Immortal Paladin

159 A Disciple's Resurrection

The world folded in on itself.

My body stayed seated, but my senses were somewhere else… I was pulled deep, not just into Shouquan’s soul, but into the vast memories he carried. I felt no resistance. Instead, there was only quiet permission.

Then, I saw.

A sky without color, only pressure. Mountains cracked open by a single finger. Seas calmed with a sigh. The world hadn’t yet hardened into what it would one day become. This was before the laws were settled and before even names had weight.

Shouquan was young. Not a boy, not even human in the way I understood it… more a presence, a flicker of will behind a pair of eyes that had seen too much and were still hungry for more. He knelt beside a dying beast, one of the ancient titans, its eyes like moons, its blood thick as molten ore. And he wept. Not out of grief, but respect. I felt it, like my own lungs were burning with that moment.

“I will remember you,” his younger self whispered.

And he did.

One memory bled into the next. Lifetimes unrolled like scrolls… empires rising and falling, alliances forged and betrayed, students loved and lost. I glimpsed disciples laughing around a campfire. I saw him teaching a boy with trembling hands how to channel light through his fingers. I saw a girl with stars in her veins call him 'father' once.

And I saw their graves.

So many graves.

I felt the weight of his choices… the brutal math of what to sacrifice and what to spare. His was not a life of peace, though he often sought it. He had killed gods. And worse. He had held the line when no one else would. He had buried friends with hands that had once created life.

It wasn’t that he lacked emotion. It was that there was too much. Too many attachments turned into wounds.

And still, he endured.

For some reason, I could just relate…

Even now, with the long gray strands of his hair and the serene power behind his voice, I saw it… he was tired. Not because he was weak. But because he remembered everything.

Then, a final vision: the Arch Gate.

A massive structure of impossible architecture with shifting geometry suspended in an eternal void, rimmed with shimmering runes I couldn’t read, pulsing like a heartbeat. It felt old. Older than even Shouquan.

And guarding it, alone, was him.

Centuries passed. Then more. And more. Nothing came. Or maybe too much did, and he held them all back.

And then…

“Enough.”

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, wrapped in patience.

The memories stilled.

I gasped… real breath this time, from lungs that had never moved… and opened my eyes.

It was a strange sensation… being kicked out of the ocean of memories. Not painful, not even jarring, just... unfamiliar. Like being thrown from a warm bath into crisp mountain air. I hovered in that in-between state for a moment, neither fully returned nor completely gone. And I hated how much I already missed it. There was something addicting about those memories, about that total immersion in another life. I’d seen things that no one else could ever understand. And I wanted more.

Before me… my original body remained seated, locked in its chibi form. Dave held the wheel, his presence stable and familiar. When he turned to look up at me, his gaze was full of concern.

“My Lord,” he said, soft but insistent. “Are you there?”

“I am,” I replied, letting my presence settle back into the world. My voice echoed strangely at first, as if the air itself was unsure whether to welcome me back.

Dave nodded. There was no relief in his expression, only reverence… something deeper than faith. I studied him, and for the first time, I saw more than just his words or loyalty. I saw his soul.

It glowed like sunlight trapped in glass, a burning core of righteousness wrapped in humility. His convictions were not just beliefs… they were architecture, the entire framework of who he was. And it overwhelmed me. I closed my eyes, steadying myself. When I opened them again, everything was different.

Souls. Everywhere. Intertwined with my Divine Sense like threads of fire and shadow woven into a living tapestry. Some flickered with joy, others trembled with sorrow. They were beautiful. Terrible. Intoxicating. I had never seen the world like this, and it took everything in me not to drown in it.

It was probably the side-effect of Shouquan’s bloodline ability bleeding into me.

“Are you there, Shouquan?” I asked quietly, not outwardly, but inward, addressing the presence I now carried like a second skin.

My hands trembled. They were not quite mine anymore. Wrinkled, worn, and weathered by time, they looked like the hands of a man who had held empires and laid them to rest. I stared at them in silence. I really had become him.

“I am here,” came Shouquan’s voice, calm as still water. It echoed in my mind with the weight of centuries and millennia, but no malice. “Your technique is… miraculous. To anchor yourself so deeply within the soul of another and return with your ‘Self’ intact… it is no small feat. I see now why your people love you.”

He spoke as though speaking to an equal. Maybe he meant it. Maybe it was just respect for what I was capable of. Either way, his next words hit deeper than I expected.

“People will never fully understand one another. Not truly. Not in this world or any other. Language fails. Emotion distorts. Memory deceives. From these gaps are born hatred, conflict, and war.”

I listened, letting the truth of it settle.

“But you… you are different. You carry a gift that even I never dared imagine. You can touch another life, not just observe it, but know it. As intimately as they know themselves. You walk through another’s truth without flinching. That is more than power. It is communion.”

I turned to Dave, holding out my hand.

“A gold coin,” I said.

Without question, Dave reached into the Item Box and tossed one my way. I caught it mid-air with a snap of my fingers, the familiar weight settling in my palm. A simple thing, really. Metal stamped with faces and borders, something used to buy food or favors. But in this moment, it might as well have been fate itself.

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“Heads, Gu Jie,” I murmured. “Tails, Ren Xun.”

The coin spun. Up. Down. And landed clean in my hand.

Heads.

Gu Jie.

I closed my eyes, exhaled once, and nodded to myself.

“Dave, bring her out,” I said. “Let’s wake her up.”

“As you will, my Lord,” he replied.

A quiet shimmer filled the air as Dave accessed the Item Box, a divine subspace beyond space, and retrieved her. Her body materialized gently onto the sofa in front of me, not with a crash, but a reverent stillness, as if the world itself recognized what was about to happen.

Gu Jie looked as though she were only napping, not dead. Her black robe, threaded with crimson serpents coiled in elegant patterns, still clung to her form. I remembered the same robe being worn by Ren Jingyi when she just turned human. I’ve had her return it to me, of course not after she threw enough tantrums. However, she soon changed her mind when I told her it would help resurrect Gu Jie. Of course, it had been a lie at the time, but it was indeed for Gu Jie. Her dark hair spilled around her shoulders in disarray, soft waves that once framed her fierce expression now resting quietly across her cheek. The healers of the Empire had done well. Her head, once severed, was now seamlessly reattached. Her wounds were gone. Her face was pale, but peaceful. I could almost hear her sigh in annoyance if she saw how gently I was staring.

“I’m finally going to bring you back,” I whispered.

Divine Word: Raise was ready. But only barely. There were limits. The spell required more than just a spell slot. Moreover, it had a cooldown longer than I liked, which was expected for LLO. In short, I could only do one today.

“Ren Xun,” I said softly, “you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

I closed my eyes and called to Shouquan.

“Show me,” I said. “Show me how to apply Quintessence.”

The old man’s voice responded from within me, calm and without haste. “Feel it, not with your hands, not even with your senses… feel it as part of yourself.”

And then I did.

Quintessence… Immortal Qi… was unlike mana or spiritual energy. It was heavier, vaster, and paradoxically impossible to grasp. Not because it was slippery, but because it was the world. So deeply interwoven into the fabric of existence that separating it out felt like trying to taste the color blue. Still, I breathed it in. Not through my lungs, but through something deeper. I let it flood into me like light through cracks in stone.

“Divine Word: Raise.”

The words didn’t echo from my mouth. They resonated from my soul. I reached forward, palm glowing with layered power, and pressed it to Gu Jie’s chest. Quintessence surged from my hand, seeping into her vessel. I could feel it resisting. Not out of malice, but complexity. This was not a simple flick of a switch.

“She is not in her body,” Shouquan’s voice murmured within me. “You must call to her soul. Sometimes, a ritual is needed. Do you have a technique in mind that can touch her soul?”

I had lots of them… starting with Divine Possession, but I just used that skill.

I nodded and activated Soulful Guiding Fire. My eyes shimmered with Shouquan’s gaze… his ability to see souls reinforced me. The world peeled open like paper set aflame.

Her body remained still, but her soul had left long ago. The fire did not bring her back immediately. Instead, it flickered, turned emerald, and shaped itself into a butterfly. A fiery, luminous creature that flitted toward the air, then into a swirling breach in reality itself. Without hesitation, I followed.

The world warped. Color bled sideways into itself. Nothing had edges here. A kaleidoscope of visions tried to distract me… echoes of lives unlived, regrets of strangers, and temptation in every direction.

But then I saw it.

A bridge.

It extended infinitely in both directions, lined with drifting souls. Some walked calmly. Others cried. And some had no faces at all. All of them were heading forward, away from something they couldn’t name.

And there… among them… was Gu Jie.

I opened my mouth and instinctively activated Voice Chat. Nothing. The words died in my throat. This place rejected simple tricks.

So I did something new.

I inhaled the ambient Quintessence, gripped it, crushed it into my voice like thunder being squeezed into a whisper.

“GU JIE!” I roared. “RETURN TO ME!”

The shout cracked across the spectral world like lightning.

She froze.

Her head turned upward, confused. Her eyes were wide.

“Master?” she said. “Is that you?”

Before I could answer, a sudden, furious vision slammed into my mind.

An old woman appeared, bringing soup. Her face was twisted in anger, her hair bundled into a messy bun with a chopstick stabbed through it like a weapon. She glared at me, screamed like a banshee, and hurled every imaginable curse in a dozen dialects.

“You shouldn’t be here, brat!” she shouted. “This ain’t your damn place! Turn around!”

I blinked. And flipped her off.

Then I cast Heavenly Punishment, flooding it with Quintessence.

A colossal golden sword fell from the heavens above, roaring as it descended.

The old woman didn’t flinch. She pulled out her soup ladle and actually blocked the blade. Vision or not, she was terrifying.

She screamed louder than the spell.

“I’LL SPANK YOU TO OBLIVION!”

So I cast Exorcise on Gu Jie instead, ignoring her completely.

The connection tore. Light filled my vision. My breath caught…

…and I was back in my body.

I stared at her.

Gu Jie’s chest rose.

Her lips parted.

Her eyelashes fluttered like a girl waking up after a long nap.

She yawned.

Then slowly, like someone waking from a pleasant dream, she sat up. Her eyes darted around the room, confused but alert.

“W-What happened?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

I smiled.

“Welcome back,” I said. “You’ve been asleep long enough.”

“M-Master,” Gu Jie stuttered, her voice hoarse with disbelief, “you became small again…”

Her wide eyes trembled as they scanned me up and down. She reached out, barely brushing her fingers against my robes as if she wasn’t sure I was real. Then her lips quivered. “Oh no… Master, I… I failed you…”

Before I could even move, she dropped to her knees, hands shaking as she felt along the carpeted floor until her forehead pressed against it.

“I couldn’t protect them!”

Tears poured freely from her eyes, streaking her cheeks and wetting the ground beneath her. She sobbed into the floor, grief and guilt flowing out of her in waves that made my chest tighten.

I knelt beside her and gently pulled her up by the shoulders. She didn’t resist, just looked at me with reddened eyes, shame burning in them like coals. I cupped her cheek and gave her a reassuring smile.

“All’s well,” I said quietly. “Ren Jingyi is superbly alive… and she’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

Gu Jie blinked. Her breath caught in her throat. “They survived?”

“Most of them,” I replied. “Except you. And Ren Xun.”

She paled at that. “Ren Xun…”

“I’ll bring him back tomorrow,” I said with a nod. “Just rest. You’re safe now.”

But then my words caught in my throat.

“Wait,” I muttered. “What’s your problem, Shouquan?”

The old man had gone pale… almost translucent. His skin, once radiant with immortal strength, now looked waxy and cold. And then, without warning, he clutched his chest and vomited blood. Thick, dark, and alarmingly fast.

“Godsdamnit.”

I didn’t wait. I spammed Cure. Then Great Cure. Then another Great Cure. Golden light poured into Shouquan’s body with every cast, and I felt the drain on my mana like needles behind my eyes as I poured the healing spell in a continuous stream. Still, I didn’t stop.

“What happened?” I demanded.

Shouquan coughed, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. His breathing was ragged, but his voice held that same frustrating calm. “Using that much Quintessence… took more from me than I expected. And it didn’t help that we were forced to confront… a god-like immortal. One of unknowable strength.”

I blinked.

“You mean… the grandma with a soup? She almost took Gu Jie from me...”

He nodded once, slowly. “I fear we might have to postpone Ren Xun’s resurrection. My injuries have worsened.”

I stared at him, disbelief flooding my mind. “You got hurt that badly… Wait… worsened?”

“Don’t mind me,” added Shouquan, “I will recover in time.|

I let it go, for now. I turned and spammed Cure on Gu Jie too, just to be safe. Her body lit up briefly with divine light, a soft glow restoring anything the Empire’s healers might have missed.

She gave me a curious look. “I’m fine, Master…”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I said simply.

Then I turned my gaze back to Shouquan.

“Tell me something,” I said. “What actually motivated you to help me?”

He chuckled weakly. “To have you inherit my place, of course. As the guardian of the Arch Gate.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That can’t be all. It’s not just because I got cozy with your daughter, right?”

His smile faded.

“Cozy? Choose your words carefully, Da Wei…”

There was an edge of hostility to his voice… Oops, I guess?

“I’ve received signs,” he said. “Omens, prophecies… whispers from relics older than empires.”

I stayed quiet, letting him continue.

“I fear the world might end tomorrow. At the World Summit. Something is coming and I am not liking it…”

The room fell into silence. Gu Jie looked at him, then at me.

“End?” I repeated. “As in… end?”

Shouquan nodded grimly.

“Yes,” he said. “Not a battle. Not a shift of power. The world itself. The sky, the sea, the boundary of life and death. Gone.”

I sat back slowly, rubbing my temple.

“Of course it would be tomorrow,” I muttered. “Because nothing can ever just be a meeting.”