Chapter 948: This is a fire poker |
"You..." Eve opened her mouth, forcing an innocent smile onto her face. "What are you doing? Did... did I offend you in some way?"
She still clung to a sliver of hope at this moment.
Hoping she could bluff her way through.
Chen Huaian didn't speak.
He simply pushed the sword in his hand forward another fraction.
The blade cut into her skin, a trickle of blood sliding down Eve's fair neck.
"Act," he said flatly. "Keep acting."
The smile on Eve's face froze.
"My disciple is currently immersed in cultivation, completely unaware of everything happening in the outside world." Chen Huaian's voice was icy, devoid of any emotion. "Which means, even if This Venerable One kills you right now, she won't know."
This woman's identity was mysterious.
Chen Huaian wasn't certain if he could actually kill her.
But threats were still necessary.
Eve fell silent.
The innocence in those eyes gradually faded, replaced by a complex emotion.
She sighed.
"You refer to yourself as 'This Venerable One'..." she spoke softly, "...that's not a form of address from the Canglan Realm. Presumably, you aren't from the Canglan World either, are you?"
Chen Huaian didn't speak, but he didn't deny it either.
Eve looked into his eyes and said slowly, "Then, let me tell you a story."
...
A long, long time ago.
This sea wasn't as chaotic as it is now.
Back then, the Sea God wasn't as cruel and cold-hearted as he is today.
He had a wife—the Goddess of Nature and Life.
The Sea God and the Goddess of Life jointly presided over the Cycle of Reincarnation of the Endless Sea and the Eternal Forest, the most loving couple among the various gods.
Later, they had a daughter.
That child was born extraordinarily beautiful, inheriting her father's mastery over the ocean and her mother's affinity for life.
The moment she was born, the entire sea rejoiced, countless sea beasts surfaced to pay homage, and even the deepest sea trenches sprouted emerald-green vines.
The Sea God was overjoyed.
He was too happy.
So happy that he made a decision he would regret for endless ages—
He wanted his daughter to inherit his Divine Position.
"My daughter shall become the next Sea God," he declared to the various gods.
This was originally a father's doting love for his daughter.
But this decision angered a great existence—
The Golden Dragon King.
Eve paused here.
"The Sea God thought he had a good relationship with the Golden Dragon King. Moreover, both he and the Goddess of Life were Chief Gods, jointly safeguarding the order of this world." Her voice carried a slight rasp. "But he was wrong."
The Golden Dragon King would not allow it.
The rules of the Divine Realm did not change because of two Chief Gods.
He did not punish the Sea God, nor did he punish the Goddess of Life.
He simply cast a curse upon that newly born child.
"The content of the curse was simple." Eve's voice was as light as the sea breeze slipping past the ship's side. "That child would slowly lose her sanity, turning into a monster that knew only slaughter.
She would attack all living beings that approached her, including her own parents.
She would forever live in madness and pain, with no hope of release."
The Sea God went mad.
He charged up to the Highest Heaven to reason with the Golden Dragon King.
But he was no match for the Golden Dragon King.
That was the Golden Dragon King, the King of Gods, the most powerful existence in this world.
He was defeated.
By the time he returned to the sea, his daughter had already become a monster.
Those eyes once clear as the sea now held only madness and bloodlust.
The Goddess of Life held her daughter, weeping heart-wrenching sobs.
But nothing could be changed.
...
From then on, the relationship between the Sea God and the Goddess of Life completely shattered.
It wasn't a lack of love, but an inability to face each other.
Every time they saw each other, they would remember that cursed child.
Every time they remembered that child, their hearts felt as if cut by a knife.
The Sea God began to turn cruel and cold-hearted.
He no longer trusted any god, no longer believed in so-called friendship. He began to indulge himself, mingling with various Demigods, fathering a bunch of illegitimate children.
Those illegitimate children are the origin of the present-day Sea Emperor Clan.
And the true Sea God's Divine Position—the throne that should have been passed to his daughter.
He sealed it away in the deepest part of the Sea God Temple.
He set up a Divine Trial, letting countless people attempt it.
But the difficulty of that Divine Trial was, from the very beginning, raised to an almost impossible level. Ten times, a hundred times harder than a normal Divine Trial.
No one could pass it.
Even if someone miraculously passed the God's First Trial.
There was still the even more difficult God's Second Trial waiting.
And to this day, no one has passed the God's First Trial.
"Do you know why?" Eve looked at Chen Huaian, her eyes slightly red. "Because he hates. He hates the Golden Dragon King, hates his own incompetence, hates all those who might inherit the Divine Position.
He set up the Divine Trial merely to watch those people die in despair, just like his daughter lives in madness."
As for that cursed child, the Sea God simply sealed her deep beneath the sea, preventing her from emerging to harm the innocent, and also not wanting others to harm her.
And the Goddess of Life would visit that sealed child every year.
She would specifically bring a branch of the World Tree—that branch contained the power of the Life Origin, capable of soothing the soul and dispelling curses.
The Goddess of Life hoped the power of the World Tree could dispel the curse on her daughter.
Even if the effect was minuscule.
Year after year.
Endless ages passed, and the Goddess of Life never gave up.
...
Eve finished her story.
Silence fell at the cabin doorway.
Only the sea breeze gently blew, stirring the stray hairs by her ears.
She lifted her head to look at Chen Huaian.
Those eyes no longer held the innocence and evasiveness from before, only sorrow so thick it seemed to congeal.
She didn't speak.
But the way she looked at Chen Huaian said everything.
Chen Huaian remained silent.
The sword in his hand still rested against Eve's neck.
But the killing intent in his eyes gradually receded.
He wasn't a fool.
He understood this story.
That cursed daughter.
That mother who visited the child with a World Tree branch every year.
That woman who never gave up to this day—
He slowly lowered his gaze, looking at Eve.
Looking into her sorrowful eyes.
Looking at her pointed ears.
Looking at that faint, almost imperceptible aura about her, identical to the one on those emerald-green vines.
He pressed his lips together and said flatly:
"You... you're that sea monster transformed, aren't you?
The sea monster is your True Body, and you are its avatar!"
Eve: "..."
She had talked for so long, her mouth was dry, and it was like talking to a brick wall?
She sighed, directly pulling out a vibrant, emerald-green branch.
This branch was fundamentally different from an ordinary branch; it was suffused with an intense Life Energy, so intense it drifted down like mist along the branch. The moment that Life Energy touched the ship's wooden floorboards, the dead wood miraculously sprouted new buds.
"What is this?" Eve glared at Chen Huaian, thrusting the branch in her hand forward.
Chen Huaian looked at the branch, raising an eyebrow: "Isn't this a Fire Poker?"
Eve: "..."
...