Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"You know you are going to die, right?"

Alex heard a voice speaking to him from all directions and yet a specific place all at once.

He tried to look for the source of the voice, but his eyes wouldn't open. He tried to sense it, but he found that he lacked spiritual sense.

"Failure is inevitable. Death is inevitable," the voice said. "Why fear the inevitable? Welcome it as though it were your lifelong friend. Once you accept the inevitable, there will be nothing to fear."

Alex heard the voice again. It echoed from every direction he tried to focus on. Who was speaking? And why was the voice so familiar?

Alex had a feeling he had heard this voice before, a long time ago. And yet, he also had a feeling that he heard this voice every single day. Every single waking moment, he would hear this voice.

Just what was going on?

"Just give up. Give up and be free from all burden," the voice said.

Give up?

Why was this voice telling him to give up? Should he give up? Giving up felt so easy.

"No," Alex said out loud.

Why? Why did he refuse to give up? Alex couldn't understand, but something told him that he had to refuse this. He could not give up.

Give up on what exactly? He was not sure.

"You know what you must do right now. It is not too late. Take your family and your people and leave right now. If you do, you will survive. If not, everyone you know and love will die."

"You know what to do."

I know what to do.

Alex had a faint idea of what he must do. If he left right now… if he left… leave where?

'The Eastern Continent,' he thought. A piece of the puzzle was solved. If he left the Eastern Continent he would… be…

Memories were hard to touch for him at the moment. He wanted to remember, but something blocked every attempt at the moment.

He would be… free? Was that it? Free. Free of what?

'Immortal.' The thought came to Alex almost naturally.

What immortal?

He heard a distant thunder. He saw a flash of bright light.

'Lightning?' he thought and another word came to his mind. 'Tribulation lightning.'

Just as quickly, the rest of the information flowed right through to him.

'Immortal breakthrough,' he thought. 'The Dragon Emperor.'

"The Dragon Emperor is breaking through to the Immortal realm," he said as he finally remembered what was happening.

"Yes!" the voice replied. "You understand what is going on. Then you must understand what you must do as well. Run away."

"Run away?" Alex asked. "I cannot. I should not. I have to—"

"Fight?" the voice asked. "And die? And kill all your family and friends along just for that?"

"I must fight," Alex said.

"Why?" the voice asked.

"For revenge. For what the Dragon Emperor has done to us," Alex said.

"What has he done to you?" the voice asked.

Memories were more clear now, crisper. As though whatever was stopping him from viewing these memories wanted him to see them now.

He remembered the horrifying state his sister was in. He saw the state in which Pearl's mother died right in front of him. He saw how Yao Ning had her body destroyed right in front of him.

"A lot of things," Alex said. He was about to list them out when the voice spoke again.

"Your sister? The Dragon Emperor did that to her. That was not something he did to you," the voice said. "Pearl's mother? Again, that is not you."

"He killed Yao Ning right in front of me, and I was crippled by him just after that," Alex retorted.

"Yao Ning was killed, yes. But you were simply wounded. Crippled? With your Undying physique, who could cripple you? You came back so easily, didn't you?"

"You have no need to kill yourself just to get revenge for somebody else."

'This person does not know what he is saying,' Alex thought. 'It doesn't understand why I must fight.'

"Oh I do understand," the voice remarked. "For honor, is it not? For glory. To tell the world that you killed the Dragon Emperor, the man hailed as the strongest human in the entire world."

"You just want your name to spread. That is it. You do not wish for revenge. You do not wish for justice. You're not in it for the reasons you claim you are. All you want is to appear righteous while you kill a person deemed the strongest."

Alex paused after hearing those words. 'No,' he thought. 'That's not why I'm doing it, right? I'm doing it for my sister, for Pearl, for Yao Ning. Not for… not for…'

The words were getting to him. He started to doubt the reason he had come to the Eastern Continent

For dozens of years, he had heard about the Dragon Emperor. The man who ruled the Eastern Continent. The man who led a war against the Western Continent. The only man to have survived for nearly 10 thousand years as a saint without reaching the end of his life.

The Dragon Emperor was an iconic figure in the world. Perhaps the greatest person to have ever lived here besides the Immortals. He was a legend.

Was he here to destroy that legend? Was he here to kill the Dragon Emperor and make a legend of his own? Become an icon of power in the world just like the Dragon Emperor.

Alex started to fear that deep down in his heart, that might have been the case. He had never thought about it, but what if that was the truth?

What if revenge and justice were words he used to blind others into giving up their lives for him, while all he ever wanted was to best the best?

"No," Alex said in a fervent tone. "That is not it. That is not why I waged this war. That is not why I fight this impossible fight."

"Then why do you fight?" the voice asked.

"I fight because this is the right thing to do. I fight because if I don't, more will suffer in the same way everyone else has in the past. I fight because the crimes of the Dragon Emperor are too big to leave him alone."

"I fight because if I don't, who will?"

His voice came out as a roar that spread in all directions at once, echoing all throughout the vacant space of his mind.

He had come to understand just what was happening finally. He was dealing with his Inner Demon.

This was perhaps the first time it had taken him this long to realize he was dealing with an Inner Demon. He had not been prepared for it this time as he had in the past.

'I am going through a breakthrough,' Alex thought. 'I don't have time. I must hurry up.'

Of course, knowing that he was dealing with an Inner Demon wasn't going to help him much at all. That was just how it was.

"So you have told me why you fight this battle," the Inner Demon spoke. "Then tell me, is this a fight you can win?"