Chapter 117: Cooperation Achieved, Is the Holder of Heaven’s Mandate Right Beside Me
Chapter 117 – Cooperation Achieved, Is the Holder of Heaven’s Mandate Right Beside Me
With both sides securing their desired outcomes, the suffocating tension within the room finally dissipated.
“Since we have forged this alliance, would the Holy Lord care to elucidate the true nature of this Heaven’s Mandate?”
Meeting Chen Changsheng’s gaze, the Purple Mansion Holy Lord slowly spoke.
“The Heaven’s Mandate is the absolute condensation of an entire epoch’s Providence. The moment a living being bears this celestial weight,”
“they are crowned the sovereign of the current era. No matter how monstrously talented the subsequent generations prove to be, they will forever be suppressed beneath that karmic ceiling.”
“Only when the reigning sovereign falls do the latecomers earn the right to contend for the apex.”
Chen Changsheng’s ageless eyes narrowed slightly at her profound description.
“You repeatedly emphasize their absolute supremacy. Can you quantify exactly how terrifying this power truly is?”
“The true depths of a Heaven’s Mandate holder’s strength remain a void to us mortals. However, according to the primordial scrolls held within the Purple Mansion Holy Land,”
“only such an entity can tread into a forbidden abyss and emerge entirely unscathed. Furthermore, a holder of the Mandate possesses the world-shattering might to entirely level a forbidden zone.”
A rare tremor of genuine shock rippled through Chen Changsheng’s Dao Heart.
To shatter an ancient forbidden land to dust… such power was utterly unfathomable!
A dangerous thrill stirred within his ancient soul.
“Your words have merely deepened my craving for this Heaven’s Mandate.”
“Yet this Mandate is an ephemeral, formless concept. It is not as if a cultivator walks the earth with their sovereign destiny branded upon their forehead.”
“How exactly do we sever the destiny of this chosen one before they can fully bear the Mandate?”
“More precisely, how do we drag this phantom out from the boundless sea of mortals?”
A faint, sovereign smile graced the Purple Mansion Holy Lord’s lips.
“Since every Holy Land schemes to enthrone their own chosen, we naturally possess the archaic means to divine their presence.”
“And among the apex factions, the methods of my Purple Mansion Holy Land reign supreme.”
Reaching into her robes, she produced a meticulously carved jade box.
As the lid slid back, a winged beetle no larger than a broad bean drifted into the air.
“This is the Sacred Scarab of the Purple Mansion Holy Land. It is a primordial sovereign among the insect broods.”
“Mortal steel cannot shatter its carapace, and elemental furies cannot scorch its wings. It harbors but one driving instinct: an insatiable hunger for the scent of profound Providence.”
“It translates the invisible weight of a cultivator’s destiny into a physical, celestial radiance.”
“A green glow is the weakest flicker, blue is notable, orange borders on sovereign talent, and a purple luminescence signifies an anomaly born once in ten thousand years.”
“Yet, should it brush against a true holder of the Heaven’s Mandate, the Sacred Scarab will erupt in a ruinous, blood-soaked red—like a falling sun.”
“Furthermore, those bound by heavy karmic threads to the chosen one will also invoke this crimson omen, though the hue will lack that absolute, tyrannical purity.”
“Forty thousand years ago, this very Sacred Scarab was deployed to divine the Providence of an era’s reigning sovereign’s mortal mentor.”
“In that instant, the artifact ignited with a dual storm of crimson and violet, though the violet held supremacy.”
“Despite lacking the pure red mandate, that mentor still ascended to become an apex sovereign of his generation.”
A reverent stillness fell over the Holy Lord as she immersed herself in the epochal glories etched into her sect’s ancient monoliths.
Yet, this profound reverie was abruptly shattered by Chen Changsheng’s cynical drawl.
“Are you, by chance, referring to this particular shade?”
Jolted back to reality, the Purple Mansion Holy Lord snapped her gaze forward.
The airborne Sacred Scarab had somehow settled silently into the palm of Chen Changsheng’s hand.
Wearing an expression of mild amusement, the ancient monster nonchalantly pinched the sacred entity between two fingers.
And the apocalyptic, blood-drenched radiance vomiting from its carapace nearly scorched the Purple Mansion Holy Lord’s eyes from their sockets.
Absolute, suffocating silence!
For an entire breath, her mind stalled. She rubbed her eyes, straining to peer through the crushing celestial weight of the light.
The crimson glow of a dying sun saturated every inch of the chamber. The solitary thread of violet woven into that bloody storm was pitifully insignificant.
Bathed in this ruinous omen, if Chen Changsheng proclaimed himself the undisputed sovereign of the Heavens, the very Dao itself would not dare to contradict him.
“Hoo…”
Exhaling a trembling breath to force her Dao Heart back into alignment, the Holy Lord finally spoke.
“What ancient taboo have you invoked? Why is the Sacred Scarab reacting with such apocalyptic fervor?”
“We discreetly swept the Providence of every Heavenly Talent the moment they crossed into the Kunlun Holy Land.”
“At that time, your destiny merely flickered with violet and a minute trace of red. How has it mutated into this sovereign nightmare?”
“Even if the Heaven’s Mandate holder had sired you from their own flesh and blood, the karmic resonance could not possibly be this catastrophic.”
Catching her barely contained hysteria, Chen Changsheng offered a weary, cynical eyeroll.
“I am the one who should be asking you that question.”
“You are the one who released this pest. If the Holy Lord remains ignorant, how could a mere mortal like me comprehend it?”
Their words died out, plunging the room back into a heavy, suffocating silence.
Mere moments ago, they were conspiring to slaughter the chosen sovereign, only for this ruinous twist of fate to manifest in their hands.
It was a cosmic irony too jagged to swallow easily.
Piercing the quiet, Chen Changsheng mused aloud, “You claimed your sect probed the destiny of every Heavenly Talent upon their arrival at the Kunlun Holy Land.”
“Is there a chance that the awakening of the Heaven’s Mandate took place only after your sweeping array was concluded?”
“After all, you remain ignorant of the catalyst required to birth the Mandate; otherwise, you would have orchestrated it ages ago.”
The Purple Mansion Holy Lord stared at him, her expression hardening into profound speechlessness.
“Throughout the Heavenly Talent Assembly, every single genius is pinned beneath the unbroken surveillance of our combined Divine Sense.”
“Though the descent of the Heaven’s Mandate lacks a physical form, the ripples it tears through the Dao would be cataclysmic.”
“During this entire epoch, you were the sole anomaly to sever your presence from the Kunlun Holy Land and escape our sight.”
Hearing this flawless logic, Chen Changsheng grimaced, inwardly realizing he could already put a face to the one who had shattered the cosmic balance.
With such a terrifying, blood-soaked destiny plummeting into his lap, it seemed his archaic schemes required a violent recalibration.
“Well… this cosmic shift deviates slightly from our original strategy, but it is hardly a fatal flaw.”
“Though I must ask—do you possess the means to obliterate this bug?”
Watching Chen Changsheng’s mild irritation, the Purple Mansion Holy Lord maintained an icy exterior, though her Dao Heart was practically convulsing with ecstasy.
The apocalyptic crimson drowning Chen Changsheng proved an irrefutable, intimate proximity to the true sovereign of the Heaven’s Mandate.
Factoring in his absolute authority over the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes, it required only a fraction of her intellect to deduce the identity of the true chosen one.
Her original ambition was merely to shackle a prodigy capable of surviving the era’s sovereign. Who could have foreseen she would stumble directly into the heart of the Mandate itself?
This was no mere fated chance; it was the Heavens themselves bowing to her Holy Land!
Setting aside the terrifying boon of the Mandate, Chen Changsheng remained a primordial treasure in his own right.
Based strictly on the celestial weight crushing the room, this man stood unchallenged as the supreme entity beneath the reigning sovereign.
Should the chosen one meet an untimely demise, Chen Changsheng possessed the sheer karmic gravity to swallow the Heaven’s Mandate whole.
The apex and the vanguard of an entire era, securely chained within the walls of the Purple Mansion Holy Land.
Armed with such sovereign authority, if her sect failed to conquer the myriad realms, they deserved to be wiped from the annals of history entirely.
Despite the tempest roaring within her chest, the Purple Mansion Holy Lord clamped down on her aura, her voice an absolute glacial calm.
“The Sacred Scarab is an immortal relic of my lineage. Even I lack the sheer devastation required to unmake its physical form.”
“I can, however, suppress its celestial resonance. This will blind the other Holy Lands to the sovereign destinies swirling around you and Wu Li.”
“After all, the divination arrays of those rival sects are but crude parlor tricks compared to the absolute judgment of the Sacred Scarab.”