Chapter 3380: Too Deliberate
Legend has it that five hundred thousand eons have passed since the last Calamity of Quantities.
Five hundred thousand eons—that is six billion, four hundred and eighty million years.
Such an immense span of time has given birth to countless magnificent great worlds, mighty clans that dominate entire regions, and awe-inspiring, sky-upholding overlords. But all are gone now. Time shows no mercy. How many tales of past and present are left only to be told with a laugh?
The Rakshasa Clan, once one of the ten great clans of the Hell Realm, shone brilliantly in the ancient past. They had glorious days, with beings who could suppress heaven and earth creating laws and expanding vast starry territories.
Yu Ling Shen told Zhang Ruochen that the Rakshasa Clan also possessed an Ancestor Realm, but it was destroyed in a great calamity many years ago! Historical records state that in some ancient era, the Rakshasa Clan offended the Heavenly Venerable of that time. All their Boundless cultivators were slaughtered, their Ancestor Realm was pierced through, and they fell from the ranks of the great clans.
Fortunately, that Heavenly Venerable did not exterminate them completely, allowing the Rakshasa Clan to barely survive that darkest of ages and pass down their lineage.
Zhang Ruochen sighed inwardly.
He marveled at the Rakshasa Clan's former strength—daring enough to offend a Heavenly Venerable, their confidence immense.
He also shuddered at the terror of a Heavenly Venerable. As the number one figure of an era, they could crush everything, single-handedly annihilate an entire great clan.
Even in this era, no single ruling world or great clan could check Hao Tian or Fengdu Dadi.
In the Heavenly Court, ruling worlds had to form factions with multiple great worlds, forming alliances and counterbalances to wrestle with the Heavenly Palace. In the Hell Realm, the Lower Three Clans, Middle Three Clans, and Upper Three Clans each formed their own factions.
"The ancient ink sea, where our two ancestors once went into seclusion and slumber, is a fragment of the Ancestor Realm. This is strong evidence that the Ancestor Realm once existed!"
Yu Ling Shen led Zhang Ruochen into the Rakshasa Clan's ancestral realm.
Zhang Ruochen said, "Ancestral relics are invariably the strongest foundation of a clan. The Rakshasa Clan still has a Boundless old ancestor alive. Would they allow you to gift something so precious to an outsider?"
The Rakshasa Clan had two Boundless old ancestors, but one fell at the North Marsh Great Wall.
Yu Ling Shen smiled. "Naturally, the most precious few items cannot be given away."
Zhang Ruochen was secretly disappointed.
Before departing, Xiu Chen Heavenly God had secretly transmitted a message, telling him that if he could obtain even one of the Rakshasa Clan's supreme treasures, it would be a massive gain.
Now it seemed that although Yu Ling Shen was the second strongest in the Rakshasa Clan, second only to that old ancestor, her authority was limited. She could not give away their true foundational treasures.
Yu Ling Shen and Zhang Ruochen entered the Rakshasa Ancestral God Hall, and for the first time, she invited him deep into the inner world of the hall.
Here lay the former residence of an ancestor, existing in the form of a cave heaven.
The space was filled with an ancient and mysterious aura. Strange lights flew past, making even Zhang Ruochen sense danger.
Indeed, some items imbued with the aura of the ancestor remained here. Divine springs flowed in the air, as fine as strands of hair. A withered tree stood eternally unyielding, said to be a divine tree planted by the ancestor's own hand, but it had long since died.
There were stone walls engraved with ancestral divine script, fragments of bronze material, a porcelain bottle covered in cracks...
All were indeed ancestral relics, but nearly all were damaged. Moreover, too many ages had passed; the ancestral power had almost entirely dissipated. To ordinary gods, these might be supreme treasures, but Zhang Ruochen had little interest.
Zhang Ruochen's finger touched the stone wall, watching the ancestral divine script flicker. "It seems to be an incomplete divine ability technique!"
Yu Ling Shen said, "One of our Boundless ancestors comprehended a Boundless divine ability from the fragmented script on this wall. If this text were complete, it would likely be a Heavenly Venerable divine ability."
The classification of All Heavens divine abilities and Heavenly Venerable divine abilities is actually a very vague concept. After all, the cultivation levels of All Heavens and Heavenly Venerables vary across eras, and the power of the divine abilities they create differs.
But this is unavoidable—after all, no one can judge a Heavenly Venerable, and no one can successfully cultivate all Heavenly Venerable divine abilities.
Only the Heavenly Venerable themselves can unleash the strongest power of their divine abilities.
Zhang Ruochen looked at the porcelain bottle placed in the corner. It had been destroyed before, and someone had attempted to repair it, but the repair was imperfect, leaving many cracks.
Yu Ling Shen said, "This is the Heaven-Collecting Bottle. It was immensely powerful. In our clan's heyday, it once collected an All Heavens! But it shattered in the great calamity. Even after spending countless precious materials to repair it, it can never regain its former glory. Still, collecting some great gods should not be difficult."
Zhang Ruochen shook his head, showing little interest. "These are the Rakshasa Clan's foundation? I see a pile of junk."
Yu Ling Shen smiled with peerless charm. "The Sword Venerable carries too many divine artifacts and treasures, enough to make even the All Heavens envious. Naturally, he looks down on these."
Zhang Ruochen said, "If I help you break through to Boundless, and in the future I have need, could I borrow a few of the Rakshasa Clan's clan-suppressing treasures?"
Based on Xiu Chen's earlier description, Zhang Ruochen was very interested in those clan-suppressing items.
Yu Ling Shen's heart stirred, but she quickly composed herself and sighed. "Breaking through to Boundless is indeed a tremendous temptation for me. I would trade everything I have for it. If the Sword Venerable only wishes to borrow, that would be no problem. But the clan-suppressing treasures must never be lost!"
Zhang Ruochen had tested her. The Rakshasa Clan's interests were above all else in Yu Ling Shen's heart.
Good.
With attachments, weaknesses, and things she cared about, she would be easier to control.
If Yu Ling Shen were selfish, willing to do anything for her own cultivation, Zhang Ruochen would have to be more wary of her and dare not cultivate her too much.
The current Sword Realm, though seemingly powerful with many gods, was actually bloated. Not everyone was trustworthy.
Zhang Ruochen had to select some spokespersons from the major powers and focus on cultivating them.
Suddenly, Zhang Ruochen felt a pair of soft jade arms wrap around him from behind. A fullness pressed against his back, full of elasticity. A faint fragrance and bone-melting touch intoxicated him.
Yu Ling Shen, tall and slender, pressed her jade face against Zhang Ruochen's left shoulder blade. "Since you can't find what you need, why not choose something beautiful and enchanting? In my youth, I was a famous enchantress who captivated the world. Countless talented men wished for a glimpse of my beauty. Back then, I could chat and laugh with the Dragon Lord and the Ice King. Time leaves no one untouched, but my beauty has not faded. Perhaps I am not as eternally young and sincere as Bai Qinger or Chi Yao, but taking an ancient god as a lover—isn't that a different kind of conquest?"
Her words were deeply seductive. Zhang Ruochen was no saint or Buddha, and his heart indeed stirred with desire.
But he still broke free from her jade arms. "Such temptation is indeed hard to resist. But there's no need to be so deliberate. Being deliberate ruins the beauty of it."
Zhang Ruochen casually picked an ancestral relic and hurriedly left the Rakshasa Ancestral God Hall.
Seeing this, Yu Ling Shen's estimation of him rose another notch. If it had been any other man, they would have gone along with it naturally. But Zhang Ruochen could restrain himself.
"Too deliberate"—those three words perfectly captured Yu Ling Shen's thoughts.
Zhang Ruochen had seen through her. She was humbling herself for the sake of the Rakshasa Clan, offering her body to serve him.
Leaving the Rakshasa Ancestral God Hall, Zhang Ruochen went to see Luo Ji and spent a secret night with her.
Luo Ji was gentle, like the Luo River, lingering and affectionate.
In the following days, Zhang Ruochen stayed in the Heavenly Beginning Civilization, studying the "Luo Book" with Luo Ji, contemplating the method to condense the Four Symbols Great Perfection, while also guiding her through her cultivation doubts.
Luo Ji selected ten exceptionally talented cultivators from the Heavenly Beginning Civilization. Zhang Ruochen used the Wuji Divine Dao to help each of them refine their physical bodies, stabilize their foundations, and elevate their aptitudes.
During this time, Xiu Chen Heavenly God sent her physical body over, asking Zhang Ruochen to help enhance it.
She watched him closely, worried that he might do something to her body. She had noticed that recently, Luo Ji's cultivation had improved rapidly, and her complexion was too good—her eyes misty, her skin so tender it seemed to drip water. It was clearly abnormal.
After Zhang Ruochen condensed the Taiyin, the yin and yang qi within him became extremely unbalanced. He might do anything.
The remnant soul of Qiangshake in the Earth Cauldron was refined by Zhang Ruochen!
He had originally wanted to forcibly probe its consciousness to learn more about Lihentian and the Sword Soul Depths, but even with the combined strength of him, Xiu Chen, Zangjin Baihu, Yu God King, Taiqing Ancestral Master, and Yuqing Ancestral Master—six powerful beings—they could not suppress it.
Most of Qiangshake's divine soul and consciousness had burned away. Only a small portion of the divine soul remained, which was refined into divine soul divine pills.
These divine soul divine pills were all given to Xiu Chen Heavenly God.
There was no other way. She was the artifact spirit of the Sundial. Next, Zhang Ruochen planned to activate the Sundial on a large scale in the Sword Realm for a period of time. Xiu Chen had to be as strong as possible.
Of course, this "large scale" was far smaller than the scale used in the Kunlun Realm back then. It was only to help a small number of gods and selected young prodigies rapidly elevate their cultivation.
Zhang Ruochen placed items that might be sensed by the current All Heavens or Heavenly Venerable—including the Heavenly Venerable character scroll, the Darkness Esoterica, the Celestial Pivot Needle, and so on—into the Earth Cauldron, sealing them with the God-Defying Stele.
The treasure he brought out from the Rakshasa Ancestral God Hall surprised him, but it was somewhat damaged and needed repair. He already had a method for repair, waiting only for the Sundial to activate.
After spending several days in the Heavenly Beginning Civilization, he finally headed to the Qiankun Continent on the Lianyun Sea.
He planned to activate the Sundial there, go into seclusion, consolidate his realm, enhance his foundation, and prepare for condensing the Four Symbols Great Perfection.
Luo Ji traveled with Zhang Ruochen, flying through the clouds. She was pure and beautiful, yet carried a queen-like, domineering aura. On her head was the Heavenly Lord's white jade divine crown, her long black hair flowing. She was still the same Heavenly Beginning Fairy.
Such dominance was naturally for outsiders to see. Only Zhang Ruochen knew her inner tenderness.
She said, "Li Hen Ancient God has been suppressed and killed. He tried to escape the Sword Realm, or perhaps wanted to leak the spatial coordinates of the Sword Realm."
"I saw this coming long ago. There's no need to tell me so formally. I trust the God King and the Heavenly Beginning Civilization," Zhang Ruochen said.
Luo Ji said, "But he was a great god!"
"So what if he was a great god? If he deserves to die, he dies," Zhang Ruochen said.
Li Hen Ancient God was suppressed and killed by the Heavenly Beginning Civilization's first divine artifact, the Azure Sky Mirror!
The Azure Sky Mirror was previously in the hands of the old Heavenly Lord, its artifact spirit reaching the Boundless level. Yu God King took Luo Ji away to the Sword God Hall, setting a trap there. Many traitors were lured out, and all were killed by the Azure Sky Mirror.
Soon, the two arrived at the Qiankun Continent and descended upon the imperial city of the Holy Bright Central Empire.