Chapter 1623: A Sovereign Doomed to Die

This village, the countless mortals and countless cultivators of the Immortal Artifact Sect all live this way.

Women become flesh-and-blood trees, efficiently reproducing in great numbers; men become miners, farmers, digging ore and tilling fields for the Immortal Artifact Sect, dying after ten years, once again nourishing the earth and providing resentment.

All of this requires no expenditure of spiritual energy whatsoever, and can continue indefinitely.

While brutally oppressing living beings, the Immortal Artifact Sect also places extraordinary emphasis on nature and harmony.

All production, all smelting, follows natural laws completely, never draining the pond to catch all the fish; those resentment-black smokes are all collected to become artifact-refining materials, never polluting the environment, never turning the sky a hazy gray, never letting foul water run across the land, never leaving stench everywhere, never wiping out living beings.

This land is so fertile.

This sky is so clear and washed-clean.

This place called Black Iron Domain 29 — its environment is improving, its spiritual vein grade is rising extremely slowly, its future prospects boundless, even drawing closer to the Upper Domain.

Everything, it seems, is beautiful.

"Heaven's Favor!"

"Heaven's Favor, Heaven's Favor…"

Jiang Ding gazed at the sky and said coldly, "The Immortal Artifact Sect possesses Heaven's Favor — the Favor of the Great Thousand Worlds' consciousness. How truly enviable, how truly admirable…"

"Immortal Artifact Sect."

"Truly a fine, highly efficient civilization…"

Jiang Ding said lightly.

In this world, which is more important — the Heavenly Dao or the Human Dao?

Various reasons, various debates have been argued over and over in the history of the Immortal Dao: "Heaven and Earth are impartial, treating all things as straw dogs," "My fate is mine, not Heaven's," "The Heavenly Dao is supremely fair"…

Yet countless powerful beings of the human race all know one indisputable fact.

Namely, no matter how the endless cosmos develops, the Human Dao must exist and must flourish!

"Heh heh!"

"A mere pig-dog, that's all."

"Provoking the dignity of the hegemonic race of the endless starry sky — such a wildly treasonous, evil wretch, treading the path to his own death…"

Jiang Ding's gaze turned toward the center of the Great Thousand Worlds, toward the center of the Upper Domain, and he seemed to see a terrifying figure — pitch-black, endless, bearing flesh-and-blood and gears.

This figure's head hung so precariously, as if it might be plucked off the next moment.

This figure was so immensely powerful.

And its fate was so certain.

An invisible, terrifying ill fortune was closing over it — the instinctive hostility of nearly all the powerful beings of a hegemonic race of the endless starry sky. On a certain timescale, the fate of death was nearly predetermined.

This path of fate, even a Void Refinement cultivator, even a still-weak Immortal Dao Crown Prince, could see clearly.

"Wait for me,"

"by all means

do not die, do not die at another's hands…"

Jiang Ding Qi longed for it.

He withdrew all his gaze, left this village, and continued to travel the Upper Realm, broadening his experience, quietly accumulating his own Immortal Dao foundation.

Before he knew it, several more centuries had passed.

Jiang Ding did not disturb any causal threads, did nothing superfluous; he carefully observed the many large and small sects of the Immortal Artifact Sect.

He saw twelve-wheeled flesh-and-blood gear centipedes, ten thousand meters tall, traversing the great earth, breaking through mountain peaks and land, tearing apart the flesh of all living beings and grinding them to powder to be scattered across the ground.

This was the Immortal Artifact Sect's unique treasure, the "Twelve-Wheel Farming-Time Centipede 973."

It burrowed through the earth not to destroy, but to sow — planting the various spiritual medicines the Immortal Artifact Sect required, waiting thousands or tens of thousands of years to harvest.

After the Twelve-Wheel Farming-Time Centipede did a rough plowing, next came various much smaller four-wheeled Farming-Time Centipedes descending from its body, an endless, dense stream performing meticulous cultivation, ensuring the survival rate of the spiritual medicines in this stretch of mountains, rivers, and farmland reached above ninety-five percent.

If one delved deep into the bodies of these Farming-Time Centipedes, one would discover they were composed of individual flesh-and-blood gear treasures — living human beings, with the occasional demonic beast serving as special structural filler, but mainly human beings, because this race's plasticity was simply too strong.

These human beings had become part of the treasure, driving this powerful farming-time creation into motion.

They were alive; their divine souls concentrated at the heart of the Farming-Time Centipede, lost in various memories, periodically performing various actions as the flesh-and-blood gears required, cooperating to drive this massive farming-time treasure.

On this day, Jiang Ding arrived at a sect called White Bone Sect 21.

This sect cultivated bone-type Gong Fa in its mountains and rivers, refining its own bones into all manner of powerful treasures; the sect's strongest was a Dao-Unifying Divine Monarch.

Jiang Ding's divine sense touched this sect's scripture library and began accessing and collecting this sect's inheritance, accumulating data for possible future battles.

He read quietly, paying no attention to anything.

Until this day.

In the distance, two furtive Dao-Unifying Divine Monarchs arrived here; cooperating with each other, they instantly took control of White Bone Sect 21's Dao-Unifying Divine Monarch.

Over the course of several years, they fully took over this sect.

"Greetings, Canghai Tianjun!"

A Dao-Unifying Divine Monarch in the appearance of a pale-faced middle-aged cultivator bowed cautiously toward a direction.

His body did not move.

All was silent.

He did not know how long passed.

"Greetings,"

"Canghai Tianjun!"

This pale-faced Dao-Unifying Divine Monarch changed direction once more and bowed respectfully.

There was no response whatsoever.

Again and again, again and again.

"The time has not yet come."

This continued for several years, and the pale-faced Divine Lord showed a hint of disappointment, speaking in a bad mood: "Your turn, you damn leather bug!"

"Greetings,"

"Junior Shishu!"

Another young Divine Lord with dark skin paid no heed to his mockery and bowed respectfully in one direction.

There was no response.

"Greetings, Junior Shishu!"

After a moment, he changed to another direction.

Thus, repeating for several more years yielded nothing; everything remained silent.

The two kept doing these strange things, continuing for decades, yet still gained nothing.

"No."

"This place is not it."

The pale-faced Divine Lord sighed, took out a jade slip to make a mark, and walked outward.

The dark-skinned young man followed behind him and could no longer hold back: "Is your divination technique actually any good? I've followed you for thousands of years, changing locations countless times over those thousands of years, yet never once succeeded."

"Or are you, this demonic cultivator, just pretending to be a god and fooling me all along?"

By the end, his tone had grown somewhat cold.

Except in front of that person, he was never someone who could be bullied at will; anyone who mocked him, unless they were stronger than him or close in strength, had to pay a price.

—Of course, the person beside him was close in strength to him, so this was merely a bluff.

"If you are impatient,"

"Then get out!"

"Did Laozi call you here?"

The pale-faced Divine Lord ignored him completely and walked straight outward.

"Hmph! If not for..."

The dark-skinned young man, expressionless, hurried to catch up.

The two figures gradually vanished from the White Bone Sect, flying toward the distance to continue seeking the next location and continuing their journey of pretending to be gods and demons.

Behind them, beyond causality and space, even beyond time, in an endless darkness where all light had been swallowed, a pair of scarlet, burning pupils watched silently.