173 Petty Bastard

I opened my eyes and found myself back in front of the gates.

The curse was stronger than I thought. That damned gate—the one I'd seen too many times to count, marking either failure or a beginning I never wanted. I stared at the iron-bound doors, their ancient wood as unwelcome and familiar as the guilt in my chest.

So I hadn’t broken the loop after all.

Despite the dread that should have followed, I felt relieved. Maybe it was because Mao Xian was still alive. Maybe I wouldn’t have to kill him after all.

Still—

“Fuck, I failed.”

I took a steady breath and pushed the gates open.

The guards flanking the entrance stepped forward in alarm. One raised a hand to stop me, but I brushed him aside with a pulse of Willpower. Their resistance collapsed instantly. They weren’t strong enough to stop me, and I wasn’t interested in explanations.

My eyes were fixed on Mao Xian.

He sat there as calm as ever, poised and still, like a statue carved with a permanent smirk.

Just before I reached the first row of steps, a voice cut through the noise.

“You dare interrupt the World Summit?”

A young man rose from his seat. He looked about my age, but his posture reeked of self-importance. The sort of man born to status rather than survival.

“This is sacrilege,” he declared. “Your life is forfeit for such disrespect.”

I tilted my head.

“How about I kill you first?”

I wasn’t even angry. I just didn’t have time for games or distractions. The cultivator’s face turned pale with fury, but before he could respond, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. It was Tao Long. I’d forgotten he was here.

He stared down at the fool as pressure rolled from his body.

“Might be nice,” someone muttered from a few seats back, “to be such a pampered young master with a bodyguard in the Eighth Realm.”

Tao Long’s gaze snapped toward the speaker.

“You’re growing bold,” he said coldly. “Don’t mistake civility for weakness. Do you think this man’s cultivation is a joke?”

He nodded toward me.

“He’s stronger than I am, even if he looks like that.”

I winced.

“Friendly fire, Tao Long,” I muttered. “And what do you mean, ‘looks like that’?”

“Enough.” Tian En’s voice rang across the summit hall from the central dais. “Must every place you enter descend into disorder? This is the World Summit, stranger, not a stage for your provocations.”

I waved a hand dismissively.

“Shove it, old hag. Shouquan sent me. If you don’t like it, take it up with him."

Tian En stared at me in stunned silence, as though I had kicked her clan’s ancestral tablet off the altar.

Not my problem.

I stopped before Mao Xian. Beside him, Zai Ai's gaze was sharp and appraising. Meanwhile, Mao Xian looked completely at ease. Slowly, he smiled. It was the same cryptic smile he always wore. “I told you,” he said softly. “We’d see each other again.”

Zai Ai glanced between us.

“You know this man, disciple?”

Mao Xian shrugged.

“Kind of.”

I met his eyes.

“Don’t fight it. You’re going to tell me everything you know.”

“That depends on your ability.”

"Divine Possession."

Light folded around my consciousness as a golden tether snapped into place. I passed through the barrier of his soul and slipped into the weightless expanse of his mind. There were no screams, no rejection, only a subtle shift before I found myself inside. Mao Xian. It was the only name he knew. His past was a shattered mural, its edges blurred beyond recognition, and whenever he reached for his childhood, the same memory surfaced: fire sweeping across stone, screams swallowed by heaven’s roar, and immortals descending from the clouds like wrathful gods.

They needed only a gesture, a flick of the hand, and mountains collapsed, people vanished, and homes turned to ash.

The memories continued mercilessly.

To Mao Xian, it was a trauma buried beneath layers of coping. To me, it was a locked door waiting to be opened.

And I had the key.

The Soulful Guiding Fire burned within me like a patient candle. Guided by its light, I moved through the maze of his soul, past echoing thought-halls and fragmented memories that trembled at my touch. I didn't force them. I coaxed them forward, following their warmth toward the source.

When the last resistance faded, a story unfolded before me.

A cave.

Cold air. Fur rugs. Stone walls.

A woman screamed.

An old midwife wrapped in rough hides and sinew-threaded beads lifted a newborn into the firelight. The infant's cry rang through the cavern like a declaration.

I am here.

I exist.

The mother wept. The father trembled. When the child was finally placed in her arms, a profound peace settled over the memory. Even I could feel it. The warmth. The desperate intimacy of survival, family, and love.

The Soulful Guiding Fire did more than show the past. It let me experience it.

Mao Xian's first breath filled my lungs. His cries echoed in my chest.

The world beyond the cave was primal. Huts carved into cliffs. Rope bridges spanning bottomless chasms. Children leaping between stone towers with reckless ease.

The Mountain Clan lived alongside stone and snow. Their bodies were hardened by generations of survival, but they were far from savages. Their language was rich with metaphor. Their histories were preserved through chants and songs. Their gods were symbols carved into stone, like horns, wheels, and winds.

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Above every hearth stood the same image of a horned bull.

There was no cultivation here. No spiritual roots, qi, or immortals. Yet Mao Xian's father, a lean man with no cultivation to speak of, shattered a boulder with a wooden staff. Young Mao Xian watched in awe. He copied the motion until his hands bled. Every failure was met with silence. Every success earned only a nod. When he finally cracked a stone himself, his father's single nod filled him with more pride than a thousand praises.

Years passed like turning pages.

Mao Xian grew taller, though he remained a child. He rarely smiled, but when he did, it was when nobody was watching. He was loved without being spoiled, cherished without being worshipped.

The Mountain Clan had no heroes.

Everyone served the mountain.

Then a stranger arrived, his robes the color of wet stone and his words dripping like poison wrapped in honey. Standing above the village, he spoke of cultivation, eternal life, ascension, sects, realms, and heavenly paths. The Mountain Clan listened in silence before breaking into laughter. His teachings were utterly foreign to them, even heretical. To seek immortality was to reject the sacred cycle; the dead guided the living, ancestors gave way to descendants, and to escape death was to unbalance the world itself. They asked him to leave, but he refused.

The memory lurched violently.

Soon, came the fire.

White flames swept across the mountain village. Children screamed. Warriors fell. Immortals descended from the heavens like falling stars, and death followed in their wake.

I watched a young Mao Xian being dragged through a collapsing tunnel by his mother.

The last thing he saw of his father was a roar, a raised club, and a pillar of lightning that split the world apart.

They fled deep beneath the mountain into a shrine that smelled of blood and pine ash. There, the survivors knelt before a massive carving of a six-eyed bull skull, chanting words I couldn't understand. This wasn't worship but desperation, a plea for sanctuary.

Something impossible happened. The memory itself trembled, reality folding in on itself as a great bell rang, through existence itself. The cavern glowed, the mountain cracked, and the world screamed. Then they vanished. One moment they stood in a realm of fire and slaughter; the next, they were gone, swallowed by the Hollowed World.

Every hundred years, the Hollowed World welcomed visitors from the Greater Universe.

It was not by choice.

Entire realms and civilizations descended from beyond the stars like drifting islands, crashing into the Hollowed World's shifting landscape.

Mao Xian's realm had been one of them.

I stood within his soul, my consciousness woven through strands of memory. What I witnessed wasn't merely history. It was pain immortalized, carved so deeply into his mind that it had never truly faded.

The skies split apart.

Golden warships and flying fortresses tore through the heavens, their banners blazing in the light. I recognized them immediately: the Empire's Nongmin, the Union's Seven Colors, the Heavenly Temple's elders, and the Martial Alliance's warriors.

They hadn't come to negotiate; they had come to exterminate. I felt the fear of a child as though it were my own, felt the stone beneath my feet and the stink of burning fur and blood. The Mountain Clan had always been strong, but strength meant little before Tenth Realm cultivators. Villagers died mid-prayer, warriors fell in the middle of battle songs, and elders wept as divine light reduced them to ash. Through a child's eyes, I watched an entire world die.

“It's not new to you, is it, Da Wei?” Mao Xian said from beside me, arms crossed as he stared at the burning village. “You've seen slaughter before. You've done it yourself. You've watched worlds burn, watched people die, and convinced yourself there was always a reason for it. So don't stand there pretending this is different. Don't look away now. This is my slaughter, my dead, my ruined home. You wanted answers? Then watch. Watch all of it. And don't you dare turn your eyes from it, because I'm sure you already know how the rest ends.”

"This doesn't have to end this way. You are not them."

“Get out.”

“No,” I said.

I turned back to the memory as he pushed against me with his will. The Soulful Guiding Fire flared in response, while Transcendent Heart held me steady. I held my ground. The scene shifted. Zai Ai stood over a much younger Mao Xian. Ten years old, perhaps eleven. Thin, exhausted, and still carrying fresh grief.

“No!” she barked. “You're confusing spirit density with soul alignment. Again.”

Her words were harsh, but care lingered beneath them.

To Mao Xian, she was more than a master; she was a mentor, a surrogate mother, someone he admired, feared, and desperately wanted to surpass. The years rolled forward, and he eventually stepped beyond her shadow into the wider world. Then another memory surfaced: a stone vault cracking open inside a forgotten ruin, revealing a faintly glowing dagger. I nearly swore. It was a Legacy Bearer of the Paladin, the very foundation of my build.

A class promotion item.

“Really?” I muttered. “You too?”

“Fitting, isn't it?”

I watched him claim the legacy, fight for it, and bleed for it. Unlike me, he hadn't stumbled into it through a predetermined quest; he earned every page through struggle. The difference between us had never been the legacy itself, but the resolve behind it. He sought justice, or perhaps vengeance. Maybe, somewhere along the way, he'd forgotten the difference.

“What exactly do you want?” I asked, just for the sake of wanting to hear his answer.

“To punish those responsible for my clan's destruction,” Mao Xian said, his voice hardening. “The Empire. The Heavenly Temple. The Martial Alliance. The Union. They slaughtered my people, burned my home, and called it righteousness.”

“And that justifies stealing my body?” I shot back. “You think revenge gives you the right to take whatever you want?”

“You don't understand,” he snapped. “You saw the memories. You watched them die. Children. Elders. Entire bloodlines erased. And what happened afterward? Nothing. No justice. No punishment. The guilty prospered while the dead were forgotten.”

“So your answer is to become another monster?”

“My answer is to make them pay.”

His anger bled through every word.

“You stand there judging me, Da Wei, but you've never carried this burden. Every loop, every failure, every century of watching those responsible continue to exist. Do you know what that does to a person?”

“And that's why you need me?”

“Yes.” His eyes locked onto mine. “Your body. Your strength. Your connection to things that shouldn't exist. You have what I need to finish this.”

“You mean what you want to steal.”

“I mean what I'm owed.”

“Owed?” I laughed bitterly. “By me?”

“By fate. By this broken world. By everyone who stood by while my clan was exterminated.”

His fists clenched.

“I will tear down the Empire. I will burn the Heavenly Temple. I will break the Martial Alliance and shatter the Union. If I have to take everything from you to do it, then so be it.”

“Then you're no better than they are.”

Genuine fury flashed across his face.

“Don't compare me to them.”

The light around us began to dim.

I felt the tether unraveling. Divine Possession didn't last forever, no matter how hard I pushed it. My time inside Mao Xian's soul was running out.

I stepped forward and met his eyes.

“You're not the only one with a grudge. You're not the only one who's lost a clan. You're not even the only one running a Paladin build. So do me a favor, Mao Xian.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Try me.”

“Who's backing you?” I asked quietly. "Answer me!"

Mao Xian remained silent, looking down on me with pity.

“That's not an answer,” I said

He only shrugged.

Frustrated, I seized the memory itself and tore it apart. The world shattered into countless fragments of light. Space twisted. Time churned. I dove deeper.

“You won't find anything,” Mao Xian said as the shards swirled around us.

“Then I'm looking in the wrong place,” I replied. “But I'll find something. I always do.”

The memories accelerated as I watched his Adventurer's Guild flourish. His dream of a better world had once been genuine; he'd wanted to build something worth preserving. Then the memory tried to pull me in with purpose, friendship, hope, and the promise of a future worth fighting for. The warmth was intoxicating, but I refused it. No. I tore myself free, and the world reassembled around me.

"It's you," I hissed at the figure before me.

Aixin was waiting. She wore Joan's face and smile, but the eyes belonged to something ancient and cruel. Beneath her sat a golden throne that had no place in this memory, while Mao Xian stood beside her, silent as a statue.

“I knew we'd meet again,” I said.

She stirred her tea with a finger and smiled.

“Careful, Wei. I might decide to cast Heavenly Punishment early.”

“Get in line. What do you want?”

“Your soul. Your legacy.” Her smile widened. “And Earth.”

The single word sent a chill through me.

I glanced at Mao Xian.

“What is he to you?”

“My slave,” she replied without hesitation or shame.

I turned toward him.

“What would Zai Ai think of that? Is revenge really worth this? Enough to kill a woman, exploit her vulnerabilities, and rewrite who she was?”

The memory shifted again into Shan Dian's death, resurrection, and manipulation. Every violation laid bare before us.

“You're better than this,” I said quietly. “I felt your pain. You wanted justice, not this.”

“I'm sorry,” whispered Mao Xian. “But I want my heaven back.”

A bitter smile crossed my face.

“Me too, buddy.”

I closed my eyes and laughed softly.

“But I'm a petty bastard.”

My Divine Soul ignited with resolve. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

“Exalted Renewal.”

The words echoed through the world of memories. I'd never dared use the skill before.

Most abilities demanded mana, willpower, aura, or some other resource. Exalted Renewal demanded experience points itself. Every activation burned away part of my story. In return, it granted repeated resurrections, each stronger than the last.

When it finally ended, however, everything tied to my Legacy would be gone, including me.

“A death you can't walk away from,” I said. “Let's see you match that, bitch.”

Aixin shot to her feet.

The mask of Joan cracked beneath her fury.

“What are you doing?” she screamed. “Do you think you'll have the last laugh because you chose suicide?”

The skill flared within me, a second sun rising inside my chest. Aixin stopped only a step away, glaring into my eyes, and I glared right back before hooking a finger beneath my eyelid and sticking out my tongue in the most childish fashion. “Blegh.”

Her expression froze, while I continued. "You lose, bitch. Must suck needing proxies to act in this world.”

The light exploded outward, the world trembled, and my soul ignited. Levels, titles, traits, achievements? Every piece of power I'd accumulated burned away for a single purpose. No heaven for you, Mao Xian. No heaven for me either. And most importantly, no soul for Aixin, no Legacy, and no Earth.

"If I'm going to hell, I'm taking your happy ending with me."