Destiny is ashes

Chapter 1103 The Truth About Tianyuan (5000 words)

Things have come to this point, and it's no longer something that the four major groups of Tianyuan Realm, or even the four saints of Tianyuan, can control.

The seven Celestial Venerables, along with the Celestial Monarchs and True Monarchs who continued to descend from the Taixu Abyss Cave behind them—a vast alliance composed of multiple major sects—descended upon this—or rather, half of the ravaged Tianyuan Realm.

At this moment, the four saints truly had no emotions in their hearts, let alone anger or vigilance.

They just wanted to laugh.

Yes, laugh.

A genuine, joyful laugh, without any other superfluous thoughts.

I never expected this...

At this moment, Feng Xiyu's voice resounded in An Jing's heart, filled with endless emotion: [An Jing, I once thought that one day in the future you would achieve the realm of Heavenly Venerable, or even higher, and descend with supreme power to end our 'destiny'.]

[But I never imagined... that although you didn't become a Celestial Venerable, you could bring seven Celestial Venerables with you...]

Yes, yes, I was wrong. How could I forget that human civilization is not just about oneself, but also about the existence of others? You must have accomplished something, achieved something great, and thus become the core of all cause and effect, thereby leading to an even larger cause and effect.

In this world, the greatest supernatural power is indeed 'calling upon those who share the same path'.

At that very moment, in the instant of this exchange of thoughts, the sky above the Tianyuan Realm was completely ignited.

Above the four major spiritual vein cities, a massive cosmic reaction erupted: the gold of Xishan, the blue of Luofu, the black of Xuandu, and the white of Lianshan—four colors of light shot straight into the sky.

Immediately afterwards, one after another enormous void reaction tore open void rifts in the world, converging above Xuan Ye City.

Since the true forms of the seven Celestial Venerables have arrived, it would be too impolite to merely communicate with their will. Even if they could not reveal their true forms tainted by demonic energy, the Four Sages of Tianyuan undoubtedly arrived here by riding through the cave heaven.

To protect this realm from the clutches of the Holy Demon, we were forced to transform into Holy Demons ourselves, devouring the heavens and the earth in our defense. Now, to avoid further descent into demonic possession, we must seal ourselves within our celestial abode and cannot reveal our true forms to the world.

These words immediately caused an uproar among the human race throughout the Tianyuan Realm.

Most of the cultivators and mortals below the True Monarch level were completely unaware of this earth-shattering secret. Upon hearing it now, they felt only disbelief and incomprehension—the Four Saints who had protected the world for thousands of years were actually half-Saint Demons?!

Although it was done to protect all living beings in the world, who knows how far the corruption and erosion by the Heavenly Demons has gone over the years!
Look at the state of the world! It's no wonder that the Four Saints have long been corrupted!
Those True Lords and Heavenly Lords who already knew about this were equally shocked. They were shocked because they never expected that a secret hidden for thousands of years would be revealed so suddenly, without any foreshadowing or concealment!
But was there really no foreshadowing?
Several True Lords who knew An Jing, several school leaders from Xuan Ye No. 3 Middle School, and countless powerful individuals who had witnessed An Jing's deeds all turned their gazes to the figure surrounded by the Heavenly Venerables of Huai Xu Realm in the center...

Right, how could it be without any foreshadowing?
Without peace and stability, none of this would have happened.

Without Anjing, the outcome of the war between the Holy and the Demonic would have been far more tragic. At best, the four Holy Ones and the Holy Demonic One would have perished together, or the Tianyuan Realm would have become a wandering world, eternally pursued by the Holy Demonic One, and everyone would have become a wanderer fleeing in the endless void.

At that time, the four major groups will probably not recruit soldiers in the way they do now, but will actually transform everyone into the Feathered Path, completely resisting all the corruption of the Heavenly Demon, and even, in the infinite future, becoming new Feathered Heavenly Demons.

And now, it's the same.

If it weren't for Anjing, the seven Heavenly Venerables wouldn't have been able to gather together, and the Four Sages wouldn't have been able to let it go and directly reveal the truth.

The reason for revealing the truth is quite simple.

The responsibility they have long borne...

Finally, there are others who can share the burden.

An Jing and Haotian Mirror already knew about this news, but the newly arrived Four Seasons Dragon God, Tai Shan Zhi Fei, and Wan Bian Shen Shu were unaware of it.

Upon hearing the words of the Four Sages, even those of their level of cultivation were taken aback: [Saints and Demons? Has the Heavenly Dao of this realm truly fallen to such a state?]

They naturally knew that the Heavenly Dao of the Huai Xu Realm was also waging an eternal war against the Supreme Heavenly Demon. Many infinite parallel universes were battlefields between the Heavenly Dao and the Heavenly Demon... However, they were, after all, beings in a world line where they were neither victorious nor defeated, or even where they had a slight victory. For a moment, they were indeed somewhat shocked by the Tianyuan Realm's world line where they were neither victorious nor defeated, but where they had a slight defeat.

If the Huai Xu Realm were to suffer the same fate... it would truly be an unspeakable catastrophe.

What's the situation now?

Now that the four sages had been so frank, Tai Shan Zhi Fei, the old jailer guarding the Abyss of Heavenly Demons, immediately became serious: "How badly have you fallen? Is it just your bodies that have been corrupted, or have your souls been completely eroded?"

Do you have any remedial measures? Or to put it bluntly... are you prepared to end your own lives?

The Myriad Transformations Divine Pivot and the Four Seasons Dragon God remained silent. At this moment, they were both using their respective methods and supernatural powers to connect the past, present, and future of the entire Tianyuan Realm, scanning all the information in the Spirit Network to understand the situation of the Tianyuan Realm as quickly as possible.

Haotian Mirror, on the other hand, was quite relaxed, acting as a light source, since he had already done these things during his last visit.

At this moment, the Spirit Network administrators were astonished to discover that several enormous wills were sorting out all the tributaries of the Spirit Network, and even fixing many errors and omissions and patching them up. At the highest level, the Four Sacred Grotto-Heavens, which have the highest authority over the Spirit Network, completely allowed this behavior and even granted the other party the same highest level of authority.

This kind of delegation of power is less about delegating power and more about...

They couldn't be more eager to pass the hot potato to the other side!

In response to Lao Fei's question, Immortal Yin Zheng of Xuandu sighed and replied: "This matter is not so simple, fellow Daoist. Our physical bodies were 'suppressed' ten thousand years ago using a secret method, transforming into the central core of our grotto-heavens. Now, we only retain some symbolic clothing to minimize the impact of the Heavenly Demons."

Even so, the four great grotto-heavens are now almost completely corrupted by demonic energy and beyond repair. Therefore, in order to make use of these resources, we will simply use our own grotto-heavens as a firewall to prevent all living beings in the entire Tianyuan Realm from being corrupted by demonic energy, filtering out all demonic energy.

The earth's veins and spiritual energy in the Tianyuan Realm have long been thoroughly corrupted by the Heavenly Demons. However, because we use the Spiritual Net to filter and organize them, it can still barely supply cultivators with enough energy. Otherwise, the spiritual energy would be completely polluted, making spiritual root cultivation methods unusable, severing our path to enlightenment, and causing all living beings in the Tianyuan Realm to... lose their future.

"Is that so?"

"I knew the demonic influence had long exceeded the limit, but for some reason, spiritual energy can still be used for cultivation!"

"Heavens! No wonder the four major spiritual vein cities can produce spirit stones normally. So, they were all purified by the Four Sages?!"

Upon hearing this, An Jing and the seven Heavenly Venerables did not react, but the billions of beings in the Tianyuan Realm were in an uproar.

The many True Lords were utterly astonished. Although they knew that the Four Saints had made great sacrifices to fight against the Heavenly Demon, they never imagined that the reason why the spiritual energy of the entire world could still be used was also because of the sacrifices of the Four Saints!
If the Four Saints hadn't absorbed all the demonic energy at the cost of accelerating the corruption of their own grotto-heavens, the entire Tianyuan Realm would probably have become the backyard of the Heavenly Demons long ago!

It should be understood that as peak Celestial Venerables, born under the destiny of the Tianyuan Realm, the Four Saints of Tianyuan possessed first-rate talent, ability, and strength. If they had wanted to escape from the beginning, they definitely could have.

But they chose to stay. This is not to say that the four saints should have done so, but rather that the very possibility of the four saints making this choice together was a struggle.

In an infinite number of parallel universes, there is certainly a possibility that the Four Saints will betray and leave, and there is also a possibility that one of the Four Saints will betray. But here, in this world, the Four Saints stand firm together, even though they have done many things that are not human, but they have never 'run away'.

However, the problem is that even though the Four Saints did not flee, Tianyuan Realm still suffered a minor defeat, which is enough to prove how arduous the Heavenly Dao is in this realm.

[This is indeed...somewhat troublesome.] At this moment, the Myriad Transformations Divine Pivot had also gathered all the information and pondered, "After this world encountered the demonic calamity, it did indeed repel the demonic army, but the world itself was thus invaded by demons. While the Heavenly Sword Subduing Evil has cut off the possibility of the Heavenly Demon continuing to erode, it has also cut off the possibility of the Heavenly Dao self-repairing."

[But the Heavenly Demons come from the endless beyond, while there is only one Heavenly Dao. Therefore, while the initial blockade may have helped you resist the Heavenly Demons, in the long run, it has completely weakened the Heavenly Dao.]

【and……】

Xing Shilong God said in a deep voice: "In this world, there is no path that allows all living beings to continue cultivating even when their spiritual energy is corrupted by demonic influence."

Martial arts.

Destiny in martial arts.

Now that things have come to this, the Celestial Venerables of Huaixu Realm have realized just how important and necessary the existence of martial arts is.

Look, the Tianyuan Realm is a case in point. It's a world without martial arts, requiring Heavenly Venerables to act as vessels, constantly absorbing and suppressing the demonic energy of the entire world. Yes, it can be said that there is such a being in the Huaixu Realm as well, which has transformed all the demonic energy of the entire world into inert demonic energy. And that being is very likely the Heavenly Dao itself...

However, without martial arts, the Way of Heaven would probably be difficult to sustain.

Comparing the situations in the two realms, some truths about the Huai Xu Realm seem to be gradually emerging.

"Fu Xie, did you understand?" An Jing asked softly in his heart.

"Hmm. Anjing." Fu Xie's voice was extremely solemn: "It seems that everything is as we thought... Huai Xu Heavenly Dao took the initiative to transform into half a Holy Demon, suppressing all the Heavenly Demons in the entire Huai Xu Realm, and turning all the demonic energy into inert demonic energy. This is the foundation."

“Hmm.” An Jing nodded slightly and said softly, “And next is the Martial Dao—the Martial Dao is a seed sent down by the Heavenly Dao of Huai Xu. It continuously selects individuals who can purify demonic energy through their destiny and reclaims their essence after they die… The Heavenly Dao relies on the remnants left behind by martial arts experts after their deaths as fuel to continuously support itself. That’s why it didn’t gradually fall into demonic corruption like the Four Saints. Instead, it grew stronger and even had the power to fight back.”

“But this is only temporary.” Fu Xie said in a deep voice, “If Huai Xu Heavenly Dao can truly purify itself through martial arts, then Huai Xu Realm should be able to allow martial arts experts to merge with the Dao. Perhaps the founders of martial arts in the past saw this possibility of martial arts and believed that martial arts could help the Heavenly Dao purify itself and then reopen the path to merging with the Dao, which is why they promoted it.”

"However, the Heavenly Dao has not yet recovered to that state. The path to merging with the Dao remains severed."

Martial arts... a martial arts path of destiny?

Although An Jing spoke softly, he made no attempt to conceal his voice, so the Four Sages naturally heard him and fell into deep thought: "It seems that Huai Xu truly lives up to its reputation as the ancestral land. The path established by the sages of the past is better and more perfect than what we have done."

Among them, Immortal Haoxu nodded and said: "Yes, the martial path, which uses the way of the unity of heaven and man to spread seeds and continuously recycle essence to maintain its stability, is an idea we have also considered."

Our souls are purer than our bodies. We are now using the concept of the Ascension Path, with machines as the medium, to control the mechanical spirit network with our souls, and then using the spirit network to activate the grotto-heaven, indirectly controlling the already demonized body of the Celestial Venerable's grotto-heaven, thereby unleashing power comparable to that of a Saint or Demon.

However, such manipulation over time would wear down our souls. Therefore, we initially devised two approaches. One was 'succession selection,' meaning that when our souls completely lost their power and were about to perish, we would select one of our six Dao Embryo Heavenly Lords as a successor, allowing them to sit on the 'Four Holy Thrones' and inherit our cause. Our final souls, carrying the corrupting influence of the Heavenly Demons, would leave the Tianyuan Realm and then self-annihilate, thus completely shattering a portion of the corruption and creating a brief self-purification cycle for the entire Tianyuan Realm.

Jiang Haoxu's words were ruthless, as if he were the final piece of the trash, but his tone was very calm: "The second method is 'inheritance'."

We will discard all ego, carrying away the demonic influence within ourselves, and detach ourselves from the Tianyuan Realm. We will then leave behind pure information, experience, and technology upon our thrones. Each person who ascends to the throne will receive everything we have, and the next to inherit it will repeat the process… In this way, one day, our thrones will hold sway over everything in the Tianyuan Realm. This continuous process of discarding and transcending will also allow our thrones to achieve the ultimate state of Dao-alignment.

[It's not impossible. It's just that compared to the former, the latter has less chance of clearing away demonic influence and is more likely to become corrupted, so we are still hesitating.]

Now, there's no time to hesitate.

Because fellow cultivators, you have come.

The four saints' feelings were genuine; they truly breathed a sigh of relief.

Among the seven Celestial Venerables, the Four Seasons Dragon Gods, who inherited the original Heavenly Dragon's foundation, are all comparable in strength to them. In addition, there are Taishan Zhifei and Wanhua Shenshu, who are no less powerful than the Four Seasons Dragon Gods. They can truly be 'annihilated'.

Death is a blessing for the Four Saints now, especially to die completely, which is an immense stroke of luck.

The Heavenly Lords remained silent. As the twenty-four people besides the Heavenly Venerables who knew the most about the truth of the Heavenly Origin Realm, they had long known their own fate, yet none of them had fallen into demonic possession, which was also an incredible thing.

But looking at the entire Tianyuan Realm... perhaps the fall into demonic possession is not a decline of the human soul, but rather the fate of the entire world, an unstoppable trend toward depravity and decay.

This is the true "demon" of "heaven," not merely the one who corrupts people. The physical forms of those demons are simply catalysts that accelerate this trend.

The arrival of the seven Celestial Venerables in Huaixu Realm did indeed interrupt this trend, allowing the Celestial Lords to breathe a sigh of relief.

In response, An Jing thought of something similar.

"Using the Spirit Network Machinery and the Path of Ascension as carriers, can it indirectly control true demons?"

An Jing recalled the experiments the True Demon Sect had conducted in Linjiang City... The True Demon Sect was indeed doing something similar, using human minds to control the bodies of demons—and the Tai Ming Sect was also researching this technology, and had even obtained the result of 'Heavenly Demon Demon God', and the Tai Ming Sect even controlled a Great Heavenly Demon 'Mang Yi' as combat power.

Although Mangyi himself is a powerful demon that is easy to control, it also shows that the Four Saints' approach is not flawed.

An Jing suddenly thought of something... The Four Sages of Tianyuan were one thing, but they were truly gifted geniuses who could perfect this technology.

The techniques of the True Demon Sect and the Tai Ming Sect clearly share a common guiding ideology and origin. This approach is very unique, and the design details are also very sophisticated, which is quite inconsistent with the past actions of the True Demon Sect and the Tai Ming Sect.

So, who has the capability to develop these technologies?
Now that things have come to this, the four saints of Tianyuan Realm have a very clear idea of ​​what to do.

They established the four major groups, essentially all for the purpose of leaving behind a 'prestige' in the future. After they die and take away a large amount of demonic influence with them, they self-annihilate, so that the new generation can continue this cycle, constantly using themselves as fuel to drive the massive entity of the 'Tianyuan Realm Group' to continuously purify itself and continue civilization, until the birth of a 'Dao-Merging'.

Because, in essence, the continuous continuation and inheritance of this supreme position is actually a process of 'devouring the heavens and the earth'. And the Four Saints have already devoured the Heavenly Dao and possess a portion of the infinite essence, so perhaps one day, in the very end, a fruit may be conceived in the decaying soil of the Four Saints of Tianyuan Group.

A Dao Fruit... named 'Heavenly Origin Sage'!

And now...

Anjing and the other celestial beings surveyed the entire Tianyuan Realm.

Under any noble purpose, bloodshed is inevitable. This is unavoidable, unstoppable, and unavoidable.

However, even an inevitable fate is not truly inevitable in the eyes of a martial artist.

"I see."

An Jing sighed, raised his head, and calmly said to the will of the four great grotto-heavens, "But now, all your plans can be discarded and deleted."

"Because I'm here."

“Because we are here.”

(End of this chapter)