Chapter 2964 - Inside the Cauldron of Fate
Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan left, leaving behind a command token. So long as Su Yi stayed within the Eternal Heavens Domain, he could use the token to contact Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan at any time.
That aside, Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan urged him to have a time and place ready once he’d finished negotiating for Su Yi’s three conditions.
Su Yi just said he’d do his best. The ball was in his court, and he was in no rush to attend the Struggle for Heavenly Fate.
The night was dark and deep.
Su Yi sat quietly in his wicker chair for a long time before rising to his feet, putting away his loyal wicker chair, and re-entering the Heavenly Aberrant Hidden Realm.
Meanwhile, outside the Heavenly Aberrant Ruins, Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan walked alone with his hands behind his back. He was inwardly replaying every word he and Su Yi had exchanged during their earlier conversation, as well as every subtle shift in attitude Su Yi let slip.
He couldn’t help but sigh. “Interesting. It’s no wonder that shrew Lu Hongpao sees him as a dear friend. Such boldness and mental strength are rare indeed."
He’d actually come in person to meet with Su Yi with a singular purpose in mind—he wanted to see whether or not Jiang Wuchen’s reincarnation was worthy of his respect. If he wasn’t, he’d seize Great Sorrow without hesitation, his earlier promise be damned!
As a top Demonist expert and a Heavenly Sovereign, he’d experienced far, far too much in his life, and he’d seen countless “unparalleled” chosen of heaven and “unsurpassed” elites. He’d long since grown accustomed to the so-called “geniuses” and “monsters” of the Eternal Heavens Domain.
Only Su Yi... seemed different!
This young sword cultivator was far too unusual. For all his years of life, Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan had never seen a young man so mysterious and strange. When they conversed, he didn’t feel like he was talking to a Silent Realm junior. No, he felt as if he were conversing with an equal!
His temperament, comportment, and bearing made even Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan cluck his tongue with amazement.
He recalled some of the secrets he’d learned, as well as news from the Far Shore of Destiny.
The times are changing. When the storm arrives from the Far Shore of Destiny, how many Heavenly Sovereigns will remain standing? If that woman Lu Hongpao is willing to gamble on Su Yi, then I’ll do the same. We’ll just have to wait and see if I judged him correctly!
With that, Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan strode off.
He didn’t tell Su Yi, but his impression of Su Yi had changed dramatically when he learned of the battle in the Literati Continent.
Because although only Heavenly Sovereigns knew it, experts of Three Purities Temple had been involved in the battle from behind the scenes.
Nonetheless, Lu Hongpao had survived. Even Su Yi had escaped disaster. It was the Heavenly Sovereigns and experts of Three Purities Temple who’d returned home in defeat!
Su Yi might have been young, but how could Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan look down on him now?
It was for this reason that he’d come all this way to meet Su Yi in person.
There was no getting around it, either. Their meeting had gone well. The way Heavenly Sovereign Ku Xuan saw it, he hadn’t made this trip in vain.
But when he thought about how he had to convince the other Heavenly Sovereign to accept Su Yi’s conditions, he instantly felt a headache coming on.
...
Meanwhile, inside a hall on Candlelight Peak, Su Yi sat cross-legged on a prayer mat. He’d set three treasures on the ground in front of him.
The Eternal Key, Great Sorrow, and the Cauldron of Fate!
He’d only just acquired the cauldron from Sect Leader Lu Ye.
The cauldron was highly distinctive. It was only about the size of Su Yi’s fist, with three legs, a round opening, and a jade-blue body. Its surface was covered with numerous strange, mysterious Dao Markings. They looked naturally formed, and they emanated an ethereal, mysterious air.
According to Sect Leader Lu Ye, the Malevolent Sword Venerate had indeed acquired the cauldron in the Sea of Fate.
Its interior surged with the power of fate, and it contained a strange seal. The Malevolent Sword Venerate had tried to break the seal on numerous occasions, but he’d never succeeded.
When the Malevolent Sword Venerate entrusted the cauldron to Lu Ye, he told him never to take it to the Sea of Fate—that is, unless he managed to undo its seal. In its current state, returning it would mean certain death!
Su Yi was now examining the Cauldron of Fate for himself.
Two Eternal Thrones had been lost during the battle at the end of the Devastation. One was lost in the Sea of Fate. Thus, when the Malevolent Sword Venerate retrieved the Cauldron of Fate, he saw it as a lead to the missing Eternal Throne!
Su Yi held the cauldron in his palm. Perhaps because of the strange seal inside it, Su Yi couldn’t detect anything overtly special about it. He didn’t even learn or sense anything from the markings all over its surface.
When he inserted his divine sense into the cauldron, he indeed found the strange seal Lu Ye had told him about. It was long, thin, and gold, like a belt forming a perfectly round ring in the cauldron’s interior.
As he inserted his divine sense deeper into the cauldron, a shocking scene appeared.
The parched floor of a dried-up ocean was cracked and split, covered in dense piles of seemingly endless skeletons. Many of the bones had long since been ground away, but others were still barely recognizable. Some even had clothing. Su Yi spotted Buddhist monks, Daoist robes, strange yao and demons, and spiritual bodies manifested of grasses, trees, and rocks...
All had been dead for countless years, and their flesh had long since rotted away. Dense death qi hung in the air.
Countless wisps of golden flame drifted through the skies over the dried-up ocean. Each was as fine as an ox hair, like a misty rain blanketing the firmament, or a school of golden fish. Some danced, while others darted, swayed, and shifted, drawing countless mysterious paths in the sky.
In the deepest depths of the dried-up sea, there was a giant sinkhole, like an enormous, dried-up well. A skeletal hand emerged from the dried-up well, clinging desperately to the sides as if trying to escape.
But the scene was frozen in place, as if stuck in that one moment for all eternity.
Endless droplets of fiery light fell like rain, a dried-up ocean covered in corpses, and a skeletal hand trying to escape a dried-up well as enormous as an abyss.
All of these scenes came with a powerful sense of bleakness of the passage of countless years. It was as if he’d inadvertently caught a glimpse of the apocalypse that ended an age of the distant past.
Every aspect of this apocalyptic vision emanated a strange, inauspicious atmosphere.
Su Yi’s divine sense shot through this vision and arrived beside the dried-up well, but just as he was about to peer in and see what was inside, the skeletal hand clinging to the sides quivered.
Boom!
Heaven and earth shook, and countless drops of golden firelight scattered, like golden tribulation light condensed into sharp swords.
The countless corpses strewn across the ground all seemed to come back to life.
Su Yi’s sea of consciousness buzzed as terrifying power assailed it. Then, something severed his divine sense, and the scenery vanished.
When he next looked at the Cauldron of Fate, it was exactly as it had been before. Nothing had changed.
Su Yi’s expression filled with uncertainty. The power sealed within the cauldron was far too strange. What was that vision? An ancient battlefield? Were those really flames, or were they tribulation light? Who were those corpses, and who did that skeletal hand belong to? The strangest part of all this is that even though it was obviously just part of a vision, the hand seemed to sense me. It quivered when I examined it!
Su Yi pondered a while longer, then decided to try breaking that strange seal himself. First, to prevent anything unexpected from happening, he put away the Eternal Key and Great Sorrow. Then, he waved his sleeve and constructed a formation over the hall.
Only then did he take a deep breath, clasp his palms together, hold the Cauldron of Fate in front of him, and shut his eyes.
The power of Profound Ruin surged from his palms, covering his fingers in its clear radiance.
Profound Ruin could sever all fetters, including the ties of fate and karma!
The way Su Yi saw it, if the cauldron was connected to fate, both the Grand Dao of Profound Ruin and the Grand Dao of Reincarnation ought to be effective.
Boom!
The power of Profound Ruin had only just surged forth when the Cauldron of Fate shook. Strange markings rose all over its surface and fought back.
It seemed unwilling to let Su Yi refine it!
But when Su Yi circulated the full extent of his cultivation base, he gradually wore down its resistance.
Moments later, the power of Profound Ruin covered the entire Cauldron of Fate, but when it tried to enter the cauldron’s interior, something unexpected happened!
It was as if there were an earthquake happening inside it, producing a heaven-shaking boom. The power of that golden, ring-like seal erupted with sharp, dazzling light, then exploded with a bang.
The power of Profound Ruin covering Su Yi’s fingers split and dispersed. Su Yi felt the impact, too; his fingers were in agony. The power erupting from the cauldron had almost shattered them!
Su Yi took a deep breath, then fought back with all his might, doing everything in his power to suppress the Cauldron of Fate.
Much to his surprise, the cauldron struggled like mad. Golden flames billowed from its interior, stinging the eyes. The force was so great that Su Yi knew he wouldn’t be able to hold onto the cauldron much longer.
But if he let it escape... who knew how dire the consequences would be?
Su Yi didn’t hesitate to draw the Sword of the Nine Hells. He used the blade to press down on the Cauldron of Fate.
Boom!
The sword bore down on the cauldron like a mountain, making it wail. Its golden radiance receded like waters at low tide, and it ceased to move. It seemed it no longer dared to struggle.
Su Yi inwardly sighed in relief. That was too reckless of me. Fortunately, I had the Sword of the Nine Hells.
However, this unexpected development made Su Yi increasingly aware that the Cauldron of Fate wasn’t simple!
Not even the power of Profound Ruin could suppress it. It was thus obvious how terrifyingly strong its seal was.
Su Yi decided to try again. With the Sword of the Nine Hells suppressing it, the Cauldron of Fate was exceedingly well-behaved, so Su Yi wasn’t worried that anything would go wrong.
If even the Sword of the Nine Hells couldn’t suppress it... It would just mean that he was not yet fit to control such a treasure.