The village erupted into celebration. Their sons and daughters had returned, and the mission had been completed successfully. Yet nearly eighty of their youths had never returned.
Unable to reconcile the villagers' joy with such devastating losses, Elisa turned to the young girl and asked, "Why is everyone celebrating when so many of your companions died?"
The girl smiled faintly before answering, "Our customs forbid us from mourning the dead. We believe our grief becomes a burden they must carry into their next reincarnation. Even worse, excessive sorrow may become an ill omen that follows them into the afterlife."
Elisa frowned.
"And this afterlife... where is it? Does it truly exist?"
The instant those words left her lips, the entire celebration fell silent.
Every villager stopped what they were doing and turned toward her with puzzled expressions, as though she had asked whether the sky existed.
Then a deep voice broke the silence.
"It exists. Only the dead, and those with sufficient strength, are ever granted a glimpse of it."
Elisa and Solanky turned toward the speaker.
Standing calmly among the crowd was a frail, sickly-looking man.
The moment the villagers saw him, they immediately bowed. Their actions were not born from fear but from genuine respect.
"I am the village chief," the man introduced himself.
Curious, Elisa and Solanky quietly examined his cultivation.
They discovered that he had once possessed late-stage entity-level strength, but severe battle injuries and the lingering poison left behind by powerful monsters had weakened him to the mid-stage entity realm.
The chief also attempted to examine their cultivation.
He found absolutely nothing.
To him, that absence spoke louder than any measurable aura. Whatever these two beings truly were, they had long surpassed the limits of his own peak strength.
With a gentle wave of his hand, he instructed the villagers to continue celebrating before inviting Elisa and Solanky into his private residence.
Inside, the flow of space and time felt subtly different from the outside world.
The village chief slowly sat cross-legged upon the floor and motioned for the two of them to do the same.
"Seniors," he began respectfully, "you are both welcome in our village. I know that you are no ordinary forsaken, although my people remain unaware of your true identities. Their cultivation has yet to reach the level required to unlock the memories the Forsaken God sealed within every one of us before birth."
Elisa and Solanky exchanged surprised glances.
"And why would such memories be sealed in the first place?" Elisa asked.
The chief answered calmly.
"Every living being in this realm, whether monster, forsaken, or any other race, only learns about the existence of the royal forsaken after reaching the mid-stage entity realm. Revealing the truth too early would only create feelings of inferiority and weaken one's determination to continue growing stronger."
Elisa nodded thoughtfully.
"Tell us more about the royal forsaken."
Before the chief could answer, he suddenly coughed, causing blood mixed with his essence to spill from his lips.
Solanky gently interrupted.
"That discussion can wait. I assume you invited us here because you hope we'll remove the contamination from your body and help you absorb the grass."
The chief nodded.
"I never imagined the Forsaken God would truly answer my prayers by sending experts capable of helping me survive the absorption process."
Elisa tilted her head.
"What if our group hadn't returned with your youths? Would you still have absorbed the grass?"
The chief slowly shook his head.
Solanky asked, "Why not?"
The chief sighed.
"In my current condition, absorbing the grass would only grant me a few centuries of borrowed strength at the cost of my remaining life essence. The beast poison has already destabilized my life force. Once the grass releases its immense power, it would only nourish the corruption further, making it impossible to purge without completely destroying my own life essence."
Understanding dawned upon Elisa and Solanky.
"Then how should we help you remove the poison?" Elisa asked.
The chief's eyes brightened.
He immediately produced two rectangular metal shards engraved with countless lines of golden script and tossed one toward each of them.
The shards floated gently into their hands.
Both of them instantly began deciphering the technique engraved within.
For Solanky, the process took only a glance.
Elisa, however, had yet to become a true entity. Even with her extraordinary comprehension, it required the equivalent of five Earth hours before she completely mastered the profound technique.
She closed her eyes as the countless golden runes imprinted themselves within her consciousness. Moments later, she opened them again and nodded.
"I'm ready."
Together, they erected an invisible barrier around the entire village, one sturdy enough to withstand the assault of a late-stage entity. They then began weaving countless seals through the air, gradually constructing a massive formation designed to contain the poison extracted from the chief's body.
The chief calmly walked to the center of the formation and sat down between them.
The instant he settled into position, countless threads of golden light shot into his body, wrapping themselves around every strand of power flowing through him.
As the threads advanced, innumerable golden knots formed along their lengths.
Each knot absorbed the poison clinging to his energy.
The purification process was unimaginably painful.
Every golden thread sliced through his essence before immediately sealing the wound it created, extracting the corruption attached to that portion of his being.
The cycle repeated endlessly.
Cut.
Heal.
Extract.
Again and again.
Two full days passed before the last trace of contamination disappeared from his body.
Solanky looked toward Elisa with a solemn expression.
"Now comes the most important part."
He paused briefly.
"Whether his consciousness can survive being shattered and reconstructed over and over again."
The two simultaneously changed their hand seals before pressing both palms against the formation.
Every golden knot inside the chief's body rushed toward his chest, merging into a single densely compressed sphere.
The instant it formed, countless golden threads shot upward through his body and disappeared into his mind.
Above the vast sea of his consciousness floated an enormous velvet-black cloud of corruption.
It smothered nearly everything.
Only one small region remained untouched.
That place housed the chief's true self, the very essence of his consciousness.
His inner self quietly watched as the golden threads entered his consciousness and disturbed the dark clouds.
Rather than resisting, he willingly allowed the threads to bind him.
The velvet-black clouds were drawn together with his consciousness, trapped within the tightening golden knots.
Each tightening cycle tore fresh wounds across his inner self.
Every wound was instantly repaired.
With each cycle of destruction and restoration, the velvet clouds shrank further, their corruption steadily stripped away as they were compressed deeper into the golden threads.
Eventually, every trace of the corruption vanished from his consciousness.
The poison reappeared inside his chest, joining the contamination that had already been extracted from the rest of his body.
The golden threads withdrew from his consciousness and wrapped themselves around the gathered poison, compressing everything into a single golden-and-velvet core.
The completed core was slowly forced out of his body before falling into the waiting formation.
Solanky flicked a finger.
The poisonous core instantly disappeared into a separate dimension, where it was permanently sealed.
Freed from the corruption that had tormented him for countless years, the village chief's vitality slowly began returning.
His cultivation steadily recovered.
However, both Solanky and Elisa could immediately tell that, even without the poison, restoring himself naturally to his original peak would still require nearly one hundred trillion years.
The chief slowly raised a hand.
The Transcendent Grass of Eternity floated upward until it hovered directly above his head.
Elisa and Solanky immediately dispersed the golden-thread formation before focusing entirely on the grass.
Using only their consciousness, they carefully guided its vast energies, directing every strand into the chief's body while continuously refining the power as it entered him.
Little by little, the grass was completely absorbed.
His cultivation rapidly climbed.
It returned to its former late-stage entity realm...
Then continued rising.
Soon, his aura reached the very threshold of the peak-stage entity realm, standing only a single step away from breaking through completely.