Chapter 91 - 91: The Indifferent Immortal Realm
Bai Hongtu couldn’t believe what he was seeing as he looked at Jiang Li. This is no ordinary man, he thought. This is like the eldest son of heaven itself!
He had initially been worried about what they would do if they encountered a Heavenly Demon at the Heavenly Immortal level. But it turned out Jiang Li, despite his grim expression, had been prepared to fight to the death.
Such a waste of feelings!
What a letdown!
“If a Heavenly Demon of Heavenly Immortal level arrived in Jiuzhou 380 years ago and has been active in secret, what would you think?”
“You were just at the Body Integration Realm then, and yet you were already a
threat to the Heavenly Demons at the Heavenly Immortal level,” exclaimed the longtime immortal elder in surprise. “…Alright, stop looking at me like that. I also don’t know why. After all, I’m just a little Earth Immortal, not all-knowing and omnipotent. ”
Seeing that the longtime immortal elder really didn’t know the reason, Jiang Li, recalling the tragic death of the Dao Ancestor, further asked, “Did anything really not happen in the Immortal Realm? Otherwise, how could the Heavenly Demon find Jiuzhou while the Immortal Realm couldn’t? Also, the Dao
Ancestor mentioned in his stele that the Immortal Realm was in great chaos…”
“You’d better not count on the Immortal Realm to help Jiuzhou.” The longtime immortal elder’s face darkened. “Why do you think I came back to Jiuzhou instead of staying at Immortal Realm where everything is full of immortal power?”
“The immortals are really indifferent beings. After living for a long time, they even throw away their humanity. They only care about the Immortal Realm and don’t care about what happens to other worlds. I detest such an Immortal Realm.”
“As for what my master meant when he said that the Immortal Realm was in chaos, I don’t think it’s because of an invasion by extraterritorial Heavenly Demons. You see, he didn’t mention extraterritorial Heavenly Demons in his stele. I guess it was probably the bigwigs in the Immortal Realm who started fighting each other. Our master took the wrong side and was expelled from the Immortal Realm, and then he ran into the extraterritorial Heavenly Demons.”
The longtime immortal elder said this indignantly. If his master, like him, had just returned to Jiuzhou for his retirement, he wouldn’t have had to face all this turmoil.
“So there are internal conflicts in the Immortal Realm?”
“Of course. The number of internal conflicts within the Immortal Realm exceeds your imagination. You have seen one of the reasons – the Red Dust Fairy Maiden.” As the longtime immortal elder mentioned this title, a surge of emotion arose within him, but he was forcibly suppressed by Jiang Li.
“In addition to that, there are also disputes over dao lineage, power struggles, and so on. Since extraterritorial Heavenly Demons pose no threat to them, they are not afraid of squandering.”
“So it’s Jiuzhou that’s relatively united now.” The longtime immortal elder said with regret when he thought of the past. “Before the ladder to Immortality disappeared, Jiuzhou, with the Immortal Realm as a backer, did not have many fewer internal conflicts than the Immortal Realm. Now, with the Heavenly Demons and you of the Imperial Palace, everyone is finally refraining from infighting.”
Then the longtime immortal elder said, “I originally didn’t want to tell you all this. But what’s the use of knowing this information? It would be better if you didn’t know it. Then you could still hope that the Immortal Realm would come to save Jiuzhou.”
“What exactly is an extraterritorial Heavenly Demon, and how can a Heavenly Demon without reason manage to cultivate until the Transcendance Tribulation Stage?” Jiang Li asked again.
“The cultivation system of the Heavenly Demons is different from ours. They do not rely on spiritual energy and immortal power for energy, but feed on negative emotions such as anger, fear, grief, and anxiety. Death is the greatest source of negative emotions, so they kill, and some people in the Immortal Realm speculate that Heavenly Demons originated from the negative emotions of sentient beings. But it’s still only a guess.”
“Do you think it’s possible to gain merit just by killing?”
“Killing evil people?”
“Killing any person.”
“That sounds a lot like what extraterritorial Heavenly Demons do.”
“How so?”
The longtime immortal elder shook his head: “I’ve only heard about it, I haven’t seen it firsthand. Someone from the battlefield told me in secret that the extraterritorial Heavenly Demons have their own god. This god is responsible for granting merits. Anyone who believes in this god and kills people can gain merit. ”
Bai Hongtu opened his eyes wide, unable to imagine a god like this actually exists.
“Do you know what this god is called?” Jiang Li looked straight into the longtime immortal elder’s eyes.
The longtime immortal elder shook his head: “The Immortal Realm has very strict control over this aspect, I do not know.”
Jiang Li nodded in understanding. Whether it’s Jiuzhou or the Immortal Realm, the fact that one can gain merit by killing people is very attractive to cultivators. It’s pure and unadulterated demon dao.
He didn’t tell the longtime immortal elder about the God-hidden Cult and the Respected God-hidden. Considering the longtime immortal elder, who only has immortal power, he might do something like the old Buddha of Mount Sumeru did, killing people to gain merit.
As for how much merit is needed to sustain an Earth Immortal, Jiang Li did not dare to calculate.
As long as Jiang Li was alive, the longtime immortal elder didn’t need to deal with the extraterritorial Heavenly Demons directly, so his immortal power wouldn’t be depleted.
The Yelang Kingdom is a remote small country, surrounded by mountains on three sides and a river on the other. Its poor resources make it less engaged with the outside world, and therefore it draws little attention.
What stands out the most about this small country is its monarch. The monarch, with extraordinary talent, managed to advance from the Qi Cultivation Stage to the Divinity Transformation Stage within just a few decades, despite the lack of natural resources to aid his cultivation.
Everyone in Yelang Kingdom knows that their monarch did not inherit the title, but seized it.
The monarch of Yelang, Zhang Han, was originally an executioner. He was tough and terrifying, but people who knew him well were aware of his kind nature. Despite his looks, Zhang Han was actually very kind-hearted, often helping others, and was well-liked by his neighbors.
Gradually, people noticed that Zhang Han’s cultivation level was slowly increasing. He even managed to break through to the Foundation Establishment Stage, which was thought to be hopeless for him.
When asked about it, he would just laugh it off as pure luck.
People took his word for it. But then, they noticed he seemed to have opened some sort of gate. In just a few years, he reached the late Foundation Establishment Stage.
When his superiors found out about this, they thought it would be wasteful not to promote such a talented man. They tried to arrange a marriage for him with the superior’s daughter, but Zhang Han refused, saying he was content with being an executioner. Seeing his steadfastness, his superiors gave up on the idea of marrying off their daughter to him.
The neighbors noticed a change in Zhang Han’s character. After each execution, he would fall into depression for days. But since breaking through the Foundation Establishment Stage, he became cheerful, as if beheading wasn’t a horrific act. He even expressed his enjoyment of it.
Such behavior made the neighbors feel scared of Zhang Han.
One day, a vigilante appeared in the city, killing the wicked and distributing their wealth at night. Coincidentally, Zhang Han broke through to the Golden Core Stage, with an upper-grade Golden Core at that.
The tales of the vigilante went on for quite a while. The number of wicked people in the city started to decrease, and Zhang Han advanced to the late Golden Core Stage.
After reaching the late Golden Core Stage, Zhang Han’s cultivation began to slow down due to a lack of people for him to kill.
Zhang Han became anxious. It so happened that his superior had promised his daughter to a talented young man. Zhang Han, who also had feelings for his superior’s daughter, disagreed with this marriage and asked his superior to betroth his daughter to him instead.
Although the superior’s daughter also liked Zhang Han, the superior thought that Zhang Han was too eccentric and only content with being an executioner. He was worried Zhang Han might become addicted to killing and it would be dangerous for his daughter to marry him. Therefore, he rejected Zhang Han’s proposal.
Zhang Han was furious. On the youth’s wedding day, he killed the talented young man’s family and kidnapped the superior’s daughter..