Paragon Of Sin

Chapter 1736: The Red Dust Flows; Fourth Calamity (9)

The flow of numerous lives occurred, subjecting Wei Wuyin's mortal soul to repeated experiences of hope and despair, a heart-rending duality that few could undergo without a steady heart and a tempered mind.

It would be a gross exaggeration to say that Wei Wuyin's life of slightly over a hundred years was enough to experience all the flavors of life and stay indifferent to all tragedy. While he had tasted flavors of challenge, obstacles, loss, humiliation, and pain, they were not done without fear but refined his heart.

Challenges such as being a mortal forced to undergo a near-certain death sentence of Hell.

Obstacles such as Blessed, other Cultivators, schemes, and cultivation itself.

Loss such as losing his entire blood family, his first love…his unborn child…

Humiliation of being utterly powerless, losing Su Mei and Kratos by proxy, forced to suffer and suffer and suffer…

The pain of being burned by Hellfire, crushed by his own self-created Black Hole, facing the scorching rays of numerous stars, and so, so much more.

While the feeling of humiliation was largely by proxy, the emotions of his other selves were as real as his own. The rage, the despair, and the self-hatred. However, all of this only served to build a heart and mind that was as steady as a universe.

With the aid of his family—King, Ori, Eden, Kratos, Element, and Little Defiant—Wei Wuyin had an enviable degree of emotional support. All else was fleeting. As long as cultivation existed, as long as his family was beside him, everything felt possible.

During his second life, he was violently humiliated and destroyed in an unimaginably brutal fashion, yet at his end, his will remained and all he felt the urge to do with a strong heart was to pick up the branch formed by the natural elements of the world and swing. Whether it ended in his favor or not, none of that mattered.

Only that he swung!

At the last moments of that life, he didn't feel despair or frustration at being weak, only that as long as he had breath, he could live a life worthy enough. As long as he had breath…

This mentality was never shaken even as he breathed his very last. An impossible hope—no, an inconceivable belief!

This was his Heart of Cultivation showing its depths!

And it showed time and time again!!

The lives kept occurring, twisted by hope and loss. All to induce the feelings of despair, rage, and failure.

The Life of Imprisonment; after elevating to the status of Clan Leader of the Wu Clan in Red Dove City, he was framed by easily crumbled evidence, yet imprisoned with a sentence of twenty years. His brother promised to find the flaw and free him. What should have been an easy task only grew increasingly complicated as every subsequent evidence to prove his innocence was met by greater obstacles. There was either a new detail emerging or the individual that could testify toward his truth mysteriously disappeared by a freak accident or was purposefully silent.

Slowly, living life in a cold, damp prison, unable to have any hope while freedom danced on his tongue with incessant mischief was harsh for any individual to take. This continued for forty years. Eventually, his older brother died attempting to free him while his sentence was extended to a life sentence despite the original crime not requiring such a penalty.

He was subjected to torture, isolation, starvation, frostbite, dehydration, malnutrition, illnesses, and so much more. By the end, when he was in his seventies, still having some life in him, a member of the Wu Clan, his cousin's grandson visited with new evidence that could break open his case and prove it despite the passing decades. Moreover, he would certainly receive some form of compensation for his false imprisonment.

It was good news. Great news!

However…

Just as his sentence was about to be commuted and his innocence proven, he was attacked by a crazed maniac while working on fixing the stone bricks of a tower. While defending himself, the crazed maniac fell and crushed himself and a guard to death.

…

All hope was crushed as new charges left him with a new life sentence. His past charges? They no longer mattered.

At the very end of his disease-ridden life, he was ripped apart violently by starved dogs as a death sentence. As the dogs tore into him, his slowly declining sense of hearing heard powerful orders to cease his death sentence and that he was innocent! But it was too late…

He bled out on the dirty ground laced with dog excrement while his last wheezing breath was taken.

Red Dust Dimension.

This was the last of the eighteen lives to complete its run, intending to subject Wei Wuyin to despairing circumstances that would call forth Soul Deterge Mist and cleanse him of his sins. From start to finish, the various denizens of Hell observed with all sorts of commotions and shock. Many of them were unable to believe that this Dual Sinful Mortal survived to the very end without experiencing the slightest pang of despair.

This was unprecedented and unnatural to an extreme.

However, what happened next was even greater on the scale of unprecedented and unnatural!

The red dust that filled the dimensional bubble of this Dual Sinful Mortal began to transform into a white-ish dust. In moments, the miniature world was infected as the red dust was aggressively taken over, converted into something else altogether.

Those with keen senses could see that each speck of dust contained traces of the Dual Sinful Mortal's True Soul aura. They were rendered speechless.

The crimson-winged figure gawking asked, "Did…he just?!"

Despite seeking an answer from elsewhere and anywhere, no answer came! Before another syllable could be spoken, the white dust began to rapidly swirl like a hurricane that smashed heavily against the edges of the dimension. The epicenter of this hurricane, the eye of this storm, was Wei Wuyin's physical body!

They could instantly tell that Wei Wuyin's body was soulless! A husk! An unearthly handsome husk!

"His soul?! What did he do?!" The silver-winged figure exclaimed in abject disbelief. While he wanted verification, he more or less understood what this signified. The red dust had unique properties when relating to the soul, similar to how the blade light and Hellfire could eviscerate and scorch a soul to evoke Soul Deterge Mist. The red dust had similar properties and unique powers!

That said, it contained the principles of the earth element. One of the unique powers of the red dust was the adherence to soul energy. By the logic of vice-versa, one could adhere their soul to the red dust!

Before they could discuss anything further, the situation unfolded far too fast! The Red Dust Dimension was rapidly shrinking!

They had seen this occur during Wei Wuyin's return to Hell after his Inheritor of Sin: Lust status had been verified and he had to revisit the calamities!

Wait!

Their eyes bulged and their wings shook as the shrinking Red Dust Dimension expanded. It was better to call it the White Dust Dimension at this moment after the color shift! But then, inexplicably, the Red Dust Dimension split into two halves.

"What are you doing?!" The silver-winged figure shouted toward the boundlessly infinite figure with countless arms and incalculable eyes! Two looming hands like a shadow began to grip the bubble. With the gentleness of a lover's caress, the hands pulled apart, and the bubble split into two! Both bubbles were hazy and indistinct, as if only a single touch was enough to collapse their existence.

Suddenly, a mystical power was evoked. It was absolute and wondrous to the extreme. The two bubble dimensions began to rapidly solidify.

The winged creatures gasped. They observed Wei Wuyin's soulless body was magically removed and enshrouded in a protective body, but the dust containing his True Soul's aura wasn't! They understood the reason behind why, and this wasn't the first time they saw a Bloodline of Sin Inheritor claiming a dimension of Hell or possessing multiple Bloodlines of Sin. While it was the first time for a mortal, it was not the first time in general, so they understood that the split was their fortune.

But they couldn't understand how Wei Wuyin's soul aura wasn't expelled! Was it because it had merged with the originally red dust? And how was it duplicated?!

Then, the Red Dust Dimensions began to shrink toward Wei Wuyin's smaller bubble. The white dust of two dimensions filled the bubble before surging into his mouth, eyes, ears, and nostrils in a sea dragon-like multi-stream. After every last bit of dust had inconceivably entered Wei Wuyin's body, including the two Red Dust Dimensions that entered his two Bloodline of Sin tattoos on his right and left arm, his silver eyes regained the light of consciousness and intelligence.

His True Soul, Soul, and their respective connection with his body was re-established.

"HUUUUU!" With a heavy breath, his eyes adjusted as he got a faint glimpse of the fourth floor of Hell.

Then, his body and soul vanished from this Hell.

He had claimed this floor of Hell.

HE HAD CLAIMED THE FOURTH FLOOR OF HELL!

The winged figures, a significant portion of them, roared in cheer! An unprecedented mortal defying odds time and time again was weak entertainment! For those that were hoping against him, they scowled and trembled with anger!

Wei Wuyin was entirely unaware of these occurrences. And if he had known that he was slowly becoming a spectacle for these denizens of Hell, he wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry!

After all, every step was perilous to the extreme, and a single misstep would lead to an irreversible end.

But this time…he would return triumphantly!