If the earth itself possessed memory, then the scene of Demon God Shu's death, as witnessed by Simon, would surely be etched vividly in her mind.
Or perhaps, the traces left by this event were incredibly stubborn, persistently engraved in the surrounding environment, refusing to fade with the flow of superior affinity and the vicissitudes of time.
Although superior affinity transcends space-time, its inherent dynamism dictates a unidirectional timeline that governs the evolution of creation.
Many historical events Simon saw were already blurred beyond recognition.
If storing information in superior affinity is like carving words on a stone tablet, then if the tablet shatters, the information on it is bound to become blurred and fragmented. This analogy doesn't perfectly match Simon's perspective, but it does offer a popularized description of the purely intuitive spiritual experience of Heavenly Eye.
Everything he saw now was not necessarily completely real.
...
The face of the man in the black robe was indistinct, but that slow, solemn aura persisted across eons.
Like a glacier formed of sharp knives, moving slowly, irresistibly, leaving deep ravines, with bone and blood covering his footprints, frozen solid. He was not merely destruction and slaughter; he also represented oppression, plunder, taking all warmth from the living.
To say such a person was a warrior fighting for all beings under heaven might not be appropriate.
One could only say his actions led to a result beneficial to the people of the world.
He killed Demon God Shu.
He dismembered Shu's body.
A great blood waterfall surged to the sky.
Indeed, blood stained the clear blue heavens.
The scorching blood was scattered by the strong winds high in the sky, turning into clouds and mist, and then trickling down as crimson raindrops.
This blood rain enveloped Kunlun, lasting for three years.
Life on earth was extinguished.
Countless curious individuals lingered before this curtain of rain, and in the unseen depths of the darkness, fourteen altars had silently risen.
Simon could confirm these were altars, and nothing else.
Demon God Shu's body was continuously shrinking, and massive amounts of vital essence poured from the severed trunk, flowing into the large inscribed stone tablets on the altars.
This was not an seal ; this was a sacrifice, and the Demon God was the offering.
Shu's body gradually turned to dust and dissipated, leaving only a shriveled head, while the stone tablets on the altars had already been activated.
It could be said that every inscription was bleeding.
Black blood.
It differed greatly from Shu's golden-red blood.
Demon God Shu, he was more like a War God, so his blood was unrestrained and fervent, possessing vigorous vitality. This blood seemed to be imbued with a mission of slaughter, poisoning all living beings on earth, but this blood did not contaminate the thick crust of the earth.
Just like a sword entering the earth, it becomes part of the earth; though distinct, it will eventually decompose.
But this black blood flowing from the stone tablets was different.
Simon couldn't quite articulate the difference.
Had the War God's blood cooled and become cursed?
But this blood wasn't about gaining something; it was precisely about lacking something.
This lack made it incompatible with the world.
Simon continued to perceive this fragmented information, emptying his mind and body, restoring truth to history, and discarding unnecessary associations and conjectures.
The man in the black robe walked to Shu's head. The skull, once like a tall mountain, now, drained of its vital essence, had shrunk to the size of a reef. Intense killing intent still shot forth from its eyes. This wild posture had not departed with death; it was just that these beautiful eyeballs embedded in the shrunken skull were a pity.
The man, with a knife, plucked out a total of twenty-one eyeballs one by one.
They were crystal clear, like jewels, once filled with golden liquid, now, after drying, the residue on the inner walls resembled gold powder. The pupils were purplish-red, the irises vibrantly colored, rotating serenely in circles... Simon stopped watching, as he was unconsciously substituting them with Xiang Shu's eyes.
Continue.
The man in the black robe took off his clothes, revealing a withered body embedded with various eyeballs. The overall appearance made one think of the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord who appeared in Chapter 73 of journey to the west, "Love's Old Hatred Wreaks Havoc, Mind's Lord Suffers Demonic Attack, Fortunately Light Breaks Through."
However, compared to the Multi-Eyed Monster, this gentleman was more like a collector of eyeballs.
The countless eyeballs on his body belonged to entirely different individual creatures.
They blinked, shooting out venomous light, making it difficult to determine whether this terrifying gaze originated from the hatred of the dead whose eyeballs had been gouged out, or if it reflected the inner qualities of the black-robed man.
The gentleman then embedded Shu's eyeballs into the sparse "empty spaces" on his body. The two, referring to the eyeballs and the man's body, achieved a balanced symbiosis. Light once again emanated from Shu's eyeballs, becoming lively and spirited again, however, just like all the eyes on the black-robed man's body—they became fierce and malicious.
After completing this, the final task was to be performed.
The black-robed man's body slowly sank into the earth. The rocks and soil here had been drenched with black blood, and the firm ground was like a swamp. In short, the instigator submerged himself into the earth.
He certainly wasn't burying himself.
The blood gathered underground into a cocoon, and at the same time, an evil dark heart grew deep within superior affinity.
Simon believed using the word 'evil' here was very appropriate.
He was certain he felt a subtle pain, the pain of the earth.
A sense of being rooted surged into his mind; something was being siphoned off through the blood.
The black-robed man entered the cocoon, completely dissolving and melting into superior affinity.
The scene slowly faded.
The mists of history irresistibly swallowed these past events, or perhaps someone was deliberately erasing this history.
Simon strained to look, and the last image he saw was the cocoon rupturing, and a gray thick fog pouring out—it was Xiang Shu's birth!
This signified the emergence of a brand new superior affinity.
It meant the completion of an anomaly involving the world's origin.
...
Simon left the bottom of the lake.
His doubts had not diminished; instead, they had multiplied.
Where did that black-robed man ultimately go?
Did he transform into Xiang Shu?
Was the emergence of evil affinity a natural evolution of superior affinity, a man-made result, or both?
To truly grasp the Veins of superior affinity, Simon had only one path: to merge into superior affinity like that black-robed man and participate in its evolution.
Simon also roughly understood that this day would not be far off.
He once said he wanted to make the Pure Land a real, existing world. This grand willing also required him to truly participate in the changes of superior affinity to achieve it. Otherwise, he would not be able to construct an independent minor world, but would only be able to move things from the Pure Land and place them in this world.
Furthermore, the further utilization of the manifest body would probably also be inseparable from a cycle of reincarnation.
From this perspective, being reborn once seemed to be becoming a kind of fate. However, for Simon, it was more like a game, without the heavy sense of being forced.
For now, he told himself, there were still some things he hadn't handled properly, so he couldn't let go and reincarnate yet.
Fortunately, this matter was on the agenda, and Simon was absolutely going to complete it and make sure he had fun doing it.
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