Trampling the Heavens

"Sister, what exactly is your plan here? Why are you showing brother this beast of tribulation?" The Spirit Plane Lord glanced at her sister and voiced her doubts, before turning back down and watching Yaan, who remained silent whilst riding on the back of the mad elephant.

"Do you remember what I told you back then, sister, when I spoke of the most important qualities that a person must possess if they wish to cultivate their own dao?" The Primordial Sage replied, not answering the question directly, but instead posing one of her own.

The Spirit Plane Lord nodded slowly. She knew what her sister was talking about, because this theory of hers had become quite popular amongst the divinities. In fact, even those whom they now knew to be outsiders had praised this concept in the past.

"There are two important qualities that a person must possess if they wish to complete their dao heart. Rationality…and madness."

"Correct." The Primordial Sage replied. "These qualities can be seen in every individual with a completed dao heart. The ratio of rationality to madness varies, but all powerful beings must possess a rational heart filled with madness."

"That's not quite true, sister…there is no madness in your heart, only pure rationality."

The Primordial Sage became silent for a moment. She didn't reply to her sister's comment, because there was no need to.

Her theory of the two crucial qualities was widely accepted amongst the elite, but there were exceptions to every rule – and she was the exception. The Primordial Sage…was entirely rational.

However, this only meant that her rationality was so extreme that it was able to compensate for her complete lack of madness.

The Spirit Plane Lord fell into thought as she watched Yaan and the mad elephant down below. After pondering her sister's words for some time, she finally spoke, but she sounded uncertain.

"There could also be another exception to the rule…a person whose heart is enveloped by madness. Sister, are you saying that brother's heart is one of pure madness, and that is why you wanted to show him this mad elephant…?"

"No." The Sage denied this immediately. "In the past, brother's heart was filled with madness, but even back then, he still had rationality. Now, his heart has changed, and I believe that he will become even more rational compared to the past. However…the madness in his heart has been extinguished. He needs to be reminded of the madness that once drove him."

The Primordial Sage spoke emotionlessly, but her eyes shone with a brilliant light, a light so terrifying that it often appeared in the nightmares of countless powerhouses throughout the four planes.

The Primordial Sage was a being of pure rationality; she contradicted her own rule. Nobody knew why she was this way. Nobody knew how she became this way. Many said that she had always been like this, and that this was simply her nature…others firmly believed that it was impossible for any sentient living being to be born like this, without a trace of emotion in their heart.

Perhaps only the Primordial Sage knew the truth…or perhaps, even she did not know the truth behind her own emotionless heart.

Yaan knew that he was being watched by the two women up above. He couldn't see them, or even sense their presence, but he knew that they were there. He knew that they each had their thoughts, their schemes. He knew that what they said aloud might not be the same as what they truly thought.

But he couldn't find it in him to care. Even after deciding that he wanted to learn about himself, to discover who he really was and what he really wanted…he found that his drive was lacking.

He didn't fear death, in fact, he wasn't even averse to the thought of dying. He had found a hint of desire in his desolate heart, but right now, that desire lacked a certain something…

He didn't yet know what it was, but Yaan could see that 'something' in the mad elephant's gaze.

Yaan sat on the elephant's back in silence.

Like this, several months passed by.

He wasn't sure why he wanted to ride the mad elephant. Perhaps, it was because he felt a sense of kinship with this creature, which was similar to him in that it was born of a tribulation.

Of course, they weren't exactly the same. The mad elephant was born from a Heavenly Tribulation, and its purpose had already been fulfilled. Yaan, on the other hand, was born from the Primordial Devil's own internal heart tribulation, and that tribulation…was not yet over.

Yaan observed the path taken by the elephant as it travelled. After several months passed by, he realised that they had unknowingly ended up back where they started. This was quite a strange feeling, because they had only been moving forwards this whole time. However, the mad elephant was clearly used to it by now.

Without so much as pausing, the elephant trudged on.

"Little elephant…why do you go on?" Yaan finally spoke in a soft voice.

The beast didn't reply. Honestly, Yaan didn't know if it was able to reply, but he knew that it could understand him. Even so, the elephant didn't even acknowledge that he had asked a question, it simply stuck to its path without a second thought.

"Little elephant…isn't it painful? Doesn't it hurt, to keep walking, hurting everyone around you, hurting yourself…and for what? What hope is there…? What point is there in suffering like this…?"

The elephant remained silent, taking another step.

Yaan glanced down at the elephant's legs as it moved. He noticed it when he first sat atop its back, and he saw it again now…the beast's legs were shaking.

It had been walking for far, far too long. Most of its comrades lasted for less than a day, others lasted for a few days, but none of them lasted for more than a single year. But the mad elephant…had been walking for thousands of years.

Its legs had been trembling for thousands of years. Each step it took was draining its life essence. Every time it moved its leg, its body was wracked with pain. This had been its life for as long as it could remember, it didn't know anything else…and it didn't know if anything would ever change.

Without making a sound, the elephant walked on.

Yaan sighed deeply and looked up at the scorching sun.

"Little elephant, what hope could you possibly have with a life like this…in a world like this? Do you hope that one day, the pain will fade away? Do you hope to overcome your fate, to spit in the face of the Heavens that condemned you to this path? Or is it…something else?"

The elephant's footsteps remained unchanged. It was unmoved by Yaan's questions, showing that clearly, nothing he said had hit the mark.

Yaan laughed at himself.

"You've been walking for so long now, I'm sure that you've thought of all these things. You must have questioned your heart and your desires many times over the years. There's almost nothing I can say that you haven't already considered yourself, and yet, you still continue to walk…"

The elephant remained silent, but somehow, Yaan felt like now, it was paying attention to what he was saying.

"There's no hatred in your eyes, little elephant. Your other elephant friends hated the Heavens, but not you. The other elephants felt pride and success when they outlived the others, but you stopped caring about love and hate. The others lived on in the hope that one day, the pain would end, but you…do not seek an end to the pain…"

Yaan became silent for a while, before asking once again:

"Little elephant…why do you go on?"

The elephant did not respond, but its silence this time caused Yaan to remember something.

He remembered the times that he had struggled in his life, the times that he had fought through adversity, persevering through the pain as he walked along his path.

He remembered how, back when he was living in the Fragment Sect and was being tested by the Fragment of Qi, he had cultivated like a madman. That was the first time that he had touched upon a certain path…

The path of endless perseverance.

Ordinary cultivators were willing to endure difficulties, because they knew that one day, those difficulties would end.

Impressive cultivators were willing to fight through hardship, even when they weren't certain that the pain would end – the hope and possibility was enough for them.

But very few could be considered extraordinary – extraordinary cultivators were willing to put themselves through suffering, without ever hoping for their suffering to end. Very few would not only endure hardship, but actively seek it out, without ever hoping for a reprieve from their struggle.

Yaan had touched upon this path early on in life, giving him a rare mindset and diligence that had allowed him to persevere, despite the many difficulties that he was made to face.

He was reminded of all this as he watched the mad elephant walk, silently, alone, with a calm madness in its gaze that refused to be extinguished.

"I see…little elephant, you walk because you walk…you continue on because it's all you have ever known…you don't walk in the hope of outrunning the pain…but because you want to become stronger than the painful fate that binds you to this endless walk…"

As Yaan's words entered the elephant's ears, its body visibly trembled…but it did not slow down.

It could be moved by his words…but it could not stop, it could not change its path.

The mad elephant didn't care about the pain. The mad elephant did not pray for an end to its suffering. The mad elephant only wanted to see how far it could walk…and just where, if anywhere, this endless trek would lead it.

A nostalgic expression appeared on Yaan's face as he watched the mad elephant and found himself recalling his own past. He remembered the madness that he had felt back then, driving him to persevere!

However, that madness had been extinguished when he realised that all of his resistance, all of his ambition, was just a joke. He had been played with by fate and by those stronger than him, and by the time he finally learned the truth about his own existence, he no longer had any reason to go on.

Yaan finally understood why it was that he had felt such burning madness back then, and why it was that the mad elephant could persevere with this same madness for so long…

It was simple – ambition.

In the past, Yaan had an ambition. He wanted to seek answers, he wanted to unveil the mysteries surrounding his life, he wanted to understand the 'fate' that always seemed to toy with him, he wanted to understand why all of this was happening to him, and he wanted…to overcome it!

But that ambition could no longer drive him, because he had already found his answers, and he now knew that all of his previous 'defiance' in the face of his cursed fate was simply his own delusion. He failed to achieve anything other than uncovering the truth – but that truth was nothing worth continuing on for.

"Ambition…" Yaan muttered as he leaned back on the elephant's back and stared up at the sun in the sky. "What is it that I want…? Is there anything in this world that can still drive me, like my ambition did back then…?"

Although he only muttered this to himself, Yaan heard a snort come from below him. The elephant finally responded to something he said – and its response was to mock him with a disdainful snort.

Yaan chuckled and smiled as he stared up at the sun above him. He didn't look at the elephant, but the mad elephant could still hear the teasing tone of voice that he used to speak down to it.

"Little elephant, you think yourself better than me because I lost my madness, whilst you have clung onto yours. But little elephant, did you know that you're not even one ten thousandth as mad as I was back then? You may have been walking for thousands of years, resisting your inevitable fate…but so what? Because if it was the me of back then, I wouldn't have allowed the Heavens to force me to walk for thousands of years in the first place!"

For the first time in its life, the mad elephant felt a surge of anger in its heart due to the taunting words of another. It had always been mocked, teased and spoken down to, but those empty words had never bothered it before…but when Yaan spoke, his words were filled with a palpable killing intent, and a confidence that let the mad elephant know that he was genuinely telling the truth!

Yaan could feel the anger seeping into the elephant's aura silently. He once again laughed lightly.

"Little elephant, you're not mad at all! Because a truly mad elephant would not walk endlessly along the ground, silently enduring the Heavenly Dao's wrath…a truly mad elephant would storm into the sky and trample over the sun, over the Heavens, and over its own damned fate!"

Suddenly…the elephant stopped.

For the first time in thousands of years – no, for the first time since it was born into this world – the mad elephant stopped walking!

Instantly, the trembling throughout the elephant's body became countless times stronger. It only stopped moving for the briefest of moments, but this pause in its footsteps caused an immense aura of death to shroud its body.

Yaan was slightly startled. He could feel that if the elephant didn't start moving again within the next half second, it would immediately die!

He didn't expect his words to have such a great impact on the elephant, but this was only the beginning.

When the mad elephant heard the mocking words of the strange child on its back, it was immediately filled with a burning rage. At first, this was a rage towards the child who teased it, despite this child clearly being broken beyond repair.

However, the elephant could tell that the child's words contained a powerful truth. And this truth was that…it was not nearly mad enough! This truth told it that, for all these years, it had not been walking the correct path!

As soon as the elephant realised this, its heart trembled and it stopped walking. It felt the aura of death creeping over it as its Life Essence was taken back by the Heavens, but this only caused the madness in its heart to grow stronger.

It no longer felt rage towards the strange child, but nor did it feel rage towards the Heavens. The elephant felt rage…towards itself!

The boy was right…all this time, it believed that it had been walking the correct path by persevering for so long, but did it really want to walk the path of simply enduring?

It did not!

The elephant wanted to walk as far along its path as possible, but if it continued walking across the ground, it would continue to remain trapped in this cycle which bound it to the earth.

Bang!

After a brief pause, the elephant finally took a step, moving once again. However, its foot did not land on the bleached sand, but for the first time, the elephant stepped on the air itself!

Bang, bang, bang…

After taking four steps, the elephant completely left the ground. Its legs were trembling many times more violently compared to before; it was struggling to hold itself upright. However, the elephant did not stop.

Step after step, with each step causing explosive ripples to echo through the world. The elephant steadily rose higher and higher, until eventually, Yaan realised where it was heading…

The fake sun which had always lingered above its head, bearing down on it with the pressure of the Heavens, whilst forever reminding the mad elephant of its cursed origins.

The sun in sky above this white bleached desert was not a real sun. There was no longer any sort of 'real sun' anywhere on the Spirit Plane - within this fragment of the Central Layer, the sky was illuminated by a splendid golden light which originated from the light itself.

The sun above this desert was formed after the golden vortex, which manifested the 10,000 elephants of tribulation, disappeared, transforming from their birthplace and into their life's curse.

This sun had caused the forest to be burned into sand, and the sand to bleached white. This sun was responsible for the mad elephant's entire body being burned black…this sun was the cause of the pressure which had always weighed down on the mad elephant's body and soul, forcing it to constantly walk, because if the elephant ever stopped, this sun would burn it to ash, just like all of its fallen brethren!

"Little elephant…" Yaan murmured dazedly as he stared up at the sun. He could feel the elephant's madness, which had suddenly exploded outwards in its aura, finally showcasing the desire which had been locked within its heart for all of these years…the desire which Yaan had unknowingly helped it to finally release.

Slowly, a smile spread across Yaan's face. He showed no sign of moving, but remained seated on the elephant's back.

"You are indeed a mad elephant after all."

BOOM!

The mad elephant's foot landed on the sun, causing violent shockwaves to erupt in all directions. The aura of the Heavenly Dao exploded out with wrathful vengeance, storming towards the mad elephant and trying to force it into submission - into death.

The mad elephant's heart trembled, and for a moment, it felt something that it had not felt in a long, long time – fear. Only the Heavenly Dao could make it feel this way, because the Heavenly Dao was both its creator, and its lifelong oppressor.

Perhaps, were the circumstances different, then the mad elephant would have fallen here. However, just as its heart was trembling in trepidation, for some reason, it suddenly became acutely aware of the presence of the strange child on its back…

This strange child had appeared from nowhere, then sat on its back and started asking it bizarre questions, before eventually taunting and teasing it, making it realise how its madness had been lacking all this time.

And now, despite it charging into the sun, which contained the will of the Heavenly Dao and the wrath of the Heavens' vengeance, this child remained seated on its back…and clearly, the strange child had no intention of moving.

This was incomprehensible to the elephant, but it could only accept the truth which was playing out before its very eyes, or rather, atop it charred back - somehow, this strange child did not fear the world-shaking wrath of the Heavenly Dao!

When the mad elephant thought about that kid and his teasing tone, it suddenly felt unwilling.

How strange was this, that the Heavenly Dao - its lifelong oppressor - could shake its heart…but some damned kid could fill its heart with an even stronger feeling, a burning sense of unwillingness, a feeling so powerful that the mad elephant actually roared out loud as it continued to trample on the sun, with two legs, then three, and then four?!

Yaan shut his eyes as the explosive flames of the Heavenly Sun encompassed him. He felt the Heaven's wrath, directed towards the mad elephant beneath him, and he felt the elephant's madness exploding out, both towards the Heavens…and towards himself.

Gradually, Yaan opened his eyes. His vision was filled with scolding fire as the elephant continued to trample over the sun. The mad elephant roared out with a deafening bellow, a bellow filled with its life-long desire to overcome its cursed fate!

But somehow, these Heavenly Flames which were imbued with the Heavenly Dao's Will, did not affect Yaan in the slightest…

Any other living creature would be overcome by this Heavenly assault, but Yaan was no ordinary living creature…in fact, due to him existing only as a Dao Soul with an illusory body…the Heavenly Dao no longer saw him as a 'living being'.

Living beings possessed physical bodies, energy, souls, and minds; even if they lacked one, two or three of these three components, they would still always possess at least one of these forms.

But Yaan no longer possessed any of these things. Whilst it might seem like he had a body, or perhaps a soul, or a mind…these were all illusions of his own creation. In the eyes of the Heavenly Dao, he lacked any of the four aspects which gave a being the qualification to be considered a 'life'.

In the eyes of the Heavenly Dao, Yaan…was simply not a living being.

As such, the explosive, wrathful power of the Heavens, simply blew over him like a passing breeze.

However, Yaan could feel that for some reason, he had been dragged into the mad elephant's struggle against the Heavens! When he realised that this was due to half of the elephant's madness now being directed towards himself, he felt bewildered for a moment, before he burst out laughing. He couldn't help but shake his head with a smile.

"It seems that no matter where I go, no matter what I do, I always end up having a big impact on everything and everyone around me…for better or for worse, my presence in this world affects others to a strange degree. Oh mad elephant, I am not your enemy…stop wasting your efforts on resisting me, and trample the Heavens that have forever oppressed you!"

After a brief pause, during which time the elephant was clearly processing his words, the mad elephant finally let out a deafening roar. This roar was more ferocious than anything it had released before now, and it targeted the sun directly, without anything else distracting it from its one true target.

This roar was so immense, that the flames of the exploding sun started to tremble.

All of the elephant's struggle, its desire to break free from its constraints, and its ambition to see its path through to the end, erupted from its body in an aura so maddening that the flames which were previously burning away its body, actually started to retreat!

Yaan closed his eyes and focussed on this feeling.

As the flames which should have spelled the mad elephant's inevitable demise were somehow fought back, Yaan could feel the aura of madness erupting all around him.

'This madness…this is the feeling of striving for your ambition, walking along your path, without a care for anything else. This feeling is one that I used to possess in abundance, but now, my heart has turned dull. This feeling of madness, I remember it now…I think that perhaps, I…I want to find something in my life so grand that it is worthy of filling my heart with this feeling of madness…I want to find something that is genuinely worth pursuing; something real, something that is truly mine and mine alone…and unlike before, this something will not be based on delusion, it will not be influenced by any external factors…I want to find something real…'

As Yaan's thoughts travelled along this path, facilitated by the madness of an aura emanating from below him that was in the midst of resisting its life-long Heavenly Fate, he finally felt like he had understood something about himself.

'I understand now. I want to find my own ambition.'

Yaan's eyes shot open as he was struck by this epiphany, right as the elephant finally took its first step past the flames of the sun…

The explosive wrath vanished in an instant. As Yaan sat on the mad elephant's back with a calm expression, the elephant stepped past the Heavenly Sun, and for the first time in its life, it stopped walking - it truly stopped walking, not for a brief moment, and not with the intention of immediately moving once again…the mad elephant stopped walking, and dazedly looked out at the unmoving world around it.

The flames of the Heavens had vanished, and the mad elephant was no longer afflicted by the pressure which had bound it for all of its life. The elephant stood there in a daze, looking around at the world, as if seeing it for the first time.

The Spirit Plane Lord stared down at this scene in shock.

"Impossible, the mad elephant, the beast of tribulation…actually overcame its Heavenly Fate?"

The Primordial Sage however, was not looking at the mad elephant. Instead, she watched Yaan intently as her eyes shone with a brilliant green light.

"With this, the first spark of madness within his heart has been formed. It is only a matter of time before this spark grows brighter, igniting a new fire, a fire which will set alight the dormant madness within his heart, the madness which is waiting to be engulfed by the flames of his heart's new path - his heart's true path."

When the Spirit Plane Lord listened to her sister's assessment, she couldn't help but feel hopeful about the future. There were still many things that worried her, such as the fact that Yaan had sworn a dao oath to never again step foot onto the path of cultivation, but if her sister the Sage said that their 'brother' would reestablish his heart, a heart that would be even more true to himself than his previously completed dao heart of pride, then she whole-hearted believed her.

The Spirit Plane Lord thought that her 'brother' was discovering and pursuing a superior path compared to his path of the past, but only the Primordial Sage knew that in reality, Yaan was not their brother.

Yaan was not trying to improve upon his seemingly flawed dao heart, but truly starting over, from the most fundamental of beginnings. For the first time in his life, his heart was no longer distorted by various illusions, and the Primordial Sage had no intention of getting in the way of his development right now. She fully intended to observe the development of the most unique dao heart in this world, from his current beginning, up until the day that he realised his true self.

Nobody truly understood the Primordial Sage and her motives, but she was most famous across the four planes for one thing in particular - observing. She observed anything and everything that she could, as if she was obsessed with learning as much about absolutely everything in this world as feasibly possible. It was her constant observation of countless happenings and lives throughout the four planes since the beginning of the 2nd Origin Era, that had allowed her intelligence and knowledge to develop to such a ridiculous extent.

Defiance Sovereign knew things about the outside world that nobody else knew, but when it came to everything within the 2nd Origin Era, nobody was more knowledgeable than the Primordial Sage.

However, even the Primordial Sage, the most intelligent being across the four planes, still could not predict the direction that Yaan's development would take.