Chapter 1197: Revisiting the Desolate Valley

A grey sky, a silent valley, and thin mist floating on the treetops.

He Lingchuan stared at the small forest in front of him for a long while before remembering he had just had two dreams. Had he not actually woken up? Where was this?

He looked around and walked through the woods, hearing nothing but the sound of wind rustling the leaves. There were no insect chirps or bird calls, no monkey cries or wolf howls—just a deathly silence. In the Coiling Dragon World, were there such desolate forests?

He walked on aimlessly, his mind still deeply immersed in the dreams he had just experienced, unable to pull himself away. Especially the first dream. He had the fortune to witness firsthand the legendary process of the Black Dragon colliding with the Skynet Star. Looking down from the Black Dragon's perspective, the human world was both vast and fragile. The solemn grandeur of an apocalypse was as captivating as the vitality of an oasis.

Sky Demons, secret treasures, divine dragons, and immortals—these were all grand spectacles He Lingchuan had never heard of before. So, the immortals and divine beasts of ancient times were truly that powerful. And ancient divine abilities could indeed destroy heaven and earth. Then how weak could the Sky Demons, their opponents, be? Thinking of the future, He Lingchuan felt a heavy heart. In those ancient times, when immortals clashed, seven or eight out of ten immortal saints perished in battle, achieving only a Pyrrhic victory. If the Sky Demons could truly return, who in this world would be their match?

If he had had this dream four years ago, when he had just obtained the divine bone necklace, the first path he might have abandoned would likely have been "resistance." How could one fight against them? The gap between mortals and immortals was too vast, leading to despair.

He let out a long breath. Fortunately, he was seeing these scenes four years later. This dream, paradoxically, made him even clearer-headed: While acknowledging the disparity, one must wait for opportunities and seize them. Plan before acting. Where were the supreme immortals who once dominated everything? Even the strongest beings in the human world were eventually brought low by fate, their noble heads bowed, falling sadly into the mortal realm. A hero's fate is not his own when fortune abandons him. However, all things have cycles, and fortune is like a tide—it ebbs and flows. Conversely, would there be a day when heaven and earth would work together?

As he recalled what he had seen in the dream, both the Black Dragon and True Master Shou'an had said that the Sky Demons, though still capable of fighting them back then, had chosen to retreat beyond the heavens. So, the red-glowing treasure in the sky must have been the Ten Directions Skynet. What the Black Dragon crashed to the ground was likely a fragment of the Skynet Star.

Immortal Shou'an did not hide in a blessed grotto-heaven but instead took on the grave responsibility for the world, pursuing the remaining Sky Demons while also searching for the fragments of the Skynet Star. He Lingchuan knew the end of this story: Immortal Shou'an found the fragments, and, along with True Master San Shui and several other master artifact refiners, forged them into the Grand Square Cauldron. The moment the Grand Square Cauldron came into being, it damaged the Heaven and Earth Great Furnace and clashed with the laws of heaven and earth. It was very likely that "Primal Force," a brand-new human power, emerged at that time. The immortals had originally intended to imbue it with spirit using the Spirit-Sealing Treasure Lid, but True Master San Shui changed his mind at the last moment and fled to a minor world with the lid. Later, the lid was brought back to Beijia and enshrined in the Star-Picking Tower. Two years ago, He Lingchuan caused a great commotion at the Heavenly Palace and took the treasure lid, allowing the Grand Square Cauldron to be made whole again. The complete sequence of events in this story finally connected today.

What He Lingchuan paid particular attention to were the actions of the Black Dragon. Black Flood Dragon totems had appeared in both Coiling Dragon City and Yuheng City. What was their connection to the fallen Black Dragon? All the immortals said that it was in harmony with heaven and earth, had the deepest and broadest understanding of laws, and ultimately made a heroic sacrifice for the human world. This was called "sacrificing oneself to achieve benevolence."

The second dream, meanwhile, revealed the origin of the Rakshasa Armor. If the Black Dragon indeed fell on Dragon Head Mountain, which is now White Hair Mountain, then it seemed reasonable that Yuyang Sect used its scales to create the Rakshasa Armor. The one who undoubtedly seized the precious armor from Yuyang Sect was Pang Yuan, the founding emperor of the Glimmering Gold Empire. While the armor functioned perfectly on him, it began to cause trouble when it fell into others' hands. However, this dream also clarified a misconception: the Heart Scale had been lost even before Pang Yuan obtained the Rakshasa Armor, not, as later legends claimed, knocked off when the last emperor wore it into battle. This information was quite important.

He Lingchuan wondered why he would have no dreams at all only to have two consecutively in one night. Perhaps, there was indeed one object that could link these two dreams: the Black Dragon scale. In other words, the divine bone necklace had consumed both the Heart Scale and the Rakshasa Armor separately, and then replayed two segments of cause and effect for him. This was exactly like its behavior after it consumed a leaf from the Dao-Questioning Tree years ago. The Grand Square Cauldron was truly extraordinary. It could no longer be simply defined as a "magical artifact."

As he pondered with his head lowered, his eye suddenly caught a faint red glow. In such a desolate and quiet place, any anomaly warranted attention. He Lingchuan quickly walked over to investigate and saw that the source of the glow was actually a pond, approximately seven to eight square meters in size. Oh, he suddenly remembered. After the Grand Square Cauldron had absorbed the Niraya Heaven clone, he had entered this place once before, but only that one time. The Niraya Heaven clone had eventually transformed into a small tree. He Lingchuan remembered carving a mark on the tree, so he should be able to find it.

But why had he entered this valley again? It wasn't hard to guess it was because of the treasures the Grand Square Cauldron had recently consumed. He rarely had the opportunity to enter this place. Did this mean that the Rakshasa Armor and the Heart Scale were as important to the Grand Square Cauldron as the Niraya Heaven clone?

The wind in the valley did not stir ripples. The water surface glowed faintly red and was as smooth as a mirror. He Lingchuan walked to the edge of the pond. His gaze casually swept downwards and then froze: Something was swimming in the water. To be precise, dozens of shadowy figures moved beneath the calm surface. He Lingchuan initially thought they were tadpoles, but upon closer inspection, they were all monsters. Their upper bodies resembled humans, while everything below the waist was a swirling phantom. These monsters had human facial features. Some looked ferocious, others appeared burdened with worries, but their forms were almost transparent. They swam aimlessly, muttering to themselves, seemingly oblivious to He Lingchuan outside the water.

He remembered. The last time he saw the Niraya Heaven clone, it was also trapped in the water. This shallow body of water seemed capable of separating two worlds. In the Coiling Dragon World, He Lingchuan was utterly fearless. He simply crouched down to observe carefully. Then, he saw the Rakshasa Armor lying quietly at the bottom of the reddish water. The faces of these wandering souls, he had actually seen them all in the previous dream. Those who had found the Rakshasa Armor and fought while wearing it, and those who were eventually controlled by it and driven to frenzied killing—most of them had transformed into these wandering souls in the water. It seemed they had found no release even in death, still bound within the Rakshasa Armor. No wonder this malevolent armor's malevolence had grown increasingly potent. Why were they able to be released here? He also noticed that the hole he had created in the Rakshasa Armor's chest was still there. Had the shadowy figures swum out from there?