"Haha, Fang Han! I was planning to give you a hand, but I didn't expect you to summon the phantom aura of the Yellow Springs Emperor himself! No wonder that minor formless Heavenly Demon couldn't withstand such might! The remnants of its scattered spirit will make the perfect ingredient for my alchemy!"
As Yan spoke, his dragon-shaped body appeared once again within Fang Han's mind. With a sweep of his claw, the drifting essence of the shattered demon gathered into countless streams of light and was absorbed straight into the Yellow Springs Diagram.
Fang Han focused his consciousness on the diagram and saw Yan toss the demon's fragmented form into the surging River of the Yellow Springs. With a gesture, the dragon commanded the waters, wrapping the fragments tightly. A soft, rhythmic sound echoed as the river began to wash and purify the remains.
Half an hour passed before the current suddenly parted with a boom. Floating upon the surface was a single jade-green pill, no larger than a mung bean, glimmering with life.
"So small? Only the size of a bean? Those blood pills were massive! That's quite the difference. And you refined it so easily? According to Worlds Beyond Worlds, alchemy in Yuhuamen requires the finest furnaces, countless herbs, precise ratios, and constant balance of spiritual fire and force. Even true disciples spend months on a single batch—and failure is common! Yet you make it look effortless."
Fang Han knew the difficulty of alchemy well.
Once a cultivator reached the realm of supernatural powers, ordinary food became meaningless—they lived by consuming pills, whose purified energy and nutrition far surpassed any mortal sustenance. Those who lived on pills could remain youthful and vigorous indefinitely.
"The Yellow Springs Diagram is in itself a grand alchemical furnace," Yan explained. "It's not meant for combat, but for refining elixirs—it surpasses even Yuhuamen's divine Dao furnaces. The Yellow Springs Emperor created it precisely to supply his sect's millions of disciples with pills. When my strength is fully restored and you one day found your own sect with countless disciples, you'll rely on this diagram as your foundation."
"Millions of disciples?" Fang Han blinked. "Wouldn't that surpass even Yuhuamen?"
"Of course. In its prime, the Yellow Springs Sect was the foremost of the demonic path. It carved out its own dominion called the Netherworld—its ten chief disciples governed the very laws of life and death. The Yellow Springs Emperor sought to establish reincarnation itself, to bind every soul in the universe within his great order. When a being died, his disciples would immediately retrieve the spirit imprint, judge its virtue or evil, and assign its next life accordingly. The kind would be rewarded with blessed fates, while the wicked would suffer eternal torment. It was this ambition that drew the jealousy of the heavens—and led to his fall."
"To create the cycle of reincarnation…"
Even Fang Han, whose heart was as fierce and proud as the sky itself, was stunned beyond measure.
For in this world, death was final. When a person died, their spirit dispersed like smoke. Only rare anomalies lingered as ghosts or shades—and even those soon vanished.
But the Yellow Springs Emperor dreamed of constructing a net vast enough to catch every spirit, to preserve their imprints, to seize the moment of death itself. His disciples would administer judgment, maintaining the moral balance of all existence.
What kind of grandeur was that?
What scale of will and purpose?
What a terrifying, awe-inspiring determination!
"'Murderers wear golden belts, bridge-builders rot without graves!'" Yan's voice rose, deep and thunderous. "This world has no justice! The Heavenly Dao knows no good or evil! The cruel thrive, the kind perish! The mighty slay and dominate without consequence! That's why the Yellow Springs Emperor sought to redefine justice—to make the wicked suffer and the virtuous prosper! He wanted all beings to know—three feet above your head, gods watch your every act! Not even those who achieve immortality escape judgment! So he built reincarnation—to make retribution real!"
The dragon's roar shook Fang Han's mind.
"They call us demons," Yan bellowed, "but what we sought was pure, open, and righteous! Our purpose was justice itself! To make the heavens remember the word retribution!"
"To make the heavens remember…" Fang Han murmured. "Justice… consequence… good and evil…"
The idea struck him like lightning.
Good deeds rewarded, evil punished—
A world governed by justice—
That was the Yellow Springs Emperor's dream.
"Yet," Fang Han said slowly, "the Yellow Springs Sect also slaughtered countless beings and refined their souls into pills to strengthen itself. Isn't that the height of cruelty?"
"To reach the summit of light," Yan sighed, "one must sometimes walk through darkness. Even the Emperor wavered on that truth. But in the end, he chose to embrace it—'Without destruction, there can be no creation,' he said. That was his law. And that was his doom."
Fang Han fell silent for a long while before whispering, "Perhaps that was his mistake. To reach the light, one must walk with light. Justice forged through darkness isn't justice—it's hypocrisy. If one's heart is corrupt, how can one demand others be pure?"
Then he began to reflect deeply on himself. "I've never slain the innocent. Those stewards of the Fang estate—I killed them because they oppressed me beyond forgiveness. The sand bandits, the yaksha, the asura, the Heavenly Demon—all of them killed and devoured men; their deaths were deserved. Liu Kang's death came from Hong Yi; I had no hand in it, and I even tried to save him. As for Senior Sister Mo and the others—I could've silenced them to protect myself, but I didn't. I only took their flying swords to survive—they intended to use me as bait for the Red Powder Prince, and I ended up saving their lives instead."
He examined each deed, one by one, weighing motive and consequence.
In the end, Fang Han found no stain on his conscience. His actions, harsh as they were, stemmed from necessity and fairness—not malice. He had walked a perilous path, but not a dark one.
As he interrogated his own heart, clarity dawned. His spirit felt lighter, purer—like crystal being polished from within.
Then he saw it: in the depths of his mind, countless threads of light shimmered softly, fine yet unyielding, their glow steady and serene.
They were like strands of sacred jade—pure, translucent, and radiant.
His will had been refined.
His spirit was reborn in brilliance.