Balance

Carefree Heaven spread his wings, his body suddenly swelling as he transformed from a small Kun into a roc.

He soared above the clouds like a bird newly freed from its cage, stretching his wings to his heart's content.

Yet somewhere Carefree Heaven had failed to notice, an invisible, blurry shadow had been following him all along.

The shadow had no form, flickering in and out of existence as it clung closely to Carefree Heaven's back.

Turning the unreal into the real...

Chen Duan looked down upon the vast sea of clouds below.

His form was hazy and translucent, yet it possessed a strange texture, as though he could condense from nothingness into solid substance at any moment.

To some extent, consciousness is also a manifestation of the soul. This effect of turning the unreal into the real has directly separated my soul from my body...

So this is what it feels like to be a soul...

He had long known of the soul's existence, having heard of it from Cat Master, but true contact with it had always remained just beyond the threshold.

He carefully sensed it, trying to merge himself with heaven and earth, yet he vaguely felt a sense of restraint.

It seemed that, in principle, this world did not permit the existence of something like a "soul."

Souls ought to return to the underworld, to that crevice between life and death.

The souls of the living should not leave their bodies and wander the mortal realm.

Neither here nor in Great Liang.

"Looks like if I want to understand this more deeply, I'll have to make a trip to the underworld."

Just then, Chen Duan suddenly saw Carefree Heaven beneath him abruptly turn around, beat his wings fiercely, and head back the way he had come.