Chapter 188 186- The Cardinal Sin Greed

Xi Shen opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was a multicolored sky and sun overhead.

He slowly rose into a sitting position while holding his head.

“Was I dreaming? It felt too real like I was reliving those memories instead of a simple dream.”

Xi Shen mumbled to himself before he began looking around to see where he was, but he only saw an expanse of grassy terrain that stretch into the horizon. The entire world was dyed in a multicolored hue that blended together to create a dazzling scene.

He frowned at this, however, a voice suddenly sounded behind him.

“Despite failing to force out that existence, I was still able to pull your conscious here.”

Xi Shen immediately flew up from his sitting position before his head spun around to look at the woman behind him.

This woman had on a multicolored robe, with her black hair cascading down to her lower back. Her perfectly shaped oval face, smooth jade-like skin, and her glossy emerald eyes would force someone to describe her as the most beautiful woman in the world and nothing less.

However, Xi Shen was currently looking at her as if he was staring at a hideous demon that had just crawled out of the 18 layers of the underworld.

His eyes spout fire as he waved his hand to call upon his Law Comprehension, but nothing happened, he was unable to feel it. Xi Shen then tried to call upon his Soul Cultivation and Qi Cultivation but none of those worked.

The Cardinal Sins Goddess looked at Xi Shen comically waving his hand towards her and she said amused.

“We haven’t seen each other since a lifetime ago and the first thing you do is try to attack me?”

Xi Shen paid her no mind, and instead focus on trying to attack her.

However he sense that his powers were gone, and he felt more like a mortal right now than anything.

‘Shit, what’s happening?!’

Seeing that Xi Shen wasn't listening to her, the Cardinal Sins Goddess stopped talking and allowed Xi Shen to continue his ridiculous gestures.

After a moment of this, she asked.

“Are you finished?”

Xi Shen paused his movements and shot a malice-filled glare at her.

He wasn’t just making random gestures, despite not feeling any of the powers he once had there was something else deep within him that he could sense.

It was familiar and he recognized it to be something that was always with him since he reincarnated. But he had never focused on it or tapped into its power asides from using it to control the multicolored plum blossom when it was attached to Fu Wei.

Maybe it was because everything else was stripped from him and the presence of this strange energy he felt around him was in this world, that caused his senses towards it to increase.

Xi Shen closed his eyes and focused on sensing this power.

The Cardinal Sins Goddess didn’t interrupt him and was only casually observing him.

After a few seconds, an unusual aura started to emanate from Xi Shen’s body. When this aura appeared in this multicolored world, it began to tremble intensely before another color appeared.

In the sky and across the earth, the colored orange slowly started to manifest.

The Cardinal Sins Goddess looked at this and then said.

“Not bad.”

After this color was established in the world Xi Shen’s eyes flew open and a flash of orange flickered in his golden pupils.

He then pushed his hand towards the Cardinal Sins Goddess and a violet pillar of energy that gave off a feeling of extreme greed rushed towards her. It felt as if it could corrupt any living thing under heaven with the desire of greed.

The Cardinal Sins Goddess lowered her head to watch this pillar bare down on her.

“Interesting, you're able to control the Cardinal Sin Greed in such a crude way. Perhaps it’s because of the vigor of the Desire Energy gathered here.”

“However, crude is crude.”

After saying that, the Cardinal Sin Goddess lifted her finger. The red color in the world became brighter by a notch and a fine thread three inches long formed at the tip of her finger.

It then slowly drifted forward after forming.

Xi Shen’s overbearing pillar of Greed Desire Energy immediately burst apart in all directions when they came into contact.

Xi Shen withstand the blast of energy and his clothes flapped uncontrollably.

After, he then slowly rose into the air, the color orange in the multicolored world became brighter and brighter.

He sucked in the Desire Energy in the surroundings before converting it into his own Greed Energy. It had dyed him in a dazzling glow of orange and his Greed Energy spread out like a long cape behind him.

The sight was grand and the world shook as the sky seemed to distort under the power being accumulated.

Xi Shen resembled a being that could shake the nine heavens above and suppress the 18th layers of the underworld below. No God or Demon could withstand his might.

With this much power gathering around him, Xi Shen stared down at the Cardinal Sins Goddess from his position above.

With a point of his finger, the Greed Energy behind him exploded in all the directions covering the entire world in only the color orange.

Countless swords and sabers were then created to fill the sky.

Just one of these swords felt like it could one-shot a Peak Stage Core Formation Realm Cultivator. Imagine thousands upon thousands of these swords and sabers together, what kind of power was that?

In the outside world, Xi Shen could have possibly matched the strength of a Peak Nascent Soul Realm Cultivator.

The Cardinal Sin Goddess who was facing the brunt of this enormous power looked at the swords and sabers in the sky before she said.

“For a mortal, you were always an extraordinary innovator Avarice. Even back then, you would take things already created that had established their own principle of operations, and completely flip it on their heads. No mortal can claim that their wisdom and tenacity, or rather greed, to seek knowledge is comparable to yours.”

“However, are you still not finished?”

The Cardinal Sins Goddess asked again, but Xi Shen only looked down coldly at her before ignoring her question and lowering his finger.

The thousands or possibly even millions of swords and sabers fall from the heavens to the earth, causing loud whistle-like sounds to fill the entire world.

The Cardinal Sins Goddess had a calm expression on her face as she waved her sleeves towards the sky.

The swords and sabers all completely shattered.

In one motion she destroyed Xi Shen’s heaven-shaking and earth shattering attack.

“No matter what you're still using what’s mine. It’s pointless to use this world’s Desire Energy to attack me. Now, let’s talk.”

The Cardinal Sins Goddess after saying that tap her bare feet on the grassy terrain. The gravity of this world increased and Xi Shen was immediately knocked out of the sky.

With a loud bang, his head met the ground with a warm welcome.

Despite the several hundred meters drop, Xi Shen didn’t feel any pain, confirming his suspicions of where he was.

Inside the plum blossom.

This was also perhaps his Soul Body.

Xi Shen stood up and went to walk away from her while saying.

“We have nothing to talk about, I’m leaving, and after I return to my physical body I’m going to drag you out of my Qi Sea before finding a way to destroy your plum blossom.”

However, Xi Shen’s body froze in place before he could turn to find a way out.

“We have plenty to talk about, and I’m sure you have some questions you want to ask me yourself. You’re just stubborn to a fault, something that was present even in your past life.”

Hearing her bring up his past life, Xi Shen glared at her.

His relationship with this person was complicated and at the same time extremely complicated.

Xi Shen of course had multiple questions in his head, but looking at her he hesitated for a moment before he asked the one that had always haunted him.

“Who was Mavilin to you?”

After what had happened on that mountain, he went over the events time and time again in his head to figure out what had occurred.

He came to his own conclusion, but… he wasn’t sure.

The Cardinal Sins Goddess smiled as she walked closer to his still frozen body and said.

“Despite gaining a new life, you are unable to let go of the past.”

After saying that she saw the cold look Xi Shen gave her but she continue to say.

“I suppose I don’t blame you.”

“Mavilin, she was my sixth sin, the Sin of Lust.”

Xi Shen’s heart shook.

“To comprehend the Six Cardinal Sins I came up with a unique method. I spent several thousand years planting numerous seeds in my domain of control and have these seeds go about their mortal lives pure of one of the Six Sins. For the Sin of Wrath, I have that seed cultivate the virtue of Patience. For the Sin of Sloth I have them cultivate the virtue of Diligence, and so on. I believe that to comprehend the Six Sins I must first experience the six virtues. There is not a Ying without Yang between heaven and earth, both are of the same nature and source, a human’s desire.”

After saying that she look into Xi Shen’s eyes and said.

“Maivilin was the seed that was cultivating the virtue of Chastity in opposite to the Sin of Lust. She was also the last one I needed to gain the title of Heir to the Six Cardinal Sins Laws, so I-”

“You murdered her.”

Xi Shen bluntly stated after listening this deprived of conscience story.

“You murdered her and the others in your pursuit of power.”

The Six Cardinal Sins Goddess looked at him and simply said.

“I didn't murder them, they were born because of my life essence. They were me in a sense, simply clones I left in the mortal world.”

Hearing that, Xi Shen felt a burst of complicated emotions erupt in his heart. He didn’t know how to feel after finding out this sick and twisted truth.

“After I gained the title of Heir to the Six Cardinal Sins Laws, I was the first cultivator in the God Domain to comprehend such a fundamental Law. Having the ability to manipulate such a law was as close as it was to be able to wield the heaven's ability to create a living existence.”

“You were an Epoch Pivoter, there’s no other way to describe your ability to comprehend such Laws otherwise.”

“Right, that was the name you gave to beings of my existence.”

“But even with the power I had obtained something was missing, and that was when I sensed the Will manifesting in the mortal boy I once consider insignificant. I was curious about obtaining that Will.”

Xi Shen interjected again.

“So you sealed my emotions with it and then watched over me in silence. You were planning on going against Heaven’s Will? How surprising to see one of its puppets wanting to sever its strings.”

The Cardinal Sins Goddess looked at Xi Shen and said.

“Why should I be confined to only the Six Cardinal Desires? Why should I be satisfied with holding an incomplete power?”

Arrogance from being prideful and extreme gluttonous almost bordering on greed but not enough to reach that stage, as if it wasn’t possible for her to develop such an emotion.

The previous two were how her words came off to Xi Shen. Even as she spoke she carried herself with pride and arrogance, holding herself above all in creation.

Whether it was because of the Six Sins making her act like this Xi Shen didn’t know.

Xi Shen was snapped out of his thoughts when she continue to speak.

“What was so dangerous about the Sin of Greed that the Heaven’s created an Empyrean Rule to abstain cultivators from comprehending it? Pride was considered the root and beginning of Sins themselves, so why was it possible to comprehend it and not greed? I wanted to know so that was one of the reasons I placed that Plum Blossom inside your soul.”

She then lifted her finger and tapped his forehead.

The multicolored plum blossom appeared on Xi Shen’s forehead before fading away.

“I found out while observing you, that even though the Sin of Pride was the beginning, it was by no means the end. The Heavens can curb all the other Sins, but not Greed. It can give a countless number of women to the lustful, it can give peace and quiet to the lazy, it can provide enough wealth and status to the Prideful, and it can even provide for the Gluttonous lack of self-control. However, no matter what it provides for the Greedy they will always want more. Daring to even want the Heavens themselves due to their greedy nature. It wasn’t connected to either Sin, but all the Sins could eventually lead to it. This caused Greed to be the most wicked of all the sins.”

Xi Shen silently listened to this, as it was something he was unable to figure out in his past life.

“You Avarice, have the embodiment of that Will inside of you. Its origins are mysterious and I was never able to figure out how you as a mortal came to possess this Will.”

Hearing those peculiar words, Xi Shen found them strange, but a thought suddenly appeared in his mind. It was an obvious observation one should have made in this situation, but he was just so caught up with everything else he never question it.

Xi Shen looked at her, and he asked.

“You-how exactly are you here right now? I’m cultivating the six elemental laws of Heaven and Earth but I can’t sense an Heir for them, they are all free to be taken. Because of this, I came to the conclusion that the Gods are dead, so how are you here?”