Chapter 718: Great Being!

After Xie Qingxue finished that sentence, she turned around, facing Xie Zhennan, who lay on the Ground unable to move.

She knelt down.

"Father."

Her voice was so soft that only Xie Zhennan could hear it.

"I know you don't want your cousin involved in these matters. I know you'd rather die, even let the Xie Family be destroyed, than reveal these secrets."

She knelt on the Ground, lifted her head to look at Xie Zhennan's face twisted by fear and anger, and Tears welled up again.

"But do you really intend to guard that secret even if it means the entire Xie Family turns to ash?"

"Aunt has been dead. Dead for almost thirty years. How many more members of the Xie Family must die before you are willing to tell the truth?"

A low whimper came from Xie Zhennan's throat, and for the first time, tears rose in his murky old eyes.

Xie Qingxue kowtowed three more times toward Xie Zhennan.

Each one heavier than the last.

When she reached the third bow, a sharp fragment of broken stone pierced her scalp, and blood ran down along her hairline, staining half her face red.

"Father, please forgive your unfilial daughter."

After saying that, she stood up, turned around, and faced Jiang Feng.

There were no Tears left in her eyes.

The Tears dried the instant she finished the final bow, replaced by a calm she shouldn't have at her age.

"Jiang Feng, you just asked my father... what exactly is the Yunding Secret Realm."

Her voice returned to a steady tone.

"I will tell you now."

She raised her hand and pointed to the Ground beneath her feet.

She pointed to the three brightly lit cities in the distance, and to the Starry Sky overhead, richer than that Outside.

"The Yunding Secret Realm... is the place our three great families depend on for survival. For thousands of years, the Zheng Family, Jun Family, and Xie Family have lived in this Secret Realm generation after generation, cultivating with its Spiritual Energy and thriving on its resources."

"People Outside think our three great families are the masters of the Yunding Secret Realm, that we control this heaven and earth."

She paused, and a hint of bitterness entered her voice.

"But cousin... Jiang Feng, do you know?"

"The Yunding Secret Realm has never been the property of our three great families. Never has it been."

"It was created by a Great Being."

When those four words left her mouth, the Moon in the night sky, larger than that Outside, suddenly dimmed for a moment.

It wasn't cloud cover; the Moon's own light seemed to be sucked away, staying dark for three breaths before brightening again.

Everyone on the Ground felt an extremely faint, almost imperceptible oddity.

The sensation rose from the Ground beneath their feet, as if something deep underground had shifted.

Xie Qingxue also felt it. Her body swayed slightly, but she did not stop.

"The Great Being... none of our three great families know his name. In the oldest Xie Family scrolls, the records about him are scant. No name, no origin, no record of his lineage or master. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere in this world; a single person, a single palm, opened this thousand-mile radius Secret Realm at the river bottom."

"People Outside say the Martial Patriarch is the strongest being in the world. Yet that Great Being is on par with the Divine."

"The Martial Patriarch before him... isn't even worthy of lifting a shoe."

As she said this, her gaze involuntarily glanced at the limp Xie Zhennan on the broken stones, then at Zheng Tianxiong and Jun Aoshan suspended in the distant sky, their bodies riddled with cracks.

The three Martial Patriarchs, Fengong like deities in the Yunding Secret Realm for three hundred years, now each looked more disheveled than the last.

"The Great Being..."

Xie Qingxue's voice lowered, dropping to a series of sighs.

"Lived for Millennia of Ages."

The moment those four words were spoken, everyone inhaled a gasp of cold air.

Millennia.

Ten Thousand years.

The Martial Patriarch's lifespan limit is three hundred years, and in three thousand years no one has ever broken that Boundary.

But that Great Being lived for ten thousand years. That is beyond what cultivators can achieve; it is a divine and demonic method.

Yet even a being akin to a deity cannot withstand the wear of time. After Millennia of Ages, his flesh had long rotted, and his Divine Soul was at the edge of exhaustion.

He knew his death was near. True death means the soul flies away, the spirit shatters, and does not enter Reincarnation.

Xie Qingxue lifted her head and looked at Jiang Feng; her gaze at that moment became unusually calm, as if after saying those words she had laid all burdens down in her heart.

Xie Qingxue lifted her head, looking at Jiang Feng. At that moment her gaze became unusually calm, as if after speaking those words she had set all burdens down.

"When he was about to fall, he used his last strength to divine a Heavenly Mechanism. That hexagram took a full three days and three nights to calculate. By the second day his Seven Orifices were bleeding, and by the third day his Divine Soul was more than half shattered. Yet he still completed the hexagram."

She paused here, took a deep Breath, and then spoke the sentence.

"He saw a way."

"Borrow Corpse Revive Soul."

The four words fell into the night sky like a stone dropped into a calm water surface.

Borrow Corpse Revive Soul is one of the oldest forbidden Arts in the cultivation world.

The legend says it was created in ancient times by an Evil Dao Great Being, allowing a dissipating Divine Soul to inhabit a living person's body, continuing to live through another's flesh.

Once successful, the parasite's Divine Soul will completely devour the original host's Divine consciousness, crush the host's soul into powder, and thereafter occupy that body for its own use.

Once successful, the residing Divine Soul completely devours the original owner's Divine Consciousness, grinding the original soul into powder, and then occupies that body for itself.

The reason it is forbidden is not only its cruelty, but also because the conditions required are so stringent they are almost impossible to meet.

The practitioner and the recipient must share a Bloodline, and the recipient must be a Pure Yin Body.

【61】 And Xie Yinniang happens to meet all the conditions.

She possesses the Xie Family's most Pure Bloodline, and is a one‑in‑Ten‑Thousand Pure Yin Body.

In the eyes of that Great Being, she is not a person, but a perfect vessel. A perfect vessel that can let him continue to live in this world.

"So aunt…"

Xie Qingxue, when she reached this point, finally choked in her voice.

"It is the target he has chosen."

The instant the words landed, the whole night sky suddenly trembled violently. It was not an illusion; it was a fierce Trembling that every person felt, shaking from the Foot up to the crown of the head.

Jiang Feng's expression stirred, because in that instant he felt the entire Yunding Secret Realm seemed to be Trembling.

At that moment, Xie Qingxue's face was full of Shock.

"Jiang Feng, I can't continue speaking… but you must know, our Xie Family was forced into it, aunt chose uncle, and in his eyes that was a Betrayal, so he became angry! Aunt's death is his angry Punishment!"