Immortal Paladin

446 An Honest Promise

I brandished Silver Steel and felt the tremor run up my arm. I was close to my limit, and I could tell my disciples were not far behind. Even so, the players had truly pulled their weight this time, fighting with a ferocity and coordination that tipped the balance again and again. With everyone around me, my odds had risen to something survivable. Still, I knew we had reached the point where this could no longer be shared. This was something I had to face alone.

At my core, I understood that my counterpart would not fall so easily. If our roles were reversed, I would have despised myself for not seeing through such an ending, for not pushing further, for not devouring the other me outright.

I had restrained myself from using Divine Possession as much as possible, knowing full well what it could cost me, but I doubted David would show the same restraint. The curiosity gnawed at me relentlessly. I wanted to fully know him, to understand the way he saw this reality, even if it meant risking the loss of myself.

“DA WEI!”

A surge of power erupted from David, far greater than anything before. The pressure alone distorted the air and forced the sands into motion. I recognized it immediately as the lingering effect of Exalted Renewal, and the realization tightened my grip on Silver Steel. That kind of sustained amplification was going to be difficult to overcome.

“I’M HERE, DAVID!” I shouted back, drawing in a breath as I steadied my control over the Dark Veil. I had recovered just enough to keep it from unraveling completely.

Yuen Fu descended on David with thunderous speed, his attack sharp and decisive, but David parried it cleanly this time. In the same motion, he severed one of his own arms to tear free from a binding chain and forcibly shattered the other to escape a second restraint. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The brutality of it made my chest tighten. With a single step, he crossed half the distance between us, his regeneration already at work. My own arm, which he had cut off earlier, finished reforming as if to mirror his resolve.

David swung his sword at me, and I met it head-on. Our weapons locked, metal screaming against metal, as I dispersed the sands beneath us and let the Dark Veil swallow us whole. Darkness closed in, thick and absolute, yet we could still see each other through the colors of our armor and the glow of our power.

We exchanged a flurry of sword movements, each strike precise and familiar, calling out each other’s names as if anchoring ourselves to reality.

“DA WEI!”

“DAVID!”

The rhythm continued until even the shouting lost its meaning. We broke apart at the same time and stared each other down, both of us battered, our armor cracked and ruined, our breaths heavy.

“There’s no need to think too much about it,” I said, my voice hoarse but steady.

“Yeah, you’re right,” David answered, his expression strangely calm.

At the same instant, we made the same decision. Power surged, intent aligned, and the world seemed to hold its breath as we invoked the Ultimate Skill that had come to define us both.

“Divine Possession.”

I blinked awake and realized I was falling from the sky.

The sensation was unmistakable, and the irony was not lost on me. This was the same beginning David had experienced. Right now, I was reliving his memories, sinking into them as they merged with my own. I knew, without needing proof, that David must be experiencing the same process on his end. How the victor would be decided after this was unclear to me. If I had to guess, it would come down to willpower. Whose sense of self would endure longer under the weight of two lives colliding.

I crashed into the side of a mountain and carved out a massive crater. Stone shattered, dust billowed, and the impact rattled through my bones. I let out a sigh. A moment later, I realized the sigh was not mine. It belonged to David. Even so, the memory continued to drag me deeper, refusing to loosen its grip.

As I stood up and brushed rubble from my armor, I found myself comparing what I was experiencing to my own recollections. When I first arrived in this world, just outside Yellow Dragon City, had I sighed like this as well? I could not remember.

I began searching for signs of civilization, moving on instinct more than intention. My steps slowed when I reached a familiar location. According to the memories flooding my mind, this was where the Temple of the Four Heroes should have been. Before I could reflect further, a small figure rushed toward me.

“Stranger! You must leave this place at once! This is not where you belong!”

She did not finish her warning. I had already reached down and lifted her by the scruff of her clothes as if she were an unruly cat.

“Hey! Put me down!” she shouted, kicking furiously. “I will not show you mercy!”

I frowned at her and spoke without thinking. “Kid, where are your parents? Why are you alone out here? Don’t they know this place is dangerous? This looks like the wilds. What if you ran into a bear?”

“A bear is nothing to me!” she yelled indignantly. “I am a great dragon!”

She thrust her spear at me in a flurry of strikes. The blows landed, but they did nothing. They barely even registered, more irritating than painful. I felt an absurd urge to laugh.

“Hey, stop that,” I said. “I might toss you into the forest.”

“You are not scaring me!”

“What are you even doing here?”

“I am on a pilgrimage!”

“A pilgrimage.”

“Yes! I am going to visit the Temple of the Four Heroes!”

I paused, then nodded. “Oh, fancy. Lead the way.”

Little Zhou Yong sighed and crossed her arms, clearly offended. “How is that possible? My attacks are not working on you. But you are clearly just a mortal.”

I scoffed and tilted my head. “Yeah? And how is this for mortal?”

Before she could protest, I tossed her straight upward. I casually picked at my nose and waited, already preparing to catch her on the way down. I was even considering throwing up a barrier spell so she would not hurt herself on landing.

She did not fall.

She simply stopped in midair, suspended as if the world itself had agreed to hold her there.

I blinked and looked up. “You can fly?”

She puffed out her chest. “I am a dragon, so yes, I can fly. Also, I am at the Seventh Realm right now. I would be an idiot if I could not manage something as simple as levitation.”

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I nodded, mildly impressed. “Fair enough. So where is this temple, anyway?”

Her expression brightened immediately. “Hah. So you must be a pilgrim too.”

We talked as we ascended the mountain together. It was surprisingly pleasant. She rambled endlessly about her ambitions, her cultivation, and how one day she would become a dragon worthy of legends. Eventually, we reached a flat clearing just outside the temple. Four large statues stood there, unfinished and rough, their forms only barely suggested in stone.

An old man stood before them, pale-skinned, his eyes dull and lifeless as he stared in our direction.

Zhou Yong shrieked. “Ah, an evil spirit!”

I grabbed the back of her head, rapped her lightly, and forced her into a bow. “Apologies. The kid has a big mouth. You know how it is. So, sculpting, huh? I might not look like it, but I have some background in the arts.”

The old man was familiar to me. It was Jue Bu, or rather, his reincarnation in this era. He gave a slow nod and returned to carving the statue, chisel tapping rhythmically against stone.

This version of Jue Bu felt strange to me. For one thing, he was not acting like a pervert. That alone made him feel unfamiliar.

“Mufufufufufu,” Jue Bu suddenly laughed under his breath, leaning closer as he whispered, “You are going to be my masterpiece.”

I reconsidered my assessment. No, he was still very much himself. After so many reincarnations, while retaining memories and suffering through bizarre fates, it would be stranger if he were normal.

Zhou Yong tugged on my sleeve. “Hey, can we enter, old man?”

Jue Bu ignored her completely.

“Let us just go in,” I said.

I stepped into the Temple of the Four Heroes, with Zhou Yong trailing behind me. The interior looked exactly like the version I had seen in the recorded past, though if anything, it felt even more bare here. Fewer decorations. Less history carved into the walls.

“Who are you?” a woman demanded.

She had dark hair and golden eyes. This was it. David’s first meeting with Wen Yuhan.

Even though this was only a memory, an ache formed in my chest the moment I saw her. It was sharp and unfamiliar, yet undeniably real.

Wen Yuhan narrowed her eyes. “Do not tell me. I think I know who you are.”

I allowed myself to sink deeper into the memory as I answered, “Really? I am not sure about that. This is the first time we are meeting.”

Her expression twisted. “How dare you take advantage of me? Do you think fate is a joke? I have suffered enough.”

Zhou Yong leaned toward me and whispered, “So, are you two lovers?”

“This is my first time here, brat,” I whispered back as I raised my hands defensively, exasperated by how quickly things had gone off the rails. “Surely there is a misunderstanding somewhere.”

“There is none,” Wen Yuhan snapped. “I will have you take responsibility.”

Zhou Yong nodded solemnly. “That sounds pretty serious.”

Wen Yuhan stepped forward, her voice ringing through the hall. “Now, Yellow Emperor, take away the destiny you forced upon me.”

I froze.

Yellow Emperor? Me?

There was absolutely no way.

What followed was a terrible life-and-death battle.

Unlike me, who had been eased into this world with something akin to a tutorial and spared from clashing head-on with an Eleventh Realm cultivator as my very first enemy, David had been thrown straight into hell. And now, because I was reliving his life, I experienced every moment of it myself.

“Ah, shit, shit! Lady, that’s too much! You’re insane!” I shouted as I ran for my life. “I keep telling you, I’m not this Yellow Emperor guy, okay? Why do you even think I’m him? Do I look yellow to you? Look at the color of my cape, damn it. Hey… no whipping!”

It was utter chaos. I died again and again, only to resurrect just as many times, my body reforming while the pain stubbornly lingered.

“Why don’t you die!?” Wen Yuhan screamed, her voice hoarse with fury and grief.

“Because I don’t want to die, bitch!” I snapped back, desperation spilling over. “Isn’t that obvious!?”

She faltered, her attacks losing their rhythm. Tears streamed down her face as she cried out, “You forced a destiny on me. You made me seek the destinies of others. I can’t do it anymore. It hurts. It hurts everywhere. There’s only suffering left.”

I stopped. For the first time, I really looked at her. Not as an enemy, not as an Eleventh Realm monster, but as a broken woman barely holding herself together.

There was clearly more to the Destiny Seeking Eyes than I had ever known.

David felt it too. His anger drained away, replaced by something heavy and aching. He lowered his weapon and spoke carefully, “I don’t know anything about this Yellow Emperor, but he sounds like a real jerk. If it really hurts that much… then why don’t you stop?”

She stared at him, genuinely stunned. “I can… stop?”

The thought had only crossed Wen Yuhan’s mind at that moment, because of Da Wei.

Back then, she had been spiraling into a long depression. She had lost her friends. She was losing control of her eyes. Time itself felt slippery to her, distorted ever since the Heavenly Demon had split it and thrown the flow of history into chaos.

From there, David and Wen Yuhan began to talk. Slowly. Carefully. They came to understand each other, then to trust one another… and perhaps something more.

Zhou Yong coughed loudly from the side. “I came here to hear legends about the Dragon God, you know. Maybe learn a few techniques. Not to watch the two of you being all lovey-dovey.”

Naturally, she was ignored.

That night, David and Wen Yuhan sat together beneath a sky filled with unfamiliar stars. David looked up and said, “In my world, we have these things called constellations. I don’t recognize any of them here. That just proves it, doesn’t it? I really am in a different world.”

Wen Yuhan fell silent for a moment before replying softly, “Then finding your way back home might be harder than we think.”

“We’ll make it work,” David said, more confident than he felt. “We had a deal, right?”

The deal was simple.

Wen Yuhan would help David find a way home.

And David would help Wen Yuhan break free from her destiny.

It wasn’t that easy.

Through David’s eyes, I learned a terrible truth about the Destiny Seeking Eyes. They were not merely a rare gift or an exalted power. They were an Immortal Art, one that cheated the restraints of reality itself at the cost of shouldering the consequences of fate. Every miracle demanded payment, and the bill was always paid in suffering.

Through this Immortal Art, one could reach into the False Earth and drag Ancient Souls into the present world, hoping to wield those terrifying existences as weapons against the Heavenly Demon. That was only one of its applications, but it was enough to make my skin crawl. Power like that was never meant to be used freely.

When Wen Yuhan’s friends, the other four heroes, perished, she became the one who bore the consequences of their destinies. Their unfinished paths, their regrets, their pain, all of it collapsed onto her shoulders. And it hurt. It hurt in ways that words could not describe.

Only through Divine Possession was David able to relieve her, even a little. Each time he shared her burden, siphoning away fragments of that accumulated fate, I felt the toll it took on him as well. Every episode where she lost herself, where madness crept in and pain drowned her reason, tore at him just as deeply.

Why did he feel these things so intensely? David himself didn’t know.

But I did.

Back in my own timeline, at my lowest point, when I was most vulnerable and stripped of all pretense, I had felt something eerily similar. That same ache, that same instinct to shoulder pain that wasn’t mine, simply because I could not bear to watch someone else suffer alone.

I continued living through David’s time, watching him interact with Wen Yuhan as days turned into nights and hope slowly eroded.

“Hey, David, I found a clue about how you can go back home,” Wen Yuhan said one day, her voice bright with forced optimism.

David wasn’t enthused. I could feel his weariness. By then, every so-called clue had ended in disappointment, and he had grown tired of chasing ghosts.

Wen Yuhan pressed on anyway. “We just have to bestow a powerful destiny onto you. One strong enough to let you return home. Isn’t that great?”

A sharp ache bloomed in David’s chest. It was immediate and suffocating.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Wen Yuhan asked, her brows knitting together in confusion.

David must have looked terrible, because the emotions surging through him were ugly, desperate, and raw. He wanted it. Gods, he wanted it so badly. But he also knew, deep down, that the cost would be unbearable.

In the end, the words that came out were weak and trembling. “No, it’s fine. We don’t need to go down this route.”

Wen Yuhan frowned. “I think it works perfectly fine. We don’t even have to worry about the Destiny Seeking—”

David reached out and took her hand before she could finish. His grip was tight, almost pleading.

“Please,” he said softly, his voice breaking. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

After all, David could tell lies apart better than most. Living inside his memories, I shared the full weight of that realization.

“If we do it the way you’re suggesting,” he continued, forcing the words out, “what kind of consequence would you have to suffer? I can’t… I can’t have that on my conscience, Yuhan. I can’t.”

She pulled back slightly, pain flashing across her face. “But at least one of us would get what they want.”

“But not like this,” David said, his voice firm despite the tears threatening to surface. “Not by destroying you.”

Wen Yuhan fell silent after that.

The night stretched on, as if even the stars were holding their breath. David kept holding her hand, afraid that if he let go, something irreversible would happen. I felt that fear as if it were my own. It was the fear of crossing a line you could never step back from, even if the prize on the other side was everything you ever wanted.

She finally spoke, her voice small. “Then what am I supposed to do with these eyes?”

David hesitated. He had no grand answer, no enlightened solution. He was not a sage or a prophet, just a man who wanted to go home and did not want to leave ruin behind him. “Then don’t use them alone,” he said. “If it hurts, tell me. If you lose control, I’ll pull you back. We’ll figure it out together.”

It was an irresponsible promise. It was also the most honest one he could make.