Chapter 210.2: Ashes of Elevation Part 2

The Omen Series was a collection of Divine Creation-class constructs, a series unlike any other, even among the registered works of the Taiyi Ring!

As the painfully sharp translucent blades pierced Duan Mu, all he could do was struggle.

“A Celestial Being...” Duan Mu stubbornly tried to raise his head, unwilling to bow before Ye Xian. Streaks of thick blood slowly slid down his face like tears. “Clearly, I am already... a Celestial Being...”

On the scorched earth beneath the fissures, Ye Xian lowered her eyes. “Do you really count as a Celestial Being? Why let yourself be deceived by such a hollow illusion, Duan Mu?”

His strength was impressive only on the surface. There was nothing beneath it. Aside from greater output and a larger reserve of spirit matter, he had gained nothing of substance. At best, he was merely an imitation of the real thing.

She could even guess how he had done it. Using the power of an Upper Abomination, he had forcibly elevated his soul until he could finally glimpse the heights that had once been far beyond his reach.

But at what cost?

He had destroyed his own foundation. The grand structure he had built upon it had collapsed, leaving him like a flimsy prefabricated building hoisted in the air by a crane. All he had gained was weight, nothing more. It couldn’t even be called a castle in the sky, because a single gust of wind would make it sway. Under lightning and storm, it would tremble without support. Even his domain and temporal anchor were fundamentally flawed.

Ye Xian refused to believe Duan Mu had failed to notice any of this. He should have known it better than anyone, but he’d simply refused to believe it.

“The Aggregation Lineage was born from Transformation and founded upon Integration, but it draws from too many conflicting elements and lacks the purity needed for true change. When that man dismissed your lineage all those years ago, he wasn’t speaking without reason.” Ye Xian sighed softly. “Why are you still clinging to that delusion?”

Duan Mu’s eyes widened. Her words had struck a nerve, and he roared like a madman, “I did nothing wrong! We... did nothing wrong...”

“The Aggregation Lineage is obsessed with increasing quantity without realizing that sometimes, the more you add, the farther away you get from your goal. You have made no progress not because you lack talent, but because you have already taken that path as far as it can possibly go.” Ye Xian took off her glasses and carefully wiped the dust from the lenses. “Have you ever heard of the ‘mother-machine effect’?”

Duan Mu stiffened, unsure why she suddenly brought this up.

“No matter how finely made a component may be, its precision can never surpass that of the machine used to produce it. This principle can be seen throughout modern manufacturing. That is the fatal weakness of your Aggregation Lineage,” Ye Xian said decisively.

The path appeared full of promise, but its room for growth was painfully narrow. If used well, it could be a useful shortcut, but that was all it would ever be. Its theories were too restrictive and self-contained, imposing limits from the outset. As a result, its creations inevitably settled into mediocrity, their quality capped by the skill of the craftsman who made them.

Most craftsmen would never come close to reaching that ceiling. Many could spend their entire lives without ever encountering it.

But Duan Mu was different. He had devoted his whole life to the path, refusing to give up no matter how many times he failed. Through his relentless efforts, the flaw the Divine Furnace had identified long ago had finally been laid bare.

Ye Xian put her glasses back on. “How boring would it be for a craftsman to only create things inferior to himself? Would you like to see what truly defeated you, Duan Mu?”

Slowly, she raised her hand, revealing the creation resting in her palm. It was the devil’s work ball, its intricate layers turning endlessly within one another. Under Duan Mu’s stare, it floated in midair and rotated without making a sound. The outer shell that had concealed and sealed it disintegrated and fell, freeing it from its restraints.

As its layers came undone, the temporary workshop that served as its container unfolded along with them. The moment the final veil was lifted, threads of spirit matter circuits surged from within.

A matrix took shape, spreading like a colossal tree. At its branches and vital junctions, twelve blessings that had undergone three stages of qualitative transformation shone with dazzling brilliance. They blazed like a sun, illuminating everything around them. Wherever the light reached, the material properties of all matter blurred and merged.

Heaven and earth faded into a hazy expanse, as though creation had yet to begin and all things still existed as one within primordial chaos. Its domain unfolded, and its temporal anchor was released. This was the sacred artifact matrix known as Gan Jiang[1], which granted souls to lifeless matter and raised ordinary objects beyond their natural limits.

After passing through the four processes—Elevation, Transformation, Purification, and Integration—it gave a man-made object consciousness and a soul. A matrix was then embedded within that soul, while modern alchemy was used to fuse it with blessings. Finally, through skill and insight beyond any ordinary human, the creation would be elevated into the realm of Celestial Beings.

At this very moment, right before Duan Mu’s eyes, the Celestial Being Realm he had longed for all his life yet could never reach had been attained by a creation he could have never made himself. Rage, shame, despair, fear, and confusion swept through him. In the end, all he could manage was a hoarse, broken wail.

Duan Mu could not understand Ye Xian. He struggled desperately and screamed, “Why... why didn’t you... Why? Why?!”

She possessed such extraordinary talent and power, yet she had gone through all this trouble to grant the status of Celestial Being to an inanimate object instead of advancing herself. It was the very path he had pursued his entire life. He yelled, “How much more must you humiliate me before you’re satisfied?!”

“That would be meaningless,” Ye Xian replied coldly, shaking her head. “I reached that threshold seven years ago. There’s still so much in my current realm that I haven’t fully understood. For now, I’m not interested in crossing over just yet. What I want isn’t there.”

Duan Mu fell silent. He could only gasp for breath, mumbling incoherently. Perhaps he was choking back sobs of despair, or perhaps he was laughing bitterly at himself. All the suffering and struggles in his life now seemed like nothing more than a cruel joke. Even his final desperate resistance was like the closing act of a clown, laying all his patheticness bare.

There really was nothing else to say.

“Mr. Duan, amid all the petty scheming and infighting in the Association, you were the only one I have ever truly respected. Your perseverance was never an empty boast, nor should it have ever been treated as a joke. Had those useless fools possessed even a fraction of your stubborn resolve, perhaps they would not have ended up so thoroughly mediocre. You’re stronger than I am in that regard.”

Duan Mu closed his eyes without a word. He no longer even had the strength to fly into a rage.

“Lastly, let me say something unrelated.” Ye Xian gazed into the empty sky. “I recently took on a student. Because of that, it made me realize that the cruelty of the Ember spares no one. Not me, not him, not you. Someone as narrow-minded as I am might not have been able to endure for so long if I had suffered the same circumstances and hardships as you.

“There’s a project I have already failed at for twenty years. I have wanted to give up more than once, and have overestimated myself far too many times. I don’t even know whether I still have the courage to keep suffering through it.” She sighed. “I’m not saying this to comfort you, nor am I trying to seek some kind of sympathy from you. I only suddenly realized that, apart from an opponent like you, there is no one left I can speak to about certain things.”

Duan Mu offered a weary smile. “It’s lonely, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Duan Mu’s face cracked. His broken limbs fell to the ground as he sank into the mud, and his eyes slowly turned toward the same sky Ye Xian was watching. It was so vast, so distant, so... cold.

The stars had grown dim. They looked exactly as they always had. Nothing had changed. In the end, he had never truly managed to make progress. He had only chosen to fall.

He had mistaken the wind rushing against his face for proof that he was advancing. By the time the scenery was racing past him, he had already stepped off the cliff and was plunging into the abyss. There was no longer any way to undo what had happened.

But even if there were, if everything could be taken back and begin anew, would he still be able to walk that path again?

“Ye Xian, the road is too long. I... can’t go any farther.” As Duan Mu crumbled beyond saving, he closed his eyes in exhaustion. “You’ll have to keep going... alone.”

That was his final farewell. Whether it was a curse or a blessing, the line between the two had become too blurred to tell.

The blades of Gan Jiang and Mo Ye crossed and fell. The evil creature was beheaded, its body breaking until only ashes were left to be carried by the wind into the sky before, where it scattered across the many fires burning throughout the mortal world.

It was like the final spark rising from ashes cast into a furnace, flaring for a fleeting moment before gradually fading from sight. Footsteps came from the distance, drawing closer.

Ye Xian turned back and glanced toward the blood-soaked path winding out from the outpost.

A figure emerged from among the countless corpses of beasts of doom and the fading glow of remnant spirits. She carried two broken swords, their blades chipped and battered, and walked toward Ye Xian at an unhurried pace. Blood sprayed with every swing, leaving mangled bodies scattered in her wake.

It was Lü Yingyue. A smile appeared on her bloodstained face. “Master Kong said there was trouble here, so I came over as soon as I finished dealing with the situation on my end. Am I too late?”

1. Just to refresh your memory: Gan Jiang and Mo Ye were a swordsmith couple, discussed in the literature involving the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. A pair of swords was forged by and named after them. ☜