1301 Indefinite
The darkness felt indefinite. Ryu's consciousness was blurry and he couldn't seem to see anything but a fuzzy light at the end of a tunnel that must have been countless kilometers deep. His steps felt as slow as a mortals, and no matter how hard he ran, he felt like he was moving through water. He couldn't sense his qi, his Spiritual Foundations, he couldn't even sense his Spiritual Sea, the one among them that should have been the absolute easiest to do so.
It was a helpless feeling, almost like a child floating within their mother's womb, but this feeling held no sort of comfort. There wasn't the calming whisper of a mother's voice, nor was there the warmth of a mother's nurturing, there was nothing but an endless void, a depth of coldness that was almost unfathomable to the masses.
Ryu stood in the depths of this void in silence, unmoving and without a word. Despite the pain that he could vaguely feel coming from his body, he felt disassociated from it at the same time. It was an odd experience, an out of body one, as though he was no longer within himself. He had never separated his soul from his Spiritual Sea before, but he imagined that it would feel similar if he ever did it.
Ryu didn't move, he didn't say anything, he didn't even think.
He knew what had happened. He had tried to force himself to take the second step and his body was entirely unable to handle it. Not only was he heavily injured physically and even psychologically, what was most important was that his Dao Heart had shattered.
He wasn't sure if he had been consumed by Mae's Primordial Yin just yet, but he wouldn't be too surprised if that was the case. His Magus Lock had been shattered ahead of time by the pressure of the stairs, so there wasn't anything to stop it to begin with, not that it would have made much of a difference. Even if his Magus Lock had been present, without the anchor of his Dao Heart, it would have only been a matter of time before her Primordial Yin made it through and continued its rampage.
The more Primordial Yins you had the more dangerous it was to have the Primordial Yin of a Dream Asura Race woman, and that was especially so if it was a Princess of the race like Mae. If he counted the number he had, not including Mae, there was Isemeine, Eska, Elena, Ailsa and Yaana. That was already five.
Even the likes of Mae's father would be extremely cautious with taking one a second, but Ryu actually had five others. It could be said that he was seeking death, quite normal for his usual arrogant self. But that said, at the time, he hadn't been aware. So at least in this case, he was innocent, not that it made much of a difference. Knowing himself, even if he had been aware ahead of time, he would have still done it, that was the kind of person he was.
Ryu didn't have much of a reaction to this scolding of himself, almost as though it didn't very much matter. Like any other third party observer, he was simply making a judgment of what he had seen to be true, almost like he wasn't even talking about himself.
'Is this what death feels like?' Ryu wondered.
He couldn't really do anything. But in the end, he shook his head. If he was dead, why would he be feeling this much pain? Unless, that is, he was sent right to hell.
For some reason, he found this thought to be quite amusing. Given his life, he probably would be sent to hell. He didn't very much care for people outside of his own family and women, he killed without blinking, he didn't have much sympathy in his bones. He had never done a "good deed" in his existence just for the sake of doing a good deal, he was as selfish as they came.
Of the seven sins, he was probably guilty of them all except for maybe envy and sloth. But even then, in his first life, all he felt was envy, envy toward those who had power while he didn't, envy toward those who could embrace their women without worry of them dying a far earlier death than her, envy that others could chase their dreams while he could not...
Was that why he had fought with that arrogant bastard as a child?
Even if he didn't fit the mold for so many sins, just his pride sin alone was enough to damn him to an eternal hellscape.
However, Ryu only laughed, he laughed quite heartily. He found that he didn't care much. As for why, it was quite simple to him... If he had a choice to do it again, he wouldn't change a single thing.
It was an interesting conclusion. Logically, one should feel regret. However, Ryu felt that without the pressure of the stairs trying to force him to admit his wrongs, he couldn't be bothered to.
Was his arrogance wrong? Did they lead to worse outcomes than they might otherwise? Maybe, but so what?
It was an inherently selfish answer, one that cared for no one else but himself and what he felt was the most fulfilling. But it was his truest answer.
Ryu's gaze suddenly flashed. He felt that that answer was what he was looking for all along. However, he had been being pulled between too many lives, many of which he hadn't even been conscious of considering those 999 years he had spent in rebirth were nothing more than a blur.
The purpose of the Samsara Steps was to force you to face your existence and refine your Dao Heart by resolving the questionable things you had done one by one. It was crude in its methods, definitely far cruder than the Samsara Wheel, and it was precisely because of this Ryu hadn't been able to think clearly.
The Samsara Steps had taken those 999 years to have been part of his real life, almost half of it, in face, extracting out what were nothing more than jumbled messes of unrecognizable, irregular dreams, and forcing him to face them and answer for them.
That was all nonsense. How was he supposed to account for the reason why he had bitten off the head of a living fish while unicycling in a vat of black oil? And that was just one of the many ridiculous dreams he had had during that period.
It could be uttered that the steps had been truly biased to him, but that was just how existence was. How amusing, he hadn't ruined his path of cultivation by offending one of the many big shots he had come across, but actually had done so while walking up a flight of stupid steps.
Maybe that was the irony of life, one could ruin themselves or die in any number of ways. The fact that he had experienced such a thing seemed to only make his original way of existence make all the more sense. Who cared what the world around you did? You might be the best person in the world and still get murdered on a Tuesday night at the whims of a serial killer you had never met in your life.
For some reason, despite facing the end of his cultivation journey, Ryu felt at peace.
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