Re-birth: The Beginning after the End - Chapter 139

Chapter 139: FUSION OF TECHNIQUES
He paused, his expression growing more serious. “Once they feel you’ve mastered their techniques—truly mastered them, not just learned them—there will be a test.”

Li Hao perked up at this, his endless appetite momentarily forgotten. “Another game of hide and seek?”

“No,” Grandmaster Yu’s eyes held a glimmer of something deeper. “Something quite different. But that’s for later. For now, focus on your training.”

After helping himself to one more bowl, Grandmaster Yu rose from the table, patting the siblings shoulders gently. “Sleep well,” he said, before heading to his own room.

“Sister, you should bathe first,” Li Wei said, already gathering the dishes. The shared bathhouse meant they had to take turns, and her brothers had long ago decided she should have the first slot each night. Li Hua nodded gratefully, the prospect of hot water enticing after such an intense day.

The bath helped ease her muscles, but did little to quiet her mind. Steam rose around her as she soaked, her thoughts already turning to the techniques she’d learned, the possibilities they presented.

Later, Li Hua slid her door closed and lay on her bed, but sleep eluded her. Her mind was too full of the day’s revelations, turning over the fundamental differences between what Mo Xing had taught her with the Thousand Veils and what she’d learned in the Sixth Realm. Where the realm’s techniques taught erasure—becoming one with the void—the Thousand Veils created infinite reflections of self. Yet hadn’t she already begun merging similar concepts with the false core technique?

They seemed, at first glance, to be opposite approaches. The Sixth Realm’s ways demanded she become nothing, while the Thousand Veils required her to become everything. But she remembered how naturally she’d adapted to Old Guo’s false core teachings—how she’d learned to layer her presence, creating perfectly crafted false signatures that dissolved like smoke when grasped. Even then, she’d been unconsciously drawing on both schools of thought.

The Void Cloak Technique made her unreadable, dissolving her presence into nothingness. But what if that void wasn’t truly empty? What if, within that perfect concealment, she could layer the Thousand Veils’ reflections, just as she’d layered those false cores? Each veil would emerge from nothing, making it impossible to track their origin, much like how her scattered false signatures had confused Old Guo’s probes.

She imagined it like dropping ink into clear water—the void would be the water, clear and still, while the veils would be the ink, spreading in beautiful, unpredictable patterns.

The Mist Walker and Phantom Step techniques taught her to move with perfect fluidity, while the Thousand Veils fractured her very existence. She remembered how Old Xiao had shown them to move between moments, to exist in the spaces between breaths. Perhaps these could be merged with the Thousand Veils—each step could birth a new illusion, every movement spawning countless possibilities. Like a kaleidoscope shifting patterns, each turn revealing new configurations of the same pieces.

She thought of how Lady Wei had taught them to blend with the world’s natural flow, to become indistinguishable from the environment. Combined with the Thousand Veils, she might be able to make each reflection seem like a natural part of the world—a shadow that belonged to the tree, a ripple that belonged to the stream, a whisper that belonged to the wind. Not just hiding, but belonging in multiple places at once.

Lady He’s Permission Barriers could be woven through the veils, she realized. Instead of one solid barrier, she could create layers of permissions, each one protecting a different reflection. Anyone trying to probe her presence would have to navigate a maze where every path seemed equally valid, every destination equally real.

The Soul Reflection Barrier technique could be particularly powerful when combined with the veils. Instead of simply reflecting probes back at attackers, each reflection could show a different truth, a different possibility. The mental strain on anyone trying to track her would be immense—like trying to solve a puzzle where every piece was both correct and false.

But the cost of such mastery…

Li Hua closed her eyes, feeling the weight of what such a fusion might demand. To maintain that level of deception while existing in perfect harmony with the realm would require a split consciousness she wasn’t sure was possible. She would need to be aware of each reflection, each void, each space between spaces—all while maintaining the perfect stillness the realm demanded. The strain alone might shatter a weaker mind.

And then there was the deeper risk—one that made her heart flutter with uncertainty. The Thousand Veils could make its user forget their true self among the reflections. Combined with the realm’s teachings about surrendering identity entirely… Would she lose herself completely?

What would happen if she succeeded in this fusion? She might become something unprecedented—a being that could exist as both nothing and everything simultaneously. Each reflection would be protected by the realm’s techniques, while the techniques themselves would be hidden behind veils of illusion. But would such a state of existence even be human anymore?

Would she become something that existed purely in the spaces between truth and illusion, reality and deception? A being that was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, everything and nothing, true and false in the same moment?

A soft breeze carried the scent of flowers through her window, reminding her of the realm’s constant presence. Even here, in her private quarters, she could feel its awareness watching, judging, perhaps even understanding her ambition. What would it make of such a merger between the keepers techniques and Mo Xing’s technique? Would it accept this evolution of its teachings, or reject it as something that violated its natural laws?

She thought of her brothers, how each had approached the realm’s techniques differently—Li Wei with his precise calculations, Li Hao with his controlled chaos. Neither approach had been enough against the realm itself. But perhaps that was because they had tried to master the techniques rather than transcend them entirely.

Sleep finally began to creep over her, but her last conscious thoughts were of shadows within shadows, veils within void, and the dangerous beauty of becoming truly unknowable. As she drifted off, she wondered if anyone had ever attempted such a fusion before, and if they had—what had they become?