Chapter 1588: Ancient Mystery – The Self Tribulation

"I am you." The white-haired youth's lips curled into an inscrutable smile as he looked at Wang Lin as well.

"Pretentious!" Wang Lin coldly snorted and took a step forward. His figure instantly shot forward like a meteor, ignoring the strange white-haired youth as he headed toward this vast and strange continent.

However, just after Wang Lin had moved forward less than a hundred zhang, his eyes flashed, and he stopped. Looking ahead, Wang Lin raised his right hand and struck the void in front of him.

With this strike, ripples immediately appeared in the world before Wang Lin. The ripples spread out, transforming into a barrier like a water curtain.

This barrier contained a dense amount of Immortal Qi. While it dissipated the force of Wang Lin's palm, it also created a backlash that invisibly surged into Wang Lin's body from all directions.

"You cannot enter." The strange white-haired youth, inside the water curtain barrier and standing atop the Ancient Demon statue, looked at Wang Lin, shook his head, and spoke.

"You want to know what the Heavenly Tribulation is, and you want to know the Origin of the Heavenly Tribulation. Then, defeat me, and you will know everything… Do not be surprised that I know your thoughts, because I am you." The white-haired youth took a step forward. His white hair fluttered, and his clothes billowed, giving him an elegant and ethereal air.

"Throughout history, you are not the first Third Step cultivator to defy the heavens, but not one has ever survived this Self Tribulation… I look forward to seeing if you can do it." The white-robed youth smiled and spoke softly.

As he spoke, the white-haired youth stepped out from the water curtain-like barrier, stood more than ten zhang away from Wang Lin, extended his right hand, and pointed at Wang Lin.

"Do you dare, or do you not!"

Cold light flashed in Wang Lin's eyes. Without wasting words, his body flickered forward, and his figure instantly shot toward the white-haired youth. He raised his right hand, his fingers forming a palm, and in an instant, he was close to the white-haired youth.

"The Self Tribulation… Interesting."

The white-haired youth's expression remained unchanged as he walked toward Wang Lin as well. His right hand formed the same palm, mimicking Wang Lin's movements exactly. This scene was extremely eerie; if any outsider were to see it, they would certainly be shocked.

Two people, identical in appearance, expression, clothing, and everything else, were unleashing the same Divine Ability. In this vast world, they were like two meteors, roaring as they drew closer and closer.

In an instant, the two approached each other. A flash of killing intent appeared in Wang Lin's eyes as his right hand, fingers formed into a palm, collided directly with the white-haired youth's right palm.

A loud boom suddenly echoed through the world, stirring up endless echoes that spread in all directions. Once they merged into one, it was as if the world itself was roaring in anger, deafening everyone; the ears were filled with endless, continuous rumbling reverberations.

As the echoes continued to reverberate, Wang Lin and the white-haired youth moved in perfect unison. The moment their palms touched, they both curled their five fingers inward fiercely.

The rumbling started again, and a violent storm erupted between the two, forming gales that scattered in all directions. It whipped their identical white hair and identical clothes. Even at this moment, their expressions were exactly the same, filled with a gloomy killing intent.

This gripping motion was like trying to clench their hands into fists, and in the process of gripping, they were trying to extract the other's Origin. This may take a long time to describe, but in reality, it happened in an instant.

The two simultaneously gripped and clenched their fists, pulling outward fiercely. The white-haired youth immediately spat out a mouthful of blood and was thrown backward, blood flowing from his seven orifices. A Fire Totem manifested in his left eye, and a lightning mark was contained in his right eye. His Origin of Karma, Life and Death, and True and False trembled, diffusing from his seven orifices as if about to be extracted, eventually transforming into a mass of Chaos Qi that was held in Wang Lin's hand.

Looking at Wang Lin, he also spat out a mouthful of blood, his expression and the trembling of his Origin no different from the state of the white-haired youth at this moment. From his seven orifices, his own Origin was also being gripped by the white-haired youth's right fist.

His body retreated, and the two of them staggered back a hundred zhang simultaneously, without the slightest difference!

While retreating, the two even had identical thoughts. They simultaneously slapped the Origin of the other, which they had extracted using the Karma mark, into their own foreheads, integrating it into their bodies to compensate for the previous loss of Origin.

"There is no need to verify any further. Your thoughts are my thoughts, your Divine Ability is my Divine Ability, and I am you! Your attempts to probe with Divine Ability might be useful against others, but against me, it is useless!" The white-haired youth wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and gave Wang Lin an eerie smile.

"If you still do not believe, I will help you believe." As he spoke, he took a step forward, his figure shooting toward Wang Lin like a long rainbow.

He raised his left hand, and a white Qi roared and spread, forming a white mist. He raised his right hand, and black Qi shrouded it, like surging ink-black mist. Raising both hands simultaneously, the white-haired youth instantly approached Wang Lin and pressed both palms forward.

"Life and Death Seal!"

A supreme aura of life and death erupted from the white-haired youth's body at this moment. His left hand contained life, as if it contained all spirits of heaven and earth, and his right hand grasped death, as if controlling the beginning and end of all things!

As he approached, his left hand pressed toward Wang Lin first. The white mist roared, rushing to devour Wang Lin. This white mist was vitality and inherently had no harm, but Wang Lin understood that this vitality of the white mist was part of the Life and Death Seal. Once it entered his body, followed by the arrival of the death mist, the Life and Death Seal would be complete.

With a gloomy expression, Wang Lin coldly snorted and also raised his left hand. Vitality spread into mist, forming a shroud around him. Under the cover of the mist, his left hand pierced through the mist and collided with the white-haired youth's vitality palm.

With a boom, both their bodies trembled simultaneously. Vitality surged into each other's bodies, directly disrupting the Qi within them, and they both spat out blood. However, they did not retreat; instead, they simultaneously raised their right hands and collided fiercely once more.

The rumbling echoed, the wind and clouds changed color, and the world shook. Wang Lin and the white-haired youth both retreated while spitting out blood, but in the instant they retreated, they both roared out loud.

"Life and Death Seal!"

"Life and Death Seal!"

Under the deafening roar, Wang Lin's body landed on the ground, and he staggered back continuously. Every step he took caused the ground to shake. After retreating a hundred steps, Wang Lin's face was pale, and only then did he stop.

His body was in chaos, the Life and Death Seal having erupted. If not for his understanding of life and death, he would certainly have been severely injured by this seal.

The white-haired youth also retreated, his body even crashing into the water curtain barrier. After passing through it, he stepped onto the top of an Ancient Demon statue. With this step, countless cracks immediately spread from the white-haired youth's feet, directly covering the entire statue.

With a boom, the statue collapsed. After the impact force dissipated, blood flowed from the corner of the white-haired youth's mouth. His expression was ferocious, but the corners of his mouth still revealed that eerie smile.

"How about that! The Karma mark, the Life and Death Seal, and every Divine Ability and Daoist Magic you know, I know them all! How can you kill me? What do you have to kill me with!" The white-haired youth's smile grew wider and wider, and in the end, he began to laugh wildly.

The two were blocked by the water curtain barrier. Wang Lin's expression was gloomy as he stared at the white-haired youth inside the barrier and closed his eyes.

The moment he closed his eyes, the white-haired youth's expression changed, and he immediately closed his eyes as well.

Both closed their eyes simultaneously, initiating the True and False Dao. In the True and False Dao, closing one's eyes is false; everything in the world is false in the heart. Once the heart moves, the conversion between true and false becomes unpredictable.

Closing their eyes simultaneously, it was as if this heaven and earth, this world, did not exist at all in the minds of Wang Lin and the white-haired youth; it was all illusory. This illusion was not blurry; rather, it was because the two of them had seen through the Origin and understood everything.

In an instant, Wang Lin's eyes suddenly opened. The moment he opened them, the white-haired youth's eyes opened simultaneously. Cold light flashed in both their eyes; in the True and False Dao, opening one's eyes is true. Everything that was false before became real the moment they opened their eyes. In this conversion between false and true, one can see through everything.

In the instant they opened their eyes, the two simultaneously closed their eyes once again.

In the moment of this closing, Wang Lin raised his right hand and swung it outward fiercely.

"True and False Dao, everything is extremely false. Following the movement of my heart, dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth, and everything vanishes into smoke!"

The white-haired youth also swung his right hand outward, speaking the same words.

Both used their heart's movement to integrate into the true and false, dissipating everything. If used by one person alone, this technique would be extremely powerful, but now it was being used against each other simultaneously. As a result, the moment they waved their right hands, their bodies shook violently, and a heaven-shaking roar erupted. Both of them spat out mouthfuls of blood and were sent reeling backward.

But after retreating only three steps, Wang Lin forcibly stopped his momentum, violently reversing the power within his body. With a flicker, he rushed out, charging toward the white-haired youth who was performing the same action.

The white-haired youth's movements were no different from Wang Lin's, and he also charged forward.

The two drew closer and closer, and in almost an instant, they arrived together at the center point outside the barrier, simultaneously extending their right hands, pointing at each other, and roaring the same three words.

"Fixed Spirit Technique!"

One finger fixes the spirit. As Wang Lin spoke the three words, and as his right index finger touched the white-haired youth's right index finger, both their bodies trembled simultaneously.

Fixed Spirit, not Fixed Body. It did not just fix their bodies; it fixed their Primordial Spirit, all the movements within their bodies, and even the passage of time in this world and the eternal path of operation—at this moment, they were all fixed by the full power of Wang Lin and the white-haired youth!

Under this Fixed Spirit Technique, their bodies immediately became motionless, falling from the sky toward the ground. During the fall, Wang Lin's mind was busy calculating and deducing.

"It should be like this…"

Everything Wang Lin had done before was actually with an ulterior motive from the moment he first collided with the white-haired youth's Karma. It was just that he could not think about it; according to his analysis, if he thought about it, the other party would very likely be able to sense it.