My name is Bao Gang. As I watched the two ships draw closer to Earth, I began to fidget unconsciously, like a middle schooler giving as presentation to their class. I felt as if the world was ending, which it might. If they stuttered uncontrollably mid presentation in front of the entire class and the students started laughing, the middle schooler might also. I would too. Nothing like being made fun of to make you feel as if you want to disappear. Luckily, I’m not a middle schooler, nor a stutterer.
Knowing that at the very least, I will not be made fun of by an entire class of prepubescent children makes me slightly less nervous. But only by a little bit.
Jokes aside, I was feeling slightly nervous. If the spirit of the cauldron, who said her name is Wei Yun, was wrong about her ability to deal with the strongest cultivators of the realm, my family would be killed. While not my biological family, the humans of Earth had been my constant companions for thousands of years and as I had witnessed their lives from start to finish, it would not be a stretch to consider me partners in their journey, brothers even. Not just one human nor even hundreds. With my soul which had been enhanced unceasingly for trillions of years, I could focus on every single human individually, and if needed, even every single living organism. With my spiritual sense I could follow them around their entire life, my soul was strong enough to the point where I could essentially live the same life as them, having the same experiences. Although, the life of an E. Coli bacteria is not as exciting as that of a human, which is why I only watched, and for this reason, felt close to the humans. I witnessed affection, love, friendship, hatred, betrayal, and everything in between. As a human myself, I can sympathize with other humans. What is the true difference between me and a foster parent who watches the life of their child, staying with them when they are down, feeling exultation when they succeed, and overall empathy towards them?
For this reason I grit my teeth, rage flamed in my eyes, and I felt boundless courage. When the lives of your family are on the line, suddenly your own safety is not as important. Of course, I knew that as a heavenly treasure, the cauldron would be able to protect me having been given the task of making sure I never died. The other humans however, would not be protected like me.
“Wei Yun, the ships are coming closer, you still haven’t done anything!” Suddenly anxiety and anger gave birth to a roar. By contrast, Wei Yun was sitting there nonchalantly, “Calm down, once they begin to fight over ownership of this planet they will realize that they made a big mistake. Hmph! Trying to take the property of my Master’s successor! Puh-lease!”
As we waited, the two ships arrived at Earth. They mutually decided to meet before trying to steal the treasure from the planet, probably to prevent the other group from attacking them while in the process. Obviously, they were of similar cultivation levels, otherwise they would have simply decided to take the treasure and kill the opposing team if they interfered. With similar cultivation levels, they risk losing the treasure and their lives, and for this reason decided to team up and split profits.
As the two groups left their ships, I knew I had to stop this, so I sent my soul outside the Earth towards the cultivators. “Stop! This is planet does not belong to you! Please leave!” I was hoping that the cultivators would listen to morality and remove the need for them to die.” Clearly not the message they heard. They believed it to be someone trying to steal their treasure, “You hypocrite! Why won’t you leave then?” “Shut up or we’ll kill you!” “Why wait? He is clearly stealing the treasure for himself, just kill him right now!” As if preparing to fight, they began concentrating and suddenly, ice shards, balls of flame, and meteors appeared, as if ready to be fired against me. Seeing danger, I brought my soul projection back to my body and sighed. Having already charged up magic, one of the groups suddenly cast magic at the other. Meteors, flames, and even some flying swords rushed out, intent on killing the other group. Clearly greed had overpowered their desire for safety. As soon as the battle had started, it ended. The group which had been caught surprised by the other, lost ¾ of their members in the first volley of attacks, and the others immediately retreated back into the ship. “Arghh you black-hearted scallywags! We could have shared the treasure.” I later learned that this was Ji Huang who said this. Suddenly, Ji Huang was hit on the head by another man(Tai Ming) who said something along the lines of, “as if you would share the treasure(clearly still butthurt that he had been backstabbed by Ji Huang).” The opposing crew laughed uproariously at this and kept smiling as the ship turned around and left the area, disappearing from view, presumably to fo to a hospital for the members of the crew which were dying.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Suddenly, a formless pressure descended and the laughing crew stopped laughing. They also stopped being alive as the pressure crushed their bodies into puddles of blood, piles of flesh, and bits of bone. A truly strong cultivator had arrived.
“Come out little buddy, I won’t hurt you.” The strong cultivator was a short, squat man with a big mustache. His eyes glinted evilly and his “friendly” smile, looked anything but. Believing me to be the spirit of the heavenly treasure(heavenly treasures are heavenly due to their life. They can think for themselves, and cultivate, and the most valuable can even have a soul projection), he attempted to coax me out of the planet once again. Building a good relationship with a heavenly treasure would allow for better ownership. For example, the average everyday sword is just a hunk of metal. Regardless of the wielder, its strength would stay the same, but a heavenly weapon would have developed a spirit. What makes it so valuable is the spirit itself, although the material from which a heavenly sword had been built would be valuable as well. In the case of the heavenly material being a weapon, the cultivator wanted to set up a good relationship immediately.
Suddenly, another 4 fields of pressure descended, covering the planet and the cultivator, causing him to draw back. “We won’t let you just steal this treasure from under our noses.” The squat cultivator replied, “I’m not stealing, merely the spirit of the treasure chose to leave with me,” and then started flying towards the planet, greed flashing in his beady eyes. “Stop you knave! We witnessed what just happened, the spirit clearly said no such thing!” Thinking I had finally found some cultivators with some humanity I smiled. Only to be plunged into utter depravity. “Hey spirit, come with us, we are much nicer than the other fat guy,” “No! Come with me, I will treat you better than all the rest of them combined,” “Shut up all of you, I am the rightful owner of this treasure, did you not see the spirit disappear right before I appeared, it’s clearly playing hard to get.” “No you shut up, I arrived here at the same time as you, it was not playing anything with you.”
With hatred showing in my eyes, knowing that the fate of this planet, the home of my family, and my freedom was just being played around with by these cultivators I swore to never completely trust cultivators like these. And I decided to play with them back. I poked my head out of the planet’s surface, acting as if I was shy, looking innocently at one of the cultivators, wrinkling my brows as if confused.
“HAHA did you see that, he’s looking at me, he’s chosen me to be his master!” Of course, I did no such thing. Seeing the attitudes of these people, I had no preferences towards any of them. As if to slap his face, I immediately started looking at the person next to him, but stopped looking confused. “LOL! You short beta! He was actually choosing me!” Another 10 presences appeared--more strong cultivators had arrived. Slapping another face, I turned to one of the new arrivals, but this time smiling. This continued for 3 hours. Eventually I had to hold my chin as if confused who to pick, but a smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Wei Yun, this is enough people, kill them all.” All the cultivators looked around confused, not knowing what to make of my statement. “You idiot!” I heard in my head, “They need to fight over you, I can’t kill them, but as soon as they attack in this area, they will all die. Stupid baddies!”
Suddenly, the short, squat cultivator had had enough. “He looked at me first, I am his master,” knowing that something was up(referring to what I said about killing them) this cultivator just wanted to take the treasure and leave.
Another cultivator had also had enough. Without even yelling a warning, threw a meteor at the one squat cultivator had claimed ownership. The short, squat cultivator dodged the meteor, but it was already too late. The space which had been sucked dry of laws by the cauldron over trillions of years cracked, shattering into innumerable pieces which sliced up all the cultivators inside the universe. Having not yet entered into one of the 33 heavens, the cultivators here were weak. Weak to the point where they did not even know what laws were. The space fragments met no resistance, chopping these cultivators into bits.
Wei Yun, the cauldron spirit, smiled, as if she was seeing a lollipop instead of the mangled portions of the strongest cultivators in the realm. A suction force pulled all of these space fragments and cultivator remains into the cauldron.
Wei Yun patted her stomach as if having eaten a hearty dinner.
The 300,000 strongest cultivators in the realm had all died. Everyone who entered the universe nicknamed, “The Hell of Mortals,” had died. Except Ji Huang and Tai Ming who had left before space cracked and fragmented into what would later be named, “The Graveyard,” a hellish space full of space fragments sharp enough to cut to pieces any who entered.