My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 715 - Dusk and Shadow - Part 2

“Awake?”

Huyan Hai forced his eyes open. A faint flicker of light crept into view, then came sound, and then color.

He opened his eyes fully.

He saw a campfire, and beside it sat the Emperor of Tang.

The Emperor had shed his crown and white-platinum robes. His long black hair fell loosely over his shoulders. He looked...casual and at ease.

They were in a clearing, deep within a dark forest. Two skewers of meat sizzled over the flames, one rabbit, one pheasant.

Not far away, a spring bubbled quietly. From higher up, the wind whispered coldly through the mountains.

The campfire cast long shadows. The Emperor’s figure stretched far across the forest floor. His face, as always, carried that calm, unshakable composure.

“I wouldn’t be against teaching you my power, you know.”

In that instant, Huyan Hai understood everything. Why he was still alive. Why he had lost so completely.

The man before him wasn’t just strong. He was something else entirely. A monster. Unless the Tang Emperor made a fatal mistake himself, an impossible blunder, there was no hope of victory.

But that was the problem. The Emperor radiated caution from every pore. Not even the tiniest crack could be found, let alone a fatal one.

Huyan Hai felt like ashes inside, but still...

“I want to live.” He suddenly flipped over, crawling forward to kneel before Li Yuan. He spat out the please with everything he had, no trace of pride, no pretense of dignity, not even a shred of heroism. “I don’t care about anything else. I just want to live.”

Li Yuan’s tone remained calm, almost casual. “You’ve got terrifying skill, a patient nature, and a mind sharpened by experience. If I’m not around, what’s to stop you from clawing your way back up again?”

He flipped one of the skewers over the fire, then continued, “And when that day comes, I’ll be the fool who let a threat walk free. Wouldn’t that be too late for regrets? You understand this, don’t you? So why ask me to spare you?”

Huyan Hai was silent for a long moment. Then he lowered his head.

“I’m not willing to accept it.”

Li Yuan didn’t even look up. “You’ve been given another life. You lost. A loss is a loss, what’s there to be unwilling about?”

“I’m not Yu Lie,” Huyan Hai said quietly.

That caught Li Yuan’s attention. He paused in his movements, the skewer mid-turn, then glanced over with interest. “Go on.”

Huyan Hai straightened slightly, speaking with an almost ceremonial respect.

“I was born in the Yu Dynasty. But my name back then...was Ye Lianhan. At the time, I was an emperor in name only, a puppet on a throne. Yu Lie stood above all, and his disciples treated the royal court like a brothel, doing as they pleased. They called it playing among mortals, a way to enjoy life with no strings attached. But their freedom...came at a cost. Did they ever consider that their so-called carefree lives were built on someone else’s suffering, my suffering?”

Li Yuan could imagine it. The power of the heavenly seal was notoriously easy to wield, no threshold or price. For those who possessed it, the mortal world was nothing more than a playground for their divine whims.

He said offhandedly, “No wonder you broke down so fast back there. I thought you had stronger willpower. Figured you’d last a few more seconds. But even biting your tongue only bought you two.”

Huyan Hai replied, “My hatred...is born from sorrow. All the hatred in my heart is grief, twisted and hardened. So when those memories get stirred up, I fall apart.”

“Keep going,” Li Yuan said.

“I couldn’t stand being a puppet. But more than that, I couldn’t stand watching those so-called immortals indulge themselves while trampling over human lives. So I chose to become the puppet who understood the ancestor’s will better than anyone else.”

Time passed slowly as the fire crackled between them. Li Yuan listened in silence.

And in Huyan Hai, he saw the image of an emperor swallowing humiliation, enduring every day in the shadow of his enemies. Smiling on the outside while seething within, wielding the butcher’s knife even as his heart bled. Dancing along the edge of death, sowing discord, manipulating outcomes, borrowing blades to strike his foes. And finally, turning the tide in a single act of revenge, inviting his ancestor to his doom.

It was a gripping tale. But to Li Yuan, it was just that, a story.

True or false, it made no real difference to him.

He had assumed this man was a peak figure from the Age of the Ancient Gods, someone who could offer insights into that era. But now...not quite. Powerful, yes. But not at the summit.

Clearly, the Soul Furnace wasn’t picky. It didn’t care how strong you were. Rebirth was pure luck. No one could repeat it. No one could earn it.

Huyan Hai spoke again. “I command two characters. One is the character unity (合), which I gained by studying Yu Lie, by becoming close to him and imitating his ways. The other...is my own creation. Born from my obsession with power, with intrigue, with pain. It’s the character for darkness (暗).

“Unity allows the cultivator to fuse Qi into a weapon. But without full mastery, the Qi must first gather within the body before it can be transferred into the weapon. This stage is known as the Blazing Dance of the Land.

“The darkness character lets me draw strength from others. I can even absorb another person’s character completely and make it my own.”

Li Yuan raised a brow, curious. “So what’s your third character? You didn’t get the chance to use it earlier?”

Huyan Hai let out a bitter laugh.

“It’s still unity. After I uncovered a method to reach the transcendent level, I obtained the power of darkness. But I realized there were others like me, reborn souls, possibly even former subjects of the Yu Dynasty. And back then, the name Ye Lianhan carried a...less than stellar reputation. To lead them, I needed a name that commanded respect. So I chose Yu Lie.

“I knew Yu Lie well. I studied him, imitated him, and through that, I caught a glimpse of the power he obsessed over. But I couldn’t fully control it. So I used the darkness character to forcibly fuse it into myself. That became my second unity.”

Li Yuan fell silent, thinking. Then he calmly laid out the framework of his self-devised Four Great Realms.

Ye Lianhan nodded. “Then I should be at the level you call the Greater Insight Realm. With darkness, I can devour one character at the Lesser Insight Realm. Now, I can take on a second. So perhaps, each realm unlocks the capacity for one more character.”

He paused, then added coldly, “I had no interest in the power of those who fought in the civil war within the Phantom Camp. My plan was to defeat you and devour your character. But now...I’m willing to offer mine to you, if it means I get to live.”

Li Yuan stared at him in silence. Of course he understood the old warning. Raise a tiger, suffer the bite.

But the darkness character might be worth the risk.

A shadow passed through Li Yuan’s expression.

His thoughts began to drift.

And suddenly, a strange notion emerged. What if Ye Lianhan was actually the true protagonist of this era?

He had all the makings of one, skill, willpower, a tragic past. Every ingredient for a Child of the Era, especially that character...darkness..

Almost every transcendent cultivator was currently stuck circling within the Lesser Insight Realm. That wasn’t a crisis for most, but for Lady Yu...it was a problem.

Even though Li Yuan had shown her the path toward the Greater Insight Realm, all these years she still hadn’t managed to grasp a second character.

Was it a matter of talent? Absolutely not.

Li Yuan himself wasn’t lacking in talent either. Over the years, he too had tried to master a second character beyond his own dusk.

And every single time, he failed.

Immortals had no obsession. They lacked that desperate, irrational craving.

And without that fire, Li Yuan could only progress methodically, steadily advancing the power of dusk.

But he had a growing sense that to reach the True Will Realm, another character would be absolutely necessary.

For Lady Yu, reaching the Greater Insight Realm might be all but impossible.

And for Li Yuan himself...the True Will Realm felt equally out of reach.