Chapter 445
Chapter 446: Yun Qing Zi’s Plan
Clear, flowing light drifted in the endless void like curtains woven from crystal. In this strange time and space built from the Evolving Youth Form’s “memories,” Yu Sheng sat quietly and thought.
Anka Aila, Evolving Youth Form… what will come next? Goddess of Beauty, Heka Youth Form, Tree Angel; behind these known Dark Angels, what else waits in the dark?
One Dark Angel after another had appeared in this world. Their very Descent seemed to hint at something. At the End Web of the known universe, certain “truths” looked as if they were showing themselves in a troubling way.
In a space ruled by memory and consciousness, there seemed to be no clear idea of time. Yu Sheng did not know how long he had let his thoughts wander. When he came back to himself, Yun Qing Zi was still standing before him in silence.
The old man spoke slowly: “For many years, this seed has been searching for soil where it can take root. I was swallowed by it, yet by chance I gained its memories. After I read those memories again and again, I reached one conclusion: with mortal power alone, we cannot stand against these evils from beyond our world.”
Yu Sheng rubbed his chin and said: “Evils from beyond the world, is it?”
With a wooden face, Yun Qing Zi said: “Different sides lead to different names. If they threaten people, they are demons. Pitiful or not, they bring disaster. It may only want to live, but if it lives, people will keep dying.”
Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows and asked: “So you really were trying to solve the Evolving Youth Form problem?”
Yun Qing Zi was quiet for a few seconds. Then, with a sigh in his voice, he said: “I admit that in the last few hundred years I began to be influenced by the Evolving Youth Form, and it grew stronger with time. In the end even I could not tell how much of my thinking still came from my original heart. But at least one thing was not wrong. Sovereign’s Legacy was, in my understanding then, the only possible way to solve this.”
Hearing that familiar term again, Yu Sheng frowned and asked: “What exactly is Sovereign’s Legacy?”
Yun Qing Zi did not answer. He turned and made a small wave toward the crystal curtains.
The curtains quickly turned transparent. The sparkling glow thinned in a few breaths as if it were fading away. Then vast space appeared, with large and small Celestial Ships, orbital batteries, and Synchronous Orbit Palace Nodes forming the planetary defense lines. Behind those battle ready lines lay their living Homeworld, the Grand Void Spiritual Axis.
As he stared at the cloud-wreathed, beautiful planet, Yu Sheng wondered what Yun Qing Zi meant to show him. Before he could ask, the old man spoke on his own: “Fellow daoist, do you know of the ancient disaster of ‘Oblivion’ and the tale of the Ancient Holy Spirit remaking the cosmos?”
Yu Sheng thought for a moment and nodded, then said: “I know some of it.”
“Good. Then much needs no explanation,” Yun Qing Zi said with a small nod. “Do you also know that, if we follow the Ancient Holy Spirit’s original blueprint, this remade world should not have had the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, or even the Featherwing sector at all?”
“…?!”
“Many years ago, I hit a bottleneck in my search for the Dao,” Yun Qing Zi continued, seemingly missing Yu Sheng’s shocked look. “I do not boast, but compared to others I did have some talent on this road. So the ‘bottleneck’ I met was also harder than most.
“The question was this: where did heaven and earth come from? From outside the world.
“To break my shackles, I searched everywhere. A thousand years ago, at Garrison-3, I met my chance.”
“Your chance?” Yu Sheng blinked, then caught on and said: “Wait. Do you mean that instant when the Evolving Youth Form descended on Garrison-3?”
“Disaster can also be opportunity,” Yun Qing Zi said, nodding lightly. “The world knows the Dark Angels’ Descent briefly pierces the world. Then is there a chance that this very ‘piercing’ lets us mortals glimpse beyond the boundary of heaven and earth and peek at the world’s base structure?”
Yu Sheng said nothing.
[Are all of you cultivators this bold? The world gets a hole in it and your first thought is to go take a look?!]
“In that battle, I tried my best and still could not win. At the same time, I finally understood a few things,” Yun Qing Zi went on, ignoring the look in Yu Sheng’s eyes. “In that brief Rift which pierced the world, I saw flickers from beyond the river of time. They were shadows cast on the world’s boundary when the Ancient Holy Spirit remade heaven and earth. In a way, they were the first ‘blueprint’ of our world.”
As Yu Sheng listened, a thought stirred. He could not help recalling what he had seen before while traveling through Hyperspace using the Otherworldly Hotel’s view: the Information Megastructures beneath the observable universe and the labels that held up the world’s running.
Back then he only swept past those lights and did not have time to think. But now that he looked back, were those bottom layer messages the “blueprint” of the world? Was that what Yun Qing Zi had seen in the instant of the Angel Descent? Or at least something related?
Yun Qing Zi’s voice went on: “I am flesh and blood. I could not see the deep Dao in those shadows. But with only a hurried glance, I still ‘knew’ many things.”
Yu Sheng did not cut in. He listened with a serious face.
“In that blueprint, the whole region marked ‘Featherwing sector’ should have been empty,” Yun Qing Zi said. “There should have been no Grand Void civilization circle, and certainly no Grand Void Spiritual Axis. With the Grand Void Youth Form at the center, tens of thousands of light years around it should have been barren, not even with real heavenly bodies.”
Yu Sheng could not help speaking: “Not even celestial bodies? Then why…”
“I thought about it for a long time,” Yun Qing Zi said. “Even after the Evolving Youth Form swallowed me, I kept thinking. In thousands upon thousands of rounds of Divinatory Deduction, I began to suspect that the truth was tied to a small ‘footnote’ on that blueprint.”
“A footnote?”
“In the blueprint, although there was emptiness around the Grand Void Youth Form, there was one thing labeled ‘Sovereign’s Legacy.’ It was not a star or a planet. It was some kind of ‘object.’ For some reason, it occupied the very ‘position’ of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis.”
Yu Sheng frowned and thought while he listened. He sensed that this pointed at secrets buried in the deepest part of this universe’s birth. A swarm of messy guesses made his head ache. After a moment he shook his head hard, pushed away what he couldn’t untangle, and looked up into Yun Qing Zi’s eyes, then said: “So you are not sure what ‘Sovereign’s Legacy’ is. You can only tell it is an ‘abnormal’ thing in the world’s birth. How does that connect to the Evolving Youth Form?”
“At the start, I did not think Sovereign’s Legacy had anything to do with solving the Evolving Youth Form,” Yun Qing Zi said, shaking his head. “But in the many years after I was swallowed, I could not move. I had nothing to do but think. In those thoughts, I suddenly remembered something.”
“What was it?”
“Three thousand years ago, with a few old friends, I caught a Demonic Creature on the Grand Void Spiritual Axis called a ‘Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form,’” Yun Qing Zi said evenly. “It survives by gnawing Earth Veins. Across the sea of stars it roams without fear. But when it reached the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, the Grand Void Earth Veins poisoned it flat.”
Yu Sheng froze. Then his face shifted, and he reacted at once.
The Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form eats Earth Veins. It is not as bizarre and terrifying as the Evolving Youth Form, but it still carries a kind of parasitic, devouring trait toward planets. The Grand Void Spiritual Axis should not exist in the Genesis Blueprint, so the planet itself is an “abnormal product.” For the Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form, the Grand Void Spiritual Axis is “toxic.” Its Earth Veins cannot feed that creature at all.
Looking straight at Yu Sheng, Yun Qing Zi slowly smiled and said: “Fellow daoist, it seems you have understood.”
“But how could you be sure…”
“You know this. After the Evolving Youth Form parasitized Sentinel Silence, it began to influence more and more people. Some of them became my ‘eyes and ears’ in a roundabout way. They were unclear in mind and could not handle big tasks, but they were still useful. I sent those ‘ears’ to test again and again. Most recently, I borrowed the Evolving Youth Form’s power to pry open the Demon Suppression Tower under Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain and found where the Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form was held. You know this part.
“Yes, that was a ‘test.’
“At first I guessed that ‘Sovereign’s Legacy’ might be some ‘ancient treasure’ hidden somewhere on the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. I thought it resisted the Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form by affecting the Earth Veins. If I could find it and ‘bring it back’ to Sentinel Silence, maybe it could solve the Evolving Youth Form. Only recently did I realize that Sovereign’s Legacy was the Grand Void Spiritual Axis itself. I had to change the plan.”
Yu Sheng finally saw it all clearly.
[So that was it!]
Every clue now lined up. The links behind every event rose to the surface. First open a Rift at Nethermoon to try to locate the exact place of Sovereign’s Legacy. Then open a Rift on the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, pry at the Earth Veins under the Demon Suppression Tower, and use the Evolving Youth Form’s power to “touch” the Grand Void Spiritual Axis as a test. At last push on the Evolving Youth Form’s mind and try to lure it to change its host.
All of this was to make it parasitize a planet that did not exist in the Genesis Blueprint, an “abnormal planet.”
“I wanted to poison it to death,” Yun Qing Zi said calmly as he looked into Yu Sheng’s eyes. “My cultivation is limited. I do not have boundless skill like you. I fought the Evolving Youth Form for a thousand years and could find no other way to break the game. Maybe this method is reckless. Maybe it would fail. Maybe it was me overthinking things. But the Evolving Youth Form was ready to ascend again. I had no time and no other choice.”