Destiny in Cinders

The proud rays of sunlight that came from the nine heavens above shone through the nine-layered crystal ceiling of the grand hall, purified into streams of sun purple qi and solar shower lethal qi before settling gently onto the black-gold flooring below.

”Ruhui!” Jin Yanhua panicked and rushed forward to hold Ruhui up after seeing her cough out blood and slump to the ground. The dragon lady stretched a hand out to feel out the girl’s state.

Ruhui seemed to be stable, albeit slightly weakened. Still confused, Jin Yanhua asked, ”How did this happen? What’s going on? Wait... There’s a response from imperial blood!”

Both Jin Yanhua and Ming Guangchen were aware of the connection between An Jing and You Ruhui through the droplet. Another possibility rose in her mind that caused her heart to tense up. ”Wait, is something happening to An Jing? No, it’s Ming!”

Jin Yanhua’s expression immediately changed when she snapped with realization. Ming Guangchen hadn’t reached out to her for quite a while, which wasn’t uncommon for their little party of Endmost Walkers. They usually spent time far apart from one another to begin with and didn’t waste their hard-earned contributions on maintaining contact at all times.

There was no way Jin Yanhua would ignore the plight of her friend and his disciple. She took a deep breath to calm down and immediately bowed deeply at the white-robed youth before her. ”Godly Father, forgive me for having to leave urgently in such a rude manner.”

”Oh?” The youth wore a longsword at his waist under his green, bolt-shaped belt. His eyes were bright and radiant like the sun and moon. A pair of squinting dragon pupils were faintly visible below his human ones. There was a pair of majestic horns on his forehead, appearing incredibly dense and tough yet with gentle angles that gave it the impression of flowing water. This was the perfect fusion of hard and soft.

He didn’t open his mouth and instead spoke with the layered sound of wind. ”Do you not plan to beg me for help, my stubborn, mischievous daughter?”

”I am indeed your daughter,” Jin Yanhua said, carrying You Ruhui in her arms and turning to face the Dragon God of the Present’s humanoid arcane corpus. ”Father, if you are in danger, I would come to your aid even if I have to throw myself in harm’s way even if you hadn’t called for help. I believe you’d offer me the same courtesy. Since you didn’t take action, you must have your reasons, so I will not trouble you over it. I might be your daughter, but I will deal with my own karma.”

”That’s true.” The youth nodded with a smile. ”I did indeed have a reason for my inability to act earlier.”

The Dragon God of the Present, Jin Shiqin, looked at the girl in his daughter’s hands. Xuan Mingjing, though she went by You Ruhui, was from the imperial bloodline of True Martial Mountain. Her incredibly noble birth made her a proper successor of a heavenly sect.

The dragon god didn’t care much about the value of the bloodline, however. Not even empyreans of the Soaring Realm could be considered equals to Ancestral Dragon Hall. However, the girl was weighed down by a great karmic burden, far more than expected. She was by no means a mere daughter of a late sentinel king who died from the imperial court’s internal conflict as his own daughter had put it. There was something about the child herself that could send a whole continent into unmitigated chaos.

The dragon god had believed earlier that any involvement from him would cause him to be drawn into the mess. ”But since you said what you did, I will help you.”

Choosing one’s actions freely was a privilege accorded only to the strong. Jin Shiqin raised his hand. Then, countless dark clouds appeared outside the formerly bright sky outside of Ancestral Dragon Hall. They gathered together and were refined by the radiant crystal ceilings of the nine heavens into a droplet that shone with green and blue lightning. This was the Celestial Pivot Lightning Dew.

With a light flick from the youth’s finger, the dew droplet assimilated into the spot between You Ruhui’s brows. No trace of the lightning’s destructive powers remained. The only thing that the droplet contained was its reinvigorating power, causing You Ruhui to gradually regain consciousness. It soothed the strain that her soul had been under from overdrawing it to cast her ability.

The dragon god’s voice once more reverberated across the hall. ”Yanhua, since you weren’t willing to become Ancestral Dragon Hall’s divine smith in favor of your own ambitions as a general of the four oceans, I will not stop you from following your own path.”

”Godly Father...” Jin Yanhua hung her head low to show her gratitude, though she did feel that something was amiss. ”But you didn’t do this just for me. I understand that you are a dragon god and this represents the will of Ancestral Dragon Hall.”

She came to terms with a few more things. ”The reason you tolerated my rescue of You Ruhui is so that she’ll cause trouble for the Northblack Sacrifice Continent when she matures, isn’t it?”

”Hahaha...” The dragon god sat calmly back on his throne and rubbed on the armrests. ”Even if I hadn’t taken any action, the soul in that lifevessel of hers would’ve healed her all the same. Her lifearc is far too important for her to suffer irrecoverable injuries at this point in time. All I did was help her save that power. She’s free to do what she wants with it later on and it will have nothing to do with me. This will be a karma that she alone bears. Not to mention, the Northblack Sacrifice Continent isn’t the only one that will be wrapped up in all this.”

He turned gradually to look at the continent in question across the Celestial Ocean and spoke in a calm but incredibly vague tone. ”Chaos will rise in all the other nine continents. This is the destiny that Ancestral Dragon Hall, the Greater Ebony Cult, and all heavenly sects across the Central Balance Dao Continent need.”

***

A barrage of rain and lightning descended from the firmament above Keensight. Rampaging winds swept across the land along with terrestrial-vein qi, extinguishing all fires within the city.

Amidst the endless rainstorm, a distinct outline of a massive golden object could be seen rising amidst the mist, smoke and soot in the air. The Keensight Bell’s apparition was visible above the city.

He Wuchang’s eyes sank deep into their sockets, glowing menacingly red. His furrowed brow made him look like a frowning hawk as his eyes reflected the city, now illuminated in a golden radiance. The divine armament that packed more power than a Treasures Realm sage easily swatted his Clearing Realm arcane corpus out of the air.

An Jing also reappeared, this time protected by the divine armament’s power. He was sitting underneath the manmade mountain above the divine armament’s true body as he meditated fervently to recover his injuries.

”Divine-armament protection, huh...” He Wuchang’s tone mellowed down significantly when he looked at his target. ”You were incredibly lucky to have obtained the divine armament’s acknowledgement. So, you really did help it break through! Everyone has underestimated you, truly.”

Divine armaments were armaments with a touch of the divine soul. Whether they were as powerful as the strongest arcane relics or the weakest spirit artifacts didn’t change the fact that they possessed a trace of sentience after they were forged.

They consumed and expelled spirit and lethal qi just like living things as they gradually developed their physical forms. Once their development reached a certain extent, they could be planted into terrestrial veins for further nurturing. The power of terrestrial veins helped transform them into true divine armaments that served as the central pivots of major terrestrial-vein formations.

Once they became living cores of major formations, the divine armaments would automatically resist any incursion into the territory that their formations spanned, getting rid of any enemy that posed a potential threat to the formation. That was the reason the various sects and even the Lord Inspector of the West could only send adept-level figures into the city. Any sage that approached the city without explicit authorization would be automatically repelled by the divine armament’s attacks. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Even more advanced divine armaments could even develop their own lifearcs and intelligence, marking the beginning of a whole new legend. The Eight Celestial Armaments of Grand Chen were divine armaments that had been developed to their highest extent to become Pure Yang armaments with sentience and lifearcs!

If Jing Xuan had really helped the divine armament with its breakthrough, he’d obviously enjoy its protection! Darn it, I neglected to consider that possibility! Oh well... I do have limits at the end of the day.

He Wuchang laughed as he raised a golden token in his hand that gave off terrestrial-vein qi. The word inscribed on the token, ”Chen,” glowed faintly, a sign that it was from Chen Haoshan, Prefect of Huang Prefecture.