Chapter 423

Chapter 424: Parasite

“Attached” to the Crystal Heart, Yun Qing Zi looked groggy and unfocused. His thoughts broke off again and again; he often needed a long time to understand Yu Sheng’s questions and then reply. Even so, it was clear that, at least for now, he was still using a human mind to speak with the world.

[No one knew how long that clarity would last.]

From Yun Qing Zi’s broken memories, Yu Sheng finally learned what had happened on this planet a thousand years ago.

A crystal “meteorite” fell on Garrison-3 without any warning. According to Yun Qing Zi, it was much smaller when it first crashed than the Crystal Heart in the cave now. At first, it looked like a dull, gray, ordinary rock with no sign of life.

But only moments after it landed, that “rock” began to act like a living thing.

It tried to drill into Garrison-3. As it burrowed, it rapidly assimilated and devoured everything around it.

By chance, Yun Qing Zi was on this planet at the time, though today he could no longer remember why he had come.

“I did not know what it was, but after crossing blows with it, I saw many things,” Yun Qing Zi said slowly, as if lost in memory: “It has already been to many places. Wherever it goes, it parasitizes a planet, and once the parasitizing begins, no one can stop it. It was meant to fall on Sentinel Silence, but it drifted off course when it came down. I thought to myself, I must not let this evil thing escape, yet I never imagined I was not its match…”

Yun Qing Zi paused. His thoughts seemed to cut out again. After a while he lifted his head and looked around slowly.

“At the final moment, I buried myself underground with it, hoping to pin it down forever. But… its wicked nature was beyond my imagination.

“Every ‘Yun Qing Zi’ you saw on your way here was born from us swallowing each other and holding each other in check. The first Yun Qing Zi died back in that first clash many years ago. Before dying, I refined a wisp of my soul into the ‘heart’ of that evil thing, to breathe and grow with it. Each time it shed its skin, I resurrected once. By now I cannot remember how many times it has been.”

As he spoke, his face of pure crystal actually smiled, with a hint of pride.

“I did not beat it back then, but it has not won either!”

Yu Sheng listened, stunned. [Clues raced together in his mind.] Soon he spotted a problem and asked without thinking: “Wait, do you mean you’ve been here this whole thousand years? Then which ‘Yun Qing Zi’ did the Black Robed Cultivators on Sentinel Silence follow? And what about the ‘Yun Qing Zi’ I saw in the Illusion Arts?!”

He stopped, remembering another detail: “Also, when we fought that Crystal Jungle on the surface, the crystals shaped themselves into you and kept muttering about the ‘Sovereign’s Legacy’… how much of that was you?”

At his words, Yun Qing Zi’s expression changed at once-serious, grave, with a touch of regret.

“That was me as well. Any ‘Yun Qing Zi’ you saw is ‘Yun Qing Zi’-all evolved from the first wisp of soul I left behind,” the crystal elder said slowly. “I thought my old seal would work. I thought it would last at least over a thousand years. I never expected it to find a way to break free early. In one of the ‘cycles’, it found a loophole and let its main body escape… and it took away a ‘Yun Qing Zi’ that had been fully polluted and brought under its control, leaving only a heap of ‘empty shells’ here.

“I know what you are talking about: the ‘benefactor’ the servants on Sentinel Silence speak of, the person you saw in the Illusion Arts, and those ‘Yun Qing Zi’ that grew out of crystal. We are all connected, tangled in a muddled dream. I dream often. Over this thousand years, the thoughts and memories of every Yun Qing Zi have been mixed together so badly that we can no longer tell who is who…

“In truth, if you hadn’t appeared today and, with the force of Thunder, cleared more than half of the ‘iterations’ in an instant, I would not have this brief moment of clarity. On this ‘heart’, you would only have found another dull-witted monster.”

As he said this, the elder seemed to remember something. He strained to prop himself up and looked outward, as if searching for someone. After a long moment his gaze fell on Foxy.

Foxy had returned to human form, but her nine signature tails were still striking.

He stared at her for a while, then tugged at the corner of his mouth and smiled: “I have wandered in a haze for so many years, and that earthshaking strike woke me. That strike was truly magnificent, magnificent! If I had had that strike’s help back then, perhaps… perhaps… ah, perhaps it still would not have worked. That evil thing does not seem like something you can kill with ordinary power…”

He muttered, his thoughts muddling again, but soon he cleared up and locked eyes with Foxy.

“Immortal maiden, fellow daoist-does your strike have a name? I have lived for thousands of years and seen many great sects’ ultimate skills, but I have never seen a move that fell from low orbit. I am truly curious… which technique was it that ‘we’ finally lost to?”

Foxy stared blankly at the crystal elder. She seemed never to have thought about this. She glanced at Yu Sheng, scratched her hair, then turned back and answered honestly: “Fox Carrot Impact.”

Yun Qing Zi: “…”

The cave fell silent. Even the flickering light on the Crystal Heart seemed to freeze. Behind Xu Jiali, Bell almost dropped the metal sphere in her hands. The first to break the silence was Luna.

The Artificial Saintess nodded: “Mm, right.”

Yu Sheng now understood that these two words from Luna were like pressing the space bar after a computer screensaver: their main job was to end standby mode in the real world.

Yun Qing Zi finally reacted, still staring at Foxy: “…what did you say it was called?”

Foxy repeated, just as honest: “Fox Carrot Impact.”

Yun Qing Zi froze for two seconds, then burst into loud laughter.

For a moment, Yu Sheng even wondered if the old gentleman had been pushed too far. Not everyone can accept that they were beaten by something called “Fox Carrot Impact.”

But Yun Qing Zi truly seemed happy, even carefree in a way others could hardly understand. He laughed and laughed until the crystals in the cave hummed in Resonance: “Hahaha, good, very good! Wonderful, wonderful! I did not win, and it did not win. In the end, the winner is a return to the simple, the great Way made plain! A marvelous move, and a marvelous group of people… Come now, ask whatever you want while I still have a little time. Soon there will be no ‘Yun Qing Zi’ left who can talk with you, only a monster controlled by that evil thing!”

As his voice fell, a troubling crackling came from within the Crystal Heart. Its surface light suddenly began to flicker out of rhythm.

Hearing him and seeing this, Irene widened her eyes: “Huh? Old man, you…”

“Can’t you tell? I am in my final flare,” Yun Qing Zi lifted his head and spoke as if it had nothing to do with him: “Do not nag. If you can fight your way in here, you can tell what matters most. I am not too sure how things look outside now, but you are. So if you have questions, ask them now!”

Irene opened her mouth, then swallowed her extra words and, without thinking, pinched Yu Sheng’s hair.

“What exactly is the Sovereign’s Legacy?” Yu Sheng asked without hesitation. “From what you’re saying, that Yun Qing Zi who is obsessed with finding it is not on your side. He is controlled by the ‘crystal body’ that escaped. Do you know what he wants to do?”

“I do not know what that ‘Yun Qing Zi’ wants, and I do not know where the ‘Sovereign’s Legacy’ came from. But one thing is clear: his every thought is being interfered with by the evil thing,” Yun Qing Zi answered. “Its abilities are strange and mixed. It can split itself, confuse minds, and parasitize planets. But in essence, it has no ‘intelligence’. It acts on instinct. In doing so, it influences intelligent beings and makes them help it without knowing…

“So if you follow that line, whatever the controlled ‘Yun Qing Zi’ wants to do is likely meant to assist the evil thing’s actions and, without noticing, help it reach its goal.”

“To help it reach its goal…” Yu Sheng frowned hard. [A guess took shape in his heart.] “Then the biggest goal of that ‘crystal body’ is…”

Foxy cut in: “To parasitize the next planet?”

Clearly, she and Yu Sheng had reached the same thought.

Yu Sheng followed that thread: “Then the link between the ‘Sovereign’s Legacy’ and ‘parasitizing a planet’ is…?”

Perched on his shoulder, Irene actually had a bright moment: “What if the so-called ‘Sovereign’s Legacy’ is a planet?”

A spark shot through Yu Sheng’s mind.

All his blurry guesses were suddenly lit up.

“Grand Void Spiritual Axis!”

The Dark Angels’ true target was to parasitize the Grand Void Spiritual Axis!

[Cold understanding settled in his chest.]