The Dao of Reincarnation (406-407) (Patreon)

Chapter 406: The Ancient and Modern Recorder (Part 17)

Five hundred years later.

The demonic races had not invaded human territory again for half a millennium.

Zhou Chong's cultivation had grown even stronger.

Those five hundred years felt like a fleeting dream. Many people had already forgotten the existence of the demons.

Zhou Chong had not.

Until the demons were completely eradicated, the human race would never know true peace. Their prolonged silence could only mean they were plotting something.

Events proved his guess correct. He simply had not expected their counterattack to take so cruel a form.

Within the Sacred Mountains, Zhou Chong stared coldly at the disciple he had once been most proud of.

"Master, I am sorry. This disciple has failed the cultivation you bestowed upon me.

"Rou'er and I share true feelings. We wish to be together."

Zhou Chong glanced at the charming woman kneeling beside the young man. Though she bowed as respectfully as he did, Zhou Chong could sense the hidden mockery and contempt in the eyes of the woman called Little Rou.

"Do you know she is a demon?"

The irony cut deep. Zhou Chong had risen step by step through the merit of slaughtering countless demons. He had watched generation after generation of Sacred Mountain warriors fight to the death to protect those behind them.

Only five hundred years had passed.

How had it come to this?

Some had already begun to forget the threat of the demons and even believed peaceful coexistence was possible.

It was truly laughable.

The thought brought back the "human" who had once handed him the mask.

"This disciple knows… yet humans and demons are both living beings. I believe our races can live in harmony."

Zhou Chong looked at his stubborn disciple, deep disappointment flashing in his eyes.

"Master gives you one final chance. If you are willing to kill her with your own hands to prove your resolve, today's matter can be set aside."

The young man's expression remained firm.

"Master… to this disciple, Rou'er is family. I will never harm my own family!"

Zhou Chong gazed at his obstinate disciple. The last trace of warmth in his eyes turned into cold, killing intent. Seated on the main throne of the great hall, he swept his gaze around the chamber. No one dared meet his eyes.

"The iron law of our Sacred Mountains… humans and demons cannot coexist. Since you refuse to kill her, you know the consequences."

The youth remained resolute, tightly holding the woman's hand.

"Whatever Master has given me, you may take back. I am willing to leave the Sacred Mountains and wander the world with Rou'er."

Zhou Chong laughed in extreme anger.

"Good… good… I never imagined I would raise a disciple like you. Do you think everything is so simple?"

He struck with a single sword stroke and beheaded the woman called Rou'er before anyone could react. When the young man finally realized what had happened, he clutched her corpse in grief.

Zhou Chong looked at his disciple. Humans were not grass or trees; none were without feeling. Yet some things had to be done, and some rules could never be broken.

He suppressed the sorrow in his heart and met the young man's hate-filled gaze. Without mercy, he struck with an open palm. Blood flowed steadily beneath his feet and dyed the ground red.

This was the demons' counterattack.

Zhou Chong forced down his grief and rage. He looked coldly at the gathered elders.

"From this day forward, anyone who dares collude with demons will be treated as a traitor to the human race. Humans and demons cannot share the same land. Only one side can survive upon this soil.

"Until the enemy is dead, I will not rest."

The next day, the Sacred Mountains were in turmoil.

Word spread that the disciple of the Sacred Mountain's master had formed a bond with a demon, and that upon learning of it the master had slain his own disciple.

The news raced outward from the Sacred Mountains and quickly reached human territories in every direction.

Five hundred years had not meant that the demons had abandoned their invasion. They had merely changed strategy, seeking to lull the human race into complacency and create the false impression that peaceful coexistence was possible.

That illusion had convinced countless ordinary people who had never lived through the century-long war between humans and demons five hundred years earlier.

Zhou Chong's decision regarding such people was absolute: kill without mercy.

Within only a few years, a terrible internal strife erupted among the human race. The demons seized the opportunity and, almost without effort, seized vast stretches of human territory.

It was only because Zhou Chong had already displayed an iron-blooded resolve that the situation did not worsen further.

Following the century-long war between humans and demons five hundred years earlier, an even more brutal conflict now broke out. Having lost the initiative, the human Sacred Mountains found the battle extraordinarily difficult. Many of the race's deepest foundations were thrown into the fray.

"Zhou Chong, I never expected you to be so ruthless."

The Holy Demon King was genuinely surprised. He had not imagined Zhou Chong would act so decisively, even against a disciple who was like a son to him.

Zhou Chong, for his part, had not expected the Holy Demon King to be so insidious, seeking to influence the human race gradually from within.

When enemies met, their eyes burned with particular hatred.

Six hundred years earlier, Zhou Chong had been the chief architect of the scheme that killed the Demon Qilin, the future hope of the demonic race. Six hundred years later, the demons had forced him to kill the disciple he valued most with his own hands.

A world-shaking battle erupted.

Zhou Chong proved worthy of his reputation as a peerless genius of this world. In less than a thousand years of cultivation, he stood only a single step away from becoming a Saint.

Unfortunately, the demons had prepared for this day for a full five hundred years.

Within the barrier, Zhou Chong's heart was filled with grief.

A fine rain of blood fell from the sky. Every human martial artist felt an overwhelming sorrow.

That sorrow stemmed from the fall of a Saint within the Sacred Mountains.

The Holy Demon King laughed without restraint.

"Zhou Chong, Zhou Chong… the Saint of the human Sacred Mountains is dead. This continent is destined to have only one power: my demonic race!"

Zhou Chong himself was under siege.

In that desperate moment, a bronze mask appeared on his face.

He faintly touched the threshold of Sainthood.

In almost an instant, a power that did not belong to the Nirvana Realm erupted from his body. He was about to take the final step!

Yet he had no time to complete it.

His long sword fell in a single stroke… and the entire world seemed to split in two.

"What… are you trying to do?"

The Holy Demon King had not yet recovered from the shock of Zhou Chong's imminent breakthrough when he saw the man divide the two domains. His mind fell into chaos.

Zhou Chong's body began to fade little by little.

He intended to use his own body as a barrier, buying the human race one final chance to catch its breath.

Amid the Holy Demon King's unwilling roar, an outcome that had seemed all but certain was altered by Zhou Chong's solitary effort.

"Zhou Chong… at most another five hundred years. In five hundred years, the human race will reach its complete end!"

The Holy Demon King ground his teeth.

Whether the barrier lost its power or the demonic Saints recovered from their injuries, the human race was doomed to extinction.

Outside, as Zhou Chong's body transformed into the barrier, the bronze mask lost its wearer and fell rapidly. It dropped into a swift-flowing river and gradually vanished with the current.

...

Time flew past.

Thirty years had passed since Zhou Chong transformed himself into the barrier.

"It's over. I still haven't caught any fish today. I'm going to starve."

A boy in plain clothes muttered as he stared at a moss-covered bronze lump.

"Forget it… Maybe this bronze lump can be traded for a little money. It might even be better than catching fish."

The boy looked closer at the bronze object.

It seemed to be… a mask.

Chapter 407: The Ancient and Modern Recorder (Part 18)

The boy's name was Si Zhaonan. His daily life consisted of fishing, catching shrimp, and looking for any household that was hosting a feast so he might beg for a meal.

Si Zhaonan's parents had both died when he was young. He had grown up eating food from a hundred families. He had heard that beyond the village lay a far broader world filled with cultivators called martial artists.

The term meant little to him until Wang Dahu, the long-absent older brother of Wang Ergou at the village entrance, suddenly returned. With a single punch, Wang Dahu shattered the stone stele at the village gate that stood as tall as himself. If that punch had landed on a person, the person would have been smashed to pieces as well.

That stele, carved with the words "Sanli Village," normally caused the old village chief to hobble from door to door with his cane and demand answers if even a tiny nick appeared. Si Zhaonan had been punished by the chief more than once for such trivial damage. Yet when Wang Dahu destroyed the stele, the old chief stood nearby and dared not utter a word.

What made Si Zhaonan envy him even more was that after one trip into the mountains, Wang Dahu returned carrying the corpse of a fierce tiger. That day Si Zhaonan was fortunate enough to receive a bowl of soup containing a large piece of meat. It was delicious. For the first time, he wished to become a martial artist. Yet the very next day he had nothing to eat again.

Si Zhaonan had never imagined that the scene which existed only in his dreams would actually come true.

He had truly become a martial artist!

Three days earlier, while fishing, he had caught no fish but had instead pulled up a strange bronze mask.

At first, he wanted to sell the entire peculiar bronze mask, yet no one was willing to buy it, not even for a single ordinary meal.

Disheartened, Si Zhaonan kept the bronze mask. Out of sheer boredom, he put it on.

The moment he wore it, he seemed to see a person performing a sequence of movements before his eyes. He imitated every action one by one. To him, it felt like a dream; he was only playing. When he finally awoke, he discovered that his strength had increased several times over.

He still could not shatter a stele of his own height with a single punch the way Wang Dahu could, yet killing his former self with one blow was no longer a problem. The only bad news was that Si Zhaonan felt extremely hungry. His already thin frame had been reduced to skin and bones.

A fierce desire to survive drove him into the deep mountains in search of meat. Fortune favored him. After only a few steps, he encountered a wild rabbit. He exploded with astonishing speed, seized the rabbit, and, too starved to care whether it was raw or cooked, tore into it and swallowed it whole. Yet he only felt hungrier still.

Only then did Si Zhaonan come back to himself.

He stared at his bloodstained hands. Foul-smelling bloody foam still bubbled from his mouth.

He murmured, "Have I turned into a vicious ghost? Am I no longer human?"

"This is not the work of a ghost… Congratulations. You have become a martial artist!"

Si Zhaonan turned around. A burly man was watching him.

Wang Dahu!

Wang Dahu looked at Si Zhaonan with confusion in his eyes.

"Making such a racket in the back mountains in the middle of the night, I thought some demonic beast had broken through.

"So it was just a little fellow who had just become a martial artist. Did you fail to prepare enough flesh and blood to replenish your energy after the breakthrough?"

Si Zhaonan was still dazed.

He explained his identity, which surprised Wang Dahu. A lazy village idler had actually become a martial artist.

Fortunately, Si Zhaonan was clever enough. He claimed he had accidentally obtained a brightly colored fruit, and in his extreme hunger had swallowed it without caring whether it was poisonous. After that, he had become like this. Wang Dahu believed the strange tale, for the world was full of strange occurrences.

Si Zhaonan then heard Wang Dahu declare that he was a rare genius whose hundred meridians had all opened at once, a talent seen only once in a century, and that he should return with him to the military battlefield.

That was extremely dangerous!

Si Zhaonan finally agreed.

He wanted to see the outside world, to witness the vast and magnificent martial path that others described.

Great men had great dreams; small men had small ones. Some sought power over all under heaven, some sought wealth and glory, and some sought a name that would last through the ages. All of that felt far too distant to Si Zhaonan. In the past, he had only wanted to fill his stomach. Now that dream remained, yet another goal had been added.

He wished to leave the tiny Sanli Village and see a broader, more magnificent world.

After returning home, Si Zhaonan looked at the bronze mask still lying beside the haystack. He picked it up.

"Is this… a treasure of the immortals?"

Everything still felt like a dream, yet the dream was vividly real.

He knew he had stumbled upon tremendous luck.

This was a true treasure. Remembering how he had once tried to sell it for a single bowl of rice, Si Zhaonan wanted to slap himself. Fortunately, no one had been willing to buy it.

A few days later, Si Zhaonan set out with Wang Dahu to return to the military camp.

At the village entrance, he saw Little Hua looking at him with reluctant eyes.

Little Hua was the village flower of Sanli Village.

Every boy, young man, middle-aged man, and old man in the village held some fondness for her.

Si Zhaonan was no exception.

Ever since Wang Dahu had revealed his status as a martial artist, Si Zhaonan's standing in the village had risen to second only after Wang Dahu himself.

Little Hua had begun casting meaningful glances his way.

Si Zhaonan suppressed the excitement in his heart and ultimately chose to leave with Wang Dahu to see the wider world.

The outside was vast.

Si Zhaonan quickly learned that everyone here was a martial artist like Wang Dahu, and many were even stronger.

Fortunately, his hundred meridians had all opened, marking him as a rare martial prodigy.

In addition, he possessed the mysterious mask. Each time he wore it, a human figure appeared before him.

Later, Si Zhaonan learned that the figure was demonstrating a technique called the Heavenly Origin Art, a genuine divine-grade cultivation method.

Si Zhaonan repeatedly earned merit. After a hundred years, he had become the Grand Marshal of a dynasty's armies.

Reflecting on the journey that had brought him here, Si Zhaonan could not help feeling emotional.

The weather turned bitterly cold.

"Marshal, the weather has grown cold.

"Please put on another layer."

Si Zhaonan looked at the garment. It was yellow and embroidered with a majestic nine-clawed true dragon.

He smiled knowingly.

In less than ten years, the original dynasty had undergone earth-shaking changes. A brand-new dynasty had risen in its place, named the Heavenly Origin Dynasty.

Si Zhaonan's nearly legendary experiences quickly secured him a place among the human territories of this continent.

Beyond the Heavenly Origin Dynasty, many other forces existed in this world.

The strongest among them, the power that ruled the entire human race, was called the Sacred Mountains.