Before long, Ye Jun was back in the white Void. He stumbled forward and fell on his knees, as a rush of memories came back to him. Unfortunately, the memories of the Burning World were also present, making him grimace in pain, even though he was completely fine.

’Ah! This shitty Heavenly Dao!’ He laughed dryly and sat down properly.

He really didn’t expect to get such a trial considering the ones he read about. Others faced much easier ones than his, but he was still happy with his trial, even though he almost lost his life there.

’It’s probably because of my high affinity with Fire.’

Instead of a normal trial, he was faced with a truth that most ignore. Fire was always related to destruction, but people failed to see the other aspects of it.

Many times, Fire was used to purify, to bring a new creation or simply to stop something destructive. There were so many things, yet the only thing fire was related to was destruction.

’We even use fire for cauterization. It helps people.’

That was the lesson the trial tried to teach and as always, the methods used by the Heavenly Dao were cruel. He had to lose his precious memories, suffer immense pain and almost die.

’If I wasn’t an idiot and had understood it sooner instead of resisting it, I probably wouldn’t have to endure it.’

He sighed and closed his eyes. Just as he expected, the second Tribulation Lightning struck his body the next second, making a mess of his entire body, but it held on.

Pain was his partner now.

’It still hurts though.’ He gritted his teeth as seconds passed, his organs writhing in pain. ’But this is nothing.’

It really was nothing compared to what came afterwards. His physique could endure the lightning, he could endure the physical pain, but he wasn’t used to spiritual pain.

The lightning struck his forming soul again, sending jolts of pain throughout his being.

’It’s... still nothing.’

Ye Jun knew how important this step was, so he actually wished that more lightning would strike his Soul. It was the Heavenly Tribulation Lightning, which meant it contained the Heavenly Dao within it, or at least aspects of it, so when it hit his soul, it brought pain but also left behind those aspects.

The more lightning he was struck with, the better his Soul would be in the end.

’Still, why does this hurt so bad? Are you a fucking sadist, eh, Heavenly Dao?’

Fortunately, the Heavenly Dao seemed to have heard his cries as the Second Tribulation finally ended. It gave him a moment of peace.

’Phew!’

He took deep breaths to calm himself and readied himself for the next trial. If his guess was correct, then it would be related to Death and that didn’t make him happy, not at all.

’My affinity with it isn’t high so it shouldn’t be too difficult...’

All of a sudden, his eyes widened as he remembered something. He thought, ’The damned Fate Resonance. It must be because of that I’m getting such treatment. High risk, high rewards.’

If that was true, then his Trial of Death also wouldn’t be a normal one.

’Damnation! You better give me good rewards for this, otherwise I’m fucking you up!’

In the next seconds, his surroundings began to change as the world shifted. The next trial was starting.

’Whatever! I’ll face anything you throw at me!’

Ye Jun braced himself, expecting another hellscape. Instead, the world settled into something almost insulting in its normalcy.

He was standing on a paved road in a town he didn’t really recognize. The sky above was blue. A breeze tugged at his sleeves, cool and clean. Merchants called out from their stalls. A child chased a stray dog past his legs. The smell of grilled meat drifted from somewhere to his right.

’...What?’

Ye Jun frowned and looked down at himself. His robes were intact too. There were no cracks in his skin, no flames, no lightning marks.

His Qi flowed through his meridians smoothly, his Soul rested in the Spiritual Realm, his Dantian hummed with the steady rhythm of a healthy cultivator.

Everything was fine.

’This is the Trial of Death?’

He didn’t trust it.

He took a step forward, then another, watching his surroundings carefully. The townspeople moved around him without issue. A woman selling cloth glanced at him, looked away, and continued arranging her stall. A passing cultivator nodded politely, the way one stranger acknowledges another.

Nothing reacted to him with hostility. Nothing tried to kill him.

’Then what is the issue...’

His feet carried him forward on instinct. He walked through the town, recognizing it slowly, the shape of the streets, the layout of the central plaza. This was a town near the White Gale Pavilion. He had passed through it before on a mission.

A familiar figure crossed the plaza ahead of him.

’Han Yuexin?’

His heart leapt in joy, but he remained cautious. He took a quick step forward, raising a hand, "Elder Han!"

Han Yuexin walked past him without slowing. Her eyes passed over him the way they would pass over any stranger in a crowd. There was no recognition in them. She didn’t even do any greeting, not even the small mischievous smile she always had when she saw him.

Ye Jun’s hand fell, ’She didn’t see me?’

A bad feeling rose in his heart that he tried to suppress.

He turned and followed her, called out again. She stopped at a tea stall, ordered a cup, and sat down to drink it. He stood three paces from her.

She finally looked up, met his eyes for a single second, and looked back down at her tea without any change in expression.

He wasn’t invisible. She had seen him. She just didn’t know him.

’No...’

The thought that this was a mere trial escaped his mind, vanquished by something unknown. For him, this became the real world, a world where things had gone wrong.

His feet started moving on their own. He pushed through the market and ran. He needed to find Mountain. Mountain would recognize him. They had eaten together. They had—

He found Mountain at the edge of the town, sitting alone on a bench, his massive frame hunched over a bowl of plain rice. Eating by himself. No companions. No laughter.

The Mountain that Ye Jun knew laughed loud and ate louder, with him being at his side as he mocked him for his appetite even though he wasn’t any different.

This Mountain ate quietly, eyes on his bowl, like a man used to being alone.

"Brother Mountain," Ye Jun called out, his heart beating wildly.

Mountain looked up. His eyes were tired and a little wary. "Do I know you?"

The words struck harder than the lightning had.

"It’s me. Ye Jun."

"I’m sorry," Mountain said politely, and he meant it, the politeness of a man who had been alone long enough to be careful with strangers. "I don’t think we’ve met."

He went back to his rice.

Ye Jun stood there for a long moment, then turned and walked away. ’Meihui. I need to find Meihui.’

The world shifted around him obligingly, the streets folding into the shape of the White Gale Pavilion’s grounds.

He found her at a training field, alone, going through forms with a precision that bordered on cold. There was no warmth in her movements. Just the sharp efficiency of someone who had trained alone for too long.

Her eyes, when they passed over him, held the same cautious distance she had shown him the first day they met. Before he had threatened her. Before she had decided to protect him anyway. Before any of it.

She had never softened.

Because there had been no one to soften for.

’No, no, no.’

He felt as if his world was crumbling apart right before his eyes.

Ye Jun walked.

The world stretched and pulled him further, showing him more. Song Liangxue, sitting in a quiet courtyard, reading some manual. Her face was beautiful and still, like a lake that had never been disturbed.

The brightness he loved in her, the small laugh that escaped when something delighted her, the way she looked at him as if he were worth looking at, none of it was there. She was cultivating because cultivators cultivated.

There was no joy in it. No urgency. No reason.

She had not been waiting for anyone or anything.

The Pavilion went on. The rankings updated. New disciples climbed. An unfamiliar young man stood in the spot Ye Jun had earned through blood and sweat, and the Elders praised him as if he had always belonged there. The Pavilion did not notice that anyone was missing.

A voice spoke into the back of his mind.

’See? The world does not need you.’

Ye Jun didn’t answer.

’The sect prospers. Your friends live. Your enemies scheme. Your beloved walks forward into her own future. Nothing has been lost.’

’If your existence makes no difference, why struggle to keep it?’

’Why endure, when the world endures perfectly well without you?’

Ye Jun stood at the center of the Pavilion’s grounds and felt something cold reach for the edges of his Soul. His Nexus, still forming, still tender, trembled. The voice wasn’t lying. He could see it. He could see how smoothly the world ran without him in it.

He was small. He was replaceable. He was, in the matter of grand things, nothing.

’...Yeah.’

Ye Jun lifted his head.

’You’re right.’

The voice paused, almost surprised.

’In the grand scheme, my existence doesn’t matter. The Heavens won’t fall. The Pavilion won’t crumble. Some other disciple will take my place. The rankings will keep updating. The sun will rise.’

He looked across the training field, at the cold version of Meihui who had never learned to soften.

’But she’s wounded here. Cautious. Her kindness is dying because no one annoyed her into using it.’

He turned toward the bench where Mountain had been alone.

’He’s lonely. He stayed inside himself because no one walked up and refused to leave.’

He thought of the still, quiet face of Song Liangxue.

’She’s losing her warmth. Cultivating because she’s supposed to, not because she wants to.’

He thought of Han Yuexin, of the words she had said to him once, that without him things at the Pavilion would have been so much worse. The Greywood Village massacre would have resulted in a completely different outcome.

He laughed, low and rough, ’You showed me a world that doesn’t need me. Fine. I believe you. The world doesn’t.’

His Nexus steadied. The cold pulled back.

’But they do. And I do. And that’s enough.’

The voice did not answer.

’I don’t cultivate because the world needs me to exist. I cultivate because I want to exist within it. With them. That’s mine. You can’t take it.’

The world rumbled, and the streets of the ordinary town began to dissolve.

’Existence doesn’t need to be cosmic to matter, Heavenly Dao. It just needs to be mine.’