Chapter 333 - The Dao Clones Progress
Following Knowledge’s death, the Dao Clone of Qi and the Dao Clone of Soul felt gloomy in their hearts. If before, they were suspicious that the main body simply didn’t care about their lives and deaths, then now, they were certain of it. Knowledge had died to his Immortal Ascension Tribulation, and the main body just sat back and watched.
The main body was still observing their lives via the karmic connections between them. They had been created with this karma, and they were unable to change this right now.
The main body knew all about their struggles and difficulties, yet even so, he showed no intention of providing them with any assistance. They had been created and then abandoned. Their creator, the so called ‘main body’, was watching them struggle with indifference!
At least, that was how the surviving two Dao Clones perceived things.
Ever since Yaan – the Dao Clone of Qi – took the Primordial Sage as his teacher, he had been doing his utmost to further his understanding over the dao of karma. Initially, he wasn’t really sure how much help the Sage would provide him with, nor how much effort she was wiling to put into assisting him. As it turned out though, she had actually been surprisingly helpful.
Yaan and the Primordial Sage spent most of their time sitting atop Heart Mountain as the Sage lectured Yaan on dao. She put her insights in the dao of karma into words very eloquently, explaining things in a way that allowed Yaan to rapidly clear up some of his uncertainties regarding all things relating to karma.
Every now and then, Yaan would close his eyes to meditate on his insights. Whenever he did this, always very abruptly, the Primordial Sage would immediately stop speaking, watching him as illusory green chains flashed behind his closed eyelids. Whenever a question arose in his mind during his cultivation, Yaan would open his eyes and dive back into their dao discussion.
His comprehension over karma was unusual, and often left him feeling confused. The Primordial Sage was able to put her understandings into words, and whenever Yaan heard her speak, he understood the meaning behind her words in his heart, yet on a conscious level, he didn’t understand it whatsoever. It was a strange feeling, having his dao of karma comprehension grow rapidly, yet not understanding this comprehension in his mind at all.
His understanding of this dao grew rapidly, but one day, he felt like he had hit a wall. No matter how the Sage tried to explain things, Yaan felt like something was preventing him from truly understanding the complete cycle of karma – that is to say, karmic fate.
Like Knowledge had realised, the Dao Clone of Qi also came to understand that his talent in comprehending dao only allowed him to comprehend the earthly daos within the limitations of the Heavenly Dao. He could not comprehend any part of the dao of karma outside of the Heavenly Dao’s own dao of karma. The only dao aside from the Heavenly Dao that he could comprehend, was his own heart of protection. It was a strange thing that he didn’t really understand. Unlike Knowledge, the Dao Clone of Qi didn’t possess sufficient intelligence to deduce that his limited dao comprehension was actually a limitation placed upon him by Yaan.
After all, he had completely broken free from the main body’s control and limitations…right?
In reality, even after ‘breaking free’ from Yaan’s control, the two Dao Clones who gained their own individuality were still unknowingly being controlled by their own nature, their nature which Yaan had designed before using the Dao Splitting Technique.
Suddenly, one day, whilst the Dao Clone of Qi was once again meditating on the Sage’s teachings, his eyes shot open and his gaze trembled.
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“Knowledge…” He murmured to himself.
When Knowledge died, Yaan, the Primordial Devil, and the two Dao Clones, all felt it at the same time. They felt a portion of their karma being severed, giving them all a different sensation…
On the Blood Plane, the Primordial Devil felt a sense of joy. His eyes lit up and he roared with laughter, enthralled by the feeling of his karmic connection with a part of his heart demon being destroyed. His sensitivity towards karma seemed to suddenly increase, and as his eyes shone with a brilliant light, he dove back into his search for the karmic chain which would allow him to cross over to the Qi Plane.
On the Spirit Plane, Yaan felt a deep sense of loss and pain in his heart, as if part of himself had been cut away. He forced himself to keep a straight face, showing nothing to the Primordial Sage on the outside. The pain gradually faded away, and before long, he became numb to the loss, his heart recovered, and he continued on his way.
On the Qi Plane, both the Dao Clone of Soul and the Dao Clone of Qi felt this same painful sense of loss, though to a much lesser extent. Devil, being the psychopathic madman that he was, refused to acknowledge this feeling, snorting coldly and disdaining Knowledge for falling in such a miserable manner. As for the Dao Clone of Qi, he was more susceptible to this pain, and he was also far more shaken by the realisation that the main body had truly abandoned them.
However, before long, Yaan fell into a daze.
The feeling of the karma between himself and Knowledge being severed, lingered within his heart. When his attention drifted towards this feeling, he felt like he was touching upon something profound…unfortunately, he didn’t understand this feeling on a conscious level at all, leaving him in a strange daze.
Green karmic chains flashed repeatedly within Yaan’s eyes. The karmic chains came and went, showing their beginning, but struggling to reach their end.
For a moment, Knowledge appeared in his mind as a brief thought, and instantly, the chains suddenly froze. The chains that had always had a beginning, now showed their ending…this ending had always been there, but it was only now that Yaan could see it.
The chains had a beginning and an end, but for some reason, they felt incomplete.
Karmic beginning, karmic link, karmic end, karmic fate…
The beginning of the Dao Clone of Qi’s life, was of course Yaan. Yaan was his creator, he was born from Yaan, and he even took Yaan’s name. He possessed Yaan’s past memories, so he had truly always seen himself as Yaan.
The Dao Clone of Qi’s beginning wasn’t just limited to this however; he shared his beginning with the Dao Clone of Soul, and the Dao Clone of Mind. This shared beginning was the connection between them, this was their karmic link. This link connected the three Dao Clones to one another directly, but it also connected them together via Yaan and the Primordial Devil.
Karmic end…Yaan did not know where and when his own karmic end lay, but he had seen the ending of Knowledge’s karma. He had experienced Knowledge’s karma with the main body being severed, and he understood…that this could potentially repeat itself, becoming his own karmic end…
This was his karma; this was his karmic fate.
Yaan clenched his fists tightly and his eyes became bloodshot. He didn’t even realise that he had regained control over his mental faculties, yet his heart remained in the same state of enlightenment as before. He muttered to himself as the green karmic chains formed a cycle within his eyes, circling time and time again, speeding up with seemingly no end.
“Main body…are you truly planning to kill us all?! For what end?! Is this somehow connected to karma…are you manipulating our karma, just as the Primordial Sage did to our complete self back then? If that is the case, then how are you any better than the Primordial Sage?! You…have you really become the very thing that you once swore to fight, the very thing that you always despised so severely? Main body…Yaan…have you become my karmic fate?!”
The chains of cyclic karma within Yaan’s eyes reached such an immense speed that they turned into a blur of green light. The blurry green light became increasingly illusory, until the chains vanished entirely.
Yaan’s bloodshot eyes returned to normal. His expression was once again calm, but hidden within his heart, there was a ferocity that had not surfaced within him during his time spent as the Dao Clone of Qi…this ferocity had been absent from his heart, until now.
‘Main body, I understand now; you have not only forsaken me, you have also forsaken yourself. You are no longer worthy of the name ‘Yaan’…only I, deserve the name Yaan! Only I continue to walk against fate…you are not Yaan…I will call you…Fate!’
*****
Not long after the Dao Clone of Qi comprehended the full intuitive half of the dao of karma, Devil, who had been sat at the Southernmost point on Planet Yushu for some time now, finally made his decision.
“Sage.”
Silently, the Primordial Sage appeared just a few feet before him. Devil didn’t know if she had been there all along and only revealed herself after he called out to her, or if she was watching from afar and travelled to him extremely quickly after he spoke. Regardless, he didn’t care about this right now.
“My subordinates tell me that Planet Yushu’s two entrances into the Primordial Devil’s inheritance have long since stopped appearing. This seems to align with Yaan’s passage across to the Blood Plane back then. I planned to wait and see if the entrances had really vanished for myself, but I might as well just ask you…what happened?” Devil asked plainly.
“It is as you suspect, I closed those entrances.” The Sage replied with just as little emotion.
Devil didn’t even bother asking why, since he already knew the answer - it was because of Law Empyrean. He only knew about this because he possessed the Fragment of Qi’s memories, and back then, the Primordial Sage had told the Fragment of Qi about Law Empyrean’s imminent arrival, prompting him to act, and resulting in Yaan being forced into the karmic river.
“Does the inheritance still exist?” Devil asked.
“It does.”
“I see…Sage, it’s about time that I use that favour you promised me. Send me back to the 5th Trial Realm.”
The Sage didn’t hesitate and replied as if she had already expected this.
“As you wish.”