I know this is late and that you already finished RI, but I see this question a lot even though its answered early in the novel. you should check out chapter 436, it perfectly explain it.

dude, you binged 1200 chapters and still don't understand his character? you should reread chapters 436 and 567(and many others) if you still think he is afraid of death and to better understand his motivation for immortality. I mean no offense, it's just that understanding the mc's character will enhance your reading experience.

he had a thousand not 10k

you are forgetting that these are the main SS split souls that have been around for 100 thousand years, and I'm not saying that ss would have shared everything with them, I'm only saying that they should be aware that SC merged with HW considering that it was their major enemy and that it was such crucial information. even if you were right, you also forgot that they had a way to contact the main body, which was the will in the river of time. in fact, I remember that purple contacted the will when he awakened which is foreshadowing that ethier SS will didn't tell purple and thus he was ignorant or he did tell him but he failed intentionally according to plan. HW merging with dream realms was the main cause of SS "defeat", purple's "plan" was to create many dream clones which one would hide SS and then escape, but because HW merged with dream realms duke long was able to know which one had SS and thus "capture him".

as for giant sun, his foreshadowing is that he placed wisdom gu in his inheritance space in the 88 yang building. now this decision doesn't make sense unless he left for someone special because why else would he put it in the inheritance space when no mortal could ever inherit it and not in a safer place like longevity heaven. in fact, I remember someone in the comments saying that it's a plot hole that giant sun left wisdom gu there when no one can take it and that it was convenient for the mc.

I have to disagree with you that it's a retcon. because while the author couldn't have planned the entire plot from the beginning, I still think that there was enough foreshadowing that the plot was heading in this direction. the foreshadowing for spectral soul was in the form of purple. think about it, when purple died by the hands of duke long we knew that star constellation merged with heavens will, but the problem is, how did purple not know that already when spectral soul already knew? now we know that spectral soul knew about star constellation merging with HW because we saw it in the flashbacks at the end of V.4(it was vague then). another point is also how wouldn't he know about HW merging with dream realms when he researched them both for a hundred thousand years. both points wouldn't make sense unless SS failed intentionally.

no, it was stated before that he was not able to be a venerable in the last life. "In my first life, even though Shadow Sect's grand plan succeeded and Spectral Soul revived, he seemed to have been unable to regain the status of a venerable. Moreover, Shadow Sect had retained its strength but Spectral Soul still chose to fight Heavenly Court in the dark, while supporting other forces. This proved Heavenly Court's strength was difficult for even Spectral Soul to confront head-on at that time!"-chapter 1437

when was it said that the call of the ancients was from a stone lotus island? I only remember it being a killer move from red lotus. can you quote me the chapter?