Chapter 190: The Executor of Karma

“King Chaos wasn’t wrong—without the correct method, this mystic realm really is hard to open.” Bai Hongtu paced around the nameless island.
“To open the mystic realm, it has to be the night of the full moon. You need to sacrifice three hundred adult men, using their blood and flesh as the key to draw the correct symbols. Only then can it succeed, and only the Heavenly Kings know those symbols.”
Jiang Li looked up—the moon was a narrow crescent. The full moon had just passed.
“Luckily, I’m at the Tribulation Stage. These kinds of bothersome rules don’t apply to me.”
Bai Hongtu pinched a talisman between two fingers. Without wind, it flapped wildly. Bai Hongtu’s entire aura changed—becoming ethereal and mysterious. With his serious expression and handsome, clean features, he looked like the immortal sage from the phrase: ‘An immortal strokes my crown, and I receive longevity with tied hair.’
Very deceptive.
“What a fine Daoist…” Jiang Li remarked.
“Too bad he knows how to talk,” Yu Yin added.
The two high-fived in perfect sync.
The mystic realm opened. A group of young, beautiful women appeared before them.
The girls—maidens and wives—had never seen anyone besides the Heavenly Kings in the realm, so they looked curiously at the three.
Especially Bai Hongtu and Yu Yin.
Bai Hongtu was charming and elegant, Yu Yin was pure and graceful—both outstandingly good-looking.
Jiang Li was handsome too, but compared to Bai Hongtu, he came up a bit short.
So every time Bai Hongtu got beaten up by Jiang Li, he’d comfort himself: Jiang Li’s high cultivation came at the cost of his face.
The three ignored the women.
Jiang Li brought in the remaining six Heavenly Kings and lined them up neatly in a row.
“King Chaos and the other five have already been executed. Now it’s your turn.”
The six trembled uncontrollably. Jiang Li’s display of power was completely beyond comprehension.
“Esteemed one, we serve the Executor of Karma. Surely you’ve heard of the Executor? Perhaps you too are a messenger of the Divine Repository Sovereign…” one of them—King Shang—tried to grasp at a sliver of hope. He assumed only someone like the Envoy could freely traverse worlds.
“Divine Repository Sovereign? Now that’s a familiar name.” Jiang Li didn’t know the Executor of Karma, but he was very familiar with the Divine Repository Sovereign. Hearing that name from their mouths caught him off guard.
He’d asked the Bu brothers before. They said there were only Twelve Heavenly Kings. They didn’t know how those Kings had appeared or if there was anyone behind them.
It seemed this Executor of Karma was the one behind the Twelve Kings—and likely the uninvited guest mentioned in the system’s task—a certain Outer World Demon.
“I suppose you could say I’m half a follower of the Divine Repository Sect.” The initiation ceremony had been one step away from completing—so Jiang Li figured he counted as half a believer.
Bai Hongtu and Yu Yin exchanged glances, both seeing shock in each other’s eyes.
The Vice Leader of the Divine Repository Sect had caused the Tianyuan Dynasty to lose its capital, killing nine million citizens. Of course Yu Yin had investigated it thoroughly.
The Old Buddha of Mount Sumeru had been killed by Jiang Li—Bai Hongtu had looked into the reason.
Their separate investigations had all led to one name: the Divine Repository Sect and the Divine Repository Sovereign.
Of course, they hadn’t discovered that believing in the Sovereign and killing could generate Karmic Virtue.
However, Jiang Li had once asked Immortal Elder Changcun whether it was possible to gain Karmic Virtue through killing if one had faith in a deity—and Bai Hongtu had been present.
Bai Hongtu was sure that the “deity” Jiang Li spoke of was the Divine Repository Sovereign.
But he understood Jiang Li’s concerns—the fewer people who knew about this, the better. So he told no one.
Yu Yin, on the other hand, didn’t understand—why would the Nine Provinces’ Divine Repository Sovereign appear here?
Bai Hongtu understood. The Divine Repository Sect was never from the Nine Provinces—it was from the Outer World Demons.
“So you’re with the Executor of Karma. Looks like I unintentionally disrupted his plans.” Jiang Li smiled, like an old acquaintance of the Executor—despite hearing the name only twenty seconds ago.
King Shang sighed in relief. If Jiang Li was also a follower of the Sovereign, then maybe killing King Chaos and the others had just been a misunderstanding.
That was understandable. In front of such a powerful being, King Chaos and the rest were just ants—he might’ve killed them because they were ugly.
“Why did the Executor send you?”
“Esteemed messenger, we twelve were originally natives of this world. Because we had some talent, the Executor noticed us.”
Bai Hongtu thought, What ‘some talent’? More like he saw a bunch of heartless traitors who could betray their world without guilt.
“The Executor said he was a messenger of the Divine Repository Sovereign, and that he had come to save us.”
“He gave us Immortal Pills, saying that if we consumed them, we’d become Soul Formation powerhouses. I asked what Soul Formation meant—he only said it was a cultivation realm that grants a lifespan of a thousand years.”
“In our world, dynasties change every two or three hundred years. A thousand years means seeing three or four dynasties come and go—that’s more than enough.”
Jiang Li thought, Two to three hundred years per dynasty? That’s not far off from ancient history in my past life. A thousand years—long enough to live from the Song Dynasty to the modern era. Not bad.
“The Executor told us that breaking through from Soul Formation to Fusion is extremely difficult. For us, the usual path wouldn’t work. We’d have to take another route.”
“He also said the will of the masses holds infinite power. It can defy logic, turning the impossible into possible.”
That much, Jiang Li knew. The power of faith was the perfect example of collective will—able to temporarily let Human Sovereigns rival Outer World Demons.
But using faith power too often would cause one to be consumed by it—becoming a true embodiment of the people’s hopes.
That, too, was the power of collective will.
For instance, Luo Ying—if he used faith power often, he really would become the Shadow King Buddha of zombie faith. That’s why Jiang Li discouraged him from taking that path.
“There is great fear between life and death, but also great will. The will of people facing death is far stronger than they themselves realize.”
“So the Executor advised us to give people a direction—to make ourselves their faith. That way, we could bring down apocalyptic disasters upon the world. As people prayed for us in their dying moments, that would help us break through to Fusion Stage.”
Jiang Li frowned slightly. He’d never heard of this tactic before—but it sounded plausible.
If the Executor was indeed an Outer World Demon, this might explain why they didn’t just destroy the world directly.
They feared something emerging from the will of dying mortals—so they used indirect methods instead.
“Can you contact the Executor?”
King Shang shook his head. “The Executor’s intentions are as high as the heavens. How could we have the right to reach him? He said he would return within a thousand years to witness our results.”
Jiang Li sneered inwardly. Witness results? More like use you to kill off your own world—then come finish you off.
What a shame. If he could lure out this Executor, he might probe the true depths of an Outer World Demon.
Terrestrial Immortal-level demons lacked reason. This Executor was likely Heavenly Immortal-level—possibly the same demon who left traces everywhere in the Nine Provinces: the one known as Guo Huo Old Buddha.
Jiang Li had never fought a Heavenly Immortal-level Outer World Demon before. He really wanted to try.
He cracked his knuckles—bones popping—slightly disappointed.
“You all believe in the Divine Repository Sovereign too?”
At the question, King Shang hurriedly replied, “Our cultivation is too low. We wouldn’t dare claim to understand the Sovereign. We only know the name.”
A hint of hope bloomed in his heart. Since this powerful being asked, maybe he was eligible to become a true believer—just like the Executor.
The other five Kings thought the same.
Their imaginations were beautiful—so their deaths were tragic.
Seeing there was nothing more to learn, Yu Yin acted.
She killed all six with her True Phoenix Immortal Fire.
They died screaming.
None of the Twelve Heavenly Kings were innocent. Three hundred years ago, they unleashed a bloodbath upon the martial world. Who knew how many innocent souls died by their hands? And if they’d gone unchecked for a few more years, they would’ve triggered an apocalypse—less than one in ten in the Huan Yu World would have survived.
They more than deserved to die.