Chapter 189: Dao Guardian

The topic of the humanoid stone carving was too heavy. Hua Changxi shifted her gaze from the carving to the hammer emitting red light in the center: "I heard from Fellow Daoist Baili that this is a divine hammer."

Tong Yao nodded: "Each of the four sacred lands has two divine artifacts."

Hearing this, Hua Changxi quickly looked over: "Two divine artifacts? Which two?"

Tong Yao looked at her: "Fellow Daoist Hua doesn't know?"

Hearing his surprised tone, Hua Changxi was also surprised: "Should I know?"

Tong Yao was silent for a moment: "Fellow Daoist Hua has been to Kunmen Pass before, right?"

Hua Changxi saw him suddenly change the subject and was a bit puzzled: "Fellow Daoist Tong, if you have something to say, please say it directly."

Tong Yao: "I saw you at Kunmen Pass. This is our second meeting."

Hua Changxi looked Tong Yao over. That time she went to Kunmen Pass was her first descent into the Nine Netherworlds. She didn't understand anything. First, she was caught by ghost messengers, then later, because she cooperated with Master Longbrow, she almost lost her life. During that time, she had not made any acquaintances.

"Could Fellow Daoist Tong be mistaking me for someone else?"

Tong Yao shook his head: "I can't be mistaken. You are the one who assisted Master Longbrow at Kunmen Pass to rescue me and other cultivators. Just now, when you condensed the Fire Palm, I recognized you. Your Fire Palm is very unusual, with the Buddhist swastika symbol engraved on it. Also, the Fire Lotus you just condensed is exactly the same as the one that cultivator used."

As he said this, Tong Yao made a deep bow to Hua Changxi again.

"I am one of those you carried across the Styx River using Master Longbrow's kasaya and rescued from the Nine Netherworlds. Last time I was severely injured, and upon returning to the human world, I had to leave hastily and couldn't thank you in time. Please forgive me."

"Fellow Daoist Hua, this is the second time you have saved me."

Hua Changxi was genuinely surprised to hear him say this. Back then, when crossing the Styx River, the situation was truly perilous, and the cultivators she escorted were all disguised. She really hadn't expected Tong Yao to be among them.

"Now that you mention it, we are quite fated to meet."

Hua Changxi didn't deny saving people back then: "But what does that have to do with whether I know about the divine artifacts of the four sacred lands?"

Tong Yao looked at her in astonishment: "Fellow Daoist Hua appeared in time at Kunmen Pass last time, so we could survive the disaster, and the Talisman Sage Pavilion's talisman brush didn't fall into the hands of the demon race. This time, demons infiltrated Tang Valley and damaged the array eye, and it was you who intervened in time to stop it, preventing demonic qi from spreading into the human world."

Hua Changxi: "So?"

Tong Yao looked at Hua Changxi, whose clear eyes reflected the words "I don't understand": "... You aren't a Guardian?"

Hua Changxi's expression flickered: "Guardian? What Guardian?" Another piece of information she didn't know.

Tong Yao was silent. After a long while, he said: "Before the ancient war, powerful experts had already calculated that the Four Spirit Realms would experience a great extinction of spiritual Qi. To ensure that the inheritance would not be severed, the five continents all selected Guardian families."

"In the Central Continent, other sect forces may have permanently disappeared with the passage of time, but the five sacred lands, because of the Divine Tree and because they serve as the array heart and array eyes of the Demon Prison, are absolutely the key focus of the Guardian families."

"I don't know the situation in the other sacred lands, but the reason the Artifact Sage Palace never had its inheritance cut off is because of the hidden protection of the Guardian families. If not for the Guardian's intervention, the underground flame vein of the Artifact Sage Palace would have been seized by the royal family long ago."

"You appeared twice at moments when the Talisman Sage Pavilion and Artifact Sage Palace were facing crises, so I assumed you were from a Guardian family."

After hearing this, Hua Changxi was also silent for a while.

Before this, because she knew that many noble families had long discovered the revival of spiritual Qi and had seized cultivation resources early to embark on the path of cultivation, she felt a sense of urgency and dared not slack off even slightly in her cultivation.

Now, to make matters worse, even more formidable Guardian families had emerged.

The world of cultivators truly has strong people above even stronger ones; one cannot relax for a moment.

Wanting to understand the true foundation of the Guardian families, Hua Changxi probed: "From ancient times to now, I don't know how many tens of thousands of years have passed. Can the people of the Guardian families pass down their inheritance generation after generation to the present? Haven't there been any accidents during that time?"

Hearing her ask this, Tong Yao completely believed that she knew nothing about the Guardian families: "The people of the Guardian families have always lived in secret realms with abundant spiritual Qi. Whenever major chaos occurs in the human world, the Guardians will appear and, depending on the situation, save the human world to some extent."

"You should know that in Great Jin, mythological stories have always been passed down. Apart from the ancient gods and great demons, what most common people talk about are the Guardians who appear in the human world."

Hua Changxi's eyes flickered: "Living in secret realms with abundant spiritual Qi, the Guardians' cultivation levels must be very high."

Tong Yao nodded: "That's for sure." As he spoke, he looked at Hua Changxi and wanted to say, 'Your cultivation is also very high,' and her divine abilities were formidable. It was for this reason that he had guessed she was a Guardian.

Who knew? She wasn't.

Tong Yao looked at Hua Changxi. If she wasn't a Guardian, then she must be from another cultivation family.

But he had never heard of a cultivation family with the surname Hua.

Could she be a rising star?

Seeing Tong Yao looking at her with an inquiring expression, Hua Changxi interrupted him: "You haven't told me yet which two divine artifacts each of the four sacred lands has?"

Tong Yao collected his thoughts: "From the names of the four sacred lands, you can guess what one of their divine artifacts is. The Pill Sage Temple has a pill furnace for alchemy, the Artifact Sage Palace has a divine hammer for artifact refining, the Talisman Sage Pavilion has a talisman brush for drawing talismans, and the Array Sage Sect has the Zhou Tian Xing Luo Array Plate for deducing formations."

Hua Changxi: "I know that one. What about the other?"

Tong Yao: "The other divine artifact is the same across the four sacred lands—a Demon-Slaying Sword."

Hearing this, Hua Changxi's gaze flickered. She now understood what sword was depicted on the wooden plaque of the Qihuang Hall. Suddenly thinking of something, she asked again, "You just mentioned five sacred lands. What's the name of the other one?"

Tong Yao: "The remaining sacred land is the Central Sacred Land. It lies at the heart of the Central Continent and is where the Jianmu grows. The Jianmu connects the Nine Heavens, the Mortal Realm, and the Nine Netherworlds, serving as the array core of the Demon Prison."

Hua Changxi fell into thought: "The four sub-arrays—Elixir, Artifact, Talisman, and Formation—are located in the east, south, west, and north. The Central Sacred Land is probably at the center of the four sacred lands, so..." She looked at Tong Yao. "The Heavenly Division is located in the Central Sacred Land?"

Tong Yao nodded: "Right."

That the Heavenly Division was the site of the Central Sacred Land—this had been known to the imperial family and various factions for a very long time.

Hua Changxi asked again: "The Heavenly Division is under the command of the imperial family. Doesn't that mean the Central Sacred Land has already fallen under imperial control?"

Tong Yao shook his head: "From my observations, the Heavenly Division only outwardly obeys the imperial family in order to maintain stability in the mortal realm. However, the two generals of the Heavenly Division's most powerful Demon-Suppression Army are both imperial scions. The Left General, Chu Junyi, is the son of the War King; the Right General, Chu Junling, is the current emperor's eldest son."

Hua Changxi knew nothing about the imperial family, so she asked curiously: "Is the War King the emperor's brother?"

Tong Yao nodded: "The Grand Emperor had two empresses—one deposed, Su, and the current Empress Dowager, Zhu. The War King was Empress Su's son and the Grand Emperor's legitimate eldest son. If Empress Su hadn't been deposed and the Su clan hadn't been executed to the ninth degree, the Grand Emperor's throne would have passed to the War King."

"Unfortunately, Empress Su was deposed, and the Su clan was uprooted. Though the War King managed to survive, he was sent to guard the border, where he fought bloodily until his death, ultimately dying far from home."

"While guarding the border, the War King never lost a battle and was revered as the War God. After his death, the Grand Emperor conferred upon him the title 'War King'."

As Tong Yao said these things, his tone carried some regret: "As the War King's son, Chu Junyi was born under an auspicious omen—a Fire Qilin appeared in the sky. The Grand Emperor took him into his personal care, raised him, and at the age of five, he became a disciple of the Heavenly Division's chief, Wei Zhenjie. After that, he entered the Demon-Suppression Army and step by step rose to become its Left General."

"At the royal family banquet celebrating the Grand Emperor's abdication, the Grand Emperor fondly called Chu Junyi the 'Qilin Son of the Imperial House.' Because of this, Chu Junyi was feared by many in the imperial family, especially the princes born to the current emperor, who regarded him as a thorn in their side."

"Within the Demon-Suppression Army, Chu Junyi and Chu Junling also held a mutual aversion, constantly competing with each other."

Hua Changxi treated these bits of imperial gossip as mere chatter. As for whether the Central Sacred Land was truly under imperial control, she could do nothing about it and didn't want to do anything—so long as it didn't affect her.

"What about this crack?"

More than half of a humanoid stone carving had been shattered, revealing a gap.

Tong Yao walked over, set the carving upright, and said, "Once I recover my spiritual power, I'll repair the carving."

Hua Changxi: "It can still be repaired?"

Tong Yao nodded: "The array eye was forged with Boundary Stone. The Artifact Saint Palace just so happens to still have some Boundary Stone powder, which can be used to repair the carving."

Hearing this, Hua Changxi handed him several bottles of third-grade Fire Reversion Pills: "Taking elixirs will speed up your recovery."

Tong Yao accepted the elixirs and, seeing that they were all supreme-grade pills, showed a surprised expression: "Fellow daoist is also an alchemist?"

Hua Changxi nodded: "I have a bit of talent in alchemy. Fellow Tong is skilled in artifact forging, and I'm skilled in alchemy. In the future, we can exchange with each other."