Chapter 410: Chapter 409: There is Still Hope for the Future
When Bai Hongtu knew that he had been summoned back to Jiuzhou, he understood that he had no chance to enter the River of Time.
Jiang Li had come back from the River of Time, there was no point for him to even attempt.
“How did you return from the River of Time?” Bai Hongtu asked curiously.
“I met the ancestor of the Ji family, Emperor Shun, who sent me back. You certainly didn’t expect what I did in the River of Time.” Jiang Li boasted, trying to impress them with his experience.
“You went back tens of thousands of years and fought in the Immortal Realm?” Bai Hongtu asked.
Jiang Li: “…”
He didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Didn’t you say you were looking for the Immortal? Let’s go. Once we get to him, you can share your historical insights.”
Yu Yin said and unceremoniously entered the Dao Sect. Jiang Li and Bai Hongtu followed behind, making it seem as if Yu Yin was the Master of the Dao Sect.
“Immortal, we have come to visit you again.” Jiang Li called out as if visiting a lonely old man, entering the Sealing Self Cave.
The Eternal Immortal was engrossed in his world of books. Upon hearing Jiang Li’s voice, he closed his book and chuckled, “What do you mean visit? Didn’t you come here with questions?”
“Quite a few people have come back this time, Hongtu and Xiaoyin too. Make yourselves at home. There’s only books in my cave so, I don’t have much to offer.”
Remembering the Eternal Immortal he had just seen, who had aged from youth to old age over nine thousand years, Jiang Li was slightly moved.
“Immortal, we recently visited a world where people do cultivate to be immortals but have different abilities. The Heavenly Demons rarely infiltrate there.”
Upon hearing this, the Eternal Immortal quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
As long as there were no Heavenly Demons it was fine. Every time Jiang Li came to him, it somehow always revolved around the Heavenly Demons. He had expended quite a bit of effort to maintain the connection to the previously fabricated lies.
“However, there is someone in that world who possesses the ability to manipulate time; at the risk of their own life, they sent me into the River of Time.”
Jiang Li looked at the Eternal Immortal with a smirk, “Immortal, want to guess which era I went to?”
“I visited Jiuzhou nine thousand years ago. I witnessed the process of the ladder to Immortalhood being destroyed and also learned about the origins of the Heavenly Demons.”
“Is that so?” The Eternal Immortal smiled reluctantly. He could barely maintain his composure anymore, breaking out in a cold sweat. He hadn’t expected Jiang Li to reveal this much all at once.
There’s no way he could round off the truth this time.
“Isn’t it commonly known that the Heavenly Demons destroyed the ladder to Immortalhood? What’s so surprising about that?” Bai Hongtu asked, confused.
“You’re mistaken. It was the Ancestor who destroyed the ladder to Immortalhood.”
“What?” Bai Hongtu was shocked, “You mean the Ancestor of the Immortal Realm destroyed it?”
“You can say that the ladder to Immortalhood was destroyed by the Dao Sect’s Ancestor or by the Immortal Realm’s Ancestor. The Dao Sect’s Ancestor was one of the three corpses of the Immortal Realm’s Ancestor. After the Immortal Realm’s Ancestor integrated his three corpses, he crushed the ladder to Immortalhood.”
“Then the Immortal Realm’s Ancestor left Jiuzhou, destroyed the last ladder to Immortalhood in the Ten Thousand Realms which was in the Ming Zhong World, and then went into eternal rest there.”
Bai Hongtu stood abruptly, “Are you saying that the Immortal Realm’s Ancestor is dead?! The Heavenly Demons are so powerful now? Does that mean the Heavenly Demons have already invaded the Immortal Realm!”
Yu Yin also looked serious. The news Jiang Li brought was earth-shattering. If the Immortal Realm had been invaded by the Heavenly Demons, even if the ladder to Immortalhood was rebuilt in the future, no one would dare go to the Immortal Realm. No one could become an immortal.
The Immortal Realm had become the main base of the Heavenly Demons.
“In actuality, there are no Heavenly Demons.”
“There are no Heavenly Demons? What does this mean?”
“You should have seen the stele left by the Ancestor of the Bell Ringing World where the words are barely legible.”
“Of course, the stele says that the Ancestor encountered an enemy, was seriously injured, and left the Immortal Realm. The Immortal speculated that a conflict had happened within the Immortal Realm which affected our Ancestor of the Dao Sect. Now that I think about it, the Immortal’s speculation must have been wrong.”
“I saw the complete stele.”
Without saying much about himself, Jiang Li projected the phantom of the stele into the air.
“…Heavenly Dao produced sapience…All cultivators below the level of Immortal in the Immortal Realm died…Earth Immortals devoured each other and became various forms of monsters…Is the description of the Earth Immortals here not the Heavenly Demons?!”
“Ancestor, what’s really going on?”
The Eternal Immortal sighed, “Jiang Li, knowing the truth to yourself would have been enough, why do you have to say it out loud?”
The Eternal Immortal knew that the truth could not be hidden any longer.
When he first fabricated the story of the Heavenly Demons, there were quite a few people who doubted him. As time progressed, the people of that era gradually perished in battles. In the end, only he and the Old Buddha of Sumeru survived.
After Jiang Li killed the Old Buddha of Sumeru, he was the only one remaining.
As the only survivor from that era, naturally, whatever he said was taken as the truth. Until now, no one questioned the origin of the Heavenly Demons.
Although Jiang Li had doubts, they remained just that. He was adamant about maintaining his previous statements, and there was nothing Jiang Li could do about it.
The Eternal Immortal never expected that Jiang Li could visit the River of Time, much less travel back to nine thousand years ago.
Even Ji Zhi could only go back three hundred years. How did Jiang Li do it?
Did the River of Time not obstruct him?
If he could, the Eternal Immortal would hope to take the secret of the Heavenly Demons to his grave without letting a second person know the truth.
Knowing the truth would bring no benefits to Jiuzhou. It was like this nine thousand years ago, and it remained the same nine thousand years later.
Just as he had repeatedly discouraged Jiang Li in the past, if he could avoid ascending to the higher realm, he should not. If they could avoid opposing the Immortal Realm, they should not.
Given Jiang Li’s character, if he went to the Immortal Realm, conflict was inevitable.
No matter how strong Jiang Li was, he was not stronger than the Immortal Realm. It was impossible for one person to resist the Immortal Realm with his own strength.
Even as strong as his master, who stood at the end of the immortal path after integrating his three corpses, he ended up being killed.
Seeing that the Immortal wasn’t speaking, Jiang Li explained to the others, “There are no so-called Heavenly Demons in the world. What we call Heavenly Demons are nothing but Immortals.”
“For the past nine thousand years, what we’ve been killing are not demons, but Immortals.”
“The Earth Immortals became monsters, rampaging through Jiuzhou, while the Heavenly Immortals submitted to the Heavenly Dao and made their arrangements across the Ten Thousand Realms.”
“Perhaps when the ladder to Immortalhood was crushed by the Ancestor, the Immortal had become aware of the changes in the Immortal Realm. He could not reveal the truth at that time. Nine thousand years ago, there weren’t many cultivators wanting to maintain order. More of them believed in their supremacy and aimed to harness the world’s resources for their own cultivation.”
“The aim of cultivation is to become an immortal. With the disappearance of the Immortal Realm, becoming an immortal became hopeless. Revealing the truth would cause cultivators to despair, thus accelerating the destruction of Jiuzhou.”
“The Immortal created the lie of the Heavenly Demons for the sake of Jiuzhou.”
“Jiang Li, since you already know the reason, why did you reveal the truth?”
Jiang Li replied seriously, “Because the Ancestor entrusted me with a mission.”
Jiang Li showed the Eternal Immortal the scene of the Ancestor’s last moments.
In the scene, the Ancestor, dragging his broken body in his dying moments, told Jiang Li, who came from the future and was even stronger than him, that there was hope in the future.
Seeing this, the Eternal Immortal’s vision blurred. He covered his face and wept uncontrollably. Whether it was because he saw his master’s death, was venting the loneliness he endured silently for nine thousand years, or both, wasn’t certain.
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