Chapter 68 - Samsara
For as long as the universe has existed, the concept of Samsara has been around. It stands for the circle of life and death in this material world of ours. According to it, everything must have a beginning and an end. But then what about immortality?
Cultivation, or rather, cultivators, are an existence that go against Samsara. They go against the universal truth that all things must come to an end. They fight against the predestined and preordained to take control of their own lives.
Cultivators MUST believe that there is nothing stronger than their own prowess otherwise at one point or another, they will reach a bottleneck that will be uncrossable. To stand against the harshness of reality, to stand against the cards that have been dealt to you and say "No, I make my own destiny!" is the way of the martial world. By whatever means necessary.
***
"Is that it?!?" came an angered voice from the silhouette.
"Two hours. For two hours you have ambushed me and struck from the shadows, rallying your subordinates and ordering them to fight against me. What now? Now that they are all dead, what will you do now?" the silhouette spoke in a contemptuous tone.
"Who is that?" asked one of the soldiers.
"How the hell should I know?" answered another, annoyed.
"But doesn't it look similar?"
"No way, how can you even recognize him in that condition?" asked the second soldier in return.
The silhouette was obviously Hao Xuan and he was covered in blood, mud, and wounds all over. There was a three-inch hole in his left shoulder from where the shoulder blade could be seen. His entire skin was a shade of charcoal black with the veins almost popping out. Every second or two they would visibly expand when blood flowed through. The skin was so hard that it was cracking up.
Even breathing was extremely painful and every single movement felt constricted. He wanted to rip his skin off like an undersized shirt and be free.
All this was of course due to the Brute potion he had taken earlier. The potions main material was the core of a high-level demonic beast. By some extraordinary means, the core was melted and mixed with hundreds of magical herbs until the desired effects could be achieved.
It was not an overstatement to say that it was worth several small fortunes and yet, Hao Xuan drank it like a cup of tea.
If he had paid any attention to the instruction on the bottle then he would have known to only drink a mouthful of it at once because otherwise, the energy from the potion could overflow and even cause spontaneous combustion in certain cases.
Fortunately, Hao Xuan's potion was 50% diluted on First's orders since drinking it as is would just be an extremely expensive poison for someone at his level.
The potion didn't actually increase his realm but by pumping enough pure energy through his body increased his power to that of someone at the top of Origin realm. That's why his skin had become hard and black and he felt like ripping it off. He basically had too much energy and no way to let it all out.
"COME! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. His eyes were becoming redder by the minute and he was losing control.
"Shouldn't you go help? He's not gonna last long it seems," Jin Wang commented from the side. Kuo furrowed his brow and mumbled, "Looks like I was expecting too much huh.."
But before he could make a move, the giant ape leaped towards Hao Xuan in anger. All the remaining beasts were kings of their domains. They controlled hundreds of miles each in the quarry where their word was law. And now to fight against this one little human they sacrificed so many beasts.
Hao Xuan looked at the ape that looked like a small mountain of muscle and activated his full power, "Heavenly Blare!"
He shot forward like a literal lightning bolt with the glaive and sword drawn and made contact with the ape.
*BOOOOOM*
The shockwave from their impact sent everything hurling back. Luckily the Mad saints were far enough to not take the brunt of the force and weren't discovered.
All the spectators were amazed.
The dust settled, revealing Hao Xuan and the ape. The ape was missing entire three arms from the right side and Hao Xuan's left arm was dangling lifelessly.
*Huff*Huff*
Both of them were breathing heavily. Hao Xuan was obviously much worse off since there were two other beasts readying to attack.
"God damn, I didn't think the captain was this powerful!" Maddy subconsciously commented, surprising everyone.
"Wait wait, that's the captain? OUR captain?" Luke asked taken completely by surprise.
"Seriously? None of you noticed??" now it was Maddy's turn to be surprised. How the hell could not a single one of them not notice? but of course many people had already guessed as much but were just too engrossed to speak up, one of them was Aria.
Aria looked at Hao Xuan's sorry state and slowly went over to Kuo.
"Lieutenant, when are we going to help the captain?" Kuo looked over and was startled by the look in her eyes. If he said something she didn't agree with then she was probably going to march out there alone.
"Don't worry. Nothing will happen to him. But if we keep helping him whenever he's in a precarious situation then unconsciously he will start relying on us too much. And that's not good for a soldier," he replied after a moment of thinking.
".....Yes," Aria nodded but didn't move back to her original position and stayed right where she was.
"This kid..." Kuo helplessly shook his head. "Anyways, looks like its about time for us to intervene huh?" he thought inwardly. Hao Xuan really looked like a walking corpse at this point.
*Huff*Huff*
Hao Xuan slightly turned his and head and looked behind him. The cave where the siblings Cui and Wei were was right there. If he fled or just gave up then it wouldn't end well for them.
"Never! The General trusted me enough to give me this mission, how could I fail? Especially when it's his friend's kid?" he thought inwardly, "No fucking way," he blurted out loud.
"As long as I breathe, none shall pass!" he made up his mind and started circulating his Qi once again.
"Get ready, we will attack soon," Kuo passed down the order. Everyone was looking at Hao Xuan with bated breaths.
*Zing*
A bright yellow light came from the soundly sleeping Zhurong and entered Hao Xuan's head.
"Huh?!" he frowned as he felt the sensation of something 'appearing' in his mind. Surrounded by enemies he closed his eyes and a Yellow book appeared out of nowhere. Unlike his other techniques, this book seemed almost ethereal, as if it would disappear with a gust of wind.
There was a name etched on it but it was in another language, one that Hao Xuan couldn't read. It looked extremely old and a strange vibration was coming off of it. He willed and it opened. The first paragraph read:
"Samsara; The circle of life and death."
"One strike to break free from death's clutches,"
"One strike to break open the gate of life."
"One strike to decide the fate,"
"One strike to shatter the providence."
As he started reading the paragraph in his mind, his lips moved along as well. All the Qi in his body instantly stopped, and then started moving in a strange pattern.
This was the 'gift' left behind by the being that had come with Zhurong. He left Hao Xuan a single technique to protect his precious young master. Just now because of Hao Xuan's strong desire to protect, Zhurong unconsciously activated the technique in his brain which was supposed to be locked until he reached the profound realm.
*CRACKLE*CRACKLE*
Lightning and thunder boomed in the cloudy sky as if it was about to fall. All the spirit realm cultivators frowned feeling the change in the atmosphere. This was true for several hundred miles. Every normal beast and human within a radius of four hundred miles felt this change.
*Creaaaaak*
Hundreds of miles underground, an elongated black head looked straight up with its beady eyes.
*RUMBLE*
The entire ground started to shake.
Two thousand miles east, another beast with four white eyes looked towards Hao Xuan's location.
Five thousand miles northwest, a hand appeared out of the ground. These creatures were not ordinary by any means, which is why they were able to detect the changes from so far away.
Kuo, Maddy, and Hash looked at each other and their expressions changed.
"Not good," they all thought and at the same time got ready to jump towards Hao Xuan.
The three beasts were scared shitless by the sudden change in the atmosphere and without waiting for whatever Hao Xuan was doing to finish, they lunged at him all at once. But it was already too late.
Hao Xuan suddenly opened his eyes which were completely white now and spoke slowly.
*ZZZZT*
A Lightning bolt came straight down on Hao Xuan's head and completely disappeared inside his body. All the energy which was leaking out a second ago was gone in a second.
"Huh....?" Everyone was flabbergasted.
Hao Xuan looked straight at the ape, but as he turned to look at the serpent, his head literally split into two like a reflection in the mirror with the original still looking at the ape. Once again the original head separated into another and looked at the horse beast.
Right now there were three identical faces looking at the three beasts, all with completely white eyes. Three Hao Xuan's opened their mouths and said at the same time, "The last strike of Samsara!"
*ZZT*
*ZZT
*ZZT*
The 'clones' separated and three Hao Xuan's came out of his main body and flashed towards the beasts at the same time with different attacking postures. When the 'clones' weapons made contact with the beasts bodies, small orbs of light were generated from the weapons and which expanded in a micro-second and completely covered them from head to toe/tail. (See translators notes)
"CAREFUL!" Kuo, Maddy, and Hash jumped into action and released their entire Qi reserves to cover the mad saints. The balls of light exploded all at once.
*BOOOOOOOM*
*BOOOOOOOM*
*BOOOOOOOM*
It took about 10 seconds for the devastation caused by them to disappear and only large gaping holes were left in the ground where the beasts should have been.
Hao Xuan was still standing in his original position.
Complete silence. There was not a single noise in the entire area.
*pit*pat*
Raindrops started to fall down and Hao Xuan's green pupils returned to his eyes.
"Oh, you're here," he mumbled looking at Kuo and co.. and fell on the ground unconscious.