Volume One: The Devil's Nature Never Changes
Arc: The Inheritance of the Immortal Shrine
Scarlet King stood up and looked at Ling Hui.
"I won the inheritance. Give me any healing pill before I actually die and get reborn, causing me to lose all of my cultivation progress."
Ling Hui lazily moved his hand.
Immediately afterward, the lid of the stone tomb rose, revealing treasures that filled the entire grave—from weapons and various types of Primordial Stones to pills of different grades, formation woods of various Heavenly levels, and countless other valuable items.
At that moment, a golden-brown pill emerged.
Green energy radiated from it, coiling around the pill like a dragon.
The pill immediately shattered into pieces, and its fine powder flew toward Scarlet King and began entering his body.
His body immediately started recovering.
Scarlet King sat on the ground in a meditative position, his face expressionless as the pill's effects began to show.
The eyeball hanging from his socket fell away, and a new eye formed in its place.
Flesh and skin regenerated over his arm.
His hair began growing back.
His jaw reconstructed itself.
His entire body rapidly returned toward its original condition.
But suddenly—
the regeneration stopped.
The healing pill's effect had ended far too quickly.
Ling Hui looked at him in surprise.
"What kind of explosion causes a pill from the Eternal Dimensions to stop healing someone? This pill can completely reconstruct a body even if it has been reduced to ashes."
Scarlet King remained silent.
He already knew the reason.
(Haaah… It's because I used the Return to Origin Technique.)
(It is one of the strongest techniques I've ever created and is considered one of the eleven strongest techniques in the entire Primordial Origin, especially the Emotion Severing Style — Heartless.)
(It is a purely destructive style. I can shape its attack into anything I want—an explosion, a fist, a sword strike, or a spear strike.)
(The style severs all emotions, hesitation, and thoughts from its user and places them into a state of complete serenity. That makes the attack overwhelmingly more precise and powerful.)
(With this strike, I can cut apart one-tenth of the First Dimension even though I'm currently extremely weak.)
(If I were at the Great Emperor Realm, I could cut through all of the Mortal Dimensions while inflicting tremendous damage upon the Seventh and Eighth Dimensions, erasing them with the sharp edge of a sword strike.)
(Or I could shape it into an explosion that would erase anything near me, or into a fist that creates cosmic explosions capable of causing total destruction.)
(But the technique is far too burdensome for me right now. It causes nearly permanent damage that cannot be healed with pills. My body has to recover on its own.)
(It literally severs every external method of healing, meaning recovery must come entirely from within.)
(If the damage were external, a pill could heal it. But internal damage must recover naturally.)
Ling Hui laughed.
"Hah, as the old saying goes: when one bears a uniquely destructive wound, not even an Immortal Pill can completely heal it."
Scarlet King remained silent, thinking calmly.
It was one of the famous sayings within the Primordial Origin, used to describe someone who had suffered such overwhelming damage that even an Immortal Pill could not completely heal them.
But it was merely one saying among millions created by the inhabitants of this vast world.
(Beings rely heavily on adaptation and quotation. How many stories, tales, and poems have people created, only for other beings to later produce modified versions inspired by them?)
(Such recurring folk tales are extraordinarily widespread, and it is rare for a completely original story to appear.)
(Whenever a new invention appears in the world, the space for innovation becomes narrower. Yet every new invention also creates new possibilities.)
(There are no true limits to the imagination and creativity of beings, but imagining an entirely new path becomes increasingly difficult.)
(Even so, there are those who have no respect for creativity or literature and simply steal everything outright instead of drawing inspiration from it or creating something new.)
During one of Scarlet King's lives, he had been a famous poet and philosopher, renowned for his extraordinary creativity.
An entire art had even emerged around him known as the Elegant Philosopher's Art of Poetry, named after Scarlet King's elegance in poetry, philosophy, literature, and even dance and fashion.
It was considered a literary school of thought for nobles, among tens of thousands of different literary schools scattered throughout existence and nothingness.
Scarlet King's school, however, stood out because of its extraordinary breadth.
Unlike most schools of thought, which were confined to a single concept or discipline, his encompassed an enormous range of subjects because of the experience accumulated throughout his previous lives.
He had been a poet.
A philosopher.
A dancer.
A fashion designer.
A painter.
And a practitioner of many other literary and artistic disciplines.
One of the most famous mottos of his literary school was:
"Life is not a place for stupidity and false amusement. It is a place for transcendence—to surpass yourself, surpass others, and surpass existence."
Among the most famous poems written by Scarlet King's disciples was one that became renowned for its deep meaning regarding the journey of beings struggling against existence:
"If the Dao is the master of paths,
then the being is the master of trying to escape them;
trying to break the chains of deaf fate,
trying to pass beneath the dominion of Heaven,
trying to shake the mud of Earth from his feet,
until no path remains above him that he did not choose."
Scarlet King stood and approached the gigantic tomb, which exceeded eight meters in height.
He looked at Ling Hui.
"Umm… you could at least put some stairs here so the winner can climb up and take the inheritance."
Ling Hui laughed and scratched his head.
"Well, I didn't think of that, especially since I disabled flight inside this room so it wouldn't cause any problems."
Scarlet King sighed and began enlarging his body with ease.
He had possessed the ability to alter his form for an extremely long time due to being Darkness, and he had also gained the ability to alter his size after obtaining the Black Hole Transformation.
But before enlarging himself enough to enter the tomb, he turned toward Ling Hui with a smile.
"Is the remnant of your soul part of the inheritance? I want to absorb it after I take everything else."
Ling Hui's voice immediately rose.
"Heeey! I allowed you to take the inheritance, but this is the remnant of my soul!"
Scarlet King replied with complete calm.
"Alright, and?"
"A soul remnant will remain a soul remnant and eventually disappear anyway. Wouldn't it be more rational for me to take it and absorb it?"
"That would benefit me."
Ling Hui fell silent.
He rubbed his eyes and released a long sigh.
"Well, as the saying goes: just as those who walk the demonic path forever seek freedom from all restraints, they will remain devils endlessly within this world—just as the Rebirth Devil chased benefits so he could swim through the Primordial Chaos."
"He resembles an angel, yet he is a devil."
Scarlet King looked toward the treasures and thought:
(What do freedom and restraint, righteousness and demonic nature, truly mean?)
Ling Hui's words pushed him into deeper thought, and he arrived at an answer consistent with his own beliefs and outlook on life.
(I understand that some people walk the path of morality and virtue, while others choose the demonic path.)
(As for me, I walk whichever path brings me benefit.)
(I understand all of these simple rules and games.)
(The righteous path raises the banner of purity, love, and obedience to the rules of the group.)
(To be demonic means refusing to be bound by any rules—not necessarily being evil.)
(But because the demonic path rejects human rules, humans came to regard it as evil.)
(In the end, these are rules created by humans. Give them enough time, and they will become different from what they once were.)
(But my willingness to accept and follow those rules when they serve my interests does not mean I like them.)
(It simply means I use them.)
(Nothing more.)
To Scarlet King, there was no meaningful difference between the righteous and demonic paths beyond interests.
He sighed quietly, took several Sacred Primordial Stones, and returned to his normal small size.
(I cannot refine the Primordial Chaos Manual inside the Dimensions. If I do, I'll immediately be discovered because of the Primordial Chaos Energy that will radiate from my body after the refinement.)
(So I need to refine it here…)
(In the embrace of the Primordial Chaos.)
(And now… we begin.)