Uru Hong Jing stared nervously at Kao Dao Ji.
"Are you sure you can hold on?" He asked in a worried tone.
Kao Dao Ji nodded.
Le Tu sat down to meditate.
He placed down his aperture.
And as he did.
The expression of Kao Dao Ji contorted.
A foreign Land took place, appearing from thin air, stretching from all sides.
Whereas Kao Dao Ji could not help but tremble.
Whilst he had been mentally prepared, there was no way to truly prepare oneself for this.
Mass could not come from nowhere, and the size of the aperture from Le Tu, whilst not completely unleashed, meant that a small gap was being released.
A portion of his aperture had been unleashed in the world, whilst the remainder remained inside.
But the reasoning was simple.
A Tribulation could only be held by opening the walls of the aperture, or else there would be a deficit in the Heaven and Earth Qi within the aperture.
Of course, Le Tu could have held the Tribulation outside Kao Dao Ji's aperture, but that would expose him to the outside world.
And whilst Uru Hong Jing's presence blocked anti-deduction Killer Moves, it could not stop sight; if an immortal were to be nearby, Le Tu's presence would stick out like a sore thumb.
Moreover.
If he did that, how was Kao Dao Ji supposed to help him?
Even so.
Kao Dao Ji's expression twitched as he muttered.
"The ant man strategy…" He chuckled to himself.
But then, he had a peculiar expression on his face.
"Wait, now that I think about it. It could actually work…If I use my Domain Expansion to forcefully connect two apertures, and my aperture is 'bigger', I could easily crush the insides of another aperture."
But then he shook his head.
Whilst the logic was sound, it only worked if the aperture was bigger than that of his target.
Why the hell would he learn a technique to bully weaklings?
Moreover, it was filled with danger; it was, in essence, like throwing yourself at the jaws of a shark to asphyxiate it.
He stopped his idle thoughts as he felt the tides of Heaven and Earth Qi converging towards Le Tu's aperture.
And of course, depleting his own foundation.
Kao Dao Ji opened the walls of his own aperture, exhaling the Qi in and out.
Whilst shouting.
"Le Tu. I don't know how much control you have, but try to only send the parts of your aperture where the Tribulation will take place here."
Le Tu nodded firmly.
Of course, he was already doing just that.
Soon.
The Tribulation began to take shape.
And as it did.
An endless stream of stars appeared.
Shining with dark purple light at their periphery, whilst they were connected by a strange string.
Altogether, the starry skies could be perceived like a spider web interconnected in a ball-like manner.
Whilst none of the present understood what it was, they all felt a huge danger to what was in its insides.
Kao Dao Ji's eyelids twitched.
"Star Path?"
Just how blatantly could Star Constellation disregard all the common sense and rules?
"Thankfully, I read a bit about Star Path in case she did something like this…"
"Star Path has mediocre offensive and defensive, or at least each speck does.
However, each star can synergize well with its peers.
In great enough numbers, they can produce constellations, and even mimic the effects of Formation Path."
That was the information he had gathered, it also aligned with what he knew of her based in his memories.
Even she, Star Constellation, had a mediocre offensive for somebody of her level.
Only by stacking attacks on top of each other did the offensive reach a great level.
Once he understood this.
He informed the others of his discoveries, who followed after him.
And just afterwards, he began to fly.
Getting nearer to a distance of no less than four kilometers.
Quite enough to gain some time to evade or protect himself from most dangers, but not to the extent where his firepower would be decreased meaningfully.
Rapidly, white clouds appeared from both of his palms.
White Golden Yang Qi surged, and then, there was a massive explosion.
Kao Dao Ji's vision was partially clouded by his overbearing Yang Qi.
However. At the same time, his body was pushed backwards by it.
From his perspective, it was a riskless decision until.
His pupils widened as he realized his overwhelming attack was like trying to shoot at the air.
No matter how mighty, it did absolutely nothing.
On the contrary, the star cloud rapidly expanded.
Kao Dao Ji's eyes widened.
However, that was not what worried him the most.
But that a hundred eyes stood ahead of his vision, alongside countless deformed smiles.
Black goop covered its body from head to toe.
"Hahahahahahahahahaah!" A mad laughter could be seen, as the silhouette of the creature became far more discernible.
Kao Dao Ji immediately tried to retreat, however.
It opened its jaws.
An almost divine energy appeared.
…
…
…
"Kao Dao Ji." A voice appeared inside his mind.
An almost identical reflection of his own appeared.
It was smiling calmly at him.
"Kao Dao Ji, oh Kao Dao Ji."
"You know why we were born, right?" The figure chuckled and tilted its head.
Despite its smile.
One could perceive the anger within it.
"Hah…"
"We were born because our father was a coward."
'Kao Dao Ji' stretched his arms towards the air.
"He never cared about anything, nothing but himself. And his goal. And even that was but an extension of himself."
"Only when the fear of death arose, when he feared that he would not survive his Myriad Tribulation that he had us." He clenched his two fists.
"He feared death; he feared that all his legacy would be gone upon his death.
And thus, he molded us, shaped since childhood to inherit his goals.
To become a puppet meant to fulfill his selfish purposes!" The reflection of Kao Dao Ji spat at the ground, whereas Kao Dao Ji merely frowned slightly.
"What is happening…? I thought this was a Star Path Tribulation." But then his expression changed.
"Wait. I recall that when Dream Realms were first mentioned, they looked like the starry skies.
Even so, it was quite different from how it happened here.
Unless…" The eyelids of Kao Dao Ji twitched as he realized.
"Star Constellation! She deliberately manipulated the Dream Realm so it would look virtually indistinguishable from Star Path.
Had I been an expert in Star Path, I could have noticed the discrepancies, but as I do not know shit about the path, she was able to trick me."
He closed his eyes.
"It does not matter. Dream Tribulations. To solve them, I merely need to unravel the dream.
To be a good pawn and reach the intended end of the dream.
And based on what I am hearing, I think I know the goal."
With clarity in his mind, he stared at the reflection.
"Selfish? But the life we held was so much better than the one almost anybody of our race ever had; we had wealth, we had power. And even now, we can solve everything.
You should understand more than anybody how unique and wondrous our current position is."
The reflection cracked ever so slightly, its figure slightly blurring even then.
But then it snorted coldly.
"A good life, you say? You truly do not remember a thing, do you?" It chuckled.
"Of course, you don't, of course you won't. He did this to you. He did this to me.
He erased the memories he believed were inconvenient.
Do tell me, what do you remember about our childhood?"
Kao Dao Ji paused.
Indeed.
There were several gaps in his memories, but he never paid much attention to them.
Why should he?
Those memories were those of a stranger, and delving into the sentimentalism of another person was rather foolish.
Moreover, how could he know if the reason why those memories were missing was not simply because he had taken over, and in the process damaged critical memories from the previous owner of the body?
Perhaps his strange resurrection had something else to do with it?
But now he realized that there was something deeper.
He squinted his eyes.
"This Tribulation. Is it trying to target my mental weak points?" He chuckled inwardly, but did not reveal anything outwardly.
"I have heard of this before in other novels, that is, the so-called Heart Demon, right? But how is it supposed to affect me by using the memories of a stranger?
Even so. This could be a great opportunity; I need to learn more about that supposed truth.
A faint expression of puzzlement appeared in his face.
"What do you mean?"
The reflection smirked at him.
"He never had a wife, you know? The greater an Immortal's Rank is, the harder it is to get pregnant or impregnate someone.
To have us, as a mighty Rank 8, what a difficult task that was.
And, no mere mortal woman could withstand for so long.
Hence, he needed to build a harem until eventually one of his many women got pregnant.
But do you remember who is the one who got pregnant in the end? The one who was our mother.
Because even I don't.
Every two weeks, we were sent towards yet another courtesan to guide us and teach us; they were periodically replaced.
Our father was not very present either.
He purposefully isolated us from a common life from a very young age.
But why? Why would he do that?
Because.
He never wanted us to become attached; he never wanted us to truly love someone.
And when we began to do so.
He took action." The faint smile on its face completely changed, twisting into a deranged expression.
The figure cracked further and further still.
Whereas Kao Dao Ji suddenly widened his eyes in bewilderment.
Suddenly.
He touched his face.
Several tears had unknowingly appeared in it at the same time.
"Just think about it.
Why? Why, despite your age, have you never had a single friend? Or a lover?
Do you not find it strange that in over seventy years, you could not get a single one?
Why is it that since your death, nobody has come to visit you?
Nobody has come to mourn you.
Nobody has visited your Blessed Land, not even once, for anything outside of business.
Hahahahahah….
The Dao of Cloud Path is an uncaring one.
To master it, one must be detached from the affairs of the world, outside the politics, outside the emotions and bonds that bind others.
To be free, to be unfettered!
That is the essence of Cloud Path.
By turning you into a clear reflection of what Cloud Path is supposed to be, he wanted you to surpass any Cloud Path Cultivator who had come before us.
Everybody who stood towards you and this ideal had to be eliminated, and so were those cherished memories."
The figure's smile widened.
"But while the memories have been erased, the lingering emotions, the sensations you had. Vague fragments of what happened.
They all lingered within your subconscious. "
The figure drew nearer, and Kao Dao Ji subconsciously retreated.
"That is who I am."
"But I will remain a shadow no more!"
Its eyes turned bloodshot red.
It charged violently towards Kao Dao Ji, however.
Kao Dao Ji jumped backwards; at the same time, he raised his arm.
A golden stream was unleashed from his fingertips.
Piercing through the heart of the ghost.
Who stood there in shock.
"Why? How…How were you able to move?
T-This was not…
This was not supposed to be possible."
As those words were spoken, the reflection of Kao Dao Ji seemed to take its last breath.
Until suddenly.
Realization dawned in its expression.
"You…Are you even truly Kao Dao Ji? I was born from the reflection of his image; the Tribulation gave me shape and voice. And yet the one who stands before me is nothing like him.
Hahahaha!" The figure covered its face with its hand as he begun to laugh.
"This…This is such a joke! All along, I thought I finally had the chance to set myself in the right path, and yet.
I was just talking with another thief. The one who stole my body.
How utterly pathetic!" The reflection of Kao Dao Ji laughed wholeheartedly as he uttered those words.
Before vanishing into nothingness.
The surroundings around him exploded.
Like a cracked mirror.
And he was outside.
"Well…That was something." He muttered.
But then his expression grew rather peculiar.
"It was a bit odd. If she could create those Dao Heart Demons or whatever the hell they were. Why did she create only one of the original Kao Dao Ji instead of the current me?"
Suspicion appeared in his face.
"Unless she does not know about the current me, or at least was not sure of my existence."
Kao Dao Ji's eyes widened.
"I see! Perhaps the goal of the Tribulation was not to kill me, but rather to figure out who I am truly?"
But just as he had this thought.
He found that he had been mistaken, almost immediately.
He caught the attention of another figure in the sky.
His lips trembled.
And so did his jaw.
Realization dawned upon his face.
"I was never the real target; her real goal was…"
Le Tu.
Le Tu stood midair; he had a cold expression on his face.
His eyes looked completely indifferent, like a pair of black pearls.
Shining beautifully, but lacking true beauty.
Around his hair, one could see several mushrooms glued together with sap.
It was a horrid stench.
Le Tu stared briefly at Kao Dao Ji.
Before turning his gaze towards another figure.
Uru Hong Jing, who had used his teleportation Killer Move to barely get away from the Dream Realm Tribulation in time.