Yang Zhai walked across the bridge. He entered the gazebo. Inside, he saw a violet-colored round water table¹.
Inside the gazebo, there were also stone benches on each side for sitting.
Yang Zhai looked at the water that was slowly coming upwards from the middle of the table.
"This should be it."
Yang Zhai placed his hand in the water.
Night, stars, above as well as below, only stars of different colors. A star shot across the sky. Below, a goldfish swimming. A figure, a figure, what he saw was a figure.
This figure: clothes torn, hair disheveled, stood up slowly, eyes… swollen.
"Was I a man? Said my mother, my son, a king, raised. Mother: fought against heavens, result… death. Raised me into a man, great was I. For this, vanity was what lost, my mother dies. Kings, ruled the world: women, rules the kings," The figure, fell down, stood again.
"My sons, they begged me, be aware, be aware, spare us. Let us go. Kings, ruled the world: women, ruled the kings. My wife, a love. Was she? Who ruled who? For woman, dance for the man: for man, dance for the woman."
An image appeared on the sky. There, Yang Zhai looks, and sees a man standing, where, on two boys' corpses. Seemed to be the man's sons.
Behind him, a throne. Behind it, stands a woman. Behind her, many people. An image that matches the carvings on the inheritance gate.
"Did what I? My wife… left. I, where, solitude? Solitude, a silence. Ruled my nation with a smile. Behind me, stood solitude. My palace, empty. Forgot myself. I… begged, cried. No one returned, my sons, my mother. Mother took me in her hands, a king she raised. Her memories…," the figure fell again. It had long black hair.
"Her memories were becoming memories. I remembered the days my mother played with me. Cried, called for her again, just once. Begged for one look. Memory, did she became. Roamed the streets did I. Spoke: be aware, be aware. To my crowd, crazy I was. Spoke every day, be aware, be aware."
"A beggar, no. Worse was I." The figure stood up.
The figure came to Yang Zhai.
"You, whoever you are, fate: do you believe in it?"
"Hmm?" When Yang heard this, his eyes narrowed.
This figure, was it trying to get at something.
"Fate, a word, a beautiful word, indeed. Only if it existed. No work needs to be done by us; just accept it. Flow, flow along it. At least once, once in life, did you feel imprisoned?"
What's this man getting at? Fate, only if it existed?: lost in thoughts was Yang Zhai.
"No, no fate exists, believe these words. No destiny is present in this world."
"Here…," After saying this, the figure moved his right-hand fingers.
An urn appears—about 3 feet in size—displaying an arrow: A woman, in the skies. Below, a man. The arrow shot, towards the skies.
"Containers, powerful indeed. Spirits, corrupt."
"Many figures, great indeed, challenged them. Such figure, I became."
"Heavens, Containers, Black Sun." The figure looks to the right side; a vase appears—about a foot in size.
A man, holding a spear, stands. Above him—lightning and thunder— striking. The skies, dark.
The man looks to the left side. A stone crock appears.
On it, a black sun, shining high. The man, holding an ax, stood.
All these had carvings on them. The man in each carving… seemed to be the same man.
"The beggar… the beggar… the beggar. You… I don't know how you entered. Blood, the condition I placed. Everyone—remember this— is recognized by blood. Every personality develops from it. Veins, how come they have it? Mother is the root. Who waters it? Man is the answer. Connected we are,"
"If a child is born a bastard, how would they have royal blood, when even their roots are corrupted? Knowing this, blood is not normal. It contains memories. What if the blood is replaced?"
Asked the figure, and went silent.
Yang Zhai was listening… carefully. This figure was trying to get at something. He knew, nobody was perfect, not even him.
"Well, about that, the whole origin of a person is made from this blood," replied Yang Zhai.
"Right, absolutely right. The whole body develops from this blood. Like cultivation essence, the body itself has an essence. Even if the body is replaced, the brain remains, so does the soul," said the figure.
"These three ceramics, take them. I, for I, lost my dearest. Even today, I hope to see my mother one more time. Remember this, once you lose someone, they won't return. That's the helplessness… helplessness, it eats us. Love, it's not an emotion. It's…" the figure was about to say something but disappeared. Turned into specks of blue lights.
He was left alone in this space.
Yang Zhai walked closer to the stone crock. It was blue and violet. It has carvings of a black sun on it, and standing below it was a man with an ax. The sun was black in color.
This was one of the two things he wanted from the inheritance.
He opened it, looked inside, and saw a gem, black gem to be exact. In this world, there were seven types of gems of extreme value: one being Blue Gem that Yang Zhai had.
Among them, no gem is black. The one in front of him was black. Only this gem was created by a human. It was two inches in size. In the middle, a black aura was roaming.
"The Black Gem, the one I am after." He looks at it, impressed.
"In my previous life, the person who obtained this gem announced it out of excitement and everything related to this gem. As a result, the whole world chased him. Not just this, he announced the whole inheritance. Its ability will benefit me greatly."
He sits down, ready to break through. Black Sun and the Heavens oppose each other. As a result, when the Black Sun appears, the aperture disappears. To be more accurate, it hides away.
Yang Zhai thought and an intense earthquake began in his aperture. The aperture, noticing something, opens a hole in it and ejects the Yellow Sun out. After that, it closes.
"Now, there's no going back," muttered Yang Zhai.
To advance from rank 3 to rank 4 was a death game. It was do it or die. Here, the Heavens and the Black Sun clashed. Once started, a person must complete their advancement. Otherwise, death was the other option.
The sun had been ejected into the void. The whole void starts to gather and is being absorbed by the sun. There was no end to the void, it was constantly being absorbed by the sun.
A small dot, not even visible, appears on the Yellow Sun: the dot so small that even millions of dots like this wouldn't be able to fill up half of the sun.
When this happened, the aperture ejected a red line; it shot toward the sun at an unimaginable speed, like a shooting star. A shield of black began to form in front of the sun. The line struck the shield.
Strong waves were produced. Yang Zhai had to protect the sun and the aperture from striking each other; otherwise, the result would affect not only the aperture but him, too. The waves would be enough to destroy him. The reason was that a barrier had not yet formed to protect him from the rays of the Black Sun.
The body was born from nature, it was not adept for its rays. Right now, the sun is only absorbing the void and is not releasing any rays.
The sun was absorbing the void continuously and turning black slowly. Whereas, the aperture was releasing its lines into the void to attack the sun constantly. The more the lines were released into the void, the more difficult it would be for him to prevent them from striking each other.
Yang Zhai was extremely focused, even he didn't dare to multitask right now.
It would not be possible for him to create and destroy the shields time and again. He would need to move the shield he created to defend against the lines. Whereas, the lines would attack him from time to time at an unimaginable speed. Especially the lines with the abilities were even more fierce.
Yang Zhai was moving the shield every passing second to keep the lines away, he was sweating profusely. The Yellow Sun had almost half turned into black, and eight lines were trying to attack it constantly.
"Shit, these orange and yellow lines, they are not taking a break. And why the hell has it already released the yellow line? It was supposed to release red and orange lines first respectively," muttered Yang Zhai.
The procedure of releasing lines was in this pattern: Red, Orange, and then Yellow for every cultivator, but here, something unexpected was happening.
Yang Zhai had just stopped an orange line when a yellow line was released at double the speed of the previous lines.
"Heck, what's happening?!"
Yang Zhai hurriedly moved the void shield and it barely managed to reach the yellow line.
"No, that's not good. I barely managed to stop this ninth line, if the speed increases, it would be impossible to defend. Maybe, the perfect stages or the abilities stored in the lines are the reason for this unexpected behavior of the aperture. I have no choice."
Yang Zhai absorbed the spiritual energy with his aperture and a vortex appeared on his abdomen. He pulled out the rank 3 Blue Gem he had on him and threw it into the vortex.
The Blue Gem appeared in front of the sun. This was the straight direction right between the aperture and the sun.
"Now, I can focus on the lines present and not worry about when the lines will appear," Yang Zhai said with a serious expression.
Now, he had one less direction to worry about and focus on the other 5 directions.
The walls of the aperture were getting stronger constantly.
The more the sun turned black, the more the aperture became stronger.
Another orange line came out of the aperture and struck the Blue Gem with a heavy impact. It managed to hold the attack, but scratches appeared on it.
"What? It should have held out till the end."
Blue Gem was made out of nature, and so were the lines; it should have held against them, but it was something he didn't expect to happen.
"Fine, it's fine as long as it can hold three lines."
Ten lines were already out, only five remained. Usually, there would only be twelve lines when advancing to rank 4, but Yang Zhai had fifteen.
When advancing, only one line would attack at a time, but without any break: not even for a second would these lines stop attacking.
This was the reason, almost all the cultivators would die when advancing to rank 4. Only about one in a thousand succeeded.
They didn't have enough focus or the ability to defend against the lines.
Another line strikes the Blue Gem, its cracks increasing. After that, the twelfth line came out, but the Blue Gem didn't break because it was red.
Yang Zhai nodded. Even though the cracks on the Blue Gem increased, it didn't break as Yang Zhai had expected.
"Maybe the red lines don't have as much power as the other two colors."
Another line is ejected, striking the Blue Gem, breaking it. The pieces turned into spiritual energy and disappeared.
Thirteen lines are continuously trying to attack the Black Sun. One at a time was the condition. Yang Zhai is trying to defend with great difficulty.
However, the condition broke, and two lines from opposite directions attacked at the same time.
/!*****!*****!/
1 Round water table - a small fountain for ease.