Chapter 581: The Truth Behind the Calamity
A towering tree dozens of meters high stood on the hillside of the isolated island. The sea breeze blew, rustling the swaying leaves.
This tree had grown in this soil for at least a thousand years.
In the eyes of mortals, this tree was undoubtedly a towering ancient giant.
But for cultivators, it was not so.
The young cultivator in plain-colored daoist robes leaning against the tree trunk on the hillside had already lived for a hundred thousand years.
Now, he was tired.
Countless cracks spread across his daoist robes, his skin, and even his eyes.
Mr. You simply sat calmly beneath the large tree, smiling faintly.
Fragments fell from his face, revealing not flesh and blood but completely pitch-black spatial rifts.
Chen Yan looked at the young cultivator sitting against the tree, at the Sage who had only just stepped into the Uncarved Simplicity Realm not long ago.
"Everything went fairly smoothly," Mr. You said.
"But you're about to die, Master," Chen Yan said.
"This is my destined end, isn't it?" Mr. You shook his head with a smile. "Since the me from eight thousand years ago chose to believe in you, then the me of now should naturally also choose to believe in you."
He had long foreseen his own fate after becoming a Sage.
And all of this was inevitable.
Mr. You tilted his head slightly, shifting his gaze toward the unremarkable, mediocre city not far from this hillside.
Fusheng City.
Over sixty thousand years ago, when Immortal Venerable Fusheng had "fallen," it was the last blessing he left for this world.
"You're not here for the first time, are you?" A calm voice came from Mr. You, who sat before the tree.
"This is the third time," Chen Yan replied.
"How does it feel? The grave I chose for myself has pretty good taste, doesn't it?" Mr. You asked with a smile.
"Finding a desolate, uninhabited place to die is indeed a good choice," Chen Yan said. "But most people would probably prefer to return to their roots."
Upon hearing this, Mr. You didn't respond. He just slowly raised his head and gazed at the clouds drifting across the sky.
"My time is running out." After a few breaths, Mr. You said this to Chen Yan.
"I know," Chen Yan replied.
Regarding the imminent end of Fusheng the Ultimate Sage's life, both Mr. You himself and Chen Yan were remarkably calm.
Just as Mr. You had said.
This was a long-destined outcome.
Chen Yan slowly walked to the side of the towering ancient tree, straightened the hem of his plain white daoist robes, which had been torn from the fierce battle, and sat down beside Mr. You. "Did you win?"
"What do you think?"
"It doesn't look like it."
"If I had won, I wouldn't be hiding things from you here," Mr. You said with a light laugh. "The statue was just a puppet, or rather, a weapon."
"So what exactly is 'that existence' behind it?"
"I don't know." Mr. You, whose cracks were deepening, shook his head. "I can feel the will of 'that existence,' and its gaze... it was like it was mocking my overestimation of my own abilities."
Saying this, Mr. You couldn't help but laugh himself.
He had been wrong.
Because even becoming a Sage was still far from enough.
And this answer was etched into Chen Yan's heart.
Even Mr. You, who had stepped into the Uncarved Simplicity Realm, couldn't touch that existence.
The Creating Illusion Realm, or even higher?
The Primordial Beginning Realm, or the Immortal Heaven Realm.
The Immortal Heaven Realm was already the highest point of the immortal path that Chen Yan currently knew.
Although the records about realms above the Uncarved Simplicity Realm in the Scripture Repositories of the twelve Immortal Sects from countless eons ago were very vague.
The ancient texts clearly recorded that the Primordial Beginning Realm could touch the essence of the great world.
And the Immortal Heaven Realm could achieve true transcendence.
"However, besides mockery, I could also sense other intentions from 'that existence.'" Mr. You, who was increasingly nearing the point of soul annihilation, said.
"What intentions?" Chen Yan asked.
"It is maintaining some kind of order," Mr. You replied.
"This order doesn't allow anyone on the Chenping Continent to become a Sage?" Chen Yan continued.
"What doesn't allow someone from the Chenping Continent to become a Sage is the laws of heaven and earth of the Chenping Continent itself, which are on the verge of shattering. 'That existence' is merely the executor maintaining this order." Mr. You said. "And the living beings of the Chenping Continent have absolutely no possibility of breaking this shackle."
"Meaning... the end of this domain is exactly what I saw eight thousand years from now?" Chen Yan's gaze dimmed slightly. "Did I travel back from eight thousand years in the future to this era just to complete the closed loop of cause and effect?"
"No," Mr. You shook his head.
As he moved, Mr. You's body, like a cracked porcelain piece, shed fragments one after another, revealing the spatial rifts inside.
"The living beings of the Chenping Continent have no possibility of breaking this shackle, but that doesn't mean beings from outside the Chenping Continent have no hope either, does it?" Mr. You said with a smile.
Chen Yan's breath caught slightly.
Before Immortal Venerable Fusheng had stepped into the Returning to Void Realm, when he was still a cultivator in the Immortal Ascension Realm, his ability to deduce cause and effect was already firmly first among the thirty-one Immortal Ascension Realm cultivators, including Su Hongzhen the Falling Star Realman.
Now, Mr. You had already stepped into the Uncarved Simplicity Realm.
His ability to deduce cause and effect had even reached a height that any cultivator in the history of the Chenping Continent could scarcely reach or even comprehend.
"As I said before, the time you remain in this era won't be much longer," Mr. You said slowly. "Because the purpose of your coming to this era is actually just one thing."
"What is the sole purpose?" Chen Yan asked. "To guide Su Hongzhen onto the immortal path?"
Mr. You, without speaking, gently shook his head.
"Or, is it to enable Master to step into the Uncarved Simplicity Realm?" Chen Yan continued.
Mr. You still just shook his head. "Neither. You came to this era not for anyone else's matters, but for your own."
"What do you mean?" Chen Yan completely didn't understand the meaning of Mr. You's words.
"The greatest obstacle you currently face is the sixty-thousand-year cause and effect on you," Mr. You said.
"But, wasn't the sixty-thousand-year cause and effect I bear fabricated?" Chen Yan countered.
"Yes and no," Mr. You replied. "The sixty-thousand-year cause and effect you bear is not the cause and effect of the Chenping Continent, but the cause and effect that another person should have borne."
Cause and effect that another person should have borne?
This explanation left Chen Yan extremely puzzled.
If he could bear this more than sixty-thousand-year-long cause and effect because of his own uniqueness...
Then what kind of person could bear sixty thousand years of cause and effect?
A sudden possibility arose in Chen Yan's mind, and this possibility sent a chill creeping up the back of his head.
"That's right, it's just as you think." Mr. You, as if he had seen through what was in Chen Yan's mind, said seriously, "What you bear is the cause and effect of the Sage of Imperial Void."