BOOM——!!!
Violent waves of force exploded within the cramped third chamber, shaking stones loose from the rock ceiling overhead, the entire ruined underground palace rocking furiously.
After that single exchange, Li Mang staggered backward, leaving a ghastly bloody footprint with every step.
The radiance of the Bone Spine Scepter in his hand had dimmed to the absolute limit, and the life force and Primeval Essence within him were all but spent.
Yet even so, those cloudy eyes sunk deep in their sockets remained fixed on Lin Mu, sitting cross-legged at the center of the chamber, brimming with sickly greed and madness.
On the other side, Lin Cang likewise gave not an inch.
His burly frame stood like a blood-soaked wall of iron, blocking the way before Lin Mu.
By this moment, Lin Cang had understood completely.
This young Clan Elder, who had suddenly vanished for several days while the entire stockade searched bitterly for him, was without question inextricably linked to this ancient inheritance buried deep beneath the rear mountain!
Whatever Lin Mu had concealed before, and however he had managed to get in here, only one thing mattered now — the man had to be firmly secured in his own hands first!
"Kill!"
The two exploded into motion again at virtually the same instant!
This time, neither side bothered to conceal their aim any longer — both were going straight for Lin Mu!
Though both men were already at the end of their strength, their attacks remained vicious in the extreme.
This third chamber was not spacious to begin with, and the unreserved clash of Gu worms between two experts howled past the very hem of Lin Mu's robes several times, shearing an entire layer off the bluestone floor beside him!
Bang!
Another violent collision.
A sharp bone spear, knocked off course by Lin Cang's iron fist, shot straight at the face of the cross-legged Lin Mu!
Lin Cang was suppressing Li Mang with all his strength and had no time at all to pull back and defend; and Li Mang's mind was wholly occupied with how to get past Lin Cang and seize Lin Mu first — how could he spare any attention for this?
Just as that lethal bone spear was about to strike Lin Mu.
Wu Xiang, who had been concealing herself all along, could wait no longer.
Lin Cang wanted to control Lin Mu, and Li Mang wanted to seize the treasure from him — by rights, both of them could more or less accept Lin Mu being "alive."
But the problem was that these two madmen had now gone utterly berserk with slaughter!
If they were allowed to keep brawling right up against Lin Mu, no one could guarantee he wouldn't simply die in the terrifying aftershocks of the fight!
And what she, Wu Xiang, needed was precisely a living, safe Lin Mu — one who could keep climbing higher and complete the final step of the inheritance for her!
Hmmm——!
At that hair's breadth moment, an exceedingly bizarre, invisible thread that seemed capable of cutting through space itself cut into the battlefield from the shadows at the side without the slightest warning!
Shriiik!
That bone spear rushing at Lin Mu struck what seemed to be an incomparably tough net, shattered into two pieces, and was flung aside, the fragments slamming into the distant stone walls and blasting out two deep craters!
Immediately after, a light figure flitted like a specter across the rubble-strewn ground and landed steadily before Lin Mu.
For the first time, Wu Xiang actively dispersed the disguise on her body.
As that stunningly beautiful, coldly alluring face was revealed, a terrifying aura — not in the least weaker than Lin Cang's, indeed seeming even more unfathomable — abruptly unfurled throughout the chamber!
Rank 4 middle stage!
"Who are you?!"
Both Lin Cang and Li Mang, locked in their fight to the death, reacted with shock. They stopped as one and retreated several steps, staring warily at this mysterious woman before them.
Wu Xiang stood before Lin Mu, shielding that still tightly shut-eyed young man safely behind her.
She offered the two of them no explanation of her origins, merely lifting those soul-stirring, beautiful eyes to sweep a cold glance across Lin Cang and Li Mang as she spoke indifferently:
"No one touches him now."
A single short sentence, yet the air inside the chamber instantly froze to the point of ice.
Lin Cang's expression sank completely, his gaze turning utterly sinister.
An expert of Rank 4 middle stage had been lurking within the stockade all this time — and judging by her stance, she was clearly here for Lin Mu as well!
Opposite them, the corner of Li Mang's eye twitched violently.
He grasped it in an instant — this terrifying woman before him had likely known about the Black Bone King Inheritance beneath the rear mountain long ago, and even known that Lin Mu was hiding down here!
In an instant, the situation within the chamber was laid out completely in the open.
Lin Cang had to protect Lin Mu and reclaim his clan's secret.
Li Mang had to seize Lin Mu and take the inheritance that would turn everything around.
And this mysterious Rank 4 woman needed Lin Mu just the same!
Three forces, and not one of them had any reason to yield.
Before the words had even faded, Wu Xiang took the initiative and stepped forward. With a light wave of her jade hand, a sky-filling web of invisible spider silk wove itself into a net of death in an instant, domineeringly forcing both Lin Cang and Li Mang back to the edges of the chamber.
As for her, she remained an insurmountable barrier, wedged firmly between Lin Mu and the two of them!
...
Tick. Tock.
In the hospital room, time still passed slowly and quietly.
"Dad… in this life, do you have any regrets?"
His son's soft, tear-choked question still echoed faintly in his ear.
On the hospital bed, the ancient and failing Lin Mu was silent for a long time.
He was in no hurry to answer; his cloudy gaze simply rested quietly on the pristine white ceiling.
Scene after scene from these past decades flowed slowly through his mind, like a revolving lantern.
The awkwardness and stirrings of youth, the high spirits of his university years, the busyness and struggle after stepping into society.
His parents' final words before they passed, the companionship of a wife who had weathered everything with him, the cries of his children at birth, the laughing curses of old friends reunited…
Those people and things that had once made him happy, troubled, pained, and satisfied had now, solidly and truly, become a part of this life of his.
A long while later.
The corner of the old man's withered mouth twitched faintly, and he smiled softly.
"This life… was good."
He said it to himself in his heart.
It was not a perfunctory answer, still less insincere self-consolation.
Lin Mu had never denied this long life.
Here, he truly had lived well. Family, friendship, love, a career, security — he had possessed, almost in full, every happiness an ordinary person could hope for.
If everything simply stopped here, if he closed his eyes as a matter of course, this lifetime could not be called a failure in the slightest.
And yet, at this very moment when life had truly reached its end, in this final stillness, a name surfaced once more in Lin Mu's mind.
Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable.
Now, having walked through this complete lifetime, Lin Mu suddenly understood a question he had never truly thought through before.
Why was Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable willing to devote his life to "going home," never wavering even in the face of death?
Because returning home had always been Thieving Heaven's own road.
His cultivation in that cruel world, the battles he fought, his contention for resources, his treading across the Five Regions and Two Heavens, his countless brushes with death… all of that struggling and climbing had, from beginning to end, pointed toward one single direction.
And that was home.
So for Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable, if one day he truly found the Space Door and returned to that homeland he dreamed of day and night, it would in no way mean his cultivation path had been abandoned halfway.
Quite the opposite — that would be his arrival.
The final destination he had pursued for his entire life.
And Lin Mu, at last, saw clearly the true difference between himself and Thieving Heaven.
Of course he missed Earth.
And this peaceful, happy life before him — he genuinely liked it. If he truly had the choice, he would even frankly admit that there was nothing at all wrong with simply living out a lifetime quietly like this.
But—
Returning to Earth had never once become a goal he genuinely pursued after crossing over into the Gu world.
He had not cultivated bitterly in order to return to Earth.
He had not risked his life against others in search of a way home.
And still less had he made "going home" the final place he was meant to arrive at in this life.
So Thieving Heaven's answer belonged to Thieving Heaven.
It did not belong to him, Lin Mu.
...
BANG——!!!
In the underground palace, muffled roars exploded one after another.
Wu Xiang had truly come to blows with Lin Cang and Li Mang.
Her advantage was extremely clear.
Lin Cang and Li Mang had slaughtered their way from the front stockade all the way to the rear mountain, then smashed their way from the peak down into the earth by brute force — both were long since riddled with wounds, their Primeval Essence heavily depleted.
Wu Xiang, meanwhile, had waited at ease for an exhausted foe, and her Rank 4 middle stage combat strength was displayed to the fullest, steadily suppressing them both.
Yet even holding the upper hand, Wu Xiang never once struck to kill.
All of her movements revolved tightly around the Lin Mu behind her.
When Lin Cang tried to force his way through, she drove her spider silk to push him back; when Li Mang tried to circle around for a flanking ambush, she immediately flashed over to block him.
After barely a dozen exchanges, even the blood-maddened Lin Cang and Li Mang finally saw it.
This unfathomable Rank 4 woman's regard for Lin Mu and her protection of him had far exceeded any normal bounds!
But there was no time at all now for them to ponder the reasons behind it.
Three experts standing at the very pinnacle of Black Wind Ridge, within this crumbling underground chamber, had unfolded the most perilous of battles around a single young man who sat with his eyes closed and would not wake.
And at the very center of the storm, Lin Mu still sat quietly with his eyes shut.
...
In the hospital room.
The old man on the bed slowly drew back his thoughts and looked once again at the life he had walked through.
He could already accept that statement with equanimity: this life had indeed been good.
But as his breathing grew weaker and weaker, another thought grew clearer and clearer in the depths of his heart.
Not enough.
It was not that Lin Mu found the life here too peaceful, nor did he feel that this ordinary existence of rice and salt lacked the thrill of life-and-death struggle.
He had simply, suddenly realized—
He had not seen enough yet.
As someone who had accidentally stumbled into that cruel Gu world and lived it firsthand, he had only walked through one corner of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.
He had not yet truly laid eyes on that man called Gu Yue Fang Yuan.
He had not yet personally walked that far vaster, far grander expanse of the Five Regions and Two Heavens.
He had not yet crossed the divide between immortal and mortal, to see for himself just what sort of landscape that lofty world of Gu Immortals truly was.
And there was even one question that drew him more powerfully than all of the above.
He did not know what sort of person he would ultimately become if he kept walking down that cruel road.
The Lin Mu who had first crossed over to Black Blood Stockade and the Rank 3 Lin Mu of today were already entirely different men.
So what about after another ten years?
Fifty years?
A hundred?
If one day he truly set foot in a higher realm, saw more of the myriad faces of living beings, endured more betrayals, more interests, more deaths and decisions, and even stood before those peak figures who presided over the chessboard of the world…
By that time, what would that future Lin Mu think of his present self, looking back?
He did not know.
And it was precisely because he did not know that he wanted to keep walking.
If he grew old and died here and now on this hospital bed, he could frankly admit it had been a very good life.
It was only — too soon.
His road was nowhere near finished.
At this moment, every answer he had borrowed in the darkness before finally peeled away from his mind, one by one, and dispersed.
Fang Yuan seeks eternal life, never repenting through nine deaths.
Bai Ning Bing seeks splendor, living in the morning and dying at dusk.
Thieving Heaven seeks his homeland, devoting his life to it.
They each had their own direction.
Before, Lin Mu had been able to understand them, had even been able to skillfully borrow their answers to handle the Black Bone King's heart questioning.
But not until today, at the end of this illusion realm where he had walked through an entire lifetime, did he finally part the fog and see the thing that truly belonged to him.
What he wanted was experience.
He wanted to meet more people, to see why they made different choices, why they walked down utterly different roads.
He wanted to see with his own eyes just what that vast and cruel world really looked like.
And within all those hardships and all those sights, to little by little see himself clearly.
Experience changes a person. And he wanted to see with his own eyes just where this person called Lin Mu would end up.
Fang Yuan seeks eternal life.
Bai Ning Bing seeks splendor.
Thieving Heaven seeks his homeland.
The Black Bone King seeks to become an immortal.
Then what of my road…
The old man on the bed was silent for a long while. Then his cloudy gaze slowly swept over those family members beside the bed who had accompanied him all his life, who were watching him now with eyes full of grief.
In his heart, with the utmost calm, he gave his final answer:
I want to see.
To see people.
To see myself.
And to see this world.
To see others, to see myself, to see the world.
That is my road.
He still wanted to become a lofty Gu Immortal, because above those clouds lay vast scenery he had never beheld.
But even if he failed on that road in the future, even if he truly died partway one day, the people he had met along the way, the things he had experienced, and every choice he had made would all truly and genuinely belong to him.
So—
My road… isn't finished yet.
The instant that utterly calm thought settled in his heart.
The hospital room remained as quiet as before.
His white-haired wife still gripped his hand tightly; his children and grandchildren still kept vigil at the bedside.
Lin Mu looked at these familiar faces that had accompanied him for decades, and there was not the slightest rejection in his eyes at having seen through the illusion, nor the least coldness or disgust.
In fact, there truly was some reluctance in his heart.
Because this long lifetime, true or false, had likewise become a part of what he had experienced.
A moment later, the old man on the bed smiled at them, exceedingly gentle and soft.
"This life was good, too."
He said it quietly in his heart.
He paused.
"But…"
"I haven't seen enough yet."
The instant those words fell.
The ticking of the instruments in the hospital room began to recede.
The warm sunlight outside the window fell across the head of the bed, and together with those familiar, sorrowful faces all around, it grew blurred and dissolved, bit by bit, into a piercing white light.
Lin Mu did not struggle, nor did he look back to deny this life.
He simply closed his eyes calmly, and chose to keep moving forward.
...
BOOM——!!!
A violent explosion abruptly tore apart the boundless silence, dragging the blood and brutality of the real world back to his ears!
Deep underground, the entire third chamber was shaking madly, massive slabs of stone crashing down from the vaulted ceiling.
A thread of blood spilled from the corner of Wu Xiang's mouth, yet she still barred the way before Lin Mu with everything she had, forcibly taking on the violent advance Lin Cang and Li Mang launched simultaneously from her left and right!
Amid the sky-filling dust and the overflowing radiance of Primeval Essence, the gazes of all three experts locked once again onto that young man at the center of the chamber.
And in that very moment—
The eyelashes of that young man, who had sat quietly cross-legged for days like a statue of stone, suddenly trembled, ever so faintly.
The next instant.
Lin Mu slowly opened his eyes.