The Confrontation
They jolted awake, freezing the moment they saw his eyes. It wasn't the same gaze as before, even if the form remained beautiful. There was something warmer and deeper now, ancient and vast, like staring into the space between stars.
His gaze landed first on Ziyun. "Ziyun, I know you've had such... fantasies," he began, his voice dry. "But why did you feel the need to drag these two into it?"
Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson, the color spreading down her neck. "...It's really you, Tao. She tempted me! She said she was 'innocent' and that the last time didn't feel 'genuine.' She wished to participate. I... I am sorry."
"Tempted? Yes, perhaps a little," he conceded, tapping his temple. He had her complete memories and feelings, after all, flowing through him like a second set of experiences.
"But you followed along quite diligently, didn't you?"
He then turned to Xiao Ning, who was doing a poor job of hiding her guilt behind a sheet, her knuckles white from gripping the fabric. "I... I heard some sounds, and the rest is blurry..." she stammered.
"Yes...blurred memory. Nice excuse for the last ....eight times?"
He asked, raising his eyebrow. She kept her head down, before rallying with defiant eyes, "We only... We love the same soul! Is that a crime?"
Shaking his head, he turned to Long Yuyin, who rose from her space, the pretense of sleep abandoned entirely. Her hair was disheveled, her robes hastily adjusted, but her eyes were clear and challenging.
The Disciple's Revelation
"That leaves you, my 'dear disciple'," he said, his eyes settling on her. Nothing major had happened, but she had been in his private chamber, with his wives even during the acts ~ just being too close without participation every time, denying advances but without much resistance, giving harmless excuses to still be with them. He himself felt confused as not everything was fully connected in memory just yet.
"Or, given the recent... proceedings, should I...?!"
Before he could finish, she was on him with a flawless movement technique he hadn't ever seen before, closing the distance in less than a heartbeat. Her spiritual lips were on his, tasting the soul itself and literally plucking it up from the body with shocking expertise. His physical body dropped cold to the mattress below like an abandoned puppet.
"Shut up..." she whispered fiercely against his mouth, the words vibrating between their souls.
Somewhere in the process, the spiritual body separated from the mortal shell completely and floated together with her, while the two below were stunned by the sudden turn of events, their eyes wide with surprise. Savoring the spirit of his for brief moment until he pushed her separate, she radiated relief and joy which was too much for Tao to accept immediately.
"Yue tricked me," she whispered, her eyes locking onto his after regaining clarity, loosening the pent-up frustrations she held like a dam finally breaking. "It was torture with what I was feeling ~ seeing them both... so active, and not being able to reciprocate. Feeling everything through the soul corridor but unable to act."
He was genuinely confused seeing the previous shy lamb become so aggressive after just two months. Moreover, she was 'Disciple' in a formal sense, a line he had carefully maintained.
"I don't understand. Why were you with them here in the first place if it was so torturous?"
The Truth Unveiled
Shaking her head as he began to grasp the intricacies, despite the blush creeping up her neck like wildfire, she met his gaze head-on, a spark of raw complaint in her eyes. But she didn't explain. Instead: "Master... you lied to me. You said you were inclined toward the opposite, while in your feminine form."
Her eyes flickered over the scene to what he was holding in his hands, then back to him with an expression that bordered on accusatory. "It certainly doesn't seem like it."
His face darkened instantly. He felt, more than saw, the other two turn their divine sense sharply toward him, their previous embarrassment forgotten in a wave of sudden, intense curiosity as they analyzed his micro-expressions as if photographing a historic event.
She rested her chin on his chest, looking up at him with a complaint that sounded more like a demand, her breath warm against his spiritual form. "I don't care about the packaging anymore. Man, woman, demon... it doesn't matter. I know the taste of your authentic self just now. I kissed the man I love. And I'm not letting go."
He could feel the flavor of sensation coming from each of them through the soul corridor ~ a symphony of emotions, desires, and intentions flowing like rivers converging. Especially the new entry that was streaming a lot of emotions, raw and unfiltered.
He shifted his questioning eyes to Ziyun, who had been smitten similarly before coming here, and Xiao Ning, who was sighing with the air of someone who had seen this coming.
You didn't bother letting her know about the soul connection?
They knew the question in his mind without him speaking, their shared connection translating intent faster than words.
Understanding the Game
Tao blinked. The 'Yue' gambit hadn't created a rival; it had created a junkie. She hadn't fallen for the woman; she had gotten hooked on his spiritual signature ~ that specific packet of information that defined his soul, unique and addictive ~ but had been unable to act on it.
Now that she realized the source had returned and was sitting right in front of her, that's what the pent-up aggression was for. Withdrawal and reunion all at once.
Seeing the silent enthusiasm radiating from all of them, he did the only thing he could do to make it not worse or awkward: He smiled, a dark, satisfied curve of his lips that held promises and threats in equal measure. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close until their spiritual forms melded at the edges.
"...Call me Tao. You have graduated from my ...discipleship."
He dissipated his shed physical body once again, freeing the space on the mattress. "Because I'm not planning on letting you go either."
The Long Night
"So," he grinned, the memories of 'Yue' blending seamlessly with his own desires, creating a feedback loop of anticipation that thrummed through the soul corridor connecting them all. "Since we've all become so... intimately acquainted with my soul over the last month, I see no reason to stop the cultivation session now. Do you?"
The night descended into beautiful, inescapable chaos. Spiritual forms intertwined with each other, soul corridors blazing with shared sensation. Every touch magnified through their connection, every breath synchronized across four beings. The barrier around the island pulsed with the overflow of energy, reality itself bending slightly at the edges from the intensity of their cultivation.
It was a long night.
A very, very long night.
The kind that rewrote understanding, shattered boundaries, and forged bonds that transcended the merely physical or even spiritual. The kind that could only happen when souls truly touched, when all pretense was stripped away, when four people became something greater than their individual parts.
Reflection: The Paradise Between
The two months of his absence had been anything but lonely for the ladies. They'd turned the island into their personal paradise, exploring every cove and whispering grove, filling the spaces with laughter and discovery. He'd missed the formal introductions, of course. His counterpart had handled that, along with… other things.
All the parties involved were fully aware of the situation and had consented to engage. Which removed the primary issue of betrayal and deception. There wasn't any guilt either, as it wasn't his first experience with Xiao Ning and Ziyun ~ they knew him, all of him, in ways that went beyond mere physical intimacy.
But Long Yuyin... he needed to form a much deeper connection with her shortly afterward, to truly understand what had transpired.
She was different. He had always kept her at a careful arm's length, a line drawn in the sand between mentor and lover ~ sacred and inviolable. His counterpart, however, saw that line not as a boundary, but as a challenge to be overcome with surgical precision.
Yue's Masterstroke
The first thing it did was present itself as a conscious, distinct iteration of him in his feminine form ~ "Yue," a name that echoed with shared history and carried the weight of another lifetime.
Bringing two childhood sweethearts who already shared intimacy to bed was easy for this manipulative self he was. Being a woman, it operated from a place of innate comfort and understanding that bridged gaps his male form couldn't.
But its masterstroke with Yuyin was more profound, more calculated. He thought about it again and didn't feel wrong, for his previous relationships also operated on the same sense of control and manipulation whenever he wished for it.
It was just executed on its own this time. Not built on naive loyalty and love, but on understanding, strategy, and inevitable destiny.
Yue ~ or his feminine aspect ~ didn't just seduce her; it rewired their soul connection. She upgraded the connection to a soul corridor from the simple soul brand he had initially forged, amplifying it until it hummed with the same profound sense of oneness he shared with the others he considered lovers. The difference was night and day ~ a whisper becoming a symphony.
It then projected the moments of his life with the other two and with her, and finally the raw, unfiltered memories of his battles with the Phoenix. The sheer, universe-altering scale of power he commanded ~ a far cry from the cultivated laws she knew, shattering her understanding of their master-disciple relationship.
It made her feel the gap, not as a student, but as a soul standing at the edge of a cosmic ocean ~ subtly tearing down the pride and superiority she always carried like armor.
Then came the shared warmth of Ziyun and Ning, always operating in ways that seemed like they were one individual, bringing her deeper than she'd ever thought possible. Teaching her things about herself she'd never dared to explore.
The Soul Corridor's Purpose
And as their senses, comfort, and emotions began to flow equally through that enhanced conduit, the soul corridor began its true, designed function: to create an unbreakable, spiritual dependence. Not slavery, but symbiosis. Not control, but unity.
Seeing her vulnerability, the other two shared their inner selves with her completely, holding nothing back. It was a bond he had designed, now weaponized by his other self to bridge the distance he had meticulously maintained for so long.
And yet, they still missed her. The name Yue, echoing the one he'd used during his time in Luo Zheng's world. She wasn't some cheap clone or even a split soul.
She was him. That left no room for not taking it up as his own conscious actions, his own choices. By having his feminine aspect, "Yue," be the primary agent, Tao had sidestepped the direct "rejection" of his male form that had occurred during the river revelation ~ a tactical genius that even he had to admire.
After a brief, and frankly expected, period of adjustment regarding their peculiar situation, their relationship settled into a more comfortable rhythm.
The Months That Followed
Months passed in comfort and rest, in cultivation and closure, in the kind of peace that felt earned rather than given.
Surrounded by his succubi ~ and he used that term with both affection and accuracy ~ their moods and their temptations, it was sometimes easier to slip into her form if he wanted some time alone. The irony wasn't lost on him ~ becoming one, to escape the attention of women.
But then again, he thanked himself that within the confines of the barrier around the island, he hadn't brought any male characters. That would have complicated things in ways he didn't want to contemplate.
The island had become a sanctuary, a pocket of existence where time moved differently, where the rules were theirs to make and break. Where four souls ~ now truly one in the ways that mattered ~ could exist without judgment, without expectation, without anything but the truth of what they meant to each other.
And in the quiet moments between passion and cultivation, between laughter and serious discussion, Tao sometimes felt the echo of Phoenix's last smile, that inscrutable expression of peace. He understood it better now.
This was what it meant to truly live.
The Art of Divine Idleness
He decided to table his psionic experiments for a while. The long battle had been exhausting in its mental effort to stay conscious, to remain himself against a force that devoured identity itself.
Why rush? Every day became an exercise in sublime idleness ~ lounging on the island beach with his loved ones, watching the sun paint the sky in impossible colors from dawn to dusk, utterly without a care. Intimacy, he discovered, took on a new, profound meaning when you were a spiritual form sharing a sunbeam, your essences mingling in the warmth like vapor in light.
Their remote sanctuary was a blessing beyond measure. This island was the most remote land on Earth, yet under the illusion ~ still a blind spot for prying satellites and curious eyes. At night, occasionally, a faint smear of light pollution ~ the radio waves of passing haulers and ocean liners ~ would brush the edge of his divine perception like moths against a window.
The cities were full of those signals. For mortals, they were limited in design to their vision, seeing only what their eyes allowed. Now imagine seeing all those conversations and information as a spectrum of light, brilliant and overwhelming. Hearing the sound of every conversation in private and in public, a cacophony that would drive lesser minds to madness. Feeling the fragrance and smell of every chemical in the air, each molecule a story unto itself.
The place he rested was truly peaceful by comparison.
The Vastness of Solitude
The ocean was vast, a liquid continent of solitude stretching in every direction, and none had strayed close. If one ever did, the simple reveal in their instruments ~ the sudden presence of land where no land should be ~ would be enough to spook them back on course, their captains muttering about equipment malfunctions and magnetic anomalies.
They were not exploratory vessels, just travelers on a trade-wind highway cutting through the Pacific. Thousands of miles to the south, the faint, busy frequencies of deep-sea fishing vessels chattered, a distant hum of a world that had no idea they existed, that had no conception of what transpired in this hidden pocket of reality.
It was during one of these utterly peaceful, sun-drenched afternoons that he found himself recalling the results of the past battle, turning them over in his mind like precious stones.
The Phoenix's little "gift." Being forced to live through a dozen mortal lifetimes and their struggles had… seasoned him. The avalanche of memories anchored him more firmly to concepts like 'humane,' sprinkling a layer of consideration over his previously pure, unadulterated self-interest.
A little bit, anyway.
He wasn't about to become a philanthropist, but he could at least understand why mortals clung so desperately to their fleeting lives.
A Request from Paradise
This newfound perspective was precisely why he didn't laugh when his girls came to him with a request. They were curious about the mortals, their eyes bright with that particular hunger for knowledge he recognized all too well. They wanted to see more of the world, especially to visit some kingdom or libraries, to understand this new reality with their own senses.
After all, the last small visit had been limited in senses and places before they returned to the safety of the island.
"The people here haven't even properly figured themselves out," he pointed out, gesturing vaguely toward the horizon where civilization churned in its endless cycles. "What's the point in studying their fleeting civilizations and squabbles?"
But he didn't neglect their request. His divine sense traced the timeline of Earth, reading its history like a book written in geological strata and genetic code. The story it told was both predictable and fascinating:
The Human Pattern
An incident had occurred that accelerated the evolutionary process, pushing apes toward something more.
Humanity rose in fragments, small bands of clever primates chasing shelter, fire, and the rhythm of survival. From the first chipped stone to the first buried ancestor, their story was shaped by scarcity and fear, yet carried forward by an unusual talent for imagining futures that did not yet exist.
They built tribes because isolation killed them ~ the lone human was a dead human.
They built gods because uncertainty frightened them ~ better to believe in something than face the void.
They built stories because meaning was a tool as necessary as the spear ~ myths that bound them together.
They hoarded grain because winter was inevitable ~ feast today, starve tomorrow.
They crowned kings because chaos was unbearable ~ someone had to decide, even if badly.
They forged laws because greed was innate ~ written rules to constrain unwritten impulses.
They waged war because resources were limited ~ your plenty was built on my lack.
They sought empires because security could never be guaranteed ~ build walls high enough and perhaps the darkness stays out.
They sparked revolutions because oppression repeated itself like a season ~ spring always follows winter, and freedom follows tyranny.
This was the pattern, clear as crystal once you had the perspective to see it: they were master cage-builders, only to spend generations picking the locks. They erected theocracies for the comfort of divine order, then outgrew them with expanding minds that refused to stay constrained.
They forged democracies not from virtue, but from sheer exhaustion with tyrants ~ when enough blood has been spilled, even compromise looks appealing. They experimented with liberalism and individual rights only when a fleeting surplus of safety made such luxuries possible, when the wolf was far enough from the door to argue about philosophy.
The Hollowing
The very tools they used to climb ~ reason, science, liberalism ~ now hollow them out from within. Science strips the mystery from existence, making the cosmos feel cold and humanity feel expendable, just another chemical reaction in an indifferent universe. Their identities, once forged by faith and tribe, become fragile, contested things, subject to redefinition at every turn.
This was the now, and without one collective threat to unite them, it would spiral again until it once again introduced something mysterious, something to fear and rally against.
In this vacuum of meaning, the innate human need for purpose and unique identity would not vanish; it would curdle. It would spawn fierce, competing ideologies, narrative control, attacks on cognition itself ~ not to build a shared future, but to offer the comfort of a simple, subjective truth in a world grown too complex to bear.
They would not be slain by a meteor or a plague, but by a failure of their own spirit. Their systems would collapse not with a bang, but with a weary sigh ~ as trust evaporated, institutions became hollow shells, and the collective will to maintain a complex, shared reality simply… flickered out like a candle in the wind. Then the old systems would come back again, the cycle continuing endlessly.
The Mutant Variable
But now, a new variable entered the equation: the appearance of mutants. Not myths and village stories anymore, not whispered legends of witches and demons. The next stage of their evolution as they claimed, born from their own world, from their own genetic code gone beautifully, terrifyingly wrong.
And in their fear, humans would not see kin or progress. They would see the ultimate "other," a living mirror showing them they were no longer the peak of creation, no longer the apex predator. The conflict would be the old, bloody story of tribe versus tribe, rewritten with genetic code replacing skin color and geography.
It would be the final, brutal simplification of their complex experiment ~ not over ideas or resources, but over the very right to inherit the Earth. Who deserved to survive? Who had earned tomorrow?
Xiao Ning, Ziyun, and Yuyin listened attentively for days as he slowly described these little things in a witty fashion, making the grand sweep of history feel intimate and immediate. Now they were curious about the mutants they had witnessed, those strange beings who bent reality without cultivation.
Lessons in Reality-Bending
"So," Xiao Ning began, her voice pulling him from the sweep of world history to the immediate present, her head tilted in that way that meant she was genuinely puzzling something out, "these 'mutants'... their power is like how you created this land? Just... doing tricks without any techniques? Channeling foreign energies?"
"No," he said, a slow smile spreading across his features like sunrise. "It's more fundamental than that here. It's about convincing reality itself to agree with you. Not forcing it, not demanding it ~ convincing it that your version of events is the correct one."
A fair question was tossed back, Yuyin's eyes sharp with interest.
"Then teach us how you play with the powers here."
Her words carried weight, expectation. They wanted to understand, to master, to be in this world rather than simply observe it.