Chapter 90: The Passing of the Torch

How radiant Su Lingwei once was — though she never put on airs, both Chen Xiaohu and Jiang Qin could see the pride in her heart. But now, that pride had been utterly shattered by the very people who had once called themselves family.

The bloodstains covering her body and the thinness of her Spirit Power both made it clear that Su Lingwei's martial cultivation realm had been crippled.

Not only that.

Her right arm hung empty — the limb was nowhere to be found.

For a martial cultivator, a missing limb meant severed meridians. Even if miraculous pills could be found to heal Su Lingwei's wounds, the damage to her body meant she would never have a chance to rise again in this lifetime.

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Facing Chen Xiaohu's fury, the two Su Family elders paid it no heed and replied coldly:

"Su Lingwei violated the Su Family's rules and has already been punished accordingly."

"We're handing her over to you now. You have ten minutes to leave Lingxi Shan. Otherwise, even if she is the last promising seedling of Zhenling Academy, the Su Family fears nothing!"

Chen Xiaohu wanted to say more, but the feeble Su Lingwei gripped his arm.

She silently shook her head.

Seeing this, Chen Xiaohu could only first push two Liaoshang Danya into her mouth, then carry Su Lingwei on his back. He glanced back at the Su Family crowd, his gaze sweeping over each of them, then strode down the mountain.

That look was both a threat and a debt to be settled.

The two Su Family elders paid it no mind. With Fierce Beasts now ravaging the nation, whether these two could even survive was uncertain. As for the missing Jiang Qin… others might not know, but how could they not?

The entire city of Tianyun Shi had been erased by the gods. Even if Jiang Qin was a peerless prodigy, he had died in that battle.

Therefore, they had nothing to fear.

If not for still considering the lingering influence of the Zhenling Bureau, today they would never have let these two leave no matter what.

…

At this moment, within Cangling Jie.

Jiang Qin's soul had fallen into slumber.

His consciousness, drawn by a force, arrived at a special Space.

When he opened his eyes again, he was already inside a palace. The surrounding architecture was laid out in a very ancient style. At the top of the steps ahead, on a dragon throne, sat a single person, lounging lazily against the chair back, his gaze lowered.

He wore a golden dragon robe, vivid and lifelike, radiating the majesty of an emperor.

The moment he saw that man's face, all the memories of this person's life surfaced in Jiang Qin's mind, and he knew his identity.

The First Ancestor of Cangling Jie — the first emperor born of this world's tens of thousands of years of history.

He had raised the curtain on the war against the gods, and ultimately died at their hands.

The First Ancestor of Cangling's deep, muffled voice rang through the palace, like thunder in the ears.

"Descendant of later ages, what do you think it means to be 'human'?"

"To stand tall between heaven and earth!"

"Humans are born frail. Heaven is supreme — a single thought can decide the life and death of all living beings. How then can one stand tall between heaven and earth?"

Jiang Qin was silent for a moment, then, after thinking, cupped his hands and said:

"All living beings must face life and death. The body can be destroyed, the soul can be extinguished, but the will of man passes down through inheritance from generation to generation, never yielding. Accumulating the strength of generations, success will come in time — this is the passing of the torch."

"Passing of the torch…"

The First Ancestor of Cangling muttered the phrase, finding it especially fitting on the tongue.

The surrounding scene began to change rapidly, the palace turning to scorched earth.

Divine punishment descended from the heavens to punish humanity's disrespect, and a million miles turned to scorched earth. People wailed everywhere. Heaven thought this could break the spine of the human race, but the will to freedom had already been etched into the mind of every single human.

【Heaven】 is unkind, treating all things as straw dogs.

The human race refused to accept this, and so turned the edge of their blades toward 【Heaven】.

An invisible pressure descended upon Jiang Qin, pressing his body into a half-bow. He gritted his teeth and held on, refusing to kneel.

The First Ancestor of Cangling stepped forward and stood before him.

"What good is the passing of the torch? To 【Heaven】, even if our human race accumulates strength for a thousand or ten thousand more generations, we still cannot resist — cannot resist the gods. In the end we become livestock. If we knew this would be the result, what was the point of striving? We are all failures."

"No, the Cangling Human Race failed." Jiang Qin strained to lift his head and deny it, his tone firm: "The Cangling Human Race failed, but the human race has not yet failed!"

"All you can do now is stake everything on me. I will bear the grand aspiration of the Cangling Human Race accumulated over thousands of years, and put a complete end to 【Heaven】's era of tyranny!"

A trace of mockery curled at the corner of the First Ancestor of Cangling's mouth. "On the strength of the current you? You don't even have a physical body. Anyone can talk big — your so-called will is utterly meaningless."

The result was failure — so what fool would walk the same path again?

That familiar burning sensation rose once more, warming Jiang Qin's consciousness.

Little by little he straightened his body, and in his eyes it seemed as though flames were burning: "Some things, even if they have no meaning, still must be done! Just as you knew you were doomed to fail, yet still chose to raise your blade against heaven. If no matter what you do you are doomed to fail, then it is not fate that doomed you and me to failure — it is you and I who chose the fate of failure!"

"And I believe that one day, the human race will be able to take control of its own destiny, and no one will be able to stop it."

As his words fell, the pressure on his body vanished in an instant.

The surrounding environment and the First Ancestor of Cangling began to dissipate, and a bold, unrestrained laughter echoed through this Space.

"What a fine line — it is not fate that doomed you and me to failure, but you and I who chose the fate of failure!"

"The right to freedom belongs to all living beings. If Heaven wishes to strip humanity of its freedom, to control our thoughts — then even if It is Heaven, our human race will still shine with a brilliance that belongs to us alone. Even Heaven cannot overturn the eternal will etched into our very bloodlines!"

Jiang Qin's answer greatly satisfied this soul phantom of the First Ancestor of Cangling.

He acknowledged that this descendant of later ages possessed the makings of an 'Emperor' of the human race.

What followed was the next trial…

He answered question after question, meeting peerless figures of the Cangling Human Race by the hundreds and thousands. Some only required answers that satisfied them; others required Jiang Qin to live through their entire lives.

He did not know how many years had passed.

A thousand years? Or ten thousand?

What Jiang Qin did not notice was that with every trial he passed, his consciousness phantom grew a fraction more solid.

He witnessed the Cangling Human Race rise from decline to glory, giving birth to countless prodigies of dazzling brilliance.

Until the surrounding scene dissolved once again.

When Jiang Qin opened his eyes, he was already inside a dilapidated wooden hut. The surroundings were deathly still, and the only thing he could feel was the wind-borne sand that blew in through the window from time to Time.

Jiang Qin had already grown somewhat accustomed to such things.

Among those ancient sages of the Cangling Human Race, there were always some who liked to test a person's willpower with the passage of Time — presumably, one only had to wait until he died of old age for this trial to end, and then the next trial would continue.

Jiang Qin numbly surveyed his surroundings, then silently began tidying up the wooden hut…