Laryana could see that he was lost. She kept quiet for a moment, not sure what to do. She had already explained things to him before but it seemed it hadn’t helped much. He still wasn’t able to grasp it.
Maybe that was because she had told him before he had actually seen it happen. Maybe it would be easier for him to understand the full meaning now but she couldn’t be sure of that. In any case, she could only give it a try once again and see where it led. If he still couldn’t understand, then she would just have to let him explore on his own.
"This is your own soul path. It is meant for you to let go of all the regrets you have about your life so that you can enter the underworld without any grievances and start a better life there."
"Let go?" Ying Zhen stared at her, completely dumbfounded. She had said before that he would encounter things that still haunted him but he hadn’t imagined it to be like this. Also … He pointed to the ground where Wu Rong had just laid. "The person over there was one of the people I want to save. Was that not him?"
Laryana looked over there. She wasn’t quite sure who he meant. Everything had gone so fast and the smoke obstructed her sight. Still, no matter who it had been, the answer should be the same. "I don’t think so. Most likely, this is where you lost him?"
Ying Zhen nodded and sat up, his brows furrowing tightly. "Yes. We had a battle against the gods but I was the only one who managed to survive. That is why …" He shook his head, unwilling to say more. In any case, Laryana had already said that she couldn’t help him so there was no need to say more. He sighed and shook his head at himself. "Well, it seems I thought wrong. Let’s not dwell on it any longer. Since there isn’t much time, we’ll have to hurry."
He got to his feet and then continued walking, just going in the same direction as before. Meanwhile, Laryana sighed. She watched him leave but this time, she didn’t follow him.
Ying Zhen glanced over his shoulder after taking a couple of dozen steps when he realized that she wasn’t keeping up. He raised his brows, not sure what to make of this. "What’s the matter?"
Laryana looked at him deeply and then around at the empty plain surrounding them that was still doused in blood. "You haven’t let go of it, have you?"
Ying Zhen didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. He just looked at her blankly.
Laryana sighed again. When the ground just reverted to how it had been before, she had already expected as much. Now, she was even surer of it. "Don’t worry. You just go on alone for a moment so you can think it through on your own. I’ll wait here."
"Won’t I lose you then?" Ying Zhen felt at a loss. To be honest, he probably didn’t need her if he had to follow his own path anyway and would only find the others at the end. He could just continue forward and would get there in due time.
Still, having her at his side calmed him down because he knew that he could turn to her if he had any questions about the underworld. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to answer everything but she certainly knew more than he did and that knowledge might be vital later on. He didn’t quite want to miss out on it.
Laryana shook her head in response though. "Don’t worry. Just go on. We’ll see each other again soon."
Ying Zhen was confused but still nodded and left. His figure slowly disappeared in the distance while Laryana still squatted on the ground, watching the horizon. Finally, she turned around and waited.
On the other hand, Ying Zhen continued forward. The plain seemed endless and he felt as if time was passing by him. The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. He hastened his steps and then pushed off the ground, flying toward the horizon.
He hadn’t gone far that way when forms appeared at the horizon. Ying Zhen’s brows furrowed once more when he saw this. Why did this seem so familiar? That thought crossed his mind immediately and a strange feeling grabbed his heart, making him panic. He didn’t dare to stop though and just continued to fly toward that place.
When he drew near, he stopped in his tracks after all. Finally, he could see exactly what lay before him: a battleground. In fact, this was the exact same battleground he had just left.
"What is happening?" Ying Zhen’s gaze roamed over the dead bodies in front of him. There was no difference to the one he had just left as if he had traveled back in time. The feeling in his heart got worse but there was nothing he could do save for continuing forward.
This time around, Ying Zhen didn’t bother to draw his weapon and enter the fray with the gods. Even though he wasn’t sure why he had arrived at the battlefield again, he at least understood that it had to be an illusion again. Likely the same one that he saw before. So even if he tried to fight his way through this place, it wouldn’t change a thing. Wu Rong’s soul wasn’t here and that was why he had come here.
Even though he had decided to just pass through, actually doing so wasn’t as easy as he had imagined. Illusion or not, the gods almost seemed to remember his actions in the real battle and the first illusion and pounced on him as if to take revenge.
He wanted to ignore them but the injuries they managed to inflict on him seemed surprisingly real. Soon enough, cuts appeared on both his armor and skin and blood ran down his shoulders and arms up to his fingertips. A spell buzzed past his head and singed his hair.
Ying Zhen gritted his teeth and accelerated his steps. He zigzagged between the gods and tried to evade as many as possible. The center of the battleground came into view and Wu Rong’s figure along with it. Again, Ying Zhen saw the god behind him lift his hand and throw the spell that had cost Wu Rong his life twice.
Ying Zhen’s brows twitched. It might be an illusion but his instincts kicked in when he saw this. He didn’t want his friend to die. He pushed off the ground and extended his hand to push Wu Rong out of harm’s way. Two meters separated them, one meter, half a meter … Ying Zhen’s fingertips neared Wu Rong’s shoulder.
A spearhead appeared in his field of vision. Ying Zhen’s eyes widened. Should he evade? But then Wu Rong would die. Should he finish what he had started and risk his own life?
He hesitated for too long. The spear drilled into his throat. It robbed him of his breath and stopped his movement as well. His hand paused, only a hair’s breadth away from Wu Rong’s body. The impact caused Ying Zhen to crash into the ground.
Wu Rong turned around at the sound. He called his name and chopped off the head of the god with the spear, not noticing the danger behind his back. The spell that Ying Zhen had tried to save him from hit. It hurled Wu Rong back and tore a hole into his chest, having injured him even worse than before.
Ying Zhen lowered his head. His throat ached, he couldn’t breathe any longer. But that kind of pain faded at the sight of Wu Rong’s death. Why … can’t I save you? Didn’t I give it my all? I put up with the injuries and rushed here as fast as I could. I nearly pushed you out of harm’s way. Why … why was it still not enough?
The pain in his throat lessened, while the pain in his heart intensified. Ying Zhen tried to suppress it and touched his throat. The gash had healed. The countless small injuries he had received were restored to how they had been before as well. Ying Zhen sighed, sat up, and froze.
Laryana squatted a couple of steps before him. Exactly like when he had stood up and left. It seemed as if she hadn’t stirred from the spot for even the blink of an eye.
He stared at her and then sighed. He felt like he understood. "You knew this would happen." He didn’t ask. He was able to tell.
Laryana nodded. "At least I thought it would. The ground didn’t look any different from before." Saying so, she turned to look again and realized that the amount of blood seemed to have lessened compared to before. She had seen what had happened but she wasn’t sure where exactly the difference was for Ying Zhen. Still, it seemed as if this second try had helped him let go of some of that obsession. There was still some left but she was sure that he would be able to pull through. This was enough of a sign.
Ying Zhen followed her gaze but he hadn’t paid as much attention to the color of the ground and couldn’t see any difference between how it looked now compared to before. So in the end, he just looked back up, feeling that this should be because he still didn’t quite understand the underworld. "Can you tell me more about this place?"
Laryana nodded and stood up, walking closer and squatting in front of him again. "Of course. What do you want to know?"
Ying Zhen wasn’t sure. "Anything, to be honest. I feel like if I understand this place better, I will be able to find a way through. So … just what is this path? Why is it here in the first place?" His brows furrowed further the longer he spoke. He really didn’t get it.
Laryana’s gaze turned downcast when she thought of the beginning of this path but she soon pushed the thought away and serenity returned to her features once more. "Originally, the underworld was empty. Just a dark place filled with nothingness that Heidan was said to rule over while there was actually nothing there to be ruled. Then, the high gods decided to send the souls of the deceased here which were wreaking havoc in the realms above. At first, Heidan let them in without any precautionary measures."
"Wait." Ying Zhen furrowed his brows. "How do you know?" He couldn’t understand how Laryana could speak of this as if she had been there and had known the high god Heidan personally.
His eyes suddenly widened when he thought of something: When he entered through the stone gate and reached her headland, she had called out Heidan’s name. She had clearly mistaken him for the high god. So did this mean … He looked at her, some disbelief in his eyes.
Whether it was the gods or the demons, they lived forever. Thus, Laryana looking young hadn’t made him question her real age. She might have been a woman in her twenties but she might as well have been two thousand or even twenty thousand years. It wouldn’t have made a difference to him.
But … the era of the high gods and the era even before Heidan died … it dated back much too long ago for anyone to remember. Back then, not even the first demon had been born. And by now, there wasn’t only one demon but several tribes of them. The demons had experienced a rise and now … now they even stood at the precipice of their demise. How much time had really passed since the age Laryana was talking about … even Ying Zhen, who had lived for a fairly long time could hardly imagine it.
Laryana didn’t sense his shock. To her, time did not exist in the same way it did for other people. In the underworld, there was no difference between day and night, the months and years flowed into each other, indistinguishable. Even though it had been hundreds of thousands of years, she couldn’t tell. So to her, speaking of her creator Heidan seemed to be a normal thing and she just continued with her tale.
"At that time, there had only been Heidan, Nilam, and me in the underworld. On the day when the first souls arrived, he took us along. It was just …" She looked over the bloody plain and sighed, still not noticing Ying Zhen’s expression that turned stiffer with the minute.
He had thought originally that she was mocking him when she brought up Heidan but now it turned out that she had indeed mistaken him for the demons’ ancestor. He could hardly believe it but he also didn’t have time to think about it too deeply as Laryana already continued her story. As such, he didn’t realize just how similar he had to look to Heidan that somebody who had known the high god would confuse them.
Laryana’s gaze was wistful. "A soul without a body isn’t the being anymore that they once were. They can’t continue the life they had before. Some souls bear with that alright. A few even rejoice when they are released from that life if it was a terrible one. But others … they wish to return to how things were before. They don’t want to leave the people behind they once loved, they want to continue where they were forced to stop. They want to complete what they began and attempt what they missed out on because of fear. They can’t put down their old life if there is still regret."
Ying Zhen’s thoughts turned back to the original topic and he slowly nodded. "So Heidan created the soul path to make them let go of those things."
Laryana nodded. "Indeed. Some souls refused to cross the gate to the underworld but they also couldn’t go back and had to remain at the gates. Their thoughts circled around their regret and those emotions consolidated until the souls evolved into vicious ghosts. They would try to flee and wreak havoc in the realms above as they did before.
"Heidan had to find a way to deal with them and he deemed the soul path to be the best idea. He assigned Nilam to ship the souls from the entrance to the cliff and had me create the lanterns that limit their time until their inevitable demise. For most of them, that was enough to deter them. The rest …" She raised her hands and didn’t speak further. It was clear what had happened to those souls. Those who did not comply with the rules of the underworld would cease to exist. That had been the rule since then and it could not be changed.
