One is a pathway that attracts trouble and possesses no Branch Metacs, while the other one is a pathway that helps him kill enemies better and increases his power with a lot of useful Branch Metacs. So yes, the choice is clear between the Space Pathway and the Killing Pathway, and there is no regret for making the switch.
He was thinking about this and many other things as he went on his merry way. But not everyone could be as carefree as he was.
Just as he left, someone rushed over to where the fight started. The person who came over was a white-robed swordsman.
These white-robed swordsmen usually look elegant and clean. They usually carry themselves with an air of moral superiority, and they think themselves to be a blessing for the world.
They think they are the saviors of the world. This is because of their Dao Heart refining technique. So it is a must that they carry themselves about like that, as the day that they stop being saviors is the day they will descend into madness.
But this particular white-robed swordsman is not carrying herself with the elegance befitting her title as the savior of the world. Her eyes are bloodshot, her hair is frazzled, her robes are disheveled, and she looks drunk.
She looks drunk because she is swaying in the air and her figure is unsteady, even though she is not walking. It was as if the wind was strong enough to push her about in the air, which shouldn’t be so since she is a rank 5 being.
Every rank 5 possesses a part of the power of a world. This is because they have imbibed and assimilated a fragment of the heart of a world. So such a mighty figure shouldn’t be swayed so easily by the wind.
But this incomprehensible sight will gain a plausible reason to any onlooker who spots the gourd hanging on the waist of the swordsman. Then the plausible reason will become perfectly reasonable when the swordsman grabs the gourd and pours its contents down her throat.
She drank greedily from the gourd for a long time. After having her fill of the savory liquid in the gourd, she belched loudly and put the gourd back on her waist.
Then she forced her unsteady eyes to scan the lake of white ashes. This lake is the one where her fellow whiterobed swordsman had died earlier.
When she couldn’t find any trace of him, she shrugged and said, "I tried. It is not my fault that there is nothing left of him."
Then she turned to leave. As she flew through the air, she said out loud without any care in the world, "Monarch Two Swords can’t blame me for his death. After all, he was the one who decided to run off anyway. Even if he wants..."
She belched again at this point. This interrupted what she was saying.
After getting her bearings, she said, "Even if Monarch Two Swords wants to blame me, what is the worst thing that he can do to me? Can he kill me?"
Her words were slurred as she said, "If he wants to kill me, he can go ahead with it. I’m not scared of death."
Then she chuckled and said, "In fact, I look forward to the sweet release of death. Maybe death will save me."
After speaking, her chuckling turned into full-blown laughter. She laughed loudly and freely as if she didn’t have anything to worry about.
To an uninformed onlooker, she appears to be carefree and unfettered. Some might envy her, but no swordsman who sees her will envy her or want to be in her situation.
Her situation is so bad that she has nearly reached the point where she is looking for death. This is not a normal thing to do, no matter how eccentric the person is.
But she is very serious about seeking death. It is one of the reasons she is looking for the guardians of this world.
To be fair, death is not the main reason she is looking for the guardians. Death is just a side dish that she won’t turn away from if it is offered to her.
As she thought of her mission, she said, "If they work with me, everything will be good. If they decide not to work with me, that’s good too. And if they decide to kill me, I guess there is nothing I can do about it."
At this point, she hiccuped. The hiccup made her giggle in amusement.
But this amused state didn’t last long. Just a few seconds later, the weight of all her sorrows came crashing down on her mind again.
So she said, "Either way, I must get merit or death. Without merit, the only thing that awaits is death."
Gaining merit is her main goal and highest priority right now. She needs to do a very good deed urgently because she did something very bad a few years ago. This all started with a fight she had with a black-robed swordsman.
In the Sword Way Sect, the white-robed swordsmen and the black-robed swordsmen are enemies. If the situation permits it, Sword Cultivators and Killing Cultivators will kill each other on sight. This is because killing each other will earn them the greatest merit.
Swordsmen save the world while killers massacre the world. This puts them on opposite sides, which is why they are rewarded by their sect when they kill each other.
As if that isn’t enough encouragement to fight each other to the death, the fact that the higher the merit they have, the higher their Dao Status will become, is an extra source of encouragement.
Of course, saving the world or killing other people can also give them merit points. But killing each other is always the fastest way to earn merits. This is why it wasn’t out of place when she and that black-robed swordsman began to fight each other that day.