The Legacy of the Guardian

["You might not be able to tell, but the artifact spirit of your Jiuzhou Cauldron is currently in a state between a spirit body and a physical entity. It is a unique kind of existence."]

[Every time the Universe Mirror lost its memory and saw Da Chun, it would say this exact sentence.]

["I speculate that he became like this because he chose to separate the artifact and the spirit, allowing the spirit to reincarnate into a human."]

["Reincarnated?"]

["Ah... you could say that, but actually, there is no such thing as 'reincarnation' in this world. When a soul goes to the Underworld, it isn't to be reborn."]

["Even if he reincarnated into a human, why would he be incomplete?"]

["The bloodline has been diluted. Your friend named Da Chun is not the direct reincarnation of the Jiuzhou Cauldron's artifact spirit, but rather his descendant. That is to say, Da Chun is only a part of the artifact spirit. However, he is the core part, because he can directly fuse with the artifact. If you want the Jiuzhou Cauldron's artifact spirit to fully recover, you must find all the descendants of the artifact spirit's reincarnations and have them merge into Da Chun's body. Then, your friend will look perfectly normal. Relying solely on 'eating peaches' for self-repair will likely take an extremely long time."]

Outside the simulation.

Chen Yi's thoughts suddenly flashed like lightning.

He connected some dots and arrived at a hypothesis.

"Da Chun grew up in Luoding Village. He is actually the descendant of a family in the village. It was only because all his relatives died that he became the village guardian. Which means..."

All the villagers of Luoding Village were the descendants of the Jiuzhou Cauldron's reincarnation!

If this deduction was true, it wasn't hard to figure out why the mastermind behind the scenes would massacre a small village.

"The mastermind was targeting the Jiuzhou Cauldron's artifact spirit. He wanted to kill all the descendants of the artifact spirit so that the Jiuzhou Cauldron could never recover!"

Luoding Village. Could its original name have been "Luoding" meaning "Fallen Cauldron" Village?

Was it mispronounced as Luoding due to accents, dialects, or miscommunication?

"So, was it orchestrated by the Dragonkin race that has already infiltrated the Human Realm?"

The Qilin Soul had just mentioned that when the Dragonkin destroyed the Demon Realm, they stole their Great Dao Immortal Artifact.

The Dragonkin had a motive.

"But it doesn't really feel like the doing of the Dragonkin..."

On one hand, at the time the village massacre occurred, the Dragonkin shouldn't have infiltrated so deeply as to be able to collaborate with major factions in the Human Realm, right?

At most, they could have lured small, ignorant factions like the Chixin Sect with benefits—factions that mistook the Dragonkin for demons and couldn't resist temptation.

On the other hand, even if the Dragonkin somehow found out about the reincarnation of the Jiuzhou Cauldron's artifact spirit through some unknown channels, and discovered that the villagers of Luoding Village were the descendants of the reincarnated spirit...

Why would they go all the way to Xiliang to find the Sacred Fire Cult and instruct them to travel thousands of miles just to massacre the village?

And afterward, go to the Great Wilderness to find the Blood Moon Organization to wipe out the Sacred Fire Cult and silence them?

Doing all that was too troublesome.

Wouldn't it be easier to just do it themselves?

Even if they didn't want to show their faces, they could have just let the Chixin Sect do it.

Weren't they already cooperating with the Chixin Sect to build that Demon Bridge Tower?

The truth of the village massacre seemed to be hidden behind only a thin veil; it just needed a single breath to blow it away and reveal its true face.

[Under the guidance of the Qilin Soul, you arrived at a certain sea area and went deep into the bottom of the ocean.]

["Thirty thousand years is simply too long. Back then, the seabed in this area was covered with the bones of my clansmen, but now they have all turned to dust."]

[At the bottom of the sea lay a giant blue stone emitting a faint glow.]

[The Qilin Soul stated that there was a spatial rift on the stone that led directly to the Human Realm.]

[However, this rift was extremely small. In the past, it was used for very small demons to shuttle to the Human Realm to gather intelligence.]

[It wasn't that they couldn't open a larger rift back then; rather, a large rift would easily attract attention from the other side.]

[Therefore, the rifts used for gathering intelligence were all very small.]

[You took a look.]

["This is way too small."]

[It was only the size of a bowl.]

[Under normal circumstances, you definitely wouldn't be able to pass through.]

[However, the Jiuzhou Cauldron could change its size.]

[You just needed to enter the small world inside the cauldron, and then have the Jiuzhou Cauldron shrink itself, and you would be able to pass through.]

[The Qilin Soul knew this, which was why it brought you here.]

["Senior, then I will take my leave first."]

["Not yet. This rift is actually sealed off."]

["Ah? Then I..."]

["No matter, I will simply open it for you."]

["Thank you, Senior."]

["Step back."]

[Since you were inside the cauldron, stepping back didn't really matter.]

[But you did as told anyway.]

[In the pitch-black, freezing depths of the sea, the spirit body of the Qilin Soul bloomed with seven-colored iridescent light, resembling a bright rainbow.]

[The Qilin Soul used numerous demonic arts, which you found profoundly impressive despite not understanding them.]

[A moment later.]

[Seeing that the Qilin Soul had stopped moving, you had Da Chun control the Jiuzhou Cauldron to approach.]

["Senior, is the rift open?"]

["It is open, but it can only be passed through once before this rift completely closes."]

[You noticed that the Qilin Soul's condition didn't seem right.]

[Its entire spirit body had become so transparent that it was almost invisible!]

["Senior, you..."]

["Fortunately, I was the one who sealed it back then, so opening it wasn't too difficult. However, it did consume all of my remaining soul power."]

["Senior, you should have told me the price. I actually didn't have to go back."]

["Since I have broken free from my imprisonment, it is time for my self-destruction. Rather than simply vanishing into ashes for nothing, it's better to conveniently do you this small favor."]

["Why?"]

["Do you know why the Dragonkin trapped me there instead of directly dispersing my soul?"]

[The Qilin Soul told you some secrets about Dao Protectors.]

[A Dao Protector is the concentrated embodiment of the destiny of a race and a world; it is an externalization of the world's will.]

[Under normal circumstances, the succession of a Dao Protector works in two ways.]

[One is succession through life and death: when the predecessor dies, the successor passes the test of the world's will and automatically takes over.]

[The other is when the predecessor personally passes the mantle to the successor.]

[In a situation like the Qilin Soul's, where the body died but the soul remained, the next Dao Protector couldn't automatically ascend. Yet, because he was suppressed, he couldn't go and choose an heir either.]

[As a result, the demon race was effectively left in a state without a Dao Protector.]

[This severely weakened the destiny of the entire race, directly affecting the cultivation paths of all the cultivators within the race.]

[Although the Demon Realm was destroyed, the demon race had not been completely wiped out.]

[Some experts shattered the void and left.]

[Some might have ended up stranded in other worlds, just like those in the Human Realm.]

[Therefore, the Qilin Soul had to let himself perish; he didn't want to hinder the survivors of his race.]

["The experts who left the Void Realm cannot return, and the Dragonkin do not care about them.]

[They prevented the demon race from birthing a new Dao Protector because they were worried that the remaining demons in the Void Realm might once again produce experts capable of threatening them.]

[Because we are one of the strongest races among the myriad races of the Void Realm! Having finally defeated us with great difficulty, how could they be willing to see us rise again!"]

[Speaking up to this point, the Qilin Soul looked at you.]

["The only race as renowned as the demon race is your human race..."]

[The Qilin Soul had said all it had to say. Its spectral form completely dissipated, scattering into specks of light that gradually faded into nothingness.]

[With mixed emotions, you rode the Jiuzhou Cauldron and entered the rift.]