Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1715 - 1714 - First

Lind took his time integrating into the Starlit Refuge. It was a very good place to study Qi but he felt far more confident about condensing Mysteries in his current layer. Compared to any other, he had parsed Qi of all 3 elemental systems nearly his entire life.

His Origin Nodes were proof of that but he also knew that likely meant the threshold of his Mysteries would be insanely high.

Still, the diversity of life in the Refuge was actually inspiring. It opened his mind to possibilities he had never considered!

Even so, his focus was on the strange tear only he could feel. It was the first time he had encountered an actual physical trace of his other selves.

It was also possible it was like the tears in the trial but he doubted it. That tear had felt fresh to his senses.

The one here felt old, impossibly old. Lind began to realize just how long Karu had been facing the Bastard and meeting him. It easily exceeded over a trillion years based on what he felt, but she affirmed she had never been to the Refuge nor heard of it.

Why? He had seemingly told her about everything else from what he could piece together. She may not always have been there, but she had at least heard about it. Why would one place be singled out but then told to go to for sure?

After a few months, he felt comfortable enough to gently investigate if any race had a sense of time or space enough to feel what he did but no one could. The mermaids did have a race of spatial specialists, the demonic element version could, but they mostly could shorten distances or distort space for the sirens.

So many legendary beings just floored him as he learned there were some races hiding away still! They were shy!

There were satyrs but they were terrified of dragons so they stayed hidden!

Lind followed his senses until he frowned. He had passed over an area of the water several times but there was literally nothing there. No entrance, no structure, and no hidden portal, yet he felt the tear clear as day.

He dipped into the water until he narrowed in on its location.

He carefully tried to scan for any cracks but there was nothing! It was only after a solid week of looking that he became chagrined.

Karu had reset everything. The tear had to be beneath the Divine Lands entirely! It was even possible it was an echo and not an actual tear as it felt like.

Why had it endured, though? He had been to the Eastern Continent and other places Karu had affirmed he had fought horrific battles but nothing like that existed in those places.

So why the Refuge?

"What do you want from me, you damn ghosts?" He felt like there were lingering pieces of Divine Will still holding on but they were few and far between or all devoted to sealing the Bastard away.

The outlier of the Refuge stood out so much and he wanted answers. Could he truly advance or was it only the odd tear that called him to be there? He did not know but it was time to find out.

Only 1 energy had a shot and he used it. Emerald lights flared gently and turned the clear water nearly the same color. Yet, it began to vanish just in front of him as a smirk stretched across his jade cut face.

The tear did not react at all as it should but he felt something finally too. He was about to increase it when a suction force started pulling on his mind!

He wanted to resist but it was as if none of his defenses recognized an attack! It was only as darkness closed in that Lind realized why would his own defenses react to his own mind?

⬧⬧⬧⬧

Lind snapped awake to an awful and overpowering scent in his nose. The broken ice allowed the killing cold wind to fill the once vibrant space. Corpses were withered everywhere as a clear sign of a Fiend attack.

He saw Aristrossa frozen in terror as the only intact corpse but her Divine Lord aura was far weaker than he had experienced. It was clear she had used up her Authority trying to do something.

The water at the center was now solid ice but he felt a flicker of life towards the center. Lind carefully moved while keeping an eye out but instead of Fiends or any danger, he only found the dead.

They had all been turned into a Fiend's resources and he knew what he was seeing. The Bastard had refined the Northern Continent.

He also realized that despite how real it all felt, it was not a Divine Memory at all. It was just a memory, his own.

He found a dirty blonde human with broken limbs and in a pool of blood barely holding on. The familiar features were just barely there but the eyes were dead despite the feeling of life.

Lind also saw something else. A yawning chasm into the void was glowing with emerald light.

The raw damage was clearly the result of some kind of fearsome clash between the version he saw dying and the Bastard.

"Broke the world, huh?" The human snapped his eyes open and bright emerald human eyes looked up at him.

[W–what are you?] A barely discernable voice entered LInd's head. Lind ignored him as he examined the tear as he slowly began to understand a few things. It looked like whatever Dao the harmony currently carried had catastrophically clashed with the Bastard's attack.

It had not just torn into the void but damaged something fundamental about the world.

"No wonder it endures. Now, I have seen enough of you pretending to be broken. Get up." Lind was no longer naive but he was surprised as the version of him died in the next few moments.

It was not fading but actual death! How?!

[I am here.] A much stronger voice came from the tear and Lind turned to see a partial spiritual form of the human that died. Lind then went wide eyed as he understood what had happened!

The harmony had reacted to an attempt to refine the soul! Was that really the void or was it somewhere else?! Questions flared but he saw a tremor in the soul and held off.

[If you are here, it means you are the last?] Lind nodded. The soul did something and LInd knew all his secrets were laid bare. A smile slowly spread but then he became grim.

[I am the final secret that thing does not know about. We exist both inside and outside of Heaven and Earth. It allowed for me to change slowly until one of me figured out how to completely shatter the final ties to me. I can let go now.] Lind arched an eyebrow.

That was a lot to dump on him just then!

"Explain–" The soul held up a flickering right hand and shook his head.

[You and I are no longer connected. All ties are severed at last. The Bastard cannot affect you anymore like he could me and the rest.] Lind narrowed his eyes as that made way too much sense.

Heaven and Earth did not like contradictions. It was entirely possible it could restore his old path if he was to reconnect in some way to his old self. He was about to ask at least one question when the answer came quickly.

[I am the first, at least the first to realize we were going round and round. I was able to nudge the next iterations slowly but surely to the source and then I did not need to do anymore. This pocket is all that survived on my cycle somehow.]

Lind guessed part of the power had to be from the Bastard. It would be like looking for a pure thread of his own harmony in the world. If it was not sticking out for some reason, his senses would go right past it!

He now had an answer to why he found Karu when he had not before. Whatever led him to the Starlit Refuge originally was lost and he dared not delve into it.

"What now?" The soul smiled at him and the relief in it was clear.

[My mission is done but once I am gone, you will have a brief window to condense your Qi Mystery. Start that and then get to the Master Tier. You will not need anymore than that. If everything I felt is accurate, you are more than I dreamed possible.]

Lind had his doubts but time was slipping away.

Even so, how could a human, clearly only natural Qi laden too, help him with his Origin Nodes and Qi Layer?

Before he could ask, the emerald energy holding the tear open began to collapse and a storm of energy blasted Lind right in the face!

He had never felt anything like but what was more was he felt all 18 elements at an extremely pure state! Divine Qi was just burying him into the ice next to his own corpse!

Where was it coming from?! Why did a human have access to all of that?!

Lind had to push the questions aside as he began to swiftly feel the Qi around him. Laws and Daos were not important at the moment. He was looking for the start but he was unique.

He had gone far down the path of all 3 elemental systems and brought them together.

He froze at that thought? He brought them together? Did he really or did he grasp something fundamental and it triggered the Origin Nodes to form?

He let the elements storm his Origin Nodes and the 6 pieces in his dantian became suns. Origin fire, water, earth, air, darkness, and light shifted in his senses as he felt something familiar.

He smiled as he looked at the fading tear as he understood.

[Qi had no beginning or end, only the cycle.]