Chapter 230

Report! An ancient poisonous volcano has been discovered in the southern sea area and is beginning to erupt again!

Report! A ground collapse occurred in the northern sea area, and the earth's vein fire boiled the seawater!

Report! Southern sea area...

Three retired heavenly officials tasked with monitoring anomalies in the Eastern Sea occasionally return to Tang Valley to report; the disasters they report include, but are not limited to, volcanic eruptions, submarine earthquakes, and tsunamis!

Such disasters are normally commonplace in the Eastern Sea; given its vast size, it would be strange if there were no disasters.

But these three are clearly not the type to report trivial matters; any disaster that leaves three true immortals flustered is obviously major news beyond the norm.

In fact, the three of Jingxin become more alarmed the more they report:

Without ever personally inspecting the site, they never imagined the situation could deteriorate to this extent.

Just speaking of the Eastern Sea, there are countless eruptions of earth veins, making volcanoes and earthquakes almost ubiquitous, all because the geology is excessively fragile!

On this basis, the Primordial Land resembles an increasingly fragile thin crust; even the slightest tremor in the earth's veins can pull, tear, and split it apart.

This trend is clearly not a recent development; actual surveys show that these scars on the strata have always existed, yet for some reason they never erupted on such a massive scale before.

All major disasters have occurred only within the last one or two yuanhui.

And during the last one or two yuanhui, the Heavenly Court just happened to have unified the five realms; when these two facts coincide, it seems as if heaven is punishing the Heavenly Court...

Thus, an intangible sense of dread wells up in their hearts:

Primordial Chaos, is it about to be destroyed?!

Under the threat of heaven and earth's annihilation, they finally cease to feel resentment and unwillingness about the Xuan Tian Emperor's abdication, replacing it with relief:

Fortunately, the Heavenly Emperor abdicated early; otherwise, the title of 'Last Heavenly Emperor' would have fallen to our own Xuan Tian Emperor!

At this moment, Jin Bing is no longer seen by them as a vile usurper, but as a pitiful scapegoat...

The demise of heaven and earth has become an obvious consensus.

……

【Upon receiving yet another anomaly report from the Eastern Sea region, your already low spirits sink further, even becoming gloomy……】

【The Eastern Sea is merely the tip of the iceberg; these disasters are sprouting across the Primordial lands, throwing the recently unified Heavenly Court into chaos, and likely leaving Jin Bing uneasy on his throne……】

【Only now do you gather together some previously overlooked information from the past and discern its crux.】

【For example, the 'Immortal Realm' scam.】

【You have never understood who spread this scam, or why regions of the Primordial world that have nothing in common all seem to know the rumor.】

【Now you roughly guess that this scam was transmitted by the Nether River; since the decline of the Dharma, only it has had the power to spread such an unreliable piece of news to everyone.】

【And what is the purpose of its spreading this scam?】

【You instinctively think of the 'cutting the leeks' space inside the Central Heaven Gate, which every over a hundred years emits red light, suppressing the Pangu legacy near Buzhou Mountain, allowing true immortals from all over who yearn for the beautiful life of the Immortal Realm to enter.】

【Once inside the Immortal Realm, people will irrationally slaughter each other; after death they turn into a foul red vapor, which the hollow Buzhou Mountain then transports separately to the stars and the underground……】

【Previously you thought this was the Nether River consuming the immortals for nourishment, but now you wonder how a sage would need such nourishment.】

【Connecting the current frequent heavenly disasters with the past relative stability of heaven and earth, an answer you never imagined emerges: this nourishment must be supplying the needs of heaven and earth everywhere; the fragile world, lacking a sage to fill its gaps, can only have the immortals become nourishment to fill it……】

【Therefore, this scam is actually a 'heaven‑mending mechanism' set up by the Nether River; true immortals, deceived into the Immortal Realm, willingly go to die, automatically mending heaven, so that it can devote its energy to contending with the Hongjun Heavenly Dao in the stars.】

【From this perspective, the cruel and inhumane Nether River becomes a great sage who saves the Primordial world……】

【This bizarre turn leaves you bewildered, for if the Nether River is a benevolent figure in the light, then whoever obstructs it—namely yourself—would become the villain?!】

【After painstakingly restoring the Heavenly Court, unifying the five realms, and eliminating the cannibalistic heretical cultivators, saving the masses from water and fire… after all that, it turns out you are the antagonist—does the world really have such a heaven‑defying reversal?】

【Even though you are already a golden immortal, contemplating this makes you dizzy and hard to accept……】

【It is also at this moment that you finally understand why, in that side‑story, the Nether River agreed to let you alone 'run' but refused to let you bring all of the Primordial world with you, and why, after learning of your many beneficial deeds for the state and the people, it still lashed out at you.】

【'What is wanted is their death……'】

【Muttering the Nether River's furious words to yourself, you give a self‑deprecating laugh: the wool comes from the sheep; the Nether River's necessary means of maintaining Primordial stability is to let the five realms descend into chaos, causing all cultivators worldwide to devour people, become true immortals, and then go to the Immortal Realm to die……】

【What a perfect salvation mechanism!】

【After fully grasping its operational mode, even you cannot help but feel admiration: cultivators eating people—should they die?】

【Of course! Therefore the Nether River tricks them into becoming 'leeches' (i. e., fodder), harvesting them without any psychological burden……】

【Look! Human justice is served, the Primordial world receives the nourishment it needs, thus preserved; the preserved Primordial world can then breed infinite mortals, who are again devoured by cultivators… this endless cycle is simply perfect!】

【But is it truly perfect……】

【If you detach your viewpoint from the grand narrative of heaven and earth's rise and fall, and instead focus on the countless beings living within it, you can see another perspective: a dark, desperate view of suffering!】

【Mortals, from birth, are destined to be consumables that sustain the operation of heaven and earth; their birth, aging, sickness, and death are all planned by the lofty Nether River sage, which even actively arranges these for mortals, leaving no alternative.】

【The exalted sage meticulously weaves fate for the beings mired in the mire; thereafter, a host of clueless cultivators begin to cultivate immortality by eating people, until they are bloated and gluttonous……】

【Then the sage who enforces justice through 'fishing' steps forward to conduct public affairs, settling accounts with those cultivators who devour people; this both harvests the nourishment needed to sustain heaven and earth and grants justice to the deceased mortals……】

【For the operation of heaven and earth, this is truly perfect!】

【But for mortals, this world is nothing more than a farm, indistinguishable from a living hell!】

【'If the maintenance of heaven and earth already depends on the suffering of the vast multitude of mortals, and without such suffering it could not exist… then why is it still needed to exist?'】

【You suddenly laugh: obviously, letting everyone go to the 'Eternal Primordial' would suffice; why must we stubbornly sustain this broken vessel with mortal suffering?】

【Is this not merely a personal desire? Is it not the Nether River's one‑sided wish?】

【To satisfy the Nether River's selfish desire to keep the Primordial world alive, we must inflict suffering on these innocent people—is this not a cruel, inhumane tyranny!】

【'Let this Primordial world and all its peoples, bearing the Nether River's laughable selfish desire, be destroyed!'】

【You laugh maniacally, yet your smile hides a hint of sorrow……】

【You grieve for yourself and for the masses destined to perish; the Nether River brings them eternal suffering, and they will together with that suffering become calamitous ruin!】

【It is the sage's obsession that has produced this tragedy that ought never to have existed!】

【……】

From then on, you, who had figured everything out, completely abandoned the ideal of saving humanity, but you also didn't think of fleeing alone to enjoy comfort, because at the moment your ideal shattered, you already no longer wanted to live.

You only wanted to quietly stay on this Tang Valley small island, waiting for the day when heaven and earth would perish…

In the human calendar, year 43, meeting 9, cycle 3, to cope with the ever-intensifying heavenly disasters, the Golden Heavenly Emperor was forced to issue an edict, restoring the mining of spirit stones from the Sea of Blood to supply spirit stones for the Heavenly Court's consumption!

With the large-scale application of spirit stones, the originally severe casualty situation greatly improved; the heavenly officials dutifully performed their duties, striving to protect people everywhere under the heavenly disasters, and for a time the Heavenly Court showed signs of a turnaround and prosperity.

But these measures were ultimately only treating the symptoms, not the root cause; although the Heavenly Court could protect people under the heavenly disasters, as for the disasters themselves, everyone really had no solution.

Moreover, as time passed, the already frequent heavenly disasters grew ever more severe, gradually becoming a force beyond human power…

In the human calendar, year 43, meeting 9, cycle 10, the Great Fire Mountain in the old land of the Southern Wasteland Phoenix clan erupted on a large scale; the poisonous fire from ancient times spread wildly in all directions, wherever it passed, both people and beasts died, hundreds of prefectures lay with corpses strewn across the fields, devoid of any life…

The Heavenly Court had no way to save them, and could only be forced to relocate the refugees from the volcanic region, leaving the poisonous fire to rage unchecked.

In the human calendar, year 43, meeting 9, cycle 20, a great earthquake struck the Northern Wasteland; the earth's light reflected across hundreds of prefectures, after which the earthquake split the ground and leveled the mountains and rivers, and following the quake, underground poisonous gas seeped out, turning half of the Northern Wasteland into a deathly silence…

The Heavenly Court was greatly alarmed, and could only gather the refugees from the Northern Wasteland, settle them in the Central Prefecture, and completely abandon the mountains and rivers of the Northern Wasteland.

In the human calendar, year 43, meeting 10, cycle 8, a great earthquake struck the Western Wasteland; the water of the Sea of Blood poured back into the prefectures, countless mortals died or were injured, the markets of the various cultivators also suffered heavy losses, and those below true immortals were nearly wiped out!

The Heavenly Court had no choice but to relocate the people of the Western Wasteland inward; aside from continuing to organize immortals to mine spirit stones, it almost completely abandoned this land of the Western Wasteland, the land of rising dragons.

…

South, North, West, and Central—the four realms successively suffered great disasters, while the Heavenly Court could do nothing, and could only have everyone act as paperhangers, moving all the people of the four realms to the Eastern Wasteland, gathering the full strength of the Heavenly Court to death-defend this last pure land of the Eastern Wasteland.

The newly formed Heavenly Court, which had just unified the five realms for less than a single cycle, instantly became a separatist regime ruling over the Eastern Wasteland!

And this was merely the appetizer of the heaven-and-earth apocalypse; the main show is still to come…

…

(End of chapter)