Chapter 1: Providence and Fate?
In a trance, I returned to this world, looking up at a crescent moon, looking at the pictures around me from this dreamlike landscape.
The scenery was picturesque, but over the past few months, what I saw kept changing. In this dream world, I have seen many magnificent sights.
The boundless, 100-foot-high tsunami waves from the end of the sea and the sky, crashing against the shore, swallowed up all the land, trees, and creatures the moment they touched the shore.
The earth shook violently, cracks appeared in the vast land, and hot magma rose into the sky in the volcanic eruption, turning the whole sky into fiery red, and the smoke and dust obscured the sky and the sun, turning the bright white sun into darkness.
The wind and clouds in the sky are uncertain, one moment thunder and lightning are in the sky, and the golden purple rays frantically whip the ground, but the next moment the frost and snow are falling from the sky, and the biting cold wind and frost shroud the world in a silvery white dead silence.
In this world, no living thing can survive, even if I have the supreme power, it is still very difficult, but I feel all this with my heart, through the induction of the heavenly consciousness, I clearly feel the death of this dream world, and I perceive that every time I enter the dream, the life around me is rapidly decreasing.
At first, I couldn't understand the meaning of this dream, if this is the land of yellow springs, which symbolizes death, then I hope to see familiar old people here, to see my long-dead wife. Ten years of life and death, my soul has never come to dream, as long as I can meet her, I am willing to give whatever I have at present.
But in the end, all the magnificence was gone, there were no more terrible sounds and lights, no more tsunamis, no more earthquakes, no more volcanic eruptions, and I was just standing on a barren hill, with nothing to see around, no buildings, no mountains, no land, nothing but the smell of rancidity.
It seemed to be daytime, but there were no clouds to be seen, but the stars could be clearly seen, and the crescent moon was as bent as ever. The temperature was unusually cold, and beyond the hillock was a vast ocean of filthy ice floes. This time, I could no longer feel the life of this dream world, whether it was animals or plants, and there was no life in this dream of nothingness.
"Where am I...... Why do you want me to see something like this?"
Looking around, something caught my eye. On the surface of the sea where the dirty ice floats, there seems to be a figure, a human ......
A familiar silhouette of déjà vu, who are you......
When the short figure moved closer in the smoke waves, the child's face gradually became clearer, the delicate little face was full of bruises and bruises, and the left eye was so swollen that it could not be opened; the ragged and rancid clothes, the tears could not hide the blood marks and burns on the skin, and the tragic state of the scaly wounds all over the body made people unbearable to look at it more, but this scarred child reminded me of something that I had long forgotten.
"You...... You are ......"
The child did not answer, and he stood on the dirty ice floes, and stretched out his blood-stained fingers to point below the water. When I followed his finger, there seemed to be something under the water, it was an artificial structure, a dilapidated archway, with rare words on it, and the three big characters were......
I gasped, and while recognizing the entrance archway with the three big characters "White Deer Cave" written on it, I finally knew where I was standing, or...... What a place it was.
Over here...... It was once a cultural powerhouse with a large number of buildings and students, but now it has sunk into the sea, and the continent on which it is located sleeps in the depths of the icy ocean.
Over here...... It's not just a dream, it's a future that will happen in the near future.
I'm in a dream, looking down on my future!
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The moon was a beautiful thing, hanging alone in the sky of the nine heavens, silently blooming with a white light, as if mocking everything she could see.
I still remember looking up at the bright moon when I was a child, and I always felt that the disgusting moon was silently mocking me, especially when I broke my hands and feet, smelled the blood on my body, and tried to open my swollen eyelids and look at the red crescent moon.
The Zhou family I was born in is a wealthy family of Altino, although the people are not prosperous, not as prominent as the family of flowers, but from the era of the Great Stone Kingdom to the Cao Dynasty, the Zhou family closely attached to the White Deer Cave and grew up, becoming one of the most wealthy and wealthy families in Altino, and has produced countless civil and military generals, and is a contemporary generation.
The man who was called my father, an old man whose face I only vaguely remembered, was the head of the Zhou family, and he did many things he was willing and unwilling to do in order to maintain the power of the family, including marrying my mother, so that she could be the only noble title she possessed from a down-and-out royal family.
The combination of wealth and nobility is not uncommon in this era, and the disparity in age between men and women has never been a problem, and the vast wealth and astonishing beauty are enough to bridge most of the obstacles that can be solved. But my father, who was good at planning, did the most outrageous deal in his life under the joint concealment of the matchmaker and his in-laws, and accidentally married a woman with ghost blood.
...... It's a scam.
The Ghost Warriors and the Sheters are the two cursed bloods on the Wind Continent, and no one wants to have anything to do with this cursed blood, and this is also ...... My mother's original sin, even with her beauty and kindness, could not be washed away after marrying into the Zhou family, and the long years of deep house compound, almost prison-like detention life, made her gentle and kind personality distorted, and since I can remember, my mother was a hysterical, irritable and angry madwoman, and the only thing I was left by her side became something she beat all day to vent her anger.
Broken bones and bruises are commonplace, and my left eye is so swollen that I can't see most of the time, but maybe it's because I'm too young to understand what I'm going through every day, so I never hold a grudge, I just take everything for granted, and pray that the sun doesn't come up every night when I look up at the bright moon.
Of course, at that time, I occasionally wondered why my mother was so resentful and sad when she gazed at the blood markings on my face, and what was the hatred and contempt in the eyes of the servants in the house when she kept claiming that I was "young master"?
"Hahaha~~Die!Die!Die with your mother!Hahahaha~~Hahahaha~~~"
For the first time in my life, I learned what fear is. The tiny hands thrashed desperately against her mother's body, trying to survive with every instinct and strength, tearing at the back of her hand with her nails until it broke free from her grip, and the flames finally touched her hair.
"Woo~~You will regret it~~Regret~~Ah~~"
The howl that always echoed in the depths of my memory was very poignant, accompanied by the intense burning fire, burning vigorously, and became a scene that I will never forget. I think my mother must have hated me for not falling with her in the flames, and leaving her alone to be charred, which is why her howls were so desperate and sad.
However, a person's life should not be determined by other people, and even if they are close to their parents, they do not have the right to control the life and death of their children. This is what I realized most deeply at the end of my childhood.
From the moment I escaped from my mother, I hated my bloodline and vowed to exterminate all the ghosts in the world. This wish became the driving force for my survival for a long time to come.
After that, I was sent to the White Deer Cave to learn art, and by chance, I quickly became a disciple of Lu You, and I got martial arts, power, and a magic technique and a mask to cover the ghostly markings on my face, and I even got the opportunity to influence the change of power in this continent!
In a certain rebellion of the Guiyi people, the manor of the Zhou family was tragically attacked, and thousands of lives in the manor were not spared. This proper "accident" wiped out all those who knew and those who didn't, and when I received the news in Bailu Cave, I was "grief-stricken" and led my troops to go on the expedition, killing none of the Guiyi people who destroyed my homeland, avenging my relatives, and becoming famous in the battle, becoming the leader among the contemporary young people of Bailu Cave - an undefeated general against the Guiyi people.
The establishment of Altino was much later, and during this time, I got to know Rouge Ning. Walking on a similar but different path of life, the origins and mentality of me and Yan Ning are like two mirrors that reflect each other, and it is a kind of enjoyment to partner with her, and the tacit understanding of mutual support makes me a pleasure no matter what work I do.
I thought this life would last, but Little Joe broke into my life. My beloved wife has taught me many things and given me a chance to change the gloom of my life, and if I master it well, she and I should be able to walk out of a different life...... Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to grasp this opportunity, and after Xiao Qiao's death, the spring light that once appeared in my life was also extinguished, and the creatures that belonged to the shadows could only return to darkness in the end.
The ghost people no longer exist, the resentment of a hundred years disappeared at once, my life seemed to be hollowed out, and I had to find other motivation and other goals in my life.
Revenge is a good reason for people to progress. In order to surpass the master, in addition to self-training, I need a good helper who can assist me, ordinary humans can't compete with the Moon Sage, so I turned my cooperation to the demons, relying on the relationship between the past to deal with the affairs of the demons, I secretly cultivated a force exclusive to me.
If it's not my race, its heart will be different, it won't be against it today, it will be against it tomorrow, I believe that I should have such a relationship with the demons. Raising tigers is a problem, I must be 120,000 points of spirit and be careful to fight back, but I don't have to be morally responsible for those tigers, because from beginning to end, I and this group of demons are just using each other, anyone can turn their faces at any time, and everyone should turn their faces at any time.
At least, that's what I believed at first......
The formal friendship with the demons has allowed me to see many things that I didn't believe in before. Putting aside the odd number of Qirei, Zhu Yan and Hao Kelian are both very capable companions, and the image of the demon clan is also very different from what I knew before. According to my beloved wife's last words, she will probably become a demon in the next life, and if the demons are like this, then Master's attitude towards the demons is worth reviewing, and I can also design a kingdom where humans and demons coexist.
Also on the surface and inside of a continent, the contact between humans and demons is inevitable, but the war between humans and demons? No, this kind of thing may not happen, I have designed too many wars to happen, I know this too well, as long as each other can share the benefits and fairness, most of the time the battle can be avoided, compared to the alien demons, those fellow human guys are really terrifying, if the heavenly warrior with abnormal power does not appear, this land will have a longer peace and stability.
I did a lot of planning, and a lot of changes happened along the way, and finally I succeeded in getting revenge, expelling the master, and I took control of the overall situation, and cleared the blood stasis of Eltinor, and only after I swept away and suppressed the external enemy, I could rebuild and create a new situation.
When Little Joe is reborn in the world, I will build the land she loves into heaven and place it on a golden tray as a gift to her. This is the belief that I have adhered to, and in order to implement this belief, I became the patron saint of Altino, and even did not hesitate to exclude the master and bear the sin of killing the master, but unfortunately, in the end, fate still played with people again.
The hard training on Jinao Island, the moment I broke through the strong heavenly position, the soul consciousness was connected with the atmosphere, and I saw many things that had been ignored before. From the sky, from the land, from the sea, millions of different natural messages convey the same thing – the Continent of the Wind is collapsing.
The Yuan Qi Cave was opened continuously and intensively in a short period of time, and the Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi released had a violent impact on this land, and every battle of the Heavenly Rank Martial Artists made the situation even more serious;
When I learned about this, I felt very confused, if the end of the world is just around the corner, then what are my hard work and dreams for today? When dreams are with the end of the world, what is the purpose of my existence?
Speechless, I used the system of Jinao Island to seek answers. The computer with the most powerful computing power in the world took three days and three nights to calculate, and finally, the answer was delivered to me.
In the immortal technique of Bailu Cave, there is a last used technique, which is called "returning the Tao to the sky" in ancient times, when the extinction of natural disasters comes, books are burned, Confucianism is pitted, and the way of calculating the Jinao Island is similar to this method.
The energy between heaven and earth, in the form of pure energy, is the heaven and earth vitality, but there are also many energies that are transformed into entities, into the creatures that inhabit this land, if these life energy is returned to nature, with appropriate operation, the heaven and earth vitality can be reversed, and the collapsed balance can be re-stabilized. It's just that the life energy required for this practice is so huge that it is unacceptable, and without the sacrifice of tens of millions of people, it is absolutely impossible to achieve the effect of reversing the vitality of heaven and earth.
According to the system of Jinao Island, as long as Shangri-La City is bombarded with the Tongtian Cannon, the energy released will be sent to the earth qi veins below with the power of the Tongtian Cannon, and all the riots and changes will gradually subside within a few months.
The things calculated by the machine are always so cold, without a trace of human affection, that I still remember the feeling of almost emptying out the vitality in my body when I saw those few lines of proclamation on the screen, and even made me feel like I had not felt for a long time...... Pain.
Doing nothing is a simple thing to do, and it is something that most people do, but I can't turn a blind eye to it, and let the damage continue to spread, and finally affect the Eltenor I have sworn to protect, this matter...... No, it can't happen.
Since the death of Little Joe, I have been guarding the earth for half my life, but now I am going to make a terrible act of slaughtering thousands of people.
Wang Wu, who is known as the world's number one hero, or those Reins people who claim to be righteous people? No, they don't have this ability, and the moral burden they carry is too heavy, not to mention their rigid thinking and stance, they are just some things that the enemy can easily see through and design, except for the peerless white Qi, they will only become a burden to me.
Nor can my loyal subordinates? Every subordinate around me has absolute trust in me, and if I tell them my intentions, they will follow, but they will not escape the mortal crime of killing thousands of living beings, so I do not intend to let them bear such a sin.
A sin, if a person can bear it, don't look for accomplices, this is my idea. Since the end of the Demon Rebellion, I no longer need my subordinates to sacrifice for me, and this will not change now.
At the beginning, I still had a fluke mentality, thinking that I could pass the test in a selfish way, as long as the scope of sacrifice was limited to Shangri-La, then all the sacrifices and injuries would not affect Eltino, and would not affect my country, not only to resolve the apocalyptic crisis, but also to kill Shi Chong and the Reins by the way, and eliminate these heavenly warriors who caused turmoil.
In the end, this plan failed, and the strong counterattack of the Reins made me fail, and I discovered that Shi Chong may be secretly playing some kind of conspiracy, deliberately letting Reyns get the information of the Heavenly Cannon, to create a weapon that can threaten me, and make my situation even more difficult.
The battle of Shangri-La is over, all the problems are still unsolved, the crisis of the collapse of the earth is imminent, and I need to find another metropolis of tens of millions of people to save the whole world. It seemed like a natural idea for my subordinates to propose Jixia, and I thought about it seriously, but before the final answer appeared, Yan Ning came to Jinao Island and used all kinds of implied actions to make me aware of a terrible fact that had been ignored for a long time.
The water source of the central capital city has already been poisoned! All the citizens have been infected, and the demonization crisis may detonate at any time!
In order to confirm this matter, I gave up the battle plan against Reyns and rushed back to Zhongdu as soon as possible, and after drinking the glass of water with my own mouth, I found that Yan Ning's warning was correct, there was indeed a problem with the water source in Zhongdu City, as long as the poisoner released the triggering agent, tens of millions of citizens would immediately mutate genetically and become monsters!
Boundless providence is indeed unpredictable, and the answer to what I should do when things have come to this point is clear. I want to protect Altino, if I let the infected citizens of Zhongdu leave, and after entering other areas in large numbers, they will be demonized, and the tearing and chaos will spread to the entire country overnight, and I will return to the purgatory scene of the Kyushu War, if I want to protect the safety of Altino, I can't let these tens of thousands of infected citizens leave alive, although...... They have not yet "become ill".
I have to do what I have to do, but I know very well in my heart that no matter how much righteousness I do, it will not alleviate my sin of wanton killing, and an executioner whose hands are stained with the blood of tens of millions of people is not qualified to talk about any ideals and establish a new world, and this world will not accept such people, so when I kill tens of millions of lives in the middle capital and let the naturalization of natural energy be stable, my Zhou Gongjin's life will end here.
In order to allow the disturbances to subside quickly, I made a lot of arrangements in advance. My junior brother Xu Liewu, who was placed under house arrest by me on the charge of collaborating with the enemy, will send him away before the cannon is fired, and the responsibility for the shelling will have nothing to do with him at all, and he can reorganize the imperial court in the name of "eliminating the rebels", whether it is an alliance with Reins or Shi Chong, he has a lot of room for maneuver, and with his ingenuity, he will make good use of this spare time, especially when I become a mad demon in the eyes of the people, he is the only Allah of Altino.
I need the help of my subordinates to help them in the bombardment of the capital, so I can't let them leave for the time being, but I gradually give them the impression of madness and loss of control, and let them gradually drift away under pressure, and in the end, because they are coerced by me, they have no choice but to obey, they do not have to bear the stake of killing thousands of people, and they can switch to other camps with their innocent and free bodies, and with their talents and expertise, they can easily go wherever they go.
All the layouts have been calculated and calculated, whether I am there or not, they can be carried out properly, but when everything is arranged, I can't help but recall the four main enemies of my life.
My mentor - Lu You, he is a very great swordsman, although I do not agree with his ideas and style, but his incomparably strong will, but let me sincerely admire and learn, I once hated him terribly, but later, admiration and sympathy overshadowed the hatred, at the moment I killed him, I no longer hated him, he was just a great goal that I must surpass and sweep away.
My short-lived ally, Shi Chong, was undoubtedly once looked down upon by me, and underestimated his methods and cunning, but in the end I tasted the bitter fruit of it. Since he has been able to calculate me to such an extent, I should also give him respect and praise, but in any case, as long as he appears in front of me again, I swear that I will never give him any chance again, and I will blow him up on the spot, and no one can stop him!
My junior brother, Li Yu, was the last move I reserved for myself. When I learned that Master would accept him as my fifth junior brother, I had a premonition that he would be the one who carried out my execution, and the development of the situation was as expected, the fifth junior brother climbed up from that hellish predicament, became stronger and stronger, repeatedly surpassed the constraints given to him by the environment, and had the strength above me, if one day he died at his hands, it would be my most convincing end.
However, God has a different arrangement, so that another enemy, who is not noticed by me, constantly stands in front of me and repeatedly hinders me from doing things. Originally, in Hangzhou, I had the opportunity to easily control him to death, but because of my negligence and carelessness, he continued to grow, and now he has become my number one enemy.
This man named Lancelot was my enemy for most of the time, and I never considered him an opponent. As a lineage disciple cultivated by Master Huang Taiji, he seems to be a combination of good fortune in the world, with world-class skills, connections, strange encounters, and power at his fingertips; a savage ape who does not look like a human king, in the position of the emperor, does all kinds of ridiculous and stupid acts, and every thing arouses my disgust, just like a natural enemy destined for me by fate.
If this arch-enemy is my fifth junior brother, I will be very comforted, and if the role of the arch-enemy is my master, I can accept it with my heart, but why would Providence arrange such an ape to become my ultimate rival as if it was deliberately taunting me?
Is this the will of heaven? Is it fate? If this is the way of heaven, then I, Zhou Gongjin, will never accept such an arrangement, even at the end of my life, I will once again resist the providence arrangement!