To Bear the Weight

Yuan Zhen suddenly announced that he would be back, then left his core. Miss Huang and Ye Lingzi soon returned to their chatting, but with no idea of Yuan Zhen's thoughts.

He didn't want to say anything until he was absolutely sure. As things stood, Miss Huang was still a faceless skull-woman spirit in his core. He didn't even know exactly how she came to be there.

His only guess was that, when the inner region came to life in the form of a cicada, it had entered a struggle with Ye Lingzi's soul. Not wanting to engage in a lengthy battle, Yr Lingzi just allowed her to take over. After that, she used Yuan Zhen and the Soul Decimating Canon to get some soul energy, and then assumed her true form.

So, in simpler terms, the cicada, the living entity of the inner region, was Miss Huang. Miss Huang was the Infallible Race Empress, who was cast into a deep pit within the Inner Region after having been 'killed' by the Celestial Emperor. Somehow, a remnant of her soul remained and was able to come to life.

Coincidentally, she came back to life when Yuan Zhen was around.

Yuan Zhen decided to hold off on asking questions about Ye Huang until he gathered the evidence. He wanted to deal with the matter in the same day that he brought it up.

Completing his thinking, he then remembered that he had left Qi Zixie behind. Growing fearful, he flew back with even greater speed.

Arriving the sky above the Grotto, he perused the core region with enhanced vision. He flew down, back to the cave entrance, and started walking in. He met up with the pile of debris, but was able to easily melt the rock with his flame. Stepping over a pool of magma, he reappeared at the door.

Taking a quick look, he found that she really had disappeared. 'Maybe she woke up? Or did her soul really take action to spare her from that intense pressure?'

Just thinking back to that terrifying weight left him gasping for air. He felt like the pressure was still there on his body, somehow.

He ran back out, uncertain as to where he should search. "This seems like the perfect time to test it out."

He closed his eyes and immediately a large pulse of soul energy spread out from his body and covered the land. Miles upon miles of land were covered, allowing him to feel and sense everything that was happening.

Even the most minute detail was picked up by his acute sense, and as he kept sending out pulse after pulse, he kept painting a clearer picture in his mind.

Soon enough, it was like he was an omnipresent existence within that space of almost a twenty thousand miles. He covered most of the Grotto, and was able to focus on every single thing thanks to him taking inspiration from human technology.

Their sensory capabilities with sonar and such had inspired him to apply his soul power in a new way. Now that he had an abundance of it, he could easily pull it off.

Still, despite his best efforts, he could not locate Qi Zixie. What he did find was ab anomaly. Somewhere within the Grotto, space was constantly twisting, winding, tearing, diverging and converging.

As he tried to properly sense that area, the image in his mind would begin to form but then reset. Due to that, he was caught in an endless loop and unable to properly sense it with his soul.

He flew over to it, arriving in a distant border between the inner region and the core region. Here, too, there were many giant mushrooms and large, decaying shrubs.

He landed atop a significantly smaller, bluish mushroom, staring right at the anomaly he had detected.

It was, perhaps, the strangest thing he had ever seen. A bright wave, like white water, was dancing in the air. As it moved, it seemed to leave behind dozens of afterimages, but would then seem to appear in the place of each afterimage. It gave off the appearance that the afterimages weren't truly afterimages, making one think there really were multiple waves.

As for the space around it, Yuan Zhen noticed that cracks were beginning to form. There was an inconsistency in the strength of the space he was in and the space beyond that wave. Due to that, the power leaking out of it was destroying the weaker space of the Grotto.

Yuan Zhen approached with intent to step through it, but stopped when he saw long, blue-black hairs coming from the other end.

In the brightness of the portal, Yuan Zhen saw Qi Zixie in all her feminine glory, immediately thinking, 'Where are her clothes?'

Her eyes were glowing with the same intensity and color of the portal, but there was a noticeable trace of blue in them. As soon as she stepped back into the Grotto, the portal vanished and space healed. At the same time, her eyes dimmed and returned to their usual state.

"Lord Yuan." She immediately bowed, but Yuan Zhen conjured up a dress and threw it at her.

"Cover up first, don't bring shame to your head by prostrating your naked self before me."

With wide eyes and a slight blush, she put on the black dress. It was a bit tight in the chest area, but Yuan Zhen immediately tweaked it while it was still on her body. "I did not know you were such a great tailor."

Yuan Zhen shook his head and chuckled, "I'm really not."

"Now that you're clothed... What was that just now l, Zixie." She took a breath, then held out an open palm. Tiny snowflakes formed from the air, just above her palm, and began to fall.

Before Yuan Zhen's very eyes, Qi Zixie made a fist with the same palm and froze the space around the snowflakes. They were now trapped in an endless loop of falling, but would never reach any lower.

"I've actually reached the peak of Soul Nourishing. Thanks to that, I awakened something within my soul. Now, my power has transformed into an ability that scares even me." With a small smile, Qi Zixie looked at Yuan Zhen and weighed his reaction.

Besides an elated grin, there was nothing else- not even a trace of surprise.

"The thing is, Zixie, I sensed that thing in your soul some time ago. I didn't know exactly what it was- actually I still don't- but I do know that, once you form an immortal spirit, your powers will become something of a divine might."

"There's a power sleeping inside you that makes me even more excited to see you grow stronger." Yuan Zhen suddenly took the portion of frozen space in his hand, staring at it closely.

"In another world, this could be deemed a snow globe-- albeit a highly sophisticated snow globe." Taking her hand, Yuan Zhen led Zixie through the air while also answering her questions about snow globes.

Since he was flying at a leisurely pace, they arrived back at the mountain after half an hour. Qi Zixie could sense that something had changed in the Grotto, so Yuan Zhen did some explaining before he continuing his flight.

Seeing that Yuan Zhen was flying to the very top of the tallest mountain, Qi Zixie asked, "What do you think is up there?"

"I don't know. Maybe nothing. We'll never know unless we go check." Yuan Zhen had been holding her but the arm and using his energy to help her float alongside him. Now, though, she pulled herself toward him and then moved around to his chest.

Once there, she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a sheepish smile. Yuan Zhen found it a sudden, but did not object. He held her up and carried her as if she were a delicate princess.

She finally took notice of the white hairs on his head. They were a bit hidden beneath all the black, but she could see them now that she was closer. "Your body has really changed quite a bit."

Yuan Zhen nodded, then increased his speed. They made it to the top, only to find a single marked tablet lying on the floor. It was impossible to tell how long it had been there, but Yuan Zhen could sense a primeval energy lingering in the etched characters.

As he was about to pick it up, he realized that it was actually quite heavy... No, saying it was quite heavy was inaccurate.

It was massively substantial. So much so that he could not even lift an inch of it off the ground. He began to pour energy into his arms and legs, even calling upon the strength of his blood and soul. Altogether, he barely managed to lift a single corner of the stone tablet.

"What is this thing? It's actually so heavy?" Qi Zixie curiously went over to it and bent down. Just to gauge how heavy it was, she put a finger and tried to push it.

As if fate was trying to completely humiliate Yuan Zhen, the stone tablet shifted after being pushed by her finger. His jaw fell flat on the floor, and Qi Zixie began to giggle.

"Lord Yuan, I didn't know you were such a jokester."

Yuan Zhen watched on with saucers for eyes, unable to even form words. His mind was trying to calculate just how strong Qi Zixie would have to be in order to casually hold up that tablet. What made it even more unbelievable was the fact that she was treating it as though it was nothing.

"Please, Zixie, don't mess around here. How much of your power are you actually using?" Yuan Zhen calmed down, wanting to fully grasp the disparity between him and her.

What he did not expect was, subsequent to his question, she threw it in the air and then caught and balanced it on one finger. "Power? It's lighter than a feather."

Yuan Zhen began to panic, thinking that he had completely lost to his Lieutenant. How was he supposed to comfortably call himself her superior? He recognized that there was a difference in their cultivation, but he could never have fathomed that she would be leagues above him.

Qi Zixie, still thinking he had been messing around, tossed the tablet over to him. Almost yelping in fright, he dodged. He looked back over to see the tablet fall onto the ground without so much as a tiny cloud of dust.

He gulped, then bent down and tricked to push it with his finger like she had done. Instead, he felt like his finger was about to be bent the wrong way.

"This can't be... Zixie, just how powerful have you become?" In the midst of his fake sobbing, Zixie picked the tablet up with a questioning look.

Yuan Zhen sighed, stepping closer to her. "Maybe if I do this, it will feel like I'm actually holding it up."

He put his hands below the tablet, bringing them up and placing them below it. As soon as he touched it, the weight of the tablet increased by at least a billion times. Both he and Zixie were brought low and forced to let go of it before there fingers were crushed.

Yuan Zhen was shocked, but his first thought was to thank the higher powers. He truly was not that weak.

"It seems to not like you touching it..." Qi Zixie snickered, but Yuan Zhen was taken up with something else.

When he had held it just down, he had felt that same pressure from before. The weight of myriad worlds crashing down on him. The list peculiar point was that his soul was also under that pressure.

He eyed the tablet strangely, then unleashed a torrent of soul power that surrounded his body. He thought back to the words in the book, just before the cataclysm occurred:

"Receive the inheritance; take on the mantle of the Infallible Race, the Primordial Beasts and all of Hell."

As he ruminated over those words, his eighth manifestation took action on its own. Appearing in front of him were three spheres, each of them having different energies.

Once they appeared, Yuan Zhen felt like his body was swelling up rapidly. His strength skyrocketed, boosting his confidence along with it.

The more he focused on what King Yan had written for him, and the longer he basked in the energies of the three spheres, the more strength he felt in his muscles and bones.

'...take on the mantle of the Infallible Race, the Primordial Beasts and all of Hell.'

With a vicious roar, Yuan Zhen's fangs enlarged and his horns lengthened. His eyes glowed red, giving him the personage of a bloodthirsty devil.