Immortal Paladin

I tried to play it off, leaning back as if I were recounting an amusing tale rather than a wound carved into history. “Back in my time, your disciple Quan Shou, goes by Shouquan back then, once made a prophecy about me.” I watched her reaction as I continued, keeping my tone light. “He said I’d end up destroying an Empire together with my disciple. Not some backwater dynasty either, but the last Empire of that era, one that still had a seat at the world stage.”

Her brows knit together. “And?” she asked, clearly unconvinced.

“And the prophecy came true,” I replied calmly. “But the ending wasn’t as terrible as it sounded.” I let out a short laugh. “After setting off the events that could have actually destroyed it, I clenched my balls, faced the mess head on, and dealt with it properly. Paladin style. I cleaned up after myself, allowing the Empire to survive what would’ve been a civilization-ending calamity.”

Calling it my fault would have been an understatement. Nongmin carried plenty of blame as well, yet he had only followed a path that intersected with mine, and I could not truly fault him for finding a solution through me. In the end, Shenyuan, or Yuan Shen, had been the real root of that tragedy, though I still had no idea how he ended up becoming what he was.

I looked at the Yuan Shun lying in the bed and wondered what kind of future awaited her. My encounter with her in the middle of that storm had been brief, no more than a flash of lightning. If this truly turned into a blame game, then Wen Yuhan would be the ultimate sinner behind this long chain of tragedies. Yet after living through her life through Divine Possession in the False Earth, I could not bring myself to say that out loud.

Wen Yuhan broke the silence with a cold laugh. “You really are ignorant,” she said. “You don’t know anything at all.”

I met her gaze without flinching. “Then enlighten me,” I replied. “What drove you to do something as extreme as tearing out your Destiny Seeking Eyes and splitting them into two?” I paused before adding, “Your future self told me that your Immortal Art was forcibly taken by the Supreme Beings and then divided. Was that the reason?”

She closed her eyes for a moment and let out a slow sigh. “So even that future version of me failed,” she said quietly, as if stating an obvious truth.

For a fleeting instant, I considered using Divine Possession on her, or on everyone involved, and prying the truth out by force. The urge was sharp and tempting. I suppressed it, circulating Transcendent Heart until my impatience dulled and my thoughts returned to stillness.

Wen Yuhan opened her eyes again and continued, her voice steady but heavy. “I consulted the future and saw my end,” she said. “I saw myself being toyed with by the Supreme Beings, my Immortal Art taken away, my disciples betraying me after the existence known as Wen Yuhan was erased.”

She looked straight at me. “Do you know what the ultimate punishment the Supreme Beings can bestow is?”

I shook my head slowly.

“It is the annihilation of meaning,” she answered. “The world forgets you. Everyone around you forgets you. You still exist, but only as a husk, empty and unseen.” Her fingers curled tightly. “In one future, I resisted to the very end by binding the destiny of the world to myself.”

I exhaled softly as realization settled in. “So that’s how you earned your epithet in the False Earth,” I said. “The Destiny-Bound Seer.”

Wen Yuhan suddenly paused, her eyes widening as if a thought had only just caught up to her.

“So I really ended up in the False Earth,” she said in disbelief, her voice softer than before. “If that’s the case, do you think I could meet my old friends again?” The way she said old friends told me exactly who she meant, even though she did not name them.

I shook my head slowly, choosing my words with care. “Probably not,” I said. “I’m fairly certain they reincarnated in the future.” When she frowned, I explained further. “Ancient Souls are special. When they reincarnate, they tend to keep their physical traits, or at least echoes of them. That’s how I could tell.” Her expression brightened instead of dimming, and she leaned forward with clear interest.

“How are they doing?” she asked, sounding almost eager.

I chuckled. “The Dragon God you knew reincarnated into a man named Ren Xun,” I said. “He’s doing well, though he now has a harem of dragons and the responsibility to help repopulate their race.” Wen Yuhan stared at me blankly, clearly trying to process that image.

I continued before she could interrupt. “As for the Repentant Listener, she reincarnated into Lin Lim. She’s a strange blind beggar who wanders around seeking repentance, or something close to that.” I paused, then added, “She’s married to Ren Xun now.” Wen Yuhan’s confusion deepened, her brows knitting together.

“How is that even possible?” she asked. “How did a hedonistic dragon like Yinglong end up married to an ascetic monk like Guanyin?”

I shrugged, filing that reaction away in my mind. “Ren Xun is actually a very respectable person,” I said. “And Lin Lim is filled with worldly desires, whether she admits it or not.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you lying to me?”

“No,” I replied without hesitation. “I’m being very honest right now.” She studied my face for a moment, then nodded and moved on.

“What about Feng Wei?” she asked. “The Martial God.”

I rubbed my chin, my thoughts turning unpleasant. I could not bring myself to tell her how his corpse had been resurrected, twisted, used to beat my main body senseless, and then abducted it afterward. “I don’t know,” I said instead, meeting her gaze. It was a lie, and we both knew it, but she let it pass. She smiled faintly, as if comforted by her own conclusion.

“He probably became a warrior again,” she said. “He was always consistent like that.”

As I sifted through the memories she had shown me before, something continued to bother me. The parts involving the Four Heroes and the Heavenly Demon were missing entirely, as if they had been cut away cleanly. She seemed calmer now, softened by nostalgia and my careless chatter, so it felt like the right time to ask.

“Wen Yuhan,” I said, “can you tell me more about the Four Heroes and the Heavenly Demon?”

She looked startled, then nodded meekly. “I’ll tell you as much as I can remember.”

That word bothered me. “Remember?” I repeated. “That’s strange.” I met her eyes and continued, “You showed me your life, your memories of the past. But none of them included the Four Heroes or the Heavenly Demon. Can you explain to me why that is the case?”

Her expression grew solemn. “That’s because of the ultimate punishment,” she said. “Before the Four Heroes rose to fame, the world was already at war.” Her voice dropped lower. “The Heavenly Demon stood at the center of it all.”

She continued, “He was subjected to the ultimate punishment. Erasure.” Her fingers trembled slightly. “But somehow, through a miracle I still don’t understand, he resisted it.” She took a breath. “For the next hundred thousand years, the war never stopped. He destroyed everything the Supreme Beings sent to suppress him.”

The Heavenly Demon and the Heavenly Demonic Cult ruled for an age that felt endless, crushing sects and empires alike beneath their shadow. Civilization survived only by bending, retreating, and enduring, until the Four Heroes finally emerged and challenged that absolute reign.

Wen Yuhan let out a slow breath, her gaze distant as she sank fully into recollection. “It all started with my enlightenment,” she said, clearly speaking of the past rather than the present. “That was when my Immortal Art first manifested.” Her tone remained calm, almost detached. “After that, a special existence visited me.”

She looked at me again, her eyes clear. “He asked for my assistance,” she said. “He wanted me to help subjugate the Heavenly Demon.”

Wen Yuhan did not stop speaking, as if afraid the memories would slip away if she hesitated. “After my enlightenment,” she said, “I began using my Immortal Art exactly as he instructed.” She looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers slightly. “It allowed me to sense people tied to specific outcomes. When I found them, I knew they were the ones I had to gather.”

I listened carefully and asked, “How did you approach them?”

She gave a faint smile. “I didn’t need to persuade most of them,” she replied. “Fate itself pushed them toward me. Some felt like coincidences. Others felt like inevitabilities. No matter where I went, they appeared.” Her gaze sharpened as she recalled it. “It was as if the world itself wanted us to meet.”

I frowned and interrupted her before she could move on. “This keeps bothering me,” I said. “Who exactly was this special existence? And why was he special enough that you followed his instructions without question?”

She lifted her head and met my eyes. “Because I couldn’t say no to him,” she answered plainly. Seeing my skepticism, she added, “It wasn’t coercion. It wasn’t fear. I simply couldn’t refuse.” After a brief pause, she said, “He called himself the Yellow Emperor.”

That name hit me harder than I expected. The Yellow Emperor she described could only be the Enlightened Scholar I had met in the False Earth, the same existence who had intervened so I would not die a pointless death. The more Wen Yuhan spoke, the clearer it became that his presence stretched across eras, nudging events while remaining just out of reach.

She continued, her tone growing heavier. “The day we finally fought the Heavenly Demon,” she said, “we realized something terrifying.” She shook her head slowly. “There was no killing him.”

I asked quietly, “Not even with all of you together? The Four Heroes?”

“Not even then,” she replied. “Every time we struck him down, he returned. His existence was anchored too deeply.” She drew a slow breath. “So we used a secret art. One that sent us further back into the past, to a point where he was not yet complete.” Her voice tightened. “Even then, we barely succeeded.”

I said nothing, letting her words settle. That must have been when the Heavenly Demon I encountered in the False Earth came into being, a distorted remnant born from fractured causality. And the way Wen Yuhan had reacted to our ‘time travel’ made sense now. If she had not gone through time travel herself, she would have dismissed us as lunatics outright.

“How did you even manage that?” I finally asked. “Traveling back in time shouldn’t be possible. Yes, yes, I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but such miraculous power is unheard of.”

She answered without hesitation. “A Supreme Being helped us.”

“Which one?” I pressed.

She frowned and shook her head. “I can’t remember,” she said. “Only that it was done out of necessity. There was no other choice.”

I clicked my tongue softly. That alone told me how serious it must have been, given that the Supreme Beings and the Lost Gods, or Ancient Souls of the False Earth, had always stood opposed.

Wen Yuhan went on, her voice turning bitter. “We thought that was the end. That peace had finally been achieved.” She let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “Instead, the Eternal Undeath Cult was born from the consequences of what we did.”

She described an era far worse than the Heavenly Demon’s rampage. Hell Gates opening across the land, plagues spreading faster than any sect could contain, wars erupting everywhere at once. “The Four Heroes became famous trying to stop it all,” she said. “And the tales of subjugating the Heavenly Demon spread, even though he had only existed briefly in the Hollowed World as an existence of the past.”

Her expression darkened as she reached the end of that story. “One by one, the Four Heroes died,” she said. “Some were betrayed. Some were schemed against. All of them were dragged down by strange misfortune.” She looked away. “As for me, I’m in exile now. Hiding. Avoiding my own misfortune as much as I can.”

I took a slow breath before asking the question I had been holding back. “Then how did it all lead to you giving your Immortal Art to Yuan Shen and Yuan Shun?”

She answered calmly, as if she had long accepted it. “It was desperation,” she said. “The Supreme Beings found my Immortal Art a sore sight. It refused to fade.” Her eyes hardened. “When I saw what Yuan Shen and Yuan Shun would become in the future, I decided it was fine for them to die in my place.”

The silence that followed felt heavy. I finally spoke, my voice low. “Now that you know the future won’t change,” I asked her, “did anything change at all?”

Wen Yuhan looked at me as if she were grasping at the edge of a cliff, her composure finally cracking. “You don’t know that,” she said, her voice unsteady, almost pleading. “You don’t know for sure that the future can’t be changed.” The way she stared at me made it feel less like an argument and more like a silent request for permission to hope.

I met her gaze and shook my head slowly. “You need to wake up to reality,” I said. “You’ve already seen what happens when people force the future to bend.”

“Why shouldn’t it be possible?” she argued. “If fate can be seen, then it can be altered. If destiny exists, then it can be rewritten.” Her words came faster, sharper. “Are you saying all our struggles were meaningless?”

“You said it yourself,” I met her gaze and replied, “I’m saying you already saw what happens when people try to force the future.” I paused, and then added, “The Eternal Undeath Cult.” Her expression faltered, but I continued anyway. “Hell Gates opening across the world. Plagues that wiped out generations. Wars that fed on despair. All of that happened because someone thought they could control fate instead of paying its price.”

She fell silent, conflict clearly written across her face. As I watched her struggle, the pieces finally aligned in my mind. “Yuan Shen and Yuan Shun,” I said carefully, “they were members of the Eternal Undeath Cult, weren’t they?” Her breath hitched, and I continued before she could interrupt. “And that cult was the successor of the Heavenly Demonic Cult.”

The words hit their mark. When I laid her sins out so plainly, her defenses collapsed, and guilt surfaced in her eyes like something long buried. She let out a slow sigh, shoulders sagging, and for the first time she looked relieved rather than cornered. “It seemed I really needed to hear that,” she said quietly, as if confessing to herself more than to me. “I know… I understand… But… Fine, you win…”

She placed her hand gently over the sleeping Yuan Shun, lingering there as if memorizing the warmth. A second passed, then another, before Wen Yuhan opened her eyes again. This time, they carried a mysterious sheen, like a miniature sun rising behind her pupils.

A completely unrelated thought struck me, sharp enough to make my back damp with sweat. By telling her to take back the Heavenly Eye, wasn’t I changing the past myself? Wouldn’t that trigger a chain of terrible events, just like the one she experienced with the Heavenly Demon? I grimaced inwardly and forced the thought down. Since Gu Jie hadn’t stopped me, it should be fine. At least, that was what I told myself.

Wen Yuhan noticed my hesitation and turned toward me. “Is there a problem?” she asked.

I hesitated, then decided to ask directly. “Will there be consequences if you take back the Heavenly Eye?” I said. “Anything related to cause and effect?”

She shook her head without hesitation. “No,” she replied. “Immortal Arts like mine are not bound by cause and effect. They are miracles with absolute rules.” With that, she turned and walked out of the chamber, her steps light but resolute.

Yuan Shen stirred and looked up, confused. “Hod did my sister do?” he asked. “Master?”

“She’ll be fine from now on,” Wen Yuhan said as she returned briefly, her voice gentle. She patted Yuan Shen on the head, and I saw a faint curl of dark smoke rise from her palm before dissipating into nothing. “It’s done,” she said softly, as the distinct glow of the Destiny Seeking Eyes returned to her.

After hearing her story, my mind was filled with far more questions than answers. Still, I had the strange feeling that I would uncover them in time, simply by getting to know her better. That thought barely settled before the Temple shook violently, dust raining from the ceiling as a powerful voice echoed through the halls.

“Bring out the Destiny Seeker.”

I turned to Gu Jie immediately. “That doesn’t sound friendly,” I said.

She remained calm. “Hei Mao will handle it,” she replied simply.

Wen Yuhan turned to her two disciples and said, “Stay here with Yuan Shun. Do not leave this chamber.” They bowed at once. “Yes, Master.”

Together, Gu Jie, Wen Yuhan, and I stepped outside the Temple.

Hei Mao stood at the entrance, his presence oppressive and unmistakable. Before him were two dragons in human form and three monks, all of them radiating the aura of the Eleventh Realm, Perfect Immortals. As the tension thickened, Hei Mao’s shadow began to expand unnaturally, growing larger and darker until every patch of grass and dirt was swallowed by it.

In a calm, almost polite tone, Hei Mao spoke. “Behave yourselves,” he said evenly. “You won’t like what happens if I get angry.”