Chapter 750: Ancient Secrets
That red light was faster than lightning. Fen Juechen only saw a flash of red, and before he could even form the awareness to react, the red light struck his crown point and instantly submerged into his body.
In an instant, a sensation like countless steel needles stabbing into his soul came from within, causing him to let out a most miserable cry. Then his consciousness directly collapsed, and he fell unconscious.
The red-clothed girl's eyelashes drooped slightly, her gaze cold and sharp. Maintaining the same posture, she rapidly read through Fen Juechen's memories... Within just ten breaths, that red light detached from Fen Juechen's body and vanished into the air. His memories had been completely and thoroughly read by the red-clothed girl, without a single omission.
At the same time, she conveniently erased all his memories of seeing her.
The red-clothed girl slowly withdrew her hand, a strange light flickering briefly in her eyes. She turned around, no longer casting a glance at the unconscious Fen Juechen, nor making another move against him. Her small, snow-white hand lightly traced before her, and instantly, a long spatial rift appeared in front of her. It persisted with a ferocious howl, neither contracting nor disappearing.
"Having two lives, yet both your fates are so pitiful—pitiful enough that I can't even be bothered to kill you."
With a cold murmur, the girl stepped into the spatial rift and vanished as the crack closed behind her.
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Back in Liuyun City, Yun Che quickly arrived at his small courtyard and began concentrating on recovering his profound energy and injuries. The battle with Fen Juechen had been far less brutal and perilous than he had anticipated. When Fen Juechen still had nearly forty percent of his power left, he had been utterly crushed by Yun Che's overwhelming momentum... Thinking back on it now, he still found it somewhat unbelievable.
"Mo Li, I always felt that Fen Juechen's condition was strange. Could it be that the endurance of demonic profound energy after heavy consumption is naturally that weak?"
Yun Che waited for a while, but received no response from Mo Li.
Could she be sleeping? No, the demonic poison on her body had been cleansed; she shouldn't have fallen into a deep sleep where her consciousness was completely sealed.
Hesitating, Yun Che sank his consciousness and entered the Heavenly Poison Pearl.
Inside the Heavenly Poison Pearl's world, only Hong'er was sleeping soundly, completely unaware of his arrival. But there was no sign of Mo Li, nor any trace of her aura.
"..." Yun Che pondered silently for a moment, but did not leave the Heavenly Poison Pearl. He stood there waiting for Mo Li to return. Although Mo Li no longer needed to rely on the Heavenly Poison Pearl, she still shared her life with him, and her soul body could not stay away from him for too long. She would be back soon.
Without any surprise, Yun Che had only waited a short while when a red light flashed before him. Mo Li gracefully returned to his side, her milky-white little face completely expressionless.
"...You were waiting for me?"
"Did you go... to find Fen Juechen?" Yun Che asked suspiciously.
"Hmph, you guessed right." Mo Li turned her face away, her lips unconsciously curling upward in a slight tilt, as if she was displeased that he had guessed what she had done. "But rest assured, I didn't kill him. I just learned some things I wanted to know from him."
"So, you already know all his secrets?" Yun Che said in surprise.
"Hmph, more or less."
Yun Che's spirits lifted, and he immediately asked, "Then where did his power come from? What happened to him in those years? Why did he want the Heavenly Sin Divine Sword?"
When Mo Li said "more or less," it meant she basically knew everything clearly. The various abnormalities surrounding Fen Juechen had been lingering in Yun Che's mind. Since Mo Li already had the answer, of course he wanted to press for details.
"It seems you're quite concerned about Fen Juechen's affairs," Mo Li said flatly.
"I'm just very curious." Yun Che frowned. "In just four years, his power has skyrocketed to such a level—it's simply baffling. The profound energy he used was something I've never seen before, and the 'Heavenly Sin Divine Sword' he mentioned today is fraught with strangeness. I feel like there's a huge mystery hidden behind Fen Juechen that I can't help but dwell on."
"It's not just a huge mystery." Mo Li's slender brows lowered slightly. "The things recorded in his memories are far more interesting than I imagined!"
Though she said "interesting," Mo Li's expression was clearly somewhat grave.
This undoubtedly made Yun Che's already heavy curiosity and suspicion multiply several times. Earlier, when Mo Li had shouted "Eternal Night Illusion Demon Scripture," her tone was already very abnormal. Now it seemed that the complexity of this matter far exceeded what he could imagine.
"Could it be that it's again at a level I'm not supposed to know about?" Yun Che asked cautiously. Mo Li had hidden many things from him, and as long as she didn't want to tell him, she would never reveal a single word no matter what.
She glanced at him, then proudly turned her face away again: "Although explaining this is rather troublesome, since you want to know so badly... hmph, today I'm in a good mood after getting rid of the demonic poison, so I suppose I can tell you. But every single word I say next, no matter who you meet in the future, you must never reveal a single syllable."
*Oh, it's that serious...* Yun Che put on a righteous expression: "There's probably no one in this world who knows me better than you. You should know whether I'm the kind of person who doesn't understand the gravity of things."
"Hmph! When it comes to women, you've never understood the gravity!" Mo Li snorted coldly.
Yun Che was speechless.
Mo Li extended her arm, her small hand gathering together to set up a small soundproof barrier around Hong'er... Of course, this barrier wasn't to prevent her from eavesdropping, but to avoid disturbing her peaceful sleep.
The casual gesture revealed Mo Li's almost instinctive care for Hong'er.
*Mo Li has always been protective of Hong'er, but with me, she's forever fierce and harsh...* Yun Che thought sourly.
"In the ancient era, it was the age of the gods, and all other races were lowly and insignificant existences. The chaos space was north for Yin and south for Yang. The Southern Chaos was the world where the ancient divine race existed, while the Northern Chaos was the world of the ancient demon race. The divine and demon races each occupied half of the chaos space. The two races were opposite in nature, mutually hostile, but they rarely provoked conflict and seldom interacted, coexisting peacefully, like two parallel worlds with opposing attributes."
Mo Li began to narrate, but the content left Yun Che baffled, and he couldn't help asking: "This... what does this have to do with Fen Juechen's matter?"
"Don't interrupt!" Mo Li huffed loudly. "This is all related to Fen Juechen's matter."
Yun Che: "..."
"The reason gods and demons were so powerful is that they were born from the power of the chaos's primordial origin and grew under the aura of that primordial origin. That most pure, most powerful, most extreme celestial aura from the chaos's beginning is what I referred to as 'Hongmeng Qi' when I taught you the Great Dao Pagoda Art. Although what you absorb with the Great Dao Pagoda Art is also celestial aura, in terms of level, it's worlds apart from 'Hongmeng Qi' — a difference between heaven and earth."
Yun Che naturally remembered "Hongmeng Qi." Back then, Mo Li had said that if the Great Dao Pagoda Art could be cultivated to the Tenth Realm, it could invoke the most extreme celestial force — Hongmeng Force! But she also said that with a human body, the Great Dao Pagoda Art could at most reach the Sixth Realm.
"After the age of the gods, it became impossible for true gods to appear again. The most fundamental reason is that the Hongmeng Qi within the chaos space had become too thin to ever give birth to the bodies and powers of the divine realm again. Moreover, as the chaos world grows murkier, the Hongmeng Qi only becomes thinner year by year, ensuring that true gods can never reappear. By now, the chaos space might no longer possess that primal and pure Hongmeng Qi at all."
"In that ancient era, the gods were the supreme existences. The countless planets, star realms, and independent small worlds of today — some were naturally formed by chaos, but a large portion were created or transformed by the gods. And over ninety percent of today's races were also bred by the gods' power, including the human race, the demon race, the elf race, the Anming race, the Wood Spirit race..."
"The Anming... Wood Spirit... races? What races are those?" Yun Che blurted out instinctively. He had never heard of these two races' names, whether on the Tian Xuan Continent or in the Huan Yao Realm, and there were no records of them.
Mo Li shot him a glare, seemingly annoyed that he had interrupted her again, but she only snorted softly and patiently continued: "The Wood Spirit race is similar to the elf race — a race extremely attuned to natural forces, able to communicate with plants and control them to a certain degree. This race has very low profound energy talent, so they are rather weak and insignificant. Combined with their special abilities and 'physique,' if they fall into the hands of outsiders, their fate is especially tragic... They will be enslaved as tools to search for or cultivate medicinal herbs, or worse, directly used to refine medicinal pills or spirit medicines! In the auctions of my world, it's common to see Wood Spirits being sold. As their numbers dwindle and they approach extinction, the prices fetched are increasingly high."
Yun Che: "..."
"The Anming race is a race that can change forms at will and feeds on darkness. They have no male or female distinction and can reproduce on their own. This race is not small in scale, but they can only exist in places shrouded in yin energy. Their self-cultivated profound energy upper limit is extremely low, but they possess the ability to hijack the souls of living beings and, by devouring souls, dramatically increase their own strength."
"Feed... on... darkness?" Yun Che's eyes widened. He could understand feeding on grass, on dew, even on the west wind or on light, but feeding on darkness... what kind of nonsense was that?!
Can "darkness" even be eaten?!
"Hmph! Ignorant!" Mo Li said contemptuously. "Given your experience, you probably only know of the existence of a few races like humans, beasts, and demons. In this vast chaos space, there are hundreds of large and small races. What you know doesn't even amount to a drop in the ocean! Not only are there races that feed on darkness or light, but there are also races that feed on dreams, or even space. Legends say that in the ancient era, there was even a race that fed on time..."
"~!@#¥%..." Yun Che's brain nearly ground to a halt trying to imagine a picture of eating dreams, eating space, or eating time...
"Enough. You haven't even left a tiny Blue Ji Star yet. You probably won't understand these things in your lifetime. Talking so much to you is a complete waste of breath." Mo Li crossed her two slender arms over her chest, adopting a proud, condescending posture that looked down on all living beings.
"And the age of the gods ultimately came to a complete end. The reason for that end, I mentioned to you a long time ago... it was because of a sword."
"The Ancestral Heaven-Slaying Sword!" Yun Che whispered softly.