Pseudo-Domain

Yaan's progression through the Tower of Mortal Dao was more arduous than for others. He did not try to protect his heart, instead, he knowingly allowed the tower's pressure to land upon him, doing nothing to shield his heart from its weight. In a way, he was making things more difficult for himself, but in another sense, this was the only way that Yaan was able to climb the tower.

He did not turn away from the difficulties he faced. He did not try to block the suffering that he felt. He allowed it all to land upon him, braving the pain without having any doubts in his mind and heart towards his way.

The heart was something that all cultivators would do their utmost to protect and nurture, but Yaan's treatment towards his own heart was ruthless. Perhaps, denying the existence of his own heart was his most ruthless action yet.

However, the continual raining down of the tower's pressure caused him to grow weary and exhausted. His heart was worn down by the ongoing assault, growing tired and detached, until eventually, he seemed to become completely exhausted, and he was unable to go on.

It was at this point that Yaan lost consciousness. His heart was so tired, so weakened, that it threatened to collapse at any moment; truthfully, pushing himself to this extent was extremely dangerous!

And yet, Yaan did not give up. Even when his heart became filled with the desire of wanting to stop, another part of him refused to allow himself the luxury of giving in!

Yaan ended up falling into a semi-comatosed state, a state wherein he conserved the last remnants of his energy, allowing him to persevere on the brink of defeat for a while longer.

From the moment that his heart started to grow tired, an aura of pain began spreading outwards. This agonising aura which made others become filled with a sense of dread, was caused by Yaan's choice to ignore and trample on his own heart,

His dao heart, the core of his being, was crying out!

But Yaan ignored this cry, he ignored the pain, convincing himself that it did not exist.

Yaan experienced a unique enlightenment after emerging from his self-imposed illusion of mortality following Granny Ging's death back in Tian Village. This enlightenment caused him break out from one illusion, only to unknowingly impose an even deeper illusion upon himself, convincing himself that he did not possess a dao heart at all. Without even realising it, he was sinking deeper and deeper into this delusional illusion with every passing moment, allowing Yaan to overcome the usual limits of a Foundation Step cultivator, granting him the strength to persevere until the point that he was quite literally about to die from the collapse of his dao heart!

When he finally lost consciousness, his desire to push forwards and his determination to overlook his heart continued to rage on. With his heart split in two, the first part crying out, begging him to acknowledge the truth of his heart's pain, and the second part ruthlessly crushing every feeling within his heart until those emotions were stomped down into a cold sense of indifference…the aura of agony swept outwards.

Whilst the crowd was enraptured by Xuqi Laila's shining brilliance, Yaan's agonising aura actually began to lessen. Or, more accurately, it began flowing backwards, returning to Yaan's body, then sinking deep inside him.

Crack!

Suddenly, a noise heard only to Yaan echoed out like a deafening roar within his soul. His heart's internal turmoil shattered into countless fragments as an enormous crack reflecting the abyss spread out across his dao soul. The giant crossed his dao soul, before branching out, then again, and again, countless times, until Yaan's entire dao soul became covered in these dark cracks.

The dao soul was neither a physical nor spiritual entity, and it possessed no innate appearance. If a person's dao soul did manifest with an 'appearance', then it would simply reflect the person's own perception of themselves.

Typically, cracks on the dao soul represented damage caused by a heart demon. But then again, a heart demon which was allowed to grow to this degree should be more than to enough to completely obliterate a cultivator's dao soul…

And yet, Yaan did not die. Instead, at this moment, he finally opened his eyes.

The moment Yaan opened his eyes, the crowd instinctively looked towards him, no longer distracted by Xuqi Laila's incredible performance. The crowd fell silent as chills ran through their bodies. Almost every single person present felt their skin crawl and their hearts began palpitating wildly…even Origin Soul Realm cultivators were no exception to this!

Whilst the immortals of course weren't affected to such an extreme extent, they were still shocked beyond reason.

Whoosh!

At the exact same time, all three immortals stepped forwards, reappearing right beside the tower. They stared inwards, focussing on Yaan with serious expressions.

Yaan's physical eye colour was red, but he had been concealing his eyes subconsciously, making them appear brown until now. In this moment though, his eyes were neither red nor brown. In fact, one eye was emanating a blindingly bright white light, whilst the other eye was pure black like the abyss, depleting all light from the surroundings.

The pressure being released by Yaan right now was no longer a formless aura which could only be felt within the tower…because now, the pressure emanating from Yaan could no longer be restrained by the Tower of Mortal Dao!

But more accurately speaking, the Tower of Mortal Dao was not designed to block an aura such as this, because this aura…contained immortal power!

Black and white illusions surrounded Yaan. As he looked upwards slowly, his feet left the ground, and under the disbelieving gazes of the crowd, he slowly began to drift upwards…

In this tower that suppressed all cultivation, leaving those inside as helpless as mere mortals, Yaan was actually flying!

But really, the fact that he was able to fly was the least shocking matter. What shocked the immortals more than anything else, was the power that Yaan was currently displaying.

"Pseudo-domain! This is a complete pseudo-domain!" The Xuqi Sect Immortal Lord cried out in disbelief. She was simply unable to contain her shock, because this completely overturned her world view!

How could a mortal cultivator utilise an immortal ability?! How could this child use a power that even she had not yet attained?!

Gradually, she began to feel that this child, whom she had previously only considered to be a talented prodigy, was actually somewhat unfathomable…

Slowly, the female immortal turned to face the Immortal Ancestor.

"Pristine Qi Immortal, just who is this 'disciple' of yours, really? Is he a reincarnated immortal?"

"I said this before…he is my successor." The Immortal Ancestor replied calmly. He did not look at the shocked immortals beside him, but kept his gaze focussed on Yaan.

As Yaan ascended upwards, the illusions surrounding him became increasingly vivid. Unlike the previous times when he had displayed his incomplete pseudo-domain, the illusions this time were far more chaotic, far more agonising, and far less coherent.

Figures formed from white light were continuously born, screaming out whilst clutching their heads in pain. The reason for their pain were the black cracks which endlessly spawned upon them, tearing them apart and releasing waves of anguished aura. The endless cycles of birth and death contained traces of the dao of life and death, but the illusion itself was sustained by the dao of illusions…

This was proof that Yaan's illusion dao had reached immortal stage comprehension!

It was difficult to classify the minor differences in levels of dao comprehension, but there was a very clear boundary between mortal stage dao comprehension and immortal stage dao comprehension. At the mortal stage of dao comprehension, tiny aspects of the earthly dao were comprehended. All Foundation Step cultivators comprehended different aspects of the earthly dao; they might comprehend a larger, single portion of the dao, or they might comprehend various minor aspects of the dao.

Mortal stage comprehension was unordered and incomplete, but immortal stage comprehension was different. To comprehend one of the 3,000 earthly daos to the immortal stage, was to comprehend a complete fragment of that earthly dao! Someone with this stage of comprehension would still only understand a single fragment of that earthly dao, but they understood this portion of the dao in its entirety! Their comprehension was complete, it was ordered, it gave them a clear view of the dao as a whole. With dao comprehension at the immortal stage, it became far easier to manipulate this dao comprehension, allowing them to use their dao comprehension as the foundation to form a complete pseudo-domain!

Comprehending an earthly dao to the immortal stage was one of the prerequisites to becoming an immortal, but even so, not all immortals were able to form pseudo-domains. To do so, their comprehended dao needed to be compatible with the formation of a domain, but even then, deducing the method to form the domain using this comprehension was a huge undertaking in and of itself.

So naturally, the immortals felt stunned that Yaan, a young Foundation Step cultivator, was actually able to achieve such a feat.

The Immortal Ancestor showed nothing on his face, but his heart was truly stirred. The reason for him pushing Yaan into this trial, was exactly because he wanted to see the full extent of his dao comprehension talent for himself!

After coming to understand Yaan, he also wanted to see the direction of development of his dao heart…

'It is just like she said, his talent in perceiving dao is unreasonably high…the Primordial Devil originally did not comprehend dao, but after fragmenting into the five fragments, the Fragment of Dao retained the greatest dao comprehension talent. This fragment is indeed suited to becoming the core of the reborn Primordial Devil…but his dao heart, why is it like this? Is it because his heart is incomplete? This makes some degree of sense, since the Fragment of Dao would naturally be more severely affected by the incompleteness of our fragmented dao soul…but there is an alternative possibility.'

The Immortal Ancestor narrowed his eyes, staring at Yaan intently, trying to see through the secrets that even Yaan did not know he possessed.

Yaan drifted upwards slowly, passing through the centre of the tower, ascending past the stairway which spiralled around him.

He reached the 21st floor, then the 22nd…

23rd, 24th, 25th…

The tower's pressure weighed down on Yaan's heart, but this only caused the white illusory figures to scream out with greater intensity. The figures expanded, until they encompassed the entire floor surrounding Yaan. The black abyssal cracks continued to wreak havoc, tearing apart the white figures without mercy.

It was difficult to see clearly due to the chaotic nature of the illusion, but if someone looked closely, they would see that the white figures resembled the many people whom Yaan had wronged in some way throughout his life.

If someone listened closely, they would hear that the figures were not actually screaming at Yaan with hatred, but rather, they were begging him to stop…

But the dark cracks opposed the white figures and contained no mercy. The abyssal cracks resolutely obliterated the figures, not caring for the pain and devastation left in their wake. The entire atmosphere around Yaan was now filled with thick black cracks, partially obscuring his body from view. Flashes of Yaan's rising figure could be seen now and then, ascending through the tower silently, as if everything around him was simply irrelevant.

Quietly, Yaan ascended.

Yaan's will to ascend manifested in the form of greater, larger black cracks, causing chaos to rampage all around him.

In his pitch black eye, only ruthlessness could be seen. This was the portion of himself that Yaan focussed on; everything else was irrelevant. He believed that only this darkness could help him to ascend further. Even though he was in a dazed, semi-conscious state, this idea lingered on his mind, driving him to embrace this growing destructive force which was tearing apart his dao soul.

All Yaan could feel was ruthlessness, he refused to acknowledge anything else.

The audience felt the same way as they watched him. They were thrown into a state of overwhelming terror caused by this ruthlessness, leaving them unable to speak and unable to move, yet unable to look away.

Were it not for the immortals shielding them from Yaan's pseudo-domain, these Foundation Step cultivators would not be able to endure it. After all, Yaan was currently using an immortal power; those below the Immortal Step could not withstand such might!

The nature of a cultivator's domain was to take absolute control over the immediate region around themselves, by imbuing this region the power of their dao heart. Whilst a pseudo-domain used an earthly dao as its core instead, the power of the dao heart was still a key component.

To push one's domain onto another being, was to impose one's dao heart onto them! As such, those within the vicinity of another cultivator's domain would clearly feel the full, unhindered power of its master's dao…

Out of the many Foundation Step cultivators in the crowd, only one person was able to see through the ruthlessness of the black cracks. This person was by no means extraordinary compared to the others around her, but she was able to see through something within this chaos for a simple reason…she knew Yaan better than any of these people, and thus, somehow, she was not all that shocked by his sudden burst of might.

Whilst Zue Yin could not claim to share a close relationship with Yaan, she had known him through the various phases of his life. She had seen him grow, change and develop…and she had seen him step deeper and deeper into the demonic path as walked further along his path of cultivation.

Zue Yin gazed deeply into the contrast created between his white and black eyes, and for the first time, she felt as if she was able to see part of the truth within Yaan's heart, past the ruthlessness which he showed to the world…

When she saw past this false face, this face which he showed to the world, and even to himself, she realised that Yaan's immense demonic ruthlessness, his overbearing and tyrannical demeanour…and perhaps his entire demonic persona…was in truth just a mask.

Behind the mask, there was a simple young boy. Only, this boy who looked so fragile without his demonic mask, no longer had a normal pair of eyes, because the cruel passage of time had caused desolation to accumulate within his lonely gaze.

Zue Yin finally realised that Yaan was not truly ruthless…she had misunderstood him…everyone had misunderstood him…and he had misunderstood himself.

But she also knew that he had been forced to put on this mask, and to wear it every time he looked in the mirror, because if he did not, then he would be unable to continue along his path, the only path that he had ever known.

Two streams of tears unknowingly fell from her eyes. She could not look away from the young child floating silently up through the screaming ghosts and the merciless abyssal cracks, as if this world of madness and torment was simply where he had always been.

"I misunderstood him,…he never became a demon, not truly…but he was never righteous, either. He was always just…Yaan…"

Suddenly, Zue Yin felt like the very concept of righteous and demonic was nothing but a joke. Who in this world could truly be defined by a single word? Who in this world was truly aligned with a single extreme ideology?

Zue Yin bit her lip, staring at Yaan with pain in her eyes.

"Yaan…why did you choose this path? Why did you do this to yourself? Why does it have to be this way…? Why do you have to walk alone, without anyone to accompany you, without anyone to confide in, when you're clearly so lonely that it hurts…? It's not fair, Yaan…you're far too cruel to yourself…"