Chapter 857: Result

The next instant.

Chen Yan once again soul-transmigrated into that person's body.

Memories followed him and Xiao Fan as they returned to the great human kingdom, while Jilie remained by the lakeside.

After returning to the great kingdom, the man and Xiao Fan first went into hiding, using funds he had previously prepared to purchase a mansion, and began to concentrate on researching soul power.

Following his research, this strand of soul power even began to manifest outside the body, generating lethality.

"With a single thought, one can destroy objects, and one can create objects; why not call it Thought Power?" the man said with pleasant surprise.

Xiao Fan nodded excitedly.

Time flowed like water.

He and Xiao Fan remained within the mansion, engrossed in their research.

Meanwhile, throughout the entire great kingdom, because the million-strong expeditionary army had long failed to return, public grievances grew ever higher.

This was because neither he nor Jilie were present.

Eventually, a high official took control of the great kingdom, became the new sovereign, and declared him and Jilie to be wanted criminals, hunting them everywhere.

This was precisely the reason he had not returned directly to the royal court after coming back to the great kingdom.

Because the army was gone, he no longer had power.

Time passed day by day just like that.

He encountered the first bottleneck of the Thought Power martial path; it was very strange, no matter what, he could not break through.

"Thought Power was discovered by me, researched by me, and this bottleneck was also set by me, yet I cannot break through it..."

His expression turned somber:

"Relying on my own strength alone, it is difficult to develop..."

He looked at Xiao Fan, but Xiao Fan revealed a bewildered expression:

"Brother, I seem to... feel that something is wrong somewhere, but where exactly is it wrong?"

Xiao Fan clutched at his hair, as if caught in some kind of confusion.

He looked at Xiao Fan and finally made up his mind.

He took Xiao Fan and walked out of the mansion.

Yet he did not expect that his former subordinates, who had become the sovereign, had discovered his tracks and sent men to hunt him down.

He was already different from before and quickly shook off the pursuers.

He brought Xiao Fan to the lakeside once again.

Here, it seemed completely different.

Everywhere was thick malice, everywhere were the gibberish whispers of evil spirits.

The corpses of that million-strong army had become nourishment for some kind of life.

Ancient divine beasts were growing amidst the malice.

The former him might have feared these, but now that he had awakened the Thought Power martial path, he was no longer afraid.

He was full of confidence; his strength was formidable.

He saw a madwoman, a woman kneeling on the ground, constantly murmuring.

"You've come..."

With a face covered in mud, pale-complexioned, and no longer showing her former beauty, Jilie looked at him with tenderness.

He frowned:

"Come back with me..."

"No!" Jilie shook her head and pointed to the ground in front of her:

"Soon... it will bloom soon."

He frowned and looked at the unremarkable pitch-black soil in front of Jilie, knowing she was still waiting for the seed to sprout, so he left once again.

Returning to the great kingdom again, the color of his eyes had already changed.

That day.

An ancient divine beast appeared within the royal court; the new sovereign and a crowd of officials screamed and panicked, and many were killed by the ancient divine beast.

But he, like a god descending to earth, used the Thought Power martial path to exterminate that ancient divine beast.

He returned once more, looking at these former subordinates who had betrayed him, and slowly walked toward the throne that had originally belonged to Jilie.

"I led the great army to strike the Mother God and eliminate chaos, thus settling the world and opening an era of peace and prosperity.

I establish the kingdom name 'Radiance' to answer the mandate of heaven!"

He looked at the crowd of officials prostrating at his feet and said indifferently.

At this moment, the whole country cheered.

He had become a god!

Thereafter, on one hand, he founded the Martial Path Pavilion, widely recruiting the wise and talented of the world to research the path of Thought Power.

On the other hand, he ordered Xiao Fan to lead an army to annex nearby small kingdoms.

The path of Thought Power achieved unprecedented development in the Radiance Kingdom.

In twenty years, the third realm of the Thought Power martial path was created by him.

He was called the Lord of the Human Race, called the one above all, and was worshipped by all living beings.

Ancient divine beasts across the world were exterminated.

There never again appeared a situation where ten thousand people were killed or injured to eliminate a single ancient divine beast.

He had originally thought everything would develop in a good direction.

Only, he gradually discovered that Xiao Fan, perhaps due to being too exhausted, would often talk nonsense.

There was one night.

He sat alone on the throne, the royal court empty.

Xiao Fan was often gravely ill, and the generals who campaigned with him had bodies worn down by years of being away.

The path of Thought Power was indeed formidable, yet it could not strengthen a person's physique.

His hair gradually turned gray, and his friends became fewer and fewer.

He thought of an old friend.

He led a great army and arrived once more near the lakeside.

That place had already become a forbidden zone.

It was like a patch of evil soil that kept growing, becoming larger and larger.

He pondered, and in the end, entered alone.

He saw Jilie once again.

Deep in the Swamp of Malice, a person knelt there, filth smearing half her face, white hair tangled with grime, her gaze unfocused, old age and madness intertwined.

She looked at him in surprise, then immediately turned away.

"Jilie..." he said softly; the once graceful and peerless Empress was gone.

"Who is Jilie... I don't know Jilie," the old woman said, her voice incomparably hoarse, like fingernails scraping against a wooden door.

At this moment, sorrow surfaced in his eyes:

"Come back with me, the world will be peaceful... under my control, truly peaceful."

"No!" Jilie suddenly growled:

"It will sprout, it will definitely sprout..."

"It's been decades, and it hasn't sprouted," he said helplessly.

"It's because I haven't discovered how to make it grow!" Jilie growled:

"It's my fault, not the seed's fault, it's my fault!"

She scratched at her face as if possessed, causing bloody marks to appear on her already aged skin.

"I am truly... truly a fool..."

Jilie had gone completely mad.

He was stunned.

And then he left again.

In a flash, another twenty years passed.

He had grown old.

Xiao Fan lay on his sickbed all day, muttering words that could not be understood.

Over these twenty years, under his research, the path of Thought Power had been pioneered to the fifth realm.

And the Ancient Divine Beasts in the world were becoming fewer and fewer.

He had also traveled to that forbidden land several times, wanting to bring Jilie back.

But that woman would rather die than leave the seed she had discovered.

His heart was cold and weary; in his twilight years, he was all alone.

On a high mountain.

"I have already done what I should have done..."

He looked out at the magnificent mountains and rivers, and with his back to the group of ministers and sages behind him who dared not speak and bowed respectfully, he said:

"The human race from now on is left to you."

He sat on the mountain peak, a smile appearing on his face.

It was time.

He believed that one day in the future, the human race could completely eradicate the Ancient Divine Beasts.

He resigned from the position of Sovereign and remained in the deep mountains, waiting for the time of his death to arrive.

Yet, on that day when death drew closer and closer.

He watched the sunset, his breathing gradually fading away.

Behind him, the ministers of old arrived.

They knelt in panic, terror, and grief:

"The Ancient Divine Beasts... the Ancient Divine Beasts have counterattacked!"

"Please, Sovereign, come down the mountain!"

"It's over, everything is over!"

A wheezing sound rolled through the withered old man's throat; his half-closed eyes suddenly widened, and a point of sharp light erupted from his murky pupils.

Those cries of shouting and grief were like hooks, preventing him from having a peaceful end, making him realize that even in death, he must die for the human race.

He, who was about to die, found a burst of strength; he would not allow himself to hear the words "Ancient Divine Beasts" before he died.

In that instant, powerful energy erupted within his body.

At the moment of death, he created the sixth realm of the path of Thought Power.

He descended the mountain.

Only to find a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

Malice swallowed human cities like a sea, and countless humans died in endless despair.

He looked at this scene in disbelief; how had the Ancient Divine Beasts become so strong in such a short time?

He led the great army to begin the resistance, to begin the slaughter.

The Ancient God Beast's giant claws shattered mountain ranges, and a foul wind swirled with severed limbs flying across the sky.

Human warriors raised their blades to charge, blood stained the earth red, living beings fell in swathes, and corpses piled into hills of despair.

Xiao Fan also came, fighting alongside him.

But what drove them to despair was that, under the onslaught of the Ancient God Beast, the humans who possessed the path of Thought Power were as fragile as the wind.

Furthermore, he discovered something even more terrifying.

He witnessed with his own eyes an Ancient God Beast become even more powerful after devouring a Thought Power martial artist.

Deep within his mind, a terrifying thought emerged.

Perhaps...

Perhaps the emergence of the path of Thought Power was not for the human race, but for the Ancient God Beasts.

To the Ancient God Beasts, humans who had awakened Thought Power were even more delicious fruit.

After discovering this problem, he nearly collapsed.

Could it be that these decades of struggle were, in the end, just a joke?

Was he, who invented the path of Thought Power, actually the culprit behind the human race's plight?

"Where exactly did it go wrong!" He was on the verge of a breakdown.

Driven by anger and unwillingness, he led a suicide squad and charged into the lair of the Ancient God Beasts.

He was ready to die, he had to know the truth of everything.

Everyone he brought died, yet he kept pushing deeper.

Until...

He saw two massive, strange, and disgusting twisted creatures.

They were the two pitch-black insects birthed by the Mother God; they had grown.

Before these two Ancient God Beasts.

He discovered that he had always been a duckweed drifting within an endless sea of chaos.

He only took one look, and he suddenly felt as if he had glimpsed a dark corner of the infinite universe.

That latent darkness and evil were right there; just gazing upon them was enough to suffocate one.

Endless fear washed over him; he stood frozen in place and began to scream:

"Kill me!"

His hair was disheveled like wild cursive script, his eyes were bloodshot and bursting with red veins, his neck muscles bulged as he roared at the sky, his voice tearing through the air, filled with the despair of madness.

"Kill me!

As long as I am still alive, I will keep on killing!

I will fight against you forever and ever; I will kill you by day, I will kill you in my dreams, I will kill you while drinking, and I will kill you while eating.

Kill!

Kill you all!"

At that moment, he no longer felt fear, but anger.

He felt that the world had turned him into a joke, so he would roar at the entire world in the manner of a joke.

Yet, at the very moment he awaited death.

The Ancient God Beasts receded.

In his twilight years, he once again became the savior of the human race.

Countless people viewed him as a savior.

But he became increasingly weathered, and he suddenly realized that the entire world was like an illusion.

Only he knew that the Ancient God Beasts could actually wipe out the entire human race.

Even, without the slightest effort.

This was despair.

He, who should have died peacefully, had encountered a despair that could not vanish even in death.

He grew increasingly weathered; he would rather have died of old age under the sunset of that day.

But he discovered with grief that he could no longer die; the more he wanted to die, the more he lived.

He did not drink water, did not eat, and did not even sleep, yet he did not die.

Life had lost its pillar.

What should he do?

He wanted to go alone to fight those two Ancient God Beasts and then be devoured alive by them.

But he could no longer find them.

He walked in the alleys and on the main streets, seeing those lively and cute children, his eyes often filled with tears.

He could not tell others about the things he had encountered.

If others knew the scene he had witnessed that day, how much despair would they feel?

Humans should not live in such despair.

He chose to swallow this terrifying fact into his own belly.

If the Ancient God Beasts wanted to bring fear upon the world, then he alone would bear it.

It was just that he became more and more desperate.

Finally, one day, he pushed Xiao Fan in a wheelchair toward that forbidden land.

"I understood when I came, and when I go..."

He looked at the increasingly senile Xiao Fan:

"One must understand..."

He thought again of that woman he had adored, yet also pitied, whom he had abandoned.

He set out on the road with Xiao Fan.

Inside that increasingly eerie forbidden ground.

Amidst the foul, black fog.

An old woman wore tattered but clean clothes; though the hem was wrinkled, it had clearly been tidied with care.

He stared, stunned, as if he were seeing the Jilie of the past once more.

The old woman's silver hair was combed meticulously; she stood quietly by the lake, her back slightly straight, her gaze peaceful as she looked toward him, her whole being exuding a stable stillness.

As if she had been waiting for a long time.

"You have finally come." Jilie revealed a gentle smile, just as in the past.

He found it somewhat hard to believe.

That Jilie, who had already descended into madness, had actually returned to normal.

In an instant, tears welled up in his eyes.

"I have been waiting for you," Jilie said softly, though time had long since drained away the vivacity and charm she once possessed.

She was like a farm wife who had prepared a meal while waiting for her husband to return.

She said calmly:

"I know how to make the seed sprout.

My dream was never wrong; that seed will grow into a tree, and then bear two fruits that can change the future."

His expression shifted; what was Jilie saying?

"All this time, I have been too foolish," Jilie said with a touch of chagrin, looking at him with tenderness:

"Fortunately, it is not too late."

She looked at him and spoke a few words with tenderness.

Yet, although her lips were moving, the sound vanished completely.

The next moment, before his shocked gaze, Jilie swallowed a worn-out seed from her hand into her belly.

He pursed his lips, sighing inwardly; Jilie had finally moved on.

He stepped forward quickly, walking toward Jilie:

"Since that is the case, come back with me."

He felt relieved; after so many years, Jilie had finally let go of the obsession in her heart.

He might have long since despaired, but now, he had regained Jilie once more.

At this moment.

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

A shimmering white light suddenly emerged from Jilie's body.

Crack, crack, crack!

Jilie's pupils suddenly constricted, her mouth uncontrollably stretched to its limit, and not a sound could be emitted from her throat.

Her physical body collapsed at a speed visible to the naked eye, her skin rapidly losing its luster, shriveling like dehydrated, withered leather, and even her bones were collapsing rapidly.

Before his horrified gaze.

Knotted, dark brown tree roots suddenly burst out from within Jilie's lower abdomen, winding around her body and spreading upward.

The next second, a tender green sapling slowly drilled out from Jilie's wide-open mouth, its tiny branches and leaves stretching and growing.

As if greedily draining Jilie's final shred of vitality.

He watched, dumbstruck, clutching his head, his mouth wide open.

Crack, crack, crack!

He did not know if it was the sound of Jilie's bones breaking or the sound of the tree growing rapidly.

"Ah!"

He let out a short, sharp roar.

Yet he saw.

Jilie's face, already burst open by the branches, melted like glue, merging into the trunk of the tree.

And the tree continued to grow.

Everything belonging to Jilie was being dissolved, being absorbed.

And that tree grew taller and taller, larger and larger.

On one of the tree branches, two points of shimmering light emerged, gradually growing larger.

They turned into two fruits.

The dream belonging to Jilie had been realized.

And he sat on the ground, clutching his head, looking at the tree before him.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!!!"