Divine Emperor of Death

Deep in Davis's soul sea, the tendrils took shape in the form of a scroll and started radiating an iridescent ray of luminance, heading towards his soul essence. 

Simultaneously, Davis started refining Immortal Guang's immortal soul essence, the energy stemming from the refinement swirling towards his soul essence. His soul essence was already in the wake of a breakthrough in the quality of the Sigil, but his aim was not to create a Supreme Immortal Sigil but much more, forcing a mutation through invoking Fallen Heaven's black and white tendrils at the same time.

Reincarnation energy poured into his soul essence. As a result, it provoked Emperor Sigil inside his soul essence to react alarmingly as it started to tremble as though it was going to break. 

"Grrr-"

Davis clenched his teeth as he shivered ever so lightly, feeling intense pain rock his soul. His expression fell, unable to endure this searing pain of mutating his Sigil by causing his soul essence to experience an intrinsic change in quality.

Indeed, he was taking in Fallen Heaven's essence actively instead of passively receiving its essence like his soul always had been showered, something he had never done or even knew if it was possible as he had never dared to try it before. But even though he now came to know that it was possible to fuse its powers with his soul essence in this moment of improving the Sigil as he envisioned, so what?

Would he survive the infusion?

Just infusing the life and death energy from the black and white tendrils was this painful? 

He felt like letting it go that even the pain from severing thirty percent of his soul essence couldn't even come close to what he felt right now. The overwhelming pain made him feel worse than starving while feeling helpless with no energy, making him sweat heavily and breathe rapidly. 

He consequently forwent trying to infuse the third tendril, somehow knowing that it would end badly for him.

'Perhaps… I'm already encumbered as it is… I can't be… too greedy...'

Davis clenched his teeth tightly, enduring as much as he could.

*Bzzz!~*

Shortly, his Emperor Sigil began transforming into the Supreme Immortal Sigil as he had already fulfilled the energy and qualitative requirements. Even before it formed, his soul undulations started to grow rapidly.

However…

"…!"

Nadia and Eldia, who were around Davis as they had gotten out to protect him from possible sneak attacks by a certain palace spirit, looked at him suddenly collapse and continuously twitch.

They became apprehensive about him, wondering what was happening to him when they saw his purple robe become drenched from sweat, even forming a puddle as time passed.

"Master~"

They tried calling out to him ever so softly and didn't do so loudly, afraid that they might disturb his cultivation, but their voices were of no use.

They could only continue to watch him quiver with a painful expression on his face, their teeth clattering with anxiety, their bodies shaking in distress as they didn't know what to do.

Seek aid? But from who? Could they even exit this place?

Contrary to reality, Davis still felt that he was seated in a lotus position while refining Immortal Guang's soul essence and improving his soul essence with the help of Fallen Heaven and Epsila. He didn't hear Eldia and Nadia's voices either. That's how confused his soul was, but it told volumes of how he was at his limit of trying to endure this self-inflicted torture of forcefully improving his soul essence.

He was like a blind fish that had accidentally leaped to the land and became stranded, twitching for its life.

Time continued to pass without a care in the world.

Fallen Heaven's prowess in refining the immortal soul essence was not slower but was not faster either that it could be said to be rightly apt, refining at four or five percent an hour.

On the other hand, Davis felt that continuing to live was hell as suicidal thoughts emerged in his head, one that screamed at him just to let it go.

He felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside, a burning sensation continuing to fill his soul. 

Just when he thought he would faint or give up from being unable to endure, he would somehow persist, sometimes thinking about his responsibilities, sometimes wanting to take revenge on the heavens for forcing him to take all this torture to improve himself when all he wanted to was not to be squashed like an ant in the ruthless cultivation world but most of the times, remember the faces of his loved ones who stayed with him even when he was considered dead.

He so wanted to live with them badly, and each time the adorable faces of Eterna and Celestia popped up in his messy and disorganized thoughts, he felt like he would gain untold strength, his will becoming invigorated even though it may just be for a moment.

Time became blurry to his distressed senses. Forget time. He couldn't even sense his body or if he was even alive in the first place. All he could feel at this moment was floating somewhere as four vortexes of energy ravaged his lonesome figure amidst the empty skies.

Where he was floating, there was no turning back.

Although time and space practically stopped for him, he knew the changes occurring to his soul. The more essence he absorbed, the more he could see himself falling apart.

Darkness and light kept swirling around in front of his enclosed vision as though they were voices screaming at him to hold on. He tried to reach out his non-existent hand, but no matter how he reached it, he was unable to grasp those phantoms, drowned in life and death as though he was undergoing a rebirth in the well of reincarnation.

However, he persisted even while being swallowed.

He didn't know how long he should endure or if he should even keep this up. His mind was in a state of absentmindedness or madness, swirling between these two opposite extremes.

*Gasp!~*

Abruptly, Davis's eyes shot wide open as he found himself lying in a pool of sweat.

This was what his body released in response to the mental torture he was undergoing for some unknown amount of time.

Although Davis's mind felt muddled, he quickly yet strugglingly sat up and checked his soul sea, wondering what kind of transformation took place when he looked at his soul essence that had undergone a massive change.

It no longer had the transparency of an attributeless soul or the deathly tinge that it had been painted with in his years of soul cultivation. Instead, it radiated with a black and white hue with a slight tinge of iridescence spots, similar to…

'This… isn't this the Eternal Life Soul…?'

Davis was stupefied at the transformation that had occurred to his soul essence. The space of his soul sea was also quickly mixing with a black and white hue, similar to what he had seen in Myria's soul sea, causing his mouth to turn agape.

However, narrowing down his senses, he found that it was different as he felt that his soul was less sophisticated than hers, and the aura was also intrinsically different. It still embodied Life Laws and Death Laws. However, at the center was a heavy yet compact iridescent vortex that churned out the fission, radiating life and death.

The Eternal Life Soul was intrinsically Life and Death Physique, and Myria worked hard to comprehend Reincarnation Laws, but he feared that his Soul Physique was a Reincarnation Law Physique, one that separates into Life and Death instead of fusing.

"What the…"

Davis was utterly stupefied, not knowing what this meant for him. 

Logic told him that it should be an advantage but when it came to Laws, wasn't fusion what raised the hurdle and increased the prowess? Why was his core one of Reincarnation, splitting into Life and Death…?

Isn't that regression? Just like how Chaos regressed into many Laws…?

Was his newly created Soul Physique unstable? Perhaps, incomplete?

Davis felt worried beyond compare that his body began quivering when suddenly a paw fell on his shoulder.

"Master, are you fine?"

"Nadia…"

Davis came out of his reverie as his surroundings, which were unfocused, became clear and colorful. Her soft paw weighing on him was a wake-up call, causing him to lower his head as he smiled, reaching out his hand to bring her face closer.

"I'm fine."

He couldn't help but feel at ease over her soft and warm fur brushing his cheeks. Her whimpering tone had a melodious chord to it, greatly soothing him.

A few minutes later, he let her go and looked at his palm, constantly opening and closing it.

He felt like he had encountered a bottleneck, a bottleneck that actually didn't allow him to use his soul force. However, he was no longer worried, sincerely focused on finding a way to use his soul force that refused to come out of his Soul Physique.

In his mind, he ran simulations of the circulation method of the Unfettered Earthly Reincarnation Scripture hundreds and thousands of times. He didn't know how many days had passed from the time he started the transformation as he hadn't synced his memories with the avatar, fully focused that his eyes turned bloodshot for a few days.

Nonetheless, after an unknown amount of time…

*Bzzzz!~*

An iridescent hue of black and white soul force sporadically emerged from his five fingers after trying so many times, floating in front of him as it formed a yin-yang diagram of life and death, rightfully so according to the Unfettered Earthly Reincarnation Scripture, but circulated backward!

"Didn't she say that I couldn't learn Reincarnation Laws while still being a mortal…?"

Davis's lips that were curled in worry couldn't help but turn into an optimistic grin.

'At the very least, I don't even need to fuse to use reincarnation energy in order to use it because the fusion happens to occur in the very core of my soul essence...'