A Melancholic Sigh

"You were right Old 4th, this kid really is going to attempt a perfect completion of the True-False Illusion Trial!" Outside of the illusion world, the red-haired woman's eyes shone as she stared into the formation excitedly.

"This will soon end. As Elder Shia says, it seems that he really did decide to attempt the most reckless and crazed method imaginable…" The stern man nodded in agreement.

"Agreed." The masked man added. The others waited for a moment, but it seemed that he had nothing else to say.

"There's no guarantee that he will succeed!" A giant of a man spoke in a deep voice, which sounded almost like the growling of a savage beast. If Yaan were to see this 17 feet tall behemoth, with dark skin and countless black tattoos, he would immediately recognise him as a member of the Aztec Tribe. "The first step towards achieving perfection in any trial, is to understand the core purpose of the trial itself. This child clearly understands that the trial's purpose is to present us with the opportunity to take the first step onto the path of Psyche Power cultivation! And yet…"

Six of the nine beings present looked a bit gloomy after hearing what the Aztec man said, including the Aztec man himself, whilst the other three just sighed and ignored them.

Those individuals, who were the inhabitants of the 9th layer, had attempted this trial in the past, yet not one of them had managed to achieve 'perfection'.

They failed to grasp the opportunity of the trial, none of them had managed to step onto the path of psyche cultivation.

"You know, I bet he could have achieved a Mid Grade score back when the trial started!" The young looking girl with purple pig tails giggled. "But he's so weird, he realised it was all fake, he knew that he had the strength to break himself free, but he chose to follow along with the illusion! A weirdo, a real weirdo!"

"And how is that weird?" The stern man looked at her disapprovingly. She stuck out her tongue and folded her arms. The way she acted was ordinary for a child…but this girl had not been a child for over 400 years now, acting this way was very strange.

Ignoring her childish response, the stern man rubbed his beard as he continued to lecture her.

"Breaking out from the illusion by force is only slightly better than the worst method! Well, at least it is an active effort…" He glanced at the young girl as he said this, making her cough and look away. She was embarrassed that he'd brought this up again…

When she attempted this trial back then, she completely lost herself. She ended up following her past fate, because she was deluded by the illusion from start to finish. In the end, she only managed to escape from the illusion world thanks to dumb luck, resulting in her obtaining the worst Entry Grade evaluation.

The girl drooped, sighing sadly. Seeing this, the stern man smiled slightly, before turning back to the formation.

"His plan should be to devour the remaining fragment of his real mind, whilst simultaneously devouring the entire mind of his illusory self."

"Will that actually work though? Won't he die as soon as he losses all traces of his real mind?" The red-haired woman asked uncertainly.

"Not necessarily. It's possible that after devouring an inhabitant of the illusory world, his mental awareness could reach a height at which he is able to fuse his real and illusory minds back into one. At that point, the illusory world would become distorted from its fated path, turning into an illusion that he could easily walk out from! Of course, this is all just my speculation…"

The woman who spoke was an official spirit of the 4th Trial Realm, just like the old man and the devil spirit.

The six inhabitants of the 9th layer didn't dare look down on these three spirits, because they possessed direct authority over the 4th Trial Realm. So, when the female spirit proposed her theory, everyone nodded in response, even though she expressed her uncertainty towards her own speculation.

Everyone assumed that Yaan was going to attempt something like this; devouring his younger illusory self and retrieving the final fragment of his mind from reality to overcome the illusion.

In fact, this was also the path that Rui had been pushing Yaan towards for the past five years…

However, the old spirit, who had remained silent until now, said something that left everyone feeling stunned.

"You seem to be forgetting that this child is not satisfied with perfection - he is striving for something beyond. Completing the illusory trial in the manor that you all just spoke of, is clearly perfect…he will not be satisfied with this conclusion."

After a brief silence, the young girl excited exclaimed:

"Then what's he gonna do, what's he gonna do?!"

"That…" The old man pondered on it, but eventually sighed and shook his head. "How could I predict something that hardly even makes sense…surpassing perfection, what does that mean, and how could we even judge such a thing?"

At this point, the devil spoke up in his deep and gruff voice.

"Predicting his plan is not possible, but master once mentioned something to me. Throughout the universe, any major trial which is graded by the standard system, is never actually considered in terms of the Apex Grade. There are countless criteria for the prior grades, but nothing is clear regarding the apex."

"Isn't that because it's just a theoretical attainment, and surpassing perfection isn't actually possible?" The female spirit asked curiously. The devil spirit was far more knowledgable than herself, so she trusted his judgement more than her own assumptions.

"No, it does happen. Master witnessed such a thing, and more than once. He didn't tell me much, but he did say one thing…he said that there is simply no need to create criteria to judge whether or not an Apex Grade was achieved, because when a trial is completed in such a way that the participant transcends perfection itself, it becomes clear to all witnesses that the impossible has been achieved. There is no room for doubt when this happens, so trying to assess such a performance via preconceived criteria is impossible."

The devil spirit's words made everyone fall deep into thought. Even now however, they still didn't understand how perfection could be surpassed.

Back in the True-False Illusion World…

Yaan didn't know that his plan to surpass perfection had been realised by nine mysterious onlookers, but he wouldn't much care anyway. He had long since guessed that at least someone should be watching him undergo this trial.

However, the onlookers only grew increasingly bewildered as Yaan slowed down, now calmly jogging behind his younger self like a shadow.

Yaan's form had become even more illusory than before. If previously, he went unnoticed by the illusory world and its inhabitants, then now, the fading of his existence was being reflected in the outside world!

It was become increasingly difficult for the trial spirits to keep track of Yaan within the illusion world…

But Yaan's mind remained clear. As he followed his younger self, whilst his body became more and more illusory, he found himself thinking about everything that had happened over these past five years.

Rui…

Rui was clearly an outlier in this world - she had realised early on that she was an illusion. More importantly, Rui had diverged from her original path, or at least, a divergent copy of her was created by the illusion world.

Yaan fully believed that Rui had discovered the 'perfect solution' to this trial.

It's not that Yaan was overly suspicious of Rui, but he understood her methods better than she realised.

Rui was a scheming demon. She was the one who taught Yaan to only look out for himself in this world, so naturally, he understood that she also lived by this principle.

This point was reinforced in Yaan's mind when Rui started to 'warm up' to him.

When two people spent a long period of time by one another's side, especially throughout a complex situation such as this illusion, it would be quite normal for them to grow closer. However…Rui was not an ordinary person.

Her cold attitude towards him had changed by a barely noticeable amount over the last five years. This change, which he knew could only be an act, proved to him that she was scheming against him, manipulating him for her own benefit.

When she revealed information to him…when she sighed, expressing vague traces of emotion…when she pushed him towards certain conclusions…when she helped him…when she allowed him to take risks…

All of this was calculated.

Unfortunately, Yaan was still inferior to Rui when it came to scheming, he simply wasn't old enough to compare with her. He was unable to guess what exactly it was that she wanted. So, he had put those thoughts aside and enjoyed discussing matters with her, since doing this expanded his world view and his understanding of many things.

It was only when they reached Heavenly Path Mountain, that Yaan noticed something significant.

When he looked at his younger self, a faint green illusory string manifested from nowhere, connecting the two of them together. The string faded away from his sight after a few moments, but Yaan had the distinct feeling that it still existed.

Thankfully, despite all of the chaotic developments, Yaan had kept an eye on Rui throughout. Because of this, he saw her gaze flash for a brief moment. From this, Yaan guessed that a green string might have also appeared between Rui and her other self. Unfortunately, it seemed that Yaan was only able to see the string connecting himself to his younger self.

In the next moment, he noticed the flash of an even fainter green string, between himself and Rui!

Stunned, Yaan had glanced at the other Rui, realising that he could now see the string connecting her to her other self! No, there were two…three…

When he saw the green strings connected them all to one another, Yaan glanced at Rui again, only to find that her calm demeanour had already returned. Yaan had felt bitter…if she was hiding this from him right from the beginning, then she definitely wouldn't explain it, even if he asked her about it.

He realised that from the moment they met one another in this illusory world, Rui had likely already began to put her scheme into action.

The reason that he returned to Heavenly Path Mountain was because Yaan decided to face his fate, right?

No…it was because Rui was searching for something, and for whatever reason, that something was clearly related heavily to Yaan himself.

Unknowingly, Yaan was influenced by her despite his caution.

Yaan didn't understand her actions or motives, but likewise, there were points surrounding Yaan's actions and plans in this world that she also didn't fully understand.

However, Rui seemed to believe that she understood Yaan's intentions at the end.

They had both been deceived by one another, but the exact extent and intent behind that deception was a mystery. Truthfully, Yaan wasn't bothered by it at all…if this duplicated Rui had instead not schemed a single time in these five years, he would actually feel a hundred fold more uneasy.

Yaan laughed and shook his head with an amused smile.

Currently, the fading of his form had become so severe that even the outside observers were no longer able to track him. He really did look like an illusion, drifting behind his younger self…

"Rui, you're an old immortal with intelligence and scheming ability that I still cannot begin to fathom…how could I possibly see through anything in this world that you had not deduced for yourself?" Yaan muttered to himself.

"And yet, despite the lies and your facade of ignorance…you still helped me. You helped me, because you realised from the moment we met, that you needed me to complete this trial perfectly in order to survive. You also realised that by aligning yourself to my path, we would inevitably end up here, with our other selves…this alone shows that your understanding of this illusion world is much deeper than my own…"

Yaan mumbled to himself whilst watching his younger self gasp for breath whilst continually looking around in his fear.

"I still don't understand this clearly though. Why are you, an illusion of the true Rui and an inhabitant of the illusion world, deliberately trying to have the very world in which you reside, destroyed? Actually, the answer is obvious, yet I still can't understand it at all…the two of us must fuse with our others in order for you, the illusion of Rui, to survive past the trial, and past the unknown fate of this mysterious illusion world."

Yaan had slowly built up some vague conjectures during their journey, but he only confirmed it after seeing Rui's reaction to the appearance of those green strings. It was as if the existence of those strings allowed her to confirm her decision.

And knowing Rui, Yaan was certain that this was all for the sake of her survival.

All along, she planned for the two of them to latch onto Yaan's fate, since this road would eventually lead them back towards their others. Even though it was Yaan who told her that she needed to fuse back into the other Rui, that was her intention all along; her complete lack of hesitation in doing so proved this well enough.

She believed that so long as they reached this point and she fused back with herself, then Yaan would go on to do the same. She was confident that Yaan would choose the option which led to the greatest possibility of stepping onto the psyche path.

Indeed, that was his plan. And as Rui expected, Yaan was now going to integrate with his other self. The only difference, was that he had no plans of devouring his other self…

As Yaan stepped towards his illusory self, he thought about what he was about to do.

He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. This sigh contained all of the complex emotions that he had built up during his time spent musing over this illusory world for these past few years. His sigh seemed to fuse with the world, reverberating across this region, and even causing a gust of wind to gently sweep by.

And just like that, Yaan overlapped with the body of his younger self, completely disappearing from the illusory world.

He did not regain control over his younger self…it was as if he had truly vanished.

The younger Yaan suddenly stopped, shivering as the wind brushed past his skin. He quickly looking around in bewilderment as a deep, melancholic sigh, filled with a myriad of emotions, entered his ears. For a moment he felt as if this sigh originated from the world itself, as if the world was sighing at his pitiful plight…

After bitterly shaking his head, he decided that he was probably just imagining things due to his unstable mental state.

It was probably just an illusion.