Cade prepared himself for another bout of suffering when he noticed Night's lingering smile.

  “There’s no reason removing your eyes should hurt. I can’t help you bear the tribulation, but at least with this, I can spare you the pain,” she said.

  He nodded thankfully. He wasn’t too concerned with losing his eyes—the Asura already had powerful physiques, capable of recovering from the most grievous of wounds given enough time and plenty of blood qi. With hydra blood and 2,500 spherules, if there was one thing Cade was confident in, it was his body’s capability for regeneration.

  He lay on the bed once again and felt a sense of numbness permeate his facial muscles. Suddenly, Night's hand flashed, and his vision went black. He didn’t feel a thing. A couple of minutes later, she spoke again.

  “I’ve planted Master’s eyes within your eye sockets. Circulate your blood qi, and your body will soon attempt to connect them to your brain. Once you see something—even if it’s a flicker of light in the darkness—you’ll need to reach into the eyes with your core self—your soul—and saturate them with golden lightning to begin the refinement. There is a leftover life force within them, barely a fraction of what was there originally, but with your cultivation the amount could be dangerous. One moment, I'll quickly review the relevant memories.”

  Night resumed after a pause. “According to my Master, when your soul survives the godly tribulation, you should see the eyes’ representation within your mindscape. It’ll be a sign you have achieved elementary success in their refinement. By then, their residual life force will become your own, benefiting your cultivation,” the spirit explained, her calm and steady voice working wonders to reassure him.

  Mindscape? What a fitting name. He had never heard anyone refer to the realm of consciousness this way.

  Cade had never considered that refining Ang War’s eyes and taking them for himself would have that effect, but now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense. God’s eyes had to have been originally saturated with immense life force—after refining it with tribulation lightning, whatever remnant of this powerful life qi was left within would become his own.

  Cade lay on the bed, mindlessly tapping his fingers on its frame. So far, he couldn’t see anything, and soon he began letting his thoughts drift, his nervousness eventually turning into boredom.

  Staring into the dark emptiness before him, he wondered how Silk and Skinny were doing, and knowing he would be able to see them soon filled him with joy. He was hoping the dark elves treated Gorgo well. He deeply missed his brother; although they didn’t know each other for very long, they were kindred souls. He was curious how Anna, to whom he had handed a bag with 100 crystals, and the rest of his mother’s family were doing. Cade considered whether he should have offered them more, but eventually decided he made the right call—abundance of wealth would only bring misfortune upon them.

  All of a sudden, his vision was flooded with scarlet light, like an ocean of glowing blood flowing into his eyes, and his body involuntarily twitched. He immediately focused, directing the golden lightning from its tiny well within his soul into Ang War’s eyes. Surprisingly, this worked to bring back his sight, except…

  He was no longer inside the hall. Instead, he was sitting in a lotus position on what seemed to be a mountaintop, surrounded by thin yellow mist. He raised his eyes to the skies and saw a layer of dense yellow clouds leisurely passing not far above him. Cade immediately knew this wasn’t Earth—or rather, Teraxis—nor any Divine Realm. He was on a foreign planet, where air was highly poisonous to most life forms, though it did no harm to him. This knowledge came to him instinctually.

  The clouds above him began to slowly gather. Cade tried to stand up and found that while he could move his hands and head around, he couldn’t do anything else. He couldn’t smell anything either, and he quickly realized he didn’t actually breathe, nor did he feel the need to. For some reason, he was inside his own body—even though he was sure it was supposed to be Ang War’s. He was dressed in a red, voluminous robe similar to the one Night gave him, its deep cowl shielding his face in shadow.

  Glancing around, he saw jagged outlines of other mountain peaks in the distance—their height was astonishing, and they dominated over otherwise empty plains filled with nothing but endless yellowing rock.

  The clouds above him began turning dark, though they still carried this unnatural, sickly hue. In the next moment, thunder rumbled above him, immediately filling him with a sense of dread. He could feel the hair on his neck rise—this was no ordinary lightning. Gazing into the sky, he saw scarlet flashes penetrating the dense clouds, traversing from the edges of his vision to the swirling eye of the storm forming above him, as if gathering their strength.

  The rumbling of thunder intensified, causing his whole body to vibrate. The ground shook, and small rocks began tumbling down the mountain. In this place, at this moment, life and death clashed, and whichever would prevail was down to fate and his will. Cade gritted his teeth, eyes set on the clouds. By now they were so dark that even the yellow hue vanished, replaced by crimson. Red lightning flashed everywhere above him, and the rumbling grew deafening. The sky above was replaced by a swirling circle of deep scarlet, washing the world in blood-red luminescence.

  The earth-shaking rumble was now so overpowering, the whole mountain shook at its foundations. Heavenly laws began to distort as dust and small rocks rose up into the sky, no longer forced to obey the planet’s attraction.

  Then the first crimson lightning struck him, its arc thick as a tree trunk, and Cade died.

  Or rather, he felt he should have died—because by some miracle, he had survived. The pain was indescribable—far beyond anything he had ever experienced. Everything turned white and his skin melted, muscles boiling from the inside. Cade could feel his bones radiating intense heat, as if his whole skeleton were being refined in hellfire. He wanted to scream, but his throat was completely burned out.

  Yet, he was already recovering—his sight returned, allowing him to watch his muscles and skin regrowing at preternatural speed. In a few breaths he was back to normal, just in time for another scarlet bolt.

  It struck like the fist of a primordial god. Cade wanted to howl and cry, but could do none of these things. This time his flesh melted off in its entirety, leaving nothing but scorched bones and his voracious heart, the small orb glowing with soft, crimson light in his chest. He was completely unaware of what was happening to him, yet somehow his soul had survived, clinging to his blazing skeleton, hot as the surface of the sun. As the glow subsided, the charred bones shone, their surface turning glass-like. He was too hurt to notice sparse golden specks within his marrow. His flesh had once again begun to rapidly regenerate, and a few moments later he was miraculously back to his normal state.

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  There was some good news. He did feel a little stronger—not physically, but mentally, as if his soul had toughened and maybe even grown a tiny amount. It was of little consolation in light of another bolt building up right above him. This time, however, it was pale blue flashes zapping between the clouds.

  I have to get out of here, I won’t survive a day here, not to mention 17 years! I was supposed to be reliving Ang War’s tribulation; why is my own body here?! A few more of these red bolts and I’m done. Who knows what new kind of hell this blue lightning will bring.

  He tried turning into War Form, but none of his blood arts worked. He had a hard time gathering his thoughts as he kept anxiously glancing upwards, sensing upcoming doom. The sky flashed with piercing light, and a bright blue bolt came down on his lonely figure.

  This time it wasn’t his body, but his soul that was struck. Cade thought he had felt the worst pain possible, until now. This was the sensation of having his soul violently refined. He screamed until his throat filled with blood, clawing futilely at his chest as if he could somehow tear his soul out of his body to end this torment.

  In that single space of time when the pain reached its absolute climax, Cade’s vision blurred, and he suddenly found himself transported to another place. The flood of overwhelming pain immediately diminished to a trickle—it was still a gnawing torture, but nothing compared to what he had just experienced. While his sight was initially blurry—like when trying to recall details from a dream—it gradually sharpened, resolving into an unexpected scene.

  A blue sky with a strong hint of purple stretched above his head, its color much deeper than the light blue skies of his home planet. Some distance away from him stood two women, chatting beneath the shade of a towering tree unlike any Cade had seen before, many times larger than the giant palms found in the Desert of a Thousand Lakes. Its immense trunk covered the area of a small city, and its dense, green canopy stretched for at least a few miles in all directions.

  Of the two women, one was very young—no more than 18 years old. She stood beside the older woman—older only in the vaguest sense, as even despite the image still not being very clear, it was obvious she bore the ageless beauty unique to advanced cultivators.

  What struck Cade speechless was that both women belonged to the Asura race; there was no doubt about it. The younger one had the characteristic crimson irises, resembling pools of fresh blood. The ageless expert’s eyes were golden, nearly identical to Lao Ren’s. They both had long, lustrous dark hair and wore scarlet gowns of intricate design, adorned with thousands of tiny, delicate crystals. The dresses hugged their athletic, yet feminine forms.

  His gaze returned to the younger woman, and as the image finally came into full focus, he gasped.

  I’ve seen her before!

  Only, at the time she was around 12 years old. He could swear he was looking at Ang Yi—Ang War’s daughter, who had died in the attack on Teraxis—except now she was a young woman of stunning appearance. Her magnetic crimson eyes were large, with long, thick eyelashes; her skin was akin to the purest white jade, devoid of any imperfections. Her nose was proportional and straight, her lips full and smooth, the color of fresh blood. Since his rebirth, Cade had met many attractive women, but this one was different. He felt it was her who was pulling him in, as if anchoring his soul to this new place.

  Suddenly, the young woman turned her head towards him. Cade’s fascination with his current situation was so great he forgot for a moment he was being continuously struck by lightning. He simply could not tear his eyes away from this Asura goddess. However, the moment she saw him, she jumped, let out a girlish yelp, then hid behind the ageless cultivator.

  “Mom, I think I just saw a ghost,” she blurted out in perfect Chthonic—the same language he had learned from Master Lao Ren, not the ancient dialect Night used. Cade had briefly thought he was witnessing a scene from the past, but this convinced him otherwise.

  The older woman was immediately alarmed. Her head swiveled, her wary gaze passing over him without any change in expression.

  She can’t see me.

  “Here?” she asked, her brow creasing. “Where is it?”

  The adult double of Ang Yi peeked out from behind her mother, yelped, and hid once again.

  “There!” she pointed in his direction, one eye peeking from behind her mother’s back. “Something is sitting on the grass wearing a red robe. I can’t really see its face under the hood, but from the silhouette the ghost looks like a large man. Kind of. His body is constantly phasing—a bit like a wraith sometimes does, except this one looks like an ugly black skeleton.”

  The ageless cultivator stared right at him, her eyes like two golden sentinels, trying to ascertain what was going on and whether she had to take action, but there was no recognition in her expression. Considering that she was without a doubt a high-level cultivator, it left only one option.

  This has to be the work of the godseed. It was the only type of qi he knew of that even powerful experts could not detect, and the only one that could perform a feat as ridiculous as sending a manifestation of his soul across vast distances.

  “Please… I’m no danger to you,” Cade said in a weak, raspy voice.

  “Aiya! He speaks!” the daughter exclaimed, clutching her mother’s gown like a scared child. After a moment, she added in a calmer tone. “Mom, you said ghosts are very dangerous to youngbloods, but this one just sits there looking pitiful.”

  “What did this ghost say exactly?” the ageless cultivator asked, her face shifting between anxious, puzzled, and mildly amused.

  “Actually,” the young woman slowly stepped out from behind her mother, “maybe he’s an Asura ghost? He speaks Chthonic. He said that he’s no danger to us.”

  “You’re not making this up, right? It’s not some sort of birthday trick?” the mother asked, golden eyes narrowing on her daughter’s face. None of her senses could detect anything, and it made her relax a little. Her lips slowly stretched into a sly smile, as she knew her daughter’s mischievous nature all too well.

  “Mom, this time I’m serious. I promise!” the young woman said firmly, and her mother’s expression immediately grew stern.

  “What is he doing then?” she asked in confusion.

  “Well… he’s sitting in the air cross-legged, staring in our direction like it was us who were the ghosts. His eyes are flashing with golden light every now and then, and his body’s rapidly flickering, but otherwise he’s not moving. I think… I think he might be in pain,” the adult Ang Yi said with hesitation.

  He glanced at himself and found that what she said was true. Then the delayed realization finally dawned on him—he was still experiencing the tribulation, but only in a small part, as if this terrifying experienced had been somehow moved to the background of his mindscape. Additionally, now that the majority of his conscious thought was pulled out of Ang War’s memory, it had been sped up tremendously, replaying with vastly accelerated perception. How this had happened, he couldn’t tell—what mattered was his suffering had greatly lessened to a bearable level, no longer seriously wounding his soul. He pulled the cowl over his face and lowered his eyes, using the tribulation silk to conceal their golden radiance.

  I need to stay here at any cost! I might be able to complete the memory in a dozen actual hours, just as Night had said.

  At the same time, his soul was continuously reaping the benefits of repeated lightning strikes; he could sense it growing and strengthening. Maybe it wasn’t as much as if he were to experience every single bolt in its full, deadly glory, but this way he at least had a chance to live through the tribulation with his mind and soul mostly intact. On top of that, his cultivation and prismatic spherules were gradually improving, as the godly life force inside the eyes was being refined and integrated into his body.

  He could see the mother deliberating, her frown deepening. It seemed nothing she could come up with on the spot could explain her daughter’s unexpected vision.

  “Hmm… Maybe there is a reason you’re seeing him. Ask him why he’s here.”

  “You, red ghost!” Emboldened by his non-intimidating demeanor, the young Asura woman took a wide stance, hands on her hips, pointing with her chin in his direction. “Why do you creep around looking ugly and scaring decent people?!”