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Chapter 534: Back from Antiquity (part 2)

The scene was familiar, and everyone knew why. The broken face of the lieutenant governor... looked exactly the same as the broken face of the god in the sky, down to the wounds and the general shape. Only the specific facial features were different. Other than that, there were no differences.

The hundreds of thousands of cultivators were shocked to the core, and the mortals in the city were rendered speechless.

The dome of heaven shook. The clouds parted. It was as if the hands of an unseen god had pulled apart the sky, revealing the evening horizon, and also, the broken face of the god that had hung there eternally since the final days of Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity.

Hīs hair hung down freely. Hīs size rivaled that of the sun and moon. Hē floated outside of the Revered Ancient mainland, for all living beings there to look up and see. Because of that, many people were simply used to hīs presence. But right now, everyone instinctively looked up at hīm as the pain coursed through their bodies. Hīs eyelids twitched. But in the end, those eyes did not open.

Down below, the broken face of the lieutenant governor did look around with open eyes, and heaven and earth trembled.

In the past, the Crown Prince of Violet and Cyan had opened a box in the Eight Sect Coalition. As of this moment, the lieutenant governor’s gaze was even more astonishing than that box. Heaven and earth quivered. All living things blurred. Howls of grief echoed about everywhere. And then, the lieutenant governor’s broken face shifted its gaze to focus on Marquis Yao.

Marquis Yao shook from head to toe. A three-colored flower appeared over his head, seated atop which was the image of a heavenly marquis. However, Marquis Yao apparently didn’t have appropriately pure blood, because the image wasn’t complete. A moment later it faded from existence, and two of the flower’s petals fell off. As for the remaining petal, it withered listlessly. Rumbling sounds echoed out as Marquis Yao coughed up blood and staggered backward.

“You actually sacrificed yourself to become a partial domain treasure!” the marquis said.

The broken face of the lieutenant governor didn’t react in any way. Instead, he turned to Qingqin. Qingqin let loose an anguished cry as his body blurred. Behind him appeared a figure from antiquity, something that could devour heaven and earth. Though Qingqin’s blood was pure, it existed at too low of a level. Qingqin tumbled backward, splattered with blood.

Next, the lieutenant governor’s broken face turned to Master Seventh. A hand of white jade appeared behind Master Seventh, radiant and scintillating. It seemed to have a similar origin as the lieutenant governor’s broken face, and thus avoided the judgment cast by the face. However, Master Seventh’s cultivation base was too low, so blood oozed out of his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

As he staggered backward, he glared at the lieutenant governor and said, “Before, I only had suspicions. It made sense that the Crown Prince of Violet and Cyan would be reincarnated due to his spectacular deeds. But why would Bai Xiaozhuo be reincarnated? Now I understand. You... are so cruel!”

The lieutenant governor shifted his gaze to the deputy palace lords, whose souls suffered grievous injuries. Next came the honor guards, whose skin turned greenish-black as they headed toward mutation.

All of the Void Returning experts had been summarily crushed. All cultivators and all mortals were moaning in anguish. The county capital was rapidly being pushed toward a forbidden region transformation.

Blood-colored rain fell, accompanied by crashing thunder. The rain even fell on the statue of Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity, running down the forehead of the statue, and through the eyes, then streaming down like tears of blood. If that statue could open its eyes, it would see all of the county capital turning into a realm of ghosts. And it was all happening because of the broken face of the lieutenant governor.

Meanwhile, the two puppets the lieutenant governor had employed no longer had discarnate souls in them. The souls had long since faded away. Therefore, the puppets automatically reverted to their original orders, and rushed toward Master Seventh, Marquis Yao, and Qingqin.

Being soaked with the rain, it was now possible to see something in the puppets that hadn’t been visible before. Shining out through the stitched seams of the puppets’ bodies... was light.

Each puppet had a box inside of it.

Just like Chu Tianqun, these puppets were actually experimental god bodies. And clearly, progress had been made in their construction. If Bai Li was the first generation of the experimental god body, then Master Shengyun could be considered the initial attempt at the second generation. Chu Tianqun was the complete version of the second generation, while these two puppets were the third generation. That was why their cultivation bases were in the great circle of the third stage of Void Returning, yet they had the battle prowess of the fourth stage. That said, they couldn’t form major worlds, only countless minor worlds. It was something Master Seventh had noticed when the first puppet attacked Qingqin.

The sound of combat once again rang out as the lieutenant governor continued to send his gaze sweeping about.

Xu Qing hovered in the darkness, looking around at the agony around him. He could hear the cries of anguish. A spark could start a prairie fire, but a rain of blood could extinguish it. When faced with raw strength, ideals were nothing but a joke.

Only the Captain seemed to be reacting differently than everyone else. Blue light radiated off of him as he looked deeply into Xu Qing’s eyes. It was almost as if he were bidding farewell. He was about to take action.

But Xu Qing reached out and gripped the Captain's shoulder. Looking at him, he quietly said, “Eldest Brother, this is my affair. If I survive at the cost of losing you, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

The Captain said nothing in response, but his eyes flickered as he struggled to maintain control.

Meanwhile, the power of the violet moon erupted within Xu Qing. His taboo poison core surged, and the power of D-132 appeared. The Ghost Emperor mountain rose up behind him. Inside, Xu Qing sighed. Rebels had to pay a price, and in this case, the price was immense. He advanced quietly. As he did, he grew taller and larger. As he bore the weight of all the surrounding mutagen, he looked at the broken face of the lieutenant governor hovering in the sky.

The lieutenant governor’s eyes focused on Xu Qing, while his voice echoed out in all directions via divine will.

“Xu Qing, did you know that this place... is where I originally died? When the crown prince perished in the southern continent, I was right here looking up at the broken face of the god, while simultaneously carving up my own flesh to resemble hīm.

“I pleaded to allow me to see my lord and master again in the future.

“Xu Qing, you said before that I don’t deserve to be a follower of my lord and master. You’re right. People said the same thing back then. A lot of people. That’s why I didn’t evade your attack right now. I deserve to be punished.

“But I still need to accomplish my mission. I can’t flee. Therefore, I decided to reveal the blessing of a god. I’ve polluted the aura of Revered Ancient, making it impure, and thus ensuring that neither my past, present, nor future self can ever be reincarnated again. The previous moment was my past. This is my present. And the next moment is my future.

“I, Bai Xiaozhuo, am not the type of person who explains myself to others very often. But I think you’re worthy.”

He looked out at the county capital.

“Sadly, I don’t have time to wait for the appropriate moment. I failed to become the governor, so I don’t have the blessing of Sea-Sealing County’s destiny aura. That means there are many things... that I will have to accomplish via force. Ai.”

The lieutenant governor sighed because his attempt to deceive the living beings of Sea-Sealing County had failed. He had longed to be acknowledged by heaven, earth, and the people as the governor, and thus be blessed by the county’s destiny aura.

His plan had been to rely on the aid he had provided to humankind to strengthen the destiny aura of humankind. After all, human territory had finally been expanded, and the Holytides had been brought back into the fold. In that manner, he could use the destiny aura of Sea-Sealing County to tap into more of the destiny aura of humankind. That was the last step in his plan. Sadly for him, he had failed.

“You succeeded, Xu Qing. Even if I killed everyone here, I would never be able to see my plan to fruition. I can only use force now.

“You forced me to harvest the fruit before it was ripe, spoiling everything. And thus, you’ve forced me to break my word to my people.”

Xu Qing said nothing, as he could tell the lieutenant governor still had more to say.

“Back then, I sacrificed myself to the god above in the hopes of getting another chance to be a follower of the crown prince. The god ignored me. Therefore, I allowed myself to be transformed into a domain treasure. I gave up my soul to do it. I gave up everything. The god still ignored me.

“I have no idea what the god wanted. It was only in the very end, when the Sovereign Kingdom of Violet and Cyan was destroyed, that I realized what hē wanted. With tears streaming down my face, I killed all the people in the county. It didn’t matter if they were cultivators or mortals. Old or young. They didn’t resist. They let me do it. Finally, after I killed everyone, hē gave me a nod.

“Back then, I promised to bring back all the people I’d killed. And now, my people, you will all come back. From the Land of Cruelmurk!”

His voice seemed to thrum with ancientness, as if it came from tens of thousands of years in the past, as if it had floated up the River of Ancient Time.

As the blood rain fell and the mutagen flourished, the people of the county capital shivered. Their pain turned into numbness as life force streamed out of the tops of their heads, forcibly extracted along with destiny aura. Their bodies withered. Their skin sank in. And yet, they didn’t die.

It wasn’t just the people. The entire county capital trembled. Lands, rivers, plants, mountains. Boundless life force and destiny aura was ripped out and sent streaming toward the capital city. In the rest of the prefectures of Sea-Sealing County, with the exception of the three prefectures that had previously been lost, and those which had been immolated, the ancestral lands in all sects and organizations trembled. It was the same in Emperor-Receiving Prefecture.

The earth quaked throughout Sea-Sealing County. One mountain range after another crumbled. They were all mountain ranges that had risen up in modern times. And in the spots where they fell, mountains of antiquity rose up.

In the tens of thousands of years that had passed since the Sovereign Kingdom of Violet and Cyan existed, the topography of Sea-Sealing County had changed. But now, it was reverting to what it had been before. The landscape of the Sovereign Kingdom of Violet and Cyan was returning. Rivers formed. Mountains rose up. If you could stand at a very high vantage point and look down, you would find that the mountains which made up the county in ancient times actually formed a massive magical symbol.

As that symbol became complete, and as the hearts of the people in the county filled with astonishment, three massive spikes appeared. They were bones of a god fish, and they rose up from three locations in the county, rising high into the sky. When they stabbed into the canopy of heaven, ripples rolled out, covering the sky in the county, creating something like a second canopy of heaven. And that canopy of heaven looked like a painting. The world in that painting was not the Revered Ancient mainland. Instead, it was pitch black.

The aura was familiar to Xu Qing, allowing him to instantly identify what he was looking at. The world in that painting was the very same world that all cultivators would briefly encounter when they were reaching Foundation Establishment.

To reach Foundation Establishment, one needed something akin to a life lamp to stay safe. Without that protection of burning, one would attract terrifying entities. It was a fact that all cultivators came to realize before they reached Foundation Establishment. However, no one knew what world those entities came from.

Years ago, the Mute had experienced an accident when trying to reach Foundation Establishment, and had been possessed by an evil soul. Xu Qing had ended up saving him.[1]

As of now, Xu Qing knew what world those things came from. It was called the Land of Cruelmurk. And it was also where Crimson Mother currently was!

1. The Mute’s possession and subsequent breakthrough was in chapter 309. ?