As far as the eye could see, there was only... void.
"Blind girl?"
Qi Yuan called out once more, but how could there be any trace of her graceful figure within his sight?
He quickly swept his gaze around, his face filled with bewilderment.
The place where he stood now was bizarre, illusory, and dazzlingly magnificent.
Aside from the paths he had walked in his memories, nowhere else had formed into terrain or condensed into matter.
They looked like severed, multicolored threads, or like swarms of fireflies, or like jumbles of garbled digital code.
[Fragment of Nothingness: A swath of chaos, unknowable, invisible, unpryable.]
From that chaotic disorder, Qi Yuan sensed a profound feeling of threat.
Yet he understood that if he were an ordinary person, he might not be able to see these fragments of nothingness at all.
It was only because his eyes could perceive hidden information that he could see them.
With no time to overthink, Qi Yuan followed the path he usually walked toward the blind girl's dwelling.
Except for the well-trodden path that had condensed into matter, the surrounding environment consisted entirely of fragments of nothingness.
Like corrupted code, they could not be touched even if one reached out.
Of course, Qi Yuan did not dare reach out carelessly either.
Soon, he arrived at the blind girl's residence.
Originally, in Qi Yuan's perception, a wooden cabin and a courtyard had stood there.
Yet looking at it now, apart from a murmuring stream, there seemed to be nothing at all.
It was as if his past memories were entirely an illusion.
Qi Yuan's expression turned grave.
He went to other places as well.
Yet as far as the eye could see, aside from the few roads he had regularly walked that had condensed into physical matter, everything else was fragments of nothingness.
He stepped onto the stone path; the original earth and sunlight were nowhere to be found.
There were only those firefly-like fragments of nothingness clinging to the walls.
The fragments of nothingness seemed to be constantly encroaching upon... this material world.
The entire Divine Wood Deep Abyss was completely empty, with no other living beings besides Qi Yuan.
Never mind an ant—there was not even a single paramecium or bacterium.
"Could it be... it was all fake?"
Qi Yuan frowned.
"Then what in the world is real?"
This matter reeked of endless strangeness.
He stood all alone in the Divine Wood Deep Abyss.
The blind girl was gone, her house was gone, and the swing was gone.
Even the fruit she had given him to eat was gone.
"A pity I don't take dumps, otherwise... maybe I could have found some leftover fruit seeds.
"Could it be that during this entire time, I was talking to thin air, and what I ate was just air too?
"No, the implement crafting art is real, and my memories wouldn't lie to me. So... I need to put my brilliant brain to work."
Qi Yuan pondered seriously.
After all, more than one strange thing had happened in this Divine Wood Deep Abyss, such as that passionate night and that faint floral fragrance.
To this day, Qi Yuan still did not know who had pushed him down.
If it was fake...
Well, it definitely wasn't fake; Qi Yuan's memories were crystal clear.
"Regarding the blind girl... I can make a few bold deductions.
"One: Is there a possibility that she truly existed, but in the end, to help me fix the final flaw in Divine Descent, she exhausted everything and vanished?"
This guess carried some probability.
The blind girl was real, but after gifting Qi Yuan that branch of spring, she had depleted everything and ceased to be.
"Two: Everything is an illusion... The Blind Implement Master actually suffered from mental illness, and the blind girl was merely a hallucination of his, never truly existing."
This was also very possible.
Back on Blue Star, Qi Yuan had watched a movie where the protagonist wanted to practice martial arts, met a god of war, and trained under him, only to discover in the end that the god of war did not exist at all and was merely a figment of his imagination.
"Three: Only by being blind... can the conditions be triggered to see the blind girl, and now that my eyes are healed, I can't see her?"
Too many bizarre phenomena existed in this world.
Just as two-dimensional beings could not conceive of three-dimensional beings, ordinary humans could only perceive light visible to the naked eye.
As for what the naked eye could not see, they could not even begin to imagine it.
Thinking this, Qi Yuan closed his eyes.
The world turned dark once more.
"Blind girl?"
He called out softly, but the only response was his own echo; no one answered him.
He opened his eyes again.
Suddenly, something occurred to him.
"The blind girl once said that she taught Sheng Nü implement crafting... If I meet Sheng Nü, wouldn't I know... whether the blind girl truly existed?"
Sheng Nü was no blind person.
"In that case, find Sheng Nü!
"Perhaps everything will be resolved then."
At this thought, Qi Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.
Hesitating no longer, he looked at the empty Divine Wood Deep Abyss and said solemnly, "Blind girl, I remember the swing. Your eyes... I remember them too."
With that, his figure vanished from the Divine Wood Deep Abyss.
Passing through that grain-of-rice-sized speck of radiance, he departed for the Divine Wood Abyss.
Inside the Divine Wood Deep Abyss, all was desolate and deathly silent.
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew past. There seemed to be the rustle of fallen leaves, and faintly, the creak of a swaying swing.
...
Within the Divine Wood Abyss.
Xianling Yingjun looked at Qi Yuan with a strange expression. "I didn't expect you to be so full of vigor so soon after sustaining such heavy injuries."
The last time he saw Qi Yuan, the man had been unconscious, mortally wounded and hovering on the brink of death.
Xianling Yingjun had assumed that perhaps only a Realm Lord's intervention could truly heal him.
Any other method would likely treat only the symptoms, not the root cause.
Yet Qi Yuan had recovered with total ease.
"Since you're alive, it seems my mission is bound to end in failure." Xianling Yingjun spread his hands, a helpless look on his face.
This time, his mission had been to assist Thorn Blood in converting the divine wood into a guiling.
And subsequently transform the Qingshan Realm into a guiling domain.
With a top combatant like Qi Yuan around, he certainly couldn't complete the mission.
He might as well drop the task entirely and settle for exploring the Divine Wood Abyss instead.
"Did you discover anything in the Divine Wood Abyss?" Qi Yuan asked casually.
The Divine Wood Abyss was an extremely peculiar place. Not only did it harbor a divine tree, but there might also be other treasures.
Qi Yuan had also wondered whether the divine tree was connected to the blind girl.
Yet when he saw the divine tree with his own eyes, the information he perceived confirmed that it was indeed an extraordinary tree, comparable even to the legendary Jianmu, but it had nothing to do with the blind girl.
Xianling Yingjun frowned. "If you mean major discoveries, none. But there is one strange thing: I found a tomb here."
"A tomb?" Qi Yuan narrowed his eyes.
"Come, I'll take you to see it." Xianling Yingjun led the way, and Qi Yuan followed.
About fifteen minutes later, the two turned into streaks of light and landed in a secluded valley.
The valley was piled thick with withered yellow leaves, the atmosphere fully charged whenever the wind stirred.
Qi Yuan's attention was immediately drawn to a tombstone ahead.
"The tombstone is nameless. When I looked with my Heavenly Eye, the coffin was completely empty. I don't know whose tomb it is," Xianling Yingjun said nonchalantly.
Qi Yuan's gaze turned peculiar.
Ahead, the stone tablet was smooth and flat, devoid of any carved words, bearing only crude, simplistic patterns.
This tombstone seemed to have weathered endless ages; Qi Yuan could even perceive upon it the fading twilight of an aged person.
"This tombstone..."
Qi Yuan's expression grew strange.
He had seen this tombstone before.
"You recognize it? Do you know whose tomb this is?" Xianling Yingjun asked curiously.
Qi Yuan shook his head.
When his portrayal of Matrilocal Son-in-law Qi Yuan reached completion, the new role Qi Yuan had awakened was a strange stone.
Most of that strange stone had been used by the divine maiden to mend the earth.
The remaining piece had been fashioned into a tombstone.
Namely, the very stone before his eyes.
So that meant the owner of this tomb was... the divine maiden?
"If I said this tombstone was me, would you believe it?" Qi Yuan said.
"Pfft. You might as well claim you're the tomb's owner—I might actually believe that," Xianling Yingjun scoffed. He looked at Qi Yuan with complicated feelings. "Since this mission failed, I have to return to the Void Paradise as well. Brother Qi... take care."
He felt somewhat emotional.
Qi Yuan possessed the greatest talent he had ever witnessed in his life.
Able to defeat Fengti, if placed in the Zhou Universe, many Realm Lords would probably fight over him as a disciple.
Of course, he might also end up being possessed.
Unfortunately, he lived in an embryonic universe, a world that couldn't even complete a single epoch.
His outcome was destined to be tragic.
No matter how unrivaled a genius was, they could not overturn the grand scheme of things.
"Thanks, NPC," Qi Yuan smiled. "Read more books when you get back. If there's anything I don't understand in the future, I'll keep asking you."
"Alright." Xianling Yingjun's figure faded away.
Qi Yuan stood before the nameless tombstone, lingering for a long time.
"Time to return to the Rakshasa Country, deliver the new Divine Descent... and then look into Sheng Nü's information to see where she is now!"
As for what came after, he still had to continue his portrayals.
His portrayal of Divine Descent was not yet fully complete. His portrayal of the Blind Implement Master had reached completion, and he had awakened a new role to portray.
Once Divine Descent concluded, he would likely have to portray that new character.
With a flicker of Qi Yuan's figure, he reappeared beside the hot spring.
In the spring, Shen Lingxuan wore a black dress, soaked from head to toe, her slender legs resting lazily—an exceptionally eye-catching sight.
Beauty aside, if the most eye-catching feature of Little Junior Sister Jiang Lingsu was her ample, tender bosom, and that of the Canary and Ning Tao were their slender, jade-like feet, then Shen Lingxuan's was undoubtedly her long, rounded legs—flawless and smooth as polished jade.
From Qi Yuan's male gaze, they were perfectly suited to wrap around a waist.
At this moment, she still wore a veil, obscuring her true countenance.
Now, seeing it with his own eyes was a different sensation from tasting it back then—a feast for the eyes.
"Let's go. We're heading to the Rakshasa Country."
Qi Yuan took Shen Lingxuan by the waist. The water droplets on her dispersed, and her clothes dried in an instant. Her long skirt fell, fully covering her fair, delicate legs.
Only Qi Yuan knew what breathtaking charm was hidden beneath those restraints.
"Alright," Shen Lingxuan replied.
At that moment, Insect Maiden Caidie flew over as well, her petite form landing on Shen Lingxuan's shoulder.
She still appeared somewhat listless, looking as though the wounds from forcibly charging into the Divine Wood Deep Abyss back then had not yet healed.
"However, before heading to the Rakshasa Country, I need to visit one place to check whether those white moonlights have been working diligently.
"If they haven't been working hard, I'll have no choice but to chop their ancestors into eighteen bags."
The so-called eighteen bags of ancestors meant mincing their forebears into pieces and stuffing them into bags until eighteen were full.
...
The Thorn Blood stronghold.
It looked no different from usual.
Diwu Qingyan's chubby face was dark with fury. As a princess of the Rakshasa Country, her appearance was quite hideous.
Right now, she gritted her teeth, her face brimming with resentment.
"Qingyan, calm yourself. A mere Divine Descent is beneath notice," the Chief of Thorn Blood spoke up, a dismissive look in his eyes.
Although Divine Descent had cut down all who stood in his path and slaughtered the Six Gods of the Rakshasa Country,
and such strength could certainly be called terrifying,
the Chief of Thorn Blood had secretly stepped into the Great Venerable realm.
"Once they emerge from the Divine Wood Abyss, this old man will personally take action to capture them." The Chief of Thorn Blood was high-spirited.
Having stepped into the Great Venerable realm, he was practically the strongest being in the Qingshan Realm in the past ten thousand years.
As long as he obtained all the Divine Wood Tokens, entered the Divine Wood Abyss, and refined the divine wood into a guiling, his mission would be complete, and the rewards he would receive would be immensely generous.
"Chief, Divine Descent has come out of the Divine Wood Abyss!"
Just then, a Heaven-rank weapon wielder arrived, his face full of awe.
Hearing this, murderous intent erupted on Diwu Qingyan's face. "Chief, please seek justice for me!"
"Hmph, since he has come out, then... there is no chance he survives!" the Chief of Thorn Blood said casually, calm and breezy. "This Venerable will go meet him right now."
Yet right at that moment, a gentle voice suddenly rang out in the sky.
"Hey, while I was away, have you all been cultivating hard? Did your cultivation rise?
"Hmm, why are you all so weak? There aren't even ten God-ranks?
"Can't you look for the reasons within yourselves and do some self-reflection?"
Up in the sky, an incomparably handsome young man held a graceful woman by the waist, his face wearing an expression of disappointment at their lack of progress.
Within the Thorn Blood stronghold, everyone who heard Qi Yuan's voice turned pale with horror.
Diwu Qingyan looked terrified, but seeing the Chief beside her, she hurriedly said, "Chief, that's him! He's Divine Descent Qi Yuan!"
The remaining God-rank and Heaven-rank weapon wielders all looked at Qi Yuan; his words were far too bizarre and strange.
Whether they cultivated hard or not, what business was it of yours?
The Chief of Thorn Blood narrowed his eyes, murderous intent surging. "Qi Yuan, you have great nerve, daring to barge into my Thorn Blood! Don't think of walking out alive today!"
Thorn Blood was not the Rakshasa Country.
Behind Thorn Blood stood Heitian!
"Since you're all so unmotivated and love lying flat, I'll let you lie flat forever!"
Right then, Qi Yuan formed a sword with his hand.
A sharp sword light descended from the heavens, crashing into the Thorn Blood stronghold.
Radiance spilled in all directions, and blood flew everywhere.
This sword light moved as if entering an uninhabited realm, slaughtering indiscriminately.
"Die!" The Chief of Thorn Blood unleashed his Divine Domain, a terrifying aura permeating the air.
Yet in the next instant, he deflated like a balloon, pierced right through by that sword light.
His impressive posturing didn't even last two seconds before he plunged from the sky, dead on the spot.
"How is this possible?" The remaining members of Thorn Blood looked on in sheer terror.
The Chief hadn't even withstood a single blow.
How could he be this strong?
Without hesitation, they fled frantically.
Unfortunately, the gap between them and Qi Yuan was too vast. That sword light slew gods and demons alike; even God-rank weapon wielders died the moment they touched it.
In an instant, the entire Thorn Blood stronghold was slaughtered clean by Qi Yuan.
"Want to lie flat? This is your outcome!"
Qi Yuan looked at the bloody corpses strewn across the Thorn Blood stronghold, his expression calm.
"The EXP this whole bunch gave isn't even as much as one life from Fengti."
He looked no further at the stronghold, instead pulling Shen Lingxuan closer by the waist. "Wife, let's go. Tonight, we sleep in the imperial harem."
His figure vanished once more.
About several hours later, a few weapon wielders arrived at the Thorn Blood stronghold, their faces twisted in utter horror.
...
"Divine Descent has arrived. I wonder what the future holds for the Rakshasa Country."
Inside the Rakshasa Country's royal palace, Qi Yuan placed the new Divine Descent into the palace, his emotions complicated.
With the branch of spring gifted by the blind girl, the new Divine Descent was filled with boundless possibilities, constantly advancing toward perfection.
Liu Sheng lowered his head, his face full of reverence and a lingering trace of shock.
Divine Descent Qi Yuan possessed not only God-rank combat strength, but also the ability to forge divine artifacts.
This was simply terrifying.
"With Divine Descent present, surely... the future of the Rakshasa Country will see light endure forever!" Liu Sheng said earnestly.
Once he returned this time, he would also have to instruct his clan members to act with utmost caution.
"Let's hope so," Qi Yuan said flatly. "When can you compile the information regarding Sheng Nü for me?"
Liu Sheng bowed his head. "Records concerning Sheng Nü exist in both the royal palace and the other provinces. Within three days, this old man will present all dossiers and books that record Sheng Nü."
"Good." Qi Yuan nodded; three days was not long.
"For these three days, I'll be sleeping here in the harem. Don't disturb me unless something comes up." Qi Yuan waved his hand.
Liu Sheng lowered his head and respectfully stepped out of the hall, not daring to cast a single glance.
In the resplendent grand hall, only Qi Yuan and Shen Lingxuan remained.
Qi Yuan looked at Shen Lingxuan, a smile in his eyes. "I haven't taken a proper look at your face yet."
With a tug of his hand, the sheer veil on Shen Lingxuan's face fell to the ground.
A peerlessly snowy face entered Qi Yuan's sight.
It was a face Qi Yuan found difficult to describe; with just a single glance, he felt as if he were looking at a devastatingly alluring enchantress.
Her expression was clearly aloof and her features delicate and pure, yet Qi Yuan saw within her the bewitching charm of all living beings.
It was as if every archetype of delicate, seductive womanhood had merged into one, ensnaring the heart and soul.
In an instant, an amorous atmosphere filled the air, and a blush crept onto Shen Lingxuan's ears.
Under Qi Yuan's predatory, admiring gaze, Shen Lingxuan did not dare move. Her breathing grew slightly ragged, her proud chest heaving.
"I've always had a dream of sleeping in an imperial harem, and I never expected it to come true today."
His hand grazed her ankle, lifting the hem of her skirt. Those smooth, jade-like legs were bared to the air, like peerless treasures one could never bear to put down.
Her thighs were exposed to the air, snow-white and tender. Shen Lingxuan felt a chill from the night, forming a stark contrast with the warmth of his palm. A blush crept across her cold face. "Don't look..."
Flustered and shy, her jade-like hand instinctively moved to cover Qi Yuan's eyes. But seemingly afraid that he would resent her, she clumsily used her lips to seal his mouth.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Qi Yuan had fulfilled the dream he held back on Blue Star: sleeping in an imperial harem.
With the new Divine Descent, many changes had occurred in the Rakshasa Country.
If one were to speak of the greatest change, it was actually the dead.
The descent of the new rules dictated that past deeds would not be pursued.
Of course, major incidents such as senseless murder were still traced according to the original laws of Divine Descent.
Perfection was hard to come by in this world, and rarely could both sides be satisfied; even Qi Yuan could not achieve that.
However, having undergone a baptism of blood, the Rakshasa Country was far better than before, when chaos reigned and rules were no rules at all.
At the very least, it possessed vitality—or rather, the breath of spring.
"Young Master Qi, all information and materials regarding Sheng Nü are here." Liu Sheng respectfully handed over a storage artifact.
Over these three days, he had traveled across several provinces to gather all records concerning Sheng Nü.
Qi Yuan opened the storage artifact, raising an eyebrow. "Why are there a few divine artifacts here as well? Are they related to Sheng Nü too?"
There were differences even among divine artifacts.
Ordinary divine artifacts naturally lacked the extraordinary nature and astonishing combat power of Divine Descent.
"...They are unrelated," Liu Sheng said nervously.
The most precious things in the Rakshasa Country were these few divine artifacts.
He had thought to collect these artifacts and present them to Qi Yuan.
"Since they're unrelated, return them to their original owners," Qi Yuan said casually.
He was very picky.
If it wasn't something belonging to a white moonlight, he didn't want it.
Even when he did take things from his white moonlights, it wasn't out of greed for wealth, but rather a desire to inherit their legacy and use those relics to prove that those white moonlights had once truly existed.
Chapter 543