There was a hidden fragrance within souls. Each wisp of soul incense drawn into Su Mo's body by the Soul Incense Volume and absorbed by him strengthened his cultivation a little.
But the despair and agony before death within every wisp of soul incense played out anew in Su Mo's heart... as though Su Mo were the one who had died.
People died at every moment, and the divine soul of every person who died became a hidden fragrance, becoming power for Su Mo's cultivation.
The higher a person's cultivation when they died, the richer their soul incense, and the more cultivation Su Mo could gain from it.
This Book of Life and Death seemed to feel that Su Mo had not suffered enough. Its third volume, Soul Incense, added a little more "amusement" for him, as though it were a joke of the Heavenly Dao, or perhaps the amusement of some will in the Unseen.
And the approaching Great Calamity was a disaster for the people of the world.
Yet now that the Soul Incense Volume had awakened... it was no longer Su Mo's calamity.
Whether Su Mo wished it or not, the more people died, the more he benefited.
If one day the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths were utterly destroyed, perhaps Su Mo could become a sage outright amid billions upon billions of wisps of soul incense...
In an utterly mocking fashion, it sought to separate Su Mo from the people of the world... to have him emerge from the Mortal World, yet transcend the Mortal World.
It seemed to be saying to Su Mo:
Didn't your Confucianism preach universal love? Then I shall bind the lives and deaths of the world's people to your cultivation through karma.
It seemed intent on forcing Su Mo to stand