Cultivation System: Elder Edition

Chapter 321

Truths and Lies (VII)

They were monsters, all of them.

Lu Yuhan already suspected as much, but watching them battle had confirmed it--even if they were placed in the Order, they would be cultivated into Replacement Vessels rather than becoming Life Qi sources.

He'd spent every day since he saw that young boy draw out his blade trying to dig into their background, but... there was none. It seemed as though they truly were all Disciples of that less-than-ordinary-seeming man seated among the masses. There was nothing unique about him--not the appearance, not the cultivation realm, and certainly not the talent.

Comparatively, he was nothing against his Disciples--a pebble put up next to a mountain, even. And yet, they were all more than simply obedient.

Lu Yuhan was certain that the man had used some sort of Demonic Art to brainwash them or had used Mind-Twisting Worms or Parasites to instill that sense of loyalty in them, but... that wasn't the case. The only trace of Demonic Qi that he could discern came from the oldest girl of the group, but that was simply because she was of the Demonic Cult. Though she hid her arts well enough through yet another, what the world could not see... how could he not?

"He really is amazing!" his daughter exclaimed. "T-they all are!" Indeed, they were. But Lu Yuhan worried.

... why were they here?

These were Fate-Shapers, as his Master called them--kids meant to distort and destroy the facade of reality, unmaking it and remaking it into the image they desired. They were not bound by the karmic laws, they were not chained by the Dao Laws, and they were not beholden to the same Heavens the rest of the world was.

And yet, they were here, in the backwater nowhere, playing at something only children participated in.

They didn't need to be here--by all accounts, they should be heading for the Nirvana Frontier and assisting against the H'thaw's Invasion, ripping through the cultivation realms until they were ready for their Ascension.

And yet, here they were, coincidentally at the same place he was.

While most might pass it off truly as that, a mere coincidence, Lu Yuhan wasn't most people. He didn't believe in the randomness of the cosmos--not to this degree, anyway.

He shifted his focus onto the last arena, where a girl that seemed no older than ten was facing a woman thrice her age. Grimacing faintly, he glanced to the side where he saw his daughter shift in her seat, leaning further forward.

"Did you have to pair a child against the Cruel Mother?" he asked.

"He he, isn't that perfect? I need to see them. I need to see their perfection."

"..." Lu Yuhan sighed.

Though he couldn't claim to love his daughter as he had never loved anything in his life, he, at the very least, held more affection for her than anyone else. That was why he knew best just how demonstrably insane the child was. Incorrigible, in more ways than a few.

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The two on the floor chatted, as every other pairing before, silently enough that likely nobody besides Lu Yuhan himself could hear them.

"Little girl, why don't you--" or, Cruel Mother, at the very least, tried to chat.

The young girl completely ignored her, lifting her arm and gently flicking it forward; a mere moment later, Qi surged into a blasting ripple from the side of her, tearing open a hole in the ground through which a twilight-cloaked tendril shot out, aiming for Cruel Mother.

The latter just barely managed to dodge it by twisting her body laterally until the side of her head was pressed against the side of her thigh. She looked just about ready to unleash a flurry of curses but didn't have the time, as the ground right beneath her opened up, long, thin claws of darkness gripping at her feet.

She yelped, hurriedly untwisting and throwing herself backwards, just barely avoiding the strike.

Lu Yuhan frowned, feeling deeply astonished--not by the performance, he expected as much, but by the nature of Qi. By appearance, and seemingly by design, the attacks were practically one-for-one the likes of which the Demonic Cult used. And yet... that wasn't Demonic Qi.

It wasn't ordinary Qi, either, but almost like a tether loosely hanging from it.

The kind he never experienced or saw before.

It shook him to his very core.

After all, he'd lived a long life in which he partook in endless things, and in the countless years he lived, he saw nigh everything this realm had to offer. He experienced the twisted and holy matter of Qi, the way Old Monks would rearrange the very principles behind nature in order to manifest Qi that could banish True Demons back to their realm, or how those old demons would unmake ordinary Qi by twisting it into its reversed form.

Despite that, he'd never once in his life seen anything quite like that girl's Qi.

It was... beautiful. Powerful, yet versatile; enduring yet moldable; terrifying, yet hauntingly sacred.

Cruel Mother never even got to retaliate as the battle continued--she was hunted down by the tendrils and hands of darkness, all while the young girl never moved an inch from her starting position. Lu Yuhan realized rather quickly that the girl was toying with her opponent--she'd shift the deadly attacks at the last moment if Cruel Mother failed to dodge them, ensuring that the fight continued.

It went on for about twenty minutes before Cruel Mother was on her knees, heaving--not because she was finally wounded, but because she was tired. She'd spent all her Qi and all her stamina and could no longer move.

She tried to say something, but a hand encased in vapors of shadows appeared right above her and grasped her head, pulverizing it against the ground and forming a sizable crater.

As the hand vanished, as though never there, the young girl slowly walked back to the stands while Cruel Mother's body twitched, foam forming on the corners of her mouth as the Alchemists rushed to the arena, tending to her.

The arena, packed with rows and rows of spectators, was deathly silent, all eyes peeled to the four kids sitting next to each other in isolation.

"Father," his daughter's voice was strained, permeated with unfiltered desire. "I must have them. All of them."

"..." he frowned, glancing over at the young woman whose eyes were drowned in haze; she looked as though she had gotten drunk, her cheeks flushed while her lips trembled.

"They're mine!" She grabbed the armrest so tightly it snapped, even if it was made of white obsidian. "They're all mine!!"

He wondered, inwardly, whether her wish would come true; those children... why were they here? Why were they beholden to a seemingly ordinary man with nothing uniquely powerful about him? And why were they so openly displaying their prowess, as though inviting the entire world to crush them?

For that was what the world did to those who stood out--they were crushed, pulverized, and burned to ashes. Never celebrated, never accepted, never cheered for.

He looked over toward their master yet again, though his eyes drifted to the seat next to his for a moment, where a young boy who wasn't participating in the competition was sitting. Suddenly, the boy lifted his head and met his gaze--even if there was a shroud between them formed by the most talented Array Masters within ten thousand miles, the boy saw him.

... and he smiled.

Like a hunter would when its prey spotted him.