Immortal Paladin

Over the past three days, he had spent most of his time glaring at me, cursing at me, and acting like a frightened rabbit whenever I got too close. Looking at him now, I could clearly see the fear hidden beneath the hostility. He genuinely believed I was some kind of monster.

Unfortunately for him, I knew exactly why. "Your perception of me is wrong."

His expression hardened. "No."

"It is."

"No."

I sighed. "I've learned a lot about you over the past three days."

His eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

The First Mystery, Who, was a ridiculous ability. At its simplest, it allowed me to identify and perceive an individual’s existence. When combined with Ophanim, however, it became far more terrifying. I could retrace someone’s entire history from their choices, experiences, and past. There entire life laid bare before me. Outside the Tower, I could even glimpse fragments of their future. Inside the Tower, that future-sight was currently unavailable, just another one of the Tower’s many nerfs. Still, the past remained fully accessible. And Baldy’s life had been surprisingly easy to read.

I looked him directly in the eyes.

"Your name is Lin Yong."

His body stiffened.

"You were born in the Southern Regions of the Tri-Continental State under the joint authority of the Federation, the Martial Alliance, and the Four Pillars."

The color drained from his face.

"You grew up in Bearhill Force Realm."

I took another step forward.

"Blackfur Fortress."

His pupils shrank.

"You cultivated the Asura Flame Monk Method. The cultivation method destroyed your hair roots permanently. It's one of your greatest regrets. You had a mortal mother. You had a stepfather who treated you as his own son."

The hostility in his eyes began cracking apart.

"Your mother spoiled you relentlessly. You got away with far more nonsense than you should have."

Lin Yong stumbled backward. "How...?"

I ignored the question as I continued mercilessly. "Blackfur Fortress began as a bandit stronghold. Roughly four hundred years ago, your stepfather married your mother and changed everything. The fortress abandoned its criminal roots and became an escort agency. It worked with both the Federation and the Martial Alliance. It prospered for a while, until the Pale Conqueror arrived and the fortress fell. The plague killed your mother."

I remembered the scene of a woman who had survived centuries through medicine, cultivation resources, and the love of her husband, gone and reduced to another casualty in a ledger that counted many lives that couldn't be saved even with divine powers.

"Your father died from a palm strike. There wasn't enough left of him to bury as he scattered into red petals. You inherited what remained of your fortress. You became the young master. You reached the Seventh Realm. You held Blackfur Fortress together with sheer stubbornness."

The bitterness returned to his face. "Not that it mattered."

"No," I nodded. "No, it didn't. The world was already collapsing. The Great Beast? Conquest? Father of the Apocalypse? It was utter chaos, and I knew all of my subjects had lost hope and the heart of many had weighed toward the impending possibility of our complete destruction. But a rare few held to the smallest of hopes that perhaps that wasn't the case. I fought with all my might, and managed to let my light shine brighter than the calamity. And because the world didn't end, you have to look for a way to survive at the aftermath of the calamity that destroyed your own slice of the world. You ran out of options. So you became a bandit."

I didn't judge him as I simply stated the truth of the irony he went through.

"You targeted merchants. You robbed escort agencies. You convinced yourself it was necessary. I feel bad for you, young man. I could feel your ache, and you might not believe me, when I say that I sympathize, but you reaped what you sow. A young master from a rival escort agency challenged you. You lost, but you were spared."

A bitter laugh escaped him. "Spared? The price was my cultivation! How is that any better than a death sentence? In this world? I was reduced to a cripple!"

"Yet you still have your limbs intact and nothing stops you from doing an honest work," I shook my head in disappointment as I scolded him with just the truth. "You begged in the streets. You survived however you could. You were pitiful. But are you really proud of this moments? Can you truly tell me this was honest living? Peddling your pity? It's way better than resorting to banditry, but I refuse to believe that was the right choice, because you still had people around you that wished to help you. People with loyalty towards your late father. And what did you do? You shunned them away! Then a message appeared before you. 'Do you wish to participate in the Tower?' And what did you do?"

Lin Yong trembled.

"You accepted, and now you're here," I exhaled, feeling complicated at the moment. "Yet, all I hear from your is whining. You think this Tower is an opportunity, isn't it? Why throw it all away, so you can scream at my face? If you are going to be angry at me, why cower?"

Everyone had a sob story. The Hollowed World was filled with them, just as the Greater Universe and the Tower were. Lin Yong wasn’t unique. He was simply another victim among countless others. The only difference was that I happened to know his story.

His face twisted, a storm of hatred, grief, and despair mixing together on his features. Then he took a step toward me. “Give them back,” he said, his voice cracking. “Give me back my parents.” The words forced their way out through clenched teeth as every ounce of composure he had maintained over the past three days shattered. His eyes turned red, and his fists shook. “Before you leave… give them back.”

For a moment, he looked less like a four-hundred-year-old cultivator and more like a lost child standing in the ruins of his home. “Give them back to me.”

"You foolish child," I sighed.

"Give them back!" Lin Yong shouted, his voice cracking as tears streamed down his face. For all his cultivation, all his years, and all the hatred he carried toward me, the man before me was ultimately just a son mourning his parents. I understood that pain. Perhaps that was why I couldn’t bring myself to be angry.

"It’s impossible," I said. "I already told you before that your parents have reincarnated."

Lin Yong’s body trembled. "Then bring them back anyway!"

"No."

His eyes widened. "No?" he repeated.

"No." I folded my arms. "Stop asking for the unreasonable. Your parents are gone. They lived their lives. They died. They moved on. And now they have new lives."

The words made him flinch.

"If I ripped them away from those lives and dragged them back because you demanded it, then what about the people they are now?" I continued relentlessly. "What about their new families? What about their new parents? What about their new children? What about the lives they’ve already begun building?"

Lin Yong opened his mouth, but no words came out.

"You aren’t asking me to save your parents," I said, my voice growing firmer. "You’re asking me to kill two innocent people and replace them with your memories. That would be unfair."

Lin Yong lowered his head. His fists loosened, and then the tears came harder. The sight left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I felt responsible for many things, even if people told me I didn’t have to. Even if they insisted otherwise. If I had dealt with Conquest earlier, perhaps Blackfur Fortress would still exist. Perhaps his mother would still be alive. Perhaps his father wouldn’t have scattered into red petals.

Perhaps.

The word was poison, because the opposite possibility also existed. If I had dealt with Conquest earlier, then perhaps I never would have discovered the solution needed to stop the Great Beast. And if the Great Beast had won… the Hollowed World would have ended along with just about everything.

I remembered those days all too clearly from the desperation, the uncertainty, and the endless search for a solution within my Ophanim. Conquest’s schemes had devastated the Hollowed World, spreading tragedy after tragedy. Every death, every plague, every ruined home, every broken family. His goal had been simple: weaken me. And he had succeeded.

The suffering of my people weighed heavily upon me. Their despair weakened my authority. Their losses weakened my resolve. Their fear weakened the world itself.

What Conquest failed to anticipate was my response. I didn’t fight him directly at first. I stole his agency instead. I used Divine Possession upon War and waited. Then Conquest consumed War. I waited longer. Then Conquest consumed the Great Beast. Only then did I make my move, a desperate gamble. But it worked.

The Hollowed World survived. Not because everything went right, but because somehow, despite everything going wrong, enough things went right at the correct moment.

"Did you care?" Lin Yong’s voice cut through my thoughts. His eyes were red and raw. "About me? About us? About your subjects?"

Of course I cared. That was why I was here, why I kept fighting, and why I carried burdens no one else would've wanted. But I knew that wasn’t what he was truly asking.

I met his gaze steadily. "Did I care about Blackfur Fortress specifically? No. I didn’t know you. I wasn’t thinking about you. Even if I had known, my decision wouldn’t have changed. Blackfur Fortress or the entire world? The answer was obvious."

The question itself was unfair.

Lin Yong laughed weakly and wiped his eyes. "I apologize. That was a stupid question."

The cave fell silent again. After a moment, I sighed. "No. It wasn’t stupid." I looked directly at him. "But neither was my choice."

He lowered his head. For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

"Lin Yong," I said quietly. He looked up.

"You made mistakes. You resorted to banditry."

"I had no choice," he muttered.

"You did." My voice remained firm. "You chose the easy path. You chose vengeance on the world. You chose resentment."

The words struck him harder. His fists clenched and his breathing grew heavier.

"If you had stayed on the righteous path, things might have been different. Maybe you still would have failed. Maybe not. We’ll never know." I shook my head. "You call yourself unlucky, but losing your cultivation wasn’t merely bad luck. It was karma. You sowed one path and harvested its consequences. Being dragged into the Tower was another consequence. And perhaps our meeting is fate… or perhaps not. The distinction doesn’t matter."

I took a step forward and held his gaze.

"What matters is what you do now. You’ve been handed an opportunity. You can waste it… or you can change." I pointed toward the cave entrance. "The choice belongs to you."

The cave fell quiet once more. I raised my right hand, and golden fire gathered in my palm. Divine power surged as heat spread through the space. Lin Yong instinctively stepped back.

I thrust my palm forward. “Searing Smite.”

A pillar of golden flame erupted, making the cave walls glow and the dragon vein beneath us tremble. The fire vanished after a moment, but the intense heat lingered in the air.

Lin Yong stared with wide eyes.

I nodded. “This should benefit your cultivation method. The remnants of the Asura Flame Monk Method still exist within you. Even crippled, the foundation remains and that had been the basis of the powers you accumulated here in the Tower.” I paused, then admitted, “Although I have no idea how the Searing Smite will manifest inside this ridiculous Tower. It could become an incredible opportunity… or complete garbage. Only luck will decide.”

I lowered my hand as golden embers drifted through the air. “The Smite Series can take many forms—a sword, a fist, a spear, or a palm strike. It doesn’t matter. It is the pinnacle of martial ability and sorcery combined into one.”

I pointed at the scorched stone. “Watch carefully. For the next two days, I’ll remain here and teach you the principles of Searing Smite and the nature of its fire.”

Lin Yong froze, his eyes widening.

“What you learn from it afterward,” I said, looking him directly in the eyes as I extinguished the flames on my fingertips, “depends entirely on you.”

I spent the next two days teaching him that single move. Just one. Yet somehow, it felt more exhausting than fighting monsters.

Teaching was strange. As I demonstrated another variation of Searing Smite, I found myself wondering if my relationship with my disciples would have looked more like this if I hadn’t spent most of my life dealing with one world-ending disaster after another.

Most of my disciples had never learned from me in a traditional manner. Lu Gao had. Ren Jingyi had. Ding Cai had. Even then, Ding Cai quickly outgrew my teachings. The girl absorbed knowledge like a sponge tossed into an ocean; before long, she was developing techniques and ideas entirely her own.

Yuen Fu was different. That brat learned by fighting beside me. He watched, observed, copied, and then improved. Half the time I wasn’t even aware he was learning until he suddenly revealed some absurd variation of a technique I’d used months earlier.

Hei Mao was worse. The ghost was a savant. I would explain something once, and weeks later he would casually demonstrate complete mastery over it as if that were the most natural thing in existence. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure he learned from me at all.

Ren Zhe, meanwhile, was an entirely different species of insanity. The little menace never bothered learning anything properly. He simply made things up on the spot, and the frightening part was that they somehow worked.

By now, all of them were probably learning directly from fragments of my Six Path Souls. I doubted they even needed me anymore. The realization was both comforting and slightly depressing.

If there was anyone I had truly taught in the normal way, it was probably Gu Jie. My daughter.

A faint smile appeared on my face.

"Ugh... Why is this so hard?" complained Lin Yong.

I immediately lost it when Lin Yong failed the exercise for the seventh time.

“No.” The golden flame dissipated as I scolded him. "That's not how you do it. Draw the innate divinity within you. Everyone has it as long as you have a soul. Though, it's probably gonna be easier to share you my Divine Spark, but I'd rather not... That would put a target behind your back..."

Lin Yong groaned. “Again?”

“Again.”

“I think I understand the theory.”

“You absolutely do not.”

His shoulders slumped. The next two days passed in a cycle of failure, correction, brief success, and more failure, occasionally punctuated by my increasingly blunt observations about his shortcomings. By the end of it, he had learned enough to begin walking the path himself. Whether he succeeded afterward would depend entirely on him.

...

On the morning of our departure, we stood near the cave entrance with the waterfall roaring beyond us. Neither of us spoke for a while. Then Lin Yong suddenly cupped his fist.

“Thank you,” he said seriously. “Master.”

I immediately frowned. “No.”

He blinked. “No?”

“No.”

Lin Yong looked genuinely disappointed, then hesitated. “Am I supposed to kowtow or something?”

The question nearly made me laugh. “There is no need. I already have six disciples. Taking in a seventh would probably be bad luck.”

For several moments, neither of us spoke. Then Lin Yong exhaled slowly. “You know what? That’s probably for the best.”

I laughed, surprising us both.

“To be honest,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck, “during the past two days, I realized we aren’t compatible at all.”

I stared at him, then nodded. “Fair.”

We had spent only two days together, yet an odd sense of understanding and familiarity had formed between us. I suspected my Supremacy Trait was responsible. For the longest time, I had worried it might border on brainwashing. But standing before Lin Yong now, I understood the truth: it didn’t force loyalty or rewrite minds. It preserved free will. He had learned from me, shared meals with me, and trained under my guidance, yet he still looked at me with the same complicated mix of respect, gratitude, confusion, annoyance, fear, and disagreement.

In other words, a perfectly normal relationship.

Lin Yong shook his head. “You know what your problem is?”

I pointed at myself. “Just one?”

“Several hundred, probably.”

“Reasonable.”

“You are painfully honest,” he said, looking genuinely miserable. “The past two days only made me feel worse.”

“Good. Self-reflection is healthy.”

His eye twitched. “I’ve spent two days questioning every decision I’ve made in the last four hundred years.”

“Excellent progress.”

“You see?” He pointed at me. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

I grinned, which only made him look more defeated.

Eventually, he cupped his fist again, this time with firm respect. “Farewell. And please take care of yourself… my unofficial master.”

I smiled back. The title felt oddly appropriate. “Sure will do, my unofficial disciple.”

For a moment, neither of us moved. Then Lin Yong turned and walked toward the forest while I headed in the opposite direction. Neither of us looked back.

The Tower was vast and the future uncertain. Perhaps we would meet again. Perhaps not. Either way, our paths had crossed, and for now, that was enough.