67 A Will Grows Through Struggles III

The red clouds were a blur, almost as if they were surrounded by a faint mist of blood. Under their sinister glow, they looked even more bizarre and ominous. Amon, however, was not concerned about it.

He was trying his best to overcome the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and numbness he had and properly focus on them. He had the impression the clouds were vibrating, so he wanted to look at it better.

The sense of incongruity he felt eased somewhat as he looked above intently. That bloody light reflected in his eyes as he gazed at them, and for the first time he was sure there was movement. The red clouds were indeed vibrating.

The speed of their vibrations, however, was absurd. It was too fast for him to properly see, even with his heightened senses thanks to his Body Tempering.

He spread his divine sense, trying to reach for the clouds. If he managed to reach one of them, maybe he could slow them down. Yes, if he could adapt the clouds to his own pace, maybe he could solve the problem.

The moment he thought of this, his divine sense shot up, expanding way farther than usual. It easily covered the clouds, the ground and everything around him in a radius that spammed kilometers.

It was a strange, but addictive feeling. Even if everything was the same, Amon felt that the whole area was under his control. He could feel every depression, every nook and cranny of the vitrified ground.

He could also feel every wisp of red steam, every billowing part of the red clouds as they vibrated lightly. In this area, Amon was in absolute control. It was as if it was an extension of his body, something he could move at a whim.

And so he did. With a mere though, the clouds' vibration started turning unstable, and Amon was able to see it more clearly. It became slower and slower, and Amon felt the discomfort going away as he started being able to see what was happening.

A loud rumble started echoing from far away, but Amon paid no mind to it. He wanted to discover what was behind the clouds. He felt there was something there he needed to understand.

The vibrations he saw… were no vibrations at all. The clouds were actually dispersing and reforming in an endless cycle. Just like that, there was so much happening that he could not see. Only if they were slower…

He focused again, trying to make the clouds slow down even further. The cycles that were repeated a few times every second started almost coming to a halt. The rumbling became even louder, and the ground started quaking.

Amon was surprised, but still forced the clouds to slow down. For the first time, he saw it clearly. In an incredibly slow pace, a cloud gradually faded out of existence. Amon was able to feel every detail about it; he knew its shape with a precision of millimeters.

When it disappeared, a new one took its place. However, there was a difference. It was a very subtle, very minute difference in their shape.

There was no way Amon would be able to see it looking at it from afar. Much less if his divine sense hadn't expanded like crazy or he had forced the world to adapt to his own pacing. As he looked at the clouds and an idea formed in his head, the rumbling turned as loud as a thunder, and the ground started to crack under the intense quaking.

Amon felt it all, but even if he tried to calm it down, he failed. His will was supreme under his divine sense, but the world was fighting back. Being forced like this was tearing it apart. Amon looked in dismay as the cracks on the ground grew wider and deeper, and the rumbling got wilder and louder, as if the sky itself would fall over his head.

With a regretful look on his face, he let go of his surroundings, retracting his divine sense. The clouds returned to their vibrations, and eventually turned completely still again. The rumbling stopped, and the ground quaked no more.

Everything was still again. A place with no life. A place with no disparity. A place with no movement.

A place where the only thing that seemed to struggle against the stillness was himself.

However, was that really the case?

No.

The clouds were ongoing countless cycles of being dispersed and reformed as he looked at them. Even if the difference was minimal, there was also disparity between them. It was simply that Amon could not see it.

The cycle of the clouds was too fast.

Or maybe Amon was too fast.

Was his notion of time slower, making it almost come to a halt or was he experiencing millennia in what seemed to be the blink of an eye?

What Amon realized as he looked at the clouds was that it was relative.

He looked up again, spreading his divine sense. This time, however he did not focus on the clouds. He focused on himself.

Maybe what needed to change was he, not his surroundings.

He spread his divine sense again, sensing the clouds. This time, however, he did not move the clouds, he did not restrain them. Rather, he moved himself.

Yet again, the clouds turned blurry, and slowly Amon could see them vibrating.

A rumbling sound echoed again in the distance, and the ground quaked as he focused further.

Like before, as he and the clouds got closer and closer to a synchrony, the rumbling increased, and the quaking turned more violent.

This time, however, Amon felt a sharp pain spreading through his body. It was only them that he realized his state. Something was weighing heavily on him, obstructing his breathing and rupturing his skin.

There was no rumbling coming from the skies, rather it was coming from his muscles tensing up and tearing apart, as well as his bones creaking and fracturing.

There was no quaking in the ground, rather, it was his own body trembling as it could not resist the pressure.

If the world could not endure as Amon forced it to adapt to his time, Amon also could not endure when he tried to adapt to the world.

He wondered if this was what immortality would feel like. Looking at people come and go as if they were the red clouds in the dark sky, being born and dying so fast that he would not even realize it, as if they were still. Being so similar in the distance that he would not be able to tell the difference.

Because an immortal would live in a different dimension. His time would be completely different from that of a mortal's. He wouldn't be able to bring them to his own pacing. It would break them, or it would break the world.

If, however, he adjusted to their pacing, it would only bring harm to him. He would end up destroying himself as he tried to live in the world from which he had ascended. As an immortal, he had discarded his own mortality. Trying to return to it was the same as denying all that he was.

There would be no balance when two different times collided like this. All that would happen was the destruction of one or the other.

The immortal and mortal would never be able to coexist.

Cultivators were at the boundary between both worlds. They would either die as any other mortal or leave that realm behind forever. This was what cultivation was about.

Cultivators were nothing but mortals struggling alone. They died alone if they failed, and they forever lived alone if they succeeded.

Cultivators were truly pitiful.