Eternal Swordmaster
Chapter 969 - 964 Eternal Trace 1, 2

Chapter 969: Chapter 964 Eternal Trace 1, 2

Lin Xin rummaged through the stacked frames for a while.

The painter didn’t interfere with him, allowing him to freely search through the piles of paintings and drawing paper.

At first, they were all landscape paintings, from mountains and rivers to planets, to the universe, to black holes, sun, and supernova explosions.

Everything was there.

The further down he went, the smaller the range became.

After Lin Xin turned over a dozen paintings, he finally found a so-called painting of a human head with a snake body among the ones at the bottom.

It was said to be a painting, but it was actually just an outline sketch in black and white, only black and white lines.

He held the painting in his hand, and the scroll wasn’t even mounted; it was just a simple sheet of drawing paper.

Then, Lin Xin didn’t do anything but quietly waited.

He had a premonition that the woman would come to him again, and she definitely would.

Standing quietly in the windmill waiting, Lin Xin began to absorb the surrounding air. The gas density here far exceeded any place he had seen.

It was even higher than the density of rocks in the great universe.

"Wait!!" Suddenly, a flash of insight struck Lin Xin’s mind.

"Is it possible that I am now inside an extremely terrifying density of a mass cluster? Just that the lighter substances appear as air to my eyes.

And the heavier ones, with relatively greater density, appear to me as soil, grass, and windmills."

Lin Xin’s heart trembled.

"To further speculate, I might be inside an incredibly massive black hole body. To outsiders, ordinary people would see it as a terrifying planet with a density so high it becomes a black hole.

And in my eyes, my own density also reaches an extremely high level, so relatively, the substances in this planet do have distinctions in clarity and turbidity of density."

This reasoning was somewhat difficult to understand.

But Lin Xin immediately grasped the key point that might confirm this theory.

That was, the black mud he had previously absorbed had a density greater than swallowing several planets.

Swallowing that small handful of black mud earlier was equivalent to devouring several giant planets in the great universe.

"Interesting."

A trace of interest appeared on Lin Xin’s face.

"If this is true, then beings that cannot reach this entry-level density, once they step in here, their body density might be even thinner than the air here. So they would definitely end up like that woman before.

Their bodies would become translucent and half-visible."

"And more beings, perhaps wouldn’t even have the qualification to see this place; in their eyes, there is no distinction between the clarity and turbidity of density here. Everything is an immensely terrifying and unimaginable compressed material entity. To them, all substances here would appear the same, as an entity that their sight cannot penetrate."

Just as no one can find traces or outlines of other colors in the darkness.

Understanding this, Lin Xin linked it to the characteristics of the abyss, and suddenly he had an idea.

The Gate of the Abyss lies at the end of matter, and if this place is truly a layer deep within the abyss.

Such phenomena would be quite normal.

He waited patiently.

Time slowly passed.

Finally, as the thousandth heartbeat was about to pass, that woman appeared again.

"Did you help me find that painting!?"

The woman seemed very excited.

She immediately saw the scribbled human head with a snake’s body sketch in Lin Xin’s hand.

"Tell me the method to achieve the primordial."

Lin Xin said calmly.

The woman looked at him deeply.

"If it’s you, perhaps you really might.... I have never seen anyone come in here and still maintain their physical form.

Previously, the only one who could maintain a physical form here was the painter."

"Didn’t I come in the same way last time?"

Lin Xin asked, surprised.

"You were in an ethereal body last time," the woman shook her head.

Lin Xin frowned slightly and did not continue to ask.

He glanced at the colored thread on his wrist; only one-tenth was left.

"I don’t have much time. You’d better hurry."

"Alright!"

The woman nodded, formally beginning to explain.

"While I am still clear-minded, since you have come here, you must have fulfilled some basic conditions that touch upon the primordial.

And here, it is the most basic entrance or key to entering the Primordial Realm."

"What should I do?"

Lin Xin asked in a deep voice.

"You go over, and as a reward, trade your most precious thing to the painter, who will, in exchange, help you draw your most core Eternal Scroll."

As the woman spoke of this, her voice trembled slightly.

"The Eternal Scroll is the most solid part of you that is most likely to remain unchanged eternally, unscathed by time.

It can be your physical body, your emotions, your will, or even your meticulously refined Magic Artifact, or soul. Even many intangible things, emotions, emotions, love, and hate...."

"Simply put, I need to find something in me that could be called eternal and unchanging, and give it to the painter to draw? Is that the idea?"

Lin Xin summarized simply.

"You can understand it this way."

"What if what I think is eternal is not actually effective?"

Lin Xin continued to ask.

"Then you will lose your most precious thing, and lose it forever," the woman answered solemnly.

Lin Xin felt a chill in his heart as he suddenly remembered the divine ancestor in the Dark Universe.

That woman who had eternally lost one side of her body.

"What should I do?"

He asked seriously.

"Walk over and state your request. Then say what you believe is your eternal thing.

After that, leave everything to the painter."

The woman said indifferently.

"How do I know you are not deceiving me?"

Lin Xin naturally did not trust her.

"I have no need to deceive you. You can complete all this, and then give me my painting back."

The woman’s mood had clearly stabilized by now.

"Okay."

Lin Xin nodded, looking at his wrist, realizing that time had slipped away again.

He knew there was no time to delay and slowly walked forward.

Stopping a few meters behind the painter.

"Do you wish to leave your mark on the Eternal Wall?" a voice, as if suppressing its horror and fear, resonated in Lin Xin’s ear.

"Is this how one can step into the Primordial?" Lin Xin asked back.

"If you can leave a mark, then yes."

The voice replied.

"Who are you?"

"I am the Painter."

In front of Lin Xin, the Painter’s movements as he was painting slowly came to a stop.

"Your most precious thing... is... huh?"

The Painter suddenly froze. After a brief pause, he continued.

"Alright, we can begin now. The part of you that remains eternal and unchanged, belonging to your eternal essence, what is it?

Give it to me, and I will paint it on the Eternal Scroll. If successful, you will earn the qualification to enter the Primordial."

"The part of me that remains eternal and unchanged..." Lin Xin closed his eyes, lost in thought.

He had never considered this question before.

Indeed.

The Primordials, being able to disregard and easily transcend the manipulation of time, must have within themselves something unaltered by time as a core.

Time slowly passed by.

Lin Xin remained silent, pondering.

Everything about him was gained from his Attributes and abilities.

The cultivation he possessed was refined postnatal, bit by bit.

These things grew stronger with time’s accumulation and would weaken as time turned back.

So, what part of him never changed, unaffected by the passage of time?

He kept asking himself.

Strength?

No, not that.

Cultivation?

Not that either.

Knowledge?

Definitely not.

Perhaps it’s some intangible and special thing.

Lin Xin furrowed his brow.

The Painter seemed in no rush, simply waiting quietly for his reply.

He wasn’t a true life form; rather, one could say he was just a switch.

Like a lock hanging outside a box.

He didn’t have much authority to think; all he could do was paint and ask anyone who came here.

But this person he saw before, who also intrigued him, his Soul’s essence turned out to be like that.

This made the Painter feel a sense of novelty never before felt.

Time flowed on.

Who knows how long it had been.

Lin Xin finally opened his eyes.

"If there’s something within me unaffected by time," his eyes slowly brightened, revealing a touch of absolute coldness and reason.

"It should be that I don’t want to die!"

"Afraid of perishing..."

The Painter understood Lin Xin’s meaning.

"You could say that." After saying this, Lin Xin felt somewhat relieved.

He stared intently at the Painter’s back before him.

Swish, swish, swish...

The Painter picked up his brush and started drawing quickly on a blank piece of paper.

He began with a black-and-white sketch.

It depicted a tall and slender figure, someone Lin Xin knew very well.

At that moment, he realized it was himself, his body in this life.

The Painter’s speed was fast, from head to foot, then filling in the details, even intricately drawing fingerprints.

Soon, a black-and-white sketch was complete.

Just as the sketch on the scroll was finished.

Boom!!

Lin Xin suddenly felt his surroundings darken.

Immense pain surged from every part of his body at once.

Then came a sense of humiliation.

Then suffocation....

Then piercing pain.....

Nausea... and so forth...

An array of extreme negative feelings rushed into Lin Xin’s mind one after the other.

He had never experienced anything like this, like when he desperately struggled in the Abyss back then.

Perhaps even those past experiences were far inferior to this.

’Might as well be dead...’

A thought suddenly sprouted in his mind.

’If dead, I’d finally be free.’

"No....."

’This kind of torment will continue until your Soul collapses; unless you choose to end it yourself, you’ll never be free.

The Painter lied to you.....’

"No....."

Lin Xin murmured lowly.

Countless painful and negative perceptions began to continuously circulate within him.

He stood there motionless.

And the woman in a white dress guarding the door was also nervously watching him with a hint of expectation.

"No one wants to die," the woman understood in her heart.

"But compared to death, there are many more things, more trials, more hardships, which are more unbearable.

Like a life living forever in pain; such times the eternal peace death brings becomes their pursuit and yearning."

Many people believe they would never want to die.

But when faced with extreme pain, extreme humiliation, extreme oppression... and much more.

Too many lives that have committed suicide have already revealed the choices of countless people.

When living in this world becomes only painful, death becomes the ultimate release.