Collapse of the internal world, death
"Young man, the reward you have earnt, is the opportunity to have my soul origin be integrated with you fully, as well as absorb 10 phoenix origin blood drops first to gain a pure phoenix bloodline, allowing you to better assimilate with my soul origin, as well as the opportunity to study the world ode of the phoenix!"
Ao Rai outwardly put on a joyous expression, but inwardly was somewhat disappointed.
"These rewards aren't as incredible as I was hoping, quite similar to what Yun Che received, and effectively identical to what Feng Xue'er had. However, I can work with this."
Ao Rai took the ten blood drops and almost instantly refined and absorbed them via his joss flame. Instantly, Ao Rai felt an incredible affinity with fire forming in his blood, as well as a certain bloodline connection to the phoenix spirit in front of him. Shortly after, Ao Rai also absorbed the phoenix soul and tried to refine it inside his world before fusing it with his soul, however something shocking occurred.
The phoenix soul origin which should have been effectively dead and easily refined seemed to be incredibly fearful upon sensing the aura of Ao Rai's profound veins and exploded violently inside his internal world. Although this soul origin was millions of years old and heavily weakened, it still originated from a true god. The force of its explosion was no joke.
Ao Rai was instantly heavily injured, spitting out a large mouthful of blood and collapsing onto the ground heavily, however that was the least of his worries.
Inside his internal world, there was an incredible scene, the sky appeared to be being refined by heavenly flames, and the land was being scorched.
The lush green vegetation was on fire, and the myriad oceans were boiling. The only area which was safe was the altar, however even that seemed as if it was being encroached upon by the flames. All the simple organisms which were beginning to evolve inside of Ao Rai's world, incredibly slowly but it was occurring, were almost all instantly killed.
Ao Rai's eyes were incredibly bloodshot.
"God damn it, I even fooled this shitty bird by concealing my past lives, except for my original one, by sealing the memories within my world, and gained all these rewards, but now this stupid f*cking chicken has caused me immense harm, immense harm!"
Ao Rai knew that if the altar inside his body collapsed then his internal world would also collapse, and then the flames would rush out of his profound veins and incinerate the rest of his body, and then he would promptly be crippled and unable to regenerate his veins, due to the nexus of his veins being completely destroyed. While the rest of his physique would remain, Ao Rai would never be able to have a special internal world, or his incredible profound veins which could harness the veneration and worship of living beings into a Joss Flame for incredible battle power.
The phoenix was observing Ao Rai the entire time, and was in shock once it saw that he was having such an adverse reaction to its origin soul.
"What's going on?"
With incredible confusion and panic evident in its voice, the phoenix tried to help Ao Rai, since within its origin soul it had hid the power of nirvana which would allow a perfect reincarnation after death once, and this power would also be lost without the refinement of the origin soul.
Meanwhile, Ao Rai was unable to pay attention or care about the Phoenix's remorse and panic as he was busy regulating the internal situation, desperately sending profound energy to strengthen the altar, however the flames were slowly pushing in closer on the altar, the protective layer of energy being slowly worn down.
With a roaring cracking noise as if the heavens were being pierced... the protective layer of light around the altar started to collapse.
Roaring in anguish and rage, Ao Rai furiously suppressed the fire with his energy, however it was no use.
The protective layer of energy was completely encroached upon and with that the altar was incinerated as well, Ao Rai's internal world turning to ashes along with it.
As the internal world turned to ash, Ao Rai's profound veins which both supported and in turn were supported by the internal world collapsed, crippling Ao Rai's cultivation and releasing the phoenix flames into his entire body, instantly incinerating him to ashes.
The only thing left behind was an incredibly stunned phoenix spirit, and a pile of ashes, slowly billowing in the wake of the incredible fire.
From ashes to ashes, dust to dust.