Chapter 278 - Revealing the Events of the Past

“Sister, you…you returned! Finally, you returned…”

The Spirit Plane Lord’s tears flowed without end. Only Yaan, her and the Primordial Sage were here right now, otherwise, how could she possibly show such a demeanour?

Before others, she was the overbearing Spirit Plane Lord…but before her brother and sisters, she was just a girl who had been missing her siblings for far too long.

“Sister, it’s been over 2,000 years, I haven’t heard anything from you ever since that battle! What happened, why did you not appear until now?” The Spirit Plane Lord recovered her bearing quite quickly. She held the young girl’s hands, and asked her this question with a serious expression.

“I apologise, Little Sister, but this was the path that I divined. Any other way would have been intercepted by the Divine Court.” The Primordial Sage replied. Her words lacked any of the emotion that would be expected of someone reuniting with their loved one after being separated for thousands of years under grave circumstances.

Yaan felt speechless. That was her explanation? That was how she justified vanishing for over 2,000 years?

“I see…” The Spirit Plane Lord nodded slowly. For whatever reason, she easily accepted what the Primordial Sage told her, and her expression became solemn.

“For now, let’s go back to the palace. I will explain everything.” The Primordial Sage said. In response, the Spirit Plane Lord just nodded lightly.

Once again, the world around Yaan became blurred for a moment. When everything stabilised, he found himself back in the Spirit Palace’s main hall.

The Spirit Plane Lord pointed to the centre of the room, and seemingly from nowhere, a large wooden table and some chairs appeared.

Yaan did not know if these were items that she had retrieved from a spatial ring, or perhaps from elsewhere. Or maybe, she had simply created these items from nothing. He didn’t really understand the powers possessed by divinities, and nor did he understand the chaotic world laws on the Spirit Plane.

When the two women took their seats, Yaan sighed and did likewise.

He felt like he was getting dragged more and more into ‘living’. He felt like this was bizarre. At this point, why was he even going along with such tedious things?

Yaan couldn’t help but have a thought…if he really didn’t care about anything, then why was he bothering with it all? Why did he bother getting up, leaving his rest? Because the Primordial Sage was torturing his mind? Well, if he really had stopped caring about life and death, then surely even torturous pain should not bother him…

Had he really lost his desire…or was it just being crushed into the abyss under the ceaseless agony in his heart…?

Yaan realised that the Heartless Deity’s True Inheritance, even though he had not received it in full, had actually affected him in some way. Seeing a person who had suffered in the same way as him, if only for an instant, caused him to start having different thoughts.

For now though, this was not nearly enough to rekindle the fire in his heart.

Once they were all settled down, the Primordial Sage began to recount the events of the past…

“As you know, the battle 2,000 years ago was one of the worst yet. Brother and Sister Sura were badly injured by Law Empyrean and the other Divine Court divinities. They were too reckless, when they heard that Old Thief was under siege, they rushed in to save him. They all managed to get away, but they were all badly injured. Old Thief was able to recover from his injuries using his methods, but brother’s and sister’s injuries were too severe…to the extent that they were forced to reincarnate.”

“That much I managed to gather myself.” The Spirit Plane Lord nodded. “But I haven’t been able to find out why Old Thief came under siege? This all happened in the Qi Plane’s Divine Star System - what was he doing there in the first place?”

“Old Thief goes wherever he wishes to go. One of his mortal concubines was killed by a Divine Court subordinate immortal, which happened to be on one of the Divine Court’s Solar Planets within the Divine Star System. When Old Thief found out, he flew into a rage and immediately rushed to that planet. He killed Cloud Deity and multiple Transcendents, then massacred every righteous immortal on the planet, before claiming the planet as his own.”

The Spirit Plane Lord’s furrowed her brows, but when she thought about Old Thief’s infamous personality, she shook her head with a bitter smile…it wasn’t actually very surprising. In the end, the Divine Court had created the perfect trap for the eccentric old man to fall into - no, in retrospect, it became clear that the true purpose of this trap was to lure in the Primordial Devil and Primordial Asura.

“Then, what about Defiance Sovereign? I heard that he was involved in the battle, why did it go so terribly if he was there?” The Spirit Plane Lord finally asked after a long period of silence.

“Defiance showed up the moment the battle reached its peak, forced both sides to flee, then declared himself the sole victor.” The Primordial Sage explained.

Yaan felt like he was hearing something quite absurd.

Firstly, these people all sounded quite…unique. However, he was starting to realise that all of the divinities, for some unknown reason, all seemed to possess extreme personalities.

But aside from that, a single man forced the two strongest forces across the four planes to flee? Just what sort of person could achieve such a thing?

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“Why is everyone on our side completely insane…?” The Spirit Plane Lord muttered.

“Defiance is not on our side. He is on his own side, he just happens to dislike the Divine Court. We cannot rely on him.” The Sage reminded her.

The Spirit Plane Lord sighed deeply, she knew it was true. She didn’t even bother asking about the other divinities in the Primordial Alliance…even though the Primordial Alliance might seem stronger than the Divine Court to an outsider, the key difference was in its name - ‘alliance’. The Primordial Alliance was less united than the Divine Court, aside from a select few individuals who made up the core of the alliance. On the other hand, the Divine Court was extremely united, making them the strongest power across the four planes.

But aside from that, the Primordial Alliance was based on the Blood Plane. Their power on the Qi Plane couldn’t hope to match the Divine Court.

The Spirit Plane Lord became silent as she pondered over this matter, but in the end, she shook her head, glanced at Yaan, then turned back towards the Primordial Sage seriously.

"The battle with the Divine Court isn’t important. Tell me, what happened to brother and sister? Was there a problem with their reincarnations? And…how could brother reincarnate in the first place, since he has always lacked a conventional soul? And why…did brother end up like this…?”

The Spirit Plane Lord desperately wanted to understand this matter, and she knew that the Primordial Sage would have the answers. After all, she had met Yaan in the past, via the 3rd Celestial Demon General Armour…then she was able to meet him again via the True-False Illusion Formation. She knew that something like this could only be her sister’s work.

The Primordial Sage did not hold back, explaining this matter in its entirety. She even spoke of many things that Yaan had not known until this moment.

“I helped brother, sister and Old Thief to escape and hide from the Divine Court by sending them to a hidden micro-realm on the Qi Plane that I built in the past.”

The Spirit Plane Lord nodded. She knew that the Sage had countless hidden measures set up across the four planes like this, and these measures had helped them on many occasions.

“Initially, the plan was to remain within the hidden realm until everyone had healed. However…brother and sister were struck by the God Slayer Poison. Old Thief was also afflicted by this poison, but he received a less concentrated dose, and he managed to cure himself over time.”

“The God Slayer Poison?! I thought this poison went extinct, just how did it appear in the world again?” The Spirit Plane Lord asked severely.

“This was Law Empyrean’s hidden card that he prepared for brother. There shouldn’t be any left at this point.”

“I see…”

The Primordial Sage went on.

“When we realised that neither brother nor sister would be able to survive, we started making plans for their reincarnations. Of course, since brother lacks a conventional soul, he could only reincarnate with his Dao Soul. However, even for an Empyrean, this is not simple.”

“Reincarnation would have been impossible on the Blood Plane due to the world suppression, so we remained on the Qi Plane.”

“I divined the best path forwards. Knowing that this period of time would be crucial, Law Empyrean was also continually divining during this time, forcing me to choose a path unknown to him. I could not get involved personally or else they would be discovered, and so, I manipulated their karmic fate.”

“The hidden realm was converted into two inheritances for the two of them to return to. I destroyed the main entrance, but left entrances open on two planets on the Qi Plane. The first entrance was on the planet they aimed to reincarnate into; this entrance has now also been destroyed due to Law Empyrean finding it. The second entrance was a backup.”

“We conceived the Fiend Transformation Technique, then I tied this technique into their karmic fate and to the hidden realm. Because of this, had everything gone according to plan, the two of them would have met upon reincarnating, pursued their respective paths via the technique, and recovered their strength in the hidden realm.”

“But…Law Empyrean learned of the technique’s origins. Because of this, he started monitoring the entire Qi Plane for all signs of Immortal Ascension via the Fiend Transformation Technique. He committed an unexpected amount of power to this investigation, making the original plan impossible to continue with.”

“Because of this, I asked Old Thief to turn sister away from the fiend’s path. The course of her fate was changed, and she ended up becoming a member of the vampiric race.”

Yaan listened silently. He knew that she was talking about Rui right now, but he showed no change in his expression.

The Primordial Sage paused for a moment, at which point the Spirit Plane Lord asked:

“Then, what about brother?”

“Brother was hindered by the Heavenly Dao. His reincarnation went awry, and his Dao Soul was split into five fragments. The fragment before us right now, is the Fragment of Dao, brother’s core. He has already devoured the Fragments of Qi, Soul and Mind…but the Fragment of Blood remains on the Blood Plane.”

Yaan’s expression still remained unchanged. The Primordial Sage was lying right now, but she had already told him that she would do this, so he wasn’t surprised. The Spirit Plane Lord however, was hearing this for the first time, and…she trusted her sister.

This might seem naïve, but could it really be called naivety, to place your trust in someone who had stood by your side for millions of years?

If anything, the Primordial Sage was the strange one, for feeling nothing as she deceived her own sworn sister.

“Brother’s Dao Soul…fragmented? This…is this actually possible? I thought that even a slight injury to the Dao Soul was catastrophic, how could his Dao Soul split into five parts?!”

The Spirit Plane Lord cried out and took some time to calm her erratic heart. After all, this overturned everything she understood to be possible, and learning that her brother had fallen to such a precarious state worried her to no end.

‘So even the Spirit Plane Lord can’t see the issue with my Dao Soul…’ Yaan thought mildly. He did not understand the divinities well enough to understand why she could not see this, whilst apparently the Primordial Sage could. When he thought about it, Old Thief also seemed to notice that he was not the Primordial Devil back then…

The Primordial Sage continued to explain.

“When brother reincarnated, he was forced to comprehend dao in order to survive. Because of this, his heart…changed. It was impossible for him to continue living according to his original dao heart, so he was forced to split his Dao Soul into five, in order to comprehend a new path for himself.”

Looking at the Primordial Sage, it was impossible to tell that she was making half of this story up. Well, the fact that her voice was forever monotone and her expression never changed made her impossible to read.

“The fragmentation of brother’s Dao Soul created an immense outwards explosive force, sending each fragment to a different corner of the world. Fortunately, the Fragment of Dao remained in the same place, but his reincarnation was delayed by 1,800 years.”

“The Fragment of Dao walked along his karmic fate, resulting in him meeting the reincarnation of Sister Sura, who provided him with the Fiend Transformation Technique. As you know, he discovered Old Thief’s 3rd Celestial Demon General Armour – that was my first alteration. Eventually, he returned to the hidden Realm. I made a second alteration in the inheritance – the True-False Illusion Formation. Like this, he was able to meet you properly, allowing him to learn the Four Paths Cultivation Technique, all whilst hiding his existence from Law Empyrean.”

“But, there are no perfect plans in this world. Law Empyrean discovered the Fragment of Dao before he could ascend to immortality, I was forced to send him to the Blood Plane early. Because of this, Law Empyrean saw through the truth of what had transpired…but in the end, the Fragment of Dao reached the Blood Plane safely, so despite the disruption, it wasn’t an issue in the end.”

“The Fragment of Dao progressed along the Four Paths Cultivation Technique perfectly, but he failed his Immortal Ascension Tribulation. The Heavenly Dao intervened beyond what was expected. As for how brother ended up here, despite dying on the Blood Plane…I do not know how this happened.”

The Spirit Plane Lord listened attentively. When the Sage finished speaking, she sighed and looked up with a glint in her eyes.

“So in the end, like always, everything is the fault of Law Empyrean and the Heavenly Dao…”

Yaan remained silent.

He was sitting before two of the world’s foremost powerhouses. One ruled the entire Spirit Plane and she believed that he was her brother. The other was the world’s most intelligent schemer, she was manipulating the other, and she clearly had her own schemes with him.

He was in a situation that most people would consider both fortuitous and calamitous at the same time. One wrong step, and maybe either one of these divine beings would slaughter him like a rat. At the same time, he could probably use this situation to his immense advantage…

But he felt nothing towards his bizarre predicament.

He felt nothing towards life, but an endless emptiness, a numbness that encompassed his entire being, and a pain at the fact that he was still here…

And so, Yaan remained silent, waiting for this conversation to be over.

‘Maybe I should just tell the Spirit Plane Lord the truth, then she might kill me out of anger, and even the Primordial Sage couldn’t prevent that…’ Yaan thought mildly.

“If you reveal the truth to her, I will immediately capture you.” The Primordial Sage suddenly spoke for the first time in a while within his mind.

Yaan formed an illusory body within his Sea of Consciousness to face her. After cultivating Psyche Power for so long, this action was as simple as breathing to him, especially given that his current Sea of Consciousness was not real, but an illusion.

‘She’s still acting like she can read my mind…but she can no longer do so.’ Yaan thought to himself, but he didn’t say anything.

“What will it take for you to leave me alone?” He instead asked.

“Go along with the Primordial Spirit’s plan.”

“What plan?”

“Her plan to save you.”