Chapter 39
Our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/PazjBDkTmW
Chapter 39: The Mighty Divine Consciousness
Mo Li passed away tranquilly three days later, without a word, yet Fengyun Wuji knew that all that needed to be said had been spoken.
Carrying Mo Li’s body, Fengyun Wuji ventured once more into the vast underground tomb. Perhaps there, his remains could finally know peace.
“You’ve arrived!” Fengyun Wuji had just stepped into the eerie, sickly green tomb and laid down Mo Li’s body when a call echoed in his ears.
Looking up, he saw a middle-aged man in a green robe seated cross-legged at the tomb’s heart, encircled by a myriad of will-o’-the-wisps, casting an uncanny atmosphere.
“How did you get in here?” Fengyun Wuji inquired.
The man gestured around him: “There are many entrances and exits; otherwise, where do you think all these corpses came from?”
“…Have you also cultivated demonic arts?”
Instead of answering, the man asked, “Are you ready? To return to the ancient times, one must assimilate with this world.”
Fengyun Wuji nodded, stepping over the ground littered with corpses, and sat beside the middle-aged man.
“Which demonic art do you plan to cultivate? Perhaps I can offer you some guidance.”
“No need,” Fengyun Wuji shook his head, then closed his eyes. Over 360,000 incantations of demonic arts, none of them were what he sought; the mutations they caused were too dreadful.
The Mind Sword Body Great Law revealed another aspect of its power; Fengyun Wuji continuously simulated the characteristics of various demonic arts in his mind. Through personal experience, he discerned the strengths of each. His idea was straightforward: to understand the unique consequences of each art’s distinct pathways and to synthesize them, extracting their virtues to forge a new demonic art.
The task of assimilating hundreds of thousands of incantations was mentally exhausting. Even with Fengyun Wuji’s pre-ascension ability to practice two different arts simultaneously, this endeavor was not one to be completed swiftly.
“You should not have brought him in here,” the middle-aged man suddenly said, pointing at Mo Li’s body.
Fengyun Wuji opened his eyes; he no longer needed to close them to fully engage in his practice. His newfound skill of multitasking had been refined over the past few days. While simultaneously practicing multiple arts in his mind, he asked, “Why?”
The middle-aged man paused before speaking, “Here, if they were still alive, they would never wish to be here.”
“Why?”
“Different beliefs. In their eyes, we are the heretics. They always believed that we could sacrifice everything for the safety of our people,” the man’s face showed a hint of agitation as he exclaimed, “But I truly wonder, even if we sacrifice ourselves, can we truly exchange for lasting peace?”
Fengyun Wuji was taken aback, looking at him in disbelief. In his mind, it seemed everyone had become numb, numbly surviving, numbly existing.
“What about you? Have you made up your mind? Even if you master demonic arts, what do you intend to do? What can you do? Get captured again?” The man looked at Fengyun Wuji solemnly and questioned.
Fengyun Wuji sighed, lifted Mo Li’s body, gently placed him at the entrance of a passage, then turned and said, “Perhaps he really didn’t belong here… I don’t know what I can do. My thoughts mirror yours, but if it’s just us, our fate will likely be similar to this elder’s. Perhaps I’m still full of fervor now, as for the future, how I will be, I don’t even know (he glanced down at Mo Li’s body), perhaps I will end up like him.”
With a long sigh, Fengyun Wuji felt a sudden bitterness in his heart. What can I do after all? The power of one person is too insignificant. A sense of despair and helplessness welled up within him…
Unconsciously, Fengyun Wuji returned to the water prison where Mo Li used to reside.
“When you truly cease to wander and make up your mind, come down and find us,” the familiar voice of the middle-aged man directly resonated in Fengyun Wuji’s mind.
Days passed by, and Fengyun Wuji sat quietly in the water prison every day, practicing various demonic arts with his eyes open, lost in deep contemplation. At first, Fengyun Wuji spent a long time in self-cultivation with his eyes closed. Had it not been for the monthly extraction of true energy, awakened by the demon clan’s special whip, Fengyun Wuji would have lost track of time.
Later, Fengyun Wuji hardly needed to close his eyes at all. In this way, he kept his eyes open, quietly pondering, sleeping, reflecting on matters after his ascension, the demon realm, the skeletons underground, Mo Li.
Time, perhaps for those who have ascended, truly means little. Gradually, the moments when Fengyun Wuji kept his eyes open were filled with quiet daydreaming, thinking of nothing, his mind a blank slate.
“Hey, young friend, wake up, wake up!” A kind and benevolent voice called out in Fengyun Wuji’s mind. That voice possessed a strange power; somehow, Fengyun Wuji once again felt his own existence.
He moved his limbs, and a thick layer of dust slid off his shoulders, with more dust falling from the top of his head. Fengyun Wuji choked a few times and had to stand up, shaking his body to remove the dust.
“So much dust! It seems like a long time has passed, why is this so? I feel like it was very, very short.” Fengyun Wuji thought, his prolonged daydreaming causing his thoughts to lag for a moment.
“Ah! I have been observing you for over two hundred years and noticed that you have been daydreaming all this time. I couldn’t bear it, so I woke you up.” The voice sounded again in Fengyun Wuji’s mind.
“Over two hundred years, has it been that long?!!! … How do you know what I’m thinking?”
The ancient voice turned out to be a divine consciousness fluctuation, yet this divine consciousness fluctuation was far stronger than Fengyun Wuji’s spiritual power at the end of the third stage of the ‘Mind Sword Body Great Law’. Compared to this spiritual power, Fengyun Wuji was like a stream before the ocean, the disparity incalculable.
“The function of divine consciousness is far more profound than you can imagine. You have neglected divine consciousness too much. Had I not discovered that you also cultivate the art of refining divine consciousness, I would never have spoken to you in this life.”
“Is the elder also within this cell?” Fengyun Wuji extended his own divine consciousness.
“Of course, otherwise how would I have found you?”
“Ah, no matter how powerful the divine consciousness is, it cannot escape from here.”
“Who said that? Although this water prison is heavily guarded, if I wished, none of the demon clan here would survive, and I could leave this water prison at any time. Return to the ancient times.”
“What?!!! Is that so, why are you still here?” Fengyun Wuji was shocked and speechless. He had never realized that such a powerful master was here.
“What if I leave, what about these people?” The elder sighed deeply in Fengyun Wuji’s divine consciousness, “To prevent the demon clan from slaughtering all the people here, I have endured here for over one hundred million years…”