Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy-Chapter 2797: Destroyed Inhibitions

Alex stared at the old man upon hearing what he said.

"Death... told you? You spoke to Death?" he asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Yes," the old man said. "She spoke to me back when I first found her after she fell from the sky."

Alex’s eyes narrowed. "You met Death back when she initially came to Hell?"

The old man nodded. "I was out helping small tribes in the desert when I saw her fall from the sky. When I found her, she was in the middle of a horde of dead corpses, with her single sword in hand."

"She attacked me too, but at that time, she was sane enough that she didn’t try to kill me. She merely wanted to keep me away. I managed to calm her down and help her away from where she landed and took her back to the sect."

Alex continued listening with a stunned expression. Death that didn’t attack to kill was a fascinating thought to him.

"Even back then, it was clear that something was wrong with her. She wasn’t of the right mind, simply mumbling away something. She wouldn’t respond to questions or to any gestures. She didn’t have her mind."

Alex frowned. "But you said she spoke. How did she tell you anything if she didn’t speak?"

"Oh, she spoke," the old man said. "Only, occasionally. She would have moments of clarity where she could tell where she was and talk. I asked her about her situation, and she told me she had been losing her mind for a while now. She asked for pills that could help her keep her clarity for longer, but we had none."

"She would lapse back into her dumb self and I would have to wait for her to gain clarity again."

Alex blinked in surprise. "How was she when she was clear? What did she say?"

The old man sighed. "Even when she had clarity, she still wasn’t fully herself. She didn’t know who she was, or how she had gotten to that situation. She spoke about being trapped and lured, although she couldn’t tell by who. Her last clear memory was her bringing out the sword she held to fight off her attackers."

"Did you try to help?" Whisker asked from the side.

"Help... of course I did," the old man said with a solemn voice. "Every time she was mindless, I tried to find ways to bring back her mind. Every time she had clarity, I asked her to tell me as much as she could in order to help me."

"But, she didn’t know much about herself, and I am not much of a healer. I tried to help her, and... that is perhaps my greatest mistake in life."

Alex gave a surprised look. "What do you mean, senior?" he asked. "Why would helping her be a mistake?"

The old man took a long moment to recollect his memories and grab hold of his emotions. It wasn’t until a while later when he started explaining again.

"I have lived for a long time, and in that time, I have done a million different things, learned a thousand different skills. But among them, I have two that I pride over. First is my skill with talismans and formations. I have spent ages learning about the runes and am quite confident at it." freeωebnovēl.c૦m

Alex nodded. He had seen the old man’s handiwork after all.

"As for the second thing, I pride myself in knowing many battle formations and even have come up with many on my own."

"For the majority of the single year after I brought back Death to my sect, I tried to help her using regular formations and talismans. I made many, but the more I made, the more it became abundantly clear that regular formations had no effect on her. She was far too strong for such things to help her in any way."

"So, I looked to battle formations instead. There are plenty of battle formations that affect a singular person, both positively and negatively. So, I devised one that could help Death by affecting her mind into gaining clarity.

"It took me a year or two to come up with the exact battle formation, and once I had it, I got the elders and disciples to use it on her. At that time... when it didn’t work, I thought she was simply far too strong for the formation to affect her. I... I never even stopped to think that there might’ve been something wrong with the formation, or worse, that she could not be healed in such a way."

"I thought, if I could get the strongest of the people from Hell to help me with the formation, we could do it. Oh how wrong I was to call that Night Assembly."

Alex stared with wide eyes as he realized what the old man was talking about.

"The Scarlet Rain. That was the result, wasn’t it?" he asked.

The old man nodded. "Our formation backfired. What little clarity she had still left was gone. And all we had managed to do in the end was destroy all sense of morality and inhibitions from someone whose strength we had failed to fathom."

"When the girl’s mind was completely wiped away by our mistake, all that was left there was instinct honed into her body after generations of training and the battles she fought in the outside war. She was a monster with her sword and not a single one of us could hold on to that."

"That day, people that were the cornerstones of the empire built by the Hell Emperor and us were killed one swing of her sword after another. Many tried to fight back, but not a single one could contend against her."

"That day... that was the day the young woman became Death."

"I should have died that day too, but I managed to survive thanks to the many disciples that threw themselves before me to protect themselves."

"I am responsible for all of their deaths, and just the same, I am responsible for creating Death as well."