Chapter 1133: I Quite Like the Rights and Duties of a Citizen

Space boomed, and rule-runes blossomed forth.

Amidst endless radiance, the Immortal Gate's fleet of hundreds of millions of warships vanished from sight.

In their place remained only a roiling stretch of starry sky; the shattered space was slowly mending, having already lost the basic conditions for another leap within the short term.

A cosmic space-storm rose at its head, rippling outward in all directions.

The Immortal Gate's citizen fleet was rushing to the battlefield, fighting for the Immortal Gate to seize land beneath the sun, spirit veins beneath the sun, longer lifespans for the Immortal Gate's citizens, and a bright future between the realms.

In the starry sky, only two people remained.

Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun and Dayang Master Dinghai Zhenjun watched the departing citizen fleet in long silence, silently offering blessings in their hearts.

This departure carried away over ninety percent of the Immortal Gate's strength, encompassing virtually all of its elite citizen cultivators; should they be defeated, the consequences were simply unimaginable.

But there was no choice.

Within the endless star domains existed the cold law of the dark forest; for individual cultivators and for factions alike, not advancing meant retreating.

If the Immortal Gate retreated, the Xianzong would reap enormous war-profits, its power surging, and a Dao Merging cultivator would appear—and then the Immortal Gate would perish.

The Immortal Gate could not retreat!

"Yawn…"

Sleepiness gradually crept over Jiang Ding's heart.

He felt a powerful urge to sleep, but forced himself to stay awake and chatted with Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun for a while, mainly to inquire about the current situation in the realms, since this concerned his safety during his slumber.

"Currently, the flashpoint of the war is in the Jiao Jiao Mingyu—this is beyond doubt."

Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun strictly verified Jiang Ding's clearance, then said: "The Jiuling Domain has successfully captured an opportunity to annihilate several ancient emperors of the Horned Demon Imperial Clan in a single strike, and is about to carry it out. Once the ambush on several ancient emperors is complete, the human cultivators of the Jiuling Domain will be completely exposed in the eyes of the Horned Demon Imperial Clan."

"At that time, the Jiuling Domain coalition will strike directly at the Horned Demon Imperial Clan's Zhong Senior Qian Shi Gao Jie, striving to destroy this ruling core of the Jiao Jiao Mingyu in a single blow."

"If everything goes smoothly, that is how it will be."

"If it does not go smoothly, the ninety-percent-or-greater chance of mishap lies in the Horned Demon Imperial Clan's Dao Merging methods, or simply in some old fossil who has been slumbering for ages—a Dao Merging cultivator—suddenly popping out at the moment of the clan's life-and-death crisis. All of these are possible."

"This is precisely why we have been so exceedingly cautious."

"One only has one life; no amount of caution is excessive. If the Immortal Gate's power had not been continuously growing, giving those eight great powers a tremendous sense of threat, the battle plan might well have been postponed by hundreds or even thousands of years."

When Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun spoke of Dao Merging, he was solemn, but not afraid; his tone was calm.

"Does the Jiuling Domain have the ability to face a Dao Merging cultivator?"

Jiang Ding asked.

In the Xian Dao Shi Gao Jie, the essence often gathered entirely at the apex; if the apex cannot be resolved, then wiping out all the living force in the middle and lower tiers is useless.

(quantity) all annihilated is useless.

"Yes."

"Back when Zou Zou Xiyuan burned her essence blood, she herself was a Dao Merging-level combatant."

Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun said calmly: "However, this requires the Jiudaxian Sect to trust one another completely, to cooperate fully… In reality, whether we can actually bring forth Dao Merging strength, we do not know."

"Nor do we know how strong any Dao Merging powerhouse the Horned Demon Imperial Clan might possess actually is."

"If that possibly-existing Jiao Ming Emperor is an extraordinarily powerful cultivator even among those who have achieved Dao Merging, then we must accept the fate of destruction."

His voice was calm and full of resignation, not truly believing that destiny was forever on his side.

Therefore, the related contingency plans for escape, the seed-preservation schemes, had never had any reduction in investment; on the contrary, in recent years additional resources had been poured in continuously, with massive quantities of heavenly materials and earthly treasures invested in Facheng.

This was also the reason he had sincerely advised Dayang Master Dinghai Zhenjun to stay behind earlier.

A quasi-Void Refinement cultivator held little meaning on the battlefield.

This was a life-and-death struggle between races, one that might involve Dao Merging methods; it was better to remain in the Immortal Gate, to guard against the unexpected, so that at the most dangerous moment at least one seed of restoration could be preserved.

"Understood."

Jiang Ding let out a long sigh.

If the enemy was an extraordinarily powerful existence even among Dao Merging cultivators, then both the Badaxian Sect and the Immortal Gate would perish.

The Badaxian Sect had no Dao Merging methods or foundations passed down from any source.

Jiang Ding, who possessed the complete inheritance of the Dayang Sword Pavilion, was very clear on this point.

When great powers of the Near-Immortal level in the Upper Realm faced imminent destruction, they would scatter seeds toward the distant cosmic starry sky through grand divine methods; apart from excellent inheritances, these seeds had nothing special about them.

The main reliance was on volume, on numbers, on the unknown, to allow the inheritance to continue.

The strength of the seeds was not the most important thing.

Because even the strongest mountain gates were already in dire peril; if various life-preserving measures were forcibly added, the surge in consumption would greatly reduce the numerical advantage, lowering the possibility of the sect's inheritance continuing.

Jiang Ding chatted with Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun for a while about research matters, and they each took their leave.

Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun was now the Immortal Gate's de facto acting ruler, managing the operations of the Immortal Gate's mother planet and its twenty-six Minor Thousand Worlds; he was always very busy and had little leisure.

Jiang Ding's divine sense entered the network, briefly scanning the Immortal Gate's Immortal Dao technological developments over the years.

After receiving the Dayang inheritance, the Immortal Gate's Immortal Dao research had enjoyed three hundred years of rapid development; breakthroughs had come in every area—treasures, materials, battle formations, Gong Fa techniques—and the most brilliant achievement among them was the advancement to Void Refinement.

However, at this point, all these rapidly developing Immortal Dao projects had stalled, and progress in every field had become extremely slow.

For no other reason than that the vast majority of the Immortal Gate's research elites had set off for

the battlefield.

There was no helping it; in the Xian Dao Shi Gao Jie, the strong and the Immortal Dao scientist were one and the same—great strength and profound learning coexisted.

A cultivator of weaker ability could not even read spirit-texts, let alone conduct research.

Those tales of a mortal guiding a Soul Transformation Canghai Tianjun and astonishing them as a prodigy only ever appeared in storybooks—and the cheap kind at that.

"Yawn…"

The drowsiness in Jiang Ding's divine soul grew ever heavier, surging in like tides, wave upon wave without end.

He staggered step by step into Dayang Dayang Tianchi, returning once more to the slumber-ground of the Dayang Sword Child, and began to circulate the secret art, letting himself enter the state of deep slumber.

"Sword Child!"

"Please don't wake up midway again."

"This is far too harmful to your Dao, the consequences are terrible!"

Yue urged him repeatedly, very angrily: "You are embodying a Heaven-Dao-like birthing order! It's like a ten-month pregnancy — have you ever heard of a fetus developing halfway in its mother's womb, then crawling out and coming back?!!!!"

"What's going on with the Eastern Extreme Demon Sect?"

"Are they on the verge of being wiped out, in need of a Nascent Soul cultivator to save them?"

Yue was truly beside herself with fury.

"You now need at least another eight hundred years of slumber to smoothly complete the growth of the Sword World. So many dangers have appeared out of nowhere — this is the most critical moment for laying the foundation!"

"Please don't wake up midway again!!"

Yue sternly warned him, doing her utmost to tell Jiang Ding of the terrible consequences of doing so.

"Sorry for making you worry."

"Yue, this is a citizen's right and duty."

Jiang Ding grew sleepier and sleepier, his consciousness blurring, and murmured drowsily: "No one has rights without duties — that's the price of equality. It's not all benefit; I quite like this clear division of rights and responsibilities…"

"A little risk, I don't really mind…"

His voice gradually grew faint.

The last thread of Jiang Ding's lucid consciousness sent out a command — one issued to his own avatar.

Go find the Imperial Son of the Bone-Vine Blood-Demon Clan, who once contended with the Horned Demon Imperial Clan for the dominion of the realm, and obtain from her as much detail as possible about how the Horned Demon Imperial Clan achieved victory in the war for realm dominion, then submit it, to provide reference for the decision-making of the Immortal Gate's strategic planning department as best as possible.