"Why?"
"Why did the course of history revert once again in this lifetime?"
Jolting awake from the darkness once more, Qiao Sidao felt a splitting headache.
Yet he could not spare any thought for his pain. Too many doubts surged within him as he continuously recalled and compared his experiences from the previous two lives.
As an insignificant figure swept along by the grand tide of events, he had truly been powerless over his own fate.
It was impossible for him to know the full picture of the world's affairs.
Nevertheless, he did know certain critical turning points that were significant enough to alter the course of history.
Comparing them one by one, Qiao Sidao discovered that only a world where [Wu] of the Creation Sect never appeared matched the history in his memory: the Immortal Venerable preached the dharma, kindling a prairie fire with the new method, overthrowing the decadent Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao, and founding the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals that would rule the Xuanhuang Realm for ten thousand years.
So [Wu] was the anomaly?
Without Wu, would everything return to its proper course?
After a long period of contemplation, Qiao Sidao finally arrived at an explanation that seemed relatively reasonable.
*In that case, should I first go to the Creation Sect in this life to find out whether someone named [Wu] even exists before making a decision?*
*Yet the Creation Sect is one of the majestic Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao, while I am merely an outer disciple of an insignificant sect. We belong to two completely different worlds, so how could I possibly obtain any news?*
*Such confidential information is clearly not something my current body has access to. If someone with ulterior motives notices me poking around, I might end up having my soul searched and having my ability to continuously reincarnate exposed.*
...
Qiao Sidao possessed a meticulous mind and was no stranger to the various methods wielded by cultivators.
Naturally, he had many misgivings.
Fortunately, he soon did not need to agonize over this any longer.
For when he finished absorbing the memories of the body he now occupied, Qiao Sidao discovered to his horror that the era he inhabited in this lifetime was not the period when the new method was first founded at all.
Rather, it was an exceedingly bizarre era he had never heard of before.
Between Heaven and Earth, there actually existed a restriction: dharmas cannot be cultivated concurrently. The sects were extinct, and not one in ten thousand cultivators had survived.
The surviving cultivators were entirely alone, walking solitary paths between Heaven and Earth.
Trusting no one, they struggled bitterly to survive across the vast wilderness.
Qiao Sidao did not know what had transpired back then.
And the reason why he reincarnated repeatedly, experiencing worlds that were slightly different every time, was all the more bewildering.
Qiao Sidao had no choice but to proceed with the utmost caution, first ensuring his survival before venturing into the perilous ruins of various sects, attempting to piece together and reconstruct the truth of history.
It took him a full decade and more before he finally pieced together the events of that bygone era.
The deviation in the trajectory of history had occurred during the era when the new and old methods clashed violently.
On this timeline, the vitality of the ancient sects proved astonishingly resilient.
Not only did they withstand the countless legions of the new method, but they even reformed themselves, internally transitioning to cultivate the new method as well.
Once the advantage in cultivation speed vanished, the new-method cultivators lagged vastly behind in techniques, Dharma treasures, and divine abilities alike.
Only by relying on an overwhelming sheer number of cultivators did they manage to hold out without defeat.
The war of attrition between the two sides dragged on for several decades.
During this period, in order to achieve final victory in the war, both the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao stopped at nothing.
Massive swathes of mortals were forcibly conscripted and imparted cultivation methods.
After a brief period of training, they were forced onto the battlefield.
Bound by various restrictions and seals, they had no choice but to fight desperately for their meager lives.
It was said that blood soaked every inch of the Xuanhuang Realm. Even upon the present-day wasteland, Qiao Sidao could still faintly see the scars left by that brutal war.
Both sides continuously hurled cultivator soldiers into the fray without restraint, madly competing to plunder Heaven and Earth.
Then, one day, an anomaly descended without warning.
It was a terrifying curse decreeing that dharmas cannot be cultivated concurrently.
Everyone who cultivated the same method instantly lost their sanity, viewing each other as irreconcilable mortal enemies.
To increase combat strength as swiftly as possible, the vast majority of cultivator soldiers—both within the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao—had practiced the exact same specially modified cultivation method.
Thus, when the catastrophe struck, the entire Xuanhuang Realm plunged into a chaotic frenzy of mutual slaughter in an instant.
It was so at the bottom, and equally so at the top.
The Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao placed great emphasis on sect heritage, and those who cultivated the same method were countless. Faced with this catastrophe, the reclusive elders who had long stayed out of worldly affairs took up their butcher blades against their own disciples.
The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals emphasized mutual aid. Everyone treated the Dharma Transmitter as their teacher, and they were basically rogue cultivators from unorthodox factions. To defeat the ancient sects that possessed ten-thousand-year heritages, they had pooled the wisdom of the vast majority of cultivators, continuously deducing and perfecting a universal method that could be practiced by most cultivators within the Alliance. This technique, known as the *Heavenly Net Divine Art*, had originally been the cornerstone of unity and mutual support in the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, but now it turned into a dreadful death sentence.
It was a dark era that made even later generations shudder simply imagining it.
The outcome of the great war was, naturally, the mutual annihilation of both sides, leaving the Xuanhuang Realm stripped utterly bare and barren.
Only several millennia later did surviving mortals discover the remnants of cultivation texts among the ruins, restarting cultivation civilization.
As for the ultimate fates of Chuanfa, the leaders of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao, and the other top powerhouses of the Xuanhuang Realm, they remained entirely unknown.
For the remainder of his life, Qiao Sidao ventured deep into various ruins, attempting to find any surviving clues about them.
In the end, he was tragically wounded by a mechanism trap during one exploration, dying with regret.
When he woke up again, the very first thing he did was inspect the memories of this new body.
Just as he had expected, the world had changed once more.
A horrifying epidemic had emerged in the world, spreading through spiritual energy; once infected, cultivators fell ill just like mortals contracting a plague.
No matter what miracle elixir or heaven-defying divine ability one possessed, it could not be eradicated.
Although the illness was not fatal, its impact on cultivators was glaringly obvious.
The moment they circulated their spiritual energy with any intensity, they would involuntarily burst into fits of coughing.
If they ignored their body's distress and forced the circulation, they even faced the risk of directly coughing themselves into unconsciousness.
After this disease circulated throughout the world for over a decade, almost no conflicts occurred in the Xuanhuang Realm anymore.
It was not that the fiercely competitive cultivators had changed their temperaments. Rather, their physical capabilities had steadily deteriorated through insidious, imperceptible changes.
Absurd incidents even began to occur: Golden Core cultivators tripped and broke their legs while walking, and Nascent Soul cultivators fainted mid-flight because their bodies could not endure the high-speed circulation of spiritual energy, plummeting straight from the sky.
Under Qiao Sidao's perception, his current Golden Core body was not even as robust as an ordinary Qi Condensation cultivator from his memories.
In this lifetime, Qiao Sidao lived for sixty years. Toward the end of his life, cultivators had been weakened to the absolute extreme due to the presence of this plague.
In the mortal realm, formidable martial artists surging with vigorous vitality were capable of suppressing and slaying Dao Integration cultivators.
The path of immortality had reached its end, and the martial dao began to flourish.
Therefore, the cultivators clinging to life named this disease "Immortal Demise."
In the next life, Qiao Sidao returned once again to the era when the new and old methods stood in opposition.
Only in this world, the war was no longer the main event.
Just as the battle between the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao reached its peak, a phantom image of a ruin suddenly manifested high in the firmament.
A figure stood within it, seemingly gazing quietly down at the myriad living beings of the Xuanhuang Realm.
The entire world suddenly quaked, shaking gently.
Such a bizarre spectacle naturally drew the attention of cultivators. Both sides agreed to a temporary ceasefire to first ascertain the nature of the phantom above.
After a period of investigation, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao reached the same conclusion.
The ruins displayed in the firmament hung above the Xuanhuang Realm, possessing an immensely powerful gravitational pull that not even the weight of an entire world could resist.
The tremors the cultivators had sensed not long ago were a sign that the Xuanhuang Realm had already begun to be pulled upward.
According to calculations, in at most one hundred years, the Xuanhuang Realm would collide and perish within the ruins.
When that time came, not a single cultivator in the realm would escape death!
The moment the news broke, it triggered an immense uproar.
Faced with survival, the war was naturally set aside.
The Five Elders Association and the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao unprecedentedly joined hands, seeking a solution.
Ultimately, they approved a plan named "Reversing Xuanhuang."
They intended to exhaust all their resources to construct over ten thousand obelisks across the expanse of the Xuanhuang Realm.
Using the thrust of these obelisks, they would push the entire Xuanhuang Realm in the opposite direction, away from the ruins in the sky.
Overall, there was nothing fundamentally flawed with this plan.
In particular, when the first obelisk was completed and genuinely slowed the "ascent" of the Xuanhuang Realm by a tiny fraction, the feasibility of Reversing Xuanhuang was thoroughly proven.
However, they had been far too optimistic regarding human nature.
Cultivators were long accustomed to scheming and petty squabbles. How could they suddenly unite in genuine sincerity?
In less than ten years, the fragile alliance was already gone, and the Xuanhuang Realm plunged into unprecedented chaos instead.
Because building over ten thousand obelisks was an overwhelmingly colossal undertaking, every single cultivator was required to contribute their labor.
As time passed, cultivators, by nature accustomed to unbridled freedom, grew increasingly discontented.
Rumors began to spread that the phantom in the sky was an outright conspiracy from beginning to end.
It was allegedly nothing more than a lie concocted jointly by the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association to enslave all cultivators.
Some even claimed the obelisks were part of a terrifying array.
The day the array was completed, a seal capable of dominating their divine souls would be planted into the consciousness of every cultivator.
The myriad cultivators of the Xuanhuang Realm would completely become the slaves of a select few.
Although the rumors were swiftly suppressed, the doubts in the cultivators' hearts could never be dispelled.
Instead, they grew utterly convinced of these conspiracies.
The Reversing Xuanhuang plan ground forward under immense difficulty. Right at this moment, reports surfaced that cultivators in certain regions were being forced to build the obelisks through soul-capturing mind control.
This appeared to serve as definitive proof of the conspiracy.
Winds of rebellion began to rise across the Xuanhuang Realm, growing fiercer by the day.
And the occurrence of a single event caused the situation to spiral entirely out of control.
One night, a dazzling white light suddenly erupted from the direction of the Heavenly Sword Sect.
It illuminated nearly the entire Xuanhuang Realm.
Cultivators could faintly see a colossal sword rising from the ground, piercing straight through the firmament.
As the phantom of the ruins in the sky distorted, a black void opened in the heavens.
In the next second, before the watchful eyes of every cultivator beneath the sky, the giant sword vanished without a trace.
Darkness descended upon the world once more. At first, the cultivators were somewhat confused.
Yet how could such a matter remain hidden? Soon enough, everyone realized the truth.
The Heavenly Sword Sect, one of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao, had secretly forged a Boundary-Splitting Divine Weapon, pierced through the void, and simply fled!
"Traitors!"
"Despicable!"
For a time, curses and vitriol rang out endlessly. But this also led cultivators to wonder: could the ruins in the sky actually be real?
Amidst this uncertainty and shock, the unrest across various regions settled down, and cultivators began actively constructing the obelisks once more.
However...
They soon sensed that something was amiss.
The frequency of orders from the upper echelons of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao and the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals dwindled.
For a long time, no one had personally seen any cultivator of significant stature.
Panicked, they traveled in groups to the strongholds of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao, only to discover that the halls were already completely deserted!
The leadership was merely relying on pre-set arrays to issue orders at regular intervals!
Feeling mocked and abandoned, though boundless fury burned within the cultivators' hearts, they had no target to unleash it upon.
They could only point their fingers at the cultivators who had spread the rumors in the first place. Yet in truth, when the rumors had first circulated, they too had added fuel to the fire.
Whom could they blame now?
The upper echelons of the Xuanhuang Realm had fled en masse without even leaving behind the method to activate the obelisks.
Left with no choice but to wait for death, the cultivators watched as the phantom of the ruins in the sky grew larger and larger.
Gradually, they sank into madness amidst despair.
The slaughter began.
Facing this farcical spectacle, Qiao Sidao remained a detached bystander throughout.
When the Xuanhuang Realm slowly broke apart amidst constant tremors, his life in this world came to an end as well.
Following that, Qiao Sidao, endlessly reincarnating, experienced all manner of bizarre worlds.
For instance: one where neither the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals nor the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao existed. Uniting the Xuanhuang Realm was a single Great Heavenly Venerable. From birth, every person had to begin cultivating a designated method, using the cultivation base produced by that method to trade for the resources necessary for survival.
Or another: an "Immortal Net" enveloped the world, monitoring every move of every cultivator. Yet at the same time, any cultivator could earn contribution points through the Immortal Net to exchange for various cultivation techniques and Dharma treasures. They could even use the Immortal Net to venture out on conquests of other cultivation worlds, amassing vast amounts of merits.
...
Qiao Sidao possessed mediocre talent. In every lifetime, even though he strove to survive as best as he could, he remained nothing more than an ordinary member of the masses. He left no mark on history, born ordinary and dying ordinary every single time.
After an unknown number of reincarnations, he finally experienced an identical world once more.
It was precisely the timeline where he had first awakened.
An inner disciple of the Seven Stars Sect.
The Heavenly Venerable preaching the dharma at Congyun Marsh.
However, having witnessed countless cycles of destruction and prosperity, Qiao Sidao had already faintly guessed his current predicament.
Thus, he did not perform any out-of-the-ordinary actions. Just like an outsider, he quietly observed the changes in the world as he always had.
This time, [Wu] of the Creation Sect did not appear. The Dharma-Transmitting Immortal Venerable successfully completed his sermon.
Yet as soon as the spread of the new method began, the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao took it with extreme gravity, issuing an absolute kill order.
They deemed the new method heretical blasphemy; anyone found cultivating it was to be executed without mercy.
It was said that this edict originated from [Zhi] of the Dadao Sect.
Consequently, before the grand enterprise of the new method could even truly take off, it perished halfway.
Even the Dharma-Transmitting Immortal Venerable himself died a tragic death amidst relentless manhunts.
Watching all of this unfold, Qiao Sidao seemed to understand something.
In the tens of thousands of reincarnations that followed, throughout the times he experienced this world, Qiao Sidao never saw [Zhi] again.
*So, it is all for the sake of these individuals, isn't it?*
In this world, most people were ordinary.
Yet there were always a few individuals endowed with extraordinary talent.
By virtue of their own genius, they could even alter the course of history.
Such as [Yi], who, through individual effort alone, researched a complete cure for the disease of Immortal Demise.
Or [Immortal Emperor], who stepped forward to turn the tide after the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao and the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals abandoned the myriad cultivators, reuniting the people, restarting the Reversing Xuanhuang plan, and ultimately saving the entire world.
...
Across countless reincarnations, Qiao Sidao watched these geniuses appear and disappear.
His heart slowly grew cold.
He had already discerned the truth of the world he inhabited.
The differently unfolding worlds existed solely to select those peerless talents.
As for the rest of the living beings in the world, they were nothing more than guests serving as background scenery.
Yet...
What about himself?
Why was he able to retain his own memories time after time across endless reincarnations?
Qiao Sidao did not know the answer.
Yet he understood that this was his sole reliance to escape this "false world."
Chapter 605