Chapter 837: Bloodline
"Fools who blindly believe that bloodlines determine everything will never be able to explain the source of the Progenitor's power," Ke Mo continued to sneer.
"In just two or three hundred years, you've allowed your descendants to believe in some innate nobility. It's all bullshit. What nobility? When the Spirit River Autumn happened centuries ago, weren't you, Ye De Xian, just a common mortal!"
"Black Magic runs deep; if you continue to research it, you will only be playing with fire and burning yourself," Ye De Xian said, not debating the issue of bloodlines with Ke Mo, but instead patiently continuing to explain.
"Is that your excuse? A person who disappeared without a trace more than two hundred years ago?" After gradually ascending to the highest echelons of the Empire, Ke Mo also vaguely learned of some history that had been intentionally buried.
Whether on the internet or in various public and secret archives and libraries, no truly useful information about that person could be found.
It was as if he had been one of the countless ordinary people who lived centuries ago, passing through life uneventfully.
He left no mark worthy of study.
As for the Bai-ologists who participated in the research back then, they were all placed under gag orders, almost forced to take their secrets to their graves.
Only a very few, unwilling to let their life's work be buried, secretly left behind some forbidden information through various encrypted methods.
After centuries of deliberate forgetting, most people had long forgotten Bai Mo's existence; he had "vanished" from modern memory, like an ancient commoner.
...
"He has never stopped observing this world."
"What's the evidence?" Ke Mo felt as if Ye De Xian had truly gone mad.
"The Boundless Magic Net in your hands is the best evidence. Of course, it's merely a Boundless Magic Net completed through your efforts."
"Wouldn't you agree?" In the pause between his two sentences, Ye De Xian suddenly looked towards the Empress.
"You know a bit too much." Sensing Ye De Xian's gaze, Wei Ni Si twisted her neck with a click-clack, like a robot, then abandoned her light, girlish voice for a cold, mechanical one.
"Your Majesty?!"
"However, you were wrong about one thing: for these past two hundred years, I truly paid no mind to this flagship world."
Hearing that cold voice, Ke Mo was momentarily stunned.
The perfectly normal young woman had suddenly emitted a strange sound.
"Where is she?"
"Wei Ni Si proposed a trade with me, and out of respect for old man Gondor's favor, I agreed."
"I didn't expect her to dare to trade with a devil." Unlike Ke Mo, who looked utterly bewildered, Ye De Xian roughly guessed the content of their transaction.
"For the sake of the Dao path, what is there to fear?!" The voice suddenly switched back; it was Wei Ni Si's own voice.
"You Electors, in your bid to solidify your own dominion, have suppressed the advancement of high-level cultivators everywhere, and secretly interfered with the Reincarnation Tribulation, harming those undergoing it. In these past two hundred years, the human race of the Empire has only produced two newly ascended True Immortals—your 'contributions' are immense!"
"Even the demon race has colluded with you. In such a vast demon territory, only one Rabbit Buddha has emerged in centuries."
Since the pretense was already dropped, Wei Ni Si felt there was no need to hide these matters any longer.
"In these two hundred years, the number of newly added nobles in the Empire is less than a tenth of what it was two hundred years ago. That must also be your doing, mustn't it?"
"Your Majesty, the resources of this world are finite." Ye De Xian's expression remained unchanged; he neither admitted nor denied her words.
"I know resources are limited, but is that your excuse for burning the bridge once you've crossed it?"
"Property restriction laws are one thing, but directly interfering with tribulations and obstructing others from achieving the Dao path is another."
Over the past two hundred years, Wei Ni Si, who had vaguely sensed something was amiss, privately contacted over a dozen six-tier cultivators, providing them with vast resources to help them assault the True Immortal level, quietly verifying her suspicions.
Without exception, however, they all perished in the Reincarnation Tribulation.
One failed experience after another allowed her to gradually uncover the hidden hand behind it all: it seemed to be one or more True Immortals within the Empire secretly interfering with the Reincarnation Tribulation, escalating its difficulty from a 'nine-deaths-one-life' ordeal to a 'hundred-deaths-one-life' nightmare.
From then on, she understood that if these influences were not completely purged, even if she could take the step of undergoing tribulation at any time, her chances of successfully surviving would be extremely low.
They wouldn't give up interfering just because she was the Empress of the Empire.
...
"Take back the Boundless Magic Net, and I can pretend that nothing happened today." Ye De Xian's face remained impassive, devoid of joy or sorrow, but the sword in his hand was ready to be drawn at any moment.
"Twenty-third level spell, Karthus's Destruction!!!" Without the slightest hesitation, amidst the interwoven voices of a maiden and a machine, a pitch-black singularity, seemingly capable of devouring and destroying all, formed at the tip of Wei Ni Si's index finger.
She used all her might, barely managing to fling the black singularity towards Ye De Xian, and immediately, her overloaded arm began to crack inch by inch from the index finger, her entire right arm collapsing and shattering from bearing such an immense, unbearable power.
Even the Boundless Magic Net, hidden deep within the void, dimmed for a fleeting instant due to this extraordinary output.
"You..."
"Will..."
"Re..."
"Gret..."
"This!"
As he was swallowed by the singularity, Ye De Xian's avatar gritted his teeth and left behind those last five words.
...
"Your Majesty, could you give me an explanation?" Ke Mo asked, feigning calmness.
All this time, he had believed himself to be the one orchestrating the plan; after all, he possessed the cultivation of a True Immortal, giving him an overwhelming advantage over the Empress, a mere pseudo-immortal.
Moreover, he harbored some romantic notions towards this sacred and noble Empress, though these remained deeply buried within his heart.
Now that Ye De Xian had suddenly revealed in front of them that he was just a pawn being used, anyone would feel uneasy.
"The more beautiful a woman, the more she lies."
For some reason, Ke Mo remembered a saying his mother had spoken before she passed away.
"There's nothing to explain; we merely used each other," Wei Ni Si said coldly, severing all of Ke Mo's illusions.
"You wanted to create the Boundless Magic Net to realize your dream, and I, I wanted to use the Boundless Magic Net to ascend to godhood."
"Is that so?" There was a hint of disappointment in Ke Mo's eyes.
When Wei Ni Si overloaded the Boundless Magic Net, forcing herself, a six-tier mage, to unleash the twenty-third level Black Magic, Karthus's Destruction, Ke Mo discovered that her authority over the Boundless Magic Net was even higher than his own.
PS: Indulging in games, growing thinner by the day.
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