The imposing Tribulation Transcendence cultivator continued delivering his relatively short speech before the trillions of cultivators gathered in front of the enormous crimson gates.
His words revolved around courage, risk, and reward, as well as the greatness and unprecedented opportunities awaiting those who completed the mission.
But Aotian noticed that at no point did he even mention the word self-sacrifice—that is, giving one's life to save the world. After thinking for a moment, however, he quickly understood the reason.
Cultivators, for the most part, were selfish people, willing to do whatever they could to obtain even the smallest advantage.
Thus, a word like self-sacrifice, even if it were to save the world, would indeed be taboo when trying to motivate them. On the contrary, it might even discourage them, as they would realize that there was a high chance of dying inside.
Their thoughts would basically be something like: "Others will go and should succeed; there's no need for me to risk myself uselessly. It's better to protect myself, since there's no point in protecting the world if I'm dead." Or something equally selfish in that sense.
But everything changed when the word opportunity was placed before them. When that happened, they embodied the saying of moths drawn to flames, not hesitating even when their bodies began to burn, all to reach the desired prize.
'Cultivators are truly interesting. They seem to always live at extremes. They sacrifice their lives, isolated in caves, in order to actually live longer.'
'They seek opportunities amid dangers, even when those dangers are, most of the time, disproportionate to the gains, all in a pursuit of strength to protect themselves and greater longevity. Yet they end up falling before even enjoying a little of either.'
'It seems that everything in their lives is futile, except for those few who truly achieve something and live for a very long time…'
He sighed bitterly, feeling that the world and human desires were indeed bizarre, whether in that world or in his previous life.
While Aotian was lost in thought, the Tribulation Transcendence cultivator's speech continued.
"Everyone, I will now open the gates, and you will be able to cross into the small world. However, this early opening will not activate the protective measures, which are still recharging, so everything you encounter inside will be completely different from before."
"Be cautious. We will keep the outside secure. Go in and try to return as quickly as possible."
The cultivator, who had previously revealed his name as Dong Ying, spoke firmly and, seeing everyone ready, turned toward the gates.
At the very moment he did so, about twenty other cultivators, with equally terrifying auras, appeared at his side, also gazing at the crimson gates.
Aotian took a deep breath upon witnessing such a scene and quickly suppressed his aura even further, so as not to be noticed, even though no one would truly take him seriously, since he was, in a sense, a nobody there.
The Tribulation Transcendences then raised their hands, and mysterious discs of ancient appearance emerged from the void. As soon as they left the pocket spaces of those men, they flew like lightning toward the gates, suddenly fixing themselves onto them.
Immediately afterward, beams of energy were fired by those cultivators, striking the discs directly and activating them.
Golden runes instantly lit up on them, complex and mysterious, and then, like thousands of ants, began to spread across the entire surface of the enormous red gates. The energy pulsations were so powerful that they made the hearts of the trillions watching beat in unison.
However, as they spread, a bizarre phenomenon began to occur, alarming Aotian and everyone present, including the powerful cultivators occupying the sky.
The runes, once completely golden and vibrant, began to erode as a black, hollow coloration spread across them, caused by a dark mist carrying a threatening, corrupted aura that leaked from a small fissure formed by the slight opening of the gates.
Aotian knew, deep down, what that was.
'Impurities…'
He even saw the cultivators in the sky begin to sweat as they unconsciously retreated, expressions of terror appearing on their faces.
Fortunately for them, they were quick enough to hide it, and taking advantage of the fact that everyone's attention was focused on the gates, few noticed such a reaction.
Only Aotian, with his many minds, had the time to be so observant at that moment, along with a few others who, for various reasons, were not looking directly at the gates.
But even if everyone had seen it, given the promises made earlier, Aotian doubted it would change the final outcome, considering the nature of cultivators, who seemed to strictly follow the idea of moths flying toward flames in search of opportunities.
Before the eyes of the crowd, a sinister and powerful gale erupted from the clash between the energy of the formation discs—forcing the gates open—and the shadowy mist emanating from the slowly widening fissure. This mist soon began to corrupt and shatter the golden runes.
The energy of the runes fought fiercely against the corruption, but it seemed to constantly lose ground, even with the support of the powerful cultivators, who continued to sustain their resistance with all their strength.
Then, amid this frantic struggle, the gate began to open wider and wider. Through its gap, it was possible to see with the naked eye a world made of shadows, with a truly terrifying atmosphere.
At this point, even the cultivators who had been blinded by the words opportunity and Transcendent-Tier cultivation resources began to slowly awaken, realizing that this could be a truly irreversible choice.
Many took steps backward, ready to turn around and flee as far away as possible, while some greedy ones continued to struggle with their choices. But it was at that moment that runes, centered on the gate, began to spread everywhere across the ground, advancing beneath the feet of those trillions of cultivators.
Everyone's eyes widened, sensing a terrible premonition.
Aotian feigned horror, but of course, with his attainments in the art of Arrays, inherited from Lei Yun, a former Mahayana, he had already perceived the problem and the obvious trap present in that place long ago, prepared well before everyone had been gathered there.
He only remained there because this was merely a divine incarnation, and although its destruction would cause some trauma to the ancestor, he was willing to stay after discreetly understanding the purpose of that formation—and, of course, wanting to thwart the plans of those clans who had harmed his wife.
Under the massive array, trillions of people fell into panic. But those who had prepared the show were obviously not surprised.
"Go! The fate of this world is in your hands!" Dong Ying shamelessly had the nerve to shout this, while the crowd clearly did not share the same sentiment.
Everyone ran in the opposite direction, eyes wide with terror, but the newly illuminated formations suddenly began to exert a powerful attractive force, dragging everyone back toward the unknown depths of the black and sinister mist guarded behind the gates.
"No!! I don't want to!!"
"Stop!! Stop!!"
"Damned liars! Why don't you go in our place!!"
"AHHH!!"
Screams and shouts echoed throughout the vast crowd. The only difference among them was that some were sorrowful, others pleading, and many filled with rage and resentment. What was unanimous, however, was the helplessness before that attractive force, which swept entire masses into the gates in an unstoppable torrent, as if they were grains thrown into a grinder.
Aotian was among them and was equally powerless against that attractive force, but he was by no means truly panicked.
Thus, under the pull, his body was soon dragged in and swallowed into the depths of that dark abyss, together with the trillions of people who quickly followed.
In the end, on the vast plain before the red gates, the only ones left were the cultivators of the ancestral clans.
They soon deactivated the formations that were already being broken down by the impurities and shifted their focus, attempting to contain the impurities that were fiercely leaking from the now completely opened spatial gate.
But even they, faced with that energy that accumulated more and more, as if struggling to break free from its confinement, knew that they would soon lose ground in such a confrontation.
"All we can do is hold on as long as possible. While we are here blocking it, our high-level energy should attract the greatest amount of impurities from the Shadowfallen domain, which should give those people time to live, and perhaps bring back what we need. If they cannot, all that remains is for us to risk entering while isolating our energy and letting the impurities target the rest of the world as we search, reducing the force with which they are drawn to us."
One of those cultivators spoke aloud, thoughtfully.
"Well, if the cultivators who entered are too incompetent to bring us the herb, I hope the lives of those guys from the outer world can at least hold out for a bit while we search, if it comes to that."
Another spoke mockingly, while blocking the leaking impurities with his energy, preventing them from entering or leaving, while slowly refining them and slightly reducing their power.
"If someone brings the herb in time, will we be able to close the gate again?" Dong Ying asked, raising an eyebrow as he helped the others block it.
"The leaders didn't say anything about that." One of the others shook his head and looked at the runes and formation disks attached to the gates, which were breaking apart as they were corrupted. "But looking at the current state of things, it seems unlikely." He shook his head once more and shrugged.
"The world is already screwed. Don't worry about it. Right now, we can only focus on saving ourselves."
Finally, a woman among them replied emotionlessly, staring into the depths of the gates with empty eyes.
…
When Young Master Su (Aotian) opened his eyes, he found himself in a completely new place. It looked like a prairie, with great waterfalls and an immortal atmosphere, but at that moment, it could not be said to be a beautiful place.
Everything seemed corrupted. The grass was gray, and the waterfall that should have been crystalline now poured dark waters into a muddy, black river.
Everywhere, completely black beasts marched like soulless corpses through the dense dead jungle.
'Shadow Beasts…' Aotian quickly identified, as his body slowly sank into the earth and his aura vanished, smoothly camouflaging itself.
But deep within his body, he could feel the impurities trying to invade through all his pores. Even so, under the protection of his powerful energy and cultivation technique, they were completely unable to remain and were soon refined and expelled.
'This is problematic.' Aotian frowned as he realized his condition.
His current body, within that small shadowy world, was actually only the divine incarnation of an ancestral-level avatar. And at the moment, his current realm was merely the perfection of the Soul Formation, since he had not found better materials to refine a Void-Tier incarnation.
If that were all, it would not be such a big problem. However, unlike the main body, which cultivates realm after realm to perfection and could expel impurities as if they were nothing, the realms of avatars are more advanced but do not come accompanied by a powerful foundation in the levels subsequent to that of the main body.
Thus, the divine incarnation shared this same problem, since it was the incarnation of an avatar, not of the main body.
In this way, Aotian could feel that, slowly but surely, the powerful and fierce impurities of that environment were accumulating little by little within that body.
Even so, his synthesized technique was still there, and he could still remain there for a long time, but not indefinitely. There was a limit to how long he could stay in such a hostile environment with that body, fighting against impurities effective even against cultivators of higher realms.
And if his situation was already bad, imagine that of the others who had entered.
Fortunately, he noticed that most of the impurities were being drawn outward from that place, likely attracted to the Tribulation Transcendence cultivators outside, which allowed him and the others inside to breathe a little instead of being killed within seconds.
Shaking his head, he set that aside for the moment and decided to focus on the mission he had defined for himself.
Thus, moving through the earth, he quickly explored the path in search of his target and that of everyone present.
And while exploring, he suddenly came across an unexpected sight.
In a distant corner, he spotted someone for the first time since entering. It was a peculiar old man, whom he observed walking along the surface while he himself remained hidden beneath the ground.
But there was something very strange about that old cultivator.
His steps were unsteady, his complexion pale and sickly, and his eyes unfocused. But the most bizarre thing of all were the large black blotches that covered his body and seemed to spread at a visible speed.
Aotian immediately stopped to watch, and gradually, his eyes grew wide with horror as the old man, with a blurred gaze, absorbed an immense surge of dark, impure mist.
His body contorted as it was swallowed by ink-like darkness, transforming into a completely black and corrupted being.