Chapter 1984 – The Forefather and the Last One
“You’ve already met the heavenly emperor, haven’t you?” Jin Huo suddenly murmured to Lu Yun.
The young man was extremely preoccupied with his thoughts. Yun Yi was growing ever more unreadable to him, especially after he heard Jin Huo’s latest supposition.
Yun Yi had revived an empyrean supreme just so they could die again?
What kind of insane plan was that?
There were endless grand supremes in the chief worlds and even peak grand supremes weren’t as rare as people made them out to be, but there were only three empyrean supremes!
Being empyrean, they’d reached the heavens!
Such was the conclusion that Lu Yun reached with formula dao after the Tome of Life and Death evolved.
Only three empyrean supremes had ever come into existence since the dawn of time. They were the representatives of order in the chief worlds. They held the will of the people in the palm of their hands and spoke to the heavens on behalf of life.
Yun Yi had resurrected one of these august personages just so they could die anew?
Distracted as he was, Lu Yun nodded subconsciously after he heard the question.
“Don’t be fooled.” Jin Huo studied the distant Lu Yun. “You might not have seen the real heavenly emperor, and perhaps he never died. Maybe he’s even the reason behind the fall of his court.”
Jaw dropping, Lu Yun shuddered from the implications. His impression of the primordial heavenly emperor was that of a man overly obsessed with cultivation. The emperor’s potential was the greatest in the chief worlds, but his expertise in holding court and employing authority were highly lacking.
In fact, the young man had thought lightly of this emperor when he first heard how the primordial heavenly court had fallen before it reached its peak. How subpar must its leader be to fail to lead a unified empire to glory?
As it were, what if the primordial heavenly emperor had carefully orchestrated all of it? He’d purposefully crafted the image of a mere empyrean supreme in the eyes of the public, that he possessed nothing apart from his cultivation.
The heavenly court that’d dominated an era, but collapsed before its time, was also just a casual afterthought to him. How would it be anything more if he was the mastermind behind his own death?
Cold sweat beaded Lu Yun’s forehead when his thoughts traveled here. He hadn’t thought much of the primordial heavenly emperor before meeting him; his heart was mostly filled with questions. After meeting the historical figure, the doubts morphed straight into contempt.
The primordial heavenly emperor’s show of weakness and even a hint of incompetence induced Lu Yun to subconsciously give himself airs in front of the man. The emperor had been turned into an akasha ghost and Lu Yun wielded the Tome of Life and Death. It all made perfect sense and there was nothing amiss about the scene.
But upon giving it more thought, didn’t it seem like Lu Yun had been under constant influence from the emperor? His actions and emotions were entirely swayed by the legendary primordial figure.
Apart from drawing the man into an akasha ghost, everything else that Lu Yun had displayed in front of the emperor—including his own thoughts—hadn’t been of his own volition. If the man had wanted him to commit suicide, Lu Yun would’ve done so without hesitation and thought it was his own desire. After all, what was the point in living when he’d had enough of life?
“You’re right, I shouldn’t be fooled by him.” Lu Yun’s throat was dry. If it wasn’t for the Tome of Life and Death changing from a bronze book into a bamboo scroll, he still wouldn’t be able to fathom how terrible the emperor was, even with Jin Huo pointing it out.
“He should be out of here by now… Being an akasha ghost won’t restrain him and that golden bridge of heaven and earth can’t hold him,” Lu Yun murmured. “Who is Wei Lie?” He suddenly turned solemnly to Jin Huo. “The Divine Feather young man buried here, who is he??”
Lu Yun suddenly felt that there were too many things in existence that could influence him. He had to remain awake and himself. At the very least, he had to answer his greatest questions and resolve his confusion.
Otherwise, too many thoughts would disorient him and give others the chance to swoop in.
His jaunt on the golden bridge was a prime example. Random thoughts had flourished in his mind and granted the primordial heavenly emperor a chance to affect his thoughts. The Three Brushes of Reincarnation had instinctively drawn the emperor into an akasha ghost to protect Lu Yun. That turned the emperor from an unknown threat into one of his own people.
Jin Huo looked blankly at Lu Yun, she didn’t know why his thoughts were jumping erratically from topic to topic. They were talking about the primordial heavenly emperor, so why was he abruptly asking about the Divine Feather young man?
She thought for a moment before replying, “He’s not a young man of the Divine Feather race. He’s their forefather, the first of his race and the last.
“The Divine Feathers were the first race of connate dao forms, they existed before humanity did. They were the first dao form race to be eliminated by all of the other races in existence.
“Their resentment knew no bounds after their extinction and gathered on the young man you know as Wei Lie.”
“Within existence” was another demarcation between order and disorder, one given by the beings that’d become a peak life form. Although disorder and order opposed each other, disorder was also a type of order. It wasn’t anti-order.
To exist was to be present with order; both order and disorder fell under existence. Lands without order were deemed “nonexistence”.
As its definition indicated, nonexistence was a complete lack of everything. Devoid of order, rules, and laws—nothing existed. It wasn’t a blank void as “blankness” was also a type of existence. Nonexistence was truly nothing—nihil.
It was a concept similar to the massive trap that the tree god had laid in the fourth realm. If cultivators were unable to access sequence, they would ultimately fill themselves with so much nothingness that they would cultivate right out of existence.
“Existence” was probably the biggest world in the understanding of cultivators, an ultimate heaven and earth formed by order.
There were more connate dao form races than just humanity, the first was the Divine Feathers. Wei Lie was both their oldest ancestor and their final member.
Lu Yun suddenly thought of another possibility.
“If the great god Pangu is still alive, then the one suppressed in the ancient burial mound is…” He grit his teeth. “Not Pangu! Young man Wei Lie is this person’s future self and the last of the Divine Feathers. He’s just an eighteenth level sequence young man.
“His past self is the one sectioned and buried here! Not Pangu either, but Forefather Wei Lie of the Divine Feathers!”
Having once cultivated the method of three lives and formed his own past, present, and future selves, he understood what Jin Huo was saying.
She nodded in confirmation.