Chapter 446
Chapter 446: Yun Qing Zi’s Scheme
Transparent, flowing phantom light drifted through endless void like curtains woven from crystal. In this strange time-space built from Yanxing Entity’s memory, Yu Sheng quietly worked through a storm of questions.
Anka Aila. Yanxing Entity. What would come next?
The beauty god, Heka Star, Tree Angel—behind these known dark angels, what else was out there?
One dark angel after another had appeared in this world. Their very descent seemed to be signaling something. At the end of the known universe, certain truths felt like they were pushing their way to the surface, cold and unsettling.
In a place ruled by memory and consciousness, time had no clear meaning. Yu Sheng didn’t know how long he drifted in thought. When he finally came back to himself, Yun Qing Zi was still standing quietly across from him.
“For many years, this seed has been searching for soil where it can take root,” the old man said. “It devoured me, yet by accident I gained Its memories. After reading them again and again, I reached only one conclusion: with the strength of a mortal, we cannot fight this outside evil.”
Yu Sheng rubbed his chin. “Outside evil, huh…”
Yun Qing Zi’s face stayed calm. “From different stances, a person’s enemy is always evil. No matter how pitiable it is, it is still a calamity. It may only want to live, but if it lives, people in this world will keep dying.”
Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow. “So you really were trying to solve the Yanxing Entity problem?”
Yun Qing Zi was silent for a few seconds, then sighed. “I admit that in the last few centuries… I truly began to be influenced by Yanxing Entity, and that influence deepened day by day. In the end, even I could not be sure how much of my thoughts and methods still came from my original intent.”
His eyes sharpened. “But at least one thing wasn’t wrong. The Emperor Lord’s Legacy was the only possibility I could imagine back then for solving this.”
Hearing that term again, Yu Sheng frowned. “What exactly is the Emperor Lord’s Legacy?”
Yun Qing Zi didn’t answer directly. He only lifted a hand and swept it through the crystal veils.
The curtain rapidly turned transparent. Within a few breaths, the clear phantom light seemed to fade away, and Yu Sheng saw the boundless emptiness of space: large and small celestial ships on high alert, orbital turrets, and the synchronous-orbit palace that served as a planetary defense node. And behind those lines of alarmed fortifications lay their vibrant homeworld—the Grand Void Spiritual Axis.
Looking at that beautiful, cloud-wreathed planet hanging in space, Yu Sheng felt a flicker of unease. Before he could ask, Yun Qing Zi spoke first.
“Daoist Friend, do you know the ancient disaster of annihilation, and the tale of the ancient holy spirit remaking heaven and earth?”
Yu Sheng thought for a moment and nodded. “I know a little.”
“Good. Then many things need not be explained,” Yun Qing Zi said with a slight nod. “Then do you know that if we followed the ancient holy spirit’s original blueprint, this remade world should not have had the Grand Void Spiritual Axis? It should not even have had the Featherwing star region’s lineage.”
Yu Sheng stared at him, momentarily speechless.
“Many years ago, while seeking the Dao, I encountered a bottleneck,” Yun Qing Zi continued, as if he hadn’t noticed. “Not to boast, but I had some talent on the path, so the bottleneck I met… was more troublesome than most.
“The problem was: where did heaven and earth come from?
“What lies beyond the world.
“To break my shackles, I searched everywhere, until a thousand years ago, at garrison-3, I met a chance.”
“A chance?” Yu Sheng’s eyes widened. Then understanding struck. “Wait. You mean… the moment Yanxing Entity descended on garrison-3?”
“A calamity can also be a chance,” Yun Qing Zi said, nodding lightly. “Everyone knows a dark angel’s descent will briefly pierce the world. Then is it possible that in that instant of piercing, we mortals are given a chance to glimpse what lies beyond—to glimpse the world’s underlying structure?”
Yu Sheng didn’t answer.
[Are you cultivators really this fearless? The world gets blown open and your first thought is to lean in and take a look?]
“That battle—I truly did all I could, and still failed to win,” Yun Qing Zi went on, unfazed by Yu Sheng’s expression. “But at the same time, I finally understood some things.
“In that brief rift that pierced the world, I saw a few fleeting shadows beyond the river of time… They were the shadowspawn reflected on the world’s boundary when the ancient holy spirit remade heaven and earth. In a sense, they were our world’s first blueprint.”
As Yun Qing Zi spoke, something stirred in Yu Sheng. He couldn’t help recalling what he had once seen while traveling through hyperspace using the view of the Otherworld Hotel—the information megastructures beneath the observable universe, and the markings that supported the world’s operation.
Back then, he had only flashed past those lights with no time to think. But now, looking back… were those lowest-level patterns the blueprint of the world?
Were they what Yun Qing Zi had glimpsed as shadowspawn in that instant of angel descent—or at least related?
Yun Qing Zi’s voice continued, steady in Yu Sheng’s ears. “I am of flesh and bone, and could not see through the profound Dao within those shadowspawn. But with just a hurried glance, I still learned many things.”
Yu Sheng listened, expression grave.
“In that blueprint, the entire region marked as the Featherwing star region was originally meant to be empty. There was no Grand Void civilization ring, let alone the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. Centered on the Grand Void star, tens of thousands of light-years around it should have been barren—there should not even have been celestial bodies.”
Yu Sheng finally couldn’t hold back. “Not even celestial bodies? Then why—”
“I thought for a long time,” Yun Qing Zi said, shaking his head. “Even after being devoured by Yanxing Entity, I kept thinking. Through tens of thousands of divinatory deductions, I came to suspect the truth might relate to a small footnote in that blueprint.”
“A footnote?”
“In the blueprint, the area around the Grand Void star was indeed void, but there was something marked as the Emperor Lord’s Legacy. It was not a celestial body. It looked like some kind of object. For some reason, it occupied the position of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis itself.”
Yu Sheng’s brows knitted as he listened. Deep secrets at the very birth of the universe. A tangle of wild guesses threatened to make his head spin.
After a moment, he shook them off and looked straight into Yun Qing Zi’s eyes.
“So you’re not sure what the Emperor Lord’s Legacy is either. You can only tell it’s some kind of abnormal existence in the world’s creation process.”
He took a breath. “Then what does that have to do with Yanxing Entity…?”
“At first, I truly never thought the Emperor Lord’s Legacy would have anything to do with solving Yanxing Entity,” Yun Qing Zi said. “But in the years I was devoured and could not move, thinking was all I had. And in thinking again and again, I suddenly remembered something.”
“Something?”
“Three thousand years ago, I joined several old friends and captured a fiend called Omen Wandering Star at the Grand Void Spiritual Axis,” Yun Qing Zi said calmly. “That demonic creature fed on earth veins, rampaging freely among the stars. Yet when it reached the Grand Void Spiritual Axis… it was poisoned by the Grand Void’s earth veins.”
Yu Sheng froze, then his expression shifted as understanding snapped into place.
Omen Wandering Star fed on earth veins. Though it was not as bizarre and horrifying as Yanxing Entity, it still had a parasitic, devouring nature toward planets. The Grand Void Spiritual Axis did not exist in the genesis blueprint; the planet itself seemed to be an abnormal product. And the Grand Void Spiritual Axis was poisonous to Omen Wandering Star—its earth veins offered no nutrition at all.
Yun Qing Zi looked into Yu Sheng’s eyes, a smile slowly rising. “Daoist Friend, it seems you understand.”
Yu Sheng’s voice tightened. “But how can you be sure…”
“You should know that after Yanxing Entity parasitized Shu Ji, people began to be influenced again and again. Some of them indirectly became my eyes and ears. Their minds were muddled and they were unfit for important work, but they were still useful.
“I sent these eyes and ears to check many times. The most recent time, I used Yanxing Entity’s power to pry open the demon suppression tower at the Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain and found where Omen Wandering Star was held. Daoist Friend, you know this.”
He met Yu Sheng’s gaze. “Yes. It was a test.
“At first, I guessed the Emperor Lord’s Legacy might be some ancient treasure. I thought it was hidden somewhere in the Grand Void Spiritual Axis and resisted Omen Wandering Star’s erosion by affecting the earth veins. If I could find it and bring it back to Shu Ji, perhaps Yanxing Entity could be solved.
“It was only recently that I realized the so-called Emperor Lord’s Legacy was the Grand Void Spiritual Axis itself, and I had to change my plan…”
At last, Yu Sheng understood.
So that was it.
All the clues finally aligned. The connections behind every event rose to the surface: first opening a rift at the nethermoon to try to locate the Emperor Lord’s Legacy precisely; then opening a rift at the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, prying at the earth-vein layer beneath the demon suppression tower, using Yanxing Entity’s power to touch-test the Grand Void Spiritual Axis; and finally exerting influence on Yanxing Entity, trying to lure It into changing its parasitic target…
All of it had been to make It parasitize an abnormal planet that did not exist in the genesis blueprint.
“I wanted to poison It to death,” Yun Qing Zi said calmly, looking straight at Yu Sheng. “My cultivation is limited. I truly do not have your boundless ability, Daoist Friend. I fought Yanxing Entity for a thousand years and could not find another way to break the deadlock.
“This method may be reckless. It may fail. It may be my own arrogance. But Yanxing Entity was already preparing to ascend again. I had no time, and no other choice.”