then slowly turned his lifeless gaze toward Yun Che, "…a desperate idea."
And then, unexpectedly, the faintest curl of a smile appeared on his otherwise expressionless face.
"But it worked."
"Piece by piece, I crafted the land. Formed the skies. Molded the rivers. It had no soul of its own, but it had shape. It had space. And so… I began to toss them outward. One… after another… small fragments of a dream I could never enter."
His smile faded, but his gaze remained steady as it turned back to the infinite void stretching before them.
"And so…" he said, each word heavy with meaning, "…the world you know as Abyss was born."