"You control the Dafang Pot?" Nailuotian's avatar asked with a probing look, then answered itself, "No, that's completely impossible!"
He Lingchuan asked with amusement, "Why is it impossible?"
Watching an expression of shock appear on "his own" face was rather entertaining.
The Dafang Pot was a divine artifact with quite a temperamental personality—He Lingchuan knew this full well. To say nothing of controlling it, the pot usually couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge him.
So the avatar of Nailuotian wasn't wrong on that count; He Lingchuan was not the master of the Dafang Pot and could not control this divine artifact. Up until now, his relationship with the battered pot was at best a partnership.
The question was, why was Nailuotian's avatar so certain he couldn't control it? This orthodox god undoubtedly knew far more inside information.
Just as Nailuotian's avatar was about to speak, the dark-red netting abruptly tightened, squeezing a sharp cry of agony from it. He Lingchuan watched with his own eyes as pale-green, shard-like fragments peeled away from its body, sinking into the darkness below.
"All you wanted was to trap me and be rid of me! You've gotten your wish!" Nailuotian's avatar seemed to shrink slightly in size, its face twisted in torment. "I have only one demand: do not let the Dafang Pot obliterate my consciousness! I know just as many secrets as my true self. Keeping me around will only bring you benefits!"
It knew very well that He Lingchuan had schemed relentlessly to trick it into descending not to destroy it, but to trap it!
A celestial god could send only one avatar into the mortal realm.
Now that Nailuotian's avatar was trapped inside the Dafang Pot, no matter how furious the true god was, it could not send down a second one.
Moreover, a vessel marked by a celestial god could not be lent to another.
Therefore, even though the divine imprint mark still remained in He Lingchuan's mind, no celestial god could enact a divine descent into him ever again.
In this regard, he was safer than anyone else.
He Lingchuan instinctively touched the back of his head. "Can you remove this divine imprint mark for me?"
"Of course I can!" Nailuotian's avatar replied at once. "As long as you agree to my condition..."
Before it could finish, the red mesh tightened once more, wringing another agonized cry from Nailuotian as even more fragments sloughed off its form.
He Lingchuan let out a disappointed sigh. "Even now, you're still trying to deceive me?"
He tapped the ground with his foot, making as if to leave. "Do with him as you please."
The "you" here, naturally, was addressed to the Dafang Pot.
"Wait, don't!" Nailuotian's avatar shrieked. "Tell it to stop! I'm not lying to you—the divine imprint mark really can be removed!"
"Explain how first."
"Either my true self removes it personally, or..." Nailuotian's avatar looked at him, "...your own soul becomes powerful enough that you can erase it yourself."
"And that's what you call 'can be removed'?" He Lingchuan scoffed. "Can my soul rival that of a celestial god?"
He knew his own limits. In this world today, no human soul was powerful enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with gods and fiends.
"It is not impossible. Someone accomplished it not long ago, or I wouldn't have brought it up!"
"Who?"
"The owner of that suit of armor you borrowed."
He Lingchuan was startled. "You mean General Red? How do you know?"
"After the battle at the barrow, I revisited my memories over and over, only to realize that while that armor indeed carried remnants of Mitian's power, it bore neither Mitian's aura nor her divinity!"
He Lingchuan frowned. "What does that mean?"
"Celestial gods once descended in divine descent to participate in Panlong City's final battle. I spoke with two of them, and their impressions matched mine: when fighting General Red, she bore not the slightest trace of Mitian's presence," Nailuotian said with certainty. "In other words, she had already shattered the divine imprint mark in her sea of consciousness. She was no longer Mitian's vessel!"
He Lingchuan was shaken to his core. "How did she accomplish that?"
This revelation was enough to keep him pondering for a long time.
"I told you: as long as your soul is formidable enough to rival the host god's, you will naturally be able to erase the divine mark," Nailuotian's avatar said. "Can you bind a true dragon with a straw rope?"
"The strong are bound by nothing; that is the truth of any world." It coaxed enticingly, "I can guide you, teach you how to nourish and strengthen your soul so you can undo the mark on your own."
A captive wishing to survive had to prove its worth.
Accepting this fellow as a mentor? He Lingchuan wasn't tired of living yet. He changed the subject. "How did you know the Dafang Pot cannot be controlled by anyone?"
Nailuotian's avatar countered, "Do you know where the Dafang Pot came from?"
"Where it came from?" He Lingchuan pointed vaguely upward. "A fragment of the Tianluo Star?"
His knowledge of the Dafang Pot was indeed limited; he only knew it had been fashioned from a fragment of the Tianluo Star.
"The Tianluo Star was a divine creation forged from an unformed world origin. Its full name was 'Shifang Tianluo,' and it transcended the realm of mere divine artifacts. Only after forging it did the ancient gods discover it was completely uncontrollable and acted entirely on its own whim," Nailuotian's avatar explained rapidly. "Later, when the Black Dragon collided with the Tianluo Star, the immortals of your mortal world forged the sheared fragments into the Dafang Pot and ran into the exact same problem. Otherwise, why would Master Sanshui have forcibly abducted the treasure lid?"
"Furthermore, the Hundun that originally existed within the Tianluo Star has actually appeared inside the Dafang Pot. Things have developed far more gravely than I anticipated."
Hundun? He Lingchuan's mind stirred. What was that?
Nailuotian's avatar caught his confusion. "Oh? You borrowed the power of Hundun to deal with me, yet you didn't even know its name?"
So that colossal red silhouette was called Hundun?
Nailuotian's avatar was quite bewildered itself. "Then how did you communicate with it?"
Neither the Tianluo Star nor the Dafang Pot ever paid heed to anyone. For this brat to actually get the Dafang Pot to assist him was extraordinary.
He Lingchuan shrugged. "Hard to say."
The Dafang Pot didn't communicate with him, yet it cooperated with him to a limited extent. Miraculous, wasn't it?
"What do you mean by 'things have developed gravely'?"
"Hundun exists only in the primordial, within the source of origin." Nailuotian's avatar licked its lips. "If it ever detonates, the destruction it unleashes will be incalculable."
"..." Was he carrying a super-massive bomb around with him? He Lingchuan fell silent for two seconds. "How long until it explodes?"
"I don't know," Nailuotian's avatar replied bluntly. "Hundun exists only in legend; this is the first time I have seen it with my own eyes."
"So the part about it exploding is just something you heard as well?"
Nailuotian's avatar did not deny it. How could any celestial god have witnessed such a thing firsthand?
Leaving aside something that had no definitive answer, He Lingchuan remained practical as always. "I invited you into the pot precisely because I wanted the God of Fate to take a good look for me: what will my fate be from here on?"
Nailuotian's avatar fell silent. He Lingchuan couldn't tell if it was calculating or deliberating.
Finally, it said, "After the battle at the barrow, your line of fate roughly separated from mine."
"What do you mean 'roughly'?" He Lingchuan asked, intrigued. "You can't divine it accurately anymore?"
"After I was captured..." Nailuotian's avatar ground its teeth, whether from pain or fury was hard to tell, "...that wisp of the power of godhood was drained away!"
"The power of godhood?" It took He Lingchuan a moment to register what that meant. "You mean the power of fate?!"
"...Yes."
He Lingchuan pressed a hand to his forehead. Of course. Given how voracious the Dafang Pot was, it had probably drooled over such a rare power for ages.
Yet this was merely an avatar of a celestial god. What use was it for the Dafang Pot to drain that single wisp of divine power? The true power ought to reside in Nailuotian's true form, wouldn't it?
A flicker passed through the avatar's eyes, and it quickly said, "Before I descended into the Panlong Realm, your fate had already been interfered with by the Dafang Pot, obscuring it from sight."
"Its power is that great?" He Lingchuan was exceedingly curious. "From my diplomatic mission to the Yuan capital all the way until I entered the Panlong Realm, how did you divine my fate during that entire time? How could you have been so absurdly wrong?"
If Nailuotian could have foreseen He Lingchuan's victory, why would it have sent down an avatar only to end up trapped in the Dafang Pot?
Nailuotian was speechless.
The red net tightened once more, striking it like a bolt of lightning and making it shudder in agonizing pain. "Stop! Stop!"
"Answer the question properly," He Lingchuan said with a genial smile. "Or you'll suffer even more."
"At the time, your fate looked no different than it always had," Nailuotian's avatar explained helplessly. "And that was the biggest problem! I couldn't see through it before, but now I know: the Dafang Pot was whitewashing the truth for you, painting a veneer of false peace."
Despite all its calculations, it had never anticipated that He Lingchuan could bind himself to the Dafang Pot, thereby altering his own fate.
He Lingchuan seized on the crux of the matter. "The Dafang Pot can alter my fate?"
"Not directly alter..." Nailuotian's avatar spoke in the tone of a teacher addressing a slow student. "If you compare fate to a spiderweb, the Dafang Pot concealed many crucial nodes and turning points for you, making your future appear as smooth and simple as it was before. But that was only an illusion..."
"A divine object of the Dafang Pot's caliber will tear the fate of whoever binds to it into ragged shreds, transforming it into something completely different from what it was originally. And that is unpredictable." It paused. "From this perspective, it can indeed be said to have changed your fate. Do you understand?"
It sounded rather profound. He Lingchuan chuckled. "When you and I were fighting in the Panlong Realm, didn't you say that no possessor of the Dafang Pot ever met a good end? Wasn't that the power of fate speaking? Why is it suddenly unpredictable now?"
"Different paths lead to the same end," Nailuotian's avatar sighed emotionally. "Just as a world begins its march toward demise from the very day of its creation. Countless causes and effects are woven into that journey, which even I cannot calculate, but I know that the day of destruction is certain to arrive; it is merely a matter of sooner or later. That is what is called the 'inevitable trend.'"
"Now consider your fortune. You are, through and through, a darling of fortune, typically blessed with immense luck. But a person's fortune has its rises and falls—it must always regress to the mean. When that time comes, you will have to bear fate's backlash!"
Nailuotian quickly pressed on: "Only with my guidance from the side can you safely weather this great catastrophe. Otherwise, however lucky you were before, that is how miserable you will be when the time comes."
Who wouldn't be tempted when the God of Fate offered to teach them how to escape calamity?
Yet He Lingchuan thought back to Immortal Hongli and the Lu family's "child of fortune."
Immortal Hongli had told his descendants that every few generations, a child of fortune would be born into the clan to shelter the family.
Yet viewed from the opposite perspective, who could say that this single individual hadn't simply drained the fortune of the entire clan, leaving subsequent generations with no fortune to draw upon and forcing them to bear the bitter fruits of that backlash?
Chapter 885