Thousand Illusions

"Ye Wuyou" opened his eyes.

The scenery before him was almost identical to what he had seen before. The mountain woods still lay beneath the night sky, unchanged.

Ye Wuyou turned to look back. Lin Qingqing, Bai Changzai, and Xu Fang were still beside him, but their eyes were vacant, and they stood rooted to the spot in a daze.

He calmly withdrew his gaze and looked ahead again.

There, an old man with white hair and beard was studying him with smiling eyes.

The urge to kill began to rise.

Yet the old man remained mild and unhurried as he spoke.

"I am Murong Huan, Sect Master of the Thousand Illusions Sect. Young friend, do not be hasty. Before you strike, why not tell me what you think of this Illusion Realm?"

Ye Wuyou's expression remained calm, his eyes slightly lowered, but the corners of his mouth slowly curved upward.

The Thousand Illusions Sect...

So that was how it was...

"Truth and illusion, yet stitched into something neither fish nor fowl. Utterly laughable," he said calmly.

Murong Huan showed no impatience. A thoughtful gleam seemed to flicker through his eyes before he nodded.

"Truth and illusion, neither fish nor fowl. An apt assessment, young friend. No wonder you could detect my methods. I underestimated you."

But then a trace of excitement appeared in Murong Huan's eyes. He looked at Ye Wuyou as though gazing upon a priceless treasure.

Everything about Ye Wuyou lay plain before his eyes.

Truth and illusion, neither fish nor fowl.

A cultivator who had only just entered the First Realm, yet he could detect my Illusion Realm and possessed such profound insight into the art of illusions.

How could such talent fail to excite Murong Huan?

He felt a desire to nurture this talent. He would bring the young man back to the Thousand Illusions Sect, then spare no effort in training him...

Hmm?

Was something wrong?

The Thousand Illusions Sect...

Murong Huan lowered his eyes slightly, but the doubt in his mind flashed past and vanished. Soon, he raised his head again.

"Young friend, do you know how many stages there are to illusion arts?"

A smile lingered in Ye Wuyou's eyes. His hands hung at his sides as he watched the old man calmly and patiently.

Yet that smile held more than a little mockery and cold indifference.

As though he were looking at a dead man.

Murong Huan merely assumed the young man was curious about what he had to say, and his voice grew more animated.

"Throughout my cultivation, I have studied illusion arts for many years. I believe they have three stages.

"The first stage is what I call Pursuit of Truth."

Murong Huan swept his hand outward. As his long sleeve fluttered, a third-tier giant wolf Demon Beast, brimming with ferocity, roared out of the dense woods nearby and lunged at Ye Wuyou.

Strangely, however, the giant wolf passed straight through Ye Wuyou's body and charged at the other three.

The three jolted, but their expressions remained vacant. With a few movements, they had already assumed their formation. Wind and Thunder mingled, Vital Breath flickered, and they engaged the giant wolf in battle.

As for Ye Wuyou...

He stood beside the three, yet seemed separated from them by an immeasurable distance.

The two sides seemed to exist on different layers. No matter how much commotion they made, Ye Wuyou remained entirely undisturbed.

"This Demon Beast is false, but the caster wants those trapped within the Illusion Realm to believe it is real. I call this Pursuit of Truth."

Murong Huan smiled and spoke again. "As for the second stage, I originally called it Nine Truths, One Lie. But I suddenly feel your description is more fitting, young friend: Truth and Illusion."

What was Nine Truths, One Lie?

It was like deceiving someone with lies. An ordinary lie would reveal countless holes under scrutiny, but if nine out of ten statements were true, with one falsehood mixed among them, how could anyone distinguish it?

Illusion arts worked the same way.

Creating a vast Illusion Realm and painstakingly sculpting it to appear lifelike exhausted both mind and spirit, and its flaws were easily exposed.

That was merely a lesser path.

Instead, one could use the scenery before a person's eyes as a canvas and create a real Illusion Realm.

The mountain wind blew in, whistling past.

Fallen leaves swirled up through the woods, drifting and fluttering down like rain.

Several bloody marks suddenly appeared on the three fighters' bodies.

Murong Huan beckoned lightly, halting the changes that would have followed.

He looked toward Ye Wuyou, who stood silently to one side, and spoke evenly.

"Young friend, the path of illusions has a thousand transformations and ten thousand variations. Even I have yet to comprehend them all. Thus, this third stage is merely my conjecture."

"At this stage, truth and falsehood no longer have meaning. Everything you see before you might be false, or it might be real."

"Even if you realize you are in an Illusion Realm, you can do nothing. After all, reality and illusion have become indistinguishable."

Ye Wuyou, who had remained silent all this time, suddenly spoke, his tone inviting discussion.

"If it is as you say, would life and death cease to have meaning at the third stage?"

Murong Huan froze briefly, but then delight stirred in his heart.

Good. My words were not wasted.

The youth before me has clearly been moved by what I said. Now he is taking the initiative to discuss it with me.

Murong Huan had always been patient with those whose talent he valued.

He pondered for a moment, then murmured in reply, "At the pinnacle of illusion arts, the dead would not know they were dead, and the living would be unable to distinguish truth from falsehood. Then, indeed, life and death would seem to have no meaning..."

A startled light flashed in Murong Huan's eyes, as though he had realized something.

"Wonderful, wonderful! Young friend, thank you! I understand! Hahaha, I understand! Once I return, I will need no more than ten years to master this pinnacle of illusion!"

"Young friend, why not return to the Thousand Illusions Sect with me? Become my final disciple, and everything within the sect will be yours for the asking."

Ye Wuyou's gaze shifted from the old man to the three beside him, still struggling bitterly within the Illusion Realm.

After a moment, he shook his head, a trace of regret in his eyes.

"Why do you refuse, young friend? And why the regret?" Murong Huan asked in confusion.

Regret?

Ye Wuyou's expression remained as calm as still water. He simply walked toward the old man, step by step.

"Young friend, you may have some talent, but surely you do not think your First Realm cultivation qualifies you to attack me?" Murong Huan chuckled.

He allowed Ye Wuyou to approach, one step at a time.

He could kill a First Realm cultivator in an instant.

His smile soon stiffened.

Before him, Ye Wuyou stood more than ten meters away, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, making no movement whatsoever.

Then... what had attacked me?

Murong Huan looked down. A round hole gaped in his chest, as though something had pierced straight through it.

Yet he saw nothing.

Not even a single drop of blood flowed out.

Confusion appeared in Murong Huan's eyes.

Ye Wuyou's voice came from ahead.

"How pitiful. You spent your whole life cultivating, yet remained within an illusion without knowing it. Nothing but a remnant soul, ignorant of whether you were alive or dead, dancing in the palm of someone else's hand."

The spectral blue Ghost Hands slowly emerged through his chest.

Though he could not see them, the aura they gave off inexplicably made Murong Huan's heart clench.

Pain. Trembling.

The Uncanny was inherently corrosive, especially to souls.

In the dungeon, even Xia Anmeng, a Sixth Realm remnant soul, had been tormented to the brink of death by the Uncanny's corrosion. Murong Huan, exposed to it at such close range, stood even less chance.

Ye Wuyou was only in the First Realm. Even a mere Fourth Realm remnant soul was beyond his ability to fight.

But the Uncanny was different.

It specifically countered souls.

That Fourth Realm remnant soul finally began to dissipate. Yet he did not disperse into the world. Instead, he flowed little by little into the invisible Ghost Hands.

Perhaps because his end was near, a measure of clarity suddenly returned to Murong Huan's eyes. He seemed to realize something.

The Thousand Illusions Sect, the Demon Fox, the wedding, my disciple...

The treasure seized, the sect destroyed...

There was no Thousand Illusions Sect left in this world!

All of this was nothing more than the fantasy of a remnant soul.

Murong Huan opened his mouth and cried out.

"Young friend, stay your hand! Do not let... fall into that fiend's hands."

"Thousand Illusions... the Violet Gold Bell!"

Ye Wuyou could no longer hear any of it.

The spectral blue Uncanny behind him emerged in its entirety. Countless great blue hands wrapped Ye Wuyou in layer upon layer.

Feeling the abundant soul power flow into the Uncanny behind him, Ye Wuyou could not help tilting his head back, a smile of contentment spreading across his face.

Yet a trace of regret remained in his eyes.

Or perhaps it was pity.

"What a shame. A mere Fourth Realm remnant soul. The flavor was far too bland after all."

Xia Anmeng...

Recalling that woman's flavor, Ye Wuyou lowered his eyes slightly, his expression calm.

"The next time we meet, I shall eat her."