411 Weight of a Father's Choice

We arrived before the Temple beneath a sky split by gold.

A vast dome of light enveloped the ancient structure, its surface humming with layered authority and formation laws refined to near perfection. The radiance did not feel hostile, nor did it welcome us. It simply existed, indifferent to intent.

Hei Mao slowed beside me, his small frame tense.

"Master," he said, voice tight with worry. "Senior Sister Gu Jie… is she—"

"We'll see for ourselves," I replied.

We stepped forward together. The golden dome welcomed us without resistance. The light washed over us and receded, leaving no trace.

Immediately, my Divine Sense caught the clash ahead.

Two overwhelming presences collided within the Temple grounds, their power distorting space and chewing through layers of formation like paper. The signature of similar yet different powers tangled violently with something colder, older, and far more malicious.

Hei Mao felt it too.

"Gu Jie," he whispered, and then he ran.

I followed at a measured pace, though every instinct urged me forward faster. I crossed the threshold just in time to see Hei Mao throw himself between Gu Jie and an incoming palm strike.

Shadow and void erupted as Yuan Shun's hand descended, her mismatched eyes blazing blue and gold. Hei Mao's fists met her attack head-on, his shadow arts flaring desperately, yet every strike he launched was effortlessly deflected. The disparity was clear, and it was cruel.

I acted.

Through the Divine Zone, I cast Judgment Severance.

A golden rift shaped like a cross tore open between them, erupting with crushing authority. Power, shadow, and intent were dragged inward, annihilated by the collapsing judgment. The violent suction forced both combatants apart, sending them skidding in opposite directions.

The battlefield fell still.

"Senior Sister!" Hei Mao cried out.

Gu Jie coughed violently, blood spilling from her lips as she leaned heavily against Wen Yuhan's shoulder. Her body trembled, exhaustion and injury layered deep into her soul.

Wen Yuhan stood motionless, eyes closed, expression utterly empty. Bruises marred her body, yet she did not react to Gu Jie's weight, nor to the chaos around her.

My gaze shifted.

Quan Shou and Yuan Shen lay nearby, still standing yet unmistakably broken. Quan Shou's right arm was gone, severed cleanly. Yuan Shen's face was a ruin, one eye crushed and lifeless. Both of them moved stiffly, as if animated by something other than will.

Corpse puppets.

Yuan Shun laughed, the sound light and delighted.

"I tried so hard not to kill her," she said, spreading her hands theatrically. "Just so you could see, Da Wei. See what kind of disciple you chose."

Hei Mao bristled, shadow flaring violently.

"Master," he shouted, "don't listen to her!"

Yuan Shun's smile widened.

"Oh, but he should," she purred. "He should do what he does best. Comfort her. Tell her it was necessary. Tell her it wasn't her fault. Be soft. Be kind. Be everything you were never meant to be."

She leaned forward, eyes burning with feverish delight.

"And then," she continued, "I'll show the world whose master was truly superior."

I listened.

My Divine Sense traced her intent, her emotions, and the subtle distortions of causality around her words. She was not lying. She wanted me to act that way. She wanted proof.

And she was right about one thing.

I wanted to comfort Gu Jie. I wanted to tell her that what she did was necessary, that it wasn't her fault, that everything would be fine.

But I couldn't.

There were moments when a child needed tenderness, and moments when they needed truth sharp enough to hurt. To do otherwise would be indulgence, not love.

Gu Jie was the miracle that taught me to love this world. That was precisely why I could not let her drown beneath the weight of forbidden knowledge and unchecked resolve. I had seen what that burden could do.

Nongmin had lived that path.

Through his eyes, I saw how easily it twisted the soul. How it hollowed out hope while convincing its bearer they were doing what must be done.

I would not allow my daughter to become another victim of that fate.

My gaze lingered on Wen Yuhan, on Quan Shou, on Yuan Shen.

Their deaths twisted something deep within me. I could resurrect them. I knew I could. It would cost divine spark, perhaps more than I should spend, but it was possible.

Yet I chose not to.

Not because they were imitations. Not because this world was a record.

But because their lives, brief as they were, deserved to end without being reduced to tools once more. If they were to live again someday, it would not be by my hand.

Hei Mao stepped forward, trembling with fury.

"You trickster," he spat. "You monster. You stole my sister's body and used it like this!"

"Enough," I said.

The word carried no divine power, yet it cut through the chaos all the same.

Hei Mao froze, turning toward me in shock.

I stepped forward, eyes never leaving Yuan Shun.

"I've decided," I said.

Yuan Shun laughed, the sound sharp and mocking as it echoed through the shattered Temple.

"So," she asked lightly, "what's it going to be, Da Wei?"

The lingering rift of Judgment Severance finally collapsed, its golden light thinning and fading until the world felt heavier again, as if reality itself had resumed breathing. The sudden quiet pressed down on my chest, but I did not allow it to slow me.

I raised my voice, letting it carry without divine amplification, stern and unyielding.

"For hurting innocent lives," I said, "and for violating the sacred temple that is their flesh, I declare you a sinner, Gu Jie."

I wanted to look away. Every instinct screamed for me to spare her my gaze, but I forced myself to look directly at her.

Gu Jie's eyes trembled violently as they met mine. With her Destiny-Seeking Eyes, she must have seen this moment long before it arrived. She must have seen the outcome, the words I would speak, and the weight they would carry. Yet she had still chosen this path.

That knowledge did not absolve her.

"From this moment onward," I continued, my voice steady despite the ache spreading through my chest, "you are stripped of your status as my first disciple."

Gu Jie flinched.

"As your parent, though not by blood," I went on, "it is my responsibility to punish you. So heed my words well, my daughter."

Her head lowered slowly, deliberately, as she avoided my gaze. Her shoulders shook, but she did not speak.

Beside her, Wen Yuhan moved.

The corpse puppet stepped forward with an unsettling grace, arms lifting as if guided by instinct rather than command. She wrapped Gu Jie in an embrace, gentle and protective, something that should not have been possible for something devoid of will.

That moment nearly broke me.

I steadied myself and continued.

"From now on," I said, "your punishment shall be mourning."

Gu Jie's breath hitched.

"You will mourn the lives you unjustly squandered," I declared. "Your only path to redemption is to bring back the lives you coldly took away."

I turned away then. I could not bear to watch her face as the tears finally spilled, streaking down her cheeks and dripping onto the fractured stone below.

It was not an easy punishment. It was an impossible one.

Resurrecting Wen Yuhan, Quan Shou, and Yuan Shen was no small feat. Even with Gu Jie's current strength, it was beyond her reach. Whatever she had done within the spire, whatever ritual or catastrophe had occurred there, it had exceeded her limits by a terrifying margin.

Something had happened that I did not yet understand.

If Gu Jie wished to speak of it, if she chose to stop hiding truths behind silence and necessity, I would listen. I would always listen.

But not now.

What she needed was not forgiveness or explanation.

What she needed was repentance.

Gu Jie fell to her knees and kowtowed, her forehead striking the stone with a dull, hollow sound.

"Father," she said, her voice breaking completely. "I will repent as long as I live. I will carry the punishment you have placed upon my shoulders."

Hei Mao stood beside me in silence, his expression solemn. I could see the storm behind his eyes, calculations layered over fear, loyalty tangled with pain. When he finally spoke, his smile was strained and almost fragile.

"You are strong, master," he said quietly, as if the words themselves carried weight he was unsure of.

Yuan Shun screamed.

It was not a cry of sorrow or despair, but one of absolute fury, raw and unrestrained. Her composure shattered as she stared at the scene before her, at Gu Jie kneeling, at my judgment standing unchallenged.

"This isn't how it was supposed to go!" she roared. "This isn't how it ends!"

I stepped forward, my voice steady despite the tension coiling through my body.

"We should end this cycle of suffering," I said. "Hundreds of thousands of years, starting from the era of the Heavenly Demon. It was inherited by the Eternal Undeath Cult, then twisted further by the Heavenly Temple. It never stopped."

I looked directly at her mismatched eyes.

"The Supreme Void's shackles," I continued, "let me help you break them."

Her laughter was obscene, jagged and hysterical. Crystalline tears streamed from her blue eye, freezing mid-fall before shattering against the ground. From her golden eye flowed molten tears, thick and incandescent, burning small scars into the stone beneath her feet.

"The Supreme Void?" she spat. "A spineless loser. He never deserved my attention, not even a fragment of it."

Her voice trembled with venomous reverence as she went on.

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"He couldn't compare to the one who taught me how to break the shackles. Someone an inferior like you could never understand."

The words were wrong. Not merely hostile, but fundamentally wrong in a way that made my instincts scream.

I did not hesitate.

I invoked Divine Possession on Hei Mao, letting our souls overlap as we became one. Power surged, pathways aligning as we attempted Divine Transformation.

We were too slow.

Yuan Shun vanished and reappeared in front of us in the same breath, Flash Step chained seamlessly into motion. Her fist descended wreathed in divine authority.

"Divine Smite."

Hei Mao's scarf reacted instantly, enveloping our arms and hardening into a gauntlet. We caught her arm mid-strike, the impact sending cracks racing through the floor beneath our feet.

"Where did you learn that technique?" I demanded.

It could have been a Legacy Bearer. It should have been. Yet the unease crawling up my spine refused to subside.

Yuan Shun twisted free, activating Divine Speed as she slipped past the lashing scarf. We mirrored her with Divine Speed of our own, but she shifted again, her body hardening as Divine Flesh manifested.

She caught our arms.

Monkey Grip crushed down with terrifying precision, bones screaming in protest. Before we could recover, her knee rose in a War Smite kick that sent us flying, bodies slamming through ancient temple walls.

We barely had time to cast Blessed Regeneration, golden light knitting shattered wrists back into something functional.

She did not relent.

Yuan Shun blitzed us relentlessly, her intent unmistakable. She was not trying to kill us outright. She was trying to stop us from ever completing Divine Transformation.

She appeared behind us while we were still airborne, Zealot's Stride chaining into Shadow Step as if the two had never been separate techniques. She grabbed our collar and hurled us downward, Thunderous Smite detonating on impact as the ground caved beneath us.

"I'll wield the scarf," Hei Mao said inside our shared consciousness, focused and sharp. "I know it better. You fight."

I dug my fingers into the stone with Monkey Grip just as Yuan Shun seized my foot, trying to lift me and toss me away with War Smite. The instinct was familiar. If I were in her position, I would have done the same.

That realization unsettled me.

When she failed to throw me, she shifted tactics instantly, grip tightening to crush my leg instead. Divine Flesh flared as I resisted, heat surging through my veins as I countered with a Searing Smite.

That was my opening.

I kicked out with my free foot, War Smite detonating cleanly and sending her flying across the courtyard.

I did not chase.

I retreated with Flash Step, hands already moving as I layered buffs as fast as I could.

Lion's Courage. Bless. Divine Word: Life. Sacred Bulwark. Shield of Faith, silver light blooming into a barrier. Shield of the Eternal, gold layered atop it. Zeal Aura surged, Divine Speed and Zealot's Stride aligning as I dodged nearly invisible shadow projectiles erupting from my own shadow.

Her skill chaining was flawless.

The buffs I tried to stack were interrupted mid-flow, gaps forming faster than I could fill them. Hei Mao's scarf intercepted several attacks that I would never have perceived without his Abyss Sight.

Then the world twisted.

A golden rift shaped like a cross opened beside me without warning, its presence oppressive and precise. Power drained from me in a single, horrifying instant. Buffs collapsed, barriers evaporated, momentum died.

Everything went dark inside my senses.

"Shit," I muttered.

That was not raw talent.

That was mastery.

At least top ten PvP level by LLO standards.

There were two ways to counter a dispel. You either tanked it with a preset countermeasure, or you anticipated it and dodged it with superior reflex and movement speed. Both approaches were valid, both tested countless times in real combat.

The problem arose when the dispel itself was an Ultimate Skill.

That alone already narrowed the margin of error to almost nothing. Now add another variable. What if the one using it was well-versed in PvP, someone operating at LLO standards?

No embellishment needed. You would be toast.

If I were Yuan Shun, I would do exactly what she was doing now. I would summon Heavenly Punishment in bulk and time it precisely at the moment Judgment Severance ended. With Heavenly Punishment's homing nature and near absolute accuracy, counterplay would become nearly impossible.

As if to mock the thought, the sky split open.

Four enormous golden swords began to descend from the heavens, each one unmistakably a Heavenly Punishment. Their presence crushed the air itself, divine pressure bearing down with intent that could not be mistaken.

Of course, there was a counter to such combo.

Within my Divine Zone, I could cast Judgment Severance again to interrupt it or even Divine Word: Rest on the caster to go eye for an eye. The problem was what came after. Yuan Shun could simply chain another series of Heavenly Punishments from afar, perfectly timed with the end of my Judgment Severance. Worse still, she was capable of Stealth Casting.

That realization made my blood run cold.

Stealth Casting was not something that belonged in this world. It was a unique passive usually reserved for rogue-type builds, something I had never expected to see in this world.

I spoke quickly, my voice low but firm.

"Hei Mao," I said, "there's only one way through this."

He already knew.

"Divine Transformation," he replied without hesitation.

"In the gap," I continued, "between Judgment Severance ending and the next Heavenly Punishment cast. We have to complete it there. The window will be razor-thin."

"We'll make it work," Hei Mao said.

We ran.

Every ounce of strength we could muster surged into our legs as we sprinted across shattered stone and fractured ground. The Heavenly Punishments above did not care how far we ran. They waited, patient and inevitable.

The moment Judgment Severance dissipated, we spoke as one.

"Divine Transformation."

Reality folded.

What had been we became me.

My body expanded, power brimming to every fiber of my ghostly being. I stood in the form of an adult, skin glowing pale and translucent silver. The whites and blacks of my eyes reversed, torii gates etched clearly into each pupil.

Hei Mao's crimson scarf erupted into motion, dancing wildly in the air. It darkened, flame-like, taking on the color of shadow as pale skull-shaped visages emerged from it like drifting mist. Somewhere within the chaos, the sound of a zither being struck echoed, slow and haunting.

The Heavenly Punishments descended.

They came in staggered intervals, deliberately randomized, clearly meant to weaken Judgment Severance's utility. That no longer mattered.

I raised my arms.

"Ghost Path," we uttered together. "Mark of the Hollow."

A dark diamond formed on Hei Mao's forehead, then expanded outward. Lines spread above his brows and down along his eyes, forming a crown-like mark etched in void. It pulsed once, then settled into stillness.

I stood there and accepted the strikes.

One by one, the Heavenly Punishments landed, each exploding into towering pillars of golden light. The impact shook the land, annihilated stone, and tore apart the air itself.

When the light faded, I remained unscathed.

If the Animal Path's King of the Wild allowed monstrous evolution into the ultimate lifeform, and the Human Path's Enlightenment of the Fool nullified hierarchy regardless of origin, and the Heaven Path's God of Creation allowed unreasonable creation at a thought—

Then the Ghost Path's Mark of the Hollow allowed emptiness as a state of being.

Yuan Shun appeared before me, her expression shattered by disbelief.

"What… what just happened?" she demanded.

I looked at her calmly.

"You struck at emptiness," I said. "That's what happened."

She shook her head violently. "That's impossible. Ridiculous."

"By existing within emptiness," I replied, "I remain unnoticed, untouched, and undamaged. I do not exist, simply by staying still. It's your loss."

It was the ultimate defensive miracle.

"It's over," Yuan Shun said as she dropped to her knees.

For a brief, foolish moment, I thought she meant surrender.

Yuan Shun smiled. It was wide, unrestrained, almost joyous, and utterly wrong.

"It's finally over," she said again, her voice trembling with delight rather than defeat.

The world cracked and the formation groaned like a dying beast, golden lines splintering apart as the false sky peeled away. The pressure vanished in an instant, leaving behind only ruin and silence.

Yuan Shun was still kneeling before me, but she was no longer whole.

Through my Divine Sense, reinforced by Hei Mao's Abyss Sight, I saw it clearly. Her meridians were shattered, fractured so badly they looked like snapped glass. Her dantian was worse. They were utterly cracked, leaking qi like a broken vessel.

She had done this to herself as a form of compensation for whatever she was doing here.

Behind her, where the Temple's inner sanctum should have been, lay a dark lake. Its surface was perfectly still, swallowing all reflected light. At its center hovered a massive cocoon, wrapped in layers of dark silk. Thick strands stretched outward from it, tethered to pillars and stone like veins anchoring a heart.

This place reminded me of the underground.

Gu Jie appeared beside me.

Her corpse puppets stood in a loose circle around her, obedient, silent. She bit her lip, eyes trembling as she stared at the lake.

"It's beginning," she said quietly. "The chain of tragedies."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

She didn't answer.

Instead, she stepped forward.

Power surged around her. It was violent and unstable, every shred of qi she could draw screaming toward collapse. I recognized it instantly. It was self-destruction with the intent to destroy this place.

"Gu Jie—"

I was faster.

"Divine Word: Rest."

The power around her shattered like mist. Her body went slack as the word took hold. I immediately followed, anchoring her with Divine Possession through a Manasoul. One by one, her corpse puppets dissolved into streaks of light and vanished into her pocket dimension.

"Egress."

Space folded.

Gu Jie disappeared, sent back to New Willow before she could even comprehend what happened.

Inside me, Hei Mao's voice stirred, eager and sharp.

"We can win this," he said. "We will triumph."

"I don't know about that, buddy," I muttered.

I embedded a Manasoul into him as well.

"Egress."

Hei Mao vanished.

I remained.

My Ghost Soul stayed behind, alone in the broken sanctum.

Yuan Shun laughed. "You're a fool," she said hoarsely.

"Maybe," I replied calmly. "But I'm already a dead man anyway."

I gestured to myself. "See? A ghost. Why would humiliation matter?"

She sneered. "If you had any sense, you'd kill yourself now and spare yourself what's coming."

"Maybe," I said. "But first… I want to know who your master is."

Her laughter faltered.

"I have a bad feeling about this," I continued honestly. "And if that means I die here, then so be it. The True Self needs to know what kind of danger we're facing. Yeah, you may call it arrogance, but hey, you can't blame me for being too strong, right?"

The cocoon trembled as a crack split its surface, followed by another. A hand burst through the silk, pale fingers tearing outward with casual strength. The cocoon ripped apart from the inside as frost surged across the dark lake.

"Frost Smite."

The dark lake froze solid in an instant, ice spreading outward in jagged patterns.

A man stepped free.

He had my face.

But where I carried weariness, he carried boredom. Where I carried resolve, he carried irritation. His armor was unmistakable—Wandering Adjudicator—but its colors were wrong, stained by strange, invasive qi that crawled across the metal like dark living veins.

He looked around slowly.

"…Is this home?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

His gaze snapped to me as he studied me with open disdain.

"You're me," he said. "But not me."

"I'm Da Wei," I said. "Nice to meet you."

He tasted the name like something unpleasant.

"Da Wei."

Yuan Shun collapsed forward, sobbing as she pressed her forehead to the ground.

"Master," she cried. "Master David."

David blinked, and then smiled faintly.

"I remember you," he said. "You were the last one I killed in that prison world."

Her body shook harder.

David hummed, thoughtful, then nodded.

"So it was you," he said. "You're the one who freed me."

He lifted a hand.

"Divine Word: Life."

"Great Cure."

Golden light washed over Yuan Shun. Her broken meridians knit back together. Her shattered dantian sealed itself whole, stronger than before.

I stared at him.

"How did you end up like this?" I asked.

David frowned at me, genuinely confused.

"…Wasn't it obvious?" he said.

He pointed lazily at Yuan Shun.

"This is a game," he continued. "And that—"

His finger lingered on her kneeling form.

"—is an NPC."

The statement was so absurd that, for a moment, I wondered if I had misheard him. I felt anger rise from somewhere deep, dragging names with it, names that anchored me to everything I had lived through. I needed answers, and I needed them now.

"Gu Jie," I said, my voice rough. "Lu Gao. Ren Jingyi. Hei Mao. Yuen Fu." I swallowed and continued, refusing to stop. "Ren Xun. Nongmin. Da Ji. Chen Wei. Ding Cai. Tell me about them."

David cut me off before I could say anything else.

"I don't know any of those people."

He looked almost bored, as though the effort of remembering was beneath him.

"And what would it matter anyway?" said David disdainfully. "In the end, they're just experience points."

A shiver ran through me, cold and involuntary. It was not ignorance that horrified me, but the absolute lack of weight behind his words. Lives were reduced to numbers, meaning stripped down to utility. I felt something twist painfully in my chest.

"It was a mistake," he continued, his tone casual. "Killing every obstacle in my way."

He tilted his head slightly, as if examining a thought from a new angle. "If I kill everything, I just end up killing everyone. I might do the same thing here." His eyes settled on me. "So I'm restraining myself. I'll start by not killing you."

That was when the unease I had been feeling finally sharpened into something concrete. My instincts screamed, and my soul recoiled as recognition hit me. I could feel it clearly now, the overwhelming resonance of the 'Source' within him. It made no sense, and that terrified me more than anything else.

"How do you have that?" I demanded. "What are you?"

David noticed my hesitation and smiled faintly.

"Why are you cowering?" he asked. "We're the same person."

The realization struck me hard. He had no idea about Earth, no awareness of the fragment buried deep within the True Self, uncovered only through our journey in Meng Po's world and the False Earth. That ignorance did not make him safer. It made him unpredictable.

He vanished.

Pain exploded as he reappeared before me, his hand already wrapped around my throat. My feet left the ground as he lifted me with terrifying ease. A foreign force surged into my body, and I felt my soul begin to unravel, strands of my existence being torn loose and consumed.

I gritted my teeth, forcing myself not to scream. Even with all Six Path souls united, all of them unleashing their peak abilities, I knew we would not win.

David studied me closely, his expression unreadable as he slowly smiled.

"You know something," he said quietly. "Something I need."

His voice did not rise when he spoke the next words.

"Divine Possession."

I answered with everything I had.

Every Manasoul I had accumulated over two hundred years surged outward as I forced them together, compressing them into a single, suicidal act. My intent was simple and absolute. If I was going to die, I would take him with me.

"Exalted Renewal," I roared. "Immortal Art: Godslayer!"

Then the power vanished.

It slipped away so completely that for a moment I thought I had imagined it. My thoughts blurred, identity smearing like ink in water. Confusion flooded in, overwhelming and invasive.

"Who am I?" I muttered weakly.

A laugh bubbled up, hollow and wrong.

"My name's David… right?"

"Of course it is."

"My dream is to go home."

"No," I snarled, forcing myself back. "No, no, no."

I tore at my own consciousness, shredding parts of myself just to stay intact. David stood over me, disappointment flickering across his face. Tiny motes of Manasoul drifted above his palm as he examined them with interest.

"How frustrating," he said. "I couldn't fully possess and consume you."

His eyes gleamed faintly.

"But this Manasoul thing is interesting. It would've been dangerous if you'd set it off properly."

He straightened, his tone almost reflective.

"We took different paths," he said. "But we came from the same origin."

He looked down at me.

"So I'll be merciful. I'll give you a peaceful death."

I forced myself to stand, even as despair gnawed at me. All my Manasouls were gone, stolen cleanly from me. I gathered what remained and spoke again.

"Exalted Renewal."

Nothing happened. The absence was wrong in a way that made my stomach sink.

"Where… is it?" I whispered.

David raised his hand. Between his fingers, pinched carelessly, was my Ghost Soul.

"Kidding," he said lightly as his expression hardened. "I don't want to show you mercy of all people. You betrayed me."

His gaze burned with certainty.

"I'll set your path right," he continued. "When we're back home, you'll thank me."

My vision began to peel away in layers as David closed his fingers, and the Ghost Soul was swallowed without ceremony. My limbs lost definition first, followed by the faint outline of my torso, my body dissolving into drifting motes that should not have been able to think or feel.

"Fuck…"

The only reason my incorporeal form still lingered was not because of power, technique, or some hidden safeguard, but because my will refused to let go. It was stubborn, ugly, and irrational, clinging to existence through sheer refusal rather than right.

"Fuck you," I remarked as I flipped David the bird, my middle finger hanging in the air. "Really, fuck you, pissant fucking booger!"

In that moment, the truth finally settled in. The being before me was not an anomaly or a stranger wearing my face. He was me, stripped of restraint, reflection, and doubt. The same spite. The same arrogance. The same cruelty and mischief, left unchecked.

The realization hurt more than any wound I had ever taken.

I hated him.

And worse than that, I hated myself.