Chapter 407: Murky Shadows |
Hearing those words, Xuan Che nodded slowly, his expression half grave, half blank.
The blankness was because half his face was still numb.
“Dark Angels are the only ‘common interest’ capable of linking two otherwise unrelated sides,” Yu Sheng said, doing his best to ignore the occasional twitch of that numb half of Xuan Che’s face and keeping his tone as serious as possible: “From their low?key hibernation in recent years to their current incursions, the Hermitage’s most direct motivation is this.”
Xuan Che nodded: “I have heard as much from my master. Those heretics believe that by borrowing the power of ‘Angel Catalysts’ they can ‘heal’ the universe. Aside from that, there is likely nothing in this world that would make these self?styled ‘saints’ lower themselves to ‘cooperate’ with other forces.”
Once the clues were suddenly threaded together, the long?stalled line of thought cleared at once. Yu Sheng followed through on Xuan Che’s words: “On the other hand, Yun Qing Zi vanished a thousand years ago, and his last appearance in the world before disappearing was near the Sentinel Silence, where he fought some unknown, powerful enemy.”
The two looked at each other, and in each other’s eyes they saw the same answer.
Even Zheng Zhi, who had been listening quietly on the side, caught on: “You mean the one who fought Yun Qing Zi back then was a Dark Angel?”
“Very likely,” Xuan Che said in a low voice: “If it were not such a formidable opponent, how could a Great Cultivator like Yun Qing Zi, one who had endured the era of reforging through time, be easily defeated? Investigators examined that battlefield back then. They even found fragments of a corpse whose essence?soul had been burned out. Under normal circumstances, even if a supreme expert were defeated, how could the defeat be so absolute?”
“But he did not die,” Yu Sheng said, brow tightly knit: “And judging from the Hermitage cooperating with him now, he did more than merely ‘survive’ back then.”
“Is that possible?” said Xuan Che, incredulous on the functioning half of his face: “There are cases of survivors after encountering Dark Angels, yes. But surviving a close?quarters fight, and on top of that tearing away some fragments…”
As he trailed off, his gaze slid to Yu Sheng.
“Don’t look at me. My case isn’t representative,” Yu Sheng said quickly, raising both hands: “And I have said it many times. I didn’t fight Anka Aila. We conducted talk therapy. They chose to sleep, fully informed and of their own will.”
“Ahem, I know,” Xuan Che coughed twice: “I mean, since we have Officer Yu as an ‘example,’ it seems extracting ‘Angel Catalysts’ from a Dark Angel is not impossible. If a thousand years ago Yun Qing Zi truly fought one to mutual ruin, then today he does indeed have the ability to cooperate with the Hermitage, even to the point of letting their Great Sage charge and fight for him.”
“We just don’t know what terms the Hermitage offered,” Yu Sheng mused, rubbing his chin: “Cooperation is an exchange of interests. If Yun Qing Zi can provide the Hermitage with ‘Angel Catalysts,’ then what does the Hermitage give him in return?”
After two or three seconds of quiet, Immortal Yuan Hao spoke, unhurried: “For example, resolving or suppressing the ‘hidden affliction’ left by the Dark Angel.”
Several gazes settled on the handsome elder.
“It is an easy inference,” Immortal Yuan Hao said calmly: “Judging from the traces discovered on that battlefield, the result of Yun Qing Zi’s battle must have been exceedingly tragic. To live through such a fight could not have come without a price. His remaining absent for a thousand years corroborates this. The Hermitage has specialized in studying Dark Angels for years. I have heard they even possess an angelic corpse as a ‘sample.’ They must have made no small progress in this domain.”
“I agree with that conjecture,” Yu Sheng said, nodding slowly as he rapidly reorganized the intelligence currently in hand and sorted other questions: “Which brings us to the next issue. We have a rough grasp of the cooperation between Yun Qing Zi and the Hermitage. What about Yun Qing Zi’s other ‘target’? What exactly is the Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy he’s searching for, and why does he want it?”
“I have no clue,” Immortal Yuan Hao shook his head: “To begin with, we do not even know what the Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy is, let alone its ‘use.’”
“If it is also to resolve the hidden affliction left by the Dark Angel,” Xuan Che said after careful thought, three?quarters of his face grave: “The Hermitage acts deviously and insidiously, and its doctrine is extreme. Toward outsiders they have no ethics and no honor. Someone like Yun Qing Zi, who has weathered great storms, cannot fail to see this. Their cooperation is unlikely to be ‘sincere.’ So Yun Qing Zi must also seek another way to solve his own problem.
“The Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy may be a world?rending spell, a heaven?cleaving divine armament, or even an artifact that reverses cause and effect. Otherwise it could not bear such a name. Yun Qing Zi likely intends to borrow its power to eliminate, once and for all, the hidden affliction left by his battle with the Dark Angel.”
Although Xuan Che’s guess lacked hard evidence, the logic held together. Yu Sheng felt the situation might not be so simple, but he did not object directly. After a moment’s thought, he reminded them: “Everything so far is built on the premise that ‘a thousand years ago Yun Qing Zi crossed blades with a Dark Angel and was left with a major hidden affliction.’ The next step is figuring out how to verify that premise.”
He paused, thought briefly, and continued: “If Yun Qing Zi truly encountered a Dark Angel back then, which ‘angel’ was it? And now, after so many years, where is that ‘angel’?”
“Is there another possibility,” Zheng Zhi asked, glancing at Yu Sheng, then at Xuan Che and Immortal Yuan Hao, his voice tentative: “namely, that Yun Qing Zi won back then? Maybe that Dark Angel was completely destroyed.”
The moment Zheng Zhi finished, both Xuan Che and Yuan Hao fixed him with steady looks, and he instinctively hunched his neck: “I’m just offering a possibility. I only just finished training and haven’t even passed probation. I was thinking, Brother Yu already triggered an ‘Angel Fall,’ which shows Dark Angels aren’t invincible.”
“I understand your point, but to be frank, the likelihood is low,” Xuan Che said after a beat, five?eighths of his face earnest: “There is no need to belabor the strangeness and danger of Dark Angels. Based on our intelligence, an ‘Angel Fall’ cannot be concealed.
“When Anka Aila died, it was accompanied by a massive release of energy and spectacular phenomena that lit up the sky. Afterward it left behind large quantities of what are called ‘Anka Aila crystals,’ remains with uncanny properties. The Hermitage’s ‘shadowless remains’ were already a corpse when discovered, but around them there was likewise a vast distribution of ‘minerals,’ and at the site there was even a ‘sky pit’ visible to the naked eye from space. It seems that its fall must also have made a grand commotion.
“By that reasoning, the death of a Dark Angel is most likely accompanied by large?scale, even heaven?and?earth?changing anomalies, and afterward there are obvious ‘remnants’ that anyone can recognize as unusual. Yet on the battlefield where Yun Qing Zi vanished, nothing of the sort was found.”
“A thousand years ago,” Yu Sheng murmured, frowning: “were there records in the Sentinel Silence of abnormal natural phenomena or mass mental contamination?”
Blinking, Xuan Che asked: “You mean…”
“The Special Bureau holds a vast trove of signature data and eyewitness records on Dark Angels. Perhaps they could analyze reports of anomalies around the Sentinel Silence from a thousand years ago and find a few threads, to determine which Dark Angel appeared there, if it truly was one,” Yu Sheng said, his tone firm: “The death of a Dark Angel cannot be concealed, and neither can its descent. There would be widespread mental contamination, supernatural phenomena, even realm breaches. If a Dark Angel truly appeared here back then, these conditions would have accompanied it.”
Pondering, Xuan Che spoke after a moment: “This is reasonable. But a thousand years ago the Sentinel Silence was still in the early stages of development. Aside from a few garrison posts and fort towns on the primary world, the surrounding satellites and planetary orbits held only simple automated sentry stations. The place where Yun Qing Zi fought that unknown enemy was an uninhabited planet beside the Sentinel Silence. A thousand years ago, that was a blind spot in monitoring. I fear little useful data was left.”
“The uninhabited planet near the Sentinel Silence?” Yu Sheng asked, his brow creasing: “How far is it from here?”
“For an ordinary immortal skiff, a round trip takes a single day,” Xuan Che considered: “Do you intend to go there? With respect, you will not find clues now. It was a thousand years ago. Even if some trace lingered on that battlefield and no one noticed it then, the passage of time would have dissipated it. Moreover, if anything truly remained there, Yun Qing Zi and his partisans would surely have cleaned it up. They would never leave it outside for others to find.”
“We can still take a look. A quick run costs us nothing,” Yu Sheng said offhandedly: “If this matter truly involves Dark Angels, then we cannot let any possible lead slip by. Intelligence gathering is the most important step when dealing with rule?driven monstrosities like these.”
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