Chapter 236: You Are Threatening Me

Xie Yao also laughed, "I thought you would have a sense of crisis, but now it seems you are not omniscient and omnipotent either."

The salamander immediately said vigilantly: "What do you mean?"

"Can't you see? For these eight hundred years, I have sold Longevity Pills to every corner of the Xianyuan Continent. Now, over sixty percent of the high-level Cultivators on the Xianyuan Continent have taken Longevity Pills at some point. They think these are miraculous medicines that can help them extend their lives, but they do not know that every day they live after taking them, their lives are under my control." Xie Yao laughed somewhat arrogantly, a bit more spirit appearing in her weary eyes.

"Now, the balance between Immortals and Demons is in my hands. Whoever I want to win will win. Your few lackeys from the Hidden Sect alone can no longer shake my layout."

The salamander still refused to give up, saying stiffly: "I am the Heavenly Dao that towers above the heavens. What do the killings of you Cultivators have to do with me? On the contrary, you, a Demon Cultivator, have been lurking in the Northern Territory for thousands of years. Now that you finally have a chance to turn things around, would you really want the Immortal Cultivators to win?"

Xie Yao said with some amusement: "I am already in my twilight years. Regardless of life or death after this battle, I will not remain in the Cultivation world. What does it matter to me who loses or wins? Which Demon Cultivator in this world cares about the lives of others? But you... every time the winds of change blow in the Cultivation world, you make the people of the Hidden Sect come out. I suspect you care more about the people of this realm than I do."

The salamander's formidable head showed no expression, but one could see its inner unrest from the phantom image it swam through so rapidly.

If it truly did not care about what happened to this world, it would not have cultivated the Hidden Sect to handle matters for it when it was inconvenient to step in personally, nor would it have set up Fate Lines to guide figures like Cui Yurong.

It swam back and forth in the air irritably, "You are threatening me... On what grounds? You all love to threaten me!"

"All?" A flash of surprise crossed Xie Yao's face, "Besides me, have you been threatened by others? Then I truly admire that person for daring to threaten the Heavenly Dao."

"What does it have to do with you? Don't ask what you shouldn't." A look of wariness flashed in the salamander's pale eyes.

Threats... the humiliation of that day had become a lingering psychological shadow.

Damn it, it was the Heavenly Dao!

How could anyone do such an outrageous thing to it!

The salamander sneered unhappily, "Speak, what do you want to extort from me? Help you get rid of the torment of these vines, or resurrect the sister you love?"

Although it had not foreseen Xie Yao using Longevity Pills to set up her layout, it was, after all, the Heavenly Dao; as the leader of the Demon Cultivators, it still knew a thing or two about her life.

The pain of Xie Yao's symbiosis with the vines over these years, and her longing and unwillingness regarding her sister.

"Neither," Xie Yao said softly.

She lowered her eyes. The vines had been symbiotic with her for so many years that they had long since become one. Even if painful, they had become a part of her strength; if she lost the vines, it would also weaken her in disguise. She had long since grown accustomed to this pain.

And as for her sister, she respected her sister's choice. Even if she resurrected her, she would no longer be the same person she once was.

Therefore, for these forty-plus years, she had never thought of using a Forbidden Technique to bring her sister back.

She had had enough of being this Saint Demon Lord, and she was tired of it.

Now, she only wanted to go to the Spirit Realm to take a look, to see what that Spirit Realm, which ten thousand people admired and revered, was actually like.

This had become her obsession, an obsession buried deep in her heart ever since she witnessed that Immortal-Demon War and the collapse of Xian Tai.

The salamander, however, was somewhat puzzled. As far as it could see, what Xie Yao could seek was nothing more than these two things. She could obtain other things herself, and she did not need to use the entire Cultivation world as a stake to make this deal with it.

It asked: "Then what do you want?"

Xie Yao chuckled and said: "Has so much time passed that even you have forgotten why Xian Tai exists? In the past, I kept wondering why Cultivators had to go to Xian Tai to advance to the Return to Ruins Stage and ascend to the Spirit Realm. I thought only Xian Tai had the conditions for advancement, but when I advanced to the Return to Ruins Stage myself, I didn't feel any difficulty."

"I thought about it for a long time and researched it for a long time, and finally, I discovered that the purpose of those Cultivators going to Xian Tai was nothing else but to bathe in the Divine Light and comprehend the Dao Rhyme."

The salamander's undulating body paused, appearing to become somewhat stiff.

Xie Yao continued, "The Xian Tai of the past had a wisp of Dao Rhyme. Every Cultivator who advanced to the Return to Ruins Stage could comprehend the Dao Rhyme once at Xian Tai before ascending to the Spirit Realm. You had the Hidden Sect erase various Jade Slip records from before the Immortal-Demon War and hide the traces of Xian Tai, all for this wisp of Dao Rhyme, right? The current Cultivation world does not know of Xian Tai's existence, nor does it remember the Dao Rhyme of Xian Tai. But unfortunately, I have lived too long. My memory contains too many unknown things, which is why I still haven't forgotten its existence. Heavenly Dao, I want to comprehend the Dao Rhyme. Are you willing to trade it with me?"

The salamander remained silent.

Xie Yao was right; the disappearance of Xian Tai was indeed its masterpiece.

When this world was first born, every thousand years, a Child of Destiny carrying a heavenly mandate would appear; they were the humans most beloved by the Heavenly Dao.

And these people, without exception, possessed excellent talent, a superior family background, unparalleled luck, and a smooth life. They would all eventually break through to the Return to Ruins Stage, full of ambition, carrying their heavenly mandate and luck to ascend to the Spirit Realm, stepping onto that Path to Heaven that the salamander could not tread.

It wanted to keep them here.

So, it added constraints to their Fate Lines, wrote their stories, and made their endings remain in the Cultivation world.

Just like the ending in Cui Yurong's original book.

The male lead sacrificed his cultivation to resurrect Cui Yurong's daughter, and Cui Yurong stayed here to spend the rest of her life in peace for the sake of her daughter.

This was the destiny the salamander had rewritten for her.

Thus, it destroyed the Xian Tai Tree, cutting off the path for everyone to ascend to the Spirit Realm. It was just that its rules did not allow for this, so it could only helplessly leave the Xian Tai Tree behind, pretending to be benevolent by leaving a glimmer of hope for the common people. The Xian Tai Tree, until its death, believed itself to be a treasure of heaven and earth left behind by the Heavenly Dao.

Ruan Xing understood as she listened.

So that was what the so-called book plot and the lucky heroine were all about.

Xie Yao waited quietly for the salamander's answer.

The silence lasted too long.

The salamander finally emitted a slightly dry voice, "I cannot agree to this matter."

"Why?" Xie Yao asked in confusion, "If you agree, not only can I cooperate with you to execute the Hidden Sect's missions, but if you don't want the Path to Heaven to exist, I can also sever the Path to Heaven again after ascending to the Spirit Realm. Are you willing to let me oppose you, and let all your previous plans fall short?"

"I am the Heavenly Dao, the god who rules this world. I cannot cultivate, so what would I do with the Dao Rhyme?" The salamander replied, "I am not refusing you because I don't want to, but because I don't know where that wisp of Dao Rhyme has gone now."

Xie Yao had a bad premonition, and she hurriedly asked: "Do you mean that after Xian Tai collapsed back then, that wisp of Dao Rhyme disappeared?"

"No," the salamander decisively denied: "That wisp of Dao Rhyme stayed at the Xian Tai Ruins. About five or six years ago, it suddenly disappeared."

The Xian Tai Ruins were the two islands in the sky.

The salamander's expression was also one of extreme confusion.

"I did not see anyone approach it, but it just disappeared very abruptly... I still don't know where it went."

Ruan Xing's heart skipped a beat, and she suddenly remembered the one time the Simulator had inexplicably gone out of control.

After strangely consuming many of her points, it brought the changes from the Simulation into reality.

Could it be that the thing she saw back then was related to the Dao Rhyme? Xie Yao sat down somewhat dejectedly, "Heavenly Dao... even the Heavenly Dao is powerless."

"Do not mock me," there was some anger in the salamander's tone, "I have no need to lie to you."

"You may go." Xie Yao issued an eviction order without any courtesy.

The Heavenly Dao seemed to have no prestige at all in her presence.

That was right; she had strength and was fearless, and the Heavenly Dao had no value for cooperation or utilization to her, so why should she be subservient?

The salamander swallowed its anger and burrowed into the Heavenly Dao Order, its consciousness disappearing quickly.

After the salamander left, Ruan Xing asked impatiently, "What is a Dao Rhyme?"

"I don't know either," Xie Yao replied candidly.

She hooked her finger, and a vine leaf spun in her hand, "I only know that six thousand years ago, all Cultivators would go to the Xian Tai when ascending to the Return to Void, and by peeling back the layers, they found the name 'Dao Rhyme'. Perhaps it is a kind of fortuitous encounter, or perhaps it is the foundation of the Spirit Realm, or it could be a profound Magic Art... who knows? In any case, in the world of Cultivation, this is the only wisp of Dao Rhyme I know of. Now that it has vanished, I no longer have the chance to comprehend it within the world of Cultivation."

Xie Yao sighed slightly, leaning her body to the side with a hint of weariness, "I had originally planned to invite you to comprehend it together once I obtained the Dao Rhyme, so that we could exchange insights and gain a better understanding of the Spirit Realm, but I didn't expect my calculations to fail."

Since it was Ruan Xing's first time hearing the term 'Dao Rhyme', she did not feel the sense of loss that comes from dashed expectations; she could not experience just how important the Dao Rhyme truly was.

But seeing Xie Yao's appearance, Ruan Xing asked curiously, "Are you very disappointed? Perhaps the Dao Rhyme is not as important as you imagine."