Chapter 671: Two Thousand Years of Human History

The fields were like a golden tapestry, wheat waves surging with the wind, dragonflies darting between them.

The chirping of cicadas came in waves, carrying the scent of soil and wheat, drifting slowly from afar.

Chen Yan walked at the edge of the field, followed by a dozen figures behind him.

Among them was the man wearing black-rimmed glasses.

Chen Yan had not expected to see such a normal scene in this place.

As far as the eye could see, at the edge of the fields, there were initially rows of earthen houses standing side by side; looking deeper, high-rises and buildings stood shoulder to shoulder, their glass curtain walls reflecting dazzling light.

This world possessed a massive human population.

Chen Yan felt surprised, but not unexpected.

Ancient divine beasts require food.

Especially powerful ancient divine beasts like the Shi Meng Mo.

The creature had experienced an unknown duration of sleep, but sleep did not mean it did not require nourishment.

Therefore, in the world under his control, organizing a massive human population was extremely important.

Chen Yan felt cold to his core.

After a while, several villagers arrived pulling carts; on the carts, corpses were piled high, blood dripping from the seams of the carts, leaving long, bloody trails on the dirt road.

With numb expressions, the villagers threw the corpses from the carts into pits already dug in the fields, and numbly filled the pits with soil.

Their faces were covered in black spots; these black spots were like maggots attached to bone, constantly gnawing away at their lives.

They were expressionless while burying the corpses, but every movement brought them unimaginable, agonizing pain from the black spots on their bodies, causing them to howl incessantly.

Beside and behind Chen Yan, those dozen people just watched this scene calmly, as if they had long since become accustomed to it.

On their bodies, too, there were more or fewer black spots, and every movement brought them pain.

Yet they hid their desire to roar very well.

It was the thin, tall man wearing glasses who spoke up:

"Humans are born from nature and return to nature; their corpses will become the purest nourishment under the decomposition of the earth."

The bespectacled man was named Wu Song, and he was the Deputy Envoy of the town.

When Chen Yan entered the hospital, he had actually been discovered by the man, who did not stop Chen Yan.

Instead, when those two nurses began to grow suspicious, he appeared at the right time to divert their attention.

In reality, without Wu Song, Chen Yan would not have been in trouble either.

Because those two nurses had long since grown lazy; even if they had discovered a problem, they would not have wanted to go back to the ward to check again.

Of course, why those two nurses were so lax is a long story.

Wu Song pushed up his glasses and continued:

"This world is called the Pure True Yang Realm; in history books, we have ten thousand years of brilliant history."

"But a thousand years ago, more and more historians discovered that as long as one traced back before two thousand years of history, the human history of this world became increasingly incongruous."

"At that time, we guessed that perhaps we did not have such a long history at all."

The bespectacled man wore a gentle smile:

"Perhaps, we only have two thousand years of history."

Behind him, those dozen people looked at each other, all of them showing expressions of self-mockery.

"We actually had nearly eight thousand years of fake history, but at that time, most people were unwilling to believe it, and even if they believed it, they didn't think we were just being kept in captivity..."

The bespectacled man's voice grew lower and lower, and he sighed:

"Food."

Chen Yan listened quietly until Wu Song had recounted the entire history of the Pure True Yang Realm.

Within this world, the human race cultivates two martial paths.

Qi-Blood and Hard-Refinement.

This was also the reason why there were Body-Tempering Precious Medicines in the town.

Because this world inherently possessed the soil for Hard-Refinement to develop.

But the difference between the martial arts of the Pure True Yang Realm and the outside world lay here.

If martial artists of the Qi-Blood and Hard-Refinement paths wish to advance, they must personally kill ten martial artists of the same rank from the other path.

For example, if a Fourth-Rank Qi-Blood martial artist wants to advance to the Fifth Rank, they must exhaust every means to kill ten Fourth-Rank Hard-Refinement martial artists to obtain a certain causal opportunity for advancement.

Likewise, Hard-Refinement martial artists must pay the same price if they wish to advance.

This resulted in Qi-Blood and Hard-Refinement being naturally hostile martial paths.

In the Pure True Yang Realm, the average lifespan of ordinary living beings is only about thirty years.

Even many people must die in their twenties.

Because of the Malice.

This is something that has existed since the moment they were born.

It makes them suffer forever.

And their deaths are often not from old age, but from being corroded by the Malice; if they do not die, they will turn into some unspeakable creature.

After the age of twenty, the black spots on people's bodies become deeper and more numerous.

And at this time, what these twenty-year-old humans fear most is not the terrifying Malice.

It is their own neighbors and relatives.

But they have no choice, until one day their bodies are suddenly pierced by a blade from a relative.

Family affection is the most luxurious thing in this world.

If one cares about it too much, it often leads to oneself becoming food in the mouths of eerie existences.

Behind the high mortality rate is a matching reproductive capacity.

The world seems to be a bizarre breeding ground, where everyone is dominated by that exaggerated desire.

To give birth to descendants as much as possible while they are still alive.

Furthermore, the custom of this world is to return the corpse to the earth, to benefit all things.

Therefore, every day, someone pushes a small cart filled with corpses to bury them within the fields.

Such a short lifespan makes the human race's longing for the Martial Dao even more intense.

And once a martial artist reaches the Eighth Rank, they can obtain the opportunity to truly ascend and head to another world.

In the history of this world, a total of thirteen ascenders have appeared, five of whom descended after ascending to describe the wonders of the Flying Ascension Realm to the world.

Chen Yan sighed.

The Shi Meng Mo is intelligent.

The only ones who can truly suppress the human race are the human race themselves.

The so-called requirement that one must kill ten other Martial Dao martial artists to advance is undoubtedly a rule restriction imposed by the Shi Meng Mo.

And precisely because of this.

The Hard-Refining martial artists and Blood-Qi martial artists of the Pure True Yang Realm experienced two thousand years of fighting.

In the end, they split into two small towns.

Small towns.

Or rather, nations.

Because the population of each small town is as high as over five million.

The small town where Chen Yan is located is named Blood Town, and the other is called Henggu Town.

Within Blood Town, martial artists all cultivate Blood-Qi.

Within Henggu Town, martial artists all cultivate Hard-Refining.

Between the two towns, conflicts are constant, and there have been over a thousand wars in the past two thousand years.

Several of these times, they almost reached the point of exterminating an entire town.

But often at such times, a super powerhouse would be born in the town that was about to perish.

They seemed like children of destiny, saving the respective Martial Dao they cultivated.

And they all became ascenders, entering the Flying Ascension Realm.

If history had developed this way, the human race of the entire Pure True Yang Realm would not have encountered any accidents.

But the problem arose with the eleventh ascender.

That ascender cultivated Blood-Qi; when the Hard-Refining martial artists of Henggu Town were about to exterminate Blood Town, he stood out, blasted back the enemy army, and saved Blood Town.

Then, under the admiring gazes of all living beings, he ascended.

Fifty years after ascending, that person descended once more.

People originally thought he would be like the other ascenders who descended, praising the wonders of the Flying Ascension Realm.

But before the world, that person's body kept swelling and shattering, and endless pitch-black slime burst out from the bloodstains.

He roared with all his might:

"It's all fake, it's all fake, we are being kept in captivity by the..."

His body exploded, and his voice vanished.

Everyone who saw this scene had their bodies instantly explode, turning into a sky full of blood mist.

A massacre began.

War suddenly broke out in Henggu Town, and millions of Blood Town residents were slaughtered within ten days.

Whether they heard that person's words or not, they were all killed.

Only some young infants survived.

But, there were still those who slipped through the net.

Some Blood Town residents who saw the ascender's death survived and passed down this desperate truth.

Of course, those who know these secrets are still a minority.

The Shi Meng Mo perhaps also sensed the change.

Therefore, bizarre places appeared in both Blood Town and Henggu Town.

The rules descended.

Existences like gods appeared.

That is, the entire small town including the school and the hospital.

Seemingly ordinary, yet they control the entire Pure True Yang Realm like gods.

Only the most powerful humans of the Pure True Yang Realm can enter the small town.

As for the general public, even if they know of the small town's existence, they will subconsciously assume it is a normal area.

Except for those humans who accidentally walk into the small town; after true despair, they will completely submit to the small town.

The history of the Pure True Yang Realm was completely divided.

For the first fifteen hundred years, the Shi Meng Mo practiced non-interference.

The following five hundred years, however, involved its own intervention.

"Without the aura of life and death, one cannot completely change all of this," Wu Song said calmly:

"After I became the Deputy Envoy of the Town Mayor, I must never betray the small town.

But that ascender from five hundred years ago left a wisp of the aura of life and death for the human world.

After witnessing all the despair, he did not choose to live on, nor did he choose to give up completely."

This is a wisp of flame within the Endless Sea of Ice, far too feeble, yet precisely because of this wisp of life-and-death aura, certain humans, such as myself, can catch a glimpse of those powerful world rules.

Therefore, the human race saw the emergence of Creation-Realm powerhouses capable of unraveling the rule-based restrictions of the Shi Meng Mo."

Wu Song looked at Chen Yan and smiled:

"But there is still no way; the Shi Meng Mo is too powerful, so powerful that even if all of us humans were to resist, it would be useless."

Chen Yan was silent.

That was indeed the case.

This is the world created by the Shi Meng Mo.

No matter how the human race struggles, they cannot escape the chessboard.

That eleventh ascender, rather than bringing hope to the human race, brought them true despair.

I had already grown accustomed to the darkness, yet you arrived bearing light, only to suddenly depart.

This is the greatest despair.

"But a hundred years ago, a human soul arrived; her name was Chi Mi," Wu Song said, his expression tightening:

"She told us that there were humans beyond this world, and she told us that the human race had defeated even more powerful Ancient Gods."

Chen Yan's expression shifted slightly.

Chi Mi.

To think it was this name again.

A hundred years ago, Chi Mi was engaged to Chen He, but at the wedding banquet, Chen He planted a Crystal of Malice within her, turning her into an Ancient God Beast.

And Chen He's goal was to frame Xia Hanzhou.

Xia Hanzhou brought the transforming Chi Mi to the Forbidden Land of the Ancient Gods and pushed her into it.

The current Chi Mi has long since completely transformed into an Ancient God Beast and is being used by the Underworld Nightmare Beast and the Shi Meng Mo to hold back Lu Xunyang.

But according to what Wu Song said, the Chi Mi who entered the Forbidden Land of the Ancient Gods must have stripped the part of her soul that still belonged to humanity from her body.

I do not know what she experienced to enter this world.

"Is she still alive?" Chen Yan asked.

"She has already dissipated; by the time she arrived, she was already a wisp of a soul on the verge of fading away.

She only left behind a letter, telling us that if there were a chance in the future, we should deliver it to a man named Xia Hanzhou," Wu Song said.

A man?

An old man, more like.

Chen Yan murmured to himself.

In some respects, Xia Hanzhou is a bit too inhuman.

During the Heaven's Pride Trial, he saw a portion of Xia Hanzhou's memories; at that time, he chose to push Chi Mi into the Forbidden Land of the Ancient Gods.

Yet Lu Xunyang arrived and single-handedly suppressed the entire Chizhou army.

Does this have to do with strength?

This has to do with character.

"But she left us a spark!" Wu Song's breathing grew rapid:

"At the very least, she told us that Ancient God Beasts can be defeated.

Even the Shi Meng Mo is not invincible."

Golden light emerged in Wu Song's eyes: "A few days ago, you saw it too; a certain existence tore apart the sky of this world.

I saw it; that lord was far too powerful!"

Wu Song's aura was fluctuating violently.

Whether it was Chi Mi or Lu Xunyang, both had brought them something called hope.

And Chen Yan, even more so, was the hope they saw that could change all of this.

Because of the life-and-death aura.

In the two thousand years of the Pure True Yang Realm, there had been only one wisp in total.

Yet Chen Yan, right before their eyes, had given birth to ten wisps of life-and-death aura at once.

"Please allow us to honor you as our Divine Son; you shall become the hope of our human race."

Inside a dark room, Wu Song bowed to Chen Yan, a flash of excitement appearing in his eyes.

Behind him, those dozen or so people also bowed their bodies.

Chen Yan watched the other party quietly:

"What do you want me to do?"

Wu Song hurriedly said:

"Hide here and cultivate in peace, until one day, you can... you can..."

A flash of terror appeared in his eyes.

Exterminate the Shi Meng Mo?

Could that terrifying existence really be exterminated?

He dared not be certain, but if the human race was to survive, it had to be done.

Chen Yan shook his head slightly:

"There is not that much time; the changes in the world happen every minute and every second, every hour and every moment, not through long-term cultivation; one wrong step leads to ten thousand wrong steps."

As Chen Yan's voice fell, Wu Song was stunned.

Chen Yan looked at the crowd and said:

"Right now, Lu Xunyang, the very existence you saw tearing apart this world, is outside fighting a great battle against the Shi Meng Mo."

"I am not sure if he can defeat the Shi Meng Mo, but if the Shi Meng Mo recovers its senses, it will annihilate me in an extremely short amount of time."

As Chen Yan's voice fell, Wu Song and the others stiffened.

"Then... then what would you like to do?"

Chen Yan said:

"I must first rescue the human Creation Realm cultivators still inside the school; with my aura of life and death, I will resolve the rules suppressing them."

Silence.

The entire dark room instantly fell silent.

Wu Song's heart sank.

What he wanted was for Chen Yan to cultivate slowly until one day, he would completely lead the humans of the Pure True Yang Realm to a future.

As for those outsider humans inside the school, they had never paid them any attention.

Wu Song looked at Chen Yan, his eyes shifting.

Currently, Chen Yan's strength was suppressed, so he was not his match at all.

But he also knew that he could not force Chen Yan at this moment.

After all, they still had to pin their hopes on Chen Yan.

At this moment, everyone looked at each other, their thoughts heavy.

A long time later.

"Fine." Wu Song spoke, looking at Chen Yan:

"Human lives are worthless, at least cheaper than the humans of the outside world.

But the cheaper something is, the more it is the only thing we cherish in our hearts.

We do not want to live long; we just want our deaths to have value."

His voice was heavy.

Now is the center of the millennium of change for the Pure True Yang Realm.

Every choice he makes will directly affect the future world.

He did not want to make those kinds of quick decisions or quickly formed plans.

But there was no other way.

The world is developing this fast.

There have been more opportunities in these few days than in the past two thousand years combined.

Wu Song looked at the dozen or so people behind him and said calmly:

"For the sun."

The expressions of those dozen people changed; some were hesitant, some were confused, and some were worried.

"For the sun." A woman suddenly spoke up.

"For the sun." Another person voiced out.

"For the sun!"

"For the sun!"

"For the sun!"

Inside the school.

Lu Jianxia and Lu Wuyi stood at the end of the corridor.

Lu Wuyi's expression was extremely ugly.

"Have you made your decision?" Lu Wuyi asked.

"Mm." Lu Jianxia nodded slightly, her red lips moving:

"Brother, if I die, you must not let Chen Changyuan seize any leverage."

Lu Jianxia intended to escape tonight, just like Chen Yan.

Signing a Life Seal with Chen Changyuan was undoubtedly selling out one's own faith and soul.

But continuing to stay in the school was just waiting for death.

Since that is the case, why not take a gamble.

Leave the school.

Just like Chen Yan.