Translator: StarveCleric Editor: Millman97
The person before him was none other than Tian Qing!
But wasn’t the other party fighting with Wu shi and the others?
More importantly, the first time he met the copper-masked figure, Tian Qing had definitely been confined within the Master Teacher Pavilion’s prison. No matter how powerful Tian Qing was, there was no way he could escape from his cell without alarming the Master Teacher Pavilion, so… how could he possibly be the copper-masked figure?
Zhang Xuan could not believe his eyes.
Everything had already exceeded his expectations.
“Indeed. Tian Qing and I are the same person!” Tian Qing nodded.
The young man before him had been putting on a fearless and nonchalant exterior ever since he had been dragged here, so he was delighted to see the shocked expression on the other party’s face.
“No, that’s not right… You aren’t Tian Qing but the Qingtian Emperor, right?” Frowning, Zhang Xuan revealed his deduction.
He had been thinking over the issue over the past few days, and he was confident that the Qingtian Emperor had a part to play in his framing. Else, there was truly no reason for King Zhongqing and Tian Qing to go to such lengths to frame him.
Just that, there were still some details that he had yet to make sense of.
“You are an intelligent person. However, you should know that there are some things in the world that you should never meddle with.” Hearing Zhang Xuan’s words, the Qingtian Emperor’s voice suddenly grew deep and sinister. A burst of killing intent suddenly swept through the surroundings, leaving one feeling as if one had been suddenly plunged into hell.
The killing intent was even purer than the Skyleaf King’s. Those who possessed weaker mental fortitude could have very well fainted as soon as they came into contact with this overwhelming aura.
“Since you have already figured out who I am, there’s no need for me to put on an act anymore then. I am sure you should know about the irreconcilable conflict between the Otherworldly Demonic Tribe and the darned humans. Submit to me, and I can grant you a life of wealth and power. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to end your life!” Tian Qing did not deny Zhang Xuan’s accusations. Instead, he gazed down upon Zhang Xuan as if he was looking at a mere corpse.
Since everything had already been revealed, there was no need to beat around the bush any longer.
“If you are both the Qingtian Emperor and Tian Qing… then who is the person fighting outside with Wu shi and the others? You… as an Otherworldly Demon, no matter how good you are at disguising, surely the headquarters would have looked into your background when you became the vice pavilion master, so how could you possibly have passed their checks?” Zhang Xuan uttered in disbelief.
No matter how he thought about the matter, it just did not make sense.
It might be possible for the Qingtian Emperor to act as an ordinary master teacher—the headquarters could not possibly check the background of every single master teacher spread across the Master Teacher Continent after all—but he wielded great power over the Qingyuan Empire Master Teacher Pavilion. It was extremely difficult to believe that the headquarters would make such a severe oversight!
If the Master Teacher Pavilion was really so incompetent as to remain unaware when the Otherworldly Demonic Tribe had already seeped into their ranks, it would have been destroyed long ago.
With a cold sneer, hostility welled up in the Qingtian Emperor’s eyes as he harrumphed menacingly. “Tian Qing was the incarnation of my will. I slowly forged his identity as a master teacher step by step over a long 800 years, but who would have thought that you would ruin the preparations that I made? Do you know how much I want to kill you right now?”
In order to build up ‘Tian Qing’, he had paid an extremely heavy price, sacrificing the lives of many of his tribesmen.
If not for the damned young man before him, Tian Qing would still have been the vice head of the Qingyuan Empire Master Teacher Pavilion, wielding great power.
In a short few days, 800 years of his effort had gone down the drain. How could he possibly take something like that lightly?
However, it was fortunate that it was not all in vain. Over the years, he had managed to gather plenty of crucial intelligence, allowing him to obtain the various items that he required.
At this point, he was just one last step away from success.
If not for that, he would have surely killed the young man before him without any hesitation instead of wasting so many words on him.
“Incarnation of your will?” Zhang Xuan was taken aback from a moment before swiftly coming to a realization.
In his previous battle against Tian Qing, he had found that there was a fatal flaw in the other party’s Primordial Spirit, which made it highly unlikely for the other party to ever reach the Leaving Aperture realm in his lifetime. Back then, he had thought that the other party might have just erred in his cultivation somewhere along the way, but it turned out that… the error was actually fundamental!
As the incarnation of a mere will, it went without saying that the soul was bound to be incomplete. It was already a miracle that Tian Qing could cultivate to the Primordial Spirit realm with an incomplete soul; any further than that was nigh impossible.
Perhaps due to Tian Qing being an incarnation, the Library of Heaven’s Path considered him a separate existence from the Qingtian Emperor, resulting in its inability to draw the links between the two.
From the start to the end, Zhang Xuan had never considered such a possibility before because of the sheer impossibility in it.
A will was effectively a fragment of a soul, so it was fundamentally of the yin attribute. It was fatal for a newborn baby to be plagued with yin energy, and the chances of survival were practically null.
Furthermore, such an incarnation was against the laws of nature, an act that the heavens would not condone. Thus, even if the baby survived by some chance, one would have to pay a heavy price in order to prevent the baby from dying.
As such, even if the occupation that boasted the greatest understanding of souls, the soul oracles, were to attempt to reincarnate a will, it was likely that there would not even be a single successful case out of ten thousand attempts.
Otherwise, Mo Hunsheng would not have been so desperate to fuse together with the Nine Hearts Lotus to gain a new body for himself.
On top of that, a will would automatically go into a dormant state upon reincarnation. There were those who were unable to unlock the memories of their previous life until the moment of their death, thus achieving nothing significant in their lifetime. Such a symptom was known as the Void of Reincarnation.
To make matters worse, the attempt to reincarnate one’s will was also highly damaging to one’s soul. This effectively limited each person to a single attempt in their lifetime.
As such, only those who had been cornered would resort to will reincarnation, hoping that the infinitesimal possibility of success would come their way.
To think that the Qingtian Emperor not only succeeded, but his incarnation grew to become a 7-star pinnacle master teacher, governing the Master Teacher Pavilion of a Conferred Empire? While the Qingtian Emperor must have assisted in some ways, it was still a particularly formidable feat.
The Qingtian Emperor harrumphed coldly. “That’s right. I advise you not to test my patience. Since I have already revealed my identity to you, you should know that unless you submit to me and seal a soul contract with me, there’s no way that you are getting out of this. I’ll put you through endless torture and…”
The reason he fearlessly revealed his identity before the young man was because he did not fear the latter leaking the secret. Everything was within his control.
If the young man attempted anything, it would only take a single thought for him to kill the lad.
“Fine, I’ll submit!” Zhang Xuan interrupted the Qingtian Emperor’s words.
“Ah?” The Qingtian Emperor was taken aback.
Having lived among the humans for many years, he knew how firmly master teachers held onto their beliefs and faith. Considering how arrogant the young man before him was, going to the extent of even crashing the Qingyuan Empire Master Teacher Pavilion upon being accused of siding with the enemy, he had thought that it would be a long fight to get the latter to submit to him. Who knew that the latter would agree to it so heartily?
What happened to the unwavering will that master teachers should have?
The Qingtian Emperor eyed Zhang Xuan suspiciously for a moment before harrumphing coldly. “Words are empty. Offer your soul!”
As skeptical as he was about the young man’s intentions, he knew that once the latter offered his soul to him, there was no way the latter would be able to betray him anymore.
“Of course, of course!” Zhang Xuan nodded. “But before that, I would like to confirm one thing first. Will you really give me a suitable Soulless Metal Humanoid so that I can continue living as I did?”
The Qingtian Emperor waved his hand derisively. “You don’t have to worry about that!”
In the end, it seemed like the young man was just another spineless coward who would abandon his beliefs and faith for his own life.
But again, the threat of death was indeed scary, especially to cultivators who boasted long lives. The older one became, the more vivid one’s fear of death and losing everything they had would become, and not even master teachers were spared from this rule. That was also how You Xu had ended up succumbing to the Otherworldly Demons back then.
“Then…” Zhang Xuan hesitated for a brief moment before mustering his courage to ask, “Can you tell me the method of entering a Soulless Metal Humanoid and let me give it a try first? I want to confirm that there’s indeed a way for me to continue living before I submit to you!”
“This…” the Qingtian Emperor frowned. Somehow, he felt like Zhang Xuan was up to something. However, looking at the young man’s innocent face, he suddenly recalled the memories he had seen in young man’s head earlier, and since it was impossible for the young man to turn the tables against him, he eventually relented with a nod. “Alright then. The method to entering the Soulless Golden Humanoid is very simple…”
The Qingtian Emperor swiftly explained the method to enter and control the Soulless Metal Humanoid.
“Alright, I got it.” Seeing that the other party’s explanation was essentially similar to what he had learned from Mo Hunsheng, Zhang Xuan nodded.
In truth, he had already compiled a Heaven’s Path manual regarding controlling a Soulless Metal Humanoid, and he had even practiced it before. In fact, this was the very method that he had used to place his severed soul into the Nine Hearts Lotus to make his clone.
After which, Zhang Xuan pretended to struggle but to no avail. With a helpless tone, he said, “Set me free for a moment. I want to try entering the Soulless Metal Humanoid.”
“Don’t try to pull anything. I am the one who forged the Soulless Metal Humanoid, so it goes without saying that I have a way to destroy it as well. Don’t naively think that you will be able to go against me just because you have gained a body!” the Qingtian Emperor warned callously.
Zhang Xuan shook his head and sighed deeply. “As a Saint 2-dan cultivator, I won’t be able to tap into the full strength of the Soulless Metal Humanoid no matter how powerful it is. I won’t be a match for you even if I do try to pull something.”
Hearing those words, the Qingtian Emperor hesitated for a moment before eventually nodding.
It seemed like he was really being too jumpy, worrying over the most insignificant of issues.
The other party was right. As a Saint 2-dan cultivator, the other party could not possibly tap into the full strength of the Saint 4-dan Soulless Metal Humanoid. Since that was the case, what did he have to fear?
Thus, with a light flick of his hand, the altar gleamed brilliantly. Following which, Zhang Xuan felt the bindings holding him in place loosening, allowing his soul to move freely.
“Let me give it a try!” Zhang Xuan said as he made his way over to the Soulless Metal Humanoid.
A moment later, the Soulless Metal Humanoid opened its eyes.
Zhang Xuan tried moving in it a little, and it felt no different from controlling a puppet. He could not help but shake his head in disappointment.
It seemed like a Saint 4-dan Soulless Metal Humanoid was still ultimately a mere puppet.
A real human had senses that allowed him to receive information from his surroundings, but a puppet did not. While it was possible for a soul to survive by housing itself within a puppet, it was effectively no different from driving a corpse.
It was no wonder few would choose to learn soul arts despite the great longevity of soul oracles.
There was more to life than to just continue existing. If a cultivator had to live amid the darkness for their entire life, deprived of everything that made them feel alive, perhaps death would have been a better option.
Watching as the young man entered the Soulless Metal Humanoid, the Qingtian Emperor heaved a sigh of relief.
He had attempted to use his words to distract the young man from it, but the fact was that as the creator of the Soulless Metal Humanoid, he wielded absolute control over it. In other words, it was just another cage to encase the young man’s soul. If he willed it so, he could kill the other party whenever he wanted to.
Nevertheless, to be absolutely safe, he still wanted to bind the young man with a soul contract. Thus, he turned to the other party and said, “Now that you have tested the Soulless Metal Humanoid for yourself, it’s about time for you to offer your soul!”
“Alright.” Zhang Xuan nodded. Maneuvering the Soulless Metal Humanoid to the altar, he said, “I’ll be offering my soul to you through this altar then!”
After saying those words, a will slowly rose from the glabella of the Soulless Metal Humanoid.
“Un.” Not expecting the young man to be so active about this issue, the Qingtian Emperor nodded in approval. He also walked up to the altar and drew his soul out of his body.
As he cultivated the soul cultivation techniques from the soul oracles, his soul harnessed incomparably frigid yin energy, leaving others not daring to approach.
The foundation of a soul oracle lay in their soul, so it would be better to bind the young man’s soul to his soul instead of his body.
“Start the ritual!” the Qingtian Emperor declared loudly.
He had thought that it would take more effort to deal with this young man, but it seemed like the other party was still too young and inexperienced.
Once the soul contract was sealed, he would be able to peer into the other party’s thoughts. By then, the other party would dare not to formulate the slightest thought of rebellion.
“Alright!” Zhang Xuan nodded.
He maneuvered his Soulless Metal Humanoid to walk around the altar before abruptly slapping its palm on the altar.
Weng!
The inscriptions suddenly lit up, and a powerful suction force drew in the soul of the Qingtian Emperor, wanting to devour it whole.
Horrified by the changes, the Qingtian Emperor exclaimed, “H-how do you know the method to triggering the altar?”
