Immortal Paladin

[POV: Da Wei]

“Does it hurt?” I asked N’wa.

She had one of my eyes, the Ophanim temporarily transmuted into her left eye. Through it, I had brought her into the infinity connected to its power, then gently pushed her along a path leading into her past. She would relive her previous life, and with the Ophanim, she could even revisit all her past lives. However, I wanted her to reach enlightenment, not lose herself in the process. She would gradually recover the pieces of herself she had lost, but it would take time. I had no idea when I would see her again.

“It hurts,” she confessed. “But I can take it.”

She vanished from my perception.

I drew a deep breath and clung to my sense of self. Once again, I was trapped inside a singularity, having lost all measure of myself and the universe around me. I could perceive everything, yet I could not act upon any of it. There was no pain, but I knew I was suffering. I could not even tell whether I was still myself or merely an awareness suspended in the endless expanse of existence.

Just when I thought this would truly be the end of me, my surroundings changed. I found myself in a familiar modern home, lying beside the sofa.

“Thanks, Voidy,” I said. “I thought I was a goner for sure this time.”

The faceless man sat comfortably with a bag of chips in his hands, watching my life story unfold on the television. However, something about him had changed. The blackness obscuring his face had spread down one arm, resembling an infection that devoured everything it touched, leaving behind nothingness.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I might’ve overdone it. You went too deep into the abyss,” he replied.

“Can you still do it?” I asked, sitting upright. “Pull me out of the infinity if I lose myself again?”

“I will.”

I was conflicted. Part of me wanted to take advantage of this man, while another part was tempted to keep looking into the future, hoping to find a reality where we could shorten the twelve thousand years we would otherwise have to endure before escaping the Tower. I had promised Nongmin that I would search for better answers, however uncertain that endeavor might be.

The man before me might have saved my life, but he was still the Supreme Void, or at least an aspect of him. For all I knew, he was no different from a stranger. And yet, despite everything I knew about him, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon him.

“Damn it,” I cursed under my breath.

I was all too willing to sacrifice the echoes inhabiting the Tower to advance our goals and escape this place as soon as possible. When I had first arrived in this universe, I had instinctively regarded them as nothing more than NPCs. Their existence had seemed inconsequential compared to our own.

Voidy was arguably even more pitiful than those echoes. He was an existence exiled beyond space and time, condemned to an eternity of isolation. Perhaps his eventual demise would be a mercy compared to the endless suffering he endured.

“Do you want to live?” I asked.

“Of course I do.”

For someone who had willingly offered to pull me out of the infinity again, even at the risk of his own existence, he certainly seemed determined to survive. The spreading blackness on his body made me wonder just how much he had already sacrificed to save me.

I felt ashamed for asking.

“I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, but I’ve become a fan,” he said, his attention returning to the television. “The Supreme Bearer, sympathizer of all. The Lost Supreme—”

“What did you call me?” I interrupted, confused.

“The Lost Supreme,” he repeated, though he sounded uncertain himself. “That’s you, right?”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“The Lost Prophecy speaks of a hero who will save us all.” Nostalgia colored his voice. “At least, that’s how I remember it. The words have been lost, but I can still recall the faint message they were trying to convey. What is forever lost will not always remain lost.”

He looked at me.

“You are proof of that. Among all the Supremes who have walked this universe, you are the closest to achieving that ideal. You are the hero of the prophecy, or at least the one who comes closest to what it describes. So I’m rooting for you. Every Supreme Being before you has been broken, but you haven’t given up.”

“I don’t even have my Supremacy Trait anymore.”

Once lost, it could never be returned. Unlike cultivation, where one could rebuild from the beginning and eventually regain what had been lost, a Supremacy Trait was fundamental to an individual’s existence. It was what allowed a person to express their uniqueness, the very core of what made them who they were. Without it, I was nothing.

It was like losing the heart of my soul.

“You just have to take it back,” he said.

I stared at him, unsure whether he was being serious.

“You already know how to do it, but it’ll take time. The Weight of Existence exerted by the people around you and the universe at large will interfere with the accuracy of your prophecies. Even so, if you keep trying, you’ll get closer to the answer you need. So don’t be afraid for my well-being. Just keep looking ahead and follow...” He paused, as though searching for the right words. “Your heart.”

The walls around us crumbled, revealing the infinity beyond them and the unending universe stretching into the distance. The television continued playing my most recent memories, showing how I had fallen victim to the Supreme Heart’s scheme.

The text here was copied from the author’s official publication without consent; readers support the writer at the published chapter.

I watched the events that had brought me to the False Earth, led me back into the Tower, and ultimately reunited me with the man sitting beside me. Voidy watched the same scenes with a satisfied smile, as though seeing my journey unfold had confirmed something he had long suspected.

“The other me has really lost it,” he muttered with a grimace. “Let me help you, Da Wei. I’ll teach you everything you’re missing, and then you can go kick everyone’s ass.”

“Should I call you Master?”

“No need. I know you’re too prideful and think of the word as derogatory.” He grimaced again. “You can call me Teacher, though.”

I winced, having almost forgotten that he could see my memories. There were parts of myself I preferred not to acknowledge, much less have someone else examine. As embarrassing as it was, I felt relieved that this version of the Supreme Void had been exiled beyond space and time. At least he couldn’t go around telling anyone about that particular part of me that struck a nerve whenever it came up.

Voidy continued as though he hadn’t noticed my discomfort.

“You have to understand something about people like us, the Vessels of the Source. We weren’t always Supreme. We started out as the most pathetic, miserable losers you could find on Earth, broken in more ways than one. We were tragic heroes in our own stories, each carrying unique wounds that shaped our struggles, gave character to our pain, and defined the broken shells we eventually became.”

He glanced at me.

“You should know that already. You’ve been inside more than a few Vessels yourself. So why is that? Is the Source a sadist? Is God a sadist? Honestly, I don’t know. But this pattern has persisted across generations of Vessels.”

He leaned back, watching the television as my memories continued to play.

“One thing I can tell you is that these wounds are what make us strong. At the same time, they leave us vulnerable. We don’t like other people touching them.”

I recalled Ru Qiu and the Supreme Death, whose lives I had experienced through Divine Possession. Voidy was telling the truth. I wouldn’t have won Ru Qiu’s heart if I hadn’t understood his pain. Nor would I have defeated the Great Beast born from the Supreme Death’s existence if I hadn’t shared in that suffering.

As for my own wound, I still didn’t know what it was. Perhaps some mental barrier prevented me from perceiving it, a defense mechanism that kept me from confronting something I wasn’t ready to face. Whatever the reason, I could understand the logic behind Voidy’s words.

“If you’re going to search the future for answers,” he continued, “why not look for them in the past?”

His expression turned thoughtful before a sinister smile crept across his face.

“The Yellow Emperor might not be an original Vessel of the Source, but he’s stolen the existence of others, including Vessels like you and your friend. I’d bet good money that makes him twice as vulnerable as the rest of us.”

His smile reminded me of the Supreme Void’s more casual, destructive aspect, the one that could regard devastation as little more than an amusing pastime.

“Find his insecurities. Seek out his pain. Grab it by its throne, carve through its lungs, then rip out the heart where that wound resides. Expose it for everyone to see. Let him feel the stinging embrace of the wind and the biting pain that has sustained his stolen power.”

Voidy rose from his seat and turned toward me.

“Let me help you, Da Wei.”

Before I could respond, he pushed me.

I was hurled back into the singularity, falling into the infinity connected to the well of omniscience within my Ophanim.

I had told Nongmin that we would need twelve thousand years to escape the Tower.

So, I relived those twelve thousand years through the Ophanim, searching for a way to improve our chances. I fought the boss monster guarding the path to the next floor, slaughtered my way through the Tower, and repeated the journey until we reached the opposite end.

We made it out faster than before. How much? By a single day.

I tried again. Another twelve thousand years, another attempt to do things differently, to work harder and find a better path. This time, I shortened the journey by a week.

Such a minuscule improvement nearly broke my heart, but I pressed on.

Every time I lost myself in the singularity created by looking through the Ophanim, Voidy would pull me out. Every time he did, another part of him disappeared into the spreading blackness consuming his existence. Yet I refused to give up. I endured twelve thousand years, then another twelve thousand, repeating the cycle ad infinitum. Sometimes, I managed to shave off a little more time, but as the toll accumulated, I began losing myself more frequently. Eventually, the twelve thousand years I needed to endure doubled over and over, each failed attempt threatening to bury me beneath an eternity of repetition.

Voidy had told me to look into the past, but I didn’t understand what he meant.

I considered rebuilding my abilities from the ground up, but that was pointless. In my current state, I couldn’t grow any stronger through conventional means. I also tried looking into the literal past, reliving my own life in search of answers, but nothing came of it.

Then I tried revisiting the lives of others, confronting Nongmin or the Yellow Emperor through the fragments of their past. Each attempt only made things worse. The Ophanim twisted certain truths, dredged up painful memories, and left me struggling beneath waves of crippling depression. Without the Source and my Supremacy Trait, reliving the past was little more than a pipe dream. My diminished power couldn’t contend with the threats waiting for me around that time period, and every attempt to force my way forward only brought me closer to ruin.

If this continued, Voidy would perish trying to save me. Worse still, I might remain trapped in the Tower forever, having accomplished nothing meaningful despite all the time I had spent searching for a way out.

Just when I thought everything was lost and I was on the verge of giving up, something unexpected happened.

“Alice? What are you doing here?”

She looked different from how I remembered her. Her pink hair was gone, as was the red hair she had worn more recently. Instead, she had dark brown hair, and she was dressed as a saint-in-training, attending a church service. She seemed more demure than I remembered, too, her expression carrying a quiet reverence that felt strangely unfamiliar.

“Do I know you, Father?” she asked.

I looked down and realized I was wearing unfamiliar clothes. A priest’s robes hung from my body.

“Of course you know me...” I began.

Then horror seized me.

An enormous eye watched us from above.

I instinctively touched my left eye. The Ophanim was intact, but the eye hanging over us was something else entirely. Its presence pressed against my awareness, making me feel as though I had stumbled into a reality where even the act of looking could invite disaster.

A madman shuffled past us, muttering frantically.

“Everything connects! Everything connects! Don’t look at it! Don’t look at it!”

Slowly, the pieces began to fall into place.

According to what I’ve learned, once a soul attained enlightenment, it would return to the Source, where it could continue living an ideal life according to its karmic fortune. Before I had become an Earthling and a person of the Source, I had lived other lives within the Circle of Transmigration.

I blinked.

For an instant, the world around me changed. I caught glimpses of lives belonging to entirely different universes and realities, each one unfolding like a memory that wasn’t quite my own. I saw myself as a soldier fighting in the American Civil War, then as a damn cowboy. Another life showed me as an industrialist, while yet another belonged to a martial artist from northern China. I even caught a glimpse of myself as a superhero.

Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, those lives vanished, and I found myself standing beside Alice again.

I was still wearing the priest’s robes.

For someone who had spent so much time dealing with high fantasy worlds, divine powers, and cosmic horrors, this was my first genuine encounter with the multiverse on such a personal level. The sheer breadth of it left me dizzy. I had lived countless lives across realities I had never imagined, each one connected to the others through something far greater than the universe I knew.

So this was what Voidy meant when he told me to look into the past.

“Is there a problem, Father?” Alice asked.

I stared at her for a moment before a question escaped my mouth.

“Does the religion in this world allow priests to marry?”

Alice blushed faintly.

“Oh, you’re such a jester. Even if you were allowed to marry, how could you perform when you’re castrated?”

I fell silent.

For a moment, I couldn’t even process what she had said. I looked down at my priestly robes, then back at Alice, hoping that somehow I had misunderstood her.

No such luck.

I wanted to go home immediately.