Chapter Fifty-Seven: Li Hao’s Transformation

At this moment, Li Hao felt as if he existed within a boundless, ethereal space. Here, there was no sound, no sunlight, no night, and no living things—only himself. Yet, upon deeper reflection, it seemed he was not entirely alone.

Slowly, nine youths with identical faces but dressed in different attire appeared around him. Li Hao asked, “Who are you?”

Nine identical voices echoed from the depths of his soul: “We are you. We are Li Hao.”

“Impossible, this can’t be. How could there be nine more of myself?”

The nine figures spoke in unison, “If you don’t believe us, look closely!”

Li Hao didn’t understand what they wanted him to see. After pondering for a moment, he carefully observed the nine before him. As he watched them, they too studied him.

Yet each of the nine regarded him with different eyes. When Li Hao focused his attention on the youth in white on the far left, he noticed a gentle smile on his face. Upon seeing that smile, Li Hao found himself unable to restrain his own emotions and began to smile as well. Whatever came to his mind filled him with happiness.

Next, he looked at the second youth, dressed in dark red. The boy’s expression was filled with anger, and Li Hao, too, was overtaken by uncontrollable rage. Regardless of his thoughts, there always seemed to be a reason for fury in his heart.

He then turned to the third, clad in gray. The youth’s face was marked by deep sorrow, and Li Hao was overcome by dejection; nothing he thought of could bring him joy.

The fourth wore black and looked upon Li Hao with fear. At once, Li Hao felt a creeping terror; whatever he wished to do was overshadowed by dread.

The fifth youth wore a golden robe, as if he were a groom on his wedding day, his expression brimming with excitement. Li Hao, too, was swept up in fervent exhilaration, as if all things in the world belonged to him.

The sixth, dressed in purple, gazed at Li Hao with the eyes of one who despises evil with a burning passion. Li Hao was gripped by a similar, inexplicable coldness, his heart filled with righteous indignation at every thought.

When Li Hao looked at the seventh, garbed in blood-red, he found the youth’s eyes brimming with every kind of desire. Li Hao’s own heart surged with longing—for love, joy, wealth, power, revenge, even killing. Whatever came to mind, that desire grew overwhelmingly strong.

These seven could sway Li Hao’s happiness, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and desire—the seven core emotions.

He then turned to the youth on the far left, who seemed different from the seven before. Dressed in white, his robe bore the vivid image of a golden dragon, its form identical to Li Hao’s own, the dragon’s head resting upon his chest. His expression was one of unwavering righteousness, and as Li Hao watched him, a heroic spirit welled up within him. They nodded to each other in silent recognition.

Finally, Li Hao looked at the youth on the far right. This one’s attire and aura stood in stark contrast to the youth on the left; merely looking at him filled Li Hao with an inexpressible sense of oppression.

The first seven seemed instinctively afraid of the two standing at the edges. Li Hao was puzzled that, aside from their differing expressions, all nine looked exactly like himself, except for the absence of the battle halberd mark on their foreheads.

Confronted with this incredible scene, Li Hao was utterly confounded. He muttered to himself, “Could they all be incarnations of myself?”

No sooner had this thought formed than several voices rang out in his soul: “We are not incarnations. We are all you, and you are us. The ten of us are the true self’s three souls and seven spirits, each governing joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, desire, life, aging, and death.”

Only then did Li Hao accept that these were all parts of himself. But why had his three souls and seven spirits separated? He wondered, “Does every cultivator at the Wandering Realm experience this?”

He quickly dismissed the thought. Before he could make sense of it all, the void around him underwent a drastic transformation. A faint light emerged, growing brighter and brighter until half the space was illuminated in white, while the other half sank into darkness. For the ten Li Haos, this black-and-white space stretched on without end.

The black and white began to spin, morphing into a mysterious formation. As it spun, the force of attraction grew ever stronger. The ten Li Haos resisted with all their might, but within a few breaths, the formation’s pull dragged them all inside.

They felt themselves being torn apart by the spinning space, pain so agonizing it threatened to make them lose consciousness—yet, oddly, they could not faint, forced to endure by sheer will.

The ten Li Haos were ceaselessly torn and fused together again and again. No one knew how long it lasted, but the force eventually waned. When the spinning array finally halted, the Li Hao with the halberd mark at his brow stood at the center, the other nine positioned around him.

To his left and right stood the white-robed, golden dragon Li Hao and the black-robed, gray dragon Li Hao. The red-robed, multicolored dragon Li Hao with the halberd mark stood at the heart of the black-and-white realm. The white-robed, golden dragon Li Hao stood in the white light, the black-robed, gray dragon Li Hao in the darkness. The seven others each occupied a distinct position within the space.

Directly ahead of Li Hao there was no one, as if a gap existed—a place from which the realm itself had been born. Compelled by an unknown force, the red-robed, multicolored dragon Li Hao stepped toward that direction, never once looking back.

He walked on, time immeasurable, urged by a solemn and ancient voice deep within:

“Child, come here. Do not look back, and do not stop.”

The voice was gentle yet carried an irresistible pull. Li Hao felt as though he had lost control of his own actions, moving inexorably toward what seemed to be the exit.

As he advanced, a sense of nearness grew within him. Before long, he saw a round bead, identical in color to the black-and-white formation, about the size of a fist. When he was within a few paces, the bead shot into his forehead.

Everything went black.

Then, in his mind’s sea, a message appeared: Spirit of Chaos, Primal Chaos Pearl. Manifestation: Primal Chaos Yin-Yang Formation; formless, shapeless, containing all laws and all appearances, yet only the Formless Law Body can possess it.

The Primal Chaos Pearl dissolved into invisible power and spread through Li Hao’s body. Though baffled by the information, he set aside his confusion. He still needed to understand why his three souls and seven spirits had separated.

When he turned around, he saw that the other nine versions of himself no longer bore those single, extreme expressions. They now appeared much more normal, though still somewhat influenced by their dominant soul or spirit. The majority of their emotions remained aligned with their primary aspect, but the red-robed, multicolored dragon Li Hao felt his own emotions had returned to balance. No longer did he find his mood swayed by the others.

Reflecting on what had just happened, Li Hao murmured, “Could it be that the strange array just now tore us apart and then fused us together, balancing the extremes within my soul?”

Li Hao’s guess was correct. The separated souls and spirits, after being torn and fused by the Primal Chaos Yin-Yang Formation, were restored to balance. That was why he now felt normal, and the other nine returned to a more human state.

The reason their emotions still leaned toward their dominant aspect was that the other souls’ partial energies had merged into the less balanced ones, and to keep the main soul whole, the formation had supplemented the main soul with the others’ emotional energies.

Meanwhile, Lin Xueyou and Xiao Jiu waited anxiously where Li Hao had vanished. More than an hour had passed since his body broke apart and disappeared. Both the woman and the dragon were wracked with worry and helplessness, every passing moment an ordeal.

As their anxiety grew, the world’s laws within the inner realm suddenly shifted. At the spot where Li Hao had disappeared, a tornado formed, its force growing, lightning and thunder raging within, rain lashing, and the very laws of reality thrown into chaos.

Within a few breaths, Lin Xueyou could no longer withstand the pressure of this strange phenomenon. Xiao Jiu, seeing her in danger, instantly expanded a protective barrier over a hundred miles wide, shielding her within it.

The ten soul-like bodies began to gather into physical form—the very essence of Li Hao’s body that had previously broken apart.

Within the Primal Chaos Yin-Yang Formation, Li Hao approached his nine counterparts and discovered they were all incorporeal. Examining himself, he was astonished to find he, too, was now without power and his body was but a phantom. Only their faces and the colors of their emotion-clad robes remained distinct.

Lost and uncertain, Li Hao saw the black-and-white formation begin to spin once more, but this time in the opposite direction. He watched as the formation condensed ten identical physical bodies from his original self, divided and then reformed by the mysterious array. As the ten bodies coalesced, the formation slowed, then reversed again, tearing the ten souls and bodies apart, mixing them together, and finally merging soul and flesh as it spun yet again.

When the fusion of soul and body was complete, the inner realm underwent another transformation. The direction of the strange tornado that Lin Xueyou and Xiao Jiu observed matched exactly the rotation of Li Hao’s formation.

Once the fusion was done, the formation did not stop spinning. Instead, it drew the laws of the world into itself and infused them into Li Hao’s ten bodies. The nine counterparts received single elemental laws, while Li Hao’s true self was flooded with a chaotic mix of them all.

Then Li Hao recalled how, days earlier, he had been attacked by Du Qingfeng’s fire law. Logically, fire should have suppressed his wood law, yet he felt no such restraint—something he’d since forgotten. Now, considering the attribute test during the registration, which showed him as having no elemental attribute, he realized these were not coincidences.

A host of doubts filled his heart. “Wait, that message mentioned the Formless Law Body. Could my true form be the Formless Law Body? Once the selection trial is over, I must seek out records about it.”

As the laws of the world poured into his form, Li Hao’s cultivation surged: from the Foundation Building realm—early, middle, late, near perfection, minor perfection, great perfection, and perfection’s peak—to the Wandering Realm, early and middle stages. The nine counterparts ceased their breakthroughs at the mid-stage of the Wandering Realm, but Li Hao’s true body continued to ascend, halting only at the late stage of the Wandering Realm.