The field of understanding kept expanding.
Seventy kilometers.
Eighty.
Ninety.
And at the very center of it all, something terrible began to happen.
Li Yuan's body—no longer breathing, no longer with a beating heart—began to… break apart.
Not from attack.
Not from injury.
It was breaking because the vessel could no longer hold what was flowing from it.
Like a small bucket forced to hold an ocean, Li Yuan's drifting awareness felt a deep, primal terror as he watched his own body begin to… fade.
His skin cracked like parched earth—not bleeding wounds, but deep fissures as though his body were made of clay baked too long in the sun.
His bones began to hum at unnatural frequencies, like tuning forks struck too hard, vibrating until they threatened to snap.
His muscles… melted. Not rotting, but softening like wax too close to a flame, losing form and dripping to the ground.
This body was never meant to carry ten understandings at once, Li Yuan realized with a panic he had never felt before.
Ganjing only works because there are wrappings. Boundaries. Control.
But now…
The understanding of Water seeped from every pore, drenching his body in moisture that was not sweat.
The understanding of Silence absorbed all sound from his body, stopping his bones from vibrating—yet making them brittle as glass.
The understanding of Existence made his body both too real and unreal at the same time—seen clearly, yet as insubstantial as a shadow you could walk through.
I'm not ready, Li Yuan's awareness screamed in a soundless panic.
This body isn't ready to be the channel for ten unbounded understandings!
Like a trickle forced to carry a waterfall—it will shatter!
But the field kept growing.
One hundred kilometers.
One hundred and twenty.
And with every expansion, more of Li Yuan's body was… gone.
His right hand was no longer visible. Not vanished—but as if it had become part of the air, part of meaning itself.
His left leg dissolved like sugar in boiling water.
His face—the calm face that had always been a mirror for others—blurred like a reflection on rippling water.
Around him, those still able to see began to panic.
"He's disappearing!" cried the boy he had saved yesterday.
"His body… it's melting!" whispered the boy's father in horror.
Wen Zhi, standing not far away, stared with eyes full of both awe and dread.
"This is impossible," he muttered. "A human body can't… can't become that."
Mu Yi and Fan Tu—whose eyes had cleared thanks to the field's influence—rushed forward.
"Li Yuan!" Mu Yi shouted. "What's happening to you?!"
But Li Yuan couldn't answer.
His mouth was gone. His vocal cords dissolved into the Silence that poured from him.
All that remained was an awareness, floating, watching its physical vessel disintegrate under the strain of what it carried.
This is like trying to pour the sea into a cup, Li Yuan thought with despair.
Or trying to grasp the sky with your hands.
These ten understandings are too vast for a human form.
They want to flow free—without limit, without vessel.
But I… I still need a vessel to remain… me.
Li Yuan's chest began to hollow. Not a wound—an empty space filled by Sky.
His heart—once the vessel for all his love and understanding—turned to light. The light of Existence, too bright for mortal eyes.
His lungs dissolved into Breath, becoming part of the universal rhythm that needed no physical organ to breathe.
I'm losing myself, Li Yuan felt a panic unlike any before.
I am becoming the understandings… but I am no longer… me.
Who is Li Yuan when Li Yuan's body is gone?
Who will choose, when the one who chooses has dissolved into the choice itself?
The field continued to swell, uncontrollable.
One hundred and fifty kilometers.
One hundred and seventy.
Far-off cities began to feel its strange effects.
A king furious at his minister suddenly could not hold his anger—Water flowing across tens of kilometers washed it away, leaving him in a confusing calm.
A thief plotting a crime suddenly hesitated—Doubt seeped into him, whispering: Why am I doing this? What do I really want?
A mother beating her child suddenly froze—Loss touched her heart, showing her how precious the child was, how easy it was to lose him, how pointless violence was.
But also…
A guard who should have been alert became too tranquil, letting a thief pass because Water made him too peaceful to suspect.
A doctor who should have acted quickly wavered—Doubt kept him from deciding on a treatment, letting his patient suffer.
A child who should have screamed for help stayed silent—Silence made it impossible for them to call out.
This is wrong, Li Yuan's fading awareness cried in desperation.
This is so wrong!
Understanding without a vessel becomes tyranny!
Goodness without choice becomes evil!
Water without a river becomes a flood that destroys!
All that remained of his body was his head—and even that was now transparent like morning mist.
His gray eyes—once mirrors for all—were now like two holes leading into emptiness. Not a frightening emptiness, but one too vast for human minds to grasp.
I have to stop this, Li Yuan fought against the current of understandings that wanted to flow without end.
But how do you stop water that's already become the ocean?
How do you put the sky back once it's been opened?
How do you wrap light once it has spread across the world?
In the distance, crying began to rise.
Not cries of grief—cries of confusion.
Those too far from the center, unprepared for all the understandings at once, began… to break.
A farmer, used to working with quick, rough motions, suddenly could not move his hands because every movement had to be fully conscious. He wept, unable to work, unable to feed his family.
A soldier, used to relying on instinct to survive, now questioned every move. He died because he hesitated to strike when attacked.
A mother, used to calling loudly to her children, could no longer raise her voice. Her children were lost in the crowd because they never heard her.
Not everyone is ready for every understanding, Li Yuan realized in horror.
Not everyone fits every path.
What heals me may destroy them.
Li Yuan's head—the only part left—began to gleam with unnatural light.
The pure light of Existence.
Light that revealed truth without filter.
Light that blinded because it was too pure.
I must choose, his almost-dissolved awareness shouted with its last strength.
Between saving myself or saving the world.
Between drawing these understandings back and losing the power to help anyone…
Or letting them flow free and losing myself forever.
Between being Li Yuan who can choose…
Or being the Dao, which has no choice but to flow.
The field spread to two hundred kilometers.
And Li Yuan's head—his gray eyes, the anchors of his consciousness—began to crack like an egg.
Light from Existence leaked through those cracks.
And Li Yuan realized he had only seconds before—
Before the last vessel binding him to individuality shattered completely.
Before he became the understandings themselves.
Before there was no more Li Yuan.
Only Dao.
Flowing without choice.
Existing without awareness.
Giving without the ability to choose who receives.
Choose! his awareness screamed at himself.
Choose now!
Draw it back or let it go forever!
Be human or be a universal principle!
Save yourself or save the world!
And in the final instant before the cracks widened—
Li Yuan made his choice.
A choice that would change everything.
Forever.