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Molting the Mortal Coil - Chapter 468

Published at 29th of March 2024 06:20:20 AM


Chapter 468: Fortitude

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Chapter 468: Fortitude

The Spiritual Sea was the embodiment of the mind. The control center his consciousness used to operate his body. While the soul was a separate entity without a body to contain it or a mind to drive it, it would discorporate and move on to the afterlife. Sage still found himself existing, but had no connection to the senses of his body. Given the attack that he had suffered, he could only hope that he wasnt dead and this was merely a very powerful attack upon his mind. The moments of respite between each life might be that moment of clarity when his mind was freed from the assault. Could that flame be forcing him to live out many lives filled with regret? What would be the point of that?

Only, he realized that after each reincarnation he seemed to be weakening. Was that the trick? Just purely mental exhaustion? After he lived a thousand lifetimes would his consciousness just fade out from fatigue?

Unfortunately, after thinking to this point, Sage found himself being born again. This time he gave himself an unceasing desire to reach the top of the world and unlock the full secrets of the mind at any cost!

The life that followed was particularly violent, fighting to reach the top was no serene pursuit and after some moderate success he was killed in his thirties battling over an ancient legacy.

After the usual acclimation and recovery of his memories, he hastened to find a way out of his predicament. Hed hoped to gain mental techniques to help him out of this situation, but thinking about it now, none of those techniques still existed in his mind. Were the lives he was living real? Could he take techniques from them and apply them to the real world? After making dozens of attempts he found not only did they not work, he couldnt even remember how to perform them. Just like the things that happened in a dream, the details quickly faded.

His time was up yet again and he gave himself supremely suicidal goals. The newest life was the most chaotic yet, the self harming fellow jumping off a cliff in his early teens after sabotaging every possible relationship and good thing that came his way.

This time, Sage was surprised to find that he was weakened less than the previous times hed lived and died, but that wasnt a solution in itself. If that was all he had he was still doomed. Fighting the urge to panic, he maintained his calm and ran through every mean he had available. Before he could formulate a plan hed need to find out what tools he had left.

His connection to the outside world was severed, he had none of his senses. Yet, he still felt a subtle reaction. It took him a while to understand it, but he eventually realized it was a resonance of the soul. The Blacksilver Pawns! Or at least the Soul Fragments hed placed within them. The Blacksilver King had been destroyed and with it the pawns hed used to make it. Yet, they were just an amalgamation of his own powers and not profound objects. The Soul Fragments werent destroyed and just as before they responded like his own limbs. They were driven like appendages for his soul, yet without any external senses they couldnt really be made into a body on their own. That was why Sage had only been using them as controllers for mass created through his Heavenly Materials.

Everything went dark and then he felt cold and heard the wailing of a newborn once again. He tried to inspire suicidal thoughts to escape quickly again, but he suddenly felt powerless and his memories faded quickly.

After living sixty years as a humble shoe cobbler, Sage found himself in his mental fortress again and felt his strength had decreased yet again. His mind is just too strong!

Giving up thoughts of a direct mental battle, he tried to return to the real world. If he could find the source of the flame giant he might be able to kill his body. Without a body the mind would quickly fade. At least unless the enemy had become a Nascent Soul, and with how little these people seemed to know about cultivation there was little chance that was true. This world seemed filled with people that only used Spirit Power so they likely knew absolutely nothing about Qi Cultivation.

Failure!

While hed broken free of the prison his mind had been in, there seemed to be a second layer around his Spiritual Sea. He couldnt regain control over his body! Sage struggled mightily, bashing against the wall until he was forced into another cycle of life and death. He didnt give up, fighting through three more cycles before there was finally a crack. He dove into that Spiritual Sea and sent his consciousness into his body. The flame giant didnt follow after him, just laughing as he left.

Without inhabiting his mind, there was no way to drive his body, so the flame giant felt no fear and continued to burn and destroy Sages mental fortress. Worse still, without even the protection of that mental fortress if Sage tried to return to his Spiritual Sea hed be completely helpless against the enemy. Once the fortress was gone he could work on the island and when that was finished hed dry up the Spiritual Sea. At that point, Sages body would be an empty shell. A coma patient that would quickly pass away.

Sage couldnt let that happen. While it may seem foolish to work so hard to ensure his own destruction, it was the only method he could think of to break free from this situation. Even if the enemy he faced had no Qi Cultivation, its Spirit Power was many times stronger. Sage had always had difficulty choosing a path for himself, spreading himself thin and always chasing after the next best thing he came upon instead of devoting himself to mastering a single subject. Hed thought that his drastic improvement in Spirit Cultivation and the fortress hed built in his mind was enough to face anyone, but it seems he was mistaken. There was always a taller mountain out there and it was his misfortune to run into this one.

Faced with this deadly situation, he found only one route to salvation.

Get stronger!




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