Chapter 174: Consciousness
The dragon remained silent.
For the first time since Asher had arrived, genuine surprise appeared in his golden eyes.
He looked at the black fog surrounding Asher once more, then back at him.
Everything suddenly made sense.
Until now, he had assumed Asher couldn’t wield his will simply because he was still too young and inexperienced. After all, no one was born capable of projecting their will onto the world. It was something every cultivator had to learn over time.
But he had been wrong.
It wasn’t that Asher didn’t know how to wield his will.
He couldn’t.
Every moment of his existence, the vast majority of his will was occupied resisting the death constantly trying to consume him.So he can’t project it even if he wants because it would still be under the death and will be kept eroding instead of influencing anything.
The dragon quietly looked at the black fog again.
For the first time in countless years, he had no words.
He had lived for thousands of years and had witnessed countless strange beings, yet never had he seen someone forced to fight against death itself every single second of their life.
No wonder Asher’s will never extended beyond his own body.
Another thought suddenly crossed the dragon’s mind.
’If the majority of his will is constantly occupied resisting the death trying to claim him, and only a small fraction of it remains free... then just how powerful is his true will?’
His golden eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the black fog surrounding Asher once again.
The will Asher was currently displaying was only a small portion of his true will, yet it was already strong enough to withstand a part of the dragon’s own will.
Then the dragon remembered who he was speaking to.
Someone who had escaped death itself.
’...Perhaps a will like that is only natural.’
The dragon looked at Asher for a long moment before asking in a calm voice, "What were you in your previous life?"
Asher looked back at the dragon, a hint of confusion appearing on his face. "I don’t really remember much. But as far as I can remember, I was just a normal human who simply wanted to live. Nothing more." He paused briefly before asking, "But... why are you asking that?"
After hearing Asher’s answer, the dragon quietly stared at him, as though trying to determine whether he was telling the truth.
From everything he could perceive, Asher wasn’t lying.
Yet that only made the situation even more confusing.
The dragon knew there was no way an ordinary human, one who hadn’t even lived for a few centuries, could survive death itself on his own.
Then how had this man escaped it?
And more importantly...
How had his will become so unbelievably strong?
Asher looked at the dragon with a puzzled expression before saying,
"What happened? What are you thinking so hard about? Your ex or something?"
He paused for a moment before adding with genuine curiosity,
"By the way, do you even have one? You’re probably thousands of years old. Don’t you have kids or something, bro?"
The dragon didn’t reply to any of the nonsense Asher was saying.
His mind was in complete turmoil.
Everything he had assumed about Asher had turned out to be wrong.
At first, he had believed Asher was simply someone who had escaped death through an unimaginable stroke of luck or some unknown mistake, receiving a second chance at life.
But he had been wrong.
Then he thought Asher might be someone acknowledged by death itself... perhaps even blessed by it.
Yet that assumption had also proven false.
Instead of being blessed, Asher was cursed.
Even after returning to the world of the living, death had never let go of him. It continued to cling to his existence, slowly eroding him every passing moment.
None of this was something the dragon had ever expected.
The more he learned about Asher, the more incomprehensible he became. Every answer only raised even more questions, overturning everything the dragon thought he understood about the laws of life and death. For the first time in countless years, he found himself unable to explain what stood before him.
The dragon looked at Asher for a long moment before a thought crossed his mind.
’I suppose there is only one way left to find out... what exactly is standing before me.’
The next instant, Asher suddenly felt something intruding into his consciousness.
He instinctively tried to resist, but it was futile.
The intruding presence was simply too powerful.
It was the dragon.
Having abandoned all speculation, the dragon had decided to enter Asher’s consciousness directly. If words couldn’t reveal the truth, then perhaps Asher’s own memories would.
The moment he stepped inside, the dragon found himself standing in the middle of an endless grassland.
The field stretched infinitely in every direction, covered only by gently swaying grass. There wasn’t a single tree, mountain, or river in sight. Above him lay a vast, cloudless sky that seemed to have no end, blending seamlessly with the distant horizon. The entire place was silent, so silent that it almost felt detached from reality itself.
This place was Asher’s consciousness.
Every living being possessed a different consciousness, and no two were ever exactly alike,each reflecting the nature of their owner.
The dragon slowly looked around, expecting to find something that would reveal Asher’s true nature.
But there was nothing.
Only an endless field of grass stretching in every direction beneath an infinite sky.
No buildings, no memories, no symbols, no hidden structures.
Nothing at all.
For the first time since entering someone’s consciousness, even the dragon found himself unable to understand what he was looking at.
While the dragon was still trying to make sense of everything, a calm voice suddenly echoed across the endless grassland.
"So, here you are... entering someone else’s consciousness without even asking. How rude."
The dragon’s eyes instantly turned toward the source of the voice.