Chapter 238.2: Poison and Medicine Part 2

The Master Craftsman of the Depths lifted his chin, arrogantly staring down at his apprentice.

“The Pacifier Creation is truly a gift from heaven. All things can be wrought by ten fingers; there is nothing it can’t do, nothing it can’t create. But its flaw lies with you. You keep reaching for things that were never there, so of course you can never grasp anything. You see and reach only for emptiness, and so everything you find is barren. That is your true nature.”

“Even now, do you still expect your doctrines of Putrefaction to shake my resolve, Master Craftsman?” Ji Jue retorted coldly. “Your words are powerless. Why not try your old trick again and see whether I’ll bow my head to you this time?!”

Jian Yuan slowly arched an eyebrow. First came confusion, then realization, followed by undisguised mockery. At last, he could no longer hold back. He threw his head back and laughed until tears filled his eyes.

“So that’s how it is! I see now! Ha... Hahaha... Hahahahaha... Hahahahahaha! There’s something I forgot to tell you. Perhaps you misunderstood. The Illumination Rite you underwent earlier wasn’t an esoteric ritual of the Putrefaction Path.”

He paused, his smile growing more vicious. “On the contrary, it was the very essence of the Ember Path, passed down over thousands of years! Even I, the one presiding over the rite, don’t know what you saw. What it reflected was the future you wished to see, the world you wished to create. It showed you the path you truly wanted to follow. So what exactly did you see? Destruction, death?!”

Ji Jue remained completely unmoved, glaring at Jian Yuan coldly. “Weren’t you the one who spent those three days filling my head with the doctrines of Putrefaction?”

Jian Yuan stepped forward, still looking down as he asked each question with deliberate emphasis. “How can a mere three days of influence compare with the life you’ve lived and the convictions you’ve held since birth? How can it compare with the lessons Ye Xian has instilled in you year after year? How much of what you saw came from my guidance? How much came from what you truly desire? And how much flowed from your very nature? Wasn’t what you saw simply your true self, stripped of every embellishment and disguise?!”

Ji Jue remained silent, unable to move, while Jian Yuan savored the anger and uncertainty concealed beneath his impassive expression. His smile deepened, as though he were admiring a blade that had nearly finished tempering within the furnace. He bent down until his eyes were level with Ji Jue’s. Flames kindled within his emerald gaze, piercing through every disguise.

“I told you before, a craftsman never misjudges his material. From the moment I first saw you, I knew exactly what kind of monster you were. I’ve never seen a soul so twisted, nor a nature built upon such contradictions before. There’s nothing inside your heart. You scorned everything noble and righteous, yet you use something that doesn’t even exist as your sole support. Like a prisoner, you draw a boundary around yourself and make it your cage.

“I can see it. You are like Sisyphus from the legends, repeating the same cycle day after day. You exhaust yourself struggling forward, yet you don’t know where you’re going, nor do you dare to stop. Until one day, you become something even you no longer recognize. That is precisely why you suffer so much, and why you long so desperately for death! No wonder so many Great Abominations are drawn to you! Compared with someone like you, forever chasing after nothingness, what does a madman like me amount to?”

Jian Yuan pointed at Ji Jue’s heart. “The arrogance of Putrefaction, the emptiness of Absolute Abyss, the madness of Rampant Slaughter, the desolation of Maelstrom, the distortion of the Tower, and the hunger of the Wolf, they are all inside you. You do not value your own life. No matter how fiercely you may seem to struggle, the day will come when you no longer value anyone else’s life either. That is who you are, and that is the monster you will inevitably become!”

Ji Jue offered no answer. He seemed to hear his own heartbeat rising and falling between the distant wails, each beat dull and heavy. Blood coursed through his veins like waves washing against an empty shore, leaving hollow echoes behind. He barely heard Jian Yuan’s words.

Perhaps the old geezer was right. Perhaps this was his true nature, the ugly face he had hidden beneath his smile all along. Perhaps he truly was such a freak. He could no longer run from it.

But none of that seemed particularly important anymore. Something far more important had captured his attention.

As though his gaze had passed straight through Jian Yuan, he stared intently at the drifting apparitions emerging from the aberration contamination, the last remnants of those who had died.

Those unfamiliar, indistinct faces drifted before him. Some fought and shoved one another, while others stumbled backward and fled. They cried, cursed, called out, and screamed, but no sound could be heard, as if they were struggling helplessly in a quagmire, reaching out again and again in futile attempts to grasp something, only to catch nothing at all. Only when they embraced each other did their tears fall.

The tears passed through Ji Jue’s outstretched hand and struck the ground, scattering one final glimmer of phantom light. Ji Jue lowered his head and came back to his senses. That was when he realized that he had extended his hand again without noticing.

His open palm remained empty; he had grasped nothing. It was utterly futile. And yet, he smiled. His lips curled into a mocking grin aimed at Jian Yuan and himself.

“No.” Ji Jue showed the Master Craftsman his empty palm. “I do care.”

Jian Yuan said nothing. He merely looked down at Ji Jue, his gaze turning colder and colder, as if he were looking at a piece of rotten wood that could never be carved, or a blade in the furnace that had allowed itself to rust and gather dust, contentedly melting into a warped and twisted shape.

In the end, Ji Jue was beyond saving!

Boom!!!

High above, the black cascade rushed forth. A dark tide of evil rolled across the sky and poured downward, slowly swallowing the dim, white light. Amid the deafening roar, cracks appeared across the Laws of Origin until they were riddled with holes. Black rain fell, gradually submerging the ruins of the shattered city.

Drops of it landed in Changsheng’s palm. Beneath the dark, iridescent light, he inspected the droplets of aberrant essence in his grasp, each one resembling venom. “Look, Mr. Tao. The filth of the mortal world and the evil within the human heart are as vast as the ocean. Why are you Supreme Benevolences unwilling to spare them even a glance?”

Mr. Tao remained silent while Changsheng raised his head and bathed in the corrupted rain. The iridescent radiance filling the sky spread farther, growing darker and more uncanny. He looked down upon the world as it disappeared beneath the rain and watched torrents of aberrant corruption soar into the heavens. No longer restraining himself, he threw back his head and laughed.

Changsheng’s deep laughter spread throughout the heavens, resounding throughout Spring City and in everyone’s ears. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask. If this world was created by the Supreme Benevolences, then where did the aberrants come from? Then, I finally understood. People didn’t give themselves over to evil. Evil was forged from people!

“Only those who could no longer go on living, who could make no sense of the world, who had no path left to follow and nowhere they were allowed to belong, would cast themselves into evil. But were the aberrants the ones who made them that way? Before any of that happened, hadn’t they been the ones receiving the grace of the Supreme Benevolences?!”

Only mournful cries and anguished wails echoed in response.

The Heretic Cult’s High Priest-Saint raised his voice. “When disaster first struck, it was the Federation that abandoned this place. When the aberration began to spread, it was the Security Bureau that chose to seal it off. And what reduced everything to what we see today is the very world you take for granted and pride yourselves upon!”

Changsheng spread his arms with contempt as he surveyed his surroundings.

“Spring City, aberration, ruin. These are all things you cast aside. But since you don’t want them, why can’t they be left to those whom your world refuses to accept?!”

The city fell silent. From somewhere far beyond the heavens, a wrathful killing intent descended like thunder, bitterly cold.

Changsheng laughed, his voice hoarse and savage. “If the Supreme Benevolences embody the laws of this world, then evil and Abominations should also have their place within it! So why am I not allowed to compete with you on equal footing?!”

Boom!!!

His aura surged, and a violent pressure descended between heaven and earth, intense enough to seemingly freeze everything in place.

This wasn’t an intervention carried out by human hands. It was the Absolute Judgement that descended the moment the immutable laws of the Supreme Benevolences were challenged. The Abominations surged as blazing lightning split the sky.

Between the Maelstrom’s projection and the world, Changsheng bared his soul open. As vast torrents of spirit matter rushed forward, the Celestial Being of the Foolish Abominations drew almost frantically upon the boundless evil between heaven and earth.

Then, he went even further!

“There is no need for you to trouble yourself any longer, Mr. Tao. I alone shall bear all the evil in this world!”

The iridescent light filling the sky collapsed. Changsheng’s body broke apart, mutating and swelling. In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a colossal, formless mass, taking on an unnatural form as it bathed beneath the endless black cascade and shed its former shape. Or perhaps it was finally revealing its true form.

It resembled a sacred idol forged from bone and blood, with four heads and three eyes. Purple, cyan, indigo, and blue flowed across its body. Everything about it had changed, except for the mocking smile upon his face, which remained exactly the same.

Standing firmly within the world, he reached toward the vortex, clenching his hand around empty air across the distance.

The enormous vortex above Spring City shook frantically as vast currents flowed through it. Somewhere beyond it, a colossal being let out a dying wail before breaking apart. Pitch-black divine essence poured out, descended, and merged with Changsheng, making his form even more grotesque. His appearance seemed sacred, yet monstrous.

Answering his call, the two wounds in the world above, which had already begun to close, were forcibly torn open once more!

After seizing the divine essence of several Upper Abominations, Changshend had transformed himself into one. Using his own body as an anchor, he corrupted Spring City and took root within the world itself! From that moment onward, Spring City would become an extension of Maelstrom within the world, a sanctuary for the Foolish Abominations!

He would no longer need to hide like the other Upper Abominations, confined within the vortex beneath the world. He himself had become the Mortal World Abomination[1].

As silence gripped the world, Changsheng looked down at everyone before glancing back toward the indistinct figure emerging from the dim light behind him. “It seems I’ve won. Mr. Tao, are you going to go back on your word?”

If Tao Cheng wished to purge the corruption and save Spring City, this was his last chance! After all the twists and turns, the terms of their original wager no longer held. Tao Cheng could simply disregard the rules altogether and break their last unspoken agreement, thereby escalating the conflict into an all-out war!

By now, the seemingly precarious Spring City had drawn countless eyes. Even if Tao Cheng chose to walk away, the moment a victor was decided, it would become the spark that ignited yet another brutal war.

All around them, concealed in the darkness, Upper Abominations, living sages, Celestial Beings, aberrants, the Empire, and the Wasteland Assembly were all eager to place their bets. All of them awaited his decision.

When the elderly figure finally appeared in the heavens, he immediately sensed the myriad of gazes fixed upon him. There was none of the radiant vigor one would have expected from a mighty Celestial Being. His eyes were clouded, and his white hair was streaked and uneven. He looked like any ordinary, decrepit old man.

Yet the moment Tao Cheng appeared, Changsheng went on high alert, as though facing his greatest enemy.

Tao Cheng sighed softly. “I never imagined things would come to this, though perhaps it isn’t so surprising after all. When it comes to the treachery of the human heart, you surpass me by far. With your audacity, your ambition to make evil the new orthodoxy, and all these years of preparation and waiting... Now, you’ve finally set everything in motion. The timing, the terrain, and even the so-called support of the people are all on your side. And I have nowhere left to retreat.”

He looked Changsheng in the eye. “Judging by how you have brought so many forces together and thrown the world into turmoil today, you are already close to becoming the origin of all evil. Should the Tower that has yet to exist ever take form, even it might cast a shadow in your honor.”

Changsheng shook his head. “Do I not owe that to your personal instruction, Mr. Tao?”

Mr. Tao’s smile took on a strange edge, one that could only be called mocking. He surveyed the darkened world, regret lacing his words.

“You’re wrong. I never taught you anything, Changsheng. Otherwise, you would have understood that although the world may be chaotic, there are times when the line between right and wrong is perfectly distinct. No matter how righteous a title you give yourself or how stirring your arguments may sound, the truth remains unchanged. Wrong remains wrong, evil remains evil, and no amount of fine words can make ugliness beautiful.”

Changsheng fell silent for a moment, then sighed bitterly. “A scholar may be killed, but never humiliated[2]. It is only natural that you would refuse to associate with someone like me, Mr. Tao.”

“Don’t make yourself sound so pitiful, Changsheng. You claimed that the snakes and rats in the gutter would challenge useless fools like us, overturn heaven and earth, and turn heresy into righteousness. But the righteous path has always been there. You simply chose not to walk it. The moment you decided that you were no better than gutter vermin, you embraced deceit and intrigue. You never bothered to understand the values of those who lived openly and honestly.

“Instead, you chose to overturn everything and deny it all. So tell me, are you not the most arrogant one here?”

Mr. Tao stared at him. There was no anger in his gaze, only pity, as though he were looking at a blind man who stood beneath the sunlight yet insisted that the sun did not exist. At last, Mr. Tao smiled in acceptance and closed his eyes. “That is why you never understood...”

Changsheng’s eyes widened in shock.

Still smiling, Tao Cheng raised a hand toward his own neck, then brought it down in a sharp slash.

Watch closely, Changsheng. This is the first lesson I have for you! To give one’s life for righteousness!

1. FYI, “Mortal World Abomination” isn’t Lu Changsheng’s title but some kind of realm/level of the Abominations. This will be explained in a later chapter. ☜

2. “士可杀不可辱” is a Chinese idiom pronounced shì kě shā, bù kě rǔ. It means that a scholar or anyone with integrity would rather sacrifice their life than suffer an affront to their dignity. The expression describes someone with an unyielding sense of honor and self-respect. ☜