The Dao of Reincarnation (396-397) (Patreon)

Chapter 396: The Ancient and Modern Recorder (Part 7)

Ten years had already passed since Su Chen last took on a disciple.

Su Chen was now over ninety years old. Perhaps his final limit was approaching. During these ten years, the Heavenly Origin Sect had produced no geniuses of the level of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty's ten great prodigies. Even the highest-ranking among them was only fifteenth.

This had caused the Heavenly Origin Sect's ranking to drop somewhat. Although it remained one of the ten great powers of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty, this time its ranking had returned to the bottom.

Recently, Su Chen had heard quite a few pieces of bad news.

Demons were about to invade the Wooden Scenery Dynasty. Demons were evil by nature and cruel in their actions. They only wished to kill every human and every demon of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty and then devour them!

For a time, panic spread among the people.

Yet this news was not false. The current sect master, Ruan Jingtian, had gathered a large number of disciples and elders and headed to the border to resist the demon invasion.

If the lips are gone, the teeth will grow cold. If the demons broke through the defenses, the entire Wooden Scenery Dynasty would fall into complete disarray.

When that time came, the sects would merely be delayed a little longer before their own destruction... Those who had cultivated to this point were all intelligent people. How could they fail to distinguish what was important?

Su Chen saw Li Li once more.

"I never expected you to still be alive!"

Li Li looked very surprised.

Yet when he recalled that Su Chen had once consumed a fourth-grade pill, he felt relieved.

Su Chen: "..."

Li Li said, "Old fellow, this time I want you to help me record someone."

Su Chen: "Do you want me to record you?"

Li Li smiled. "That's right... If I do not return, trouble you old fellow to write me down and place me in a prominent position. Dying gloriously in defense of the homeland is a matter that leaves a fragrant name for a thousand ages. How can the later generations of the sect not know that someone like me once existed?"

"Of course, I am not certain to die. If I do return, you must not record me ahead of time."

Su Chen nodded.

Among the elders leading the forces to the border to resist the demon invasion, Li Li's name was clearly listed.

Su Chen agreed to Li Li's request.

Before leaving, Li Li still muttered, "I, a grand cultivator of the Spirit Sea Realm, might actually fail to outlive a mortal."

Su Chen paid it no mind.

There were not a few people like Li Li.

Leaving a name that endured for a thousand ages was something countless people dreamed of... Dying for the sect and for the common people would always inspire respect when later generations read of it.

...

In order to resist the demon invasion, the large and small powers of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty came forward one after another.

They knew that once the Wooden Scenery Dynasty was destroyed, their own ends would certainly be no better.

When others held the knife and the chopping block, they themselves would be the fish and the meat.

"It seems I will not be able to return now."

Li Li's vision blurred. His body was covered in foul-smelling blood. He no longer knew whether it was his own blood or that of the demons. The sharp sword in his hand had long since been unable to bear the strain and was covered in cracks.

The first pass had ultimately fallen... The price of its fall was that at least tens of millions of people would become food for the demons.

Before his eyes, the corpses of demons were piled into mountains. The severed limbs and broken arms of the martial cultivators of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty were also scattered everywhere.

A towering pig demon stood before Li Li.

Li Li still wanted to counterattack.

Yet the terrifying pig demon merely waved one hand. The long sword in Li Li's hand shattered completely, and his entire body was sent flying like a cannonball, smashing through countless houses... On the ground were miserable wails and the laughter of the demons.

That was a pig demon of the Spirit Soul Realm. Li Li knew that at this moment he no longer had any chance of survival. His internal organs had all been shattered. Only one final breath remained. The disciples of the sect and the other elders had all died as well.

Not only those of the Heavenly Origin Sect. The remaining elders of the other sects who were still putting up a stubborn resistance would also end only in death. They had underestimated the strength of the demons far too much.

Li Li opened his eyes and looked at the ferocious face. Thick saliva dripped from the massive mouth and formed a pool on the ground.

"Delicious..."

Martial artists like Li Li were superior ingredients in the mouths of demons, and also superior medicinal treasures.

Watching the head draw closer and closer, Li Li could not even struggle.

Just as the will to die rose within him, a terrifying blade aura descended. The massive head burst with blood, and the enormous body collapsed to the ground.

Li Li did not die. He looked at the figure standing atop the pig demon's body. It was a swordsman wearing a bamboo hat and a black cloak, with a stalk of dogtail grass still held between his teeth.

This swordsman looked somewhat familiar.

Gazing at that slightly weathered middle-aged face, there was no mistake.

"Sun Ao... it is actually you!"

The genius of the Heavenly Origin Sect, who had disappeared for more than twenty years, had finally returned.

Li Li smiled. That man appeared even stronger now. Being able to slay a great demon of the Spirit Soul Realm, his cultivation had most likely already broken through to the Spirit Soul Realm as well. He truly was a genius, a genius that left others in the dust, unable to catch up.

Sun Ao wasted no words. He swung his blade several times in succession. Blade qi crisscrossed in all directions, and every demon that approached was cut down by him. He carried Li Li away directly, moving freely through the midst of ten thousand demons.

When Sun Ao finally stopped and looked at the dying Li Li, he knew that even his best pills could no longer heal Li Li's injuries.

"Am I still one step too late?"

Sun Ao sighed. Ever since learning of the demon invasion of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty, he had sensed that something major was wrong and had hurried back at once... yet he had still arrived too late.

"Do you have any last words? I will bring them back to the sect for you."

Li Li braced both hands against the ground and sat up. He gave a soft laugh. "You fellows are truly meddlesome... Would it not be better to let me be properly recorded by the sect as having died in battle on the battlefield?"

Sun Ao's face darkened. He should never have risked saving this fellow.

Li Li said, "Go back and have the recorder write down my life. I, Li Li, died fighting on the battlefield. Oh, and also write that I... I..."

Li Li suddenly coughed up a great mouthful of blood mixed with internal organs.

All movement vanished from his face.

Sun Ao cursed, "You bastard, at least finish what you were saying!"

Li Li was dead.

After cursing, Sun Ao fell silent for a long time. He carried Li Li's corpse on his back.

In the end, he still had to return to the sect so that the body could be buried properly, better than becoming a solitary ghost in this desolate wilderness.

...

Within the Heavenly Origin Sect.

Su Chen lay slumped over the table.

Suddenly, he raised his head and looked toward the door. The world outside was extremely dark, as if a mountain storm was about to break. This was the result of a terrifying great demon altering the heavenly phenomena.

Su Chen understood that he had now reached the end of his life. His final limit had arrived!

Su Chen called his successor and finished giving his instructions. He slumped over the table as his consciousness gradually faded.

"Has this old fellow really died?"

The young man busied himself for a while. After confirming that Su Chen was finally dead, he looked at the mask still on Su Chen's face and could no longer suppress the greed in his heart.

"You old undying thing, you wore this mask every day even though you could not cultivate. I asked you long ago to give it to me. I am your successor, yet you still hid it from me!"

The young man searched up and down Su Chen's body. Seeing the spiritual stones on him, he laughed loudly. "Young master here has finally struck it rich!"

He looked again at the mask on Su Chen's face and, without hesitation, pulled it off. He toyed with it in his hands. Although a dead man's mask was rather inauspicious, this was still a mid-grade spiritual artifact... The young man did not hesitate to put the mask on his own face.

The moment the mask settled into place, his body stiffened as if struck by lightning, and he became completely unable to move.

Chapter 397: The Ancient and Modern Recorder (Part 8)

The young man who had put on the mask looked at Su Chen's corpse. He buried Su Chen's body and erected a stone stele. From the moment he put on the mask, the young man felt that he had become somewhat different. Exactly where the difference lay, he did not know.

After burying Su Chen, he returned to the dim pavilion. Looking at the dazzling array of bamboo slips, his heart suddenly grew calm. He would remain here and wait for the next person to arrive.

The young man had a name. His name was Liu Hu. From this day onward, the Recorder of the Heavenly Origin Sect changed from Su Chen to Liu Hu.

"The person who records for the sect has changed?"

Sun Ao remembered that before he left the sect, the one who recorded the life information of the disciples and elders had been an old man. Now it had become a young man wearing a mask.

This change drew a soft sigh from Sun Ao's heart.

The young man's reply confirmed Sun Ao's guess.

The masked youth said, "That was my teacher. He passed away not long ago, and the position of Recorder of the sect has fallen upon me."

Sun Ao nodded. He had no particular relationship with Su Chen and had only asked casually.

"I want to record someone. His name is Li Li."

Following Sun Ao's oral account, Liu Hu recorded Li Li's life.

Li Li, a disciple of the Heavenly Origin Sect, later became an elder of the Heavenly Origin Sect and was respected by the disciples.

When the Wooden Scenery Dynasty suffered a demon invasion, Elder Li Li, together with Elder Wang, Elder Jiang, and other elders, led many disciples of the Heavenly Origin Sect to assist the Wooden Scenery Dynasty in resisting the demons.

The demons were powerful and broke through the first pass. Elder Li Li fought to the death without retreating and perished in the demon tide.

Sun Ao reviewed the record and then left. He had already fulfilled Li Li's dying wish. The Wooden Scenery Dynasty was now in imminent danger, and the Heavenly Origin Sect had many matters that required handling. He would not waste too much time here.

After Sun Ao left, Liu Hu placed the bamboo slip recording Li Li's deeds in a conspicuous position. The war situation in the Wooden Scenery Dynasty was tense. Almost every day, someone came here.

The front line between the demons and the Wooden Scenery Dynasty was like a bottomless pit that could never be filled. That pit was filled with countless human lives.

The Heavenly Origin Sect, once a vast and thriving sect that should have been filled with disciples and vitality, now appeared lifeless and declining.

In less than a year, fewer than one in ten of the disciples and elders of the Heavenly Origin Sect remained. The once-great sect seemed to have returned once more to that destitute little mountain peak. Even so, the situation at the front remained far from optimistic. Powerful experts continued to die in an endless stream.

Fortunately, their deaths were not without meaning. The Wooden Scenery Dynasty learned the purpose of this demon invasion.

A peak King-level demon king wished to use the living beings of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty as a medicinal tonic, breaking through the barrier of the Void Refining Realm in one stroke and becoming a Demon Emperor.

Peak King-level... that was equivalent to the peak of the ninth level of the Profound Connection Realm among humans. Although the Wooden Scenery Dynasty also had experts of the Profound Connection Realm, the strongest among them was only at the fourth level of the Profound Connection Realm... Unless they possessed special constitutions, the human body was weaker than that of demons in every aspect. Thus, even at the same realm, they were no match, let alone when facing an opponent five minor realms higher.

Moreover, the number of King-level demons under the invading Demon King's command was even greater than those of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty!

Liu Hu looked toward the area beyond the sect. At some unknown time, a layer of dark clouds had enveloped the sky above the Heavenly Origin Sect.

Before long, as a torrential downpour began to fall, strands of pale lightning surged like swimming dragons through the pitch-black cloud layer.

Liu Hu noticed that this cloud layer only covered the Heavenly Origin Sect. Outside the sect, the sky remained clear for ten thousand miles. The two extremes of weather appeared extremely strange.

Before the people of the Heavenly Origin Sect could react, lightning that covered an entire mountain peak crashed down with a roar. Its terrifying might was enough to raze everything within a hundred miles to the ground!

"There is someone within that lightning!"

The people of the Heavenly Origin Sect discovered that a human figure was faintly visible within the lightning.

That figure approached from afar and gradually became clear.

It was a middle-aged man with a lean face and a gentle expression. His long hair was bound up with a wooden hairpin, a few loose strands falling beside his ears. He wore a plain white daoist robe that remained completely free of dust even within the lightning.

"It is the Sect Master!"

This man was none other than the sect master of the Heavenly Origin Sect, that legendary figure, Ruan Jingtian.

"Was that just now the legendary Profound Connection Tribulation... The Sect Master has broken through to the Profound Connection Realm!"

In the entire Wooden Scenery Dynasty, there were only two experts of the Profound Connection Realm.

One was an old ancestor of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty.

The other was the current number-one sect's martial expert who had kept the martial cultivators of the Wooden Scenery Dynasty unable to raise their heads for three hundred years.

Now, the third was the sect master of the Heavenly Origin Sect. He had broken through to the Profound Connection Realm in less than two hundred years of cultivation. His aptitude surpassed even that of the one in the Wooden Scenery Dynasty, and his future was limitless.

The Profound Connection Realm granted a lifespan of eight hundred years.

The Sect Master emerging from seclusion after breaking through to the Profound Connection Realm should have been a cause for great celebration, yet within the Heavenly Origin Sect there were only scattered remnants, fewer than a hundred people remaining.

"Father, you have broken through!"

Seeing that Ruan Jingtian had successfully broken through, Ruan Hongyao was naturally filled with joy.

"Sect Master."

Together with Ruan Hongyao was Sun Ao.

Ruan Jingtian looked at the two of them and smiled.

"The Wooden Scenery Dynasty is in imminent danger. Your father will travel to the border and meet that Demon King."

Ruan Jingtian was optimistic, yet at this moment, listening to his words, a selfish thought appeared in Ruan Hongyao's mind for the first time.

"Father... can you not go?"

Facing Ruan Hongyao's words, the smile on Ruan Jingtian's face faded. He sternly rebuked, "Nonsense! Is your father a man who fears death?"

"You must understand that your senior brothers, senior sisters, junior brothers, junior sisters, and martial uncles all died at the hands of the demons. This is a deeply engraved hatred of our Heavenly Origin Sect. If your father does not go, and the Wooden Scenery Dynasty is breached by the demons, hundreds of millions of common people will become food for the demons, and the tens of millions of miles of territory of the entire Wooden Scenery Dynasty will become a paradise for the demons!"

"Your father has always wanted you to understand what is great righteousness and what is small righteousness. Small righteousness may be set aside, but great righteousness cannot be refused. Hongyao... you have truly disappointed your father."

Ruan Hongyao's face turned pale. "Father... but... but..."

Looking at Ruan Hongyao as tears streamed down her face, Ruan Jingtian stroked her head and said, "After your father leaves, you will become the ninth-generation sect master of the Heavenly Origin Sect. The heavy burden of the sect will fall upon your shoulders."

Ruan Jingtian looked to the side and said, "Sun Ao."

Sun Ao nodded. "Sect Master, this disciple wishes to accompany you to the battlefield and contribute my strength to the victory against the demons."

Ruan Jingtian shook his head. "The battlefield does not need you. What decides the final victory is us, not you young ones. After I leave, the sect will need you even more than the battlefield does."

"You are still young. The heavy burden of supporting the Wooden Scenery Dynasty and confronting the Demon King should not fall upon young people like you. That is the responsibility of us old fellows."

Sun Ao wanted to open his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Ruan Jingtian. "Hongyao will also need your assistance... If the situation becomes hopeless, you must take Hongyao and leave, preserving the final spark of fire for me and for the sect."

In the end, Sun Ao could only nod heavily.