"When spiritual power dissipates, when all cultivation methods collapse...
What is the last thing that makes a person stand?
Not cultivation.
But emotions that cannot be faked."
Within Lin Mo's consciousness – the gate to the Illusion Realm opened.
The moment Zi Xuan embraced him, all the laws, definitions, and Dao principles he had ever known shattered.
No reincarnation. No limits. No cultivation.
Only he – standing in the void, facing himself.
"What do you cultivate the Dao for?"
A voice resonated from the depths.
He remembered:
His mother's gaze when he was expelled from the family.
The last grasp of a senior brother who died protecting him.
A young woman who silently shed a tear... when their engagement was broken.
Each image... transformed into lines of Dao script made of emotions, appearing in the void.
No spiritual power operating.
No Dantian.
No true essence.
Only mental intent transforming into Dao.
Lin Mo took one step, and the surrounding realm collapsed on its own.
With the second step, space trembled.
From afar, a gray-robed cultivator, carrying the saintly might of the Heavenly Gate, descended.
His name was Han Chi, once a Saint Venerable enforcer in the Western Profound Ancient Realm, sent down to eradicate the "anomaly" of the Primordial Dao of Life.
"You have no realm.
No cultivation.
You are not worthy to stand before me."
He raised his hand – myriad swords condensed from supreme Dao power, falling like stars.
Lin Mo did not dodge – he merely smiled.
A smile without murderous intent, without dramatic change.
Just... a gentle gaze – as if to say:
"I know I am not as strong as you... but I am not afraid."
At that very moment – the sword images dissipated.
Han Chi's body... trembled.
"What... is this?"
A surge of memories not his own flooded him:
Images of him as a child abandoned outside the palace.
He once loved someone... and personally killed her due to heavenly law.
Every moment of regret he had buried for tens of thousands of years... resurfaced.
Han Chi – a Saint Realm cultivator, knelt before Lin Mo.
In the sky, the Heavenly Dao, always invisible, for the first time... showed a small crack.
From it, a line of text carved by the will of the entire realm appeared:
"Not who is stronger is right.
Not who cultivates higher wins.
Sometimes... the one with stronger emotions, is the one who survives."
An old man from the Heaven and Earth Hell Abyss stepped out – his aura a hundred times stronger than Han Chi's.
But when he saw Lin Mo – he did not strike.
He merely... knelt on one knee on the ground.
"I once killed my wife for the Dao.
If your Dao can preserve emotions...
Then... give me a chance to be wrong."