novelraw Chapter 1247 - 1246 - Dark Parallel
Chapter 1247 - 1246 - Dark Parallel
The spirit world was not meant to contain order. It was of all things and yet never fixed. The spirits themselves shifted perspective on a moment to moment basis. The residents never thought it odd at all to see a constantly shifting landscape.
New spirits were born and old ones merged or broke themselves apart intentionally to spread their comprehension to a new generation.
Yet, there were some fixtures.
The old woman in white robes looked on as Lind wove 2nd Circle sigils and traces. He had been hyper focused on his work and did not see her dark looks. She had become grave as he began to weave but did not stop him as he stabilized pieces of the spirit world around him.
He dispersed the 1st Circle weavings once he had reached a certain understanding but his pattern was clear. Still, she only observed.
A shadow extended from her and a familiar male voice spoke up.
[I told you they are the same. He will abuse his opportunity the same as the other.] She sneered but could not rightfully disagree.
A young voice suddenly intruded.
"He is not the same! He plays with us and embraces us! The other one was cold and only wanted to use us! He lied!" The small girl made the old woman lose some of her worries.
The shadow and the old woman could only bow before her.
"Elder, your words–" A pressure suddenly appeared and both Oresh and the old woman shivered. Some spirits were very picky about their status.
A nebulous presence suddenly flashed and made all 3 bow instantly.
[Leave the emerald flame alone. Heaven and Earth will judge, as always.] The voice had no sex or any inclination of emotion but all 3 were clear the conversation was over.
Oresh vanished from the old woman's shadow and the child dispersed back into her orb form.
Once that being spoke, they had no more complaints but the old woman looked on. Unlike the other spirits, she knew Lind Frey on a level the others did not care to.
She knew he was fallible and just as susceptible to corruption but unlike that other one, he was a dragon. It was a key difference but his ability to use weaving was just as strong if not even more pronounced with access to all 18 elements.
It was unique to him but the other had been unique as well. His grasp of weaving had been unprecedented.
She looked on and wondered if she should expel him. In the cultivation world, he would be like any other soul. Also, the flow of time would push him at least a thousand years from the point of his body death.
It might be good if his close ones forgot about him in that time.
The lack of support would slow him down but she knew the vile one was getting close to his goals. The loss of his facilities actually bought them considerable time.
While the spirit world was timeless, the Divine Realm was a true threat to them as well.
There were beings that lifespan became meaningless.
Divine Realms lived at least an epoch or more. Further, they were a true threat on many levels. If they wished, the Master Tier could invade their world.
They were rare enough, however, that the issue was moot.
She narrowed her eyes as Lind quickly moved on to the 3rd circle like it was nothing. He was progressing even faster than the last one!
He dismissed his previous progress once more but it still bothered her that he was showing such a similar methodology as the other one. Their brilliance was disturbingly similar and she felt the need to expel Lind because of it but her superior had given her the command to leave him be.
She, instead, focused on what he was doing.
His weavings started simple with Qi gathering or simple enhancement to restoration of a cultivator if they used the weavings to cultivate.
He had repeated the pattern until he used the weavings to make odd manifestations. At 1st and 2nd circle, he seemed to focus on conjuring the elements into physical form. Yet, once he seemed on the cusp of carving out a stable space, he dispersed it all and moved to the next circle.
He was getting faster at it too.
It was not just his weaving and his limits that were improving, but his grasp of the spirit world's rules. She looked on with doubts in her being that they were looking at a repeat of the past.
Her mind went back to a very different time. The spirits were closer to each other back then. They were also inviting souls that had piqued their interest. Reincarnated beings were the most interesting.
Reading souls told them everything about a life save one thing. They never grasped the person themselves.
The worlds outside the cultivation realms were fascinating especially but they had to wait for the soul to die as a cultivator to invite them to the spirit world. Mortal souls were ripped away the moment death came, but a cultivator had empowered their soul even in just the World Realm.
Thus, it was not as unusual back then for souls to be in the spirit world.
It had not been a happier time but it was certainly more relaxed. The wars and stakes of the physical planes never touched on the spirit world.
Heaven and Earth were not nearly so divided as it was now. It all changed when he arrived.
He had been a young True Cultivator that had leveraged his knowledge from his old world to push the cultivation realms in new directions. Like all True Cultivators, however, his life was on a fixed trajectory. His limit was the Sky Realm.
He had screamed in defiance of it till the end but was unable to overcome the limit. Unlike other races, True Cultivators' souls could endure for a short time after death. The spirits had been fascinated by his ideas and welcomed him to their world.
She pushed the memories aside as only grief and anger would be raised by going further. Still, that one had been a weaver of incredible skill as well. He was able to do 6th circle and Heaven grade quality weaving as a Sky Realm!
She moved towards him but then froze as she felt a stir from the heart of the world. She had been warned once already.
There was an additional rule the spirits had to live by that other races did not. They were restricted from affecting living cultivators from their path. Life and death were a dividing line they could not cross.
"What if he does it again? What he unleashed a new Hell none of us have conceived of?" Her words were not simply spoken pointlessly but to the beings looking on as Lind wove over and over.
For a moment, the tanned skin and emerald eyes were overlaid with pale skin and stone gray eyes. The intelligence and fierce drive were the same. The talent for weaving was the same. The power to manipulate souls was on a level few ever grasped as well.
It was too close to the same path as before!
[He is not the same. He may fall, but he is not the same.] A new voice whispered in her heart but it finally convinced her to turn away.
If all those forces were stopping her from acting, she could not do anything even if she wanted to. They would stop her.
"May the Eternal Father protect us." Despite speaking aloud, her words never made it a millimeter from her mouth. They were forbidden so long as an outsider was there.
Lind was completely unaware of any of it as he immersed himself in weaving unlike anytime before in his life. He thought he was pioneering the process for creating a body but in truth he was the second person to do so in the spirit world.
If he knew who he was following in the footsteps of, he may have completely abandoned it. The last time someone created a body from the spirit world, it shattered Heaven and Earth irrecoverably.
Still, the spirits did nothing but look on. Their way of viewing the world was not the same as mortals or cultivators. They stood outside of time and simply existed to experience life. Good, bad, or neutral made no difference to them.
They enforced the rules of Heaven and Earth they all lived by but were above the cultivators in authority. That very authority, however, bound them more rigidly than any mortal or cultivator.
The dichotomy of power and restraint made them inscrutable to cultivators that knew of them. They saw the spirits as akin to gods over all of existence but that was wrong.
So very wrong.
The spirits of Heaven and Earth knew more and had no need to cultivate as they were at the apex of power, but they were heavily restricted as they did not own that power.
Lind did not fully grasp it but he was closer than most. The spirits could not innovate. He knew that much and thus had to learn on his own. They had wisdom to give him but first he had to form the right questions!
The spirits looking on actually felt something they had never experienced in their long history.
Trepidation. A dark shadow was in their memories and they hoped most sincerely that the dark parallel was false. Some wanted to warn the young dragon of the path he walked but they could not interfere to that extent.
No rule was being broken, so they could only watch. Watch, and pray.