Destiny is ashes

Chapter 1037 Fate Accumulates Without Bounds, Heavenly Punishment Descends (67, Thanks to Wendy Paimon for being the Alliance Leader!)
What exactly is life?
Some say it is the soul and the body.

Some say it's spiritual awareness and vital energy.

Some say it is due to innate constitution and acquired physical form.

Some say it stems from the nature of the Tao and the limitations imposed by Heaven.

An Jing's understanding of sex is profound. Sex is not merely the immortality of the soul, nor is it such a superficial thing... It is something immortal and indestructible, called 'authenticity'. Innate intelligence, moral conscience, purity, freedom, and unrestrained spirit all originate from it.

An Jing transformed his soul into the spirit of the cave, thus transcending the defilements of later life and achieving the 'way of nature,' naturally attaining freedom and immortality for his soul.

But what about fate?

Simply becoming stronger?
Simply piling things up?
Simply squeezing and merging makes steel even more steely, and constantly piling up quality, which then becomes a denser, simpler substance, and even a deeper, more profound 'phase' that transcends the essence of matter—a pitch-black, a deep, an endless end.

That might indeed be a path, a way to achieve the ultimate destiny.

But that's not what An Jing is looking for.

He was not seeking pure "power".

It is a kind of beauty.

Perfect matter, perfect body.

It transcends the imperfections of humankind.

Then one ascends to the essence of the Tao—the Tao becoming flesh.

At this moment, An Jing withdrew his fist.

His arm also shattered, melted, and even vaporized and disappeared at that moment.

The charred marks even spread to his shoulders, chest, and eventually his entire body.

The power of the Sun Candle was still too great. Even the Manifestation Saint was unwilling to take it head-on. Even though Anjing's power was no less than the Manifestation Saint's at that moment, he was still injured because of it.

But so what?
An Jing raised his hand, which was now only half an upper arm. Primordial primordial energy flowed, and the light of the seven luminaries shone and surrounded him.

Instantly, from the stubble of the upper arm bone, fine metal lines extended out, then intersected, merged, and condensed to form the structure of the skeleton. A thin membrane of flesh covered it, flesh and blood grew, marrow filled in, and the skeleton was reshaped.

In just a few breaths, as rust-like fragments fell from An Jing's body, the charred marks that had been spreading across his body were rapidly disappearing, and the missing hand was regenerating and reappearing at a speed visible to the naked eye!
With pure physical strength, he directly defeated the spirit of the Manifested Ancestor.

With pure life force, heal the injuries caused by the manifestation.

If other prodigies wanted to unleash their divine power, they would need to use various trump cards, or even invoke the power of the ancestral master or celestial deity to descend.

Therefore, Anjing is not needed.

Because he is.

"It feels...very good."

She murmured to herself, Anjing's body was perfect at this moment, crystal clear, like jade, like crystal.

He raised his hand, and through a thin, newly regenerated, seemingly nonexistent skin, he could clearly see the meridians and blood vessels distributed in a perfect golden ratio pattern beneath. The Primordial Essence Flowed slowly within it, its color a brilliant white, yet reflecting a rainbow of light with each pulse.

The transparency disappeared quickly.

This is an absolutely perfect body.

If pressured by a force, it will contract and then rebound, its momentum majestic and unshakeable.

If a blade cuts into it, it will separate and then get stuck, resembling a pair of pincers, and cannot move.

If struck by a blunt object, it will diffuse and dissipate the force, remaining as stable as a stake and unmovable.

If a drill bit pierces it, it will spin and then grind it up, its movement like a millstone, unstoppable.

It is metal, and also flesh; it is steel, and also a weapon. It is changeable, constantly evolving; it is both perfect and imperfect, capable of transforming into any form and exerting power in any way, whether for destruction or salvation, according to the needs of the martial artist.

It can be a god or a demon; such a perfect body exists. [The Way of Destiny]

"To become a true person is just a foundation."

An Jing shifted her gaze from her arm and strode forward.

He walked toward the struggling sun candle, his voice still echoing between heaven and earth, clearly reaching the ears of every loser: "Just like a child who has just been born, it still needs to grow and become stronger."

"Do your ideas and ways of thinking only need one improvement?"

His voice was calm, yet it carried a deafening power, torturing every genius present.

"If you are only satisfied with splitting bricks and tiles, you will never be able to split steel one day."

"If you are only satisfied with one transformation, then you will only ever grow from an infant into a giant baby."

“You do have all sorts of methods, almost like miracles, but ultimately, you still don’t understand this world.”

An Jing's gaze swept over the battlefield he had personally reshaped, his voice tinged with emotion: "This world has no demonic energy, the Great Dao is clear and primordial, and the Ancestral Divine Beasts are so powerful, while the divine beasts of later generations are so weak. Doesn't this tell us that we can be as strong as these Ancestral Divine Beasts, or even stronger?"

“Even the Heavenly Dao is bestowing upon us the privileges we were born with, stripping us of our innate destiny—and we are the Emptiness People, so our spiritual roots are meaningless.”

"We have been stripped of everything, and there is nothing left to take away... Therefore, we are no longer defined, no longer bound... We are free!"

"The stripping away of one's destiny is not a weakening, but a blessing!"

"Why use those secondhand things that have been obscured by the laws of nature?"

At this moment, Sun Candle struggled to get up.

He felt an unprecedented threat, a power powerful enough to completely erase Him and end His eternal cycle!
But for some reason, He vaguely felt a surge of joy.

That joy originates from the true essence, from the scales.

At this moment, Sun Candle began to change. It transformed into an egg, gathering all the power of the sun in the entire Radiant Scale Realm. The divine flames around it condensed and compressed to the extreme, transforming itself into a blazing white ball of light that seemed capable of burning away eternity and evaporating time and space.

This is His desperate gamble, the sun's final radiance.

However, An Jing didn't care at all. He even stopped and got into a fighting stance.

"Gentlemen, cast it aside, observe and understand the world with your own truth, and make yourselves stronger!"

—Then, challenge me again, and let your strength become my strength!
The moment the words left his mouth, An Jing gathered all his strength.

His martial will reached an unprecedented peak at this moment. The Immortal Path, the Martial Path, and the Path of Ascension—three powers, three insights, along with the understanding he gained from all his previous battles, were all fused into one.

The killing sword in his hand materialized once more.

But this time, the Killing Sword was no longer a deep crimson color.

It became transparent, as if it didn't exist, like a pure 'principle'.

Then, this invisible sword merged into An Jing's body.

It embodies the new immortal enterprise that Anjing wants to establish at this moment, in this place.

Life's accumulation is boundless, and its source of strength is limitless.

The fist is the sword, and the sword is the fist!
Right now, An Jing throws a punch!
At the same instant that the sun candle launched that blazing white orb, he also threw his own punch.

【Heavenly Punishment】

The phantom of the Heavenly Sword flashed and disappeared.

—Those who have sinned before will be condemned by those who follow; the punishment of Heaven will be used to punish the sins of generations!

The older, the more decayed, and the more unchanged something is, the more likely it is to be punished by heaven.

Because of all things in the universe, only change is constant; what is decaying and unchanging is wrong and should be punished!
(End of this chapter)