After Yanhu left, Wei Yuan decided to begin with the history of the Desolate Realm before delving into that of Fengmang.
He first scanned the titles of the historical chronicles stored in the Desolate Realm section to get a general overview. Then, he took down a stone box containing early records, placed it on the desk, and slid open the lid.
These boxes were crafted from Desolate Realm stone and contained sheets of specially prepared jade paper. Many rare ingredients had been blended into them; Wei Yuan immediately caught the scent of the Flame God Flower. It seemed immortal flora had been included in the recipe, which explained how this jade paper could endure for so long in such an extreme environment.
Yet jade paper incorporating immortal flora was extraordinarily costly; Wei Yuan had barely seen a few sheets outside the two fortresses.
He picked up a sheet of jade paper and read it carefully. The jade paper of the Desolate Realm was far thicker than normal jade paper, though its storage capacity was about the same—roughly ten thousand characters per sheet, or enough to carry two to three true intents.
Wei Yuan read at an astonishing pace, getting through a sheet every few breaths before picking up another. Each time he finished reading a sheet, its contents appeared in his sea of consciousness, where another Wei Yuan manifested to review and scrutinize the text. He intended to memorize every word first, then open a dedicated branch of divine thought in his sea of consciousness to analyze and organize it all.
This was his method of studying history: comparing and analyzing vast quantities of disparate records, sifting the wheat from the chaff, and compiling them into an entirely new, all-encompassing history that he could consult and draw upon at any moment.
Sheet after sheet was taken out and returned. Like scattered scraps of paper, the history of the entire Desolate Realm gradually coalesced in Wei Yuan's mind into a larger, more complete picture.
In its early years, the Desolate Realm had been a tranquil world tethered to the Native Realm. After the Power Shamans discovered it, they mined resources and tempered their physical bodies here, growing ever stronger in flesh and form. However, their mindscape worlds had also involuntarily filled with scorching heat and flames, turning monotonous, which in turn gave rise to the path of the Power Shamans and Desolate Shamans.
Yet hundreds of thousands of years ago, flame demons suddenly emerged. Under the onslaught of an endless horde of flame demons, the Power Shamans throughout the Desolate Realm suffered catastrophic casualties. Of the six Heavenly Shamans guarding the Desolate Realm at the time, five were Desolate Shamans and one was a Nether Shaman. In the final battle, the flame demon race deployed over a dozen powerhouses on par with Heavenly Shamans, leaving the six Heavenly Shamans in desperate peril under their ferocious assault.
At the time, the Shamans and the Liao Clan were locked in a total war that consumed all their strength, leaving no reinforcements to spare. Consequently, the Ancestral Shaman invited the first Human Sovereign of that era to march into the Desolate Realm to aid them. Back then, humanity was still a vassal of the Shamans, but because the first Human Sovereign had risen with extraordinary brilliance, humanity held a rather high standing among the vassals.
Yet never had the Ancestral Shaman imagined that the first Human Sovereign would flatly refuse to march, going so far as to abandon the pact with the Shamans. Seeing this, the Liao Clan immediately moved to win over humanity, offering lavish terms that drew the human race into the Liao camp.
In the final battle of the Desolate Realm, five of the six Heavenly Shamans perished, and only a single Heavenly Shaman of Desolate Shaman origin managed to escape. A million years of Power Shaman foundation in the Desolate Realm was wiped out in a single stroke: dozens of cities fell into ruins, hundreds of thousands of Power Shamans were slain, and nearly a thousand Desolate Shamans met their end. History recorded it as the Battle of Burning Blood.
Virtually uprooted, the Power Shamans were toppled from their throne as the mightiest Shaman tribe, plummeting straight to the bottom.
Afterward, the Ancestral Shaman intervened, ceding vast benefits and a hundred thousand li of territory to sue for peace with the Liao Clan. Gathering the remaining strength of the Shamans, twelve Heavenly Shamans reentered the Desolate Realm and waged a bloody war against the flame demons for one thousand three hundred years. At last, they temporarily drove the flame demons back and laid down the first boundary stone of Jitian City.
Jitian City was no ordinary settlement. According to historical records, any flame demon entering within a hundred thousand li of the city was suppressed and suffered a steep plunge in strength. It thus became the Shamans' most impregnable stronghold. Because the extreme conditions of the Desolate Realm gradually turned anyone who stayed long enough into a Power Shaman, the Power Shamans eventually recovered through years of rest and recuperation, though their resurgence could never match their former glory when seven Heavenly Shamans stood side by side.
Having built Jitian City and driven a fresh stake into the Desolate Realm, the Ancestral Shaman finally found the leeway to replenish the ranks of the Heavenly Shamans and set out to seek vengeance against the Liao Clan.
That war raged until the skies turned dark and the earth trembled, as the Shamans unleashed a millennium of pent-up humiliation and fury. Three of the Liao Clan's Heavenly Kings of the Eight Courts fell in battle, and two of their Seven State Preceptors were slain, culminating in a crushing defeat for the Liao.
The Shamans suffered heavy losses as well. Three of their four newly elevated Heavenly Shamans fell, leaving vacancies among the Heavenly Shamans that could not immediately be filled.
During that monumental war, the number of human immortals surpassed ten for the very first time. Having achieved this, the first Human Sovereign could at last pass away in peace.
This latter war was only briefly mentioned in the Desolate Realm chronicles; most of what Wei Yuan knew came from human history books he had read in the past. From the human perspective, the first Human Sovereign truly deserved the title of a legendary sovereign. Seizing the precise moment, he had pulled humanity away from the Shamans, nearly wiping out the Power Shamans' heritage as a result. For the thousand years that followed, the Shamans endured ceaseless trials of war, while the blood feud between the Shamans and the Liao escalated to an entirely new peak.
After renouncing the Shamans, the Human Sovereign had decisively allied with the Liao Clan, diverting the full brunt of the Shamans' fury toward them. Historical records of the Desolate Realm also claimed that the first Human Sovereign had acted at the instigation of the Liao Clan when he drove a dagger deep into the Shamans' back at that pivotal juncture.
Wei Yuan had merely wanted to learn a few secrets of the Desolate Realm, never expecting to stumble upon such ancient lore. Truth be told, however, these historical records had little to do with Fengmang Fortress. Why would a modest fortress founded only a few centuries ago, struggling day and night just to survive, keep so many history books?
In human lands, this would be like a courier station master who neglected to purchase horses and carriages, yet spent a fortune acquiring a complete set of the *Twenty-Four Histories*. If Wei Yuan were his commanding officer, he would certainly investigate whether the man was secretly hoarding armor.
Was Ronglong more than just a fortress castellan? Or rather, was he simply unwilling to remain just a castellan?
Wei Yuan read on.
The subsequent history of the Desolate Realm was relatively straightforward. Here, the Ancestral Shaman adopted human methods, refining a batch of bloodstones and steadily advancing outward from Jitian City, altering the surrounding environment step by step to compress the flame demons' living space. Moreover, the Ancestral Shaman and the twelve Heavenly Shamans hunted down more than a dozen supreme flame demons in succession, dealing them a crushing blow and forcing them farther away from Jitian City.
The Shamans measured time differently from humans, routinely planning operations in units of thousands of years. At this point, a question suddenly crossed Wei Yuan's mind: Was the Ancestral Shaman mentioned in the records the very same Ancestral Shaman of today? Or had another Heavenly Shaman ascended to inherit the Ancestral Shaman's authority over heaven and earth?
Wei Yuan's brows knit slightly. If there had only ever been one Ancestral Shaman, it must have lived for hundreds of thousands of years—perhaps even a million. That was nothing short of a monster.
Yet on the other hand, the human immortals would never simply stand by and watch; surely someone among them would have sought to test the Ancestral Shaman's path.
The moment this thought surfaced, a sudden shudder ran through Wei Yuan's heart, as though he had disturbed a slumbering behemoth!
At that exact instant, the scene before his eyes shifted. It felt as if he had been abruptly cast outside the heavens into boundless pitch-black darkness. Directly ahead of him, a colossal, misshapen planet loomed indistinctly, giving a slow, subtle squirm.
Only then did Wei Yuan realize the planet was concave—no, that was no planet, but the nostril of an unimaginably immense beast! Though it remained in deep slumber, that titanic nostril gave a faint sniff in Wei Yuan's direction.
That mere minute motion was enough to flash-freeze Wei Yuan from head to toe, leaving him entirely paralyzed!
It was a terror welling from the depths of his being, a suppression originating from his origin soul and spirit. Wei Yuan could not even form a thought; his mind was wiped completely blank!
He had no idea how much time passed or what happened next, but Wei Yuan suddenly snapped back to reality, finding himself once more within the cramped, stifling Library Hall. It was as though nothing had ever taken place, yet the sensation of that single instant was indelibly branded into his soul.
A strange realization suddenly took root in Wei Yuan's mind: so souls and origin spirits possessed form and substance as well, and could likewise be suppressed. In this world, no soul was truly free.
Chapter 896