AIR Chapter 188

Chapter 188

A couple of days later, I was ready. I had everything worked out with the reflection technique. It still wasn’t a true splitting technique, but it was the difference between a war axe and a large lumberjack’s axe, one was better depending on the job but both could still cut properly. 

I gave one last look to my other self and waved awkwardly. It felt like putting your hands on two sock puppets and pretending they were different people. 

I changed my appearance to a different face and looked at my other self.

“Goodbye Bill,” I waved. 

“Goodbye Drean,” He returned.

I nodded and he nodded back. Really it was all still pretend, for now. We were still one being, but as soon as I left this realm, I’d be leaving as a piece of him. Now, the most complicated part of splitting techniques was the soulwork. 

The original Dane died because he fiddled with his soul too much, but he was only at the twelfth rank, and he hadn’t read an eternally dense book on souls. 

To Heal the Soul, A Collection of Cures for the Fabric of Your Being.

That was what the Time had made me read to help heal my soul and it was just filled with information on souls in general. As of now, I was certain that I could do what Dane wanted to do and succeed at it with all the knowledge I had now. 

But that would have been with a twelfth rank soul. 

THough I guess soul wasn’t the best definition for it. The soul, spirit, and body create a binding link at the ninth realm and fully solidify into one being at the twelfth. So I didn’t technically have a soul, but also I did. 

It was complicated. It’s like the difference between eating three fruits one after another, making a fruit salad by chopping them up, or putting them all in a blender and making a smooth. The soul didn’t actually go away. 

It would be easier to understand it with death. When you die, your body rots, your spirit fades, and your soul enters the Sea of Death. That was how it went for mortals. But a twelveth rank’s body and spirit were so integral to their soul that when they die, they’re whole being enters the sea of death. They were still separate entities in function and control, but as a being, as a definition, they were all singular. 

In other words, the body is owned by the realm, the spirit is temporary and the soul is a dead thing without life. To become a godling, you had to truly own all aspects of yourself and make them yours through and through. 

Otherwise, you could resurrect from a finger or a strand of hair unless precautions were undertaken. 

I looked out and into the void. 

First stop, Lynoria. 

I had traversed the void many times before but that was only within the central realms for the most part. And even then, I had taken the backroads and journeyed painstakingly up to the heavens once, and that had drained me. 

The best map of most of existence went like this. Imagine a diamond shape and at the top would be the Heavens, and at the bottom would be the Hells, the left corner would be the Law Lands and the right corner would be the Chaos Realms. 

The Central Realms were the connections between Heaven and Hell. They were relatively easy to navigate, as was the Chaordic Bound, which was the Central Realm’s horizontal counter. 

Ah-Marin would be located just to the side of Lynoria and somewhat closer to the hells. But its placement was never permanent. That was the nature of lesser realms. They were lesser, meaning it took less for them to be redefined. If Wukong abandoned Lynoria and some Heavenly Tyrant took it over, it would be sent spiraling into the Heavens. 

And it was the same for lesser realms. Ah-Marin used to be a little closer to the Hells, but it had been steadily rising higher and higher since I had gotten here.

It wasn’t noticeable on a larger scale. Maybe the ten clans within the realm were paying attention, but to most beings it was just another bit of dust in the wind. A realm that contained trillions of mortals was barely anything more than the void itself to the strongest cultivators.

I went about walking, taking careful steps from one realm and close to another. 

I saw a colony of void insects. Void insects, void walkers, the Carrion Swarm, one of the most common things within existence. They were a hive, lead by a ninth rank queen and filled with eighth rank drones that traversed the void and ate on decaying universes. They were tolerated everywhere because they didn’t kill universes, instead they only ate the dead ones. 

They looked like giant ants crawling across the floor of the void. The queen gave me a look and I returned it. Then she nodded and walked by me. 

Nodded was a way to explain it, but truly it was a metaphysical show of nonviolence, which was strange because they normally didn’t do that. People had no reason to attack carrion swarms, so they could go to most places freely. 

So why nod?

I just nodded back and kept on going. A few steps later and I sensed a familiar qi signature. 

They were on a void ship and it carried a group of cultivators from Ah-Marin.

“Father!” A young girl screamed. “Look father, I see something in the water.”

She was pointing at me and her eyes shone bright with wonder and awe.

Long Whe, I believe that was his name, looked out into the void and stared. He found nothing of course, since I was just trying to mess with the little kid. 

“I see nothing Jun Whe, do not waste my time with nonsense.”

The kid frowned and said nothing, staring calmly into the emptiness. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen and she was already at the seventh rank. That was decent talent by Ah-Marin’s standards. And that was probably the reason she was on this trip to begin with, something to widen her horizons. 

From their course, I could tell that they were heading towards Lynoria. I doubt they were trying to get within the city. They probably wanted to trade with one of the infinite border realms close to it. I wondered if they would trade pointers with the local sect there and fail miserably to impress them?

“I know I saw something,” the kid murmured. 

I looked at her, truly looked at her and saw that she was indeed a good child. Her aura was valiant and her heart was true. A young cultivator that pursued the dao of persistence. 

I thought for a second, and then I threw her something, something that sank to the very core of her being. A little bit of void law. There was no law of the void, not in the truest sense. The void was empty of all things, including definition. 

But you could understand it and I threw a bit of that understanding into the depths of her mind. 

Hopefully, she’d have fun with it. 

And with that, I stepped into the qi stream and started the ride to Lynoria.