The Steward Demonic Emperor

Chapter 1303: Decaying Heavenly Dao

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Hum~

The quiet lake reflected the ancient Heavenly Sovereign’s cold gaze.

Zhuo Fan sighed, “The Heavenly Sovereign must be a bachelor, unable to accept others getting together. He’s even butting in his younger brother’s happiness. And he calls himself heartless. This is jealousy at play and it’s obvious! That’s not heartless, but bitter.” 

“Ha-ha-ha, you’re wrong there. The Heavenly Sovereign has the void path, a heart that can never be infected by anything. He’s only following his Dao Heart of heaven being supreme and earth below. He believes that his younger brother should follow his footsteps. Any deviation from this is seen as an obstacle that needs to be removed.”

The old man smirked, “Let’s leave the chatter and keep watching.”

Zhuo Fan nodded and returned to the lake. The man in white was in the same cave he sealed his emotions along with two people. The mood was heavy.

The man in white looked at the woman with coldness, “We are through, finished.”

“Why?” The woman’s eyes shook.

The man in white said, “I want to reach the Sovereign Stage and you’re in the way. The Heavenly Daos are heartless and I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”

“You think it’s that easy? I’m born of your true feelings. I can sense what your heart is feeling.”

“I know you do, that’s why I came to cut it off in person.”

The man in white took a deep breath. Before her shocked eyes, he shook and a five-colored glow flew out.

Zhuo Fan cried out, “An incomplete Sovereign path?”

The glow exploded and scattered, leaving behind a faint mist.

The man in white spewed blood, his face pale. His eyes grew dim, like a walking corpse. He then left the woman behind, taking on an aura of death and solitude that decayed the forest he was around. The grass and trees, birds, and insects, all died. 

There was no life around!

The woman teared up, her lips trembling.

“How ruthless!”

Teardrops traced down as she clenched her fists, “You went as far as removing the core of your emotions just to get rid of me. But didn’t you say it’s for forming a Sovereign path? By removing the core of your emotions, you’re no longer human. How can you attain Sovereignty now?”

The man in white dragged his weary figure out of the cave, never sparing her a glance…

Zhuo Fan’s heart was filled with sadness, “Senior, what’s this core of emotions? Why can’t you attain your path by cutting it out?”

“Every human is born with it, a part of them.”

The old man looked despondent, “Humans have three relationships: loyalty, filial piety and siblinghood. Then also five virtues: benevolence, wisdom, courtesy, honesty and trust. These stand at the core of the human condition. They serve as a foundation for cultivators to gain enlightenment, the basics of their humanity, the human path. But those aren’t important, for humans have emotions at their core. It’s something no other creature, not even spiritual beasts, possesses. Regardless of good and evil, human cultivators can’t ever escape their emotions. Even demonic cultivators, they learn through the hate, regret, jealousy and envy. While the Heavenly Sovereign, he became empty, removing his emotional center, to become heartless. When one removes even that, they can’t even be called heartless or emotionless.

“But he just ripped it out of himself, just like a eunuch without his bits. It’s impossible for him to achieve his path. For achieving a path means understanding it to perfection. How can he do that when he is incomplete? The Heavenly Sovereign would’ve long done this if that was all it took to do it too.”

Zhuo Fan nodded, looking at the lone and proud figure with a sigh, “He knew it was hard to remove his love completely, so he came to this cruel solution in removing his emotion center, just so the Heavenly Sovereign wouldn’t touch her. It’s clearly out of supreme emotion that he chose to be dead inside. This makes it even more emotional. Eh, why does this feel familiar? It feels like I’ve gone through this before?”

“Oh, really? Then I’ll wait for you to reincarnate to put your memories in here so I can have my boredom alleviated, even if for a couple of days, ha-ha-ha…”

The old man grinned.

Zhuo Fan rolled his eyes, watching on.

The woman watched him go, heartbroken. She went back into the cave with a stiff face and empty eyes. She just sat there for months.

A bird’s chirp was heard in this dead land as it landed on a wilted branch where another bird lay.

The woman’s heart shook and held the dead bird. In a flash of pink, the dead bird was revived.

The two birds once again flew together.

The woman closed her eyes in realization. A month passed and a prismatic glow covered the skies as a pink aura shone around the cave and its surroundings, filling the dead lands with warmth.

Life sprouted anew, with birds singing and insects buzzing.

The woman walked out of the cave and smiled as a lonely tear fell on her hand.

“This is the last time I shed tears for you. From now on I will rule over the world’s emotions. I hope that one day, your emotion center can be recovered.”

She waved and the teardrop vanished in the sky.

Zhuo Fan said, “She’s the Emotion Sovereign? Was that her seat of enlightenment, the Cave of Emotion?”

“Yes, the man used his emotions as a base to create the Emotion Sovereign without realizing it, but she was born out of the emotions of all living things. When she became a Sovereign, she had already gotten over their little love. Her last tear signified the supreme emotion the man left in her. But now she had no use for it…”

The old man nodded with a heavy look, “The tear could’ve helped the man regain his emotion center, but…”

Zhuo Fan shuddered, seeing as the tear arrived at a wide courtyard, entering a room.

There sat the man in white, but now he was enveloped in black energy, eerie and deadly.

The tear was unaware of the danger, wanting to restore his emotions as it went for him.

Alas, the black energy lashed out and shattered it into pink mist, vanishing in the wind.

“What was that?”

The Heavenly Sovereign happened to arrive before the room just as the pink mist flew into the heavens, feeling confused, “Younger brother has been in there for months yet still couldn’t achieve his path while the woman earned the last spot. Humph, what a disgrace. Sword Heart, go in there and see why he’s still in seclusion.”

“Yes!”

Sword Heart stepped in and blew the door away, but then the black energy flooded through the gap.

Sword Heart waved his sleeves, sending two sword waves at it, but they just dissipated like nothing on contact.

[How is this possible?]

Sword Heart gasped, with the Heavenly Sovereign also looking startled, “Calm him down. I want to know what’s going on.”

“Yes!”

Sword Heart shouted again and used his path.

A prismatic glow shined, pressing back the black energy for a while. In the end, the black energy dissolved the glow, inch by inch, eating it away.

The two stared in confusion, but Zhuo Fan cried, “T-that’s like my apocalyptic thunderflame!”

“Of course, because it’s almost on the same level.” The old man sighed, “It’s just that not a single being can wield these powers, not even the Heavenly Sovereign.”