Chapter 484: The True Spirit Barrier
"I am Bai?"
"No, I'm not just Bai."
"Then who exactly am I..."
More and more information appeared in Bai's memory, yet coincidentally, all of it skipped over the aspect of self-recognition, making his understanding of himself increasingly blurry.
He could recall problems he had solved, and the cultivation techniques he had developed. He even knew that he was actually another person, but he just couldn't remember who that other person was.
"Boss, did we just run into a madman...?" A few black-clad figures, struggling to survive Bai's onslaught, couldn't help but contemplate retreating in the face of death's threat.
Because anyone with eyes could see that if it weren't for the elusive young man in the battlefield, who had inexplicably fallen into a strange train of thought and shown no hint of killing intent, merely acting on instinct, they wouldn't have lasted until now.
No one could guess where he would appear the next second... perhaps plunging a knife directly into anyone's heart.
Along with the awakening of his memories, Spirit Arts continuously emerged from Bai's body.
"If we don't escape now, we'll die here sooner or later!"
"Wait for me!"
"Don't run towards me, too many people will draw him over!"
"I must be faster than you!"
...
The increasingly dense bombardment shattered the remaining will of these black-clad figures who had originally intended to resist. As possessors of the lowest-tier martial power in this world, they understood there were many things they couldn't contend with.
Facing an insurmountable existence, a disorganized mob without iron wills could only collapse and flee. There was no other outcome.
Morale crumbled in that instant. The leader of the black-clad figures knew that their resolve had completely scattered, and what followed was a scramble for survival, each relying on their own luck.
As long as they ran faster than their teammates and the enemy didn't pursue in their direction, the chances of escaping with their lives should still be considerable.
"Who am I?"
Thirteen, currently overdrawing his Blood-Patterned Blade to flee, suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back after hearing that eerie question, as if something had grabbed him.
He twisted his head to look, seeing a faintly discernible tentacle, its tip bearing a gaping, blood-red maw large enough to swallow an ordinary person whole, firmly latching onto him.
At the same time, all of his teammates had been seized! Each of them was clamped by a tentacle; some appeared utterly insane, while others were still putting up a desperate fight, hacking at the monster behind them with their Blood-Patterned Swords.
As for the originally frail-looking young man, he wasn't human at all!
After the thin layer of human skin on his body tore open down the middle, the entire being resembled a dumpling skin bursting open to reveal its filling, from which a grotesque mixture of tentacles and mouths broke free.
That disgusting mass of flesh had merely contorted itself into the shape of a young boy.
Its eyes were two horizontal mouths, while its nose and ears were three vertical mouths. These mouths seemed to endlessly spin and twist, continuously generating mental pollution.
"I don't know who you are! Please let me go!" His sanity instantly drained to zero by this nightmarish sight, he screamed uncontrollably, tears and snot flowing unbidden.
Thirteen had taken many lives himself; he had always believed he was tough enough, that he would never be so cowardly even when facing death directly.
But today he discovered that his psychological defenses were actually far lower than he had imagined...
"If you don't know, then eat... eat... eat..." Thousands of mouths on the tentacled monster spoke simultaneously.
The overlapping voices created a surround-sound effect, further intensifying the bombardment of their mental fortitude.
Mouths!
Mouths!
Mouths!
Thirteen watched as the tentacles, having bitten into his body, began to wildly sprout mouths of all shapes and sizes. And within each mouth, layer upon layer of sharp teeth grew, consuming his internal organs and bones from the inside, hollowing out his body bit by bit, transforming it into new human skin.
In his immense despair, he chose to abandon resistance, allowing the countless gaping mouths, ceaselessly asking "Who am I?", to utterly devour everything within him.
...
In the real world.
The young man stood calmly in the center of the pile of corpses, not sparing a glance for the bodies that bore no external wounds yet whose expressions were extremely twisted and grotesque.
The tranquility of the living and the agitation of the dead formed an exceptionally stark contrast.
Everything that had just occurred happened only in their imagined world. However, the mental illusion Bai unconsciously unleashed even directly deceived these individuals' physical instincts, creating false hallucinations that caused their bodies to initiate a programmed self-destruction.
The result, then, was this field of corpses.
But this wasn't something Bai had intended to do; his original intention wasn't to kill.
Of course, calling him Bai might not be entirely appropriate now, because he had reawakened all his memories. The true "self" deep within his body had finally returned.
"I am Bai Mo..."
"It seems the experiment was a success." Bai Mo murmured, experiencing a sensation entirely different from before.
Although he had stepped into the Xuanhua Stage ten years ago, Bai Mo was well aware that his method of breakthrough possessed the fatal flaw of Daoization, making the path ahead almost a dead end.
This was pure curiosity; even though it no longer held much significance for him, he had never given up on exploring the true path, constantly researching what the correct way to break through to the Xuanhua Stage was.
After multiple failed experiments in White Month, this time, he finally succeeded.
The moment he stepped into the new world, Bai Mo casually chose an abandoned infant, then possessed it after sealing away all his memories, marking the beginning of this experiment.
"As long as one can decipher the 'Mystery of the True Self' and escape from the memory seal, one can establish a 'True Spirit Barrier' to differentiate between 'I' and 'not-I'.
The principle of Daoization is to blur the boundaries between 'I' and 'not-I', causing one to gradually lose oneself, eventually becoming entirely 'not-I' and experiencing the cessation of thought.
But with a True Spirit Barrier, the inside of the barrier is 'I', and the outside is 'not-I'. As long as one's will is strong enough, this illusory barrier can be maintained for many years.
To further reinforce it, one can choose to reincarnate again, but the difficulty of the next deciphering will likely increase exponentially...
Once one fails to escape, they will likely continue to live under the new identity until that new identity dies, at which point the original will also withers away.
Unfortunately, the Daoization that began ten years ago had long since blurred my boundaries. Now, this True Spirit Barrier holds little to no meaning for me; it's like ink already dropped into water, which can no longer be separated with a spoon.
Only by first dripping the ink into a spoon would it not mix with the water..."
PS: I didn't expect to make it to chapter 500 either....
Comments