6.40 - Divine Soul Apotheosis

It took all the next day for Chen Fei to finish reconfiguring the formation script on Li Renshu’s cultivation chamber. While she worked, He Yu cultivated atop a nearby mountain. As he centered himself and reviewed his plan with the aid of the Peerless Judgment, his doubts slowly dropped to the wayside like so many cast stones. Once the chamber was ready, he graciously accepted his elixir from Li Renshu before finally secluding himself.

“You’re far too humble, Patriarch Li,” He Yu said as he bowed deeply over a salute.

“It’s nothing,” the older expert said. “I just hope this elixir is enough to aid you in a truly profound advancement.

Although Li Renshu had said the core recovered from the wind serpent was an incredible-quality reagent, he’d also expressed his doubts about its efficacy. He Yu was breaking into Divine Soul Apotheosis, after all, and the core had come from a Sixth Realm awakened beast. What Li Renshu had neglected to mention, was that his alchemists had been continuously adding to and refining this particular elixir the whole time He Yu had been gone. The result was an advancement resource of near-legendary quality.

Just holding the elixir sent tiny crackling sparks of heaven qi dancing along He Yu’s arms. The surrounding air grew heavy and wet, and if he kept it outside his storage treasure for too long, clouds began to form in the sky. The alchemist who presented it to him had called it the “Heavenly Thunderstorm Cloud Essence,” and claimed it was an elixir so potent he would likely never create something stronger, even should he live for another one thousand years. It was, in He Yu’s estimation, the single most potent elixir he’d ever encountered.

Whether it was worthy of an Eighth Realm breakthrough wasn’t something he thought worth questioning.

Sealed within the cultivation chamber at the center of the Li estates, He Yu assumed a cultivation position and drew the elixir from his storage treasure. The instant he unstoppered the bottle, the chamber filled with a thunderstorm that rivaled He Yu’s own unleashed presence. Lest he allow any of the elixir’s potency to escape into the room, He Yu quickly downed it. Heaven, wind, and water qi surged through his meridians and filled his lower dantian. He cycled the Peerless Judgment, sending the qi through his into his bones and limbs and organs. He steadied his breathing and turned his awareness fully inward. It was time.

The chamber and its humming formation script fell away. His body—remade and reforged into a vessel truly worthy of an immortal—likewise fell away. The world itself fell away. All that remain was him, He Yu, a spirit standing in the presence of the vastness of heaven. The endlessly cycling law of all creation. The eternal, the Dao.

He Yu began his work.

In principle, this breakthrough was much the same as the previous one to Divine Body Attainment. He needed to deconstruct his spirit, then reforge it into a new version of itself worthy of the profound truths he’d come to embody on his path to this moment. Much like his advancement to Divine Body Attainment, he would have to rely on his personal Dao as a guidepost. His connection to the eternal, rooted in the guiding certainty he’d forged into his Way over the course of long years of cultivation. His Daoist Mind, that fragment of the eternal, that shard of infinite insight and wisdom that he’d cultivated within himself, would oversee the entire process, integrating all that he was with all that he would be.

He Yu scattered his spirit. Like the storm, he spread across all of heaven and earth. To encompass truths he’d only thought he understood until this very moment. The marks he’d carved into his spirit over the course of countless years and decisions alike formed sparking masses heavenly qi floating in the raging storm of his spirit fully unrestrained. Once again, he stood atop the infinite stair, with the Heavenly Palace rising at his back. The pillars of the Ninefold Empyrean Body Tempering rose around him, and the distant beat of Leigong’s drum accompanied the constant flash of heaven in the infinite sea of clouds.

Before him, eternity opened. His Wayborn Seed reached for his connection to the Dao of Heroism. His first true step toward this moment, formed so long ago when he faced an overwhelming foe with nothing but a shard of metal from a broken weapon, inched ever closer to He Yu’s own shard of the eternal. They touched.

The world broke.

The storm screamed, rushing away from him. His Wayborn seed recoiled, his very spirit withered. Darkness. Emptiness.

He was alone.

Only the long decades of cultivating the Peerless Judgment allowed him to remain calm. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The storm—his storm—was gone. The constant thunderous beat of Leigong’s drum, gone. Even the great dragon of heaven was gone. It was only He Yu, in an expanse of endless dark.

Only He Yu, and a reflection of himself. A reflection he recognized. How could he not? The figure standing before him was him. Just a different version—the version he’d always imagined.

He Yu the hero, the legend. The cultivator who had reached the heights of cultivation, righteous in his words and deeds alike. Pure of heart, a paragon of justice and benevolence. The idealized vision of his youth stood before him. The very man he’d always imagined himself to be stood before him.

And when he stared into the eyes of that reflection, He Yu found himself lacking.

Like the crashing of a dropped and shattered guzheng, with cracked wood and snapped strings, the dissonance he’d felt as much as heard when recounting his plan to the others returned. With it, his reflection’s features spoke their disapproval in ways louder than words.

Is this who you are? Is this what you wanted to become?

Faced with such a rebuke from his idealized self, He Yu struggled to stand tall. Struggled to stand before his truth. How was this plan any different from what King Hao had done all those years ago? The result was a pile of corpses either way. Should the people Jiankang be condemned to death simply for obeying their liege?

“This is different,” He Yu said to the reflection of his ideals.

“I fail to see how,” he said in answer to himself.

In the darkness they stood, facing one another. He Yu grasped for an answer. “People suffer across the empire. I saw it in the south, on my way to Shulin. I saw what happened to Plum Blossom City on my way back from Yunchang’s tomb. If Jin Xifeng is allowed to rule, more death comes.”

“Death always comes. We both know that. How many times have we seen it? Felt its touch on the people around us? Are those who still live less deserving of their lives than those who have already died? Would you visit suffering on them, simply because others have suffered?”

It wasn’t that simple. He knew it wasn’t. But how could he express that, in the face of this, the manifestation of his ideals? The very part of him that had driven him so far for so long? He looked to his time in the trials set before him by Yunchang. He’d spent over forty years pursuing and refining the Dao of Heroism, coming to understand his Daoist Mind. If his answers could be found anywhere, it would be within those insights.

In the trial of the Vermilion Bird, it was only after the village had burned that they had rebuilt it stronger than before. During their fighting retreat, when tested by the White Tiger, they had left many to die out of necessity, but they had saved many more. For the Black Tortoise, they’d had to focus on pragmatic and wise decisions so they could restore the nameless sect to its strength. And under the watchful gaze of the Azure Dragon, He Yu acted as Grand Chancellor. As distant as he’d been from the direct consequences of his decisions, he’d ordered the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands. He had instructed his loyal commanders to quash rebellion and discontent with one word, then rebuild villages with the next.

He had come, in a way, to understand some of what Li Renshu and Tan Zihao had seen when he’d first proposed this plan. This was necessary. Not simply because it served some greater good. That explanation was too simple. Even this version of He Yu, the version that had lived, had tested his ideals against the world, and had held on to them in some part but allowed them to bend in others—the lived version saw this. Yes, in a sense, the denizens of the capital did deserve a chance to live. But they’d also pledged themselves to Jin Xifeng. Whether willingly or not, they served.

To cut out the rot at the heart of the empire wasn’t just to balance the scales. It wasn’t just some simple calculation; the weight of a city’s worth of lives against that of an empire. It was preventing a whole host of untold suffering in the future, and giving the empire and its people a chance to heal. It was the path to restoring order and harmony, so that once again, all under heaven could prosper.

He reached for the weight left in his mind and his spirit by the Four Symbols themselves. The lessons of forty years, struggling to rebuild, to save, and to hold dear. And also, to cut away. To sacrifice, make choices and live by their consequences. He’d chosen his path, and he would live with it.

It was what needed to be done, and there wasn’t anyone else capable of doing it.

“Are you prepared to pay this price?” his reflection asked.

“No,” he admitted. “I don’t think anyone is, in truth. But we pay it regardless.”

The storm returned. He Yu and his reflection shattered, their very essence scattered upon the howling winds. Anchored by Wayborn Seed to the Dao of Heroism, and guided by his Daoist Mind, He Yu gathered the stuff of himself once again.

He gathered his ideals, his dreams, his aspirations. He forged them together with the wisdom he’d gained over the years. The compromises he’d made in order to stand as firm as he could against the inevitability of reality. What he created in the end may not have been the perfect vision of a legendary hero, the hero he’d imagined himself to be when he was young—but rather, something real. Something capable of holding on to that youthful vision, using it to guide him through the challenges he’d already faced, and all the challenges he’d yet to meet.

He stood once against at the top of the infinite stair, the Heavenly Palace rising at his back. The pillars of the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering gathered around him. And in the distance, he caught sight of something familiar. Rising to the heavens, an alabaster pillar adorned with four faces.

As He Yu gathered more of himself, forging his spirit into one worthy of the Eighth Realm, the alabaster pillar drew closer until it filled the endless sky. The face closest to him cracked open its eyes, and bathed him in radiance. A flood of insights, a thousand years’ worth and more, poured into him. It was only by his Daoist Mind that he didn’t crumble under the weight of knowledge. Under this one last gasp of the inheritance Elder Cai had left him, inscribed upon his technique manual as a final gift.

Above him, the pillar cracked. Great chunks of alabaster fell from its edifice, dissolving like so much smoke as they fell and were swept away by the winds of He Yu’s storm. Still, the insights came. Passing, at last, from one inheritor to the next. When finally the pillar had crumbled to dust, swept away into mere memory, He Yu opened his eyes.

In the center of the cultivation chamber, he stood. His spirit, like his body, now perfected. Immaculate and untarnished. As with his advancement to Divine Body Attainment, there were no impurities this time. Just the lingering doubts about his task and purpose. But those had been swept away by the storm when he confronted himself—and answered to his satisfaction.

And now, with his advancement to Divine Soul Apotheosis, he’d fully integrated Elder Cai’s inheritance. The Peerless Judgment beheld the path before him. The way was clear. Soon enough, Jin Xifeng would fall.