Chapter 115 The Calamity of Ancient Times

Chapter 115: Chapter 115 The Calamity of Ancient Times

The inheritance grounds were still alive with light.

Beams kept drifting down onto cultivators, one after another, leading each toward the legacy that had picked them.

Some stood perfectly still while ancient memories poured into their heads.

Others turned their new treasures over and over in their hands, as if afraid they might disappear.

Two of them were independent cultivators, who had walked into the Primordial Sealing Ruin with no force behind them.

The first was a young man in plain grey robes. He stared at the inheritance token in his palm like it might be a joke.

He had never had enough resources. Not once.

And now this.

The second was a young woman. She stood quietly in the fading light, taking a long breath before she dared to look up.

Neither of them knew what came next.

But they both understood that their lives had just changed.

All across the grounds, it was the same. Some people laughed out loud. Others said nothing at all, eyes closed, still absorbing what they had been given.

The trial was almost over.

Then the light faded, all at once.

The ancient aura settled, and the whole space went quiet.

Everyone looked up.

The ancient voice came down over them.

"All participants, listen carefully."

It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.

Everyone stopped.

"The trials of the Primordial Sealing Ruin have finally come to an end."

A few people looked at each other.

They had been chased, crushed, tested, and even tricked, to get here.

Even if the last trial hadn’t made them fight each other, it had still been the opportunity of a lifetime.

But the voice wasn’t finished.

"You have received what countless cultivators throughout history would have begged for. Inheritances. Treasures. Insights."

"Do not mistake them for the end of your journey."

The crowd went still.

"From this moment on, you must cultivate even harder than you used to, and you must make a name for yourselves in the outside world. Do not grow lazy because you hold an ancient legacy."

The voice paused.

When it spoke again, it was heavier.

"The ruin did not open merely to hand out gifts and inheritances. There is a long history behind it, one that traces back to the Primordial Era."

Puzzled glances.

What history?

Primordial Era?

"A great Calamity will one day fall upon this world, a Calamity that has shaken this world since the Primordial Era."

The words landed like thunder.

Nobody moved.

A Calamity?

What kind of Calamity?

Some people frowned. Others just stared at the sky.

The voice didn’t give them time to guess.

"It is older than most of you can imagine. The world has not forgotten it. Only time has made people stop watching."

A chill went through the crowd.

An enemy that had lasted since ancient times?

"Those who built these trials knew that the strength of this world’s cultivators would decide whether it survived. That is why the trials were made. That is why the inheritances were kept."

"But an inheritance alone will not be enough."

Not one person dared to interrupt.

"Build your foundations. Understand your own paths. Keep climbing. Do not waste your lives on small pleasures and forget what may one day be asked of you."

"You may be called upon to fight for this world."

Even the ones who had only come for treasure weren’t thinking about treasure now.

A Calamity from ancient times.

And their inheritances, apparently, had been part of the preparation for it.

But nobody knew what the Calamity was.

Or when it would come.

The voice offered nothing more.

"Remember what you heard today. Use what you have received well. Do not let the effort of those who came before you be wasted."

"Now, return to the outside world."

The whole land shook.

Golden light flooded over every remaining participant.

They barely had time to look at each other before the world blurred.

One by one, they were gone.

The inheritance grounds emptied.

The ancient legacies sank back into silence, their last auras slowly drawing back into the depths of the ruin.

Soon there was no one left at all.

The ruin had done what it was built to do.

But what it was really for hadn’t been said out loud.

---

Deep inside the Primordial Sealing Ruin, far from the inheritance grounds, there was a quiet room.

Its stone walls were covered with formations, and faint lights flickered across the symbols carved into the floor.

An old man sat in the middle of it.

His hair was white and his face was lined with wrinkles. His eyes were half closed, like a man who had spent far too many years sitting still.

But the aura coming off him was anything but ordinary.

He sat in an old chair with his fingers resting on its arms.

Two other people stood in front of him.

Both carried heavy auras, and neither looked relaxed.

For a long time, nobody spoke.

At last the man on the left broke the silence.

"Are you sure this will work?"

The old man opened his eyes.

The man frowned and kept going.

"The trials. The inheritances. Everything we prepared. Will those youngsters really get strong enough before the demons break through?"

His voice dropped.

"You and the others couldn’t do it back then. We spent countless years preparing and we still lost."

He looked straight at the old man.

"Do you honestly believe a bunch of kids will succeed where we failed?"

The room was silent.

The old man studied him for a few moments.

Then he answered, with no hesitation at all.

"They won’t."

Both of them froze.

"...What?"

The man on the right frowned.

"If you already know that, why go to all this trouble?"

There was an edge in his voice now.

"We could have picked cultivators at Peak Mahayana Realm and given them the inheritances directly. They already have the strength to use them. They would be much stronger by the time the battle comes."

The other man nodded.

It made sense.

Why spend years nurturing youngsters who might never be strong enough in time, when you could give the legacies to people who were already strong?

Even if the inheritances couldn’t push them up a realm, their experience would still make the most of them.

Compared to that, handing everything to young cultivators looked like a gamble.

The old man only smiled.

"You really don’t understand anything."

The two men glanced at each other.

The old man leaned back.

"I didn’t set up these trials just to raise a few strong cultivators."

His smile faded.

"There is an anomaly in this world."

Both of them turned sharply.

"An anomaly?"

"Yes."

He was quiet for a moment, as though remembering something from very long ago.

"I found it when I tried to calculate this world’s future. My calculations were always incomplete. No matter how often I tried, parts of the future stayed hidden behind something I couldn’t see."

"I thought at first that the future was just too uncertain."

"But after enough attempts, I understood that something was interfering."

His eyes narrowed a little.

"There is an existence in this world that cannot be measured by ordinary means."

The two men listened without breathing.

"And that anomaly," the old man said, "will help us win this battle."

Nobody spoke.

Then the man on the right frowned.

"If it can help us against the Calamity, why not give it an inheritance directly?"

"Yes," said the other. "If it’s that important, shouldn’t we have done everything to strengthen it?"

The old man shook his head.

"It doesn’t need one."

They stared at him.

He chuckled quietly.

"I tried to gauge its strength. I couldn’t."

For once, his face was serious.

"Whatever its true cultivation is, I can tell you this much. It is very strong."

The room went quiet again.

The old man couldn’t measure it, and still he was certain it could help them win.

That was hard enough to swallow on its own.

After a pause, the man on the left asked the next question.

"Then why did you give the inheritances to those youngsters?"

"Because I could feel the anomaly’s aura on them."

Both men went rigid.

"On them?"

The old man nodded.

"Out of everyone who entered the ruin, ten youngsters stood out."

There was a flicker of amusement in his eyes.

"They are monsters in their own way."

"What do you mean?" the man on the right asked quickly.

"Their bone ages aren’t even twenty. Nine of them have reached Peak Void Refining Realm. The last one is already at Half-Step Body Integration Realm."

The two men looked at each other, stunned.

Even for the strongest forces in the world, a group like that would be nearly impossible to produce.

Peak Void Refining Realm before twenty was already a feat.

Nine of them, from the same clan?

And one at Half-Step Body Integration?

"And that isn’t even the impressive part."

The old man leaned forward.

"Their foundations are extremely stable."

Neither man said a word.

They understood what that meant.

Anyone could rise fast on enough resources. But if the foundation was weak, the road would close in front of them sooner or later.

And these ten had reached those realms at such an age, with foundations that didn’t crack.

That wasn’t normal at all.

"So giving them the inheritances wasn’t a waste," the old man said, with a faint smile. "Think of it. If they grow strong, the legacies we kept won’t have gone to ordinary people. They will have found successors who can carry them on."

He paused.

"And if those youngsters really are connected to the anomaly, then helping them is a way to build good karma with it."

The man on the left nodded slowly, though doubt still sat in his eyes.

"So it was an investment in the youngsters, and a way to reach the anomaly at the same time."

"More or less."

The old man closed his eyes briefly.

"I can’t promise anything. I’ve only glimpsed a few possibilities. The future isn’t fixed just because I’ve seen part of it."

He opened his eyes.

"But I believe those ten may matter very much in what is coming."

The two men looked at each other again.

After everything they had lived through in ancient times, it was hard to believe a handful of youngsters who hadn’t even reached the highest mortal realm could change the outcome.

But the old man trusted them.

And he had spoken of an anomaly he couldn’t measure.

If it was real, then maybe the future wouldn’t go the way they all expected.

The old man looked toward the far wall, at the ancient symbols carved into the stone.

For a moment, his face was hard to read.

Then a small smile appeared.

"The demons believe that when they finally break through, a great Calamity will fall on this world."

He shook his head slowly.

"Perhaps..."

The smile deepened.

"...this Calamity might not really be a Calamity at all."

End of Chapter 115