Volume 4, Chapter 53 – Interconnection

When Bai Xiang returned to the main hall, those few envoys, together with the attendants they had brought with them, were still there. It looked as though they had not been taken away to rest at all, but had instead remained in the hall the entire time waiting for her return.

She could not help turning to look at the inner-sect disciple who had stayed behind in the Dao to handle internal affairs, namely Hu Hu. She saw Hu Hu tug her lips sharply downward and shake her head at her helplessly.

Meaning… it was not that Hu Hu had failed in her manners, but that these people simply refused to follow her elsewhere to rest?

As if she had thought of something amusing, the corners of Bai Xiang’s mouth lifted slightly, but the expression quickly faded. In full view of everyone present, she walked back to the seat of honor and sat down.

Only after they saw her complete that action did the envoys below finally relax from their stance of standing in welcome. One by one, they sank to one knee and bowed toward her, calling out in unison, “We welcome Venerable Lord Bai’s return after capturing the culprits.”

Was it that anyone unable to read the mood, anyone who failed to understand the times, simply could not survive in the world of the Illusory Realms until now?

Bai Xiang guessed that the scene before she had left, where she had restrained Xu Heqing from blowing himself up, had frightened them. But she had no interest in hearing these people flatter her, so she went straight to questioning them about all sorts of details.

“Daoist Fengxu.” She looked first at the Daoist at the head of the row. “What exactly is the origin of that Lishan Sword Sect on the other side, and what was the situation with the Emotion-Slaying Sword that Xu Heqing cultivated?”

It was not that she was asking needless questions. Rather, the memories of Immortal Venerable Jiuli contained no information about the arrangements and intelligence for small fry like these.

“The Lishan Sword Sect comes from the Illusory Realm called Sword-Scar Heaven.” Daoist Fengxu had naturally already resumed his seat by now. Hearing her question, he quickly bent forward and replied, “Sword-Scar Heaven was once a relatively intact Illusory Realm plane. After many years of growth and reproduction, the number of sentient beings there was beyond counting. But later, according to legend, great powers fought at its edge, and one stray sweep of sword qi came through and cleaved it almost in half, leaving a vast fissure down the middle. That is why it gradually came to be called by that name.”

“Then would that not have been a catastrophic disaster for the sentient beings there?”

“That is normal over there.” Daoist Fengxu kept his head lowered. As he spoke, he did not dare look into Bai Xiang’s eyes at all. He continued, “They call it the Upper Realm, but in truth, the lives of the sentient beings there are not stable. It is not only that the phenomena of Loss of Order are more severe. The Void Demon disasters they suffer are also more dangerous. From time to time, Void Tribulations descend as well, slicing things apart all over again on top of what was already there.”

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“And even if one barely manages to survive all of that, there may still be conflicts between powerful experts, whether inside or outside. Such things happen with great frequency. So if one is only an ordinary sentient being, life there is actually less stable than it is here in the main world.”

Bai Xiang had learned some of this information already by reading the memories of those from Shenwu Heaven, but it was true that she had never gotten it as detailed and comprehensive as Daoist Fengxu was describing it now.

After more discussion, she learned that the Lishan Sword Sect was a force that had risen to prominence by monopolizing that “torn sword scar.”

It sounded strange, that such a thing could actually be monopolized. But one had to remember that Dao-Void Methods inherently revered and pursued the power of Loss of Order, that is, the power of Void Tribulation, while at the same time seeking to preserve a certain degree of Order on that basis.

Take the divine pool, for example. It first entered Loss of Order, disrupting the laws and rules between heaven, earth, and the cosmos to steal away a portion of power. Then it returned to Order, transforming that power into rules of its own.

And after cleaving open a void plane, that terrifying sword qi still left behind traces that remained gathered and undispersed. With that factor added to the fact that the fissure region lay closer to the void and closer to Loss of Order, and with the sword scar itself existing in the alternating interplay of Loss of Order and Order, the stark contrast between the two naturally turned it into an exceptionally rich place for comprehending the Dao. For cultivators, it was practically a celebrated site of pilgrimage. Naturally, nearby cultivators would want to go there and see it for themselves.

By monopolizing the sword scar, the Lishan Sword Sect had effectively monopolized an extremely precious cultivation resource. Anyone who wanted to study the sword scar had to pay them a certain fee and offer benefits. Over time, they naturally grew stronger and larger, and barely managed to spread their name through the Upper Realm.

Now that the subject had been opened up, Bai Xiang followed it further. She asked Daoist Fengxu which was the more powerful force, the Lishan Sword Sect or Taixu Temple.

Strictly speaking, that was a rather rude question. If it were anyone else asking, Daoist Fengxu would not have bothered answering at all.

But Bai Xiang was not merely an Immortal Venerable a whole major realm above them in cultivation; she could also easily suppress cultivators of the same realm. With such cultivation, she absolutely deserved the title of “Venerable Lord” that they had just knelt and called her by. Naturally, the two could not be discussed on equal footing.

So he answered very directly. “Let Venerable Lord know… the Lishan Sect probably does not quite qualify to be listed alongside our Dao.”

Fearing that he might incur Bai Xiang’s dislike, he had chosen rather modest wording.

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“I see.” Bai Xiang nodded, then turned to Jing Lanyu and asked, “Before Xu Heqing died, he said that you had been excluded and pushed aside by others. Was he referring to you personally, or to the Qinglan Immortal Sect?”

She had indeed collected Xu Heqing’s remnant soul.

But based on the memories of Immortal Venerable Jiuli, she had learned that because of the influence of the spirit-eroding Void Demon, she had failed to recover even a single memory fragment.

The spirit-eroding Void Demon was one of the most dangerous among all Void Demon calamities. It was easy enough to understand if one compared it to a demon pool. It roughly amounted to refining and magnifying the illusion powers of a demon pool’s Illusory God function. It was that sort of bizarre creature that had no form of its own and existed solely to erode the mind from the void.

The other side had also seemed to mention “joining an alliance.” She was curious what exactly that meant, and whether it was what she suspected.

“It was me personally.” Jing Lanyu smiled with some bitterness and answered frankly, “Because I am of mixed demon and human blood, and the human blood makes up the larger part.”

“Is that sort of exclusion severe?”

“That is not an easy question to answer, Venerable Lord.” She shook her head. “If I must try to put it into words, all I can say is… the higher one goes, the less obvious it may become, and the more severe it becomes as well.”

At first hearing, that sounded a bit roundabout, but it was actually easy enough to understand. Put simply, discrimination of that sort mostly fell on those lower down, so the higher one went, the less visible it became.

But that was only “less visible.” Less visible did not mean less severe.

On the contrary, precisely because there were more powerful figures at the upper levels who firmly adhered to their own convictions, these people drew their lines of hatred and distinction between the two races even more sharply. And once people like that personally moved against someone, the consequences naturally became far more severe.

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Jing Lanyu, after all, was not an Immortal Venerable. In the eyes of those above, she was only a somewhat larger ant. If she said too much in too much detail, it would count as an offense before an Immortal Venerable. Thinking about it carefully, this really was not an easy question for her to answer.

Bai Xiang then asked her about “joining an alliance,” and learned that in the Upper Realm’s Illusory Realms, many forces chose to form alliances against one another. Like the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance from before, there also existed organizations such as the Five Illusory Alliance or the Six Illusory Alliance, though the middle modifier changed.

These alliances sounded intimidating, but in truth, the ties within them were not especially close. They mainly involved lower-level disciples and served as a framework for exchanging benefits tied to lower-level resources.

For example, within the alliance joined by the Qinglan Immortal Sect, one Illusory Realm Heaven produced a rare material that could greatly accelerate the efficiency of the Qinglan Immortal Sect disciples’ Sword-Washing Art.

And the Qinglan Immortal Sect also possessed something the other side wanted, so the two sides used the alliance to facilitate exchange.

In addition, because there was now that extra layer of alliance relationship, disciples from each side who encountered one another elsewhere would not immediately start fighting.

In all other respects, though, things remained much as before. For example, if both sides encountered some valuable treasure and wanted to fight over it, they would still kill one another without mercy.

“As for Blood Soul Heaven…”

At last, Bai Xiang came to the key point. “How much do all of you here know about it?”

So it was Blood Soul Heaven again?

From the changes in the expressions of the three envoys, one could tell that they had been waiting a long time for Bai Xiang to ask this question.

They had truly been afraid. They had feared that the Lishan Sword Sect, in its death-seeking recklessness, might have been plotting things in secret through alliance ties as well. If that had been the case, then they themselves would unknowingly have become indirect accomplices, and they did not dare gamble on whether this Venerable Lord Bai would show mercy.

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But now it seemed to be Blood Soul Heaven.

Good. At last they could breathe a little easier.

“Venerable Lord Bai may perhaps already know some of Blood Soul Heaven’s reputation and examples of what they have done, but Venerable Lord Bai may not know their true nature.”

The one speaking this time was Monk Mibu.

There was no help for it. The first two had already spoken, so if he did not seize the chance now, there would be no opportunity left for him to stand out, and who knew what might happen then.

It was obvious from this that they truly had developed a psychological shadow toward Bai Xiang. They did not even dare test the slightest possibility of angering her.

“Their true nature?”

“Precisely!” Monk Mibu pressed his palms together and nodded hard, then continued, “If those of us who honor the Sacred Court and cultivate Dao methods aim to free ourselves from Void Tribulation, then Blood Soul Heaven’s goal is to merge together with Void Tribulation itself.”

“They draw their power directly from Void Tribulation.”

“And when it comes to all those neither-human-nor-ghost monstrosities, all those things so grotesque that even demons themselves cannot stand the sight of them, they have more such cases than anyone.”