Despite all his injuries, Can Mouye's Upper Dantian was perfectly fine. Since he hadn't been able to reach the Spirit Warrior realm, it was no threat at all. Well, even if he had barely crossed the boundary, his Upper Dantian would not have been a threat right away anyway. But preserving it had been vital. Indeed, the Upper Dantian was the dwelling of the sea of consciousness. In it were both the mind and spirit of an individual. And with them, the memories of course.

Although Can Mouye was unconscious, there was still a shred of consciousness inside his Upper Dantian. In fact, unless someone was dead, they always had a form of consciousness. It was just altered and more or less active depending on their physical, emotional and mental state.

Right now, Can Mouye was barely aware of his own existence. The intense pain had completely shut down his spirit and mind.

All of a sudden, it was jolted back to awareness. And Can Mouye found himself inside his sea of consciousness. As he had never reached the Spirit Warrior realm, he had never lived through that experience before. But there he was standing over an infinite body of water gray and muddy. It wasn't perfectly black like the water in the Ocean of Turbid Anguish. Instead, this water just seemed to be from a particularly dark and dirty swamp.

Above his head was a sky as infinite as the ocean under his feet. And in the sky, he was able to see a mantra written with Insight Writings. The moment he tried to read the mantra, the smiling face of the Evil Heavenly Buddha, Tianfomo, appeared. Despite his joyous smile, there was an ominous feeling behind it. Even with his eyes closed, Can Mouye knew what was in them. For this heavenly being, all of creation was a mistake. It was a terrible joke and conscious beings were the butt of it. Just by being aware of the world around them, they would suffer. Instead of searching for spiritual enlightenment through faith or piety, or even instead of fighting against the Heavens through cultivation, the best option for all sentient life was to die out. There would finally be a universe without pain and torment.

Dying wasn't a pleasant thought to Can Mouye. But on all other accounts, he fully agreed with this view of the world. Infinite silence and darkness was better to this world. Yet, he was still trying to survive. And he was ready to do everything in his power to survive. Even if he had to crawl and lick someone else's shoes, he would do it. His dignity had already been long gone. For all time, he would keep his meek smile and try to please those who had power over his life and death, no matter what.

As he thought about that, his sea of consciousness began to change.

The first thing concerned the mantra in the sky. The sky simply ceased to be, suddenly. In its stead there was now a giant wheel of fire forever turning. Under its heat and pressure, the very water under his feet started to boil. At first, he felt an intense pain as his feet were literally in a boiling water. But soon he got used to it. This wasn't physical pain. And he wasn't in his physical form. Even though he had never experienced it, he knew what a sea of consciousness was. Just by focusing his mind, he could quickly make the pain go away.

But the changes didn't stop there. And Can Mouye was truly terrified of them because he had recognized this wheel of fire. He had seen it when Huang Liyue had wielded the martial art of her family. Yet it seemed to be somewhat different and it wasn't just because it was more powerful. No, this wheel seemed to be more dangerous and merciless.

In all eight directions, giant peaks emerged from the muddy water. At first, they looked like real mountains but before long they literally caught on fire. From the firmament, the wheel of fire had made the rock turn into magma and then pure fire without any fuel. Moreover, this fire seemed to be cold and almost solid.

Only then did Can Mouye see the eight figures towering over each peak. There were eight True Fiery Fenghuang. Each one was nested on the highest point of its own peak. When he had first seen the mountain, he had not even realized they were there because they fully complemented each peak. But now that he had, he had the feeling that they were way bigger all of a sudden. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't take his eyes off of them. In his field of vision, he could really only see three of them distinctly while two others were to his sides and the last ones behind him.

Can Mouye was right in the middle of the mountains, just under the axis of the wheel of fire above.

Finally, he heard a voice. In fact, this wasn't a voice at all. Somehow it sounded human, but it was the shriek of the eight True Fiery Fenghuang together in unison. He felt as though his skull was being split open.

"Stop! I'll tell you all I know! Please, just let me live! I have trained under Xiong Nixie. He's directly under the Demon King. Just let me live and everything I know is yours. Better! I could even help you infiltrate the demonic cultivators' ranks. You could get a spy in me."

"How would that work out? Your cultivation is completely gone, never to be regained again. And all the seals put on you by your masters have been erased. They would know right away what you are. And about what you know, do you think I need your cooperation?"

The voice he heard was coming from all around all at once. And with the reverberation off the mountains, it sounded like several different voices speaking at once. Besides, he didn't recognize the voice at all. It was Matriarch Huang Yufeng's voice. So of course, he had never heard her. But he could still make a guess. That woman was necessarily one of the most powerful members of the Huang family. He wasn't sure whether she was the matriarch or not, but it didn't really matter right now.

"Please!" Can Mouye fell to his knees in a random direction and tried to plead some more. "Even with a Soul Memory Search, you may not be able to get everything inside my mind."

"Oh? And you know that how exactly? How many Soul Memory Searches did you witness? How many innocent people were slaughtered and tortured for your sport?"

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Venerable One, I swear that I never enjoyed any of those sordid acts. I was forced to play along. I never had any choice! They abducted me as a child after slaughtering my family. I just tried to survive. Please, believe me!"

"Oh, I do believe your sob story. But you did have a choice! Maybe not as a child, but you are not a child anymore. How many people did you kill? Why was your life so much more important than theirs?"

"Please! I just wanted to survive. How is that such a bad thing?"

"Surviving is not a bad thing. But it depends on the means to achieve said survival. However, let me ask you something else. Why do you want to survive? Why do you want with life?"

Ready to answer, Can Mouye found himself speechless. All his life, he had done everything to survive, no matter what it was. But then when confronted with the simple question of the reason behind this need, he was unable to name a single one of them. Yet, at some point in time he was certain that he had had an answer. Yes, he had an answer at first. Where did that answer go?

Trying to remember, Can Mouye stayed silent. Even before the Soul Memory Search, he began to sift through his memories. Right now, he was reliving his entire life backward. Every single detail came back to him.

First of all, he saw what had transpired in the Yellow Death World. After getting into the world, he had met with the fake Cleansed Asura. Using the Yellow Sorrows Water, he had burned away the seals in his flesh and in his soul. The process had been hell but it had worked perfectly well. Now freed from the seals, he still chose to side with this Cleansed Asura because he was his only way out. Even though he knew that his new master would probably betray him at some point, it didn't matter at the moment.

His mind wandered further back. Through various encounters between his former master Xiong Nixie and Mo Tian, he had overheard many things about the demonic cultivators. But at no point did he really get interested in their plan. Even while putting in place this entire stampede across the whole kingdom, he didn't care why he was doing it. He had just been obeying orders. Apparently, the Demon King needed something in both the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute and the Wubei Sect. While Mo Tian was in charge of taking care of the Wubei Sect, the Institute was a problem. Although their agent in Yinmen City had to be discovered to get rid of Xiao Xuefeng, they had been unable to infiltrate the Institute because he had been discovered a bit too soon and they got more alert.

But this was just a minor setback. The stampede had always been meant as a distraction first. And if they could destabilize the Hongchen Kingdom in the process, it would just be icing on the cake. The real goal of this stampede was just to get one thing from the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute. All those dead, just for that. And Can Mouye had not cared in the least.

Apart from the title of Demon King, he knew nothing about that figure. The only information he had about him was that everything had changed very recently. After the Demon King had found some ancient knowledge, he had completely changed. The demonic cultivators who were rather calm had suddenly turned more active. All of a sudden, they had gone from wanting to be as discreet as possible to desiring more and more power.

Apparently, the Demon King was looking for something specific and he needed both the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute and the Wubei Sect. That being said, Can Mouye had no idea what he was looking for exactly, nor why. In fact, he did not even know Mo Tian's face or real name, the one who had infiltrated the Wubei Sect. He didn't know a single thing about him, neither his age, his sex, his cultivation level, nothing.

As all his memories were revisited backward, Can Mouye finally found himself back as a young boy. He was barely five and had a mace in hand. At his feet laid another young child. The poor child was so badly hurt that his face was unrecognizable. Yet, he was still breathing. Each time he drew breath, some bubbles of blood foamed from what used to be his mouth. The young Can Mouye could not hear or feel anything except for the warm blood flowing down onto his shaking hands. Who had done that? Who could have done such a terrible thing to a child? In his young mind, he wasn't prepared to face that both answers were him.

He needed to stop thinking about it. He had to survive! No matter what!

There! There lied his answer! He was certain that at that time he had a reason. What was the reason? Why did he want to survive so bad?

Someday, I'll escape! Until I escape, until I don't have to do such horrible things, I will survive. Mom, Dad, I will give you a proper burial. And I will make you proud of me. But until I can escape, please don't judge me.

Yes, it had been the reason. This was simple but he had always wanted to leave. He had always hated whatever he had been asked to do. Yet, those feelings had dimmed down and disappeared with time. He had buried them so deep that he had forgotten he had ever had them. Even now that he remembered the truth, he couldn't find the feelings anymore.

What was so horrible about killing humans? What had made him so disgusted with himself? That night, after putting this child out of his misery, he had thrown up and had shivered, unable to sleep for three nights. But there was nothing wrong. If he hadn't killed him, he would have died instead. No, he couldn't remember why he had thought this was ever bad to do so. Yet, at the back of his mind, he felt as though he had lost something essential.

Without this thing, maybe surviving wasn't so important. After all, he would just go on suffering again and again. Even if he did survive now, he had no goal, nowhere to even go. He would become a prisoner for the rest of his short life. Now that he could never reach Spirit Warrior, his lifespan had plummeted down anyway. Maybe surviving was pointless. Maybe Tianfomo was right to see all creation as a sick joke directed against sentience.

In a moment of pure despair, Can Mouye looked toward the spinning wheel of fire.

"I have no answer for you. I think I will just let go. Do whatever you want with me... Perform your Soul Memory Search."

"I already did. Unlike your masters, I do not need to torture you to get your memories out of your soul."

As Can Mouye had been looking for an answer in his own past, Huang Yufeng had seen every single moment of his life. She now knew everything about him. And her anger and rage against this demonic cultivator had thus been mixed with pity. That poor child had been broken and corrupted. At which point he had turned from victim to monster wasn't an easy answer. But one thing was sure, he had not always been that monster. If the kingdom had been able to rescue him, he would have been perfectly fine.

Still, this didn't change what she had to do. No matter how much he had been perverted by others, this man had to pay for his actions. Besides, his life was now meaningless. Apart from desperately trying to survive, he had nothing.

Still confused, Can Mouye felt extremely cold despite the fire all around him. Looking down, he witnessed that the entire ocean beneath his feet had turned to ice. The cold dumbed down all his sensations and emotions. Then, the ice suddenly cracked. Can Mouye fell into an intense darkness and cold. Everything that made him him slowly dispersed and he ceased to be.