Chapter 62: Two Flaws

Qing’s eyes widened the moment he heard those words, and he instinctively asked, "What did you say?" His expression changed completely, as the information about the ritual immediately caught his attention.

The Demon trembled even more as if it had already anticipated this Human’s rage to boil up over this matter, and it hurriedly explained, "S-She is planning to sacrifice the whole Sect to Ascend to an Immortal Realm. The current her has two major flaws, and because of them, she cannot ascend."

Qing gritted his teeth before saying in a cold voice, "Continue...what are the flaws?"

His voice carried a trace of impatience as he stared directly at the Demon. The Demon’s translucent soul flinched as it looked into the deadly abyssal eyes of Qing, ’I-I am sure I am the Demon here... but why does he seem like the Demon and not me?’

The Demon could only wonder that as the next moment it hurriedly explained, "F-First is obviously because she is not that talented. As you might know, only the heaven-defying geniuses with extremely rare talent can ascend."

"To fulfill that, the ritual will help her by consuming the souls and, in exchange, giving her a heaven-defying talent." The Demon paused for a moment, but the moment it saw the same expression remaining on Qing’s face, dread once again spread through its entire being. It hurriedly continued before Qing could ask anything else, "The second flaw is that she cannot survive the tribulation the Heavens sends."

"But...by performing this ritual, she will be able to bypass the tribulation entirely."

The moment Qing heard that, his eyes snapped back and widened as his mind immediately focused on those words, ’Bypass the Tribulation?!’

The shock was obviously evident, to bypass a tribulation meant the person was basically almost invincible within the entire realm, just as he was thinking about what that could mean, the Demon continued again, "Not only that, but she can also bypass the tests held by the Immortal Realm’s beings for the newly ascended ones."

Qing frowned deeply as he wondered what kind of Ritual could even accomplish something like that. The more he heard about it, the more complicated the situation became, especially because he was not that knowledgeable about rituals even in his past life.

He had never studied anything like this before, and now he was suddenly dealing with a Ritual capable of changing someone’s talent and potentially allowing them to avoid the very trials required for Ascension.

’I have never even seen a ritual, as I had not even stepped inside a cultivation world to begin with, but from what he is saying...’ Qing paused as he carefully connected everything he had just heard.

His ultimate comprehension began processing the information almost immediately, and after a brief moment, he seemed to catch something within that plan for the ritual, ’Then she must need to fulfill some conditions before she activates the Ritual.’

He didn’t waste any time and immediately asked the Demon about it, "What’s the name of the Ritual? And what are the conditions to activate it?"

The Demon flinched again upon hearing his question, its translucent body trembling slightly as it desperately tried to recall everything it knew. "I-I know its name only. I do not know about the conditions to activate it."

Qing frowned again, clearly dissatisfied with the answer, and raised his fingers without hesitation before snapping them. Bifrost immediately sent more streaks of lightning toward the Demon, and its soul body was engulfed by Demonbane once again.

"I-I truly do not know!!! AHHHHHH!!!!" Its scream echoed throughout the Sea of Consciousness as its soul body was almost pushed to the point of fading away.

Yet, the next moment, its soul returned to normal again, and the Demon writhed uncontrollably as the torture continued without giving it even a moment of relief. It desperately tried to endure the pain, but it knew there was no point in remaining silent when the punishment would only become worse.

Regardless of how much it wanted to keep the information hidden, its current situation left it with no choice but to answer whatever it actually knew.

And one had to know that Demons did not reveal their secrets even if they were about to die. They had been trained to keep information hidden even under extreme circumstances, and ordinary torture would rarely make them willingly expose something important.

However, the torture the Demon was going through right now was not normal, nor was it one of the extreme methods they were accustomed to experiencing through their own training.

This was Qing’s Demonbane.

The attacks created by it were on an entirely different caliber, on top of that it was directly affecting the Demon’s soul and repeatedly bringing it to the edge of destruction before allowing it to recover again. Under such torture, even the Demon’s natural resistance and training could no longer keep its secrets protected, making it spill everything it knew without leaving out a single detail.

"I-Its name is ’Heavenly Blood Soul Ritual’, Th-That’s all I know. Except the Demon King, no Demon knows about this matter, as we were prohibited from prying into her personal matters." The Demon finally managed to finish speaking, its voice trembling from the lingering pain.

Qing narrowed his eyes as he finally obtained the name, but he still couldn’t understand the specific conditions through the name alone.

’I am also sure there is no knowledge about this specific Ritual in the Pavilion...’ He thought as his expression became more serious. He could already imagine the Sect Master removing every piece of information about it if it had ever existed inside the Sect’s records, simply to remain on the safe side, ’Damn it! Now where can I find the specifics about it? And she has three big plans like this? Fuck! Now my time is even tighter!’

Qing gritted his teeth again as he felt a headache coming over him despite having that ridiculous level of talent. He had already learned about the Rune Formations spread across the entire Upper Realm, the summoning of the Demon Generals and Demon King, the unknown construction beneath the Nine Lotus Sect, and now this Ritual.

Each piece of information only made the situation more troublesome, especially when he still had limited time to prepare himself.

"So, do you know when she is going to perform the Ritual?" Qing asked as he looked toward the Demon again. The Demon’s eyes themselves already told him that it didn’t know anything about the exact timing, but it still hurriedly answered, "A-Although I do not know about it, I am sure i-it’s on a special occasion, as it can only be activated at that specific time."

Qing narrowed his eyes for a brief moment again as he processed those words. The answer was not enough to tell him exactly when the Ritual would happen, but it confirmed something important: the timing wasn’t something Miye could freely choose. After a short silence, Qing sighed and snapped his fingers before turning away, while the Demon’s expression immediately changed in fear.

The torture began again.

Bifrost released another series of strikes upon the Demon, and its scream once again echoed through Qing’s Sea of Consciousness as he slowly walked away.

...

A moment later, Qing’s consciousness came back to the real world as he opened his eyes. His eyes remained fixed toward the front while many different solutions ran through his mind, each one leading to another problem. Currently, he was not even strong enough to fight the disciples, let alone fight the Sect Master herself.

Then there was the problem with the Rune Formations spread across the entire Upper Realm. He couldn’t be sure of their locations, nor could he determine how many she had already formed throughout the past century. Even if he somehow found them, dealing with all of them alone would be another enormous problem.

’I also need manpower. I alone won’t be able to put off all the Runic Formations...’ Qing thought as he exhaled a long breath. Even with his clone-forming technique, he knew he would never be able to create enough clones to spread them across an entire Upper Realm.

The Upper Realm was well over thousands, if not millions, of times larger than Earth, making the sheer scale of the task almost absurd.

Then came the problem with this Ritual, which he knew almost nothing about. He didn’t even know the conditions required to activate it, let alone how to stop it once those conditions were fulfilled. Qing remained silent for a moment as all these problems continued circulating through his mind.

Just as he was about to sigh again, something suddenly struck his mind. The moment it did, a smile appeared on Qing’s face as he thought.

’I need to go meet Master again.’