In the depths of the void, the Demon King was traveling on his own. He seemed to be sauntering in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on, but his every step took him vast distances forward. The speed of his movement was not inferior to Zhang Boqian’s void traversal.
When he glanced backward, all he could see of the Evernight World was a small speck. Hence, no matter how fast he was going, it felt like he wasn’t moving at all.
He would stop from time to time and glance back, then continue forward.
All of a sudden, a palace hall leaped out of the void in front of him. It felt as though the structure had just materialized, yet it also felt as though the building had existed since time immemorial.
There was a small piece of land beneath the hall, almost like a small island.
The Demon King slowly went up the stairs and knocked on the doors.
The palace doors opened slowly, revealing a different s.p.a.ce inside—a valley surrounded by mountains and forests. There was a full moon hanging perpetually in the sky.
There was a small lake in the valley, and on its mirror-like surface was the reflection of a person. Even the reflection couldn’t do her beauty any justice.
“Kane, you’ve grown soft.”
The Demon King smiled as he walked over to the lake. “Losing most of my power has changed the way I see the world. I don’t find that a bad thing, though. It’s more like finding myself. We possessed too much strength in the past, and that strength has distorted our views. What we see isn’t the real world.”
“I remember telling you this before.”
“I know, but I didn’t take it seriously back then.”
“Then, did you gain anything this time?”
“Indeed I did… if you can call it a gain.”
“Looks like it’s time to wake up.”
The figure at the lakeside faded away like bubbles as a lady appeared from the water, one who could hardly be described with words. Even the moon lost its splendor when she appeared.
She was the Queen of the Night, the greatest existence on the Sacred Mountain.
She slowly sat up and opened her eyes. “Tell me, what did you gain?”
“I saw a path toward the future. It’s fairly blurry, but it is indeed a solid direction. The regretful thing is that we are out of time.”
Lilith frowned slightly. “Not many can make you lose your confidence. Did you fight them? What is the outcome?”
“I went to the inner world intending to draw in the darkness origins. The plan was to rid our world of daybreak origin power, hoping that would give us more time. However, Qianye was inside, and his growth has yet again surpa.s.sed our expectations. Pointer and Profundity fell in the final battle, while we lost Sousa and the Wolf Ancestor.”
Lilith glanced at Kane with eyes that could penetrate the past and the future. She said with a frown, “That slash isn’t something those humans can launch. Only two people in the last thousand years are capable of achieving that level: Ji Xingjin and Ji Xuansi.”
“Ji Xingjin?” The Demon King was stunned for a moment as he recalled the name. “That fellow known for being ‘diligent in action and moderate in speech’?”
“That fellow once defeated you, escaped from my clone, and opened the path to the current Qin Empire. I have been contemplating those words for a thousand years.”
The Demon King said, “I have been thinking about it for a long long time. The more you contemplate, the more profound those words are. But, could the humans have grasped such deep knowledge all of a sudden?”
“Perhaps we will have an answer very soon. Now tell me what you gained.”
The Demon King said, “I saw our future in the Pointer Monarch’s slash and in Qianye himself.”
The Queen was a bit surprised. “What kind of future?”
“I’ve been contemplating for a thousand years, why can we not move farther after reaching the supreme realm. We can clearly sense an even more magnificent level of origin power and we have the knowledge to control it, but why is there no path forward? Our bloodlines have limited our origin power and placed a ceiling on how far we can go.”
“Haven’t you been changing the demonkins’ bloodline since you became a supreme? Isn’t that also why you wanted the Book of Darkness?”
“Indeed, but I was on the wrong path. I only found out after the battle in the inner world that our bloodlines have locked not only our strength, but also our thoughts. We became lazy and will only try to solve problems with power. Whenever we run into some problem, our first instinct is to utilize greater power and not to find a better solution. By the time we gained excessive origin power, the way we see the world had already deviated from the truth.”
“So you’re saying that the origin power has affected us?”
“Perhaps it has, perhaps it hasn’t. Don’t forget the Lost Season. Maybe an existence or power in this world is affecting us.”
“I heard a genius has appeared in your race, a person called Anwen. He has a unique understanding of the world.”
“That is indeed the case. He makes sense of the world using numbers and formulas. Our eyes may deceive us, but numbers do not lie. For instance, this is his latest view on the fall of the Void Valley STar.” The Demon King waved his hand, projecting countless numbers and formulas in the great hall.
Lilith watched the deluge of digits in silence and fell into deep thought. “He’s saying that the fall of the Void Valley Star was not a natural phenomenon, but rather due to an external force?”
“Numbers do not lie.”
“We only suspected it in the past but never had any proof. Now, we have all the proof we need.”
“Perhaps we should go and take a look at the original orbit of the Void Valley Star.”
“Is this matter urgent?”
“Not really.”
“What else is urgent then?”
“We have three urgent matters. First, the humans have initiated their Chronicle of Glory, and we still don’t know what that is. Second, Qianye has entered the River of Blood. I can now confirm that he is the one our fate apparatus was pointing to. Thirdly, we need to break the Lost Season.”
Lilith rubbed her temples in apparent fatigue. “I have made no progress regarding the Lost Season.”
“We’re running out of time,” the Demon King reminded.
“I know. I will make a decision when the time comes. I think we should meet Qianye for now.”
“I have no suggestions.”
Lilith’s expression s.h.i.+fted slightly as she opened the palace doors and walked outside. She simply stood there gazing at the void.
The Demon King appeared beside her. “What’s wrong?”
Lilith narrowed her eyes, saying, “I just felt that the stars today are a bit too glaring.”