Chapter 829: The Offer

Gong Xiansheng entered the Sheng Huo Tan, his expression turning solemn.

Do not be fooled by his earlier appearance of completely disregarding the Son of Fire and the courtyard full of Fire Spirit clansmen, acting as if he were unruly and rebellious; in truth, he had been keeping a string taut in his heart the entire time. He had come to probe the deity in order to advance his own plans.

If it truly were a deity...

If he had been somewhat uncertain before, he could now basically confirm it:

The sacred fire here should be the same thing in essence as the Sacred Spring.

Not only the same, but of the same origin.

The problem is, he actually understands very well that this thing of the same origin is inherently a thing of the Human World, and furthermore, an external object. Therefore, can a fellow who gains power by controlling an external object be called a deity?

It is possible that it is a collective illusion created by the Fire Spirit clan with the sacred fire, either intentionally or unintentionally, or it could be some other person with ulterior motives playing the god.

After taking the time to quickly look through the history of the Fire Spirit clan, he felt that the Fire Spirit clan might have been the former, but now a change had occurred, and they had become the latter. The change in this is thought-provoking, and he had his own guesses.

If his guess is true, then his plan can be changed a little.

Why is he so certain that the thing of the same origin comes from the Human World, and that it is an external object?

Because he has long since conducted research; he knows the most, more than anyone else, more than the Shengnyu. Before he offered the Sacred Spring to the Shengnyu, he had already known in his heart that this was a treasure that anyone would want to swallow alone, but he chose to offer it up because he knew he was temporarily unable to master it, so he offered it up for the time being.

It was only for the time being, and he naturally still had follow-up plans.

This time, he specifically risked coming here and made two sets of preparations.

After entering the main gate, he saw the raging sacred fire at a glance; the sacred fire reflected in his eyes, burning fiercely in his pupils. He confirmed the information he wanted almost immediately, lowered his head to suppress his excitement, and bowed down with an exceptionally humble attitude that the Fire Spirit clansmen could never have imagined, saying: "Gong Yubai, Holy Son of the Holy Moon Sect, pays respects to the senior."

He spoke in very pure Human World official language; previously he had been speaking the Lingjie Common Language, which was also very standard, but human speech was still better—after all, he was still a human in essence.

There was only the sacred fire on the Sheng Huo Tan, and not a single person, so naturally, no one responded to him. He bowed and prostrated himself to the air alone, which inevitably looked quite comical.

Gong Yubai knelt and bowed for a moment, and when no one answered, he did not feel embarrassed; he actually continued to complete the full kowtow ceremony before rising and saying slowly: "This junior admires the senior from the bottom of my heart. To be a deity in the Lingjie as a human, and to be worshipped by the Heavenly Demons, is truly a miracle. Compared to you, our Holy Moon Sect still takes Heavenly Demons as deities, thinking we are climbing the ladder to heaven—how can we compare to even a ten-thousandth of the senior? Seeing you today, I am immediately captivated and prostrate myself. I am willing to give up following that so-called deity and change to following you."

"Our Holy Moon Sect has millions of followers who all run around for the god, but most people only know to believe in a god, yet do not know what god they believe in. Most people follow what the sect does; whatever the sect's venerated ones say to believe, they believe. This humble one happens to be the person who decides what their faith is. I am willing to offer the foundation of the Holy Moon Sect and the faith of a million people as a gift, and request to follow you!"

The surroundings were quiet; he spoke with great emotion, but it was like a one-man show.

Gong Yubai's cultivation, or rather the thickness of his skin, truly exceeded that of others; he actually continued unhurriedly: "Perhaps you think that a person like me running here and saying something about following you upon our first meeting is simply inexplicable; how can a stranger be worth trusting? However, although I am a stranger and an outsider, I share the same ideals as you and am a fellow traveler. As the saying goes, 'a new acquaintance can be like an old friend'; we have common aspirations, and we are both pursuing the great cause of the Sovereign Emperor!"

The sacred fire was still burning fiercely, and it seemed there was no change at all, but Gong Yubai felt:

It changed!

That certain existence who was at the side of the sacred fire yet nowhere to be found had originally been looking down at him as if watching a play, making him feel nothing unusual, but just now he had detected a certain scrutiny.

The other party had become serious!

As expected, by calling out the key point, he had revealed a flaw!

Being able to stir the one inside the Sheng Huo Tan, although he was somewhat proud, he was even more helpless:

It seems the other party also knows quite a lot.

With his own strength not being superior, if the information advantage is not that great, the difficulty of the plan rises sharply.

On the surface, he remained very respectful, without the slightest bit of pride from having called out a world-shaking event, and said: "You and I both know what this thing we have mastered, or rather this part of the treasure, is. It might be the sword of the Sovereign Lord from back then, or the legacy treasure he left behind."

After he finished this sentence, the airflow in the surroundings calmed down. This was by no means because the other party did not care; on the contrary, because they cared too much, it was especially quiet. Gong Yubai's confidence grew, and correspondingly, his tone became more and more self-assured.

"The whereabouts of the Sovereign Lord's sword in the past remain a mystery even now. It is not because it was lost due to the passage of time, but because it was consciously hidden. The Sword Saints who are in charge now have all seen the Sovereign Lord with their own eyes; how could they not know what the sword is? Yet they refuse to mention it, which naturally means they have united to seal the information. They made up their minds to seal the information about the Sovereign Lord's sword for two possible reasons. First, it must be that the sword is of great importance and has the power to pry open the world, yet no one has inherited it; it may already exist in another form, and it is impossible to let the news leak and attract outsiders to covet it. Another possibility is that they also want to inherit that sword, or they hold some clues in their hands, and they want to fully eliminate competitors to make it easier for them to master the Sovereign Lord's sword."

"There are also those who speculate that the current Qian Sword is the successor of the Sovereign Lord, and his sword is said to be able to maintain the operation of the Suiyu and even the Human World, known as 'the sun and sky have their regularities.' It is easy to associate this with the Sovereign Lord. However, thinking about it, it is unlikely. How glorious the Sovereign Lord was back then; he was the spiritual leader of the Human World. If he had a legitimate successor, why would he not raise a formal banner? Why bother secretly releasing these rumors? It is clearly a lack of confidence."

"After all, the time is too close, and many records have been left behind. In fact, one can glimpse many clues from them. For example, during the Sovereign Lord's era, the Sword Guest system developed greatly, Sword Immortals and Sword Saints emerged in large numbers, and the speed of talent cultivation was extremely fast. Eight or nine out of ten of the Sword Saints left now came from that era. One might say that it was a chaotic time that produced heroes, a gathering of wind and clouds, but the chaotic times did not start with him, nor did they end with him; why did it flourish to that extent while he was alive?"

"Furthermore, too many things were born in his era; many treasures were discovered, defined, and studied, many projects were built at a rapid speed, and then there was that Sword Domain... When he was young, his hometown was called the Qi Ji Zhi Cheng; he fought, and together with his teammates, they were called the Golden Generation. After he reached the top, that era was called the Dream Era; all of these were unique. If we think about it from the other side, it wasn't that he caught up with a good era, good comrades, and a good place, but that he himself created all of this—then what?"

"I don't know how far you have researched or how far you have confirmed, but I have studied a large number of documents and have already formed a definite idea—the Sovereign Lord's sword definitely has the ability to make everyone else better."

"If one thinks carefully, this kind of ability does not seem particularly strange; there are many miracles in the field of the sword, and some effects are even more magical. But he walked to the extreme on this path; he could change the world, and he could also change the sword itself."

"Therefore, he had already mastered the operation of the world and could be called a Sovereign Lord. The Qian Sword says he maintains the operation, but no one can prove it; one can only try to prove it by the fact that there have been no major disasters under his rule, but there are plenty of people who do not believe it. However, the Sovereign Lord was the one who decided how the world would operate, and time would operate accordingly."

"Many people say that the path the Sovereign Lord chose was wrong, and his Sword Domain ultimately failed to change the world and resist the Heavenly Demons, but I feel it was just that the time was too short. The Sovereign Lord's world could grow infinitely; if he had not fallen halfway, perhaps the Suiyu would be completely different today?"

"The strength of the Sovereign Lord's sword lies not in its power, but in infinite hope and infinite possibilities. A world with him would become better and better. Because everyone knew the future would get better, everyone was full of confidence, and the atmosphere of the Human World and the morale of the troops would also be high and upward. But he is gone, and no matter how many swords there are, none are as vibrant as when he was pointing the way forward."

"I think, if the Sovereign Lord left particularly suddenly, then no one could help it. But if the Sovereign Lord had a little bit of final preparation time, would he not want to leave hope for the Human World?"

"I have heard that some Sword Immortals will turn their swords into Sword Deities to preserve them, but that method is very time-consuming and unstable. More importantly, it will give birth to a new individual with wisdom; in essence, the sword already belongs to 'it,' and it has already embarked on a different path from the sword of that year. Intelligent beings are all unstable. If one really wants to completely preserve the will of the Sword Guest before death, one should essentially not trust any external 'person.' Those Sword Immortals do so because they have no other choice. I think the Sovereign Lord, as a figure who has never existed since the opening of heaven and earth, must have a better method."

At this moment, a sound finally appeared in the great hall. It was a short, strange sound, as if it were a sneer, or perhaps the sound of firewood bursting in the sacred fire, but it was fleeting, and upon listening again, only absolute silence remained.

Gong Yubai, who was always calm, finally felt a tremor when he heard this, as if it were a feeling of panic, but he certainly could not give up halfway now. He immediately suppressed his emotions and continued: "Outsiders certainly do not know this method, but you and I have both successfully glimpsed one or two of its mysteries. The sacred fire in your hands and the Sacred Spring in mine have infinite mysteries; the more one investigates, the more bottomless it seems. You even boast of being a deity because of it. But we know in our hearts that this is only a part of the power. The true power of the Sovereign Lord—only by combining the treasures in our hands can we say we have just begun to have the qualifications to pursue it. This process is already very difficult, especially since both sides know clearly that they must obtain the other's beloved treasure, so they must be mortal enemies. To be honest, no one would favor you, because the one on the other side is the Shengnyu. You certainly have the help of a clan's strength, but the Shengnyu's influence covers the entire Lingjie, and your most important advantage—the enemy is in the light while I am in the dark—is now useless. As long as I go back and mention it to the Shengnyu, the Fire Spirit clan's territory will be turned into a wasteland in two or three days."

"But if I come to help you, it will be different."