A Strange Mortal

BANG!

Yaan slammed into the ground, creating an enormous crater. His collision destroyed dozens of trees and sent rocks and dirt flying in all directions.

The rune that he used to enter this place was enormous, but the rune he exited from was barely a dozen feet across. It was not very eye-catching, and in fact, Yaan himself was far more eye-catching to the young mortal girl who happened to be standing around a hundred feet away from him, when she saw the sudden explosion in the midst of this usually calm forest.

After blinking in surprise, she dropped the items she had been holding onto. Seeing the cloud of dust rising up and surrounding her, she did not move away, but instead rushed straight into the danger zone without the slightest hesitation.

After the dust settled, she peered past the edge of the crater. She then watched with wide eyes as a child donning a tattered red robe, painfully picked himself up from the ground.

Yaan glanced at the mortal girl, before completely ignoring her and looking up into the sky with a sharp gaze. He saw that the small white rune was lingering in the sky, and although it was clearly fading away, its disappearance was too slow.

Without hesitation, Yaan leapt into the sky and slashed at the rune with the abyssal blood sword. He used this sword rather than any spells because he was trying to minimise the use of his cultivation, since his cultivation was already destroyed and he was forced to continuously rebuild it just to use his own strength.

Currently, Yaan was 'surviving' by using the life essence in his dao soul to continuously reform his body, mind and a mortal soul. This already used far too much life essence, so clearly, restoring his cultivation continuously would deplete his life essence at a terrifying rate.

Ga Shu had once used 3,000 drops of life essence to restore his cultivation…if Yaan wanted to restore his full cultivation, even without the slaughter elements, it would cost four times this…every single second.

So, as soon as he obliterated the rune in the sky, guaranteeing that nobody else could possibly follow through, he immediately allowed his cultivation to die once again, then let himself fall back down to the ground, not bothering to heal the grievous wounds across his body.

Keeping his body in this wounded state reduced the life essence expenditure. Besides, even if he simply sustained this injured mortal body, the wounds would heal over eventually.

Yaan hit the ground with a thud, then lay down in the pit tiredly. His eyes were half-shut and he felt exhausted on every level imaginable. He went through far too much during his tribulation, causing exhaustion to envelop even his dao soul.

Suddenly, Yaan was reminded of something. It was a seemingly random thought, but when he recalled this thing, it made him laugh in a self-depreciating manner.

"Hey, Rui…you once asked me a question…you asked me why I still wear red robes, remember? After all, my robes have been destroyed time and time again, but each and every time, I find myself a new red silk robe, as if it's only natural…"

Rui didn't reply. Yaan knew that she was still wary of being seen, either by the Primordial Devil, or by that scheming individual behind him.

Even if she remained silent though, Yaan knew that she could hear him.

"Back then, you asked me that question…you already knew that I was living a lie and denying the truth, didn't you, Rui? At that time, I answered that it's just a habit, something I do for no particular reason, only because it is what I have always done…"

Yaan laughed dully and shook his head.

"I wear red silk robes, because a red silk robe was the first gift that anyone ever gave me…it was a gift from my old teacher, who, even though he schemed against me, ended up reconsidering his choice. Back then, I felt betrayed, but now, I completely understand teacher's dilemma. Haha, he was a much better man than I have become…"

Yaan sighed as he thought back on that time nostalgically.

"I wear this robe, because this type of red robe was worn by the core disciples back in the Heavenly Path Sect. It represented our prestige, but more importantly, it displayed our unity as the crucial members of the sect…"

After a long period of silence, Yaan finally said:

"I wear these robes because they remind me of home."

Yaan lay there in silence for a long time, his eyes dull and lifeless, lacking the desire to do anything. He was without direction, he was dying, and he couldn't even muster up the will to care.

Still, Yaan made sure to focus on his life essence, and on the maintenance of his body. He needed to fully restore his body from death every single second if he wanted to maintain this tentative state of life, but the more impressive his cultivation was, the more life essence would be consumed.

Yaan allowed his cultivation to vanish entirely. In fact, he allowed his soul to revert to a mortal soul, he discarded his sea of consciousness, he crippled his own dantian, and he made his blood vessels thin and his body weak, such that his talent in every single cultivation path was completely destroyed.

Not only was his body weak, but his senses were also dulled. His hearing was poor, and his eyesight was bordering on blindness. He could make out blurred grey figures, but that was about all.

In this state, finally, Yaan was able to reduce the consumption of the life essence in his dao soul, the only life essence he had remaining, to three drops every second.

This was still a huge level of consumption, he would burn through well over 150,000 drops every single day!

But now, after that experience with his tribulation, Yaan was able to vaguely sense his dao soul. He could also feel the life essence contained within. There was…a lot.

He could not count it precisely, but at an estimate, he had accumulated around 1.5 billion drops.

"That gives me around 16 years…" Yaan muttered without much emotion.

"Ah! Are you ok?!"

Yaan blinked, then slowly turned his head to look up. He vaguely saw the outline of a person looking back at him, and from her voice, he could tell that she was a young girl, and clearly a mortal. It was the same mortal girl from before. It was surprising that did not flee in fear, but actually chose to approach him directly.

She knelt down by his side and without a word, she began treating his injuries. She applied ointments, bandages, and she even fed him some medicinal tinctures!

Yaan lay there, watching the girl through his blurred vision, without caring much about what she did to him.

"Phew…" She finally sat back, feeling satisfied that she had successfully treated his life-threatening injuries. It was only amateurish emergency aid, but it was the first time that she had done something like this after all!

From the start until now, Yaan remained silent.

"So, are you an immortal or something?" She suddenly asked. Before Yaan could respond, she leaned over him, getting in way too close to his face. However, due to Yaan's poor eyesight, he couldn't see what sort of expression she was making.

"I thought that immortals were just fairy stories, but I guess they're actually real. You should have died quite horrendously, hitting the ground at that speed. Also, you flew up, made a sword from nowhere, then destroyed the light circle in the sky!"

Finally, when Yaan heard the pure curiosity in her tone, he couldn't help but let out a wry laugh. He had met many people, including mortals, cultivators, immortals, and even beings that could probably be called gods. Because of his experience, he knew that this girl's reaction to discovering him was completely bizarre…she was definitely a strange person.

"Aren't you afraid that I might kill you?" Yaan finally spoke, feeling like this conversation was as good a use of his remaining time as any.

"Hmm? Are you going to kill me?" The girl blinked and tilted her head, showing no fear, only curiosity.

"Maybe I will…I've killed many, many people…they call me a demon, they call me evil…the amount of suffering spread by my own two hands cannot possibly be repented for…"

As Yaan spoke, he burned through more of his life essence just to release his full killing intent. Of course, without his cultivation, the 'strength' of his killing intent was not at its maximum potential. Even so, this level of killing intent should still be enough to cause any mortal to drop to the floor in terror, sending them insane, causing them to scream, beg, cry, and be traumatised for the remainder of their life.

Yaan showed his aura to this girl because he felt that her reaction might be a bit different…and he was right.

She did not scream in terror. She did not even move, but she was not paralysed in fear. Yaan's eyesight was lacking, but when he felt something warm drop onto his face, he decided to briefly heal his eyes. He thought that she might be bleeding, having been injured due to his crash landing just now.

But instead, when the haze in his brown eyes cleared away, he saw an ordinary looking girl with an average appearance. Her hair was light brown, whilst her eyes were slightly darker. She was not particularly attractive, but neither was she ugly. Her looks were quite ordinary…but the look in her eyes was not.

The mortal girl looked at him with soft understanding as tears dripped down from her eyes. She shed just a few tears for a brief period of time, but these were not tears of pity or sadness, neither were they tears of happiness or amusement. When Yaan saw these tears with his ordinary mortal eyes, he actually could not understand why they were being shed.

"So even immortals are not immune to life's inherent sufferings." She smiled with a strange expression. This smile was neither happy nor sad, it was simply a look of compassion.

Compassion without pity, understanding without sadness. This girl…was not normal.

Suddenly and without warning, she leaned down and hugged Yaan's injured body tightly. Yaan's eyes widened, completely caught off guard in this moment.

What was happening right now? What was wrong with this girl? Yaan could see that she didn't doubt his words, she knew that he really was a monstrous killer, and yet…she hugged him?

"You've been through a lot, haven't you? As I thought, all life in this world suffers, no matter their status, their riches, their health, their intelligence, or even their strength…we all suffer, in a way unique to ourselves, such that nobody can ever truly understand the pains that we have been through, nor can we understand the pains of others…"

As this mortal teenage girl hugged, him, then slowly pulled back and spoke these words with a deep, melancholic sigh, Yaan just stared at her. For a moment, she was surprised, finally noticing that the haze in his eyes had vanished…until it then began to return.

"Sorry, I have a tendency to ramble! Anyway, we need to get you back to the village! Your injuries are stable for now, but they're still quite bad, you need to see a real doctor!"

After saying this, the girl actually lifted Yaan up, dropping him over her shoulder, seemingly forgetting that half of the flesh around his stomach had been torn away.

But the pain meant nothing to Yaan. Instead, he looked down at the moving grass below him, and had a thought.

'Mortal life…maybe, a normal, brief, mortal life, would have been better…'

After thinking this strange thought, Yaan closed his eyes. Before losing consciousness and falling into a strange slumber, he finally allowed his memories to die, putting no effort into restoring them.

The memories of so many years of cultivation, the memories of so many bizarre and enlightening experiences, required too much life essence to sustain. They were only memories, but without them, he was able to reduce his life essence expenditure to the minimum; a single drop every second.

This would give him almost 50 years, before he died in every sense of the word.

Even without his memories, his heart continued to resist death, allowing him to continue drawing out the life essence from his dao soul. However, this was no longer a conscious effort, and as such, he became even weaker than before.

Yaan entered a deep sleep. Within this slumber, he used his deep comprehension over illusions to grant himself this one, final, selfish wish.

A mortal life…he just wanted to live an ordinary mortal life.