Chapter 582: One-Tail's Great Transformation (Part 2)

During the tribulation, the Nine-tailed Fox God had said something—a declaration aimed at Celestial Wolf City. It wasn’t uttered on a whim. In the unseen workings of fate, it was meant to serve as a guide, an anchor. That was why she spoke.

Of course, the one in control of the Nine-tailed Fox God at that time was she herself, not the original Nine-tailed Fox. She had been the main force resisting the Thunder Tribulation; the Nine-tailed Fox God was forged through her, so the right to speak was naturally hers.

Her declaration was born from both a yearning for Celestial Wolf City and a sense of resignation about her own life. She felt her entire existence had been uninteresting. She would occasionally do things with Ah Xiong, but even those moments were tedious.

Indeed, she was, after all, a being manifested from the body of the original Nine-tailed Fox. Even though she possessed a portion of the Nine-tailed Fox’s memories, she couldn’t consider them her own. She was keenly aware that she had never personally experienced any of those things.

When she first came into being, she was a blank slate. She had never seen the wider world, had no playmates, and had never gone anywhere. While curious about many things, she understood very little. She didn’t even have to practice Cultivation, the one thing countless members of the Demon Race yearned to do.

For the vast majority of the Demon Race in this world, Cultivation was the most important thing in life. Once a demon opened their Spirit Vein, they were supposed to cultivate continuously until death.

And what of eventually cultivating to the highest Realm of the First Celestial Realm?

No one had ever heard of it. Not even the original Nine-tailed Fox knew what the highest Realm entailed; she couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of combat power that would be.

Thus, her goals weren’t well-defined. Most of the Demon Race lacked well-defined goals as well; they simply cultivated single-mindedly until death. And that was the end of it.

But precisely because of this, other members of the Demon Race could immerse themselves in single-minded Cultivation, their goal uninterrupted by other affairs. They had something to do for their entire lives. But One-tailed could not.

The sole purpose of One-tailed’s existence was for the Nine-tailed Fox to succeed in her first attempt at cultivating the [Nine-tailed Form], to successfully create an avatar. And so, she came to be.

And then?

She lost her purpose. She didn’t need to cultivate, as her very existence meant she would continuously absorb Heaven and Earth Spirit Charm, convert it into her Realm, and feed it back to the original Nine-tailed Fox.

Her existence itself was useful—that was an objective fact. But this fact ignored her subjective self. After all, she possessed her own consciousness; she wasn’t just an unthinking stone.

Every time she sat on the stone cliff, she couldn’t help but swing her legs back and forth as if on a swing. It wasn’t just for fun; it was so she could better feel the flow of the wind, which allowed her to sense the simple joys of the world.

She didn’t know why, but this simple pleasure was, in any case, better than sitting as still as a stone.

And she loved bells. She tied that pair of little bells to her ankles, and with every step, they would make a crisp, tinkling sound. It was as if they announced her arrival, and when she came, many living beings would look her way. This gave her a sense of belonging, a feeling of being part of the world.

She had never known the meaning of her existence, so she was desperate to find it. The gentle wind slipping through her fingertips, the TINKLE-TINKLE of the bells swaying at her ankles—there was a great deal of joy in these things.

That was why, when she heard Celestial Wolf City had a great many interesting things, she became intensely curious. She wanted to become part of a society where she could buy more fun things. That’s why she yearned for Celestial Wolf City, and why, during her tribulation, she had called out its name.

Afterward, she fell unconscious. In her dreams, she came into contact with an endless stream of faith. She was like a little girl, desperate to swim, who had finally found a great big pool. She swam freely within it. At times, she could even glimpse scenes from unique perspectives: the Song Jiu Main Priest, and Ancestors from every race coming to kneel in worship.

Many were sincere, and many were not, but she was happy regardless, because they had all come for her.

More than complex emotions, she preferred having the world revolve around her, having more living beings accept her existence. She instinctively felt that this was how she could truly become part of the world.

Therefore, she was happy to have such dreams. Moreover, she had gained powers she never possessed before. This was the greatest reward from her ordeal.

Even the suffering—enduring the tribulation countless times for the sake of the original Nine-tailed Fox’s cultivation of a third avatar, facing repeated annihilation, repeated despair—all of it seemed to have been repaid in full. This was the blessing that Nine-tailed Fox City had brought her.

“I’m an incarnation of the Nine-tailed Fox God now…”

As One-tailed had this thought, a smile unconsciously touched her lips. She hadn’t smiled like that in a very long time. Ah Xiong, whom she was riding, sensed the change and was pleasantly surprised. She longed to see Sister One-tailed happy, a happiness reflected in the TINKLE-TINKLE of the Red String Bell now tied to her ankle.

Yes, One-tailed had found her purpose. She had grown from an aimless avatar who merely explored the world with curiosity into an incarnation of the Nine-tailed Fox God.

She was the Nine-tailed Fox God, and the Nine-tailed Fox God was she. Her new purpose was to gather more faith for the god, to spread its name throughout the entire First Celestial Realm.

As long as more and more members of the Demon Race came to believe in the Nine-tailed Fox God, she would be happy. At the same time, she could feel her own power growing—a type of power increase different from the standard system of Realms. She felt that she, too, might be able to manifest nine tails.

It was a strange feeling. In a way, she was beginning to separate from the original Nine-tailed Fox. The power of the Thunder Tribulation was not something the mere [Nine-tailed Form] Cultivation Technique could have overcome. While a clever trick might have ensured success, the tribulation had also worn away most of the technique’s effects, leaving them connected by only the thinnest of threads.

Indeed, it was One-tailed who had endured the Thunder Tribulation countless times, who had repeatedly experienced life and death. It was only natural that she now possessed a higher authority derived from the Nine-tailed Fox God—a fact that not even the original Nine-tailed Fox could change. The original, meanwhile, remained in a dormant state, seemingly awake yet not, her eyes unfocused.

Therefore, from now on, as long as the original Nine-tailed Fox remained unconscious, One-tailed would be in control. She was the first incarnation of the Nine-tailed Fox God and, in the future, might even be able to use a modified version of the [Nine-tailed Form] to ascend once more to the Nine-tailed Realm.

She would begin the Refinement of Heaven and Earth Spirit Charm, continuously forming new tails and climbing to a higher Realm. She would do this to compensate for having only a single tail, striving to better match the image of the Nine-tailed Fox God.

This was the path she would now walk. As for what would happen when the original Nine-tailed Fox awoke? It wouldn’t really matter. The path she was taking was her own and did not conflict with the original’s. Besides, she and the original Nine-tailed Fox were still of the same soul.

If the other awoke, it would be like a part of her own self awakening. There would be no conflict. Just as she could never bring herself to think of self-harm, she could never harm her other self—the Nine-tailed Fox.

This relationship kept the group stable. The once-reserved One-tailed would now occasionally tell Jiang Qiu and Ah Xiong about her dreams. Jiang Qiu had heard of such things; back in the Primordial world cluster, certain races did indeed increase their strength through faith.

But he had never expected to encounter such a system in the First Celestial Realm. Unfortunately, he wasn’t familiar with it and had no good advice to offer. The path ahead was one One-tailed would have to walk alone.

As for the original Nine-tailed Fox, her consciousness was in chaos. Though she had woken up, it was as if she were still asleep. Jiang Qiu couldn’t truly rouse her. However, he discovered that One-tailed could now enter the Dragon Race space within his body, so he simply placed the original Nine-tailed Fox inside to bathe in a pool formed from various Treasures of Heaven and Earth.

As for the path ahead, they would decide what to do once they reached Tai Lake.