Fulfillment

Darkness, boundless darkness. Xiao Yan did not know how long he had drifted through it. He could not feel his body, pain, cold, or heat. He simply drifted, like a leaf that had fallen into the deep sea, slowly sinking.

When he sank to the deepest point, he saw a speck of light. It was a pale golden spark the size of a grain of rice, flickering faintly in the boundless darkness.

Xiao Yan recognized it. It was the origin of his fire, the last thing he had brought from the Dou Qi Continent. Six Heavenly Flames, the Emperor's Origin, decades of accumulation through the Flame Mantra-all of it had burned down to this single spark.

Four faint rings of light surrounded it, one inside another, protecting it at the center. They were the four layers of Reverse Scale he had engraved with his own hands: Core, Fire Mark, Channel, and Merge.

Beyond those four layers of Reverse Scale, there was no Dou Qi left. He had burned that once boundless sea of Dou Qi clean away on the long street, leaving only an empty, deathly silent void.

Yet the four layers of Reverse Scale were still turning. They rotated slowly, like four waterwheels without water, turning in emptiness, round and round, so slowly they seemed ready to stop at any moment. Xiao Yan watched them, suddenly feeling a little dazed. What were they waiting for?

Just then, something seeped into that deathly silent void. It was an exceedingly faint trace of something cool, slowly seeping in from the edge of the void, like a trickle of spring water suddenly welling up from a parched riverbed. It was the Spiritual Energy of this world.

Before, whenever Spiritual Energy tried to surge into his body, the Dou Qi would leap up to fight and tear at it. That was why he had needed layer upon layer of Reverse Scale to guide it, clear its path, and gradually turn fire into water. But now, the Dou Qi was gone.

The Spiritual Energy seeped in without meeting any resistance and flowed smoothly to the edge of the four layers of Reverse Scale. The four layers, which had spun empty for so long, finally caught it.

The fourth layer, "Merge," caught the wisp of Spiritual Energy and kneaded it, working in a trace of the icy chill left by the ice flame and a trace of the Flame Mantra's lingering heat, bringing yin and yang into harmony and making it docile. The third layer, "Channel," received it, guiding half inward and dispersing half outward, opening a door to the world in that deathly silent void. The second layer, "Fire Mark," received it and engraved the Flame Mantra's amplitude and the will to devour into the Spiritual Energy. The first layer, "Core," received it and slowly delivered it to the spark.

The spark flickered, then opened its mouth and swallowed the wisp of Spiritual Energy.

Hum.

The rice-grain-sized spark lit up. Not with the faint, flickering light of before, but with a true, steady glow. Its pale golden light was a shade brighter than it had been.

Then a second wisp of Spiritual Energy seeped in, a third, a tenth, a hundredth... The deathly silent void began to fill with sound: the sound of Spiritual Energy flowing. At first it came in wisps, like a mountain stream. Then it grew greater, denser, and swifter, until it gathered into a surging river, a roaring sea, flowing through the four layers of Reverse Scale and being tempered at each layer before pouring in its entirety toward the spark.

The spark was like a mouth that could never be filled. It devoured, devoured, devoured, growing brighter and larger with every swallow. From the size of a grain of rice, it grew to the size of a fingertip, then to the size of a fist. Its color gradually changed as well. A touch of icy blue emerged within the pale gold, followed by a faint pink. At last, it became a flame, suspended and burning quietly at the center of the replenished sea of Spiritual Energy.

That flame was no longer a flame of Dou Qi, but it was still the Flame Mantra's flame. It carried the Flame Mantra's power to devour, the Emperor Flame's overbearing might, the ice flame's icy chill, the Spirit Marks of the four layers of Reverse Scale, and the amplitude of this world. It was new, yet it had lost nothing.

Xiao Yan watched the flame for a long time in the darkness. Then, suddenly, he understood.

That last two-tenths of his Dou Qi had been the final shell of assimilation. As long as that shell remained, a barrier would always separate his origin, and it could only ever be "wrapped" in Spiritual Energy, never truly becoming one with this world. He had burned it, burned away the shell, and what remained was the true seed.

Having understood this, Xiao Yan could not help laughing in the darkness. "So that's how it is."

Beside the flame, the little one with the topknot had somehow sidled over. Its eyes were still closed, and it still held the wisp of ice flame, but its body was pressed tightly against the newborn flame. It rubbed its little face against it, like a kitten that had found a heater.

It was dusk when Xiao Yan opened his eyes. Outside the window, the setting sun was slowly sinking, setting half the sky ablaze in orange-red. Its orange-red light spilled warmly through the paper window into the room. He lay on a bed with a thin quilt over him, and a faint medicinal fragrance lingered in the room.

A girl with a bamboo basket on her back lay slumped beside the bed. The basket was still hanging from her shoulders as she slept with her head pillowed on her arms at the bedside. Several dried tear tracks marked her slightly dark little face, and her eyelashes trembled gently. It was A Heng. Xiao Yan watched her without moving.

On the other side of the room, a brocade-clad youth sat against the wall. His hands were wrapped in thick strips of cloth, making them look like two large steamed buns, and rested on his knees. His head bobbed as he dozed. It was Luo Lan.

And by the window, a gray-clad figure sat on an old wooden chair, back to him, gazing motionlessly at the sunset outside.

Xiao Yan opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but his throat was terribly dry. All that came out was a hoarse breath.

The breath was very soft, but the figure by the window turned around almost at once. A Heng jerked her head up, and Luo Lan sprang to his feet from the floor in the corner, banging his knee against a table leg and baring his teeth in pain. Three pairs of eyes all fixed on Xiao Yan.

Xiao Yan looked at each of them in turn, then spoke, his voice hoarse as a broken gong. "...Hungry."

The room fell silent for a moment. Then A Heng burst into tears with a wail. "Big Brother Xiao!" Still crying, she fumbled in her bamboo basket, pulling out one oilpaper package after another. They were all dishes she had made in different ways each day over the past few days, cooled and reheated, then cooled again.

Luo Lan stood where he was, his mouth stretched wide as he muttered, "Good thing you're awake..." He wanted to laugh and wanted to cry. In the end, he raised his two bun-like hands and rubbed them hard over his face, smearing it with medicine.

Luo Tianshen sat by the window, quietly watching. There was no particular expression on his deeply wrinkled old face, but his hands, which had been gripping the chair's armrests tightly, slowly loosened.

Xiao Yan had been unconscious for three days. During those three days, Luo Tianshen had not left the room for a single step. Every two hours, he had used his own Spiritual Energy to tend Xiao Yan's meridians. By the end of the three days, the face of this expert at the peak of the Upper Earth Sovereign realm had grown several shades paler. Luo Lan told Xiao Yan all of this in secret afterward.

Luo Su also came to see him afterward and checked his pulse. Her usually composed face was full of disbelief. She checked once, then again. At last, she released his wrist and looked at him. After a long while, she managed to get a sentence out. "Your meridians are wider than they were on the day you came to Luo Shen City."

Xiao Yan ate all the food A Heng had brought, leaving not a single grain of rice. Then he leaned against the head of the bed, closed his eyes, and sank his awareness into his body.

The sea of Spiritual Energy was calm and vast. At its center, a pale golden flame burned quietly, with hints of icy blue and pink showing through it. The four layers of Reverse Scale rotated slowly around the flame, perfectly one with the sea of Spiritual Energy and with this world.

There was no more Dou Qi, nor any conflict, tearing, or rejection. There was only Spiritual Energy, his own Spiritual Energy, carrying the Flame Mantra's will to devour.

Assimilation was finally complete.

He slowly clenched his fist, feeling a surge of power rushing through his meridians. It was stronger and steadier than it had been at any time since he had arrived in the Great Thousand World. He was a Lower Earthly Sovereign, a genuine, firmly established Lower Earthly Sovereign, more than a notch stronger than the "approximately Lower Earthly Sovereign" he had been when he first stepped into this world, his strength falling all the way and leaving him unsure when it would hit rock bottom.

Xiao Yan opened his eyes and met Luo Tianshen's gaze.

"Complete?" Luo Tianshen asked.

"Complete," Xiao Yan said.

Luo Tianshen looked at him for a long while, then slowly nodded. A very faint, almost imperceptible trace of relief showed in his eyes. "You burned it away, and only then was it complete. This old man has lived for many years and seen quite a few visitors from Lower Planes. You're the first like this."

Xiao Yan smiled. "Hehe, you flatter me, Senior." As he spoke, he took out the Soul Jade engraved with Cai Lin's mark and placed it in his palm. The mark was still flickering, stubbornly lighting up again and again somewhere in the south. Xiao Yan gazed at it in silence for a long time, then raised his head and looked at Luo Tianshen. "Senior, it's time for me to leave."