014 My Conviction

[POV: Long Xue]

Long Xue’s blood ran cold and his voice trembled.

“S-So much power.”

The creature that stood before him was no longer anything resembling a cultivator. Ivory skin glowed like polished bone under the World Tree’s sickly light. A crown of twisted twigs sat upon its silver-maned head, and those shimmering butterfly wings unfolded with a soft, mocking flutter. Its eyes were ancient, pitiless, and held the calm certainty of a predator that had already won.

He refused to accept it.

Long Xue poured every ounce of his Nascent Soul power into motion. Water qi exploded outward in a storm of razor threads, teleporting in frantic bursts, illusions multiplying until the air itself seemed to bleed. He struck from every angle at once, sword flashing, seed pulsing wildly in his chest like a second heart. Each attack should have ended it. Each should have carved the monster apart.

None of them touched it, even his shadow qi failing to hide him anymore.

The monster simply drifted, wings barely moving, and every slash dissolved into harmless mist against an invisible wall of living green. Vines thicker than his torso uncoiled from nowhere, wrapping his limbs with gentle, almost loving pressure. Thorns sank in. Pain burst from his every nerve, reminding him he was still alive and still losing.

Terror clawed up his throat. This was impossible. He was Nascent Soul. He had toppled sects, devoured geniuses, bent the laws of heaven itself. Yet here he was, bleeding in a forest that refused to stay dead.

Desperation finally broke him.

Screaming, Long Xue ignited the seed without restraint. Black-red qi detonated from his core, shattering his own meridians in the process. Bones cracked. Flesh tore. He didn’t care. With a roar that shook the heavens, he unleashed his ultimate technique.

“Abyssal Tide Requiem.”

The entire forest vanished in a cataclysm of corrosive water and void energy, trees disintegrating into sludge, ground collapsing into a bottomless black sea. Nothing could survive this. Nothing had ever survived this.

For one glorious heartbeat, the world was empty and silent.

Yet despite all of this, the mirage of the mysterious and ancient tree remained, and the same was true for the monster now staring down at him.

The monster raised a single porcelain hand.

The forest remade itself.

Roots surged upward like dragons reborn, knitting the shattered earth back together in seconds. Leaves unfurled, flowers bloomed, and the tree’s colossal form only grew taller, brighter, mocking. The monster hovered in the center of it all, untouched, smiling with serene cruelty.

It was toying with him.

Long Xue’s vision blurred with rage and horror. He lunged one final time, seed blazing like a dying star, only for the monster to flick its wrist. A single vine, thin as silk, punched through his chest and crushed the seed between its tendrils. The parasitic thing that had promised him dominion over the end simply popped like a rotten fruit. Agony, unlike anything he had ever known, flooded his veins.

He felt his soul tearing free from the ruined body, golden Nascent Soul rising in a desperate bid for escape. He would flee across continents, warn the Dark Order, return stronger…

However, as fate would have it, today was the day he would die.

A hand closed around his soul from nowhere.

Long Xue’s spirit screamed as invisible jaws clamped down, smothering, devouring. He thrashed, but the pressure only tightened, pulling him into a darkness that had no bottom.

When his eyes opened again, he was no longer in the forest.

Cold stone pressed against his knees. Chains of black iron clinked around his wrists. Two towering figures stood before him. Ox-Head on the left with massive horns scraping the cavern ceiling, and Horse-Face on the right with teeth bared in a permanent grin of judgment.

The underworld.

Long Xue stared up at the guards of the dead, his once-mighty Nascent Soul now nothing more than a trembling shade.

“I… No… This can’t be…”

…

..

.

The Spirit of the World Tree slowly vanished, its colossal form dissolving into motes of golden-green light that drifted away on an unfelt wind. That spell had always been a monster back in the game. It was a mana guzzler so severe it could only last ten seconds at most, even with perfect optimization. Yet here I had held it for sixteen full seconds, maybe longer if I practiced.

The buffs, the domain control, the way it bent reality itself… everything felt sharper, deeper, more natural since I had arrived in this world. My powers were changing, evolving in ways the game’s code could never have predicted. The possibilities made my head spin.

Slowly, my Wild Shape unraveled. The majestic Primal Nature Spirit shrank back into a Primal Nature Elemental, then finally released me, returning my body to its original elven form. I stood there in the ruined clearing, chest still heaving from the exertion.

Above me, a flock of crows descended in a noisy, worried swirl, cawing urgently as they circled my head.

“Silver One! You suddenly vanished together with that wicked man!” one cried.

“We searched everywhere, but the forest went silent and empty!”

Stolen novel; please report.

“We feared the worst that you had been taken to some terrible place we could not follow!”

I raised a hand, offering a tired smile. “I’m fine. Really. It was just a powerful technique. Thank you for worrying about me.”

The wise crow, larger and more solemn than the rest, landed on a low branch and gave a sharp caw. His brothers and sisters immediately quieted. “Enough. Disperse and give the Silver One space. He has earned his rest.”

The murder obeyed at once, fluttering to nearby trees but keeping a respectful distance.

I stared down at what remained of Long Xue. He was little more than a bloody smear mixed with torn cloth and shattered bone. I remembered the moment clearly: how I had torn his spiritual body free from the ether, chewed it between jaws as if he was nothing more than a snack, and swallowed until nothing was left to swallow. If even a fragment had escaped, he might one day return. The thought left a sour taste in my mouth.

The wise crow tilted his head, studying me with those sharp black eyes. “You seemed troubled, Silver One.”

I let out a short, bitter laugh. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

“What’s the problem?” he asked, voice low and patient.

I hesitated, then decided there was no point in hiding it anymore. “I don’t like it… this lack of conviction inside me. Would you believe me if I told you I’m from another world?”