My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 645- Sudden Upheaval, Upward Gaze, Golden Tents - Part 3

Chapter 645- Sudden Upheaval, Upward Gaze, Golden Tents - Part 3

One by one, Ping'an’s clones transformed into unspeakable abominations, creatures of flesh and madness, like an assembly of corpses sewn together, the very embodiment of chaos meshed with chaos.

These grotesque creatures wandered aimlessly through the Hall of Life, crashing into walls, skittering down halls, frantically searching for an exit, desperate to return to the human world.

They didn’t even know why they wanted to go back.

But in the heart of their chaos, that longing had become their only obsession.

They charged left and right, flailing and fleeing.

They barreled through a colossal gate and stumbled upon corpses not far beyond, those of the late Patriarch Xie, Patriarch Chifeng, and the cultivators they had once led.

The creatures devoured the corpses without pause, then kept running.

They didn’t know where they were headed, didn’t know how long they had been running.

But then, one of them, by pure accident, arrived at a place where the path could go no farther.

A corridor bathed in soft, pure light.

It still looked like part of the Hall of Life, but unlike the hall’s crumbling ruins, this place was pristine, untouched, radiating peace.

The malformed, hideous clone of Ping'an, this creature of chaos, collapsed at the corridor’s threshold. Dozens of its warped faces pressed longingly against the transparent wall, their many eyes fixed on what lay within.

That light...was the most beautiful thing in all of existence.

It was the light of hope. The light of beginnings. The light of a world just being born.

From deep within the light came the faint sounds of infants crying, mothers laughing, and the warm chatter of families reunited.

All those sounds wove together into a single, radiant thread of meaning, birth.

This was a functioning cycle of reincarnation, unblocked, unbroken.

The monster hurled itself at the corridor, again and again, trying to break through. But an invisible barrier of overwhelming force blocked its path.

Its body, cloaked in blood and despair, remained trapped in darkness, but its gaze never left the gentle, holy glow on the other side.

It was filled with yearning, but it could not cross.

It slammed against the wall, again and again until, like a soap bubble, it burst into nothing.

Just like the tadpoles Li Yuan had once seen in the Eastern Sea, imposing in appearance, but fragile to the touch.

The air rang with the sharp, chaotic shrieks of their disintegration.

And those other patchwork souls, sensing hope, perhaps for the first time, went mad. They surged toward the bridge of flesh with frenzied desperation.

Ping'an’s body had become that bridge of flesh.

The souls of countless once-mighty cultivators had become the bridge’s supporting pillars.

On one end stood the reincarnation passage.

On the other, a path of rebirth that led nowhere, a reincarnation road with no destination.

Ping'an’s soul had truly become a lone boat in a storm, tossed about in a sea of chaos.

All around him, the spirits passed, by the thousands, raging like waves, rushing past like vessels in a torrent.

Yet at the heart of this storm, his soul had taken on the form of his younger self again.

He was battered, smashed again and again by overwhelming force until he nearly dissolved.

And yet...these remnants, these twisted fragments of ancient beings, seemed to understand instinctively that Ping'an’s soul was the source, the very core, of the cloning ability they were using.

So they wouldn’t let him die.

They wouldn’t let him stop.

And so, after who knew how long, his bruised and battered soul began to move again.

Ping'an, dazed, swollen-eyed and broken-nosed, hauled himself up, sitting there quietly on the bridge made from his own flesh.

The birth of the bridge of flesh gave those chaotic, headless-chicken-like patchwork powerhouses something they had never had before: direction.

Even if that direction led only to death.

But their minds, such as they were, couldn’t comprehend that. Their fragmented thoughts were too broken for foresight, too clouded for reason.

All they knew was this: if they crossed the bridge, they could have a body again.

And so, the patchwork powerhouses that had once scattered and clashed aimlessly throughout the reincarnation passage now surged forward as one, forming a grotesque river of undead will.

Perhaps it was the momentum of that flow.

Or perhaps it was just the world falling further into decay, with the Soul Furnace breaking down more and more each day.

Whatever the cause, something happened.

At one exit of the Soul Furnace, where lunar radiance swirled in ever-turning spirals, a soul was suddenly ejected.

It was nearly whole.

But the Yin and Yang that once wrapped around it weren’t so lucky. They were vaporized the moment they touched the furnace's rim, melted away clean.

Yin and Yang returned to the world.

Like seeds sprouting into flowers, then falling back to earth, blossoms into soil, becoming spring mud that nurtured the next bloom.

Heaven created all things to nourish humanity; and humanity, in turn, repaid the heavens.

When the winds were fair, when rain came on time and the spiritual qi flowed freely, humans thrived. But when humans became dragons...did not the world itself grow stronger?

It was a cycle, always had been.

The nearly complete soul, now stripped of its Yin-Yang shell, drifted from the furnace and toward that luminous tunnel, the one path of reincarnation still left open, still functioning.

Outside the corridor, monsters crouched in the dark, mutated and mad. They howled as they listened to the faint cries of newborns, the laughter of mothers, the warmth of family reunion echoing from afar.

And then they burst, like fireworks of despair, turning into screaming evil spirits that clawed at the veil between worlds.

Over and over, it repeated.

No beginning. No end.

And somewhere in that endless cycle, the small, weathered soul of Ping'an sat quietly on the bridge of flesh.

His eyes were blank. His face tilted upward.

But what he was looking at...even he didn’t know.

And who could say how many seasons had passed in the mortal world while he sat there?

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Herderton.

On the high ground near the town, villagers stood watching the distance. Even from so far away, they could hear the terrifying roar of floodwaters.

“It’s under again, flooded again!”

One young villager covered his face, crying openly.

Someone beside him barked, “What’re you crying for? Like a woman!”

The young man sobbed, “The horses. A bunch of them are gone again. And the government still wants to collect grazing taxes...”

In the distance, atop another hill, stood a different group, men and women who clearly weren’t ordinary folk.

The men were sturdy. The women, beautiful. And at their center stood an old woman, hunched and silent.

It was clear that she was the one they all deferred to.

She leaned heavily on her cane, thin lips pressed into a tight line, eyes fixed on the distant floodplain.

She radiated authority, but the dullness in her gaze betrayed the truth.

Her time was almost up.

Birth, aging, sickness, and death, the cycle no one escaped.

Peasant or prince, we all end in the same dust.

The old woman was dying.

And yet...she waited.

“For real this year, Mother. We have to move. Uncle and the others already went north ahead of us. The pastures up there are lush. No floods. The government can’t reach that far either. It’s the perfect place for us to make our mark. Uncle’s already made good with the northern nomads, they’re happy to have us.”

“And here,” the steady-voiced man continued, “the taxes keep rising while the land just gets worse and worse. This place isn’t fit for the Huyan Clan’s horse herds anymore.”

The old woman remained silent.

The man cast a look toward a nearby girl, delicate and bright-eyed.

She caught his signal instantly, her eyes sparkling with mischief as she knelt beside the old woman’s knee and said sweetly, “Grandmother, you wouldn’t believe it! When Uncle showed the nomads the wolves we’d trained, their jaws practically hit the ground!”

“Oh, and guess what? The tribes are doing something called the Golden Tent ceremony lately.

“They don’t dare call themselves kings under Great Zhou’s rule, but the Golden Tent, it’s not like the rest. That one’s the king’s tent in all but name. The tribal chieftains were so impressed with our wolves, they all said no matter who ends up claiming the Golden Tent, our Huyan Clan must be granted one too, as a mark of honor.”

Still, the old woman said nothing.

The girl pouted, voice softening to a pleading whine. “Grandmother, can’t we just go? Please?”

The old woman finally looked at her, eyes full of tenderness. She reached out and gently stroked the girl’s hair.

“I’m still waiting for someone,” she said quietly.

The girl’s smile faded. “Grandmother...but he’s not coming. Hasn’t it been years since you came to Herderton? You’ve been waiting since then, haven’t you? So many years have passed, who can live that long?”

The old woman didn’t answer. She simply closed her eyes, feeling the state of her aging body with the quiet sensitivity of someone near the end.

After a long pause, she said, “Huyan Bao.”

The steady man immediately stepped forward. “I’m here, Mother.”

She waved her hand, signaling for the others to step away, even her granddaughter.

Huyan Bao grew more solemn, sensing the weight of what was to come.

Once it was just the two of them, the old woman leaned closer and spoke in a low, serious voice.

“You may go north. But someone must stay behind. Someone must watch over our ancestral home and wait for him. And when he returns, the home must be given to him. That person...that person...”

She trailed off, then slowly pulled a silk handkerchief from her robes.

On it, just one line of poetry was written.

“Where azure waters hide the spring sun, the green hills veil the evening glow.”

She pressed it into his hands and gave her final instruction.

“If someone comes one day and says they’ve come to claim the old house, if they recite this verse, then you are to hand it over to them.”

Huyan Bao knelt and accepted the handkerchief with care, but murmured, “Mother...to be honest, Zhi’er wasn’t wrong. Whoever that person was, after all these years, they’re probably long gone. Dead. He’s not coming.”

The old woman glared at him, her voice sharp as a whip. “Swear it! Swear on your bloodline that someone from our family will guard that house, generation after generation, until the day that man returns!”

Huyan Bao had no choice. He swore the oath.

But deep down, he felt relieved. Since she’d finally agreed to let them leave, they could at last move the whole clan north, for good.