Gu Qing Shan felt that his choice was correct.
As a Deity of Huang Quan, to choose the Huang Quan realm and face his Tribulation on the Forgetting River.
This was as natural as it could be.
There was nothing opportunistic about this.
He stood in front of the old man and smiled: “Old senior, take a look, do you mind us turning war into peace?”
The old man looked straight at him.
He slowly swung the Devil King Warden Rod in his hand from side to side.
A moment of silence.
“Ahahaha” the old man suddenly looked up at the sky and laughed, loudly replying: “You see, you see, this is what it truly means for water to flood the Dragon King’s temple. Truthfully, I only wanted to test your excellency’s character in the face of hardship”
“So, what do you think?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
“Your excellency is a humble, spotless and loyal, mindful and frank, virtuously brilliant, unlike those of mortals, and positively pure”
The old man shook his head along with the swinging scepter, rapidly spouting a long series of descriptive words.
“Ah, I see” Gu Qing Shan nodded with a pleased expression.
Inside this Thought Sea, the Earth sword silently said: 「 Shannu, Chao Yin, you probably don’t know, but among all the things that old man praised him about, he only got one thing right 」
Shannu couldn’t help but take the bait: “Which one?”
Right as the Earth sword was about to answer, another sword smacked it away.
“Don’t listen to his babbling”
Luo Bing Li yawned and lazily said.
——-she had woken up.
“What’s going on right now?” she asked.
“It’s a long story…” Shannu slowly explained to her.
On the tree, Gu Qing Shan naturally knew what was happening inside his Thought Sea, but he didn’t really want to pay attention to the Earth sword.
Gu Qing Shan looked at the old man and said: “Tell me a bit about your life, then I’ll send you into reincarnation”
“Ah, thank you fellow Dao seeker. I came from the Nan Hua Dao world, born without a spirit root, so without any choice…”
The old man talked for a while.
After listening to him, Gu Qing Shan asked: “Has there been anyone who came to take part in Saint Selection recently?”
“Not for the past few thousand years. Huang Quan is truly a little-known realm, and since it was related to the dead, it was also a sign of inauspiciousness. That was why when we saw you, we acted a bit inadequately” the old man explained in detail.
Gu Qing Shan nodded: “See you again”
His sword swung.
The vine that wrapped around the old man’s neck was chopped off.
The old man fell along the trunk of the tree, sank into the raging river below, and disappeared without a trace.
Gu Qing Shan continued to climb up the tree.
The indiscernible sensation from before appeared on his body again.
This time, it was stronger than the previous two times.
Gu Qing Shan couldn’t help but pause a bit and looked up at the top of the tree.
——which couldn’t be seen at all, the tree trunk extended far above the cloud layer, so nothing above that could be seen at all.
He reached the fourth corpse.
This was also a female corpse, who spoke up first: “Can I remain here?”
“For what reason?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
“Because I like this place” the female corpse replied.
“No, because everyone before you is already dead. If someone else comes to face their Tribulation, the one who gets to charge a passage fee will be you” Gu Qing Shan snapped back.
The female corpse froze.
Gu Qing Shan then asked: “But you’re also being hung here by the neck, what would you actually be able to do with those things even if you get them?”
The female corpse hesitated to speak.
Gu Qing Shan lightly put the Devil King Warden Rod on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry, I don’t like to threaten people, so if you really don’t want to say, I won’t force you to” he said.
The female corpse appeared touched, then muttered in a low voice: “Thank you”
“Let us change the question———- for countless years, you have to hang right here as a corpse, what’s so good about that?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
The female corpse answered: “This place is isolated from the Apocalypse, never to be destroyed, I can continue to exist here forever”
Gu Qing Shan stared at her.
The female corpse lowered her head: “It’s true, I’m not willing to leave, but I can let you pass”
“No need” Gu Qing Shan replied.
The female corpse suddenly uttered a sharp howl.
Her entire body was scattered into a fine dusty mist that was absorbed by the black scepter.
Shi… shi…
A tiny chewing noise could be heard from the scepter.
Other than the sound of blowing wind and flowing water, no other sound could be heard from the tree.
The rest of the corpses remained completely silent.
They could feel the power of this scepter.
This was the power of the Laws of Huang Quan, capable of deciding their fates!
Gu Qing Shan waited until the scepter was done eating and lightly declared: “If anyone else tries to deceive me, they’ll end up the same”
One of the corpses suddenly spoke: “Are you really fine with treating a female cultivator who’s stuck between life and death like that?”
Gu Qing Shan asked in return: “She insisted on refusing to accept my offer of sending her into reincarnation, you call that ‘stuck between life and death’?”
The corpse was speechless.
Another corpse tried asking: “What if she truly wanted to stay here to avoid the Apocalypse?”
Gu Qing Shan replied: “You can avoid the Apocalypse in Huang Quan? Who actually believes that to be true?”
——–having been to Huang Quan before, he naturally knew that the female corpse earlier was lying to him.
The other corpses remained silent.
They still couldn’t probe the true depths of this cultivator, so they weren’t willing to risk anything.
Gu Qing Shan shook his head and loudly announced: “All of you seemed to have misunderstood something. This place is Huang Quan, not some charity house, if you’re going to talk, make sure to at least tell the truth and show your respect to me as the Devil King”
“Those who won’t respect me also won’t be granted my respect”
He continued to walk past that female corpse’s original location and climbed up.
A few moments later, he reached another corpse.
“My friend, do you mind telling me why there are people willing to remain here on the tree?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
That corpse trembled as he answered: “If no one manages to successfully make it through their Tribulation for long enough, the Laws of Huang Quan will converge and nurture this tree, which would also grant us benefits”
“What benefits?”
Gu Qing Shan lightly placed the Devil King Warden Rod on his shoulder as he asked.
The corpse hurriedly answered: “We would gain power——- for the past few thousand years, we’ve already obtained many unique abilities of Huang Quan. If Huang Quan was to be destroyed by the Apocalypse one day, we would be able to escape with these abilities”
Gu Qing Shan muttered: “So that was the reason? All of you absorb the power of Huang Quan, then eliminate anyone who tries to climb the tree to face their Tribulation, ensuring that no one could reach the top of the tree?”
The corpse appeared confused as well and replied: “These are the rules of the Tribulation, and the longer we remain, the more powerful we would become, making the chances of success for those who face the Tribulation even lower. To be frank, we don’t know why the rules were arranged this way either”
Gu Qing Shan pondered for a bit, then drew his sword.
The corpse fell into the Forgetting River and disappeared as well.
Gu Qing Shan continued to climb.
He stopped asking the corpses questions and simply climbed up.
The Laws of Reality continuously gathered inside his body, strengthening the sensation from before.
Around two hours later, he finally reached the top of the tree.
This place was already above the clouds and high in the sky.
A strong breeze slowly blew past.
A sea of clouds.
Gu Qing Shan looked down.
There were no longer any corpses hanging on the tree.
A mass of thick yellow fog slowly filled the area, enveloping the entire tree.
The sensation from before had now grown to an incredible level around his body, like a radiance around the body of a Deity.
A sense of understanding appeared in his heart once again.
“Inheritance? So only by reaching the top of the tree would it check for an inheritance?”
Gu Qing Shan muttered.
「 How do you intend to let it check? 」the Earth sword asked.
“I remember that to become a Star River Saint, a Spiritual Heavenly Tome and Virtuous Karmic Tome must each be manifested, which I assume will happen right now” Gu Qing Shan replied.
He clenched his fist and unleashed an [Ethereal – Grand Mountain] towards the sky.
A few moments later.
Far above the sky, the sound of something rushing through the wind would be heard.
Gu Qing Shan carefully observed it.
Finally, a tattered, collapsed palace descended from above.
When it was a few hundred meters away from the tree, it completely shattered into pieces.
Innumerable pieces of bricks and tiles scattered everywhere, but they didn’t fall below the sea of clouds.
These bricks and tiles instead manifested into a gigantic face in the sky.
—–a face of a one-horned demon.
The demon observed Gu Qing Shan then spoke in a thunderous voice:
「 So it was the Huang Quan Devil King and Lord of the Samsara Divine Mountain. For you to obtain the [Ethereal] inheritance, you must have gone through numerous arduous battles 」
Without anything else to say, Gu Qing Shan could only nod to affirm its words.
And it was true that he obtained the [Ethereal] inheritance in one of the most precarious situations he had faced so far.
When he killed that monster in the great tomb, the War God UI’s evaluation was:
…
[You had accomplished an impossible slaying—— this was equivalent to a tiny dust mite exterminating a dragon]
…
And that monster’s soul swapping technique was a skill that originated from the Wraith realm.
———in other words, the ones who had been attempting to steal this inheritance were those from the Wraith realm.
But in the end, it was Gu Qing Shan who obtained it.
The one-horned demon stared closely at Gu Qing Shan and continued:
「 The status you’ve obtained and the feats you’ve managed to achieve are almost unheard of 」
「 ——–It seems the Saint Selection of the Huang Quan realm can now end 」
Following this declaration, the entire Huang Quan realm suddenly began to collapse.
In almost a single second, the entire Huang Quan realm disappeared without a trace, even the ancient great tree that he was standing on earlier was also gone.
Only a single faint yellow bead remained in mid-air.
Gu Qing Shan stood in the middle of the void and clasped his fist: “May I know who you are?”
The one-horned demon indifferently replied: 「 No need to ask me such a thing. After today, I shall disappear, but I shall leave a bit of Origin behind for cultivators of the future to undergo Saint Selection 」
It then breathed out a mass of faint mist.
A shaky and transparent Huang Quan realm reappeared around him.
The faint yellow bead hovered directly towards Gu Qing Shan.
「 Take this bead, as this is the true Saint Selection Bead 」the one-horned demon curtly told him.
“What exactly is going on? Where are the Spiritual Heavenly Tome and the Virtuous Karmic Tome that a Star River Saint is supposed to manifest?” Gu Qing Shan couldn’t help but ask.
The bricks and tiles that made up the one-horned demon’s face gradually fell down and turned to mist, eventually disappearing altogether.
「 That is a matter of regular cultivators, completely unrelated to yourself 」
「 You are one of the Samsara Lords of War, qualified to participate in the new era’s Samsara Clash for Supremacy 」
「 The Samsara has already been broken once… 」
「 Do… not… let… it… be… broken… again… 」
The one-horned demon was now completely gone.
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