Chapter 555: The Problem of Self-Existence

Crossing through the scorching lava tunnel, Hua Changxi stepped into a brand-new canyon.

Unlike the relentless, furious battles of the first canyon, this place was dead silent, the air filled with a suffocating solemnity.

Hua Changxi pondered silently: if the first trial of the training grounds tested individual combat, then the second trial most likely tested... group warfare?

While surveying the canyon, Hua Changxi cautiously stepped deeper inside.

The moment she entered a hundred meters into the depths of the canyon, a violent wind suddenly erupted, and the ground roared and trembled fiercely.

Immediately after, ten formation platforms burst from the earth; formation flags fluttered atop them, snapping loudly in the wind.

Hua Changxi happened to be standing beside one of these platforms, trapped within the formation.

At the same time, spiritual energy all around churned and twisted wildly, condensing in an instant into ninety-nine burly figures clad in crimson battle armor—the Zhu Que Army!

Hua Changxi's eyes brightened suddenly as she seriously observed the stern array before her.

A hundred-person military formation!

Judging by the positioning of the Zhu Que Army, she also recognized this as the Zhu Que Army's basic formation—the Crimson Flame Arrowhead Formation.

Hua Changxi's gaze flickered; she seemed to guess what trial was about to come—practicing the Crimson Flame Arrowhead Formation with the ninety-nine Zhu Que soldiers before her.

Sure enough, the next moment, the Zhu Que soldier standing at the center of the formation shouted loudly: "Form up!"

The ninety-nine Zhu Que soldiers moved instantly, quickly settling into their positions.

For Hua Changxi, cooperating for the first time, her consciousness kept up, but her body lagged half a beat behind.

The instant her foot landed, a massive repulsive force struck suddenly; before she could even react, she was violently shaken out of the formation, falling clumsily to the ground.

"Rhythm mismatched, exit the formation!"

"Again!"

Gritting her teeth, Hua Changxi climbed up, looked at the ninety-nine expressionless Zhu Que soldiers returning to their posts, took a deep breath, and stepped into the formation once more.

"Form up!"

The second time, she was half a beat too fast, and again she was shaken out of the military formation.

The third time, her position was off by a mere hair's breadth, and she was thrown out of the formation.

Time and again, Hua Changxi was ruthlessly kicked out of the formation due to some minor detail not being quite right.

The strictness of the hundred-person formation far exceeded her imagination; it allowed no individual brilliance to supersede the collective, nor could it tolerate the slightest hesitation or error.

Here, all one hundred people had to completely forget their 'selves,' becoming a community of shared fate with one breath and one heartbeat.

"So practicing military formations is actually this... difficult."

Accustomed to fighting alone, Hua Changxi rarely paid attention to the Zhu Que Army's drills in ordinary times, always thinking it was no great difficulty; after experiencing it personally, she felt that the Hall Master and the stewards of the Lingguang Hall's Martial Arena truly had it hard.

"Thud, thud, thud~"

No one knew how many times she had been thrown out; Hua Changxi had been battered until she was numb, the light in her eyes dimming.

Whenever she wanted to give up, a feeling of unwillingness welled up in her heart again.

"I refuse to believe I can't even master a hundred-person formation!"

After falling so many times, she had inevitably accumulated a certain amount of experience.

At first, Hua Changxi's attention was entirely on herself; every action and thought was devoted to striving to align herself with the other ninety-nine Zhu Que soldiers.

After being battered until numb, she stopped thinking about herself and instead focused only on the other Zhu Que soldiers, feeling the flow of their qi, listening closely to their unified shouts and footsteps; at the same time, she carefully perceived the circulation of spiritual energy within the formation.

When the focus of her attention shifted from herself to the Zhu Que Army, the number of times she was thrown out of the formation instantly decreased.

She was no longer an intruder, but like a drop of water returning to the sea, naturally merging into this crimson ocean.

"Form up!"

As the command rang out again, Hua Changxi moved.

This time, her footsteps completely overlapped with those of the other ninety-nine Zhu Que soldiers, her breathing resonating in frequency with everyone else.

When the great formation needed to erupt, her spiritual energy flowed in precisely like a river entering the sea; when the great formation needed to retract, her qi instantly returned to silence.

Boom!

A hundred moved as one, and the earth roared.

To outside observers, the boundaries between the originally independent hundred seemed to vanish, transforming into a flame giant towering between heaven and earth.

The 'Crimson Flame Arrowhead' condensed from the spiritual energy of the hundred no longer had any stagnation; sweeping out with devastating momentum, it tore a pitch-black rift in the void ahead.

Orders followed, prohibitions obeyed; advance and retreat as one.

When the formation ceased its movement, all hundred froze simultaneously, even the swaying of their garment hems seeming to stop in the same instant.

Standing within the formation, Hua Changxi felt that surging power where soul was connected to ninety-nine others and flesh merged with flesh, stirring in her heart a completely strange and unfamiliar sensation.

"Boom~"

The Crimson Flame Arrowhead did not last long in the air before shattering with a crash, turning into a sky full of flowing fire that scattered dot by dot into the void.

Immediately after, the figures of the ninety-nine Zhu Que soldiers also faded, receding like a tide to become pure, refined spiritual energy, returning to heaven and earth.

The ten formation platforms that had stood tall, along with the formation flags snapping loudly throughout the sky, also rapidly submerged into the earth at this moment, as if they had never appeared at all.

Hua Changxi came to her senses; looking at the vanished hundred-person formation, she knew she had passed this trial. She remained silent for quite a while, and only after the strange emotion in her heart dissipated did she step forward again.

"Boom~"

Continuing deeper for another stretch, the earth trembled again, this time even more violently than before.

The same formation platforms and flags, the same Zhu Que Army, only the numbers were greater.

Looking at the nine hundred and ninety Zhu Que soldiers within the formation, Hua Changxi's eyelids couldn't help but twitch—a thousand-person military formation, the Burning Sky Blazing Flame Formation!

Cooperating with just one hundred Zhu Que soldiers had been that difficult; now facing a thousand-person formation, Hua Changxi already foresaw that she would soon be frequently thrown out of the formation again.

"Thud thud thud~"

As expected, within the thousand-person formation, Hua Changxi found the drill even harder, and a desire to retreat subtly arose in her heart.

She was not afraid of falling, and she was willing to continue training, but the barrier in her heart could not be crossed.

Military formation drills demand that orders be obeyed and prohibitions heeded, leaving no room whatsoever for the display of individuality.

Within a military formation, individual strength is suppressed without limit; only absolute obedience and perfect coordination can unleash the formation's maximum power.

Yet she was a highly self-centered person; asking her to abandon her individuality was too difficult.

Merely thinking about having to discard herself left her engulfed in anxiety and panic.

If she stripped away all her unique traits and merged completely with the crowd, would the remaining shell still count as her, Hua Changxi?

If Hua Changxi were an octopus, then within a hundred-person formation, she would need to sever only one or two tentacles—a sacrifice she could still accept.

But in a thousand-person formation, achieving mental fusion with the other Zhu Que soldiers and synchronizing with the formation would require severing more than half her tentacles.

This was a devastating wound!

Hua Changxi found this somewhat unacceptable.

Give up?

She did not want to.

Not give up?

Yet she could not bring herself to "discard" herself.

During the military formation assessment, Hua Changxi found herself in a dilemma.

At the same time, regarding the issue of her own existence, she had fallen into confusion.

A person must certainly have a self; without a self, who exactly is living?

Yet she also realized that in many matters, a person cannot rely solely on the self.

In conducting oneself and handling affairs, if one blindly caters only to one's own temperament, it is like the current great Zhu Que formation: clinging stubbornly to the self makes it impossible to integrate into the ranks, preventing the formation from gathering its momentum.

Setting aside questions of right and wrong, she could not help but secretly doubt: Was such stubborn adherence to the self actually problematic?