177 - Tales of a Forgotten Age

First - Previous - Next

“I'd appreciate it if you didn't look down on us so much," the old man said, and for the first time, he looked slightly indignant at Qin Yun's question. "It's a long story, but in short, the time when I lived here coincided with the rise of the first species inhabiting these lands. Humans had just come into existence, but compared to the other races, they were barely worth mentioning. It's not that hard to understand, right?"

Despite being asked, Qin Yun didn’t respond. Instead, he waited quietly for the man to finish his exposition. Not getting the response he wanted, the man could only sigh.

"Mankind doesn't possess the inherent traits needed to survive in a primitive world. They have no wings to fly away from danger, the claws and fangs to hunt for sustenance, nor even the lush fur needed to drive back the cold," the man added. "The only thing going for them was their mind and the technologies that stemmed from it."

“What about cultivation?” Qin Yun asked, intrigued.

There were many records of the early days of this world in the Qin clan's library, but most of them were incomplete, written from a human's perspective, and limited to the Western Domain. Learning about a time so far removed from the present day couldn't help but pique Qin Yun's interest, especially from someone who had lived through it.

“Cultivation was at its early stage. She tried to promote it, but most people were reluctant. You know, back then, people weren’t born with spiritual roots—”

The man smiled once again, always with the same creepy smile, but this time, Qin Yun could see an ounce of pain laced within, almost as if he was vividly remembering the times as if they were but yesterday.

"—Spiritual roots were something acquired, not inherited," the man added. "And, from what I saw, acquiring one was less than pleasant. You can see why cultivation wasn't as widespread as it is now. Imagine countless roots burrowing under your skin, creating an entirely new circulatory system within your flesh before carving a space under your navel for the seed to take root in. Surely, you can understand what happened as a result.”

Qin Yun couldn't help but wince, just imagining the pain. He was all too familiar with gruesome and painful processes, but even for him, that would have been enough to drive him insane.

Even in the case of his wife, who had been granted an artificial spiritual root, the process wasn't nearly as painful. Sure, it did hurt, but the roots didn't have to carve all new qi channels. They only needed to repurpose the old ones—refurbishing them a bit.

“People died, a lot of them,” Qin Yun said sombrely.

“More than one would dare to count," the man sighed. "But what could they do? It was the price they needed to pay for the species to be able to compete. They were desperate. Most other races treated them only as prey. You must know that most of the races didn't take human form back then. Only after the rite of cultivation took hold in humans did they gain the strength to fight back and eventually reign over them all, forcing them to adapt."

While telling this story, the old man looked rather proud. He seemed to look back on those days with an uncanny fondness that seemed out of place for such desperate times for his species.

“Humans eventually came to hold dominion over this continent, but that didn't mean the other races had become our thrall. We simply went from being looked at as prey to equal opponents. They needed to think twice before making us their enemies. Those were glorious times," the man sighed with glitter in his eyes as if he cherished those memories. "Humanity was thriving, and even the heavens seemed to be on our side. Things couldn't be better, yet it didn't last long. Soon after we finally took our rightful place among the other races, tragedy struck. One that overturned everything."

“The Corruption,” Qin Yun said.

"Indeed." the old man's smile faded, and his expression grew dark for the first time, not the slightest bit of his usually jolly attitude from before remaining. "At first, we didn't take it seriously. Even she didn't seem to care much. Only the distant lands, far away from the core of the continent were affected. You should know that most of humanity had migrated toward the Well of Souls by then. It was our right as the foremost race within the continent."

“But not you, right?" Qin Yun asked. "Otherwise, this place wouldn't be located here, but further inland."

The old man sighed again, looking rather forlorn.

“For a time, I followed them. I saw our civilization grow to unprecedented heights, but I soon grew disillusioned. Following that, I retreated here to continue my research.”

“Are you just going to gloss over your reasons?”

"That's private but also irrelevant to the story," he said sternly. "Besides, sooner or later, they'll be made clear to you—if you live long enough."

“Fair enough,” Qin Yun shrugged. “So, what happened with the Corruption?”

"Nothing too interesting," the man sighed again. "It swept the continent with nothing being able to stop it. It was slow at first, only infecting plants and insects, but the more it changed them and evolved, the more its corrosive nature became prominent. The various races could resist its hold through their connections with her, but we had no way to drive it back. Even every time she got involved, corruption would come back soon after, but this time even more ferociously. It was as if it was absorbing a part of her strength, changing it for its own. By the time she realized it and stopped going directly against it, it was already too late. People weren't as resistant as they used to be."

“So, a continent fell, just like that,” Qin Yun shook his head. “So much for being the arbiter of this world.”

"Don't blame her. I doubt you would have fared much better," the old man sneered.

“All of a sudden, now you're on her side?" Qin Yun asked, confused.

“We have our differences—same as you," the old man shrugged. "Anyway, let's not get side-tracked. This continent fell in a matter of a hundred years; can you believe that? This large expanse, raised to the ground in a measly hundred years. While they were slow to unite, the various races populating the land finally stood together in their twilight years and resisted the influx of corruption as best they could, but there was nothing they could do. At the end, only a single city remained, the one bordering the Well of Souls."

"Why didn't they leave? Although it wouldn't have changed much, merely delayed the inevitable, they could have chosen to go to another leaf," Qin Yun asked, picturing how majestic such a last stand must have been, despite knowing full well that reality wasn't as glamorous as what could be found within books.

"Some did, but even with my expertise, travelling between continents was never a safe affair. More than once, these expeditions full of refugees were lost before making landfall. And besides, the inhabitants of those other continents were less than pleased to receive this sudden influx of people. Not that I blame them. Had we been in their place, we would have reacted much of the same."

Qin Yun could see the situation as vividly as if he had been there in person. After all, no matter how far one went back in time or how advanced a civilization became, tribalism could never be erased from living beings. Fearing those divergent from themselves was literally etched into their genes, a survival mechanism that had served them well.

Even if they had managed to reach another continent, corruption would have followed them. Resources would have become scarce, leading to untold conflicts until all that remained was rubble washed away by waves of corruption. There was no winning unless they united all living beings of this world to stand against it—which obviously didn't happen.

"That city stood for a while, repelling the corruption with formations of my own designs, but as the corruption encroached upon the earth veins, sapping away at the qi streaming out of the Well of Souls, the power sustaining the city began to dwindle. There were some other problems, but eventually, the city collapsed, and everyone died. That's when I made my move and left. But before leaving, I left something in that city that stopped the corruption from ever reaching the Well of Souls."

"And, what was it?" Qin Yun asked, knowing the old man was only waiting for him to ask that question. All this time, there had been this considerable build-up within this story, all leading up to this.

“The barrier I created, the one protecting this very mansion. I left a similar one within that city. Even now, it remains, driving back the corruption, stopping it from ever reaching its goal.”

"That must take an immense amount of energy," Qin Yun gasped, barely able to conceive of the scale of it all. But then, something else caught his attention, incongruent with what he had been told. "What about the other continents? Surely, the corruption should have been able to reach its goal through one of them."

"You think I'd be stupid enough not to account for that?" the old man sneered again.

Qin Yun was getting extremely tired of the old man’s attitude, but as he sought the answers he provided, he decided to let it slide.

"The barrier I created around the city differs slightly from this one. It encompasses the entirety of the Well of Souls, rising up to the continent you stem from, being stronger at the bottom while getting weaker as you go up. As such, the corruption had no choice but to devastate every layer one by one until it finally reached the last. It will never get in, no matter how much it tries to force entry. Getting through your Western Domain is its last chance to completely swallow this world."

"What's powering all this?" Qin Yun asked, then looked past the man toward the black box slowly rotating within its prison. "There's no way that energy is enough for all this. It can only stabilize this small barrier, but almost nothing more."

“Who else but her?” the old man said, shrugging. “There’s no other power in this world able to power such a large formation for so long. I did get her permission, but even I was surprised when she agreed. Haven’t you wondered why what you call the Heavenly Dao isn’t as omnipresent as it should be? That’s the reason. Most of her attention is taken away by that formation, and all the other defensive measures she created, leaving not much more cognitive resources to allocate towards the prosperity of this world. She had to resort to other means.”

Qin Yun finally had a better picture of this world. While many things were different than he expected, much of it had been the same. Still, he had wondered, time and again, why the Heavenly Dao had been so tolerant in some instances.

If she wished, she had the power to wipe out those infected with corruption, yet she hadn't done so. This had always weighed on Qin Yun's mind. But now he knew. It wasn't that she didn't want to, but that she couldn't. Protecting what remained of this world already took everything the Heavenly Dao had to offer.

At best, it could strike a few lightning bolts Qin Yun's way, but that was about it. Unless something genuinely heinous happened—something that might upset the fragile balance of this world—the Heavenly Dao chose not to interfere.

With all that being said, Qin Yun finally had what he needed to plot his new course of action. He still didn't know which path would be better to take to return to the world he had left—whether one of the two methods he had been granted or another one entirely—but he now had the semblance of a plan.

After all, there were many suspicious things about this man, and Qin Yun was far from naive enough to take this man at his word, but he would consider it just as he would consider everything.

However, there was one question left to ask—the most important one. What should he do about this hologram of a man long gone who claimed to be the same as he was?

First - Previous - Next