“You were found by the Nalan family?” asked Ding Hao thoughtfully.
The Clay Bodhisattva nodded and said, “Although Nalan Xingde is immoral, he is an ambitious man who is extremely cautious and shrewd. I was very careful, but still, he found me. When I returned home that day, his men were already there. They threatened the safety of my family. I had no choice but to submit and serve him.”
“You possess the ability to divine all the secrets of Heaven,” Ding Hao said doubtfully, “How can you not know that such a thing would happen?”
The Clay Bodhisattva gave a wry smile and said, “Yes, I can divine all the secrets of Heaven. This is either a gift or a curse. At first, I too felt that being able to see through all the secrets of the world was something worth showing off. I even divined the lifespan of the God Emperor himself. I played dice with Life and Death like a god, toying with Fate and disrupting its natural flow with mere words from my lips. I have little strength, but I felt powerful. Omnipotent even, until the day I found out that there was a price to pay to reverse and leak the secrets of heaven…”
“What price?” asked Ding Hao.
“Heavenly Punishment,” the Clay Bodhisattva slowly said the two words which could give anyone who heard him a creepy chill.
“What Heavenly Punishment?” asked Ding Hao.
The Clay Bodhisattva hesitated for a moment and then slowly took off the pale golden mask from his face. Ding Hao found himself staring into an extremely horrifying face all of a sudden.
“What kind of face is that?”
Ding Hao might have experienced countless weird things before and was used to the morbid sights of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, but he still felt extremely disgusted and was about to vomit at that moment.
The Clay Bodhisattva looked as if someone had smashed a handful of mud into his face and the surface of what would be his flesh looked like melted leather, bubbling and churning very slowly. Fine and dense worm-like tendrils constantly oozed out of the grotesquely crumpled mass that was his face making his eyes, his nose, and his lips the only few semblances of a real human. Anyone could stare into his face and have nightmares. One look into such a hideous face could easily invoke hellish nightmares.
“How could… that be?” Ding Hao was greatly shocked.
The Clay Bodhisattva slowly put the pale golden mask back on and said, “This is Heavenly Punishment. My face began to change 16 years ago. Every day, I would feel a sharp pain in my face every other two hours if someone was slicing my face with a knife or pressing a scorching brand into my face. People who have never experienced it could never imagine this kind of pain. This is also the reason why I began to live in seclusion. I couldn’t bear this kind of torture. After that, I stopped using my power of divination. This is my penance.”
Ding Hao didn’t know what to say.
It was just too terrifying.
To be able to survive until now, the Clay Bodhisattva definitely had super strong willpower. No wonder when he was at his peak, he suddenly chose to live in seclusion and disappeared from everyone’s sight.
“Later, I stopped practicing divination. In the past dozen or so years, this kind of pain was gradually fading away. Unfortunately, this time, Nalan Xingde could threaten me with something, so I had to perform divination again. The power of the Heavenly Punishment is more terrible especially when I divined the whereabouts of the Immortal Artifact which is an extremely rare treasure. My face got much worse in less than a month, and it became what it is now.” the Clay Bodhisattva seemed to be sighing for his own fate and said, “The Heavenly Punishment this time is too terrifying. I can’t live for too long.”
Hearing this, Ding Hao was also filled with apprehension.
He knew that although the Clay Bodhisattva looked calm, the latter must be suffering great pain at this time. The Clay Bodhisattva was suffering unimaginable pain every minute and every second.
After a pause, Ding Hao changed the topic.
“You knew a long time from your divination that the so-called Immortal Artifact was the power contained in Youxia’s body? How could this be? Youxia is obviously a living person. How could he become an Immortal Artifact?” asked Ding Hao in confusion.
The Clay Bodhisattva smiled and said, “Now that I’m destined to die from the Heavenly Punishment, I spent almost all my efforts on this divination. Finally, I found from my divination the whereabouts of the so-called Immortal Artifact… In this world, the most powerful weapon is not an artifact, but a creature. The rules of heaven and earth and the power of creation can create creatures with flesh and blood. Therefore, the Immortal Artifact that represents the power of the rules and creation can certainly be a body of flesh and blood. This is a magical process that is almost like the creation of the world. The power of the rules and creation descends onto this world through a body of flesh and blood. The herb girl of the Heavenly Wasteland Tribe giving birth to a baby is the result of creation. Of course, it’s just a coincidence. Even if it’s not the herb girl, it could also be someone else.”
Ding Hao nodded thoughtfully.
“Well, since it’s the last performance, it must be more wonderful. So I simply tried my best to cooperate with Nalan Xingde and set up the Dragon Roar Heavenly Tactical Deployment. I used all kinds of means to hide the truth from the divination of the God’s Palace and other forces. I covered up the secrets of the Immortal Artifact and mislead them so that the divination masters of the God’s Palace and the masters of other sects all made mistakes in their divination. That’s why strange changes occurred in the Saint-alighting Mountain Range.”
When the Clay Bodhisattva said this, he was very confident and he sounded almost conceited.
In this respect, he was a well-deserved king. No one could surpass him, let alone challenge him.
“Did you arrange everything in the Saint-alighting Mountain Range?” Ding Hao was shocked.
If everything about the Gold Divine Halls, the Gold Thrones, and Mount Immortal Tao was really arranged by the Clay Bodhisattva, it would be too horrible. What kind of power was that? It was comparable to the originator of the world. It could not be explained only by the divination technique.
The Clay Bodhisattva shook his head and said, “Of course not. If I had that kind of power, who else in the world could threaten me? The power of the Heavenly Punishment would not fall on me. Everything that happened in the Saint-alighting Mountain Range was the effect of the power of the rules between heaven and earth. It was the evolution of the will of this world. It was only formed after being guided by an existence equal to the dominator of an epoch. According to Nalan Youxia’s original fate, he should have appeared on Mount Immortal Tao. I changed the position of Nalan Youxia when he should be on Mount Immortal Tao using the technique of fate changing and reversed everything that would happen. That’s all.”
Ding Hao took a deep breath and was still very shocked.
Although what the Clay Bodhisattva said was simple, how could it be so easy to change someone’s fate? The fate related to the Immortal Artifact was almost irreversible. If one wanted to change it, he must pay a huge price and master the peerless magical power unknown to gods and ghosts.
No one else was able to do so.
This was something terrible about the No. 1 divination master in the world.
“So, you have already known that I would show up and how things end up at this moment?” asked Ding Hao.
The Clay Bodhisattva nodded and then shook his head. He said, “I can only roughly know what will happen from my divination. I just vaguely saw that someone would replace Nalan Xingde. Nalan Xingde is not virtuous enough to be a man of good fortune. He is not the fated one. As for whom the fated one is, I can’t figure it out through divination because this man’s fate has an abnormal aura. Everything about him is in chaos and is unpredictable. The degree of disorder is deeper than that of the Immortal Artifact…”
Speaking of this, the Clay Bodhisattva looked at Ding Hao with a little curiosity.
His meaning was very obvious. Ding Hao was a man with an abnormal fate. Even he could not find out anything about Ding Hao through divination. The degree of complexity and disorder was actually deeper than that of the Immortal Artifact.
Ding Hao frowned. He did not speak.
He knew that there were too many mysteries about him.
“You should have seen that Chu would be forced to death by Nalan Xingde and Youxia’s life would also be in danger. Why didn’t you try to change their fate a little?” said Ding Hao.
The Clay Bodhisattva looked at Ding Hao as if looking at something strange. After a pause, he said, “In the potential future that I have seen, this is the best result. Fate is like a long river. The fall of a small stone will cause countless unpredictable ripples. Although I can see the future, I can’t grasp everything. I can’t do everything.”
Ding Hao had nothing to say.
He knew what the Clay Bodhisattva had said was right.
Perhaps in the original future, the fates of Chu and Nalan Youxia were even more miserable. The result after the change might be many times better than the original one. At least, the souls of Chu and Youxia were still alive.
“Let’s talk about Youxia’s current state. Has he completely transformed into an Immortal Artifact?” Ding Hao looked at the silly boy in silver armor, who looked like a sculpture, next to him with some concern. He asked worriedly, “Will he only be like this from now on?”
“Of course not. He is now just in an unstable state. He can’t control very well the power in his body.” the Clay Bodhisattva said, “After a while, he will slowly recover his previous state and also be able to control his own power at will.”
Ding Hao felt a little relieved. He thought of something and hurriedly asked, “What about Chu? What about her? Can she return to her own body?”
“This… is very difficult.” the Clay Bodhisattva said, “The girl’s divine soul has been absorbed into the Immortal Artifact. When she prayed, she consumed too much soul power. The loss of her three souls and seven spirits was too great. Without the Immortal Artifact, she would have lost her soul and could never reincarnate. Fortunately, the Immortal Artifact kept her broken soul, so a trace of divine awareness was left. For her, it is the best state to be stored in the Immortal Artifact.”
When Ding Hao heard this, the light in his eyes dimmed.
The news was really cruel.
That was to say, from now on, Nalan Youxia’s body had to contain his and his sister’s souls and consciousness. It meant one body with two souls.
“You must remember that the power of the Immortal Artifact is not eternal.” the Clay Bodhisattva suddenly pointed at Nalan Youxia and said, “After all, it is a physical body that contains the power of the immortal, so it will have a limit. For example, my divination power will bring forth another Heavenly Punishment. If you use the power of the Immortal Artifact excessively, it will also bring a Heavenly Punishment to Nalan Youxia and consume his vitality. Once the life of Nalan Youxia is exhausted, it will be the time for the Immortal Artifact to break down and return to the power of creation and the rules.”
“What?”
Ding Hao was stunned and immediately understood the meaning of the Clay Bodhisattva’s words.
The Clay Bodhisattva was clearly reminding him not to abuse the power of the Immortal Artifact in Nalan Youxia. It was just like a battery. If he consumed too much power, there would be a day when the power would be used up. At that time, everything would be over.
When Nalan Youxia’s lifespan was exhausted, he and Chu would die at the same time.
