Paragon of Sin

Within the pieces of floating flesh that was originally Long Chen's brain, a faint Soul Aura was being emitted. The Soul Aura was extremely faint, and it expanded and receded as if it was a living heartbeat. The active reactions gave it a feeling as if it was alive.

"What the hell is this?" Wei Wuyun closed in to investigate this anomaly. He discovered a rather peculiar detail regarding this strange fluctuation: the Soul Aura felt as if it was like Intent, a Will of some sort. But this particular Intent was infused heavily with Long Chen's Soul Aura. It was as if a piece of his soul was imbued within permanently, similar to a Spirit of Cultivation forged during the initial stages of the Qi Condensation Realm.

"I've never seen an Intent of this level, even the quintessential foundation of my Elemental Heart Intent that rests within my Sea of Consciousness lacks such qualities. It acts alongside my will, capable of influencing the world itself, but it lacks this lively, growing emission linked to the soul." Curious about this, he couldn't help but think about what outstanding fortune that Long Chen had obtained to acquire something that exceeded the Mortal Limits and carried such strange characteristics. Whatever it was, it must've been exceptional.

After all, Long Chen was certainly dead, yet this Soul Aura suggested that he was alive, and fully at that.. The faint Soul Aura didn't feel like an incomplete soul, and more like how his soul felt before he formed his Spirit of Cultivation, extracting a piece of his soul to form it. However, this was clearly a remnant Soul Aura without any soul attached to it.

This meant that Long Chen's Soul Aura was present, complete and thriving, yet his real soul had long since moved on to the afterlife. The thought of resurrection emerged in his mind, but he didn't feel like this light wss similar to Hong Ru's incomplete soul that was acquired by Wu Yu.

"It feels more like this can't be used for resurrection directly, but might be able to locate, summon, or recreate Long Chen's Soul." This conjecture of his felt absurd, yet oddly possible. With his Alchemic Stars of Mortal Spirituality active, he had ideas in relation to using this Soul Aura for a variety of ways. Being keenly aware of how souls traverse the River of Souls and that such beings that have Ascended can surpass Mortal Limits, even extract and preserve detached souls such as Hong Ru with some effort, he felt it could be possible!

Wei Wuyin had to strongly suppress the awe in his heart lest he get lost in endless and imaginary possibilities. Calmly, he reached out to gather the bits of flesh that contained the Soul Aura. When he brought all of it to him, he realized the Soul Aura was only being emitted by a single piece of flesh. It originated from a portion of the brain. If he recalled, this soft portion was likely located at the glabella, the frontal portion of the brain.

"What exactly is this? Well, if the Alchemic Dao can sense it, observe it, then it can also refine it!"

Wei Wuyin exerted his alchemic force to engulf the piece of flesh and slowly contain the Soul Aura. It wasn't as difficult as he imagined and he quickly isolated it, extracting it from the flesh, and brought the faint light to him. When he did, he was met with a strange glob of white light no bigger than a marble. It wiggled chaotically as if slightly unstable, not fully formed.

When it was all fully extracted, taken away from Long Chen's flesh, Wei Wuyin finally felt it!

OOOOM!

The world froze.

That familiar feeling of the Heavenly Daos ensuing wrath was manifesting within Wei Wuyin's heart. However, unlike before, Wei Wuyin wasn't frozen along with the myriad lifeforms of the world. Eden and Kratos had already experienced this sort of freezing once before and expected it, so they reacted instantly as the unknown, unseen, and pervasive force invaded them. With fierce retaliation, they pushed all of it out!

There was no crackling of lightning, thunderous noises, darkening of the skies, or grey-clouds that formed without warning like before. Wei Wuyin only felt raging winds sweep throughout the world, but the wind did not affect a single frozen existence. It was as if it was all fake. Even the grey sand that was showing signs of browning from lack of desolate power remained unaffected. Not a single speck of sand was lifted in these raging gale force winds that could topple entire cities.

Wei Wuyin lifted his gaze towards the sky and noticed that there was a twister descending from the skies with ferocious momentum. It was producing this turbulent wind! The twister's tip was descending upon him!

His first thought was to instinctively move away, dodging this natural disaster that went against the laws of this world. But that's when his Bloodline of Sin tattoo inscribed on his right arm emanated dark-red radiance that flickered continuously.

Ohn!

He finally remembered that his first instinct was to flee from the Heavenly Dao's retribution before as well when he noticed the phenomenon of the clouds and lightning. It wasn't out of fear but self-preservation. An instinct developed in all living beings, especially when facing the heavens! Fortunately, his Bloodline of Sin reminded him of his identity, not just a survivor. The one identity that made it so he can be afraid of cultivators, of life itself, but never be afraid of the Heavenly Daos!

Wei Wuyun regained himself and calmly waited for the narrow and fiercely spiraling twister to descend. As he did, he recalled a distinct and crucial memory from years ago. When he kidnapped Ming Shufeng, using the Spirit Oath, he had forced her to repeat the contents of the eighteen layers.

That was when the Bloodline of Sin had interfered, preventing him from understanding her words with concealments and ear-screeching sounds. It was torture that originated from his very soul, and it was the first time that he felt the faint hypocritical aspects of the Bloodline of Sin.

However, despite such an obstacle, he fought through it and paid the utmost attention to everything. He tried to conceive a pattern to snatch a clue, no matter how small, on how to survive and what to expect. A single piece of information might be what allows him to overcome a Calamity of Hell with a Mortal Soul. He hadn't found much, but he did decipher a little.

It was:

"Second…survive in darkness, life passes."

It was an utterly jumbled and nonsensical mess, but he knew the Second Calamity of Hell, the punishment for those who accrued karmic sin in their lifetime, was based around darkness.

The first trial was the weakest calamity that only the lowest of karmic sinners experienced and was called the Calamity of True Loss. It revolved around cleansing the soul of sinners by plaguing them with alternative scenes of their pasts, presents, and futures, reliving harsh and horrifying memories, experiencing their own death or the constant loss of lives important to them, and then the deteoritation and loss of one's greatest, most cherished memories.

It forces you to experience intense, burning agony of living these events over and over until the outer shell of the soul disperses. After the outer shell of the soul had vanished, the sin that infects the soul would vanish along with it, and the soul can then safely enter the River of Souls to go through the process of reincarnation, losing the individuality that it gained in its lifetime.

This so-called outer shell of the soul could be regarded as one's consciousness that was attached to the soul, adhered to it by Karmic Sin. If one lacked Karmic Sin, then they wouldn't need the cleansing of Hell, directly moving to the River of Souls.

However, with each layer of Hell, the punishment intensified alongside the cleansing strength. It was all for the sake of allowing a soul to undergo reincarnation. However, this was only experienced by sinners.

The fragility of a Mortal Soul was far too great. The Soul of True Sin Method existed solely to temper the soul's outer shell, its consciousness, with Karmic Sin. If the Calamities of Hell couldn't be passed in a way like he had in the First Calamity, then the Inheritors of Sin, those at the Realm of Sages, were meant to forcefully resist the cleansing process with a tempered soul to survive. As for why? He wasn't certain.

With a Mortal Soul without any protection, without the slightest tempering, a single mistake was all it took for his everything to end, for his soul to be cleansed and sent into the reincarnation cycle. All it takes is just one misstep and Wei Wuyin would vanish from this world—forever.

WUUUUM!

The twister had already appeared directly above Wei Wuyin, the tip of which twisted and contorted but inevitably sought after his glabella with unerring accuracy. Once again, he sensed the abnormal power that was alluring, disgusting yet oddly arousing. A bundle of conflicting emotions and feelings as it drilled into his glabella.

Ohn! Ohn! Ohn!

The unique mental alarm of the Bloodline of Sin kept blaring within his mind, and the dark-red tattoo on his arm kept flickering with pure, untainted radiance. The light erupted like an explosion, engulfing Wei Wuyin within just as the twister was a single centimeter from piercing his glabella! The feeling of being branded by this light on every piece of his flesh once again reappeared as the light entered his body.

At his glabella, a small, dark-red diamond consisting of esoteric symbols, runic markings, and sinful light emerged! It had a single golden patch at its center, and it seemed to take on the appearance of an eye! It was horrifyingly abnormal, like a vertical demonic eye with side-ways pupils!

At this point, the twister had touched Wei Wuyin's glabella which emitted a faint silver light. This light emerged and vanished strangely as if it wasn't a part of the sinful ensemble and had only been awakened due to the rousing activity nearby.

The twister was sucked into his glabella at outstanding speeds as images of fierce winds emerged on his skin, lively crawling in motion as if his skin was canvas for which a living painting was contained. But those winds swiftly turned dark-red, tainted by the sinful symbols within Wei Wuyin's body.

In an instantaneous flash of sinful light, all the symbols, marks, even the third eye and raging twister vanished. They seemed to all retract and return to the Bloodline of Sin tattoo.

Karmic Luck Value: 944.6.

First Calamity: Survived - 7/7.

Second Calamity: Suppressed - 4 Years.

Karmic Luck Value: 944.6 → 967.6.

First Calamity: Survived - 7/7.

Second Calamity: Suppressed - 4 Years.

Karmic Luck Value: 944.6 → 967.6.

First Calamity: Survived - 7/7.

Second Calamity: Suppressed - 4 Years → 3 Years.

Karmic Luck Value: 967.6.

First Calamity: Survived - 7/7.

Second Calamity: Suppressed - 3 Years → 0 Years.

Karmic Luck Value: 967.6.

First Calamity: Survived - 7/7.

Second Calamity: Initiating.