Chapter 587: Ask the Heaven
Translator: Subudai11 Editor: Chrissy
"Fallen Immortal?"
Upon hearing this answer from Wang Lu, Xuan Mo seemed a bit surprised.
"You already knew about this?"
Wang Lu said, "Far more than just know, we have basically dealt with one of them…"
Before he could continue, Xuan Mo's face had already sunk. "Have they already begun to descend?"
Hearing her question, Wang Lu realized that the crisis Fallen Immortal was even more frightening than expected. They… descended. Just by one sentence, Wang Lu couldn't help but picture in his mind the scene where dozens or hundreds of Mr. Feng Yue descended on Nine Regions.
That would be the end of the world.
However, the situation was not yet that desperate. Recalling what Mr. Feng Yue did, it was not difficult to see that he did his utmost to provoke a dispute between Demon World and Nine Regions, as a matter of fact, in order to pave the way for something. Unfortunately, he failed within the sight of success. He did not achieve the final step.
"At present, there's only advance force. The arrival of the large force should still face insurmountable barriers."
However, Xuan Mo seriously shook her head. "The appearance of the advance force means that the situation has already become very bad. Very well, since you don't understand the whole picture, I will explain from the beginning."
"Fallen Immortals… Let's use this name to call them. The earliest record about the Fallen Immortal, happened in the Wild Era, a long, long time even before my time. The history books recorded that a strange occurrence was born in the sky. The vault of heaven opened and the light shone. A black-winged creature then descended on Nine Regions. He claimed to be an immortal and possessed a might unimaginable to cultivators. At first, people thought that he was a True Immortal that descended down to earth, and he came with the sacred will of the immortal world, and to whom should people worship at. However, very quickly he did all kinds of evil things in Nine Regions, causing public outrage."
Wang Wu asked, "What are the specifics of those all kinds of evil things?"
Xuan Mo said, "In the history books, this matter is insufficiently detailed. But according to the conclusion of many historical materials collated by later generations, the Fallen Immortal forcibly wrested away the daoist companion of the sect leader of a top ranking sect of the time and then cruelly killed her in s*do-mas*chistic way."
"…"
"After such insults, how could that sect leader let it go just like that? Unfortunately, although he was praised as one of the best in the world, in just three moves, he was struck by the Fallen Immortal into a meatloaf and then swallowed into the belly. His millennium cultivation became the nourishment for other people.
"And this was just the beginning. Later on, he became tyrannical by relying on his strength, causing too numerous to mention tyrannical actions. In the end, it caused a large number of cultivators to unite to fight against him. The war was so earth-shaking that the sun and the moon stop shining. Finally, they managed to thoroughly exterminate him. However, the immortal cultivation world also paid a terrible price.
"After a painful experience, people finally realized that those that descended from the upper realm do not necessarily harbor goodwill."
"Wait a minute. How do you make sure that the man was really from the immortal world, and not from somewhere else, like Demon World for example? There are thousands of worlds, of which, Nine Regions, Demon World, to put it crudely, are just a drop in the ocean."
"From the remains of that man, people found clues on when he cultivated in the human world. Ten thousand years prior to that time, he was indeed a cultivator cultivating in the human world."
"So that's how it is… did he forget his root after he soared to immortality?"
"It couldn't be counted as forgetting his root. He was once an evil cultivator in Nine Regions, and perpetrating outrage was, in fact, his duty." Xuan Mo bitterly smiled and said, "Later, something similar occasionally occurred. However, the descended Fallen Immortals actually came from righteous sects."
Wang Lu frowned. "Having origin from righteous sects was also not good? What exactly happened to them after they soared to immortality? Isn't in the legend the immortal world a paradise full of bliss?"
"You also know that it's just a legend, an excuse to induce people to cultivate seriously. As a matter of fact, no one has ever seen the immortal world. And the True Immortal that occasionally descended to the world of mortals never revealed the secret of the immortal world. However, it may be safe to assume that it is not as beautiful as that in the legend. Since ancient time, there have been around eight hundred or a thousand who have soared to the upper realm. In the even more ancient era, the Great Desolation Era, there was not even a statistic, among which, some were righteous cultivators, but there was no lack of evil cultivators either. And after they soared upward to the immortal world, they might not necessarily unable to produce descendants. Thus, it's not surprising that there would be Fallen Immortals. The key is how to deal with these Fallen Immortals in the world of mortals…"
"Is there no one in the immortal world that deal with this thing?"
"We can't confirm the attitude of the immortal world toward the Fallen Immortals because the True Immortals that occasionally visited the lower realm has never had in-depth communications with the cultivators, or even start a dialogue, so we can't ask them anything. On the more optimistic note, perhaps they are already trying to stop the Fallen Immortals from coming, otherwise, the number of Fallen Immortals would be ten times as many. But…"
Wang Lu was silent for a while. "But it is also possible that the immortals in the upper realm are completely not interested in caring about the lives and deaths of the lower realm. Just as humans do not care about the burning of the ant nest by their naughty children."
Xuan Mo said, "Nine Regions is the starting point of the immortal world, but it is only a starting point. The road of cultivation is endless. As people search for the road ahead, the starting point of the past will only become smaller and smaller. Perhaps, this is the reason why the number of times the people from the upper realm visited the lower realm in tens of thousands of years is not many. Unfortunately, this continent might not be worth mentioning for those ambitious immortals, but there are always a few scums who delight in abusing the weak. In short, we can't expect the upper realm to interfere in this matter and fight against the Fallen Immortals. We can't rely on anybody except ourselves."
"So that's why you, these Earth Immortals, exist?"
Xuan Mo wryly smiled as she said, "The so-called Earth Immortals is just a self-proclaimed term to inspire confidence. The opponents are immortals, while the hundreds of thousands of cultivators on Nine Regions could not hope to reach their height in their lifetime, so it takes courage to be enemies with them. Besides, our plan was far more radical than this."
"Oh? Were you planning to 'cut the weeds and eliminate the roots, eliminating both the root cause and the symptom?"
"Yes. There's no point in simply rallying the forces to kill one or two Fallen Immortals that descended to the world. As long as the immortals from the upper realm still treat the lower realm with such unbridled-ness, Fallen Immortals would endlessly emerge. And in every single fight, we have to pay ten times as much… For the immortal world, they only lost an undesirable scoundrel, but in Nine Regions, the lost is actually the elites in the immortal path."
"So, specifically, how did you do it?"
"We decided to challenge the upper realm, by breaking open the sky and ask why the heaven wants to tolerate the culprits! If the heaven refuses to answer, we'll find our way to say it ourselves!"
"What a radical idea!"
Even Wang Wu was amazed by the whimsical plan of these Earth Immortals.
Xuan Mo sighed. "If you have your cherished person die in the disaster that was the Fallen Immortal, you would inevitably have radical ideas. In our time, the Fallen Immortal disaster was the disaster that made the people in the immortal cultivation world change their complexion the most even just by hearing about it. No one knows how many people suffered from it…"
"But the people of the later generations have never even heard of the name of Fallen Immortal." Wang Lu said, went silent for a moment, and then said, "In any case, it must have been a fierce war."
Xuan Mo said, "It was indeed a fierce struggle. At that time, we rallied more than half of the elites of Nine Regions, and even combined our forces with the King of the Western Continent. After half a year of silently forbearing, when everything was ready in defiance of the heaven, we tore a passage to the upper realm, and forcibly stepped on the land of the immortal world."
"Isn't that soaring to immortality in a group?"
"Without passing the divine tribulation, the magical power of the cultivator couldn't be transformed into pure immortal spirit aura, and thus couldn't stay in the immortal world for a long time. Besides, we gathered countless of resources from the Nine Regions, but it was not only to create dozens of immortals.
"In fact, our plan is largely a gamble. Dozens of us couldn't stay in the immortal world for a long time and nobody could say what would happen during that time and what could be done. As a result, not long after entering the immortal world, we met three Fallen Immortals. When they saw us, they were very surprised and, without saying any words, immediately rushed to attack. In that fight, we paid more than ten times the casualties. In that single fight, we were beaten badly that we no longer have the necessary force to carry out further exploration."
Even after thousands of years, talking about that earth-shattering fight, Xuan Mo still showed an extremely painful expression.
"However, after that fight, we realized that there was no need for further exploration. It was a mistake to pin our hopes to accomplish the whole plan in one stroke. It only showed that we were too naive and conceited. The number and strength of the Fallen Immortals are far beyond our imagination, and it's not a problem that our generation can solve."
Wang Lu nodded, expressing his understanding.
Just now, she said that just when they stepped into the immortal world, they immediately met with three Fallen Immortals. Moreover, as soon as they met, the fight immediately started. This could not be explained just by bad luck alone.
It was very possible that the passage between Nine Regions and the immortal world was currently in the hand of the Fallen Immortal organization, and the Nine Regions had simply been treated as their farm and back garden. The rebellion initiated by Xuan Mo and the other ancient Earth Immortals seemed like a cow who jumped out of the cattle pen because of unwillingness to be left out.
"But we did not become desperate in light of this. Even if this generation could not solve the problem, there are still the next generations. The cultivators in Nine Regions have been making progress for thousands of years. At least that was true in my time. So, we always believe that in the distant future, Nine Regions would certainly have the power to protect itself."
Xuan Mo sighed, and then said, "At that time, we quickly returned to Nine Regions, and in the next hundred years, we did our utmost to mobilize the enormous power in Nine Regions, forcibly blocking the passage of the Immortal World to Nine Regions, trying to completely cut off the possibility of the arrival of the Fallen Immortals. At the same time, we established the group of immortal tombs to preserve what we have learned in all of our lives and the valuable experience of the countless people in the struggle against the Fallen Immortal. We hoped that the future generations would benefit from it and take a few detours."
Upon hearing this, Wang Lu reluctantly shrugged. "Unfortunately, the later generations would probably disappoint you."
"Mm, when I woke up from my long sleep, seeing the current Nine Regions, I was really disappointed and even desperate. After thousands of years, the cultivators have not progressed, and they are even far worse than before. How could they fight against the Fallen Immortals? After all, the blockade barrier that we laid down at that time was only an earth immortal level mean. And for those who were genuine Immortals, there must be some flaws. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before they return to the Nine Regions."
After saying that, Xuan Mo revealed a smile. "However, after seeing the two of you, I have some of my hope for the Nine Regions back. Perhaps, today's Nine Regions is by no means hopeless"
"Unfortunately, this is just my own thought. Among those who woke up together with me, dissidents account for the vast majority."