Chapter 268: The Heavenly Human Mirror and the Shattered Plane Origin

Dongzhou, Yaoguo.

A northern city, stars of light scattered about.

Yaoguo places extreme importance on environmental protection and enjoys being close to nature; even in the center of this city, which ranks in the top ten nationwide, it maintains a very high green coverage rate. Lush, verdant trees grow everywhere, and vines crawl all over the overpasses and buildings. The biggest difference between the nights of this forest city and human cities is the lighting; the lights in Yaoguo cities at night are sparse and dim, and one can see the moon just by looking up.

The waning crescent moon is like a thin, fine hook.

A young male demon is meticulously dressing up in his room, preparing to go clubbing tonight.

The male demon first finished bathing, applied makeup, blew out a hairstyle and sprayed it with hairspray, then unplugged the hairdryer and switched to a polisher to finely buff the two deer antlers on top of his head, applying wax to them. Facing the mirror, the antlers reflected a delicate luster.

The deer demon tilted his head to look, becoming increasingly satisfied.

Just at this moment, with a bang—

The window shattered!

"?"

A stable and peaceful society has lowered the deer demon's reaction ability. When he poked his head out from the bathroom to look, a sturdy, middle-aged wolf demon had already arrived in the living room through the window. The wolf demon was clearly here with ill intent; his eyes had turned red due to a thirst for slaughter, and his body was full of baleful aura.

At the same time, the wolf demon also noticed the gaze cast by the deer demon and turned his head to look.

The two sides stared at each other.

The wolf demon said in a low voice: "Caught you..."

Facing those scarlet eyes, the deer demon was once extremely terrified. Just as he wanted to say something, the wolf demon gave him no chance to speak at all. Amidst a long, drawn-out wolf howl, his figure moved like the wind, reaching before him in the blink of an eye.

The deer demon channeled his Spirit Power to the fullest, hurriedly resisting.

At the same time, he shouted loudly:

"Who are you?

"What do you want?

"Money? That's negotiable!"

Once the Demon Race undergoes Transformation, they are at least Intermediate Stage. The power of the Intermediate Stage is enough to make up for differences in race and physique, but in most cases, demons who were herbivores still fear demons who were predators when conflicts erupt, just as honest people fear villains.

However, at a life-or-death juncture, the deer demon could not care about fear or anything else; he had to fight back with his life first.

To buy time for neighbors or police patrols to arrive.

Alas, the gap between the two sides was too great.

The wolf demon already had Fifth Stage strength, while he was only Fourth Stage, and the wolf demon was a seasoned killer, while he was just a young office worker.

His resistance lasted less than two seconds.

Two seconds later, he was held by the neck by one of the wolf demon's hands, while the other hand grabbed his head. At the same time, the wolf demon extended sharp black nails from his fingers. He could feel the wolf demon's massive palm exerting force, the nails having already pierced into his cheeks and cerebral cortex.

"Ah..."

"Bang!"

The wolf demon stayed in place for a few seconds to confirm his death, then turned and walked to the window, looking up at the hooked moon in the sky, feeling the wind blowing from the high floor.

This long-lost thrill of the hunt, coming from his genes, made him incomparably addicted. Yet this highly civilized modern society before his eyes was like a giant cage, restraining both the nature of animals and the nature of demons. Weak demons and strong demons lived together as equals; everyone wore a disguise, suppressing their inner selves. This was fundamentally wrong.

Life is like a dream; one should act as one pleases.

A long, drawn-out wolf howl resounded through the night sky.

Only when he heard the neighbors knocking on the door and the reaction from the police in the distance detecting abnormal Spirit Power fluctuations did he jump off without haste, walking nimbly on the building wall perpendicular to the ground using both hands and feet. His figure soon disappeared into the dense forest.

On a remote ocean island, a few thatched huts are dotted among the tropical rainforest.

As the strongest Ninth Stage in the world today, perhaps only the Calamity-Facing Bodhisattva of the Buddhist Sect could contend with him slightly beneath the gods, but his life has always been simple.

An ordinary thatched hut, a meditation cushion, a tea table, and a cup of coarse tea—that is his day.

The ocean is vast, yet it is not easy to hide in.

Just over a hundred kilometers away, a carrier fleet from Yiguo is patrolling the ocean. Satellites scan this sea area every day, and every few days one can see reconnaissance planes from Yiguo or Lan Country flying nearby. Besides this, one of Yiguo's Sky Aircraft Carriers is only a little over a thousand kilometers away from here, and another is said to have left its base, whereabouts unknown. A Main Battle Ship formation from Lan Country is resting at a base fifteen hundred kilometers away.

These two new and old superpowers are competing in secret without end, yet they are both working together to find him.

Fortunately, the Heavenly Human Mirror can obstruct the investigations of Buddhist Sect, Daoist, and Heavenly Human System Cultivators of the Ninth Stage and below, as well as Secret Sect Practitioners of the Eighth Stage and below, forcing them to determine his general area only through side-channel searches for the time being, and they will be confused by clones.

Yiguo definitely has the assistance of High-Tier Secret Sect Practitioners.

Cao Ci is certain of this point.

Otherwise, he would not have been chased so miserably before.

Fortunately, he found the method to open and use the Heavenly Human Mirror in time; otherwise, he fears he would still be chased and attacked by the Sky Aircraft Carrier and Meng Kaiyang right now.

Of course, the main use of the Heavenly Human Mirror is to find the shattered Plane Origin.

It did not disappoint him. After some extremely troublesome and time-consuming cracking and exploration, they finally opened the Heavenly Human Mirror and successfully used it to find the shattered Plane Origin, only the final result he found made him feel somewhat troubled—

The Plane Origin had shattered into hundreds of pieces of varying sizes, and they had hidden themselves within the bodies of hundreds of intelligent beings around the world.

These intelligent beings are distributed all over the world, covering all major races and the Demon Race. Some are elderly, some are young; some have outstanding talent, some have mediocre aptitude; some hold high positions, some muddle through their days. The shattered origin seems to have caused them no impact at all, just using their bodies for temporary storage. If not for the Heavenly Human Mirror, no one would even be able to discover its existence.

This is the answer that took a long time to obtain.

Because although the Heavenly Human Mirror was opened, the use of the Heavenly Human Mirror itself has a certain threshold. That is to say, the Heavenly Human Mirror was not designed for ordinary people to use, but for "professionals" such as Daoist, Buddhist Sect, or Heavenly Human Cultivators. When non-professionals like them use it, the effect is greatly reduced, and it cannot be opened after being used about two or three times every period.

The Heavenly Human Mirror can find these people.

Then they spent a long time finding a way to extract the origin from these people.

There are mainly two methods—

One is very simple, but it requires killing the person carrying the origin.

One is very complex, but it does not require killing anyone.

Of course, he chose the simple one.

The Mengyue Sect does things entirely as they please.

Death is nothing but the end of a game; it is just eliminating those people from this game. Since they are neither relatives nor friends, naturally, the simplest method is used.

Cao Ci sat cross-legged on the ground, closing his eyes to rest his mind.

At this moment, someone walked in.

Almost the instant the person stepped over the threshold, Cao Ci opened his eyes:

"Done?"

"Yes! Next one."

"Mm."

Cao Ci took out the Heavenly Human Mirror, performed a series of operations to open it, then performed another series of operations, and said to the Heavenly Human Mirror: "The host of the next Plane Origin fragment."

An image appeared on the mirror's surface.

First was the appearance of this planet, which rotated and stopped at a certain spot, continuously zooming in until it locked onto the central region of Yiguo in Dongzhou, and then the image revealed a figure.

A young man wearing a long robe was sitting in a room, drinking tea while playing with his Mobile Phone.

The man had sword-like eyebrows and star-bright eyes, with a gentle demeanor.

Cao Ci frowned at once.

"Next."

"Zzz..."

The image on the Heavenly Human Mirror flickered and repeated, but it still displayed that same young man.

Cao Ci's expression turned grave.

Right now, he could not leave this island at all, but even if he could, in Yujing City alone, there were at least several Ninth Stage experts holding the fort; besides the Imperial Family, Xinzheng Temple, and Yuan'an Temple, the Yiguo military also had Ninth Stage experts guarding the Capital.

If even Ninth Stage experts wouldn't suffice, then who else could?

It seemed this matter was more difficult than he had imagined.

Cao Ci looked at the Heavenly Human Mirror in silence.

And the main problem at hand was that progress was stuck at this link; if this hurdle could not be passed, subsequent steps could not be carried out.

Thinking this, Cao Ci suddenly sneered.

That group of people from the Dayi Imperial Family, full of righteous energy every day—if this kid knew that his existence had blocked the deaths of many people later on, he would probably be very proud, right?

The ninth day of the ninth lunar month; it was already late autumn.

Outside Yujing Cheng, a dark forest of yellow leaves was shrouded in gray-white morning mist, and overhead, the clouds and mist were also deep; right in the depths of this mist, two figures flew through the sky hand in hand, playing the part of an immortal couple.

After more than a month of diligent study and Chen Shu's intimate guidance, Secretary Ning had finally mastered the Imperial Sky Technique and could use it to fly.

This speed was, outside of Spirit Cultivators, nothing short of miraculous.

However, Secretary Ning had only mastered this Spell; to integrate it into the Thousand Machine Art would still require a long time. At least in this regard, the proficiency of cultivators of other systems was far inferior to Spirit Cultivators. Therefore, Chen Shu could use this as an excuse to hold Qingqing's hand openly and honestly, for fear that she might fall.

Secretary Ning stated that for her, such a thing as losing focus was absolutely impossible, but since Chen Shu insisted, she couldn't be bothered to argue with him.

They flew all the way until they reached the foot of Xinzheng Temple, where they could fly no further.

"Land there."

Chen Shu and she came across the morning mist hand in hand and landed steadily; in a flash, they truly looked like an immortal couple.

"Qingqing's hands are so soft..."

"..."

Qingqing pursed her lips and acted as if she hadn't heard, simply pulling her hand away.

The two walked side by side toward Xinzheng Temple.

Today was the Double Ninth Festival, a day for climbing high to gaze into the distance and enjoying the autumn chrysanthemums; Xinzheng Temple was undoubtedly a good place around Yujing for climbing high and gazing into the distance, and one could also burn incense and pay respects to the Buddha. Yiguo maintained such traditions quite well, so even early in the morning, there were already many tourists on the steps leading to Xinzheng Temple.

Passing through Wangxi Ancient Town, the two arrived at the foot of the mountain gate.

Looking up, there was still an endless ancient path of green stone steps, and from the depths of the mountain mist, the sound of an ancient bell could be faintly heard.

"Qingqing."

"No."

"The mountain road is difficult to travel, the stone steps are covered in moss, and you are so frail, be careful not to slip; come, let me hold your hand."

As Chen Shu spoke, he grabbed the sleeve of Qingqing's coat to lift her hand, only to see her hand retracted inside the sleeve; after she took her hand out of the coat sleeve, there was another long sleeve inside, and after taking it out of that sleeve, her fair, delicate hand was tightly clenched into a fist, impossible to pry open.

"Sigh..."

Chen Shu had no choice but to head up the mountain helplessly.

In the mist, the red walls of the temple gate gradually appeared, and at the end of the ancient path of green stone steps, a big monk stood waiting for them.