Gu Qing Shan raised his hand and gestured to her by pushing it down, saying: “Lower your voice”
——after all, this was still the officer’s residential ward, which meant it was best not to cause issues.
Shan Hai Qi Xia understood and lowered her voice, quickly speaking:
“That’s impossible. Who exactly are you? Regardless of who you are, you couldn’t possibly have killed the War Shaman”
She appeared completely at a loss, unable to even think of what she needed to do.
I’ve been seen through.
He knows what I did.
——-if the other party was the War Shaman, knowing that I killed his wife, he would definitely skin me alive and cut off my tendons, torturing me to his heart’s content before killing me.
With the War Shaman’s strength, I would be helpless to even resist.
But he claims not to be the War Shaman, but a mortal that killed the War Shaman——-
That’s even more impossible!
Gu Qing Shan smiled, then asked her in return: “Haven’t you also gotten rid of the monster that wanted to substitute you? Why could you do it, but I could not?”
Shan Hai Qi Xia stared straight at him, then decisively admitted: “Because when I did it, it took the joint effort of all humans from the Tomb of Myriad Beasts, including my father paying the price of his life for a single chance to ambush the sneaky ambusher”
Gu Qing Shan had seen the entire process from her memory, so he praised: “I knew that you had been able to notice it early on. Unfortunately, these monsters were too powerful, otherwise, you wouldn’t have had to pay such a heavy price”
Thousands of years ago, some top human Combatants began to notice the substitution, but as they couldn’t possibly win by force, they had no choice but to silently remain patient, looking for the method to deal with the monsters wherever they could.
They failed many times.
Only this time, using the Causality restraints between a father and his daughter, paying the great price of Shan Hai Qi Xia father’s life and soul, as well as other Tomb of Myriad Beasts Combatants from the previous generation, they managed to activate a series of Causality Skills to ultimately kill that monster.
Shan Hai Qi Xia’s expression was very serious as she spoke in a solemn voice:
“I was the only person who successfully killed the substituted monster, in the Tomb of Myriad Beasts as a whole, the future of every human rests on my shoulder”
She stared closely at Gu Qing Shan and continued: “Please tell me, who exactly are you? And how did you kill that War Shaman?”
Gu Qing Shan sat still.
From the void of space behind him, two swords silently appeared, then disappeared again in an instant.
The twin swords Heaven and Earth.
Seeing these two swords, Shan Hai Qi Xia was stunned.
She appeared immersed in memory, muttering: “These swords… look very familiar…”
After a few moments, she recalled how a certain person managed to infiltrate her sect, wielding these two swords in their hands.
Shan Hai Qi Xia calmed herself down, asking in a low voice:
“The twin swords Heaven and Earth… are you Gu Qing Shan?”
“I am” Gu Qing Shan replied.
Gu Qing Shan once travelled through time, returning to the Age of Old to fight against the three Deities, eventually obtaining the twin swords Heaven and Earth for himself.
If it is him, there certainly is a chance of getting rid of the War Shaman.
But then——
Shan Hai Qi Xia raised her voice again: “What did you do to Li Qiu Shan? Is he hurt?”
Gu Qing Shan silently nodded, then replied with a gentle expression: “From the beginning, Li Qiu Shan had been me”
“You turned into Li Qiu Shan and entered our School of Shan Hai?”
“That’s right”
Gu Qing Shan thought a bit, then told her the entire story of how he saved the young master of the School of Fei Yu, then accidentally made his way to the Tomb of Myriad Beasts.
Shan Hai Qi Xia asked with a strange expression: “In other words, you originally wanted to disguise as a Wraith realm person to infiltrate the Wraith realm?”
Gu Qing Shan sighed: “That’s right, who knew something like this would happen instead, this is a headache for me too”
“What do you intend to do now?” Shan Hai Qi Xia asked.
Gu Qing Shan slowly replied: “This great tomb is concerned with many things; its secrets run extremely deep. The people of the Wraith realm had also entered the tomb to try and obtain the Delimitation Artifact, so I naturally can’t just sit still and watch——- and also, like I just said, I’m on your side”
Shan Hai Qi Xia observed his eyes, then said: “I heard that cultivators respect going against the heavens, taking the wonders of heaven and earth for themselves to use. So in your eyes, those monsters should only be seeking to survive, you would not specifically take our side”
Gu Qing Shan chuckled: “You probably heard too much gossips about cultivators that you have the wrong impression of us”
“I’m all ears” Shan Hai Qi Xia replied.
Gu Qing Shan leaned on the back of his chair, telling her: “We cultivators are merely normal people like you; however, during the process of our cultivation and breakthroughs, the old man in heaven is always sending down lightning to strike us down, if we aren’t killed by lightning, other tribulations would follow to test us again and again——- we can’t just sit still and wait to be killed, so we retaliated. That’s what the so-called ‘going against the heavens’ actually is”
“I think that anyone else would go against the heavens as well if they were put in our case”
Shan Hai Qi Xia replied: “You mean, you aren’t sympathetic to those monsters?”
Gu Qing Shan sighed and replied: “This is the age of the Apocalypse, everyone has the right to try and survive, but they originally could have done much better”
Shan Hai Qi Xia was confused by his answer, muttering: “You’re saying——”
Gu Qing Shan replied: “They could have very easily told the truth, discussed it, then reach a consensus with your people”
Shan Hai Qi Xia solemnly replied: “Consensus? We would never have given our bodies to—–”
Gu Qing Shan waved his hand to cut her off, then continued: “I’m not saying that you should have surrendered yourselves, but rather they could have used their power and inheritance as a bargaining chip, offering to help you become stronger, while you choose irredeemable criminals of your worlds for them to use as bodies”
“This way, they would have escaped from the apocalyptic seal, you would have received great knowledge inheritance while also punishing those criminals. This way, peace and order would have grown better over time, everyone would be happy, society would thrive, humans and monsters would live in harmony, joining hands against the Apocalypse——– but they didn’t choose this option that would strike multiple birds with one arrow. Instead, they schemed and plotted, took advantage of your desires to grow stronger, used their inheritance as a tool to take over your bodies, that truly was—— how should I say this?”
Pondering for a bit, Gu Qing Shan commented: “Unreasonable, and looking down on people too much”
Shan Hai Qi Xia froze when she heard that.
Since when has this world been reasonable?
In this age of ravaging Apocalypses, who would waste the time to be reasonable?
She considered herself to have gone through much hardship and seen the harshness of the world, yet never predicted that Gu Qing Shan would answer like this.
However, on further thoughts, could any normal person have achieved any of the feats that this sword cultivator had been able to?
Perhaps, those with strength always have a different way of thinking compared to others.
If he agrees to help…
Shan Hai Qi Xia thought about it, then suddenly asked: “Sword Saint Gu, even after killing the War Shaman, you still hadn’t left. Then, other than going against the Wraiths, what else do you intend to do?”
Gu Qing Shan replied: “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there, just know that I’m not going to be your enemy”
Shan Hai Qi Xia immediately pursued that: “Then, are you truly on our side? If we fight against the monsters, if we are defeated by them, would you act for the sake of we humans from the Tomb of Myriad Beasts?”
Before even finishing her words, she had knelt down again—— this time on both knees in front of Gu Qing Shan, clutching his hand with both of her hands: “I am the only person to have ever won against a monster, but the only thing I can do right now is to protect myself, unable to shelter anyone from the School”
“I can only watch as Chun Dao, Wang Shun, the entire Western Sea Grotto, the entirety of the Tomb of Myriad Beasts’ humanity slowly descend into the abyss. The only future available to them is to be tossed into the Apocalypse by those monsters, then get their bodies taken over”
Two streams of tears silently flowed down Shan Hai Qi Xia’s eyes; sniffling, she continued: “I have already done everything in my power, but one hand cannot make a clap, and I truly am helpless”
“Gu Qing Shan, you were able to kill the War Shaman. Surely, you have other ways to fight against these monsters, I beg you, please help me!”
Her beautiful facial features displayed a sense of lonely despair filled with a single last ray of hope.
She clutched Gu Qing Shan’s hand tightly, waiting for an answer.
Gu Qing Shan watched her blankly, even forgetting what he was about to say.
That expression, how familiar it is, so familiar that it has been already carved into my heart.
In a blur, that hoarse voice seemed to resound by his ears from the depths of his memories—-
…
“Is anyone there?”
“Is anyone there to take this sword?”
…
Before the Immortal King’s death, his expression was filled with despair, his eyes shedding tears of blood as he swung the sword all around.
It wasn’t just the Immortal King.
Every cultivator who laid down their lives on the battlefield, those previous comrades of his past…
At the very last moments of their lives, their expressions were all the exact same.
For countless years, now and before, humanity had never only just fought against the encroaching Apocalypse, but also the various schemes and plotting of powerful monsters.
During the Age of Old, the Soul Shrieker once took control of both the Divine race and the Desolate monsters, forcing humanity to forge the twin swords Heaven and Earth for it.
And now, these tomb monsters were directly taking over the bodies of humans, using this to escape their own Apocalypses.
The survival of humanity was something they needn’t worry about in the first place.
The history of humanity’s existence had always been an elegy filled with tears of blood.
——-when exactly can this situation be changed?
These people, how can they ultimately be saved?
For some reason, Gu Qing Shan recalled a moment from the Age of Old, within the Desolate Cloud Heavenly Palace, when Xie Gu Hong took him in as his disciple, the words he said at the time:
…
“…a child like you is indeed rare. Today I will take you as my disciple, in hope that one day you will reach your Dao, to put all injustice down for Humanity”
…
Recalling that scene, from the void of space behind Gu Qing Shan, sword after sword silently appeared.
Chao Yin.
Six Paths Great Mountain.
Heaven.
Earth.
The four swords lightly hovered behind his back, all giving off a faint vibration.
Gu Qing Shan regained his senses, then turned to Shan Hai Qi Xia.
He looked straight into her eyes, lightly stating: “There are many injustices in this world; as sword cultivators when we see injustice, we quell them with our swords”
