Chapter 343 - The Death of Devil

Moments after the Dao Clone of Qi died, the only remaining Dao Clone, the Dao Clone of Soul, stopped what he was doing and stared down. Devil watched as one of the three karmic chains was shattered, causing a deep sense of loss to fill his heart. Soon after, the two remaining karmic chains slowly faded away, until once again, he could no longer see them.

However, even though the karmic chains were not visible during normal times, Devil could feel the karmic link between himself, Yaan, the Primordial Devil, and the Dao Clones, at all times. With the destruction of the Dao Clone of Qi’s karmic link, Devil felt the abrupt dissipation of his life, filling his heart with emotions that he refused to acknowledge.

He often insulted the Dao Clone of Qi, calling him an emotional fool and disdaining his way of life, but in truth, the Dao Clone of Qi was the only true ally that Devil had in this world. Originally, the Dao Clone of Mind had also been something like an ‘ally’ to him, but after Knowledge made his choice to give up on reaching the Immortal Step, it became clear that their paths were fated to never cross.

But the Dao Clone of Qi was different. In a sense, they were like twin brothers, born of the same origin. After spending time with the Dao Clone of Qi and getting to know him, Devil actually acknowledge him as someone worthy of fighting by his side, in order to overcome their common enemy.

“You emotional fool, you actually lost to that bastard…” Devil muttered quietly. The Devil Spirit looked at him uncertainly, confused by why he had suddenly stopped his crazed actions in trying to complete the 5th trial, and started muttering to himself once again.

At first, Devil felt dazed. He had always known that he was the strongest of the Dao Clones - this wasn’t just his opinion, it was an objective fact. Even the Dao Clone of Qi admitted that outside of the Heavenly Path Province, he would not be Devil’s match. However, the Dao Clone of Qi was still very powerful for a Dao Immortal, it’s not like Devil’s own strength surpassed his by an uncrossable chasm.

And yet, he died to the Primordial Devil so quickly…

As feelings that were foreign to Devil shook his heart, he ground his teeth together, then suddenly looked up with a gaze filled with hatred and rage. He crushed down those feelings of loss and doubt, turning all of his uncertainties into fuel, a fuel that he burned away and transformed into madness.

“Pathetic…to die to the Primordial Devil, you are too pathetic! What happened to protecting your home?! What happened to protecting that girl?! Without you, everything that you cherished will be crushed by the Primordial Devil…you damned failure! I was a fool to count on others; I was a fool to think that you possessed the ability to stand by my side!”

Devil’s eyes turned red, as two streams fell down his cheeks. However, these were not tears, but blood. Devil did not wipe the blood away, leaving it there to remind him that he was now alone in this world, and if he dared to rely on others again, the result would be his loss.

“Primordial Devil, you bastard…don’t think that just because you could defeat that failure, that you have the capability to defeat me! You are merely a failure yourself, this entire situation only arose because you failed to live by your heart when you reincarnated!”

Gradually, Devil’s explosive rage cooled down, but it did not vanish. It was as if the violent flames within his heart compressed inwards, transforming into a seed of infernal energy within him that lay dormant on the surface, but burned with an extinguishable intensity in the face of adversity. He used his feelings to fuel his will to move forwards, to move past this setback. He would not allow the Dao Clone of Qi’s failure to affect his path!

“Primordial Devil, your time is over. Your heart of pride is too weak. When it came down to it, part of you feared death, that is why you allowed the Heavenly Dao into your heart to assure your survival! Your heart of pride…cannot withstand my heart of slaughter!”

The flame of slaughter within Devil’s heart burned more brilliantly than ever before. He didn’t realise it himself, but his aura was currently fully exposed, causing even the Devil Spirit to tremble in fright under its majesty. Until just now, Devil’s aura wasn’t so rampant like this, at least, not unless he was making a conscious effort to release it. Now however, his aura was on full display at all times, and he…was unable to reign it in.

Devil’s killing intent had become too strong for him to restrain. Unfortunately, Devil was oblivious to this fact, and after suppressing his feelings of loss until he could no longer feel the truth within his heart, he approached the pulsating crimson heart in the centre of the palace hall and grasped it within his palm.

After Devil destroyed the crimson heart, he was assaulted by the extreme killing intent once again. The entire palace hall lit up with a blinding red light. Wave after wave of this light slammed into his spiritual body, but this killing intent was killing intent in its purest form, possessing no power. Something like this would still instantly kill almost any other Dao Immortal, but to Devil, who cultivated the heart of slaughter, it was completely harmless.

The Slaughter Aura that was engrained into this killing intent was like no other, imbued with a powerful vitality. As a soul cultivator, Devil could not absorb this vitality directly, but what he could do…was slaughter the vitality!

Devil was immediately surrounded by a vortex of bloody aura. After slaughtering the vitality, a form of Slaughter Aura that was compatible with his Slaughter Spirit form was released, instantly storming into him. The palace hall eventually became filled with this vortex, but by the time he reached this point, Devil’s mind had already started to slip away…

It was always like this. When he devoured the power contained within the crimson heart, he also devoured the Primordial Devil’s memories.

This ‘inheritance’ was set up for the Primordial Devil to regain his lost memories. Unfortunately, until now, Devil had been unable to hold onto any significant portion of memory. He succeeded in retaining bits and pieces here and there, but for the most part, it was a jumbled mess and didn’t amount to even one ten thousandth of the Primordial Devil’s memories.

But Devil was obstinate, he refused to give up. He did not give in to despair, despite it sometimes feeling like there was no end in sight. He was trapped in this place until he passed the trial, and it was quite clear that to pass the trial, he needed to devour and hold onto the entirety of the Primordial Devil’s memory.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Once again, Devil was thrust into a world of memory. Everything was hazy, and when he finally emerged from this haze after what felt like a lifetime, he only had a vague recollection of the Primordial Devil’s life prior to his ascension to the Divine Step…

This was a period of over one million years, but he didn’t even have a solid second of continuous memory. He retained a hundredth of a second here, a tenth of a second there, and so on, giving him what felt like a picture book detailing countless instances across this million year timespan.

He was born on the Blood Plane, back when the Blood Plane was a simple but barren world; a continent with no life, a series of wastelands and mountains spanning countless miles, with Spiritual Pressure and gravity building up towards the centre of the continent.

Above the continent, there was the vacuum of space. The Primordial Demons were the only Immortal Step beings able to fly up from the continent, into the vacuum of space, even going so far as the moon which hung high up in the sky. Other immortals could never achieve this feat, due to the Spiritual Pressure weighing down on their bodies, forcing them back down to the ground before they managed to leave the continent’s range of influence.

There was a single star on the Blood Plane, far larger than any star on the Qi Plane…

He had memories of visiting the Qi Plane, and memories of battling against the Primordial Asura.

He had memories of crossing over to the Spirit Plane, which, back then, had been a material World Plane, just like the Qi Plane and Spirit Plane.

He remembered the Primordial Sage, and how she came and went as she please.

He remembered battling against the Primordial Demons for tens of thousands of years, until they all tired of this endless fight which was clearly never going to end.

He remembered going from fighting the Primordial Demons, to becoming sworn friends, rivals, and siblings…

He remembered that at some point, other living beings started to appear. At first there were plants, then animals and eventually humans too. Cultivators seemed to take root across the four planes as soon as the humans made their entrance, and before long, countless intelligent human and human-esque races enveloped the world.

He remembered his first encounter with a Divine Step being. He remembered being forced to flee from Law Empyrean, whom was called Law Deity back then, until the Primordial Sage reached the Divine Step also…

He remembered, for a brief instant, seeing a magnificent golden stairway. Those ten stairs which seemed to lead up to the heights of the heavens themselves…

Devil opened his eyes and found himself gasping for breath, just like always. However, this time, there was a difference…

After the Dao Clone of Qi died and Devil was forced to double down on his resolve, he had an unknown feeling that now, he would be able to retain more of the Primordial Devil’s memories!

But shockingly, the opposite turned out to be true.

“What…why can I remember even less than before?!”

Devil was bewildered, but in the end, just thinking about it got him nowhere. He gritted his teeth, then resolutely crushed the crimson heart once again.

The scene from before replayed itself…as did the result, wherein part of the Primordial Devil’s memory was removed from his mind.

Devil was infuriated, but he couldn’t blame anyone other than himself. That said, even if he blamed himself, he had no idea just what he was doing wrong!

Perhaps others would stop here, meditating on this confusing matter before continuing.

Devil was not the same as others though, and right now, he was driven by his hatred and rage, which only grew further and further as his devoured memories were slowly taken from him with each subsequent slaughter.

Devil’s madness became stronger and stronger. He didn’t slow down, he didn’t stop, but instead, he told himself that this must be the result of his growing strength. After all, even though he was losing the Primordial Devil’s memories, he realised that his dao heart was growing stronger with every cycle!

He convinced himself that so long as he continued on, eventually he would cross a threshold. At this point, he would be able to rapidly absorb and retain the Primordial Devil’s memories.

He was yet to notice that his aura of slaughter was growing stronger by the day, and that he was releasing this aura at all times, having lost his ability to restrain it.

After going through this cycle an unknown number of times, there was a change, just like Devil had predicted. Unfortunately, this change was not for the better…

Devil was now releasing not just his aura, but his entire domain. Even now though, he didn’t realise that he was releasing his domain at all times. Even now, he didn’t realise that he was unable to control his own domain.

All Devil knew, was that he was now struggling to recall any memories from the Primordial Devil’s life…and that with each cycle, his heart of slaughter was growing stronger.

Even though he continued to lose those memories, his heart of slaughter grew stronger and stronger with every single cycle! For this reason, Devil continued to persevere along this manic path, embracing the madness in the hope that it would eventually result in his success.

His success never came to be.

With each cycle, his domain grew stronger, as did his heart of slaughter. Eventually, his domain filled the entire 5th Trial Realm palace with such an immense slaughterous pressure, that even the Devil Spirit was affected.

Eventually, the Devil Spirit was suppressed so thoroughly that it couldn’t leave, even if it wanted to! The Devil Spirit was left feeling helpless. It was bound by the rules of the inheritance, and the rules stated that it could not leave the 5th Trial Realm whilst the inheritor was present. Because of this, it was forced to endure as Devil’s domain became stronger and stronger. He watched with a bitter expression as Devil lost his sound mind, descending into complete and utter madness.

“Master…is this really master…? He has lost control over his domain, and his sanity has left him as a madman…he is walking towards his own demise…”

The Devil Spirit was right, but its worst fear was proven to be true far faster than it had anticipated. He tried to reason with Devil, but Devil had completely lost his sanity; he didn’t even seem to notice the Devil Spirit’s presence.

After going through just a dozen more cycles after losing control over his domain, Devil’s domain became too powerful. He stood before the crimson heart, his eyes completely red from madness, and he reached out, intending to crush the heart once again.

But Devil’s hand never reached the crimson heart.

His death…was lacklustre.

There was no shocking explosion, nor was there anyone present to witness his demise, aside from Yaan and the Primordial Sage. Even the Devil Spirit did not see his death, because at the moment that Devil could no longer endure under the slaughterous power of his own domain, his domain suddenly amplified several fold, killing both himself and the Devil Spirit at the same time.

Both Devil and the Devil Spirit dropped to the floor. The Devil Spirit’s body immediately lost all signs of life, releasing a wave of Slaughter Aura, as well as a stream of black miasma.

As for Devil, he also released his own Slaughter Aura, but that Slaughter Aura ended up being devoured back into himself, creating a cycle wherein the power of slaughter amplified endlessly, until the entire palace hall became filled with a sea of grey mist.

Eventually, the density of the mist stopped increasing. The mist paused briefly, before it formed a gentle vortex. As time passed by, the mist was slowly devoured by the crimson heart…

Once the grey mist was no more, Devil’s spiritual body was also nowhere to be seen. All that was left, was a large amount of crimson miasma, which looked almost identical to a pool of blood on the ground.

The Devil Spirit was gone, but the inheritance continued to exist. It was unknown how the loss of the Devil Spirit would affect the inheritance grounds going forwards.

*****

The three divinities stared down at Yushu Planet with plain expressions. They all possessed divine stage comprehension over the dao of karma, so they could all clearly see the scene of Devil’s karmic link suddenly shattered. They all had their own thoughts on this, but the Primordial Sage was actually the one to speak first.

“I will convince him to stay on this planet.”

Old Thief and Law Empyrean just nodded. It might seem strange that they would agree to allow her to interfere, but the Primordial Devil looked like he was about to fly away into the star system, which they did not want to see.

Just as Devil was about to take a step and leave the planet’s atmosphere, the Primordial Sage materialised before him. He stopped and narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t reign in his killing intent in the least.

“Sage! Are you planning on stopping me?! Are you also going to get in my way?!”

“I won’t force you to stay, but I will say this - the aura of karmic end on this planet is the strongest that I have ever seen. With each second that you remain here, this karma grows stronger. The karma dictates that eventually, Yaan will return to the Qi Plane, and if you remain here, he will return sooner.”

The Primordial said this out loud, but at the same time, she communicated to the Primordial Devil telepathically, hiding her words from the other divinities’ ears.

‘I am not the only divinity watching you.’

And with that, she vanished.

The Primordial Devil stared at where the Sage had just been for a long while, but eventually, he closed his eyes and suppressed his irritation. In the end, he sighed, shook his head, and sat down.

He didn’t like this…no, he seriously hated it. He hated being so weak that he was forced to adhere to the will of the divinities…but his hate towards Yaan was countless times stronger.

For the sake of ensuring his success in the coming battle against his heart demon, the Primordial Devil sat back down and waited.