Chapter 34: Heart-Mind Fusion
Twelve hours remained for him to leave this hell. Lucien looked at the countdown of the system and felt a wave of relief wash over him. The numbers ticked away, each second a step closer to freedom.
These past four days had been the worst moment of Lucien’s life, a relentless gauntlet of fear, hunger, and desperation.
He didn’t stay at the wolf corpse, fearing the cunning snake might return. So he had retreated to the edge of the Land of Death, knowing there was no way he could go deeper. The crimson forest loomed behind him, but the boundary offered a sliver of safety.
He felt assurance that he could kill some Volkoids if there was no way of escape. What he had to prevent was being surrounded like before, a stampede of predators closing in from all sides.
Time passed, but it seemed slow to Lucien, who was anticipating his return. Each minute stretched into an eternity, his impatience growing with every tick of the countdown.
His new house was a cave, hidden, narrow, and barely large enough to hold him. A crack in the ceiling let in a sliver of crimson light, the only reminder of the world outside. As for food matters, he could survive till the twelve hours passed. His stomach churned, but he ignored it.
To waste away time, Lucien began to contemplate how to kill an opponent without his killing intent screaming out.
Technically, it shouldn’t be possible. Killing intent was a natural byproduct of the will to end a life, a primal signal that predators could sense. But in this world, with Originat, it might be different.
He closed his eyes and focused. He thought about the nature of killing intent, what it was, where it came from, why it existed. It was an instinct, a release of violent will that others could feel. But what if he could suppress it? What if he could replace it with something else?
He sat in the darkness of the cave, his breath slow and deliberate. He pictured his blade moving through the air. He imagined striking a target, clean, silent, without warning. But every time he visualized the strike, he felt a flicker of intent rise within him, a spark he couldn’t extinguish.
He tried again. And again.
He focused on his Originat, trying to wrap it around his killing intent like a shroud. He imagined the energy flowing through him, not as a weapon, but as a veil, something that would mask his true purpose. But the intent kept slipping through, like water through fingers.
His frustration grew. His jaw tightened and his hands clenched.
After a while he calmed down. What could he do? After racking his mind, something shifted as an idea popped up in his mind.
He stopped trying to suppress the intent and instead tried to understand it. He let it flow through him, observed it, felt its shape and texture. It was not just anger or violence. It was focus. It was clarity. It was the pure, distilled will to end a threat.
And in that moment of observation, he realized the secret.
He didn’t need to hide his killing intent. He needed to merge it with his movements, to make it inseparable from his actions, so that there was no separate signal to detect. When his intent and his action were one, there would be nothing for his enemies to sense.
He rose from his seat, his body moving without conscious thought. It was as if his limbs had already known what to do, responding to a will deeper than his mind. He drew the Abyss Carver and swung it through the air, once, twice, three times. Each strike was clean, silent, and absolute. There was no killing intent. Only action.
His mind quieted. His heart slowed. His body moved as if guided by an unseen hand, flowing through the motions with a grace he had never possessed before. The blade became an extension of his will, and his will became one with the blade.
And then, he felt it. His mind and heart seemed to be in fusion, the world felt clearer and more open. It was as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes, not his physical eyes, but something deeper. He felt like he could see through all things, not with his eyes, but with his heart.
Even the eyes can be deceived. But the heart, when it was pure and focused, could not.
His instinct felt sharper, more precise, as if every nerve in his body had been awakened. It felt as if his entire being had been elevated, his perception, his awareness, his connection to the world around him.
Even the trait of the Sovereign of Slaughter had changed. He didn’t know how, but it had. The familiar weight of it felt different, as if it had evolved alongside him, becoming something more refined, more dangerous.
If Lucien could look at himself, he would have been surprised that his pupils had turned blood red, a deep, crimson hue that seemed to hold the essence of slaughter.
RUSTLE! RUSTLE!
The sound of rustling grass, even though a bit afar, was caught by Lucien’s ears. His senses, sharpened by Heart-Mind Fusion, picked up every detail, the direction, the intensity, the rhythm of movement.
This time, Lucien didn’t feel fear. He felt excitement.
Even from a distance, he could sense that whatever creature it was, it wasn’t strong. A low-level Volkoid, perhaps, or a beast that had wandered too close to the edge. This would be a good opportunity to confirm whether what he had comprehended now would work, whether his newfound understanding could truly mask his killing intent.
After thinking for a while, he decided to risk it and check it out. He couldn’t be cowering forever, or it would leave a deep mark on his heart, a scar that could affect him in the future, holding him back when he needed to act.
As he stepped out, he moved gently and concealed, his body flowing like water through the shadows. Each step was silent, each breath controlled. He headed toward where the rustling came from, his senses alert, his heart calm.
He pushed aside a curtain of crimson leaves and froze.
The creature before him was not what he had expected.
It was massive, a towering ape with thick, smoldering hide that glowed with faint embers. Its fur was dark and coarse, patches of it burning with a low, orange light. Its eyes were pits of molten gold, burning with ancient malice. Its fists were the size of boulders, each strike capable of shattering stone.
It was an Emberhide Ape, not much of a powerful bloodline.
When he sensed its cultivation, it was stronger than the Alpha Wolf. But Lucien noticed something: it was bleeding. A deep gash ran along its side, dark, smoking blood seeping from the wound.
It seemed to have finished a battle. But seeing how injured it was, triggered a memory of the cunning snake. For a moment, he paused reflexively.
What if this was a trap?
But suddenly, this thought was forced out by an unknown force. It was as if something deep within him refused to let fear control him any longer.
"Oh, Lucien." He shook his head as he sighed inwardly. Was he scared? It seemed the snake had left a huge mark on his mind, a crack in his Dao heart.
And there was no way he could withdraw from this, or it would totally affect him. It would leave a stain on his will that would fester and grow, weakening him when he needed strength most.
Thinking of this, he smiled, stepping out of the grass. The Emberhide Ape noticed his presence, letting out a guttural roar as it beat its chest, a challenge, a warning.
Lucien exhaled softly. "Let’s do this."
It was time to let out the frustration from his heart. He took a step forward, and his figure disappeared.
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