Chapter 397: The Ancient and Modern Recorder (8)
The young man who had put on the mask looked at Su Chen's corpse. He buried Su Chen's body and erected a stone stele. From the moment he put on the mask, the young man felt that he had become somewhat different. Exactly where the difference lay, he did not know.
After burying Su Chen, he returned to the dim pavilion. Looking at the dazzling array of bamboo slips, his heart suddenly grew calm. He would remain here and wait for the next person to arrive.
The young man had a name. His name was Liu Hu. From this day onward, the Recorder of the Heavenly Origin Sect changed from Su Chen to Liu Hu.
"The person who records for the sect has changed?"
Sun Ao remembered that before he left the sect, the one who recorded the life information of the disciples and elders had been an old man. Now it had become a young man wearing a mask.
This change drew a soft sigh from Sun Ao's heart.
The young man's reply confirmed Sun Ao's guess.
The masked youth said, "That was my teacher. He passed away not long ago, and the position of Recorder of the sect has fallen upon me."
Sun Ao nodded. He had no particular relationship with Su Chen and had only asked casually.
"I want to record someone. His name is Li Li."
Following Sun Ao's oral account, Liu Hu recorded Li Li's life.
Li Li, a disciple of the Heavenly Origin Sect, later became an elder of the Heavenly Origin Sect and was respected by the disciples.
When the Wooden Scenery Dynasty suffered a demon invasion, Elder Li Li, together with Elder Wang, Elder Jiang, and other elders, led many disciples of the Heavenly Origin Sect to assist the Wooden Scenery Dynasty in resisting the demons.
The demons were powerful and broke through the first pass. Elder Li Li fought to the death without retreating and perished in the demon tide.
Sun Ao reviewed the record and then left. He had already fulfilled Li Li's dying wish. The Wooden Scenery Dynasty was now in imminent danger, and the Heavenly Origin Sect had many matters that required handling. He would not waste too much time here.
After Sun Ao left, Liu Hu placed the bamboo slip recording Li Li's deeds in a conspicuous position. The war situation in the Wooden Scenery Dynasty was tense. Almost every day, someone came here.
The front line between the demons and the Wooden Scenery Dynasty was like a bottomless pit that could never be filled. That pit was filled with countless human lives.
The Heavenly Origin Sect, once a vast and thriving sect that should have been filled with disciples and vitality, now appeared lifeless and declining.
In less than a year, fewer than one in ten of the disciples and elders of the Heavenly Origin Sect remained. The once-great sect seemed to have returned once more to that destitute little mountain peak. Even so, the situation at the front remained far from optimistic. Powerful experts continued to die in an endless stream.
Fortunately, their deaths were not without meaning. The Wooden Scenery Dynasty learned the purpose of this demon invasion.
A peak King-level demon king wished to use the living beings of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty as a medicinal tonic, breaking through the barrier of the Void Refining Realm in one stroke and becoming a Demon Emperor.
Peak King-level... that was equivalent to the peak of the ninth level of the Profound Connection Realm among humans. Although the Wooden Scenery Dynasty also had experts of the Profound Connection Realm, the strongest among them was only at the fourth level of the Profound Connection Realm... Unless they possessed special constitutions, the human body was weaker than that of demons in every aspect. Thus, even at the same realm, they were no match, let alone when facing an opponent five minor realms higher.
Moreover, the number of King-level demons under the invading Demon King's command was even greater than those of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty!
Liu Hu looked toward the area beyond the sect. At some unknown time, a layer of dark clouds had enveloped the sky above the Heavenly Origin Sect.
Before long, as a torrential downpour began to fall, strands of pale lightning surged like swimming dragons through the pitch-black cloud layer.
Liu Hu noticed that this cloud layer only covered the Heavenly Origin Sect. Outside the sect, the sky remained clear for ten thousand miles. The two extremes of weather appeared extremely strange.
Before the people of the Heavenly Origin Sect could react, lightning that covered an entire mountain peak crashed down with a roar. Its terrifying might was enough to raze everything within a hundred miles to the ground!
"There is someone within that lightning!"
The people of the Heavenly Origin Sect discovered that a human figure was faintly visible within the lightning.
That figure approached from afar and gradually became clear.
It was a middle-aged man with a lean face and a gentle expression. His long hair was bound up with a wooden hairpin, a few loose strands falling beside his ears. He wore a plain white daoist robe that remained completely free of dust even within the lightning.
"It is the Sect Master!"
This man was none other than the sect master of the Heavenly Origin Sect, that legendary figure, Ruan Jingtian.
"Was that just now the legendary Profound Connection Tribulation... The Sect Master has broken through to the Profound Connection Realm!"
In the entire Wooden Scenery Dynasty, there were only two experts of the Profound Connection Realm.
One was an old ancestor of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty.
The other was the current number-one sect's martial expert who had kept the martial cultivators of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty unable to raise their heads for three hundred years.
Now, the third was the sect master of the Heavenly Origin Sect. He had broken through to the Profound Connection Realm in less than two hundred years of cultivation. His aptitude surpassed even that of the one in the Wooden Scenery Dynasty, and his future was limitless.
The Profound Connection Realm granted a lifespan of eight hundred years.
The Sect Master emerging from seclusion after breaking through to the Profound Connection Realm should have been a cause for great celebration, yet within the Heavenly Origin Sect there were only scattered remnants, fewer than a hundred people remaining.
"Father, you have broken through!"
Seeing that Ruan Jingtian had successfully broken through, Ruan Hongyao was naturally filled with joy.
"Sect Master."
Together with Ruan Hongyao was Sun Ao.
Ruan Jingtian looked at the two of them and smiled.
"The Wooden Scenery Dynasty is in imminent danger. Your father will travel to the border and meet that Demon King."
Ruan Jingtian was optimistic, yet at this moment, listening to his words, a selfish thought appeared in Ruan Hongyao's mind for the first time.
"Father... can you not go?"
Facing Ruan Hongyao's words, the smile on Ruan Jingtian's face faded. He sternly rebuked, "Nonsense! Is your father a man who fears death?"
"You must understand that your senior brothers, senior sisters, junior brothers, junior sisters, and martial uncles all died at the hands of the demons. This is a deeply engraved hatred of our Heavenly Origin Sect. If your father does not go, and the Wooden Scenery Dynasty is breached by the demons, hundreds of millions of common people will become food for the demons, and the tens of millions of miles of territory of the entire Wooden Scenery Dynasty will become a paradise for the demons!"
"Your father has always wanted you to understand what is great righteousness and what is small righteousness. Small righteousness may be set aside, but great righteousness cannot be refused. Hongyao... you have truly disappointed your father."
Ruan Hongyao's face turned pale. "Father... but... but..."
Looking at Ruan Hongyao as tears streamed down her face, Ruan Jingtian stroked her head and said, "After your father leaves, you will become the ninth-generation sect master of the Heavenly Origin Sect. The heavy burden of the sect will fall upon your shoulders."
Ruan Jingtian looked to the side and said, "Sun Ao."
Sun Ao nodded. "Sect Master, this disciple wishes to accompany you to the battlefield and contribute my strength to the victory against the demons."
Ruan Jingtian shook his head. "The battlefield does not need you. What decides the final victory is us, not you young ones. After I leave, the sect will need you even more than the battlefield does."
"You are still young. The heavy burden of supporting the Wooden Scenery Dynasty and confronting the Demon King should not fall upon young people like you. That is the responsibility of us old fellows."
Sun Ao wanted to open his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Ruan Jingtian. "Hongyao will also need your assistance... If the situation becomes hopeless, you must take Hongyao and leave, preserving the final spark of fire for me and for the sect."
In the end, Sun Ao could only nod heavily.