Chapter 138: The End of the Great War

The time spent preparing the arrays flew by. The battlefield waits for no one, and in the blink of an eye, the great outbreak of evil spirits arrived.

The black mist of the spirits poured out endlessly. They were destroyed by the countless interlocking arrays and the gathered cultivators, only to reappear and be destroyed once more.

Wanghua-jun, the pillar of the cultivation world, had not entered the Demon Realm. Rumors had been rife for days, but seclusion and cultivation, after all, serve to stabilize one's state of mind. Thus, the gossip eventually turned into questions regarding his actual strength. Once on the battlefield, no one remembered him anymore.

The piercing shrieks of the spirits, the clashing of weapons, and the light from golden arrays of various sizes turned the entire Demon Realm into a battlefield; combat was everywhere.

Within an array, an array master who was constantly reinforcing the formation nearly buckled under the pressure. The spirits surrounding him were suddenly cleared by a nearby figure, instantly resolving the crisis and relieving the pressure. He offered a grateful word of thanks, only to notice that the man used the techniques of the cultivation world yet wore no sect uniform.

There was unthawed snow on the man's shoulders, as if he had just rushed here from a snowy land. No one asked questions; they all threw themselves back into the fight. Only an old disciple of the December Sect nearby recognized him.

"Isn't that—"

Senior Brother Song Zhihuai?

Before finishing, the old disciple closed his mouth and said no more. They simply worked together to fight the enemy as they had in the past.

Further away, a cultivator from the December Sect was struggling to resist. The black mist of the spirits would invade the untainted bodies of cultivators; those whose cultivation was insufficient were easily eroded. It was a cold that seeped into the marrow. But he could hold on; the spiritual energy circulating through his body alleviated the evil Qi.

At one point, too many spirits surged in. From a human perspective, it was an all-encompassing darkness, an approaching shadow like the coming of a polar night and eternal winter. Suddenly, a streak of sword Qi dispersed the black mist, like a strip of white silk thrusting out cleanly.

"!"

He and his companions looked toward the person who had landed lightly among them. The girl was a bit shorter than him; from the side, one could see the slight curve of her cheek. She didn't look at all sophisticated or "old" as one might imagine; it seemed she had never once gone bald worrying over sect affairs.

Zora landed, her right fingers forming a circle held up to one eye. With sufficient cultivation, a single-minded and calm attitude, and a pure state of mind, she could see through the depths of the black mist to the source. Looking through the finger-circle allowed her to focus her gaze more precisely.

Deep within the distant rocks, the turbulent black mist occasionally blocked her view, but she could vaguely see a blood-red rift. It flickered in and out, making it impossible to pin down the exact location.

Mhm...

Zora seriously changed her position following this direction. After one strike, the spirits around her could not gather for a time. The cultivators didn't know what she was doing; in any case... they would wait for now. What if she needed a protector?

The cultivator had only entered the December Sect a few years ago and was unaware of the Demon Lord's former identity. Since they were currently on the same side, he didn't have many thoughts about it. Until Zora moved beside him; before he could react, she moved her hand away and tilted her head to look at him.

Zora’s tone was serious: "Move to the side a little."

Glancing at the cultivator's robes and seeing he wasn't her subordinate, she added: "Is that okay?"

"Oh... oh, oh, oh, okay!" The cultivator paused, overwhelmed with trepidation, and hurried to move aside with his sword to clear the space.

"..." The people around them remained alert, but their ears caught the dialogue, and their hearts were shocked to the point of nearly cracking.

This... the Demon Lord who blinded an elder just a few days ago and has the personality of "slashing if unhappy" is actually this polite normally? ...Uh, though this isn't "normal" time.

Though there wasn't a hint of a questioning tone in her voice,

the cultivator added silently in his heart.

This was merely an interlude, a bit of stray thought under high tension. The cultivators immediately threw themselves back into fighting spirits elsewhere, leaving only a few beside Zora, waiting for her orders.

Light shimmered on the surface of her eyes; the blood-red rift in Zora's vision grew increasingly clear.

—Found it.

By the time the cultivators turned their heads, the Demon Lord had vanished.

Bypassing countless battling cultivators, Zora arrived alone fifteen minutes later. With her cultivation, a fifteen-minute journey was a vast distance; the surrounding spirits were now so thick one couldn't see their own hand. She originally would have slashed a few, but she couldn't kill them all, so she simply ignored them and focused on the source.

The spirits could not block her vision.

"This is..."

Within the blood-red rift, a purple bead bathed in blood was suspended in the center.

Sensing that the task was nearing completion, the System woke up and was also shocked:

[This is...]

Zora: "What is this?"

She felt a spot on the top of her head growing hot, and she couldn't help but touch her head.

[...]

The System choked. It had to use its perfect memory storage to say:

[Have you forgotten! This bead looks exactly like the Demonic Seed!]

"..." Zora showed a pensive expression.

[...Fine. In the plot, the villain was imprisoned in the December Sect because he had the Demonic Seed. It's that thing.]

Zora remembered: "It was dug out by Vane."

Related to the Demonic Seed?

The top of her head grew hotter, eventually becoming scorching. Zora pinched the bun on the right side of her head; if she weren't a cultivator, her palm would have been burned. The burning object seemed to be a bead on her hair accessory.

Zora simply tore off the hair ribbon. The bun on the right side came undone, her hair cascading down. The bead in the center of the ribbon was wrapped in blue silk, appearing like a blue bead at first glance. Zora peeled it open.

A few pearls clustered around a single purple bead, arranged in the shape of a flower. Once removed from a human body, the Demonic Seed was just an ordinary bead. Zora had almost forgotten what it looked like; she looked up at the rift and then down at the bead, comparing them for a long time before confirming that this burning bead was indeed the Demonic Seed.

System:

[......]

Did the villain sew this in by hand himself?

In the distance, Vane seemed to sense something and glanced in Zora's direction. Zora's clothing and basic needs were all arranged by Vane; she didn't need to worry about them. No one knew that he occasionally made the clothes himself. The years were too long, and Vane was too eager to learn; every once in a while, he would enthusiastically make a set of clothes, along with a set of hair accessories and shoes. Over time, it resulted in everything she wore being made by his own hands.

This bead was like his little secret. The thing that had once been embedded in his heart had become an ordinary bead, but after he kept it safe, one day while combing her hair, he had the sudden whim to embed it into the girl's hair accessory—as if he were accompanying her. However, Zora felt nothing for the color purple, so he sewed the bead into the silk to form a blue flower. He tirelessly sewed it again every time she changed her hair ribbon, his technique becoming increasingly skilled.

Zora was entirely unaware and didn't care about such things; she only looked at the purple bead now. The closer she got to the rift, the hotter it became; the purple bead even showed a faint tendency to rush toward the blood-red rift. The ordinary bead gradually revealed a thin layer of black mist, displaying a unique power seemingly of the same source as the bead in the rift.

Zora: "Tell me the original plot here one more time."

[The original plot should have been the outbreak of evil spirits, with the hero and heroine resisting them together and successfully saving the world. The villain was actually a background character who was rejected by the immortal gates because of the Demonic Seed and thus defected. During the outbreak, he should have died silently.]

[But the plot collapsed. The villain instead controlled the evil spirits during the outbreak, standing against humanity, eventually leading to the destruction of the world.]

Zora pinched the purple bead, an expression of realization appearing on her face. "Oh—so because the Demonic Seed was in his body, he could control the spirits."

Zora began to gesture with the bead against her body.

If I cut open my flesh and put the bead in, will I be able to control the spirits too?

People of the Demon Realm only used to know the Demonic Seed marked a natural-born demon and craved its power, but no one knew it could control evil spirits—after all, back then, no one even knew what an evil spirit was.

[Wait—!]

The System shouted to stop her.

As if an emergency notification, the following mechanical voice was flat, returning to an emotionless machine:

[Key item conditions met; key plot point conditions met; conquest success conditions met. Hidden background now unlocked, please check.]

A mass of text-based plot points poured into Zora's mind. For a cultivator, accommodating these in the sea of consciousness was simple, but since it was all text, she couldn't help but press her temples.

The System returned to its original lively tone, providing a sensible summary:

[Long ago when the world was chaos, after heaven and earth separated, the remaining chaotic Qi condensed into a bead. It could not be destroyed, and there was always the danger of chaos breaking out again.]

[Thus, people of great ability split the Chaos Bead in two. As long as one is destroyed, the situation can be completely stabilized.]

Zora dispersed the surrounding spirits: "Make it shorter."

[In short, the difficulty lies in splitting the Chaos Bead! Once split, it’s much easier. Destroying one of the beads isn't hard; these two beads contain different powers. You just need to hide the weaker bead inside a human heart and then wait.]

[According to the laws of the newborn Heavenly Dao, the death of a person is the end of their path, and the end of a cultivator’s drifting soul is destruction. So you just need to put that bead into a body that can cultivate, and then let them die when the evil spirits break out~]

System:

[Essentially, this novel is a romance. Saving the world doesn't need to be that hard. It just so happened that the world line chose the villain, so he died silently in the original plot.]

[But the villain broke free from the world line and met it head-on. When a key character makes a violent resistance at a key plot point, the world line collapses.]

Zora tilted her head in confusion: "Then why did I have to conquer him?"

[Because he couldn't be killed before the key plot point; the world line would only allow him to die during the outbreak. Upon detection, the villain destroyed the world because he sensed his own destiny; he destroyed the world only in a state of extreme despair. After a successful conquest, there is an 80% chance he will give up on world destruction.]

[You can't kill him, or you'll likely be counter-killed. You can't control this character either; according to projections, the more an outsider controls this character, the more his ambition will swell, and he’ll easily succeed in resisting halfway through, accelerating his blackening.]

"I seem to have controlled him." Zora recalled the beginning.

The System gave a bit of flattery:

[Because you're amazing!]

Zora was confused again: "The world line should just have someone dig the Demonic Seed out and swap it to someone else."

The System laughed brightly:

[Ah ha ha ha ha! Because the world line has no emotions, and we can't control the world line at all!]

"Oh."

[The Demonic Seed is too well-matched with the villain's body; the villain was essentially born to resolve the Demonic Seed. Even if it's dug out, destiny will cause the two to meet.]

Zora looked at the Demonic Seed bead in her hand, falling into deep thought.

System:

[I only just found out myself; the unlocked plot is from the system database. Luckily you two are together every day.]

[So don't put it in your flesh! Didn't you see the villain died after controlling the spirits? There will be a backlash!]

"Then what should be done now?" Zora pondered for a while. "Now that the spirits have broken out, it's time to destroy the bead. This bead cannot be too far from Vane, to avoid accidents. Mhm..."

She showed an expression of realization again: "Then let him take the bead, stuff it into someone else's body, and then kill them."

The System made a gibberish sound of applause:

[Great idea!]

With the puppet threads and the Master-Servant oath, it was very easy for Zora to find him directly.

Zora: "Put this bead into a person's body, then kill them."

Vane had been clearing obstacles at the front lines. Seeing Zora, he temporarily stepped back. He glanced at Zora's hair cascading down on the right side and only asked: "What kind of person should I kill?"

Zora did not kill the innocent; her killings always had a reason. Thus she said: "A person of extreme evil. The faster the better."

"Okay." He asked no more questions, took the very familiar purple bead, and didn't even ask why it was burning. He turned and left quickly.

Zora simply undid the bun on the other side as well, letting her hair fall completely, and took over the vanguard position.

The System fell into thought:

[It seems this kind of conquest is much more convenient for saving the world.]

The efficiency is truly high.

The System said no more. It knew the most critical moment was near.

After an unknown amount of time, the black mist suddenly thinned, as if its core had been destroyed; its power suddenly weakened. Everyone was bewildered, unaware that a single person had flown out of the battlefield and landed on the highest cliff peak.

Turi Qi turned her head, the tiny silhouette atop the mountain peak reflected in her eyes. "What's happening—"

Yiling Ke, at another location, hadn't finished her sentence before she sensed something and looked at the silhouette ahead. Qingding, Wang Yili, and the other high-level cultivators present all looked toward the same place. Those with lower cultivation, seeing their actions, also took a moment to look.

Song Zhihuai naturally recognized Zora. Clearing the spirits around him, he patted the melted snow-water from his clothes, a smile on his lips.

The blood-red rift was obscured by a special black mist. Zora looked straight at it. When the heart is still, all things are still; when the mind is pure, stray thoughts vanish. Her amber pupils reflected the approaching phantom of the rift. Spiritual energy surged around her, her sword vibrating slightly as if it were a precursor to a breakthrough.

"—"

The battlefield went silent instantly; the sword light swallowed all sound for a moment.

Crack.

A fissure appeared on the bead within the rift. The evil spirits screamed, vanishing one by one between heaven and earth; the old things ended. In that moment, it was as if the invisible shackles of the entire world had burst, and everything was utterly renewed.

...

Vane gazed at the light in the distance, the tip of his long spear still embedded in someone's chest.

It was easy to find people of extreme evil in the Demon Realm. At this moment of crisis, some went to the place where the spirits broke out, while others naturally didn't, choosing instead to rob, kill, and slaughter their own.

Vane looked down, watching the Demonic Seed shatter as the person died, and couldn't help but let out a soft laugh. He was so sharp; he would naturally find the clues.

From their meeting to the current evil spirits, to the destruction of the Demonic Seed before his eyes. Her purpose was already beyond obvious.

If it were before, he would still wonder and question the heavens: why was the Demonic Seed in him? Was he born to be its container?

But now—how was this a Demonic Seed?

Vane withdrew his spear, thick blood dripping from it. He gazed at the place where the evil spirits screamed, and a smile very slowly appeared on his face. His eyes curved slightly, the color within them like a thick night.

—This was destiny.

—This was a god-given opportunity.