Swarm of Nirvana Beasts

The Rank 6 bats swarmed Yaan in an instant. Within seconds, he was battered, bitten, beaten and turned into a bloody rag doll.

Then, like an illusion, the real him slipped out to the side, watching as the beasts attacked the realistic illusion of himself. He held out one palm and shot out multiple Slaughter Soul spears, striking three bats and piercing through their hearts and cores.

The bats hit the ground and writhed about, but they managed to get back up, albeit in an injured and disoriented state. A Rank 5 beast would die if its core was damaged to this degree, but these bats possessed enough Life Essence that they could actually heal their broken beast cores!

"So they can even shrug off a Slaughter Soul spear…" Yaan muttered.

As the bats swarmed towards the real him, he utilised his footwork, agilely slipping left and right. He evaded being decapitated by each strike whilst working on a strategy.

He withdrew the abyssal blood sword and swung crazily, colliding with one bat's neck. The blade cut through the beast's neck, removing the head…but the bat continued to flap about.

Even with a damaged core and a missing head, they did not die. Their defence was not overly impressive for Rank 6 beasts, but their vitality was too vast, making them extremely difficult to kill! Of course, the most terrifying aspect of these beasts was their ability to coordinate and synchronise their attacks with one another.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, the bats began to eject sharp wind pressures from their wings. Whenever they flapped their wings, the air would tremble and shake, causing visual distortions to take over the region surrounding Yaan. These air currents were like knives and could cut a man in half with ease, whilst the distortions made them extremely difficult to locate and evade.

Yaan was forced to utilise Reveal Truth until he managed to comprehend this ability displayed by the bat horde. He was able to evade once he understood the wind currents, but he was only able to reach this point after suffering from countless unavoidable attacks.

As time passed by, his breathing became heavy and he was forced to swallow a Rank 6 recovery pill. His position in this battle was growing worse and worse…and he was yet to kill even a single beast!

Knowing that he could not hold back any longer, Yaan used his Agile Illusion Art's 1st step and pierced through a single bat with the abyssal blood sword. The sword blade was coated in slaughterous Soul Force, killing the beast thoroughly!

But in the next moment, without warning, a gust of wind cut through Yaan's neck, tearing off his head! As a body temperer, it was entirely possible to survive an injury like this, especially if the two components were placed back together, but the recovery from this sort of injury wasn't exactly instant…

Yaan hastily grabbed his airborne head and placed it back on his neck, then rubbed a Rank 6 ointment around the wound, swallowed another Rank 6 recovery pill, and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, the time he took to hastily treat his injury caused him to lose focus on the battle, resulting in the beasts gaining the upper hand.

CHI CHI CHI!

"Ugh…" He coughed up a lungful of blood as three bats stabbed their talons into his back. They clenched down hard, crushing his internal organs, shattering his ribs and breaking his spine in multiple places. They flew up and up, and eventually, Yaan saw multiple bats flying straight at him.

The bats were fast, but Yaan was faster. His movements looked slow, but it was as if he had forced the bats to slow down, making them unable to react in time to his counter attack!

Agile Illusion Art, 2nd step!

BANG!

All of the bats were blown back, including those with their talons pierced into his back. The bat that he tapped on the talon with the illusory sword was killed by the impact, but the rest were only badly injured.

Right as Yaan was preparing to charge after the most grievously wounded beasts, he suddenly froze. He watched as the injured but living bats consumed the corpses of their fallen comrades, rapidly recovering their injuries and returning to full strength.

He had killed two out of the 33 bats…the rest had returned to their peak condition. For the first time since the battle began, a hint of unease appeared in his heart.

Yaan's own situation was not looking good. He had already been forced to reattach his decapitated head, his spine and ribs were crushed to dust, and his organs were now closer to a paste than actual solid objects.

He continued to fight, growing increasingly ferocious as his situation became worse and worse. Yaan was steadily accumulating injuries, but he was simply unable to kill his enemies! Their team-work was impeccable, and after the horde returned to their full strength, they had clearly gained an overwhelming advantage!

He swallowed recovery pill after recovery pill, he started throwing Rank 6 medicinal tinctures across his body without caring for the cost, but even this was not enough. As time passed by, the medicines started to become less effective and Yaan's injuries accumulated to a terrifying degree.

Injuries covered his body, and due to the unrelenting nature of the beast horde's attack, he didn't even have enough time to wipe the blood from his eyes.

Yaan staggered backwards, facing the bats with a bitter expression.

He realised it now…he had overestimated himself. He had grown overconfident in recent years due to his continual stream of victories and successes. He had become too accustomed to dominating each and every one of his opponents. He had grown conceited, and now, he was paying the price.

For a moment, Yaan closed his eyes.

"Yaan, don't give up!" Rui urged him within his mind.

"I'm not giving up, I'm thinking!" He replied in irritation.

Rui became silent, allowing Yaan to consider his options. In the end though, he knew that none of his usual methods would be sufficient. With his usual abilities…he could not survive this battle!

When Yaan opened his eyes, almost all of the bats were upon him. He stared at the incoming wave of black bodies, suddenly feeling a hint of something that he had not felt in a long time…

Despair. He felt the despair that came from being too weak!

But in the next instant, the despair vanished. A strange sense of serenity washed over him, even though he knew that he might not make it out of this alive.

"Slaughter…" Yaan sighed, shaking his head and suddenly feeling like the current situation was truly too laughable. He got himself into this situation because of 'slaughter', a facet of his cultivation that he didn't even ask for.

Maybe he could just release the power of slaughter from his soul. Doing this would allow him to display an immense strength at the cost of losing his mind.

That wasn't really a solution though. Even at the expense of losing his mind, it wouldn't be enough.

"I became too obsessed with slaughter, and now, I'm going to get myself slaughtered as a result. Hahaha…" Yaan laughed, with self-depreciation evident in his tone.

He straightened up his body forcefully, recovering from his injuries at a staggering rate thanks to his Vital Qi.

"Cultivation…is truly tiring." He muttered to himself as he watched the bats descend upon him.

"Life…is truly tiring." Yaan sighed to himself. A trace of melancholy flashed within his gaze.

"And yet, I know that I will fight until my last breath."

BANG!

The bats collided with him. Yaan fought crazily and frantically, using every move he had at his disposal. Agile Illusion Arts, abyssal blood sword, slaughterous Soul Force…every means he had available to him exploded out one after the other!

Of course, his main saving grace was still his dao of illusions.

Illusions allowed him to evade, to distract. Illusions allowed him to take something that didn't exist, and to use it as if it did. Illusions had saved his life so many times…

'I'll fight until my last breath…' Yaan thought to himself as he was overwhelmed by the unrelenting tide of bats. The beasts bore down on him, finally crushing him into the ground and forcing him to lay there without being able to put up a trace of resistance.

They were not just overpowering him…they were now eating his flesh, consuming his body, slowly but surely.

His bones, blood, flesh, organs, even his brain, they were all being devoured…

"I'lll fight until my last breath…" Yaan managed to mutter, right before his lungs, throat and tongue were torn out by the beasts.

'And then, when I lose my last breath…I'll just have to fight even harder.'

As Yaan lost consciousness, this final thought entered his mind.

As Yaan lost consciousness, his will to fight grew stronger.

He did not know what drove him, but he hoped that one day, he would learn what it was.

"He has no hope now." The old immortal in the sky stared down disdainfully, fully expecting this result. But in the next moment, his expression changed.

He noticed something odd.

As the bats were devouring Yaan's body, a certain two parts of his body suddenly began to regenerate. The bats stayed away from these two parts, as if afraid to touch them.

It was Yaan's two eyes, only one was now entirely black, the other entirely white.

His eyes began to glow, and the light grew stronger and stronger, making the bats feel uncertain and afraid. 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.

Yaan's half-dead body began to recover. Slowly, the bats backed away, as an aura that truly frightened them started to exude from this bloodied body. The immortal saw this scene from above and furrowed his brows, suddenly feeling that something was seriously wrong!

Finally, Yaan's body recovered to its former state. He remained unconscious for now, but slowly, he drifted upright until he was facing forwards, before he gradually turned his gaze towards the sky.

The old immortal could not believe what he was seeing. He was so shocked that he could not move, he could not act, he could not even think!

In fact, Rui was also stunned. All she could do was watch as Yaan began to release…a complete pseudo-domain!

Gradually, a 'zone' formed around Yaan. The bats crazily flew away from that zone in fear, but Yaan slowly turned his head towards the fleeing beasts. He reached out with one hand, pointing towards the herd of Rank 6 beasts.

The beasts found themselves trapped in an illusion. They believed that they were frantically flying away from that terrifying 'zone', but in fact, they ended up flying directly into it!

Once in the zone, the beasts were no longer rampant. They dropped to the floor and trembled in fear, covering themselves, terrified of what they instinctively knew was to come.

Within the zone, which now surrounded Yaan for around 1000 feet in each direction, white illusions began to form around him. The last time he manifested a pseudo-domain, a chaotic mess of scenes from throughout his life appeared, with people he knew screaming at him to stop, and other such miserable things. Back then, those white illusions were constantly attacked by deep black cracks, as if they were being suppressed by a certain something.

Now, the domain had changed yet again.

The white figures were all Yaan.

Each white figure was reflected within Yaan's one white eye. Each version of himself showed a different emotion, from pain, to guilt, to anger, to regret, to sadness, to hatred, to self-loathing…

In the black eye, cold, callous ruthlessness destroyed these white figures of Yaan as they formed. Each of the emotional states displayed by these illusions of himself was crushed by the darkness of his ruthlessness, by the heartless state that he had convinced himself to pursue.

White figures of Yaan expressing every imaginable emotion manifested within the domain, whilst the black cracks destroyed those figures ruthlessly, not caring about how they felt or how much they were hurt in the process.

Yaan slowly looked around, now in a semi-lucid state. In this state, all he saw was an endless cycle of life and death…

Then he saw the bats which remained alive, not joining the cycle of life and death. He saw them resisting the natural order that he had dictated, causing him to feel that this was not right.

He pointed at the bats, and instantly, a grey mist was expelled from the centre of his brows, between his two eyes.

Life was white and pure, death was black and bleak, but killing was simply a transition, a greyness that could not be defined by either extremity of colour.

The grey gas made its way towards the bats. As the grey gas passed through the white figures, they died, then dissipated into white light and reformed elsewhere in the cycle. When the grey gas passed over the black cracks, the cracks would also disintegrate and 'die', before the shattered black specs reincarnated elsewhere, destroying another white figure.

Eventually, the grey gas built up a huge pressure, covering and surrounding the bats.

Even the old immortal above could not see exactly what was going on…but what he did see, was the bats completely vanishing after the grey gas passed over them. He saw that after the grey gas covered the bats, it left the cycle of life and death, before returning to the spot between Yaan's eyebrows.

The accumulated Slaughter Aura was directly channelled into Yaan's Sea of Consciousness. However, Yaan did not consciously decide to do this; in his dazed state, he ended up following his previous course of action without thinking, gathering all of the Slaughter Aura and moving it into his Sea of Consciousness.

After passing through each one of the Rank 6 beasts, the slaughterous grey gas finished its journey, returning to Yaan's body. After the grey gas had completely dissipated, the immortal was finally able to see the scene within Yaan's pseudo-domain.

The bats…had all died!

Their corpses all laid on the floor, unmoving and without a single trace of life. The corpses were completed undamaged by the grey gas, but they could not be anymore dead!

The domain had not weakened, but instead seemed to become stronger. The white figures which all possessed Yaan's appearance became more life-like, whilst the emotions they displayed as they were killed by the abyssal black cracks would cause people's hearts to shake when they looked at the figures for too long.

Slowly, Yaan looked up towards the old immortal.

The old immortal involuntarily flinched. In this moment, he realised that this 'mortal' could no longer be defined by common sense; he needed to be treated as if he was an immortal!

However, Yaan was not an immortal, meaning that according to the war flower law, immortals were forbidden from attacking him directly!

The immortal took another glance at Yaan, who continued to stare up at him in silence. One of his eyes remained black, the other white…when the immortal looked into these eyes, he could not help but shiver.

With that, the immortal departed.