"Good morning, everyone."
Beneath an eternal night, at the highest point in Quancheng atop a skyscraper cascading with a deluge of corrupted spiritus like a waterfall, someone pushed open the doors.
Wearing his customary smile, he offered a polite greeting: "How did everyone sleep last night?"
A small fish swam silently in an aquarium; an emaciated, withered old monk sat cross-legged in a corner, cloaked in silence; a girl gazing wistfully out at the nightscape cast her eyes downward, wearing a faint, ambiguous smile; an elderly artisan in grey robes closed his eyes to rest, turning a deaf ear; and before a colossal floor-to-ceiling window overlooking surging bands of flame stood a middle-aged man, who turned around and frowned.
"Hmm?"
Lu Changsheng gave a quizzical chuckle. He strode in without hesitation and took his seat. "Everyone seems to be in rather low spirits."
The old monk from Wulou Temple raised his head. His lips parted, and between teeth and flesh, countless scriptures wove together like fine stitches, producing a muddled voice:
"The Three Realms are like a burning house; who among us can expect a single night of peaceful slumber?"
"I didn't sleep a wink myself."
The Mentor from the Tianxin Society, who took the appearance of a young girl, grinned with schadenfreude. "After all, such rich amusement is rare. Who knew a tiny place like Haizhou could be so lively? Wouldn't you say so, Master Kanemoto?"
Kanemoto didn't budge an inch, not bothering to pay her any mind.
When dealing with instigators from the Tianxin Society, who didn't even value their own lives for the sake of amusement, sparing her even a glance was already conceding defeat.
Only the leader of the Dragon Sacrifice Society, Adrian, frowned and looked at Lu Changsheng. "With the situation deteriorating to this point, you can actually still smile?"
"Deteriorating?" Lu Changsheng asked, puzzled. "Where?"
The girl mentor burst into uproarious laughter, throwing her head back, while Adrian's expression turned increasingly sullen and grim.
He was one hundred percent certain that this dog Lu Changsheng was playing dumb.
Just a few hours ago, the shockwave and turmoil wrought by the descent and departure of a high-tier abomination had been enough to leave everyone running around in a frantic mess. The breach left in its wake had nearly caused an entire district of Quancheng to plummet out of the mortal realm; even now, they were only propping it up with a discarded corrupted carapace from Wulou Temple.
Not to mention the Security Bureau seizing the opportunity to mount a counteroffensive and clamp down.
Tao Cheng truly lived up to his reputation as a veteran Tianyuan Celestial-Human. Knowing the whole beast from a single spot, the faintest trace caught in his Heavenly Eye was enough for him to deduce the situation almost completely.
Decisive as ever, he had immediately struck back, clamping two more iron hoops around Quancheng's blockade to suppress all current anomalies within, severing inside from out.
Their hasty ascension had instead turned into a liability. Below the mortal realm, they could still traverse the connections between the Border Realms, moving in and out at will. Now, they were trapped like turtles in a jar, besieged in a doomed city.
Shouldn't someone step forward to take responsibility for this state of affairs?
For a moment, every eye turned to Lu Changsheng.
At last, the man leaning back in his chair let out a helpless sigh. "I understand, Mr. Adrian, your obsession with victory and your hunger for results. But really, there's no need to fret like this.
"Sometimes, one shouldn't reach beyond their grasp. Eat your meal bite by bite, and walk your path step by step."
Lu Changsheng spoke placidly, "Besides, haven't you all already obtained what you wanted? With my Evil Transmutation Cult providing the foundation, do you really lack even the courage to stake everything on one desperate throw?"
"What meaning is there in it?" Adrian countered.
The monk from Wulou Temple finally raised his eyes. Beneath his sockets lay only an endlessly churning darkness. His lips parted, and a voice issued from beneath the scripture sutures:
"All matters are concluded; why not depart at once?"
"Why look for meaning, and why depart?"
Lu Changsheng was amused and spread his hands. "In your eyes, what are we doing right now?"
Adrian replied coldly, "—Court death."
Anyone could gamble.
Yet with a lunatic like Lu Changsheng, who went all-in on every single hand, who dared truly wager their life and fortune to gamble alongside him?
Even if they had received guarantees, entered into pacts, or collected their rewards...
The current standoff and balance were far too fragile, sustained only by the tacit understanding between Lu Changsheng and Tao Cheng. The situation could escalate further at any second.
Once it spiraled out of control, it might easily ignite an immense catastrophe.
The consequences were unpredictable.
By now, the gaze of the entire mortal realm was about to be drawn here. There was no telling how many people were watching quietly from behind the scenes, poised to make a move, to say nothing of opportunists plotting to fish in troubled waters or loot a burning house.
Lu Changsheng was already playing with fire. But when he burned himself, would he drag them into the furnace along with him?
"Do you know?"
Lu Changsheng sighed softly. "I greatly admire Nirvana, even if I never had the chance to meet that Grand President. When even scoundrels and heretics like you took everything in this world for granted, someone actually dared to stand up and say: to hell with this world.
"I deeply revere Mo. When the choice deciding the fate of the world was placed in their hands, they made their decision, even without any way to foresee the future."
Lu Changsheng spoke with calm eloquence: "Not to mention those even earlier: the first rebel who drew a dagger against the gods; the kings who followed close behind, establishing new rules in the Age of Chaos; and even the First Emperor and the Last Sovereign of the Eternal Era.
"In my eyes, a true hero is a brave soul who, fully aware of the evil consequences their actions will bring, still acts with unilateral resolve and shoulders everything.
"Even if the abominations they forge leave behind endless calamity..."
Lu Changsheng rose slowly, looking around at everyone, and asked with curious intent, "Tell me, do you think they worried about the consequences when they acted?"
There was no outcome in this world that satisfied both sides.
Sometimes, someone had to choose between one evil fruit and another.
When the blood of the gods ran dry, the Sovereign Virtues formed from that blood. The pillars of the world were replaced, and the old order of all things was destroyed in the turmoil.
The kings established their own domains, seizing the Sovereign Virtues to carve out the mortal world, yet they arbitrarily rewrote the origins and end of the world, fixing the past and determining the future. In their mutual warfare and slaughter, the world was warped beyond recognition, forging the seeds of corruption.
The Emperor founded an empire, reorganizing everything, yet used Tianyuan to govern all, forcefully suppressing every evil cause, only to cast the shadow of corruption beneath the mortal realm.
The Last Sovereign's obstinacy triggered a worldwide rebellion, and the Mohists lit the first fire. After the Heavenly Pillar collapsed, it plunged into the shadows, throwing everything into disarray. Disaster burned across the mortal realm like a wildfire for ninety years, giving rise to poisons and perils that lingered through four centuries down to the present day.
With the harm left behind and the achievements attained so thoroughly intertwined, who could ever separate them?
When that sword severed the Tower of Tianyuan back then, who could have predicted that cutting short the Eternal Era would truly strangle two nascent great abominations in a single stroke?
There were twelve Sovereign Virtues, yet only nine corresponding great abominations.
Those absent were Tianyuan, the White Stag, and the Desolate Ruins.
The manifestation of the Desolate Ruins was everything in this world, omnipresent and all-encompassing, which likewise doomed it to never be cleanly divided into two.
Yet to a certain extent, that vortex beneath the mortal realm that contained the nine great abominations was the shadow of the Desolate Ruins, and the endless natural disasters of this world were the abominations of the Desolate Ruins.
Once the Desolate Ruins became completely corrupted, it would signify the total arrival of the mortal realm's apocalypse.
And after holding the other Sovereign Virtues in thrall for millennia, Tianyuan—which should have birthed the most formidable abomination of all—met with an eternal wound as the Heavenly Pillar cracked and collapsed. It shattered entirely into today's numerous fragments and its two largest remnants: the Federation and the Empire.
The moment Revolution cleaved down, the realm of Stagnant Rot was completed alongside it, but Tianyuan could never be recombined.
Yet at the same time, the boundary between order and chaos was completely blurred.
Tianyuan and the White Stag, an intertwined pair of twin Sovereign Virtues, suffered mutual ruin. From then on, the White Stag's wilderness could never be whole again, leaving neither pure, each existing within the other.
The abomination of Tianyuan was stillborn, while the abomination of the White Stag lay dead in the wilderness.
The shadow of the high tower sank beneath the vortex, never to rise again. Those who maintained order grew terrified of being alienated by it, their visages steadily warping beyond recognition. The wolf of the wilderness was devoured by the white stag in the forest; hunters and wild beasts stalked one another, locked in perpetual conflict without a day of peace.
The world survived to this day by their grace, and by the same token remained wounded to this day.
Whenever a monument was erected, it was doomed to add countless new scars.
Ever since all this began, everything seemed to loop and repeat, at times ascending, at times descending, hanging on the precipice and operating in perilous fragility.
Wavering and convulsing, it marched toward a dim future.
Just like right now.
"I understand that what you fear is an irrecoverable, crushing defeat. But there is one point you haven't grasped..."
Lu Changsheng turned around, his back to the deep, murky world behind him, and told them, "Our standard for victory is not the same as the Security Bureau's.
"For those lords, the moment gutter vermin like snakes, insects, rats, and ants crawl out onto the streets, they have already lost.
"Yet for us, if we clutch some so-called victory right now and scurry off in panic, how would we be any different from real vermin?"
"You fret over consequences, but consequences are inevitable!"
"Just like our current confrontation and war with the enemy."
"Even if this world had no me, no you, and no so-called Evil Transmutation Cult, this day would still come. Even now, you can still pull out at any time, just as I promised."
Lu Changsheng grinned, making no effort to hide his mockery. "Yet once this 'me' is buried in Quancheng, where will you go to find the next me?"
Amidst the prolonged, dead silence, the little fish blew a string of bubbles. The girl sneered, Kanemoto remained indifferent, and Adrian fell silent.
Within the darkness of the old monk's eyes, a shifting light abruptly flared.
"Lu Changsheng—"
His lips parted. Several scripture sutures tore open, and writhing blood seeped from the fissures, carrying an aged, rasping voice: "Where does your desire lie?"
"Need you even ask? It is right before your eyes, right in this very moment!"
Lu Changsheng threw his arms wide, gesturing toward the turbulent world behind him where darkness and fierce brilliance endlessly collided, and laughed aloud: "From the very instant the horn was sounded, we have already proclaimed to this world—"
If the existence of the Sovereign Virtues was an eternal cause, then the birth of great abominations was the inevitable fruit behind that splendor.
If one must commit evil to survive, then committing evil is the proper truth. If one must pursue wickedness to ascend, then pursuing wickedness is the righteous path!
"One day, I shall transmute evil into righteousness!"
That solitary figure looked down upon everything, whispering his declaration to his enemies:
"When that day comes, who in this world under heaven shall be called evil?"
Chapter 221