Martial Peak

Chapter 1756, Alternate Life

In addition, Yang Kai would occasionally see faces of people he was certain he never met before. There were men, women, old, and young among these people, all of whom he felt remarkably familiar with and could even call out their names.

Old Demon, Ling Tai Xu, Chu Ling Xiao, Fei Yu, Li Wan, Fei Jian, Cang Yan, Li Rong, Han Fei, Xue Yue, Wu Yi, Ye Xi Yun, Dai Yuan, Qian Tong…

These people were entrenched in Yang Kai’s subconscious mind, each of them seemingly calling out to him, constantly trying to tell him something, but Yang Kai was never able to hear what it was they were saying.

The days passed without surprise or danger, and Yang Kai soon entered the twilight years of his life…

At the age of seventy, with a house full of children and grandchildren, his parents having passed away long ago, everything around Yang Kai seemed to have changed. The only thing that remained constant was the strange faces which kept appearing in his dreams.

These faces were getting clearer and clearer, and their faint voices were now almost audible.

Soon, a serious illness overcame Yang Kai and severely damaged his vitality.

Lying on his bed, Yang Kai could hear loud cries coming from outside the room from his children and grandchildren, making him realize he had little time left.

The wife who had accompanied him all his life had also lost her beautiful face by now and was just an ordinary old woman, but in these last moments, she still remained by his side, taking care of him diligently.

[This life… was pretty good, right?] Yang Kai thought feebly, looking at his wife beside his bed with muddy eyes, the long years having turned her hair grey.

Yang Kai managed to squeeze out a smile at her after seeing this.

But to Yang Kai’s surprise, his wife who had always been deferential to him in the past, at this moment, only wore a cold expression on her face as she glared at him.

“You…” Yang Kai opened his mouth as he tried to speak.

The other party cut in though with a crisp and sweet voice, which should not belong to that of an old woman but rather a young one, “Finally, I’ll be free! I have been dragged down by you for an entire lifetime, but at long last, I can be liberated!”

“You… why would you say that?” Yang Kai looked at her sadly, his eyes full of pain and disappointment.

“Then what should I say?” The other party sneered, “Do you think I should be thankful to you? If it were not for your Yang Family’s overbearing strength, how could I have been forced to marry you all those years ago? You are just an ordinary, mediocre man, Yang Kai. If you were not born into the Yang Family, you wouldn’t even be as good as an ordinary mortal! Even so, you not only wasted your life but mine as well!”

“Is this what you truly feel in your heart?”

“Yes! Disappointed?” The other party sneered, her smile cruel like she wanted to pierce a sharp knife into Yang Kai’s heart.

Yang Kai, however, just chuckled and closed his eyes.

The old woman sitting by the bed smiled even colder.

At that moment though, Yang Kai suddenly muttered, “I am not delusional. To be honest, you did well these past few decades, but… I know, this is all just an illusion.”

“What?” The old woman’s face changed drastically as she stood up and stared at Yang Kai incredulously, “Do you know what you are saying?”

“At this time, you want to tear face with me and deliver a devastating blow to my mind at the moment I am most satisfied in order to plunge me into despair, right?” Yang Kai opened his eyes again, the murkiness in them having disappeared and been replaced with a sharp light. Sneering, he retorted, “Even those who are crying outside must be planning to rush in here soon and laugh at me as they watch me die, yes?”

“How could you…” The old woman’s complexion went blue.

“Why wouldn’t I have figured it out? I became aware of the truth more than thirty years ago, remembering everything that I should remember!”

“Since you knew, why did you still cooperate?” The old woman’s face turned grim.

“Haha…” Yang Kai smiled, sat up straight from the bed, and said, “Because I have never experienced this kind of life, and since you gave me an opportunity, I wanted to take advantage of it. This was a perfect way to hone my state of mind, after all.”

The familiar yet unfamiliar faces which kept flashing across Yang Kai’s mind, and the words they kept trying to convey to him, had finally made him remember everything all those years ago and allowed him to realize he had been caught in an elaborate illusion.

Yang Kai was shocked at that time!

He did not know when he had been ambushed, as he hadn’t noticed the presence of any enemies. He remembered that he was standing guard over Luo Lan and Ni Guang with Xue Yue, but there were no threats around them at that time.

The entire situation was too strange.

This only proved that this mysterious enemy had such powerful Spiritual Energy that it was able to invade his Knowledge Sea without his knowing and tamper with his memories, affecting his very thoughts and making him forget what he should remember. Everything about his life had been twisted and changed, almost beyond recognition.

When he realized this, Yang Kai did not rush to act.

For one thing, he did not know who the enemy was and taking action rashly might have unintended consequences. Secondly, as he said, this kind of life was something he had never experienced before, and it was indeed quite a wonderful experience. Of course… if his ‘wife’ who had accompanied him throughout his life had continued to play her part and had sent him off peacefully, that would have been for the best.

But at the last moment, she wanted to destroy Yang Kai’s rare and precious experience in order to plunge him into desperation.

In the end, a person will always have only one life.

Living a second, alternative life was nothing but an extravagant dream. As for the matter of reincarnation, that was an elusive and ethereal concept. Even if reincarnation was real, who could reincarnate with the memories of their previous life, or even guarantee they would be human again in their next?

Yang Kai, however, was able to experience something almost equivalent to that, although it was only for a short seventy years…

When his voice fell, the crying children and grandchildren outside also stopped their meaningless play and instead began letting out eerie howls which could terrify any who heard them.

The old woman sneered, “You think you can just sit back and relax after having seen through the illusion? You think too highly of yourself. If you had revealed it earlier, you might have been able to escape from this place, but after so much time has passed, it is now impossible for you to free yourself! Your Soul will forever be trapped here!”

“Really?” Yang Kai’s expression remained unchanged for a moment before he smirked, “It looks like you can’t attack me directly and have to rely on manipulating my memories to influence me, right?”

With her abilities and their limitations so easily exposed, the old woman’s expression darkened noticeably.

After all, if she could directly attack, judging from the current situation, the old woman would not just stand by. In fact, it was her putting on a strong act and screaming that betrayed her lack of confidence.

“We should put an end to this now, but… I still must thank you. The experiences this life has given me have tempered my mind greatly, and I am much more confident about breaking through to the Origin King Realm now,” Yang Kai smiled lightly.

Yang Kai’s problem was that his strength had improved too quickly. Since he began cultivating until now, it had taken him less than forty years to reach the Third-Order Origin Returning Realm. But Great strength had to be matched with a strong mind and experience, otherwise, there was a great chance one would experience a dissonance in their cultivation.

This was Yang Kai’s greatest shortcoming.

But this time’s experience had made up for this deficiency, and no matter how much time or how little time had passed outside, in his mind, seventy years had passed, giving him the necessary psychological accumulation he needed to break through to the next realm.

He really wanted to thank this unknown party for giving him such an opportunity.

This alone was enough to make this trip to the Severed World worthwhile. Even if he obtained no gains during the following period here, it did not matter.

Yang Kai now intended to find a place to break through to the Origin King Realm after leaving the Severed World and already had one destination in mind.

He had great confidence in his ability to break through to the Origin King Realm, and with this experience, it was now almost a matter of course.

As soon as Yang Kai spoke these words of thanks, the anxious-looking old woman suddenly distorted greatly, changing into an ominous black entity that screamed and howled as it lunged at Yang Kai.

At the same time, a massive amount of black Qi flowed in from outside the room and rushed towards Yang Kai like a tide.

Yang Kai just snorted coldly, closed his eyes, then opened them again as he activated his Demon Eye of Annihilation.

The Demon Eye of Annihilation had the profound ability to see through all illusions.

As soon as the demon eye appeared, everything around Yang Kai began to collapse like a shattered mirror, beginning with the room, then the Yang Family Mansion, then the entire world.

The black shadows that rushed towards Yang Kai did not harm him at all. As he had suspected, these black shadows had no direct means of attack and could only target the negative emotions in one’s heart, causing them to fall into illusions.

The black shadows passed through Yang Kai’s body and disappeared.

In the next moment, the illusion was broken.

Yang Kai returned to the real world.

Before he could react though, a gust of cold wind hit him from behind so he hurriedly rolled forward to avoid the attack. Jumping to his feet and fixing his stance, Yang Kai turned back to confront his attacker.

What he saw was a kind of black shadow similar to the one in the illusion, but this mass of black shadows had the outline of a human, only lacking facial features but possessing arms and legs.

It seemed that the previous illusions were all caused by this black shadow.

And at this moment, it seemed this black shadow had suffered great damage. After all, it had used some kind of strange Secret Technique to drag Yang Kai into that illusion, so once the illusion broke it was inevitable it suffered a backlash.

Releasing a terrifying roar, the shadow pounced towards Yang Kai again.

Yang Kai waved his hand and sent out a Golden Blood Thread, cutting towards his opponent. But unexpectedly, the Golden Blood Thread did not affect the shadow, passing through it directly without causing any effective damage.

Yang Kai frowned, pushed his Saint Qi, and sent out a Heaven Covering Hand.

The huge palm covered the black shadow’s body but also failed to affect it in any way.

After only a brief delay, the shadow rushed forward again.

“The Golden Blood Thread is useless, as is Saint Qi Secret Techniques, it seems… only Spiritual Energy attacks are useful against you,” Yang Kai sneered as he stood in place without moving and a lotus bud appeared in his left eye.