Chapter 454: The Death of the True King
"Despair Slope has no hope whatsoever. It must maintain the status quo to survive, and that's why it's called Despair Slope. Only by maintaining the status quo can it live."
Feng Ruotong said softly, "I always thought I was the same. But now, suddenly, I have a sliver of hope."
That hope was Chen Shi.
Chen Shi's Yin-Yang Dao Field and demonic Dao Field gave him hope.
This hope meant that even if a True God died, even if Despair Slope collapsed and the world was entirely shrouded by demonic energy, people could still survive!
The hope was faint, yet it gave him tremendous encouragement. It made him pull back from the brink and refrain from killing Chen Shi.
He left behind those Heaven's Listeners' Venerated Kings and Venerated Lords and drifted away.
"Chen Shi is far more dangerous than the Grand Sacrificial Officer, but for this sliver of hope, taking a risk is worth it! Our current priority is still to eliminate the Grand Sacrificial Officer, to destroy the Divine Capital! I alone cannot cleanse the Divine Capital, I must summon other Celestial Way Walkers!"
This time he left Despair Slope bringing many Celestial Way Walkers to search for the people in the Divine Capital. But he was in a hurry to reach Beilai City and did not join up with those Celestial Way Walkers.
Now, slightly injured and with the Divine Capital indeed housing many experts, he had no choice but to seek the help of Celestial Way Walkers.
Feng Ruotong sent a fluctuation of his divine sense, transmitting a summons to nearby Heaven's Listeners, who spread the call in all directions.
More than ten days later, they met at Tiandao City.
Feng Ruotong counted the numbers and frowned slightly.
Twelve Celestial Way Walkers had followed him out of Despair Slope, but only seven had arrived. Five were missing.
"Where did those five go?"
They waited several more days, but the five did not arrive.
Feng Ruotong immediately ordered one Celestial Way Walker to dispatch a disciple back to Despair Slope to check whether the five's life-lights were still lit. After a while the disciple returned and reported, "The five uncles have already returned to Despair Slope, and their life-lights are all burning."
Feng Ruotong listened, somewhat surprised, but Celestial Way Walkers did not only obey his orders; perhaps other immortals had recalled the five.
He promptly led the remaining seven, mobilized Heaven's Listeners across the land, and tracked the Grand Sacrificial Officer and the others, searching along the way.
Despair Slope, Academy of Inquiry.
This was where Celestial Way Walkers came to study.
Celestial Way Walkers usually lived on their own Tiandao Peaks. Despair Slope had one hundred and eight Tiandao Peaks, each with its own Dao Field. Transmitted immortal qi fell into the fields; not abundant, but enough for daily cultivation.
This immortal qi contained no trace of demonic energy, making it extremely precious.
But to learn various Dao arts and divine abilities, one had to come to the Academy of Inquiry.
Besides divine arts, the academy housed all kinds of volumes, encompassing myriad topics.
At that moment six Celestial Way Walkers had come to the academy. Leading them was Yu Changbai; the other five were precisely the ones Feng Ruotong had anxiously awaited: Zhang Yunhe, Zhao Xiaoyao, Freeholder Qingfeng, Lin Taixu, and Tianguang Daoist.
"Find the book that records the True King as soon as possible."
Tianguang Daoist, who was Chen Yindu, spoke quickly, "After the True King's death in Despair Slope, the Celestial True God opened his eyes again. There must be a connection recorded here!"
Yu Changbai was Creation Little Five, Lin Taixu was Du Yiran, Zhang Yunhe was Sha Qiutong, Zhao Xiaoyao was Blue Goat, and Freeholder Qingfeng was the celestial fox. The group immediately split up, each searching the academy's volumes.
The academy's books were mostly golden volumes, the characters stamped on gold paper so they would not fade for tens of thousands of years.
The six searched quickly. Soon Sha Qiutong found something and called out, "Come quickly! There's a record about the True King here!"
The others hurried over. The book recorded the True King's life, compiled by the Heaven's Listeners and arranged by the Celestial Way Walkers to trace the True King's life.
The book said the True King's original name was Zhu Gaozhi, the fourth son of Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty. At only fourteen he was sent to the Western Ox New Continent and titled the New Continent True King.
The True King was extremely clever. After arriving in the Western Ox New Continent he diligently handled state affairs and quelled disasters across the land.
But plagued by endless disasters and demonic transformations, he relocated the capital four times. Later, after his cultivation matured and the world initially stabilized, the people lived in peace. The True King discovered that after cultivators reached the Ascension realm, they repeatedly succumbed to uncontrollable demonic influence and transformed, causing many civilian deaths and injuries. The True King could not sleep because of this, so he accepted an invitation to go to Despair Slope.
The True King entered Despair Slope and competed with Celestial Way Walkers, shocking Despair Slope and drawing the intervention of Celestial Way Immortals. The Celestial Venerable restrained the Celestial Way Immortals, banqueting the True King and revealing the truth about the demonic transformations and Despair Slope's principles.
The True King thus meditated in Despair Slope. After forty-nine days of deep thought, he created a new method.
The True King abandoned his cultivation and started anew. When he reached the fourth level, a True God descended and bestowed an Innate Dao Embryo...
Everyone was stunned when they read this. Sha Qiutong cried out, "Little Ten wasn't the first to obtain the Innate Dao Embryo!"
No sooner had she spoken than she realized and looked around. Fortunately, Despair Slope had few people, and there was no one else in the Academy of Inquiry besides them.
Du Yiran and the others were also shocked beyond words.
From the True King's biography, there had been no new method before him in Despair Slope. The new method was created by the True King, removing the Tribulation Crossing and Ascension realms, and adding the miniature shrine, Divine Embryo and Divine Descent, and the Emptiness Refining realm!
Moreover, the True King was the first to practice this new method and the first to receive a Divine Embryo!
The Celestial True God descending upon a Divine Embryo for the first time had granted him the Innate Dao Embryo!
They steadied themselves and continued reading.
What followed described the True King's farewell to the Celestial Venerable and his departure from Despair Slope, then his use of imperial power to forcibly enforce the new method to replace the old, and the bloody conflict with conservative factions.
The account was brief but brutally clear.
The True King mobilized the court and crushed top cultivators of the old method, even half-immortals, whether transformed or not. If someone had reached Ascension, they either had to abandon their cultivation and practice the new method or be executed!
The record said the origin of the freeholders came from this period: a group of cultivators who resisted the True King's atrocities.
The formation of the freeholders occurred much earlier than Chen Yindu and others had expected!
The Thirteen Great Clans also grew stronger during this cleansing slaughter.
The siege and suppression of the old-method top cultivators and the promotion of the new method was prolonged, and the slaughter continued until the day of the Sun's Extinguishment.
"The day of the Sun's Extinguishment should refer to the day when the Celestial True God extinguished his eyes and the disasters occurred," Creation Little Five said.
They continued reading. The Heaven's Listeners faithfully recorded the catastrophe: snowstorms, freezing cold, ghosts running rampant, people eating one another, villages emptied...
All manner of human tragedy played out across the land.
But because temples to the Huaxia gods had been established everywhere, those temples upheld a patch of sky during the crisis and gave people a slim chance of survival.
"...Forty-three years after the Sun's Extinguishment, autumn, the True King led a hundred court officials and troops to the gates of Despair Slope, seeking to see the Celestial Venerable. The Celestial Venerable was pleased and banqueted the True King; the True King was insolent and the Celestial Venerable displeased. The Celestial Venerable sacrificed the True King to Heaven. The sun then shone."
They all looked at one another, staring at those final two lines on the last page, reading them over and over.
There were few words—only forty-five characters—leaving them puzzled at first, but upon closer thought, it chilled them to the bone.
Blue Goat murmured, "The True King bringing a hundred court officials and troops to Despair Slope meant he intended a fight to the death with the Celestial Venerable. Obviously he knew Despair Slope possessed a means to let the sun shine again. So the Celestial Venerable 'sacrificed the True King to Heaven'—what does that mean?"
"Of course it means offering the True King as a sacrifice to the heavens."
Du Yiran said, "The True King came to Despair Slope. The Celestial Venerable welcomed him with a banquet, but the True King spoke disrespectfully at the feast, so the Celestial Venerable offered the True King up to Heaven. Then the sun lit again."
Blue Goat was puzzled, "Why would sacrificing the True King make the sun shine again?"
Chen Yindu said, "Probably because of the Innate Dao Embryo."
A chill ran through them.
"Gentlemen, I already have a plan to make the Celestial True God open his eyes."
Chen Yindu said in a solemn voice, "We should find the place where the Celestial Venerable sacrificed the True King. Once we find that place, we can make the True God open his eyes! I know Despair Slope well; there are several places worth suspecting!"
Their spirits lifted. They rose to their feet when a voice called, "Master Yu, Uncle Zhang, Uncle Zhao, what are you doing here?"
They turned toward the voice and saw a handsome young man entering the library pavilion of the Academy of Inquiry.
The young man had a strong frame, wore red robes, a black python sash tied at the waist, with a sachet hanging from his belt, giving him an elegant, scholarly air.
He wore a purple-gold crown, looking aristocratic, though the lobe of his left ear was missing a piece, a sign of past injury.
Creation Little Five laughed, "So it is my virtuous nephew Wu Wang. A few of your uncles and I came here to read some Dao arts. Recently we've even researched several surprisingly powerful divine abilities. When we're ready we'll ask for your instruction."
"Uncle is too polite."
Zhong Wuwang was a gentleman, courteous.
Creation Little Five led his group away.
Zhong Wuwang watched them leave, frowning slightly.
"Master Yu is Zhuang Wujiu's teacher; he handles the Heaven's Listeners' scheduling in the mortal world. Not long ago he descended the mountain in a hurry, yet later acted like nothing happened—very odd. The other five uncles clearly followed Immortal Feng to the mortal realm. Why did Immortal Feng not return with them, yet they came back?"
His eyes flickered; their behavior seemed suspicious.
"Their coming to the academy couldn't have been to study Dao arts and divine abilities. They must have another motive! What exactly were they reading?"
Soon Zhong Wuwang found that volume, the True King's biography, and read it carefully.
After finishing the biography and repeatedly rereading those final forty-five characters, he sat silently for a long time before slowly rising.
As if remembering something, he immediately opened the volume again, wiped his fingerprints from the pages one by one, and returned the golden book to its place.
"Celestial Venerable, what exactly did you sacrifice when you sacrificed the True King?"
His face went pale, his voice hoarse, "The True King's corpse is buried in the True King's Tomb. If it wasn't the True King's corpse, then what could it be? Ha—Innate Dao Embryo, plus the True King's Primordial Spirit, and a hundred of the strongest cultivators..."
He gritted his teeth and clutched the back of his head, repeatedly trying to pry open his skull to pull out the Innate Dao Embryo!
Zhong Wuwang's expression flickered between different shades, his inner struggle torturing him. After a long while he loosened his hands from behind his head.
He walked out, thinking to himself, "Am I the Celestial Venerable's next offering? I possess an Innate Dao Embryo—I will not wait to be slaughtered. Once I break through and reach the immortal realm, who will triumph will still be uncertain!"