Free Web NovelChapter 327: Chapter 323: 7 Years Later, the Calamity of the Divine Fall
「Seven years later.」
「Far South Continent.」
The sky was clear and the land was vast, without a single cloud in sight.
A flock of brown wild geese flew across the horizon in a V-formation.
Just then.
WHOOSH.
A streak of fiery red sword light shot past!
Several of the geese were struck by the sword light and immediately tumbled from the sky. The terrified flock scattered and fled, but the light pursued them relentlessly, slashing again and again!
SLASH!
A clean sweep!
The bodies of the geese plummeted from the sky.
After its work was done, the red sword light turned and shot back down toward the ground.
HUM.
As the air shrieked around it, the fiery red sword light contracted as it descended.
Finally, the light revealed its source: a Red Gold Flying Sword.
Intricate, pale-gold array patterns spread across the spine of the blade like a blooming rose.
A Spiritual Artifact.
A Tier-2 flying sword!
CLICK.
The Red Gold Flying Sword slid perfectly into its scabbard.
The one who wielded it was a cultivator dressed in red.
He had a gaunt frame and the face of a young man.
Notably, the cultivator’s face wasn’t fair-skinned. Instead, it was covered in dark red patches... the telltale signs of severe burns.
The scars were so deep that even the body tempering from his breakthrough to Foundation Establishment, fueled by Spiritual Qi, couldn’t erase them.
He was none other than Shu Rui, the only Foundation Establishment cultivator of his generation in the Shu Family!
For someone from a declining family, with only a mid-to-low-grade Spiritual Root, to have come this far was nothing short of inspirational.
Of course, he had paid a steep price for it.
Shu Rui’s face retained its youth, but his temples were streaked with gray.
It was a sign of premature aging.
A cultivator with such an appearance had most likely suffered a grievous injury or activated some Secret Technique that consumed their life force.
And that was indeed the case.
When he was breaking through to the Foundation Establishment realm, Shu Rui had used a Secret Technique that burned his blood essence to increase his chances of success.
As a result, his lifespan was likely thirty to forty years shorter than that of his peers, and his peak period of power would be comparatively brief.
Shu Rui’s expression was calm as he scanned his surroundings and issued a command.
"Collect all the feathers from these Goose Demons and process them properly..."
"This year, two more children in the family with Spiritual Roots have reached the age to begin cultivating. The feathers from this flock of migrating Goose Demons are just enough to make a Feather Robe for each of them."
"Oh, and don’t waste the demon blood. It can be mixed into blood ink."
"In this new territory, we must be as self-sufficient as possible and save wherever we can. Buying supplies from Hope Port is too expensive."
"Yes, Ancestor."
The assembled Shu Family cultivators replied respectfully, their hands clasped in a bow.
To call them all cultivators wasn’t entirely accurate, however.
Among the dozen or so cultivators, the auras of several did not belong to the Spiritual Mechanism Immortal Dao, but rather to the ’Bloodline True Form’ of the Far South Continent!
Compared to the Spiritual Mechanism Immortal Dao, the path of the Bloodline True Form was cruder and more primitive.
For divine descendants—royalty who possessed divinity—cultivating the Bloodline True Form allowed them to match, or even slightly overpower, cultivators of the same tier.
But it was their divinity that was powerful, not the Bloodline True Form itself.
Besides, a divine descendant possessing a ’seed of rules’ was akin to having a minor Dao Body. What path wouldn’t they excel in? They would be just as formidable if they followed the Spiritual Mechanism Immortal Dao!
However, the Bloodline True Form did have one advantage.
It wasn’t dependent on one’s innate talent.
The minimum standard for a low-grade Spiritual Root was a Spiritual Energy Sensitivity of ten.
Anything below that was considered an inferior Spiritual Root.
For the path of the Spiritual Mechanism Immortal Dao, an inferior Spiritual Root was practically worthless.
After all, someone with an inferior Spiritual Root would need five to seven years just to complete the most basic step of drawing qi into their body. Such a long training period...
...combined with the cost of resources like Spirit Rice during that time, made the investment completely disproportionate to the return.
But the Bloodline True Form was different!
This system had very low requirements for innate talent.
Even someone with an inferior Spiritual Root could become a Tier-1 mid-to-low-grade Body Cultivator at a normal pace through body tempering, rituals, and secret medicines.
Moreover, the resource investment wasn’t excessive.
Therefore, for the Shu Family, it was quite cost-effective to persuade clan members with inferior Spiritual Roots to follow the path of the Bloodline True Form and quickly raise a batch of fighters at the Qi Refining level.
As for these cultivators on the path of the True Form, their futures were bleak, their combat strength was weaker, and their lifespans were shorter... but it was still a far better fate than that of a mortal!
’True Form cultivators can also fill our manpower shortage...’
’Next year, with a few more True Form cultivators, perhaps we can domesticate and raise some local Half-Spirit Beasts, like wild pheasants, to generate some income for the family.’
’After all, the tax exemption for newly relocated families only lasts for twenty years.’
’It feels like in the blink of an eye, we’re already almost halfway through that time...’
Shu Rui’s mind wandered as he thought this, and he rubbed his temples.
As the head of the family, leading his people to tame this wild land, he always had to think more and do more than anyone else.
"Ancestor, there are twenty-four wild geese in total."
"By a rough estimate, there are enough feathers to make three Feather Robes!" a clansman reported happily.
"Excellent! That’s one more than we needed!" Shu Rui said, delighted. The good news washed away much of his anxiety.
’The Far South Continent is truly a land of plenty...’
It wasn’t that the Yaoguang Islands were barren.
It was just that all the resources and spirit lands in the Yaoguang Islands had already been claimed.
Take Jade Dew Island, for example. It’s a Tier-4 spirit island, a place that ten Aino territories combined couldn’t hope to match.
But Jade Dew Island had a master. Without Tier-4 strength, anyone who tried to take it would be signing their own death warrant!
The Far South Continent, on the other hand, was unclaimed territory!
’In such a fertile land, surely my family can prosper in the future, right?’
’I really have Mr. Su to thank for this...’
Shu Rui gazed north, lost in thought for a moment, and sighed to himself.
He knew exactly what the prerequisite was for the Shu Family’s current stability and promising future.
It was all because Mr. Su was compassionate and had no intention of pursuing old grievances.
Otherwise, if that preeminent Great Cultivator of the Cyan Profound Sea Region... no, of the entire Yaoguang Outer Sea... had shown the slightest displeasure, the Shu Family would likely have...
The thought sent a shiver down Shu Rui’s spine. He shook his head. ’The old grudges should end with my generation... Yes, I should revise the family history, too. We’ll start the detailed records from when we landed on the Far South Continent...’
As he was thinking, suddenly, a strange sensation crawled up his spine!
"What?!"
His hair standing on end, Shu Rui spun around.
He froze.
Countless thousands of miles away, stars of varying brightness had appeared in the sky. Even in broad daylight, their brilliant light was visible!
Above the stars, countless phenomena manifested: one showed vast armies surrounding an emperor’s crown; another, an ancient evergreen, a tree of life; yet another, a scarlet wolf on a field of frozen snow...
"What in the world is that...?" Shu Rui was stunned.
He could feel that these phenomena were not mere illusions. They contained real, tangible power, enough to move mountains and part the seas!
"Could it be... gods?"
Shu Rui had heard rumors about the high-level beings of the Far South Continent.
And just as he was pondering this, suddenly, a dim star in the sky, as if it were a loose screw, suddenly—plummeted!
BOOM!
An incredibly sharp shriek tore through the air!
It was followed by a terrifying fluctuation of spiritual pressure!
A colossal fireball, as bright and dazzling as the falling sun, forced him to shut his eyes!
Then came the impact.
THOOM!
RUMBLE!
Even from thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of miles away, Shu Rui could still clearly feel a faint tremor in the ground beneath his feet...
"This..."
"I have to report this to Hope Port..."
In fact, there was no need for Shu Rui to make a report.
Hope Port had observed the phenomenon the moment it occurred and had already reported the matter to their headquarters.
A top-priority incident.
Codename:
—[GODFALL]
