Who Let Him Cultivate?! (WX)-Chapter 965: Hui Doudou’s Objective

Finding the culprit behind the rumors would take some time. The Heaven Mandate Immortal set the matter aside for now and prepared to elaborate on what the Everlasting Immortal Fairy did not know.

“Jinghong, step out for a moment. If you were to learn what I am about to share, your life would be in danger.”

“Yes, Shifu.” Jinghong obediently left the ancient ring’s small world.

“And you too, Young Friend Lu Yang...”

“If you are referring to matters concerning the other me, Lu Yang already knows about them.” The Everlasting Immortal Fairy saw no need for Lu Yang to leave.

The Heaven Mandate Immortal immediately pieced things together. “That makes sense. You would have to be aware; otherwise, you wouldn’t have been attacked twice by the Silent Annihilation Immortal.

“Since you’ve already met Ao Ling and Jiang Lianyi, and Young Friend Lu Yang is at the Basic Divine Transfiguration Stage, I presume you have undergone the lightning tribulation and encountered the immortal thought I left behind. You must have learned of the events from your demise to the establishment of the Ember Legacy Dynasty.

“There’s no need for me to repeat those events. I’ll begin from the end of the Ember Legacy Dynasty.

“When we thought we had successfully resurrected you, we came to realize through our interactions that we hadn’t revived the complete you, but the you from the time you possessed the Silent Annihilation Incipient Dao Fruit. Still, being able to revive you was ultimately a good thing, so we didn’t dwell on it. We even told that version of you many things about your life after becoming an immortal.

“That version of you was just like the real you—exceptionally talented with astonishing cultivation speed. She quickly passed the Immortal Ascension Tribulation and attained the Silent Annihilation Dao Fruit, conferring herself the title of ‘Silent Annihilation Immortal Fairy.’

“In resurrecting you, we also harbored the hope of leveraging your power to defeat the mastermind behind the scenes.

“Through our exchanges with the mastermind, we discovered they were immensely powerful. Their combat prowess was no less than yours, having almost reached the pinnacle of the ‘immortal’ realm.

“According to my speculation, the mastermind’s Dao Fruit was most likely the Karma Dao Fruit. That would be extremely troublesome.

“It was precisely this desire to defeat the mastermind that made the situation spiral out of control.

“The Silent Annihilation believed that one must reach the level beyond immortal, ‘Transcendence,’ to defeat the mastermind behind the scenes.”

Lu Yang recalled the Everlasting Immortal Fairy mentioning “Transcendence” and “Omniscience”, the theoretical realms beyond “Immortal” that no one had ever attained.

The Heaven Mandate Immortal continued, “To achieve Transcendence, one must sever all karmic ties. Anyone who knows of her existence would form a karmic bond with her.”

Lu Yang nodded. The Everlasting Immortal Fairy had spoken of similar concepts when we encountered the Second Imperial Preceptor of the Great Yu Dynasty.

“Hence, for the Silent Annihilation Immortal to achieve Transcendence, she needed to kill everyone who knew of her, including all of the Ember Legacy Dynasty and the four of us.

“When the battle first began, the Silent Annihilation Immortal had only recently become an immortal, so her combat power wasn’t impressive yet. But as she killed more and more people, her combat prowess skyrocketed until no one could keep her in check.

“If the four of us, joined by the Left Historian Immortal—who is not a fighter but still an immortal—had fought as one, the five of us could have suppressed the Silent Annihilation Immortal.

“You should have heard from my immortal thought that the Epoch Immortal was assassinated back then. The only one capable of this was the mastermind.”

Lu Yang nodded. Only an existence like the mastermind could have assassinated the Epoch Immortal.

“Senior Heaven Mandate Immortal, I recall your immortal thought saying that after Senior Epoch Immortal perished, the remaining four of you immortals no longer joined hands to oppose the enemy. Why was that?” Even back then, Lu Yang had found it strange, feeling as though something was missing from the narrative.

“My immortal thought was unaware of the intervening events, so its account might have seemed somewhat disjoined.

“At the time, we considered the possibility of an ambush from the mastermind, so we devised an array with the four of us as its core. If any one of us was attacked by an outsider, the other three would be instantly teleported to the scene to fight the enemy together.”

The Heaven Mandate Immortal’s voice grew lower. “Yet when the Epoch Immortal was attacked, the array did not activate.

“This meant that the one who ambushed the Epoch Immortal was none other than one of us three!

“With the mastermind’s methods, it was completely possible that they had taken over one of our bodies before the Epoch Immortal’s incident!”

Both Lu Yang and the Everlasting Immortal Fairy started at this revelation.

“If we had chosen to join forces against the Silent Annihilation Immortal back then, we would certainly have been ambushed by the mastermind. None of us would have survived!

“Upon realizing this problem, Qilin, Nine-Layers, and I ceased trusting one another. We even stopped meeting, fighting our own battles separately.

“Meanwhile, the Silent Annihilation Immortal constantly searched for our whereabouts, seeking to achieve Transcendence. Perhaps after she kills me, Qilin, Nine-Layers, and Ao Ling, leaving no one who knows of her existence, that will be the moment she succeeds.

“The Silent Annihilation Immortal seems able to locate those who know of her existence through karmic ties. Later, we discovered that as long as we hid within ‘small world’ spaces, she wouldn’t be able to find us.

“I remember Ao Ling hid within the Dragon Pearl, a small-world-level space. The moment she left the Dragon Pearl, the Silent Annihilation Immortal came for her.”

Lu Yang’s Qingfeng Sword also contained a small-world-level space. Most small-world-level spaces were fixed in place and immovable; these were top-tier secret domains. Items like the ancient ring, the Dragon Pearl, and the Qingfeng Sword were all considered immortal artifacts and exceedingly rare.

“Hiding within a small world requires not only concealing one’s body but also refraining from extending one’s spiritual consciousness outward, lest the Silent Annihilation Immortal detect it.

“After I hid in a secret domain, I could only learn of the outside world through cultivators who entered. However, secret domains didn’t open often, and the information from those cultivators was never comprehensive.

“Therefore, I forged this ancient ring containing a small world, allowing cultivators who entered the secret domain to pick it up. In exchange for guiding their cultivation, they would recount everything they had seen and heard to me.

“From one such cultivator, I learned that a Nascent Soul cultivator had appeared in the outside world—extraordinary combat power, a nascent soul that fought independently, and a wooden plaque on his chest. It sounded very much like a cultivator you had trained, Everlasting.

“Moreover, through the temporal passage before, though I couldn’t see the cultivator standing beside you, I sensed a Jianmu wooden token on his chest.

“I thought you had already been resurrected and went over to investigate.

“It was only upon arriving that I discovered it was a trap set by the Silent Annihilation Immortal!

“At that time, the Silent Annihilation Immortal had grown incomparably powerful. I was no match for her. After a fierce battle, I managed to escape, gravely wounded.

“However, my injuries were too severe. The Dao energy of the Silent Annihilation Dao Fruit ravaged within me. To survive, I desperately performed the Corpse-Liberation Transcendence Method.

“What succeeded was that though I was still critically wounded, I had eradicated the Dao energy, and my life was no longer in danger. What failed was that I lost my physical body—it developed spirit intelligence and sought to devour me.

“I had no choice but to flee, hiding within the ancient ring’s small world to heal while searching for suitable cultivators to continue informing me of affairs in the outside world.

“Three hundred thousand years passed before this child Jinghong obtained the ancient ring.”