My Enemy Became My Cultivation Companion

Unexpectedly, the Purity Saintess gave an answer that was utterly inconceivable.

Seeing Chen Yi knit his brows, the Purity Saintess smiled again and said slowly:

"The Ming Venerable is not in the present, but in the future."

At first Chen Yi did not understand what this meant, then his eyes suddenly widened, as if he had grasped something all at once.

The Purity Saintess continued slowly:

"This Bright Hall was created by the future Ming Venerable and cast into the River of Time to arrive here.

Indeed, I am not the true Ming Venerable either. I told this answer to Gongsun Guan, but he rebuked me for defiance and blasphemy, and now, I have taken the place of the Ming Venerable.

In the not-so-distant future, I will create the Bright Hall and cast it to my present self."

The Ming Venerable possesses divine skills capable of altering the River of Time. According to what the Purity Saintess was saying, the future Ming Venerable cast this hall into the River of Time of the past, to lay the cornerstone of his own existence. Logically speaking, this was not impossible; one could even say it fit the methods of that legendary realm.

After all, even Xu Qi could influence time to a certain extent; that the true Ming Venerable could accomplish something even more inconceivable was hardly surprising.

Chen Yi fixed his gaze on the light-formed visage of the Purity Saintess. A certain intuition told him that at this moment... she was not lying.

This thought sent a faint chill down his spine. If this was true, then the so-called "Ming Venerable" inheritance was shrouded in an even grander fog.

But immediately, another thought surged up—could this be the Purity Saintess’s "wish-fulfillment" at work again? Had she unconsciously twisted reality, or rather, twisted his perception, constructing this seemingly reasonable explanation?

"Wish-fulfillment?" The Purity Saintess seemed to see through his doubts. The radiance around her body rippled slightly, like a silent soft laugh. "In this place, at the core of this Bright Hall, in the fissure of time, I have not used any divine skills."

She paused, the body of light emanating a strange, unwavering certainty: "Believe or not, that lies with you, but the truth will not change because you deny it."

Thoughts flashed through Chen Yi’s mind. He knew that to keep tangling over this was useless, and said coldly, "Whether I believe or not, what has that to do with you?"

He had made up his mind: no matter what medicine this woman was selling in her gourd, the most urgent task now was to stall for time.

The span of one stick of incense was neither long nor short. The situation outside shifted in an instant. As long as he could hold out until this Time Fragment reconnected with the outside world, not to mention True Heavenly Person Xu Qi—even the Resentment Demon Master would suffice.

He asked questions while secretly circulating his Sword Intent.

The light-formed face of the Purity Saintess seemed to grow a bit clearer. She could feel Chen Yi’s vigilance, but she did not care; or rather, this had been within her expectations from the start.

"All I want is this Bright Hall. You and I need not be enemies," her voice returned to that earlier calm and distant tone. "But you might as well think about this: if you were the Ming Venerable, could you really bear the responsibility of restoring the World of Ignorance?"

In truth, Chen Yi only half understood the teachings of the Divine Sect; most of what he knew came from the women around him, as well as hearsay and bits and pieces from books he had leafed through.

He knew that what the Purity Saintess was calling "restoring the World of Ignorance" was one of the core doctrines of the Ming’an Divine Sect. Legend had it that when the true Ming Venerable descended into the world, he would disperse all unenlightened darkness and bring about an eternal, luminous pure land. This was largely the same as the legends of Buddhist Sect believers awaiting the advent of Maitreya to save the Buddhist World.

Nothing more than that same set of "saving all the common people under heaven."

Chen Yi sneered inwardly. In his previous life, to repair the Heavenly Dao, he had exhausted everything, only to end up dead with his Dao destroyed, leaving Zhou Yitang a lone widow guarding Yin Sword Mountain.

In this life, no matter what, he would never again stake his life on some ethereal, illusory great mission.

His mind was clear; he did not get caught up in the seemingly lofty questioning of the Purity Saintess. Instead he countered, "Whether I bear it or not, what does that have to do with you? If you want this Bright Hall, take it. Why waste so many words with me?"

The instant his words fell, the entire Bright Hall seemed to be stirred by an invisible hand, violently rippling with waves of blazing radiance.

That light was no longer gentle, but carried a searing anger, like a profaned sacred fire, surging toward Chen Yi. Though it did not directly attack, it clearly conveyed an extreme rejection and loathing.

The radiance around the Purity Saintess resonated with it. She chuckled softly, her voice tinged with a trace of understanding and pity: "You see? It is not I who am rejecting you. It is the Bright Hall... it is rejecting you, rejecting an Outer Heaven Demon."

Chen Yi felt that scorching, hostile light rushing at him, as if he were standing at the edge of a furnace; even his skin tingled faintly with pain. The muscles in the arm holding his sword tightened. Hou Kang Sword let out a low hum as wisps of dim, gray Sword Intent seeped out on their own, forming a thin barrier around him that barely held that blazing radiance at bay.

Beneath his feet, the gold-brick floor as smooth as a mirror clearly reflected his current figure. It was no longer a purely human form—countless minute, twisted tendrils of darkness seemed to waver silently along his outline, completely different from what he usually saw.

"Rejecting me?" A mocking arc tugged at the corner of Chen Yi’s lips. "The likes and dislikes of a dead hall, and you think they’re worth using as proof? If it truly has a spirit, why doesn’t it choose its own master, instead of being held in the hands of you, a fake Ming Venerable?"

The Purity Saintess was indifferent to his sneer. The light-formed visage grew clearer still; one could faintly see beneath it a contour that was almost compassionate.

"It is not that I wield it, but that at this moment, only I can bear the mission of casting it into this segment of time. Its rejection does not arise from my will, but from the fundamental conflict between your own existence and the laws of this place. Chen Yi, do you still not understand? You are an Outer Heaven Demon. To it, you are like ice and snow to a blazing sun—existences destined to be opposed."

She raised her hand slightly, pointing to the furious, boiling radiance all around. "This is not like or dislike, but... instinctive self-preservation. If you forcefully touch the Bright Throne, the result will be far beyond what you can bear."

Chen Yi stared ahead. At the deepest part of the Bright Hall, where endless radiance converged, a towering Bright Throne of light hung silently. The throne seemed to be formed from the purest light, resplendent in gold, carved with countless ineffable, mysterious sigils, flowing with an eternal, undying aura.

It was not far, only about a hundred steps away, yet under the barrier of that vast luminosity and invisible rejection, it seemed as distant as the ends of the earth—within sight, yet out of reach.

This hall, which carried the will of the future Ming Venerable and had crossed the River of Time, was using every possible means to reject his approach.

"Stop here, Chen Yi." The voice of the Purity Saintess rang out again, carrying a near-admonishing calm. "Leave the Bright Hall. I swear upon my own path that within this day, I will no longer be your enemy. You and I will keep to our own wells, our waters not mixing—how about that? Not only that, I will shelter you for a hundred, a thousand lives. Losing one enemy to gain a friend—hardly a difficult choice."

Her proposal sounded quite sincere; within this Time Fragment, it seemed like the best option.

However, Chen Yi ignored it completely.

All his attention was focused on that Bright Throne, as if it were the only focal point.

He slowly raised the Hou Kang Sword in his hand. The restrained, extreme gray ignorance on the blade formed a stark contrast with the blazing radiance of the Bright Hall. The sword tip trembled slightly—not from fear, but from a transient resolve.

"Reject me?" Chen Yi murmured in a low voice, "What the hell do you count for?"

Before the words had fully fallen, Chen Yi’s aura exploded with a roar.

He suddenly slashed out with a sword.

He no longer suppressed it. The unenlightened resentment gathered into the sword edge surged out along with his Sword Intent like a breached flood.

It struck straight at the Bright Throne.

In that instant, the entire Bright Hall suddenly shuddered.