Destiny is ashes

Chapter 1098 The Beginning of the New Order Alliance (There will be more updates today; this is yesterday's)
Northern Xuan Sacrifice Continent, the Wilderness of Dust and Desolation
From a high altitude, on the vast scorched earth of Chenli, with the Mingjing Sect at its core, scattered patches of green are spreading. The carefully cultivated 'Evergreen Tree' seedlings are already spreading rapidly, not to mention the numerous puppets resembling multi-legged beetles that are tirelessly planted and fixed along the earth's veins day and night according to the sect's True Lord's plan, vaguely forming a huge law.

A blank sheet of paper is easy to draw on; this is an undeniable truth. But the most difficult thing is how to turn the world into a blank sheet of paper. The Mirror Sect was forced to accept this outcome, so naturally, it could not afford to waste it.

Originating from the Kun Yao of the Tianyuan Realm, the technology of the Heavenly Mystery and Wonder 'Thousand Winds' has not spread on a large scale to prevent the invasion of the Heavenly Demons and restore its former power to transform the world. However, it is perfectly capable of being used for planting trees and creating the foundation of a giant array at the domain level.

They are quiet and efficient, following a pre-set procedure: turning the soil, planting seedlings, and drawing water from afar for irrigation.

Surrounded by these puppets and forests, brand-new cities rose from the ground. However, what might seem strange to outsiders is that most of the figures in these cities are very young, even childlike.

At this moment, during recess, tens of thousands of figures poured out of the massive building in the city center, most of them children and teenagers. These young people were in groups of three or five, either sweating it out on the training ground, testing the martial arts skills they had just learned, or chatting and laughing as they went to the library and cafeteria together.

The entire city was filled with a vibrant and positive atmosphere.

After the Nirvana Calamity, the Mingjing Sect was nearly empty, with the souls of all beings waiting to be revived in the Youli Sea. The Mingjing Sect's 'Puppet Assembly Line' primarily produced for young children, teenagers, and infants, as they were like blank slates, better able to adapt to the new world. Adults, on the other hand, were rigorously selected, with only the most valuable among them being revived ahead of time to serve as mentors and caretakers, guiding these children forward.

The Mingjing Sect of today has restored the original meaning of "sect" from the Daoist era, which is an enormous "academic alliance," a huge education and training group composed of various academy cities. All the residents are students, and their daily activities, apart from cultivation and field training, consist of various competitions.

Outside of school, training institutions and camps are springing up everywhere. They are all open to all students free of charge, allowing students to choose freely. Surrounding these academy cities is a huge automated puppet ecosystem restoration system and an industrial system for manufacturing and maintaining puppets.

Above this thriving scene, a phantom was suspended in the clouds.

Its form is unpredictable, resembling a constantly changing and flowing crystal treasure box, but it can also transform into a cloud-like stream of light from time to time, and then condense into the shape of other magical treasures and weapons.

Now, He has become a mirror, reflecting the entire mortal realm.

【The Supreme Primordial Myriad Transformations Divine Pivot Treasure Box】

As a Dao soldier of Tianji Mountain, He submitted an application for "strategic-level technical cooperation and field investigation of the Ascension Dao", and then approved it himself, and went directly to Mingjing Sect.

He concealed his presence, wandering and observing within the territory of the Mirror Sect, even transforming into children, students, and teachers, experiencing life in Academy City in different guises.

After some time, He couldn't help but feel a sense of感慨 (gǎnkǎi, deep emotion/reflection).

[Full of vitality and vigor, this is excellent. Tianji Mountain was like this back then...]

The Myriad Transformations Divine Pivot murmured to himself: "But as a sect that also possesses Natural Masters, the Bright Mirror Sect has gone even further than we did back then—they've already begun to restore the former glory of the Daoist court."

I don't know if this is right or wrong.

The power of Huai Xu far surpasses that of the ancient immortal and divine civilization, but its level of civilization development is far inferior.

Not to mention the Daoist court, even in the earliest ancient civilizations of immortals and gods, it was very low.

It appears to be a decline caused by a demonic calamity.

But how is it possible?
This is just speculation that only ordinary people would have.

The ever-changing Divine Pivot, once known to the Daoist soldiers of the 'Natural Master, Heavenly Mystery Venerable,' is not a sign of decline.

Rather, it is a choice.

The answer that was forced upon us in order to resist the problem of the "Heavenly Demon".

Any Celestial Venerable can use their power to create a utopian society where material wealth is abundant and everyone is like a dragon, because Celestial Venerables are also part of society. As long as they are willing, they can use their infinite potential power to complete the foundational construction that other civilizations could not achieve in thousands of years in just a few decades, allowing the entire civilization to achieve an explosive leap in its level.

But why not?
The answer is simple.

Everything was for the sake of resisting the Heavenly Demon.

In the face of an infinite and fundamental threat like the Heavenly Demon, mortals are utterly meaningless.

Yes. That's a bit extreme. So, to be precise, "normal mortals" are meaningless.

What is meant by "normal"?
There is a standard, a greatest common denominator, a scale that most people can accept, a shared norm.

Within this framework, people can reach many consensuses, thereby concentrating their efforts to create various great achievements.

This is the foundation of civilization. The ultimate result is the creation of a highly developed, interconnected, and morally unified utopian society.

It is also a breeding ground for demons.

The Heavenly Demon is an infinite power that leads people to depravity and corruption, and can be contagious and spread.

For the Celestial Venerables who possess potentially limitless power, providing everyone with abundant resources, immense strength, and knowledge is not a problem at all. Under their power, the resources of civilization will not be diluted, and the popularization of technology will bring about an explosive development. This will not only not slow down the birth of top-tier powerhouses, but will also cause top-tier powerhouses to be born rapidly.

However, even the Heavenly Demon can do that.

The Heavenly Demon is born from 'discrimination'. The more similar a group's thoughts and ideas are, the sharper the 'discrimination' caused by minor differences will become. This is because only by understanding each other can one fully understand that distinction. Just as heretics are more hateful than heretics, it is because they share the same ideals that they cannot accept anyone distorting their own biases.

The struggle over the Dao began.

If everything cannot be unified and all wills cannot be directed toward a single dream, then as internal strife begins, the more advanced and sophisticated the civilization and technology, the more terrifying the losses will be.

Conflicting thoughts, misuse of technology, information cocoons, addiction to virtuality... the endless struggle for the Dao, doubt and rebellion, and those automated puppets and automated facilities, which were once corrupted by the Heavenly Demon.

These internal conflicts will greatly deplete our strength and distract us from fighting the Heavenly Demon.

Even with perfect upbringing, there are elements of corruption in the Central Divine Court's training process.

After all, given the standards of the Dao Court, it's difficult for all living beings to constantly innovate and surpass themselves. They would naturally nurture some ordinary mortals as breeding grounds for cultivators to emerge.

These people are prone to indulging in pleasure, lack a sense of crisis, and have weakened willpower, making them an ideal breeding ground for demons.

Similarly, better treatment, widespread technology, and unrestricted free resources are merely a haven for humans, but for demons, they represent enormous starting capital.

Conversely, a suppressed civilization, while lacking advanced technology overall, possesses a relatively stable social structure. Furthermore, given that the Heavenly Demon can spread its corruption through information, a globally interconnected society could be completely infiltrated in an instant.

An old society with limited access to information and poor transportation could effectively confine the 'demon infection' to a localized area, creating conditions for the powerful to carry out targeted eliminations.

In short, instead of worrying about how to carefully care for mortals so that everyone dies together when the demonic calamity comes, it would be better to focus on building a system specifically for fighting against the heavenly demons and cultivating the strong. No matter how dark and cruel it may be, it is worse than the overall destruction of civilization.

Therefore, the founders of martial arts chose another path.

A completely opposite path, filled with oppression, injustice, struggle, and death.

That is, Huai Xu martial arts... and the accompanying low level of civilization.

The world of martial arts is itself a huge filter.

Only those with the strongest will, the most resilient character, the purest desire for enlightenment, and the most stubborn and unyielding nature, can stand out in this environment, carve out a bloody path from among millions of ordinary people, and become the 'strongest'.

Such individuals may be some distance from divinity, but they are far removed from humanity, and thus can easily resist the erosion and seduction of demons.

Even if it is truly eroded, so what?
Similar yet completely different beings abound. Each person is a holder of their own destiny, considers themselves extraordinary, has distinct thoughts and beliefs, and each has their own faithful path, and will not be corrupted in droves.

They have almost nothing in common. If the Heavenly Demon wants to corrupt, it can either corrupt mortals or devour martial artists one by one.

The demonic transformation of mortals can be easily suppressed by martial artists, while the demonic transformation of martial artists can be suppressed by other martial artists as a form of tribulation.

As in the past, it is no longer possible for sects to fall one after another, because even within the same sect, the thoughts of the martial artists are completely different. The Myriad Transformations Divine Pivot has also paid attention to the Nirvana Tribulation of the Bright Mirror Sect and knows very well that the True Monarchs within the Bright Mirror Sect had completely different thoughts and ideas, so they successfully survived the tribulation under the suppression of the Heavenly Demon's erosion and the external Dao struggle.

If we cannot work together with one heart and one mind, that is, to the point of "unity", then we will be at a disadvantage when facing the Heavenly Demon.

This is the true reason for the birth of the [Destiny Martial Arts] system.

The entire Huai Xu society is a massive "filter" specifically designed to combat the Heavenly Demons.

Filtering the demonic energy of the Heavenly Demon, filtering out geniuses and strong individuals, filtering out those who are inherently insane and extreme, and who will not be easily corrupted by the Heavenly Demon.

A group of martial artists is like a powerful, decentralized immune system.

Of course, this immune system is not without its flaws. When a martial artist goes berserk, it is hard to tell whether he is destroying demons or destroying the world. Just like a storm in the human immune system, the martial artist does not care whether the world can withstand it. In any case, one of the demons and the human world must die!
But even Heaven had no choice. It did gamble, but it had no other option but to gamble.

The development and progress of civilization may, in fact, accelerate its own destruction. We have no way to resist or avoid this possibility of degeneration. Even the most primitive and stable nature may cause ice ages or ecological chain extinctions at any time due to overdevelopment. Even if everything is normal, nature itself is not stable. It is very possible that a slight fluctuation in the heavens and earth will cause all things to perish.

The Nature Master doesn't truly learn from nature, but rather is aware of its limitations and thus creates a new, more stable 'nature,' becoming a 'teacher of nature' rather than 'taking nature as their teacher'—creating a 'system that can guide civilization forward without being corrupted by demonic forces.' This is the true responsibility of the Nature Master.

Just like our Tianji Mountain's 'Yuanling Puppet,' it's at least an experiment. Each person uses their own unique technical system to puppet themselves, and then infiltrate and puppet the world. Each person is an independent little purification system—although this system could very well go astray and get closer to the holy demon, at least we have a safety net.

Looking down upon all of this, the will of the Myriad Transformations Divine Pivot sighed: "The Seven Fiend Tribulations... at least we still have the Seven Fiend Tribulations."

[That being that shattered all old systems, that corrupted martial arts and other systems themselves, that reset everything to zero...]

As the saying goes, killing is saving. In the eyes of the Daoist soldier of the former Master of Nature, the one who corresponds to the Seven Fiends Calamity is not the seemingly most opposite [Creation from Nothing], nor the [Lord of the World] with whom he usually has the most conflicts, but the [Master of Nature]. One is a system of creation, and the other is a system of destruction. Just as Creation from Nothing creates new seeds, the Lord of the World governs the seeds and achieves order in the forest.

It is precisely because of the continuous Seven Killings Calamity that Huaixu's system can continue.

If the martial arts system is a filter for demons in the human world, then the Seven Fiends Calamity is the filter of the martial arts system.

If one day, these two great filters are no longer needed, and a brand new, vibrant civilization, unafraid of the Heavenly Demons, is established...

That means the final battle against the Heavenly Demon is about to begin.

The old master failed to complete it, and Anjing remains unknown. Can this new generation of nature master create it?

Thinking this, the will of the Myriad Transformations Divine Pivot subsided: [Ugh, this feeling…]

He sensed that he had been discovered.

A beam of light shone down
How is it?

The Haotian Mirror quietly appeared, followed by the aura of the Heavenly Lord Cheng Guang, which was as deep as the sea... and An Jing.

To be precise, it is An Jing's 'mirror image' clone.

At this moment, Haotian Mirror laughed and said, "Brother Wanbian, what do you think of my Mingjing Sect now?"

[Brother Dao, Heavenly Lord Cheng Guang, An Tianming... Sect Master An] The Myriad Transformations Divine Pivot no longer concealed itself; its form remained mirror-like, reflecting and communicating with An Jing and the others: [Seeing your sect, in its state of thriving after years of neglect, truly a magnificent sight of rebuilding a new world. I wonder if my Heavenly Mystery Mountain might have the honor of investing in you?]

【Wow, that's so direct?】

Haotianjing was taken aback upon hearing this, while Chengguang Tianjun turned his head directly to look at Anjing with a strange expression. Anjing smiled, with an expression that said, "I knew it."

Then, Haotianjing decisively absolved himself of responsibility: "Don't ask me about this. Don't let my status as a Heavenly Venerable Dao Soldier fool you; I have no say in the sect's affairs."

[To make a decision, we must consult our sect leader.]

He turned his body slightly to the side, and Cheng Guang Tianjun also turned his body to the side, standing guard on the left and right sides of the young warrior.

An Jing didn't care at all. He stepped forward, smiled, and cupped his hands to Wanbian Shenshu, saying, "Senior, this is simple."

"When the Dragon Gods arrive later, we can talk about joint investment and forming an alliance."

【Need not】

At that very moment, a voice echoed from the vast expanse of space: "We are already here."

(End of this chapter)