Chapter 153 - The Ancestral Task

For the umpteenth time, Xiao Hu's body turned limp, and she passed out. The soul wipe spared no memories, erasing all the bonds that the swordswoman had nurtured throughout her life. That settled, Xinzi focused on the dantian, and with his Swallowing Skill, drained the entirety of Xiao Hu's cultivation base. A resplendent green qi orb rose from her dantian, expanding to a boulder-sized energy ball that carried nearly 360,000 Spiritual Drops.

"About 100 times the human limit. Gotta hand it to the Xue ghost, he does know his shit." Although the Zhen-body's Divine Powers preserved Xiao Hu's dantian, without the modifications that Xue Yuanshao helped her develop, the elastic structure couldn't have withstood the wear and tear long enough for the Zhen-body to salvage the situation. Xinzi smiled at the qi orb, in it seeing a recollection of adventures that mixed all facets of human interactions.

The Five Elements Transmutative Technique kicked in, breaking the Qi Orb into 36 lesser orbs of 10,000 drops each—except for the last one, which carried 9,996. About 350,000 of these Spiritual Drops had been built from Immortal Qi, making each one of them more valuable than 20 of Xiao Hu's previous drops. Xinzi picked one of the Immortal Qi orbs, his five-colored qi poured in, yin and yang swirled around his form, and the Immortal Spirit Drops melded into a brand-new Qi Vortex that rotated above Xiao Hu's navel.

"For a human body and soul to process Immortal Qi is nigh impossible. Although your constitution outclasses most human Qi Refiners, it is still not enough. Consider this a parting gift. I don't expect you to build an Immortal Foundation and enter the divine system, but based on this Qi Vortex, your Green Immortal Sword Art and Wailing Life Transformation, condensing at least one Immortal Seed shouldn't be difficult. Congratulations in advance," Xinzi said, and with a downward hand motion, sent the altered Qi Vortex back into Xiao Hu's dantian. Other orbs flew into our monk's Qi Ocean, settling in for later use.

"The Ancestors of the Infernal Paradise have put this world's fate mysteries on lock-down. Devils have always been better than deities at manipulating non-element related stuff, so unless a Saint decides to intervene, in the Great Desolation world, no one can predict the future anymore. I wish I could guarantee that we will never meet again, but I no longer have that ability," Xinzi said with a gentle smile, and placed one hand on Xiao Hu's forehead.

Her body broke down into seven-colored mist that rose up the air and flew out of the Evernight Palace—sailing across the Endless Sea. Xinzi didn't give the mist a precise direction, letting fate decide where it'd land. That settled, he stood up, ambling at the door.

'Boss, the Endless Sea is so dangerous! I've just arrived, but almost died three times already! After I complete the task, you have to reward my loyal services," the Armored Lion King, who left the Gorge of Thousand Venoms where Yan clan and Fen souls stayed trapped to collect the Corpse Demons and Red-Tongued Devil's body, said. Needless to say, without the Klesha Heart, the lion wouldn't have been able to contact Xinzi from so far away.

'Sure.' The Hengye clan divided the Endless Sea into six lesser seas: the Outer Sea, Blighted Sea, Northern Dark Sea, Southern Wreckage Sea, Raging Eastern Sea, and Western Damnation Sea.

The extinguished Qiu clan was based in the Outer Sea, a relatively safe environment for anyone at the Golden Core stage or above, to say nothing of a rank-seven Infernal Shadow Beast like the Armored Lion King. The Lion King lied, and Xinzi knew it. The audacity of this lion truly knew no limit, and even with Xinzi being able to see all it went through thanks to his Klesha Heart, it still dared to  deceive its lord.

Regardless, our monk didn't care, and as he walked out the door, his heart drummed in his chest. The hallways of the Evernight Palace had never looked so tiny. For reasons that he couldn't comprehend, Xinzi wished that they could extend forever, keeping him locked in a space and time loop. One figure came into view, stopping Xinzi's inner thoughts.

"Greatest One, your servant greets you," Baxian said while still lying against the pillar. Unlike the deference he displayed at the throne room, he didn't bother to bow at his divine lord. Even the 'Greatest One' carried a somewhat jesting tone.

'I heard that you almost ruined your mortal shell to distract the Wuxin-puppet, thereby giving the great elder the opportunity to awaken the retired elders. Bold move, I like it.' Xinzi started a mental exchange, undisturbed by Baxian's lack of decorum.

'All for my...'

'Shut up, I'm not finished.' As he stopped beside Hengye Baxian, Xinzi's gaze hardened, his left hand swung at Baxian's face, slamming into his cheek with a backhanded smack. The smacking sound resounding within the hallway, and Baxian's eyes trembled, widening in disbelief.

'You got some nerve. Who gave you the right to run your mouth in Xiao Hu's ears? What were you trying to accomplish exactly? And what is all this nonsense about me swallowing deities?'

'You misunderstand. I found her pitiful, in all honesty. Getting thrown into the jaws of the Evernight Palace with no one to rely on, at the very least I thought she could use the intel to take better care of herself. I've always had a thing for helpless, confused fawns driven to loneliness by the people they care for.' As the mental exchange went on, Baxian stroked his cheek, and his lips curled up.

'As for the swallowing business, it's the truth. That person has finally pieced together the puzzle of your birth, and believes that the answer to your innate Swallowing Skill is the key to defeating the Primevals. I just used Xiao Hu to feed you that info so that once you returned to your decoy shell, you'd seek me out. Zhen'er, as you know, after your Divine Consecration, we have to seal the channels to the upper realms. Only by doing so can we guarantee that, once you spread the Divine Rules across this world and turn it into a miniature heaven, the Night Pantheon cannot send its armies to uproot that thing.' Why did the Taiyang and Hengye branch clans descend upon the Great Desolation world, and other mortal worlds for that matter? To spread the Higher Principles.

In an environment without Higher Principles, no cultivator—regardless of species—could release powers that exceeded the Immortal level. Demons and divines both had names for their higher principles: Divine Rules in the case of the heavenly clans. And once these rules spread, the Great Desolation world would be open for irresistible invasions.

Though they tried to figure out the facts, the Lords of Hell, and even many of Heaven's top players, couldn't understand why Yongye and Yanglong cared so much about the mortal worlds. Still, they didn't doubt that crucial secrets hid there, and concealed their own agents across those worlds.

Only the highest-ranking members of the branches knew that, once the Divine Rules covered the Great Desolation world, armies would descend from the Solar and Night Pantheons to fight...for a certain item. Even if the Great Desolation world could survive that war, once that item left its resting place, the world would burst...and vanish into nothingness—taking billions upon billions of lives down in the process.

Fortunately for all mortal worlds, Yongye and Yanglong had severely underestimated the difficulty of turning mortal worlds into lesser heavens. Not only did the feat require colossal divine resources, but it also needed mighty gods to keep the project moving forward. The mortal worlds had their own defense mechanisms, and didn't allow deities that weren't born on their soil to stay for extended periods of time. Moreover, experts at the Great Principle or above couldn't descend, and False Gods devoured as much Divine Rules as they produced.

Knowing that Hengye Wuxin was the first to not only exceed the False God tier, but even surpass True Gods and Great Gods to become the first High God in the last 100,000 years, one can understand why Yongye and the Hengye clan so desperately wanted him to suffer for his betrayal.

'Why do you care? In a world that I rule, you're still not the God-Monarch. Baxian, that person is like all the rest: a trickster. By now you should know that anyone that has existed since the Obscure Era cannot be trusted in the slightest.

God, Devil or Saint, it doesn't matter. I refuse to believe that one such entity will expand so much energy just to save a mortal world from destruction. They have been destroyed before. Where was he then? No, he's afraid—afraid of the consequences of either Yongye and Yanglong getting their hands on those relics. And I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted them for himself.' Xinzi sneered openly, uninterested in cooperation.

This wasn't the first time that Baxian tried to bring him onboard, and while Xinzi didn't doubt that he could glean certain advantages from the cooperation, he had enough problems already—and didn't need to add one more ancient's plots to the list.

'Zhen'er, how can I not look forward to a world ruled by my little brother? That said, I can't understand why you, born of Primeval Deities, despise the ancients to this extent.'

Faced with Baxian's inquiry, Xinzi lifted his eyes towards the ceiling, his Spiritual Sense looked past the ebony walls, staring at the sky above.

'Because, big brother, they robbed the paradises of too many colors,' Xinzi said, and without giving the confused Baxian time to process his words, our monk walked off.