When the butterfly gazed into Yu Xuan's eyes, it did not find terror.
No instinct.
No desperate clinging to survival.
On the contrary.
There was an absence.
A hollow where fear of death should have been.
That was what made it hesitate.
Death was the most fundamental fear of mortal existence.
Even saints, immortals, gods and demons feared it in some form. It was the root impulse that shaped evolution, struggle and ambition.
And yet this human…
From the butterfly's perspective, Yu Xuan did not merely endure death.
He lacked the instinct to fear it.
That was not courage.
It was abnormal.
If this continued, the butterfly realized, it might cause irreversible damage to his psyche.
Repeated immersion in the boundary of [Death and Mind] could sever something essential within him.
The arrangement of this realm may have been established by an Absolute.
But the butterfly itself was no minor existence.
It was ancient.
It stood on the threshold of Absoluteness.
