He and It Chapter 201: Inquire Here (29)

Chapter 201: Inquire Here (29)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

With little effort, Yan Huan extracted the scarce answers from the already mad cultivator.

“They indeed serve the Holy Ancestor of Wuping,” Yan Huan said. “The auxiliary guards only obey the Emperor’s orders. Whenever the Emperor commands them to kill, they go and kill, just like ordinary hounds. But there is something peculiar.”

Liu Fuguang raised his eyes, noticed Yan Huan’s frown, and whispered, “These things, they only have memories from about ten days ago.”

Liu Fuguang couldn’t help but be curious and asked, “What do you mean?”

Yan Huan pondered, then replied, “It’s a strange feeling. I can see their birthplaces, their parents, teachers, and their cultivation opportunities, but these things…are old, decayed, like memories from ancient times. It’s only since sixteen days ago that their memories suddenly became vivid.”

That was indeed a bizarre sign. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth not only tempered the flesh of individuals but also required the rigorous refinement of the spirit for cultivators. Even after reaching the peak of the Golden Core realm, the polishing of the mind was exceedingly difficult. Countless cultivators had passed the cultivation base test but died in the core formation stage.

With such strong mental energy, cultivators shouldn’t forget things. Now, if someone called on Liu Fuguang to recall an afternoon a hundred years ago, he could still vividly remember the scene of the setting sun as if it had happened yesterday.

“Are you saying that these auxiliary guards, only for these last ten days, have been truly living spirits?” Liu Fuguang asked.

Yan Huan thought for a moment. His expression showed some rare caution. “It’s too hasty to draw conclusions now. We need to capture a few more to investigate.”

They had caused such a commotion that not only did they wake up the entire Lord’s city but also ninety-nine percent of the rest of the city. People walked out of their homes one after another, descendants of nobles and wealthy, they all stood under the incredibly clear and moving night sky, and gazed foolishly at the vast Milky Way.

“Let’s go.” Liu Fuguang made up his mind. “There’s nothing more to find here.”

A huge shadow soared into the sky, black as a dragon, that carried a bit of snowy white starlight. An illusion that appeared for just an instant before disappearing into the rosy Milky Way.

Those who saw the scene that night began to spread various rumors. Some said that immortals rode dragons and came, battled evil spirits half the night, and finally saved the people of Wancheng.

“Ah, are you talking about the City Lord?” The people of Wancheng touched the back of their heads, puzzled by this question. “The previous Lord? He passed away long ago. Although he missed seeing such a spectacle, he was still a very fortunate person.”

The night wind howled. Liu Fuguang stood on the undulating black tentacles of millions of waves, and finally had the leisure to take a look at the vast country. Giant mountains like chess pieces, great rivers like threads, and their destination, the royal capital of Wuping, the heart of the entire empire. Their goal was the heart within that heart, known as the Holy Ancestor of the Emperor.

“Wait!” Liu Fuguang said solemnly. “What’s that?”

The sky was empty, but the earth was covered with a faint mist. The silent night gradually surged with a line of burning stars, like a blood-red tide.

“People.” The grim dragon turned its nine eyes in that direction. “All cultivators.”

In the burning light, Liu Fuguang also saw the scene below.

——The Red Snake roared, as it chased and drowned the earth like a huge fire sea, and the organized cultivators were like fishermen dragging the waves, driving a raging sea of fire, engulfing cities, ensnaring countless refugees struggling to escape.

Liu Fuguang’s anger surged. He grabbed a black tentacle with one hand, and his eyes also flashed with a bright fire.

“I can’t just sit idly by!” Yan Huan preemptively said. “This is a strategy to lure the tiger away from the mountain. We are not in a position to split our forces. If we don’t kill the Holy Ancestor now, he will have a counterattack.”

The killing intent and resentment of the earth surged forward, accompanied by the grievance of tens of thousands of dead mortals, turned into an extremely dense black smoke, covering the sky and blocking the Dragon God’s way forward.

“How can I sit idly by?” Liu Fuguang said sharply. Under his anger, the supreme clear air was like boiling spring water, evaporating Yan Huan’s body into scattered pieces. “He dares to treat those people as firewood!”

The Dragon God knew the nature of his Dao companion. He exhaled an impure breath and said nothing more. Instead, he turned his dragon head, sucked all the black smoke into his nose and belly, and then sprayed it down with a roar.

The evil fire collided with the dragon’s breath, and the fire wall immediately rolled back like overrun waves, overturning the front line pushed by the auxiliary guards. Hundreds of guards were turned into scorched earth in an instant. Liu Fuguang took out the Sun Pearl, and purified the surging grievances and resentment into a whirlwind that soared into the sky.

“Where did he get so many Golden Core cultivators!?” Liu Fuguang shouted loudly in the sea of fire. “It’s endless!”

Yan Huan sneered, his patience long gone. As his tentacles coiled and his nine eyes rotated, he swallowed those fleeing auxiliary guards into the huge mouth that split open from his chest and abdomen. “What else can hinder me? Even if another sea comes, I will swallow it all.”

The plains stretched endlessly. By the time dawn’s light faintly appeared, all the auxiliary guards sent by the Holy Ancestor had been wiped out completely, not a single one escaped.

Before them, farmlands were burned, lakes dried up, and countless villages and towns lay in charred ruins; teetering in the acrid wind. Liu Fuguang gently brushed away a pile of coal-black dust. In an unknown farmhouse, he saw the shriveled remains of both an elderly and young family, light and hollow, like a tiny baby’s fist.

“…He’s gone mad,” Liu Fuguang hoarsely said. “Self-proclaimed as the Holy Ancestor, but he’s nothing but a complete lunatic. He doesn’t hesitate to destroy his own land and people, just to stop us…”

Yan Huan’s eye stared at the small pile of charred bones for a moment, then turned away disinterestedly, and focused instead on Liu Fuguang’s silhouette.

“In places where life and death struggle endlessly, extremes of good and evil often emerge,” Yan Huan said patiently. “This person’s actions are extremely radical, but still within the realm of possibility.”

“I’m afraid this is only the beginning,” Liu Fuguang said softly. “He destroys one city just to stall us for a moment. How many more cities in Wuping can afford to be burnt by him? It’s like taking poison to quench thirst, yet he still did it…”

Yan Huan sighed.

He sensed Liu Fuguang’s vulnerability, sorrow, and anger. Those soft emotions escaped from his heart, which was once frozen but now cracked. It was like fresh meat had hooked the nose of a hungry ghost, and it caused the Dragon God to tremble uncontrollably with desire and hunger flowing from his eyes to his heart.

Boldly, with slightly trembling fingertips, he lightly touched Liu Fuguang’s dangling hair, as he stroked it gently. In that moment, it would take a stronger dragon or deity than Yan Huan to stop the sudden surge of affection he felt towards Liu Fuguang.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered softly. “We’ll find a way.”

Liu Fuguang remained silent for a while, not turning around. “I just hope fewer people get implicated.”

In the sixth year of Yuan Cheng, within just over ten days, Baicheng, Wancheng, and Fengcheng all turned into scorched earth. Seventeen provincial cities, with six provinces engulfed in raging seas of fire, caused astonishment and horror among the people. Under the Holy Ancestor, the auxiliary guards poured out almost entirely, just to resist the “demon race coming from the Dragon.”

The earth shattered, mountains and rivers trembled, and the flames of war swept through every corner of the Wuping Empire at an astonishing speed. Villages, counties, and provincial capitals all became death zones where Liu Fuguang and the auxiliary guards fought. Corpses littered the fields, devastation everywhere.

Liu Fuguang trembled all over, unable to suppress his raging anger that almost made him spit blood. The auxiliary guards released by the Holy Ancestor were both scavenging dogs and vultures. They slaughtered the powerless mortals mercilessly, those bronze-faced cultivators to whom killing was almost a pleasure. The smell of burnt flesh, the smell of rivers of blood, the cries of agony, the screams of women in pain, even the screams of infants in distress…all deliberately spread by spells to an infinitely vast extent, and it tortured Liu Fuguang’s heart like a knife being twisted so that he was instinctively drawn to save his people.

Even though Liu Fuguang closed off his five senses, his soul still rolled and wept in the pain of the people. Curled into a ball on the dragon’s back, his spine arched, he seemed like a fragile and desolate bridge. These days, he had vomited more than once, almost shaking his internal organs out of his mouth each time.

The Holy Ancestor, sitting tens of thousands of miles away, had already keenly grasped the character of the intruders. He knew what Liu Fuguang cared about and fully exploited that concern. He almost put two paths before the invaders and asked Liu Fuguang to choose.

——Is it to spend time and effort to save the living, thousands of mortals who were tragically slaughtered, or to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, first to search for the mastermind?

“It’s okay, it’s okay…” Yan Huan clumsily and lightly touched Liu Fuguang’s thin body, which was now pale-faced and bruised. Normally eloquent and diplomatic, when he saw his lover’s distressing appearance it was like he dropped a precious pearl on the ground, and it painfully twisted his heart, and made him unable to speak those thousands of words.

In the darkness, he had already made his decision.

“I have to get you out of here,” Yan Huan held Liu Fuguang’s thin body, murmuring softly. “If this continues…”

Liu Fuguang clutched his wrist tightly, veins bulging on the back of his hand, and hoarsely said, “I can’t just stand by, I…I can’t just stand by…”

Yan Huan gently took his hand, smoothed the sweat-stuck strands of hair on his temple, and softly replied, “But what does it have to do with me?”

Liu Fuguang’s breath trembled slightly.

“I am the supreme evil,” Yan Huan continued in a soft, gentle tone. “Whether this country loses one person, or one hundred thousand, one million people, I couldn’t care less. Only you. The ‘atmosphere’ of this place is poison to you. I won’t allow you to be consumed by mortals. Let the so-called ‘Holy Ancestor’ consume his own people. I will find him, right away.”

They stood amidst burning city walls. Liu Fuguang trembled and coughed, “Yan Huan!”

“Hate me,” Yan Huan smiled. “Hate me as you wish.”

The black dragon roared loudly. Its nine eyes clouded, as it tightly enveloped the powerless, struggling Liu Fuguang. It ignored the burning lands for miles around, as they flew towards the royal capital of Wuping.

The auxiliary guards swarmed like moths to a flame, and constantly flew towards them. Wherever Yan Huan passed, just his gaze caused the cultivators to burst into endless showers of limbs and flesh, their spiritual cores turning into foul mud.

This terrifying Dragon God descended upon the heavily guarded imperial city, and went deep within its palace halls. It seemed countless courtiers, guards, and palace maidens had gone mad. As he held Liu Fuguang tightly, they ascended the thousand layers of golden steps, the ground strewn with the fallen auxiliary guards.

“Wuping, Holy Ancestor,” Yan Huan chuckled as he savored those words. Yet inwardly, he was somewhat surprised. Did this mortal truly assume the demeanor of an emperor, seated in dignity in the Golden Luan Palace, and showing no trace of panic upon meeting them?

Was he truly mad, or just extraordinarily bold?

Though Liu Fuguang was furious, he too hadn’t expected they would find this ‘Holy Ancestor’ so easily.

Their figures, one black and one white, stepped into the hall. The court ministers trembled in fear, unable to meet the gaze of both benevolence and the Evil One.

“Are you…?” Liu Fuguang coughed twice, pushing aside Yan Huan’s helping hand to ease his breathing, “Are you the rumored Holy Ancestor?”

Red threads intertwined within the hall, exuding a strange beauty between the eerie and the sacred. The emperor of the Mortal Realm sat upright behind a hazy, flowing screen of golden red, his throne resplendent with gold and jade, flanked by luxuriously adorned Ming fans. Vaguely visible was a towering crown, its patterns covering his knees.

“All ministers, withdraw,” the Holy Ancestor spoke after a brief silence, his voice unexpectedly kind and dignified, “I shall converse with our esteemed guests alone.”

Liu Fuguang held onto Yan Huan’s sleeve, waiting until the ministers, their legs trembling with weakness, withdrew, leaving only the grand hall devoid of others. Only then did Liu Fuguang speak in a low voice, “There’s no more point in hiding, Holy Ancestor.”

Behind the screen, the Holy Ancestor seemed to sigh softly for a moment. In an instant, he crossed the barrier, standing elevated. Through the twelve-fold jade crown, the Holy Ancestor wore ancient, solemn robes of dark hues, adorned with splendid accessories. His jet-black hair at the temples suggested he was still a young emperor in his prime, perhaps even radiating a hint of compassion in his gaze.

“Our esteemed guests have traveled from afar, and I should have welcomed you properly…” he began.

Liu Fuguang, gasped for breath, then interrupted him, “You unleashed your auxiliary guards to stop us, burning the capital’s citizens alive. Do you truly think merely bearing the title of emperor allows you to act on behalf of heaven?”

The Holy Ancestor appeared momentarily lost in thought, then smiled calmly, “If not for your intention to harm Wuping, why would I resort to such measures? As for the damaged provincial cities, it is indeed regrettable. But under the vast sky, all lands are the emperor’s domain. Along the shores, all subjects are the emperor’s officials…As for my people, I naturally decide their fate as I see fit.”

“What have you done?” Yan Huan suddenly interjected. “Those ‘people’ of yours, while showing no signs of being deprived of life, each one appears exhausted, like they wish for death but cannot find it. What have you done?”

The corners of the Holy Ancestor’s mouth twitched as he continued to smile, “I promised them an era of peace and prosperity, free from the need to starve to death or struggle through years of famine to the point of resorting to cannibalism. Isn’t that enough?”

“Enough!” Liu Fuguang shouted, and decisively dispelled the illusion that concealed his true appearance. In an instant, the hall blazed with brilliance, like a rising, unbending sun, which caused the Holy Ancestor to stagger back three steps. “No amount of hypocrisy will make you truly righteous!”

Advancing closer, the supreme goodness didn’t hesitate to step over the intricate red threads. The Holy Ancestor, from his elevated standpoint, now showed a hint of change in his composed and serene expression.

For him, who held sway over endless time in Wuping, forging bonds with the common folk was akin to being their sovereign. To cultivators needing to sever earthly bonds, a single red thread equaled an unsolvable poison for a lifetime. No matter how advanced the auxiliary guards’ cultivation bases, none dared cross within ten meters of him. Yet now, before this youth with a face as resplendent as the sun, he broke through these bonds like crossing an inconsequential stream…as if he were traversing through air!

The hall that had once been filled with taut red threads now lay like a burned spider’s web, limp and scattered on the ground. Liu Fuguang continued forward. For some reason, the Holy Ancestor, upon seeing this young man with a radiant and fierce gaze, couldn’t help but tremble.

He exclaimed, “I am the rightful emperor, protected by the Ziwei Star of heaven…”

That ethereal purple qi suddenly transformed into deadly ropes, sweeping towards Liu Fuguang like a fatal snare. What he had said was indeed true—when an emperor ascends the throne and performs the celestial rites, as long as the dynasty persists, the Purple Imperial Qi will continuously protect. That is the will of heaven. Therefore, no matter how powerful a cultivator is, they must avoid entanglement with the emperor of the Mortal Realm to prevent damaging their own foundations.

Liu Fuguang paid it no mind, extending his hand to brush away the purple ropes, which shattered into weak mist, and dissipated lightly in midair.

The Holy Ancestor’s expression was no longer merely changed, he looked as if he had swallowed a squirming fat insect alive. If it weren’t for the inappropriate circumstances, Yan Huan would have burst out laughing at the ridiculous sight.

“Even if you are the Purple Wei Emperor with heavenly protection, so what?” Yan Huan remarked boldly. “Being audacious before the Supreme Goodness is like an outsider coming recklessly to provoke the celestial son, and not being afraid of death.”

The Holy Ancestor’s lips trembled. He hurriedly conjured small, thin golden thread-like bugs, in the hopes they would rain down on the youth, but the bugs only emitted hissing sounds like melting snowflakes then vanished in an instant.

Liu Fuguang reached out, caught the only remaining bug, and gave it a brief glance. “What’s this, a fly?” he asked, then crushed it.

The Holy Ancestor was truly on the verge of vomiting blood! To control the army-like Auxiliary Guard at his fingertips, and make them puppets that moved according to his will, was a secret art. Since he manipulated the world in his palm, how could he not have his own ace in the hole? Those gu insects known as “Emperor’s Chess” were his best tool for controlling the Auxiliary Guard.

However, however…

The Holy Ancestor was completely shocked. His voice trembled as he asked, “Who are you, exactly?”

“Ask yourself!” Liu Fuguang declared. “Who are you?”

This declaration was like a slap to the face, leaving the Holy Ancestor momentarily dazed. As he gasped for breath, he replied, “I…I am the Emperor of Wuping, the ruler of the world…”

“Just a mortal!” Liu Fuguang interrupted decisively. “Ask yourself. What do you intend to do?”

The Holy Ancestor stuttered, “I…I…”

As he looked into the young man’s eyes, besides anger and disdain, there was also a hidden trace of pity.

“You…pity me?” the Emperor of Wuping couldn’t help but be astonished.

“Didn’t you seek pity?” Liu Fuguang extended his index finger, about to press it against the Emperor’s forehead. “However, pity does not mean forgiveness.”

Yan Huan grinned, eagerly anticipating the Holy Ancestor’s next move. At that moment, the ominous drum tower of the imperial city suddenly sounded its bell, and signalled an incredibly eerie turn of events!

The breeze reversed, and forced Liu Fuguang to uncontrollably retract his arm as his body involuntarily retreated. The golden gu insects solidified from virtual to real, then flew back into the Holy Ancestor’s hands, while the purple qi recondensed. He retreated beyond the red lines, and the broken threads throughout the hall reconnected.

He continued to retreat, unable to hold himself back, everything rewinding and reversing. Yan Huan embraced his waist, and they rose towards the sky behind them. The raging fires on the ground extinguished, the dead Auxiliary Guards gathered their shattered bodies, and the shattered walls and ruins restored themselves. The deceased people resumed walking through the city streets while their expressions shifted  from pain to fear, from fear to panic, and then completely reversed to peace and tranquility, as they walked amidst the intact city and streets…

Then, Liu Fuguang’s vision was engulfed in darkness.

He slowly woke up. He had a splitting headache and weakness in his limbs. He curled up on the charred ground, surrounded by blazing fires. After a while, he struggled to sit up…

No, something was wrong.

Liu Fuguang suddenly turned his head, staring around in horror.

No, this wasn’t right!

Yan Huan’s nine eyeballs continued to roll on the asphalt-colored ground, his splattered body maintaining the same chaotic appearance from over ten days ago.

They had returned.

They had completely, utterly returned.