Chapter 884: The death demon's self-destructive tendency

Li Qi was very curious.

In that distant ancient period, what happened between the Four Demons?

The Demon of Death was absolutely impartial; whether it was the Heavenly Demon, the Demon of the Five Aggregates, or the Demon of Affliction, he probably didn't intend to spare any of them, they all had to die.

So, according to the relationship between the Four Demons, the Heavenly Demon would certainly not hesitate to step on the Demon of Death, and it's likely that all the Great Powers contributed to the Demon of Death's demise.

And now, three of the Four Demons are extremely active; the Heavenly Demon even risks being beaten up by constantly jumping out of the Heavens of the Formless Realm, and his repeated provocations have probably already drawn the interference of the Buddhas.

The Demon of the Five Aggregates (questionable) personally appeared to give Li Qi the True Knowledge Dao Resonance, and as soon as he acted, there were five strands, and he is still active.

The Demon of Affliction personally gathered fighting power and wanted to join the Human-Shaman War, but it's unknown which side he would help.

So, in this situation, do you think the Demon of Death lineage's cultivators had no ambition? Li Qi himself didn't believe it.

However, the question is, what was their ambition?

According to common speculation, it should be to bring about the end of all things, which is the ultimate goal of the Demon of Death lineage.

If the Shaman seeks to create a natural world, and humanity wants to replace Heaven with man, then the world desired by the Demon of Death lineage is a world where nothing exists.

Li Qi was quite knowledgeable about the Demon of Death lineage, as he had dissected and interpreted the Demon of Death’s Dao Resonance, thus gaining much knowledge and insight.

As a Demonic Dao, they still possessed clear and self-aware cognition; the Demon of Death lineage fully understood their own situation, but through the entire Dao Orthodoxy of the Demonic Dao's argumentation about this world, they were convinced that the world is void.

This world is inherently meaningless, it is void, and the values and meanings pursued are illusory, and such pursuit is futile.

Thus, the manifestation of this void is the negation of life force; everything that denies the value of life in reality, that causes life force to decline, is a pursuit of the void.

This pursuit is a feeling, a sense of absurdity.

According to Li Qi's understanding of the Demon of Death lineage, they themselves felt the very act of 'living' was absurd; these thorough nihilists, living in this world, felt that everything was absurd and meaningless, and anything anyone did was meaningless.

The source of this meaninglessness is, in fact, that the world itself has no inherent purpose or meaning; as the saying goes, Heaven and Earth are unkind, treating all things as straw dogs. The world merely exists there, neither good nor bad, neither sorrowful nor joyful. It is not inherently void, but the true source of absurdity lies in the fact that we humans always ask about purpose and meaning.

Therefore, we who live in this world always project our expectations of purpose and meaning onto it, but as we just said, the world itself carries no purpose or meaning. Every time we want to ask the world for meaning, but the world gives us no answer, so we always feel a deep sense of separation between our existence and the world itself, and this sense of separation is the source of the void.

The sense of void made the cultivators of the Demon of Death lineage feel that this world was irrelevant to them, and irrelevant to any essence.

If the essence of the world and humans is to survive, then humans live to live, and no one would commit suicide.

If the essence of the world and humans is kindness, then humans would be born good to others, and there would be no evil in the world.

If the essence of the world and humans is equality, then those who earn more money would share it, and we would not feel the disparities of the world.

But it is obvious that people are diverse, and so is the world; humans have no essence.

Humans possess all attributes, and the world likewise possesses all attributes.

Therefore, it means that humans and the world essentially do not need to possess any essence or any attributes.

The world can have infinite occurrences, and humans can do an infinite number of things, but no one has to do anything, and no world has to have anything happen.

So, since the essence of the world is void, let it return to the void.

This statement seems extreme, but in fact... Li Qi also had his own feelings about it.

For Li Qi, his cultivation was like this: thinking itself was the root of suffering; the more he thought, the more he suffered.

The more he understood, the more he felt the insignificance of his own life.

The outside world was like a dark continent; if one were a blind worm, only knowing how to wriggle and seek food, though plagued by hunger and thirst, there would still be a trace of joy to speak of.

But if one opened his eyes, all that would greet him would be endless torment.

Thinking brought suffering, but if one wanted to solve suffering, there was only thinking.

But that was just drinking poison to quench thirst.

You burn your light of thought, solve one suffering, and immediately another will come.

This is like Sisyphus.

It's like pushing a boulder to the top of a mountain, only for it to roll down again the moment it reaches the peak, all efforts wasted, thus repeating endlessly, never stopping.

Li Qi's journey of seeking the Dao was like this; he ascended a Grade, and then could only continue to pursue upward, Breakthrough once, and then pursue the next Breakthrough?

Well, what the First Grades pursue is nothing more than this, right? What's the difference between them and Li Qi?

What's the difference between Li Qi and those Seventh Grades?

For example, love makes people happy, but in reality, as long as you love, you will feel heartache, even heartbreak.

This is destined.

From the moment you 'love', it is destined that you will lose love, because nothing is immortal; love will also expire and spoil, and happiness is destined to decline from the moment it is born.

The appearance of joy signifies the appearance of boredom, and when 'life' appears in this world, 'death' also appears.

Do you love? Regardless of the answer, there is only one outcome, and that is failure.

Even if you win, the result is still failure.

In a world where both winning and losing are failures, what is worth pursuing?

If you want to keep your heart whole, then don't love anything, but if you don't love anything, what use is your heart?

If one had to describe it in one sentence, it would be 'drawing the sword and looking around with a bewildered heart'.

I draw my long sword against this world, but what good is it?

Everything, everything points to a single outcome, the only necessary outcome, which is "Nirvana".

Since the world itself is void, let it return to true void, thus eliminating the Sisyphean futility and ending all torment.

The Demon of Death lineage believes that life will never have any satisfying meaning, and all attempts are futile and illusory; this will be a form of self-termination, negative and destructive to all spirits, a manifestation of destroying the unpleasant ideals imposed by all things.

They seek to negate and destroy a completely indifferent Universe.

This is part of what Li Qi learned from the Demon of Death’s Dao Resonance.

Of course, there were also various kinds of people among them; some Demon of Death cultivators chose to end their own lives, but there were still some who chose to help others end theirs.

As for the Demon of Death himself...

According to Li Qi's observations and calculations, he should have both tendencies.

The Demon of Death possessed a strong self-destructive tendency; in other words, the Demon of Death himself greatly desired to commit suicide, even as a First Grade. In fact, Li Qi believed it was very likely his own choice that led to the initial demise of the Demon of Death.

The Demon of Death was not a fool; did he not know what the result of declaring war on the entire Universe would be?

Not to mention that it was precisely the 'Great Struggle' at that time, a super-large-scale chaotic battle caused by the event of spreading the Dao throughout the world.

Emperors, Sages, Shaman Gods, True Immortals, Buddhas, and even the Great Sage of the Demon Race and the Four Demons would personally preach the Dao, and everyone could listen, with almost no threshold.

All Dao Orthodoxys selflessly propagated their Dao, and everyone could obtain orthodox Legacy.

There were no difficult entry tests or anything; precious knowledge from the First Grades was widely spread throughout the entire Universe, and everyone's cultivation speed was astonishingly fast.

Under such circumstances, the Demon of Death still defiantly initiated the destruction of the entire Universe, which was probably driven by the impulse to destroy the whole world, and at the same time, had a strong self-destructive tendency.

Anyone could die, as long as something died.

The final outcome is already known: the Demon of Death disappeared from then on.

And that era also ended because of it.

After all, the birth of that era was ultimately due to the attempts of the First Grades.

First Grades possessed the ability to reshape all reality, so in that period, energy was infinite, all Heaven And Earth Treasures were readily available, and all cultivation resources were complete and flawless. Even just being born in that period, one could enjoy the wondrous sight of reaching the end of the world with a single step.

However, this was not a 'natural' state; in fact, such prosperity was built upon many First Grades actively expending their power to maintain the world.

The 'Haotian', known for his gentleness, did not participate in this action, but 'Taiyi' was very interested in it.

But the final outcome is well-known.

Having everything, the best resources, none of the Geniuses in the Universe were wasted, everything was perfect, and everyone could grow in the way that suited them best.

But all of this led to an epic Dao struggle; the Nine Lands Under Heaven, with nine factions, divided into five hundred and eleven groups, attacking each other and engaging in chaotic battles.

Now, it's just the Human, Shaman, and Dragon races fighting, and the Universe has already become like this; one can imagine what the intensity of that war was like.

Therefore, at that time, the power of the Demon of Death was directly pushed to its extreme.

When this situation occurred, the great Dao Orthodoxys could not help but sigh, that even with all this, it did not mean that sentient beings possessed wisdom and freedom.

Ultimately, they chose another path, which was to inspire more people through 'diversity'.

A perfect world is not necessarily perfect, but a diverse world should be very exciting.

So, in the current Universe, there are miserable people, and happy people; there are suffering people, and joyful people.

Beings with higher intelligence will experience various situations and gain inspiration from them.

Whether resources are scarce or abundant, the essence is the same—it is all experience. Experience and knowledge will accumulate in life, and then ignite the fire of thought.

Only the sparks ignited by everything witnessed throughout one's entire life can illuminate the dark path of seeking the Dao.

However, Li Qi was still very curious.

The Desire Realm is the collection of all reality's projections, a chaotic soup formed by the condensed thoughts of sentient beings.

So, in that past era, what was the Desire Realm like?

What kind of Desire Realm would the desires of sentient beings at that time have shaped?

Therefore, in this situation... Li Qi, by exploring the Desire Realm with his current methods, might be able to touch upon the hidden secrets of the former Desire Realm and find past stories from its many facets.

Li Qi did this, thinking, constantly 'traversing' the entire Desire Realm.

In this process, he sowed seeds, spread the concept of 'void', and at the same time witnessed everything in the Desire Realm.

He continued this for four thousand five hundred years.

Li Qi had never felt time pass so easily; he clearly wanted to finish quickly and return, yet, with just a moment of carelessness, thousands of years had passed.

There was indeed a reason why the Great Powers hadn't appeared for a long time; every single thing they had to do required a huge amount of time and effort.

For example, Li Qi now wanted to complete his plan, and a few thousand years was already the result of his super overtime work, and it still seemed endless.

Hmm... while maintaining things here, I'll send a Dharma body to find Shen Shuibi.

He missed his wife.

And, he was also curious about how his Little rabbit had developed.

Although he could rely on deduction, Li Qi preferred to see with his own eyes.

So, he split off a Dharma body, and at the cost of lowering his work efficiency, temporarily returned to the Nine Lands Under Heaven.

In fact, the cost was not just reduced work efficiency, but also a certain degree of danger.

The current Li Qi was not 'complete' in the Desire Realm.

Being incomplete, this was a significant disadvantage in battles of the same level, and it was one of the reasons Li Qi had been reluctant to return.

But he couldn't hold back anymore.

Thinking about it, no one would take advantage of this opportunity to act, right? After all, the Demonic Dao had always adopted a policy of ignoring him, and Demonic Dao cultivators above Third Grade would walk around Li Qi.

Meanwhile, in the Nine Lands Under Heaven, at Mystic Radiance Mountain Immortal Cave.

As soon as the Dharma body arrived, Li Qi felt an ominous aura.

Although the surroundings were still picturesque, with clear mountains and beautiful waters, and the sun was bright, everything seemed unchanged, but a subtle sense of melancholy vaguely pervaded the area.

A gloomy power lingered in the atmosphere of the mountain, and although Mortals couldn't perceive it, to Li Qi's senses, it felt exceptionally heavy.

However, in the next moment, this gloomy and melancholic atmosphere was swept away.

Because Li Qi had arrived.

Shen Shuibi transformed into a stream of light and rushed out of the Immortal Cave, immediately embracing Li Qi.

"You scoundrel... you left without saying a word. The first thing Teacher Zhu told me when I came out of seclusion was that you went to the Desire Realm..." Shen Shuibi gripped Li Qi tightly, the usually calm and serene beauty now gritting her teeth.

"See? I'm fine, aren't I? Where's Shi Wei?" Li Qi smiled.

"I've locked her琵琶骨 (pipa bone), she's at the base of the mountain." The Little rabbit replied. (End of Chapter)