The Mad Elephant

The Primordial Sage was far from being 'trustworthy', but Yaan could cooperate with her for now, for two reasons.

Firstly, he believed that she was telling the truth when she said that she wanted to observe his dao. No matter her reason for wanting to observe him, she would need to keep him alive, and provide him with assistance along the way, in order to achieve her goal. Even if she planned to eventually betray him, for now, it didn't matter.

Secondly, she was lying to her sister, and if she went against him, Yaan could expose this lie. He didn't believe that the Primordial Sage would sacrifice her relationship with her sister so easily. That said, he couldn't imagine that their relationship would remain good after the truth was eventually exposed…

Anyway, for now, Yaan intended to make use of the Sage's help.

When Yaan said aloud that he wanted to seek dao, the Spirit Plane Lord fell into silent contemplation whilst Yaan and the Primordial Sage spoke within his illusory Sea of Consciousness. This only lasted for a few moments though, after which, the Sage spoke aloud.

"I will help you with this, brother."

Hearing her sister volunteer her help, the Spirit Plane Lord smiled and looked slightly relieved. She had no confidence that she would be able to steer her brother's dao in the right direction…

For any other mortal, the Spirit Plane Lord would have no issue with this, but her 'brother' was someone who had once possessed a completed dao heart, before undergoing a disaster and finding himself walking along a new road. Guiding a dao like this would be anything but simple.

The Spirit Plane Lord herself didn't possess a completed dao heart. This was quite unusual – she had comprehended the entire Heavenly Dao, and every divinity before her who had achieved this was able to complete their dao heart…but for some unknown reason, she was still unable to do so.

The Primordial Sage on the other hand, had completed her dao heart long ago. Nobody knew what dao heart she followed, but there were many speculations. Regardless of the specific dao she cultivated, it remained a fact that her understanding of the dao heart was vastly superior compared to her sister's.

"Firstly, I wish to show you something." The Primordial Sage spoke in a monotone voice, before waving her hand over Yaan's illusory body.

The world rippled, then a few moments later, once everything became calm, Yaan found himself looking down at a desert. The desert was excruciatingly hot and seemed to be endless. The sand was white, as if it had been bleached by the sun's blinding rays.

However, the 'sun' in the sky was not a true sun, but an illusion given corporeal form which lingered high in the sky, forever following after a lone elephant.

The elephant was pitch black in colour, aside from its eyes and the tips of its tusks which were blood-red. When Yaan looked into the elephant's eyes, he saw a gaze filled with madness, a madness that refused to relent, no matter the circumstances, and no matter how much adversity it was forced to endure.

Yaan slowly looked away from the elephant and examined the desert around it. This desert gave him a strange feeling, until he realised something.

"This desert…was once a forest…" He muttered.

"Your deduction is correct." The Primordial Sage spoke by his side. "This desert is known as the Scorched Tribulant Wasteland, but it was once a prosperous land called the Forest of Hope."

As she spoke, the Spirit Plane Lord looked down at the elephant and sighed deeply.

"Truly a unique creature. It is destined to be hated by all life in this world…in a way, it's quite pitiful…"

Yaan felt strange when he looked at this elephant. For some reason, he felt that he and this elephant were quite similar…

The Primordial Sage stretched out her small arm and pointed at the desert below with one hand.

"Reverse." She spoke softly, and immediately, the world below…began to reverse.

The elephant stopped moving forwards, and started to move back. At first, it moved back at a normal speed, but the reversal accelerated until its reversed movement became a blur.

Yaan watched as the elephant completed countless backwards laps around the white desert. He realised quickly that he was watching time play out in reverse. He soon came to understand that this elephant had been walking through this desert for a long, long time.

The sun constantly followed the elephant, scalding its back with a ceaselessly painful heat.

Ignoring the reversal of time which made it look like everything was flowing backwards, Yaan noticed that in reality, the elephant constantly moved forwards. However, some strange power made it such that it was doomed to eternally walk around this desert in a constant loop.

Eventually, the Primordial Sage's reversal of time slowed down.

The Spirit Plane Lord had been standing by her side calmly, and even when she saw her past self appear, she didn't look surprised.

Indeed, a second Spirit Plane Lord appeared beneath them!

For a moment, the Sage's reversal of time slowed down to a speed equivalent to the normal flow of time.

The Spirit Plane Lord below them, whom was the Spirit Plane Lord of the past…or at least, one of the Spirit Plane Lord's past clones…suddenly looked up. After looking into the sky for a moment, she seemed to relax and looked away, then proceeded to point at the elephant below.

She cast a spell on the elephant, restricting its life to exist solely within this desert.

Yaan felt somewhat bewildered. At first, he assumed that the Primordial Sage was showing him a scene of the past via an illusion, by overlapping the illusion of time's reversal with the real world around them. However, the past Spirit Plane Lord looked up at them! Clearly, she had noticed their presence!

Did they just…travel back in time?

Understanding his confusion, the Spirit Plane Lord took the initiative to explain.

"This is a simple time reversal; it can be accomplished by anyone with divine stage comprehension over the space-time dao. It can be thought of as travelling back in time, but also not – we can see the past, but we cannot easily interact with it. However, divinities are able to sense when someone uses this method to look at them in the past. Back then, my lesser clone sensed that someone used time reversal, but when I felt my own and sister's powers, I naturally ignored it."

After passing by the Spirit Plane Lord's past clone, the Sage returned her reversal of time to its previous rate.

Yaan shook his head lightly. Divinities possessed some truly absurd powers. Even though they couldn't intervene in the past, it was clear that they could have some degree of impact on the past by using this method!

It made him think of the True-False Illusion Formation once again.

"The True-False Illusion Formation that I created operates on a similar concept." The Primordial Sage, as if reading his thoughts, started to explain.

Yaan knew that the only reason she took the initiative to say this, was because she wanted him to believe that she could indeed still read his thoughts. In reality, she was just intelligent enough to deduce what he was thinking.

"So the True False Illusion Formation truly sent me back in time?" Yaan asked uncertainly. "But…some of the events that I experienced in the illusion world were slightly different compared to what I experienced in reality…"

"The True-False Illusion World is a reflection of the past; an illusion which overlaps with reality. Even though there were differences, there were more than enough similarities that the end result of both reality and illusion became identical. You went back to the past – but you also didn't. What you experienced was an illusion – but also real."

When presented with this explanation, Yaan remained silent.

As he thought…divinities were terrifying beings.

The reversal of time continued.

Before long, the forest began to reappear…

The scolded white sand slowly transformed into fertile soil, plants and flowers, animals and beasts, people, tribes, villages, and even nations…

And the elephant…was no longer alone.

More elephants, identical to the first, started to appear. Eventually, there were thousands of these elephants!

As time reversed, the original elephant grew weaker, until it was just like the other few thousand and indistinguishable from the rest. However…Yaan could still find this elephant amongst the crowd, because this particular elephant had a different look in its eyes compared to the others.

There was a flash of light, then the elephants vanished. The forest instantly became ten times more prosperous compared to before, showing that the arrival of the many elephants had dealt a huge initial blow to the lands, followed by the lasting damage caused by their presence.

The reversal of time ended.

Within the centre of the forest, an old man sat in silence with a cauldron at his feet. He was extremely focussed on the cauldron, so much so that he didn't even notice that he was covered in moss; he had been sitting like this for many decades, fully focussed on the refinement of a single pill.

"He was a Dao Immortal, and he was attempting to refine the Rank 9 Ten Thousand Beast Soul Pill." The Primordial Sage explained.

The trio watched in silence as the old man reached the critical stage in the pill's refinement. Due to the calamity that he knew came next, Yaan expected the refinement to fail, however…

"Success! I succeeded! Hahahahaha!"

After a flash of tri-coloured light encompassed the surroundings, the cauldron cracked in half, but the old man didn't seem to care. He leapt to his feet and laughed manically, not caring about his dishevelled appearance and bloodshot eyes. He took hold of the golden pill and held it with utmost care…but in the next moment, he became extremely serious.

Boom…

A soft, yet deep and soul-shaking boom echoed across the lands. The old man looked up sharply as a golden vortex appeared in the sky above him.

From the vortex, a seemingly endless herd of strange beasts charged out. Each of these beasts carried the faint aura of the Heavenly Dao…

"Beast tribulation!" The old man exclaimed with a stern expression.

"When Immortal Pills are born, they must undergo an Immortal Treasure Tribulation." The Primordial Sage explained. "This is a Rank 9 pill, and it attracted the 10,000 Beast Tribulation."

Immediately, a battle ensued.

The old man was forced to face off against 10,000 Heavenly Beasts of Tribulation. The strength of these beasts was continually supported by the golden vortex in the sky, which wouldn't close until the tribulation had passed by.

The old man destroyed hundreds of beasts, then thousands…but after destroying slightly fewer than half of the beasts, he was surrounded on all sides and trampled down into the ground.

An unexpected level of life and death threat came over him. Due to the high level of crisis, the old man was forced to grit his teeth and throw the pill away from him in order to draw away the beasts' attention.

The beasts were drawn to the pill, not the alchemist. They took the bait and moved away. Immediately after gaining a second to regather himself, the old immortal charged forth with bloodshot eyes and attempted to reclaim the pill…

BANG!

But he failed.

One beast slammed into the pill, destroying it immediately. That beast, as well as dozens of others in the immediate vicinity, were instantly torn apart by the explosion of energy.

The old man looked extremely gloomy. In his rage, he killed another few hundred of the beasts, until he realised the futility of what he was doing. Besides, if he was actually able to kill all 10,000 of these beasts, then he wouldn't have needed to throw the pill away as bait in the first place…

Still fuming with anger, he simply left, ignoring what remained of the tribulation. In his mind, it was no longer his problem.

The golden vortex in the sky had closed, transforming into a golden sun high up in the sky. This sun which contained the Heavens' aura seemed to taunt the elephants, reminding them of where they came from, and telling them that they could never hide from their fate.

Thousands of the elephants had been cut down, whilst those that remained were no longer being supported by the Heavens.

The remaining elephants all fell from the sky and hit the ground. Hundreds died on the spot, whilst more still died after landing and failing to move…

The surviving elephants quickly realised that if they wanted to survive, they needed to move.

They were born of Heavenly Tribulation, they needed to continually charge forth, just like a tribulation, or else they would immediately die.

However, these elephants no longer had any purpose. As they charged ahead, they destroyed everything around them. The landscape was laid waste to as they moved as a herd, with countless living things cursing them to death in their final moments of hatred and suffering.

Within a day, the elephants were cut down to a few hundred.

Many of the elephants simply gave up in despair, realising that no matter what they did, it was futile. Regardless of how much they struggled, their fate was to die and fade away into obscurity.

And besides, what was the point in them continuing to fight for life anyway?

Their purpose had been stripped away from them, they no longer had anything to live for! Their continued existence only brought pain to others and to themselves.

The Primordial Sage silently accelerated the flow of time.

The elephants continued to trample through the lands. Wherever they went, the world was died white and red.

All life was slaughtered by them – although sometimes, the elephants were slaughtered by those they attacked.

As more of the elephants died, the golden sun in the sky grew stronger.

Eventually, there were only a few dozen elephants remaining. All those that had made it to this point had bloodshot eyes filled with madness and hate…

That is, all of the elephants aside from one.

One of the elephants also had red eyes, but there was no hate in that gaze, only madness and determination. The other elephants were filled with fear towards death – that was what kept them going – but this one elephant didn't feel this fear.

The other elephants felt rage towards the lives around them that hated them to death and would kill their kind. The other elephants felt that life was bitter and unfair, that the Heavens were cruel for inflicting them with this cursed fate!

But the elephant with more madness than the rest…felt none of this.

The other elephants noticed this outlier, and they ostracised it from their group, considering it a mad elephant, not normal like the rest of them.

The mad elephant didn't care.

Gradually, one by one, the other elephants died. They would all lament the deaths of their fallen comrades…but sometimes, in secret, they would feel a sense of pride for outliving those who fell before them.

But the mad elephant ignored all of this. In fact, sometimes, the mad elephant even trampled over its own brethren when they got in its way, killing them as they roared out in hatred. The mad elephant completely ignored the hatred directed towards it by the rest of the herd.

Eventually, there were only a few elephants left.

One by one, the elephants fell. Their legs grew weak, their hearts grew weary, they either broke down, or they gave up. As soon as they stopped, they died, joining their brothers and sisters in the peace of death. They all felt the temptation to stop at some point, and eventually, they would all give up.

Before it even realised it, the mad elephant was the only one still walking.

Wasn't it lonely, being the only one of its kind still walking?

The elephant thought that truthfully, this was no lonelier than before.

The mad elephant continued walking.

The golden sun above the mad elephant continued to pound down relentlessly, day after endless day without reprieve, scorching the elephant's skin until it turned as black as charcoal. The devastated forest beneath the mad elephant's feet had been trampled time and time again, and as the sun's rays continued to follow its path, the broken forest eventually turned to sand, until the sand was bleached white by the sun.

The elephant didn't know why, but it knew that it was trapped in a cycle. It had passed over the same lands time and time again, even though it only ever walked forwards.

"Back then, I found this elephant interesting, so I allowed it to continue living in this place. However, it truly does bring devastation everywhere it goes, so I trapped it inside of the wasteland that it created, such that it can continue walking without bringing harm to others." The Spirit Plane Lord explained with a gentle voice.

As the flow of time accelerated further and further, Yaan watched the lone elephant walk. It walked, and walked, and walked, in an endless cycle across the now-white desert. It lived a lonely life, with nothing to keep it company aside from the blazing sun above its head which only served to remind it of its miserable origins.

The mad elephant had now been walking for thousands of years…

When it was born, it had the power of an immortal beast, but after the golden vortex closed, the Heavens stopped supplying it with strength. Its strength dropped to the level of a Rank 5 beast, but after its many companions died and the golden sun above its head grew stronger, its strength reached the Peak of Rank 6.

It was not an 'immortal', and yet, it had lived for thousands of years. This was because the mad elephant had forcefully clung onto the life essence that it was once given by the Heavens, as it continued to walk ceaselessly, avoiding its inevitable ending…

Other living beings would experience tribulations sent down from the Heavens if they lived for so long, but this elephant was itself a Heavenly Tribulation, so it didn't go through this. However…its life itself was a Heavenly Tribulation. Its mere existence was its tribulation.

The mad elephant walked, knowing that as soon as it stopped, it would die.

Yaan watched as the elephant travelled across the same devastated lands time and time again, trapped in a hopeless cycle that could only possibly end in one way.

Before long, the reversal of time ended, and they returned to the present day. The mad elephant continued to walk through the wasteland of a desert, without any hope in sight, and without any joy to accompany its pitiful life.

Without a word, Yaan drifted down towards the ground. He landed a few dozen feet in front of the elephant, immediately attracting its attention.

The beast's blood-red eyes widened, showing its clear surprise. Yaan was the first living being that it had seen in thousands of years, so naturally, his sudden appearance was quite shocking to the elephant.

However, before long, the elephant's eyes returned to normal, and it completely ignored Yaan.

As the elephant approached him, showing no signs of making any effort to avoid him, but also looking like it wouldn't care even if it had to trample him to death, Yaan felt the tremendous destructive power spreading out from the elephant's body. Its aura contained an innate strength, a strength imbued with the Heavenly Dao's principles of death, destruction, and all things related to these devastating concepts.

This aura had no effect on Yaan whatsoever.

This destructive aura would destroy all material and spiritual things in this world, but it could not affect the Dao Soul.

The elephant showed a hint of surprise when Yaan casually stepped to the side and watched as it walked by. In the elephant's experience, all manor of life that got this close to it would die.

In fact, this elephant was unique compared to its thousands of fallen comrades, in that its destructive aura could also slay the other elephants of tribulation. The mad elephant had been ostracised from its pack, largely because it had killed dozens of its own kind…

Whoosh…

Yaan took a step and his body blurred through the air, before he reappeared atop the elephant's back. The elephant's footstep slowed down momentarily, but it immediately returned to its usual pace of walking, not bothering itself with Yaan's unusual actions.

The elephant walked on as Yaan sat on its back silently.

Somehow, the pair of them suited one another quite well.