Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 176

Gu Suihan slowly landed and stared solemnly at the pavilion. When he looked up, he realized that the sky was filled with thick and almost black clouds. A hoarse chanting was slowly beginning to fill his surroundings simultaneously. It sounded like the Buddhist chants or the sermons of deities from ancient times, yet it also sounded like the low growls and roars of demons.

Something seemed to be gathering in the middle of the dark clouds. Lightning kept flashing, and thunder kept rolling. A heavy and oppressive air slowly weighed down on Gu Suihan. The laws of nature around him seemed to sense that they were faced with a natural enemy, so they slowly moved away from Gu Suihan as the pressure increased.

“Convert the Elements, Reverse Yin and Yang!”

He divided his attention, using some of it to gather the elements into a detailed dao symbol glowing with golden text. The text wriggled like little tadpoles, slowly solidifying to become a brilliant and mysterious golden formation diagram that was at least 10 meters in diameter.

At the same time, the laws of nature gathered and glowed with five different colors as they spun and shot toward that whirlpool in the air.

Pfft! Gu Suihan’s body suddenly stiffened, and he sprayed out a mouthful of blood. He stumbled and nearly fell to the ground. His face was as pale as snow, and you could even see his greenish veins. Blood dribbled out from between his lips and flowed down his neck.

The formation runes glowed brilliantly, and the ball of light was slowly transformed as the whirlpool gobbled it up.

Craack! The whirlpool in the air suddenly stopped turning as though someone was preventing it from doing so. The lightning flashed more and more frequently. Suddenly, a strong wind began to blow, stirring up dust and rocks. The storm brewing in the clouds started raining heavily.

The formation runes turned in the other direction. The ball of light was slowly transformed as the whirlpool gobbled it up.

“I said before that you’re no match for me when it comes to the five elements and the law of nature surrounding them,” murmured Gu Suihan quietly as his lips curled into a faint smile.

Earlier on, he had transformed the five elements and laws of nature into a solid object, but when it entered the whirlpool, the yin, and yang switched places, which was able to break through that terrible oppressive air. It sounded very simple, but if Gu Suihan didn’t have the help of his spirit, he wouldn’t have been able to do that, even if he died trying. Such a difficult yet detailed technique required a vast spiritual sense to control it; otherwise, one would implode and die or suffer a worse fate.

Boom! The rain stopped. The clouds gathered again. The ground stopped shaking.

The will of this world paused for just a moment before it began to swirl again. This time, it became even more imposing. Like the quiet before a storm, pressure weighed heavily on Gu Suihan’s body. The immense power of the laws of nature was beginning to solidify.

“Are you the one who calls the shots around here? Or is the empire the one who calls the shots here?” said Gu Suihan with a laugh as he narrowed his eyes. He had a sinister look on his face that also exuded a tinge of insanity and disdain.

Based on his own analysis and Han Heng’s messy report, Gu Suihan had more or less understood what this world was really like.

Instead of describing this world as a small one, it was more accurate to say that the empire had given the Ethereal Court and the other sects a very small place.

Why, you might ask. It was because they were weak, poor and cowardly. This resulted in this situation – they didn’t want to become mere sacrificial items and fight to their death in some random world the empire sent them to, but they were also unwilling to let go of their current powers, since that still placed them in a position higher than an ordinary human. That was how they ended up with this idea to call another person a thief when they were thieves themselves.

The factions had gathered together to come up with a scheme. They were going to make some sacrifices and get the empire to give them a place where they could live in peace.

Why not forcibly take over a piece of land? That was completely out of the question. Cultivators might look fucking awesome to the ordinary person and it might seem as though nothing was too difficult for these superhumans. But in the Upper World, they were only as good as an animal that even a stray dog would bully. They didn’t know when they might run into a more powerful person who would smite them just because they were feeling unhappy that day. Or if they might accidentally offend someone they couldn’t afford to. Just like how humans normally let ants go their own merry way, once an ant tries to climb onto you, you would quash it without thinking too.

Getting a piece of land from the empire was equivalent to becoming a legal citizen of the empire. You would be protected. Simply put, you wouldn’t end up being sent out as frontline troops and you wouldn’t be afraid of being randomly killed by all these crazy powerful people.

But here lay a different problem. Almost all the good parts of the Upper World had been taken up already. They didn’t want to take the barren lands and other terrible dangers lurked there too. And thus, they chose to move to the Lower World. This was a world that wasn’t even among the top thousand.

Doing so, however, came with some benefits. Firstly, they could avoid any fights that arose for no reason. Secondly, they wouldn’t feel worried or threatened. Thirdly, they just needed to send some people to the empire to become frontline soldiers from time to time. The qi in this world was pathetic compared to the quality and quantity of the Upper World’s, but compared to potentially losing their lives, that was something they were more than willing to live with.

Unfortunately, by some strange series of coincidences, a barren and sinister place swirling with demonic qi appeared in this world. They had tried to investigate this matter several times but failed to find anything. They ended up losing several people instead. And so, the sect leader of the Seven Kill Sect back then decided to report this to the empire.

And even more coincidentally, one of the frontline soldiers from the Seven Kill Sect they had previously sent had actually managed to survive his mission. On top of that, he had been lucky enough to have rescued a big shot at the same time. The craziest part was that this big shot gave this man a title and even gave one of his legitimate daughters to him in marriage. He also allowed this man’s family in the Lower World to move up and become a subsidiary household of his family.

I’m sure you must have guessed it by now. This fellow was You Hantian. And You Hanyun was a descendant of that big shot’s family. The big shot eventually passed on and the family lost its pillar of support. As a result, an ugly fight for power and backstabbing consumed the family, causing a further reduction in their overall power.

You Hantian saw that he couldn’t count on this family anymore, so he started to think about finding someone else to rely on. He considered working directly for the empire, but at that time, he was only at Origin Core, which made him worse than an ant to the empire, so nothing came of it.

Later on, the Seven Kill Sect and the other factions of this world joined hands to report the strange place in their world. The empire sent someone to check it out and it was confirmed to be a difficult matter to settle. But nobody wanted to actually go down to an awful place like the Lower World to settle it, so after some back and forth, You Hantian became the lucky chosen one to get this job done.

At that time, You Hanyun even mocked him hard for this.

Unfortunately, before long, Qingming’s matter suddenly blew up in the Upper World. The empire itself tried to capture him, but Qingming actually managed to escape.

And of all the places, Qingming chose to hibernate in this world.

When You Hanyun heard wind of it, he started to make plans. He secretly got someone to arrange for him to be sent here and created a faction called the Ethereal Court. He hid within this faction and spied on You Hantian in secret.

Aaaaaand you know the rest.

He had quietly bided his time for centuries, but Gu Suihan appeared from nowhere and ruined all his plans. And now, he was dead.

Actually, the area where the seven major sects lived was only one part of this world.

For example, there were also all those baldies in the Pure Land Temple that was far from the seven sects’ part of the world.

It was like a modern day housing estate. The seven sects had only rented a few apartment blocks, but there were other blocks available as well. They weren’t the only people in the neighborhood.

This was a good thing for them, but it was a tragedy for the will of this world.

Not only did the empire split this world into several chunks, it also split the will of this world into the same number of parts. Each part was in charge of one chunk, taking care of basic things like the weather, reincarnation cycles and so on.

That was why Gu Suihan had boldly challenged and provoked the will of this world in Fenglin’s capital city. He was trying to see if things were the same way as he had guessed.

In the end, Gu Suihan had turned out to be right. The will of this world seemed powerful, but it wasn’t really that powerful. When all was well, nobody would have realized this problem. But if something bad happened to this world, this will of the world was absolutely useless.

But when it came to the Devil Abyss, things were different. The problem with this place was that it was located in between two chunks. In other words, the two parts of the will of the world in charge of these two chunks could interfere if necessary.

Two were always better than one.

Gu Suihan was now faced with a combined will of this world.

That was also why he did his best to avoid getting hurt in his fight with Xu Cangyue.

His words seemed to have angered the other party. In that instant, the world turned upside down. A vibration shook through the entire place and trapped Gu Suihan in his spot.

In the next instant, the mountains crumbled, the earth split open, a strong wind blew, and the clouds billowed. Everything was engulfed in darkness. It was impossible to see anything.

“NOW!!” Gu Suihan thrust a hand seal out. The sand and rocks several meters around him turned into a wall. The wind and clouds stuck to him and turned into his armor. The rainwater turned into a raging sea and Gu Suihan stood atop the waves, moving against the current. He held up against the terrible pressure weighing on him even as he began making his way toward the ancient well that was holding the Devil Abyss down.

SCREECH! SCREECH! In that moment, Gu Suihan could sense that he had truly gone against everything this world stood for. He was no longer on the same side as the creatures of this world. The grass became like swords, the trees like spears. The wind blew harder and the clouds moved even more rapidly. The sounds they made roared continuously in his ears, “Get out…get out…get…OUT!!!”

“Anyone who dares to block my way shall die!” Gu Suihan’s eyes were bloodshot, gleaming red like a demon. A bloodthirstiness instantly exploded from inside him. The symbol between his brows, that mesmerizing swaying red spider lily, began to give off a reddish glow. His black hair was like a dragon, and his clothes flapped wildly in the wind. His huge robe danced in the rushing wind, making him look like a king who had just broken the seal of the Devil Abyss and risen from inside the well.

ROAR!! A terrible roar filled the sky. Demonic and fiendish qi was everywhere as countless vengeful souls and hateful souls shrieked, roared and howled around Gu Suihan. They slowly became a figure that seemed as tall as the clouds above. Its demonic presence was monstrous and surged through the place.

“If I lose this fight, all of you shall die with me. If I win, then all of you still stand a chance!”

Gu Suihan took a step forward with his saber in hand. He looked up at the whirlwind in the sky that had become darker and darker, let out a long laugh, then stepped on a wave to meet with it.

Those words were meant for the almost sentient murderous and violent qi behind him. If he lost this fight, he was going to make sure they died with him. If he won, they could hibernate for the time being and wait for Gu Suihan to take his revenge.

It would be a ploy to use a more powerful person to destroy a less powerful one.

An evil plan, indeed.

But that was exactly what that figure couldn’t do.