While Yu Yan closed her eyes and waited for her fated death, Wang Wei' s bright red sword stopped one millimeter away from her heart. No matter what Wang Wei did, he could not push the sword forward.
This one millimeter represented a chasm that separated his last trace of humanity; it also represented his destined path.
Cross that chasm and he will no longer be human, he will turn into a slave of power, a puppet of fate.
Walk away from it, he still has a chance at redemption, a chance to try to place the control of his fate in his own hands.
Wang Wei looked at his mother, then memories that were engraved deep in his memories flooded his mind. He remembered the reason that he started in this path of pursuing power: It was to protect his mother from the persecutions of the other clans.
But now, years later, he has forgotten his original purpose. His desire for power slowly consumed him like blood flowing out of a person's cut artery.
Then it suddenly dawned on Wang Wei that the most difficult thing about cultivating was not the process of reaching high realms. No, by his talent alone and with an abundance of resources from the sect, it was only a matter of time before he could cultivate to the Supreme Realm.
The real difficulty of cultivating was how to remember his original purpose, his original heart. Cultivators live a very long life. The real trial that they have to face is how not to let the passing of time affect their heart, to retain their original intention in the face of the demon that is called time.
Can you make sure that after a million years, you are the same person? Can the people who knew you in the beginning still recognize who you are? Can you look yourself in the mirror and say without hesitation that you did nothing against your conscience? And if you did change, is it too late to rectify your mistakes?
All these are the essence of having a strong and powerful Dao Heart, and it took Wang Wei's almost killing his mother to truly understand these things.
Yu Yan opened her eyes after a few moments without feeling any pain. The painful death that she waited for did not come.
When she opened her eyes, she saw her son holding a sword very close to her heart without moving an inch. At the same time, she noticed tears flowing down his eyes, drenching his clothes wet.
His eyes were no longer devoid of emotions. Instead, they were full of pain and struggle. They kept changing from pure ruthlessness to doting love.
Yu Yan realizes that her son was in an internal battle of good and evil. Her son was in his last struggle to redeem himself. She did not say anything to him, her gentle smile remained on her face.
She knew that this was a battle that her son had to face on his own. No matter the outcome, she will accept it.
If her son succeeded, she will lead him to a path of redemption to repay all his negative karma. If he failed, she would die as a form of atonement to the world and her son.
Wang Wei' struggle lasted more than nine hours. Afterward, he dropped the sword in his hands on the floor.
He looked at his mother full of gentleness, love, and guilt, then said: "Mo...moth...mother." His voice was harsh and hoarse and he stuttered. This was due to the fact that he did not speak for many years.
Tears kept coming out his eyes and he knell in the ground in front of his mother. He continued: "I'm sorr..sorry for wh.. what happened."
Yu Yan rushed to her son and embraced him on the dirty floor. She wept with him and comforted him. She told him that everything would be okay from now on, that there was still time to change, time to make right of his past's wrong.
The mother and son spend the next day talking to each other.
In the morning the next day, Yu Yan said to Wang Wei: "Are you leaving again?" He smiled and responded: "Mother knows me best. After all, I need to repent for all my sins."
This time his smile was no longer stiff or indifferent. Instead, his smile gave the feeling of removing the burden of the world from his shoulder: his smile was free and unrestrained.
After saying his parting word to his mother, Wang Wei teleported away from the Wang clan. Then, he turned into a giant. His body was so huge that the concept of size could no longer apply to him.
All the people of the world raised their head to see a gigantic human head covering the entire heaven. In front of this giant, they were nothing but ants crawling in the ground in order to survive the cruelty of nature. And this giant was at the top of the food pyramid.
The people of the world immediately knelt on the ground and did not make a single sound. The world became extremely quiet. In fact, not just humans, all sentient and non-sentient beings acted this way. Even the wind stopped blowing so as not to make flowers move and make a single sound.
The giant looked at all the beings in the world and proclaimed:" My name is Wang Wei, but many of you should know me by the title of Slaughter Devil'"
Upon hearing the giant's word, many people became terrified. Who did not know the Slaughter Devil that killed the majority of the people in the world. All of them lived everyday in fear thinking that someday the devil would come to finish the rest of the job. Many people at the moment thought that their judgment day final came.
"Throughout the past ten years, I have committed great sins to the people of the world, and as such, are fettered by karmic virtues. Since there is a cause, then there must be an effect!"
"Today, I will repay the karma I owed to the people and to the world. My soul will turn into the cycle of reincarnation so that all the people that I have killed can be reborn and have new life."
"My blood will nourish the land of the world so that all living beings have enough resources to breed, multiply, and grow."
"My flesh will turn into a new continent so that all beings will have more land for future descendants and the world could be more prosperous."
After this declaration, the people watched as the giant's body slowly disintegrated. Many grieving souls flew out of the giant's body, bowed to him and went into reincarnation.
The giant's blood enveloped the land. The crops and plants started to grow at an alarming rate. Many ores and spiritual veins were created in different parts of the land. Many mountains and rivers grew at a rate visible to the naked eye. Then, the giant's body turned into an enormous continent and landed somewhere in the ocean.
The few remaining cultivators in the world soon noticed that the world they lived in hand started to expand and the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth became extremely abundant. Every breath they took could absorb a vast amount of spiritual energy and they would feel refreshed afterward. In this environment, even mortals will have a long lifespan.
They knew that this world was about to enter an age of cultivation and exploration. Both cultivators and mortals will benefit from this coming era.
After doing all of this, Wang Wei was ejected out of the Pagoda Trial. In fact, Wang Wei did not have to do all the extra things at the end.
After waking up at the last moment and preventing himself from killing his mother, he already passed the trial. So why did he do all the things he did?
It was to install on him the idea of always paying karma. In this world of cultivation, karma is a real and accessible thing. Many cultivators have cultivated the Dao of Karma, and some have even proclaimed themselves Emperor using the Dao of Karma.
If one day he encountered one of such cultivators, he would be somewhat prepared. If he could also understand the Dao of Karma, it would be even better.