Chapter 996: Secret

Inside the chaotic and aberrant White Jade Capital, everything around Li Huowang became unstable. This instability, however, wasn't due to his cultivation abilities but rather the influence of the Three Pure Ones' Heavenly Dao. Li Huowang could feel that the Three Pure Ones were very, very close to him. The thought of their disgusting past actions immediately contorted Li Huowang's face into a grimace, and his breathing grew heavier.

He immediately gripped his military knife and swung it fiercely around him, but as the sensation of hair brushed past him, the blade met nothing. Seeing that his attacks couldn't harm the Three Pure Ones, Li Huowang was about to switch to a different method of attack when a gunshot rang out. Instantly, Li Huowang felt something invisible in front of him tremble violently, briefly revealing a fleeting silhouette. It was an immense, translucent, incredibly vast, and boundless existence, something that looked like a shimmering, amorphous protoplasmic mass. In that fleeting moment, Li Huowang noticed that its body was formed by a causal chain of interconnected secrets. As Li Huowang saw those secrets, he also understood them. Just as he instinctively absorbed the infinite secrets and was on the verge of understanding what exactly the Three Pure Ones had taken from him, his head suddenly felt hot, and with a "bang" sound, Li Huowang felt sweat stream down his forehead and drip from his chin. He had no time to spare for this now, because Li Huowang realized the Three Pure Ones were trying to escape!

"Nana! Keep up, your attacks work on him!" Li Huowang rapidly pursued in the direction the Three Pure Ones retreated. As he chased, Li Huowang cautiously scanned his surroundings, wary of a possible ambush. He knew the Three Pure Ones wouldn't just appear here without a definite purpose. Riding a motorcycle, Yang Na sped past Li Huowang, positioning herself directly in front of him, and immediately raised her gun to fire. "Quick, attack! I've got him!"

"Alright!" Li Huowang didn't hesitate. He raised his severed hand, smeared it across the military knife, and leapt high into the air, holding the blood-stained knife. Accompanied by Yang Na's gunshots, he lunged towards the Three Pure Ones. With a squelching sound, as the blade became stained with Li Huowang's blood, the military knife finally injured the Three Pure Ones. Interconnected secrets, both large and small, flowed from the wound like blood. In response to Li Huowang's attack, the Three Pure Ones reacted swiftly. Their entire body, formed of secrets, instantly dispersed from in front of him and floated in all directions.

Having finally wounded the Three Pure Ones, Li Huowang wouldn't let them go so easily. He immediately pursued rapidly in the direction indicated by the sensation of floating hairs. "Nana!" Just as Yang Na sped past him, Li Huowang jumped directly onto the passing motorcycle beside her. As the distance closed, Li Huowang could even feel the secrets flowing from the Three Pure Ones. One secret, about the size of a ping-pong ball, struck his damaged eye squarely. Accompanied by a cool, refreshing sensation, an image flashed through his mind instantly: a blind old Daoist priest, his expression bitter, sitting on a meditation cushion. He was burning incense, kowtowing, and softly speaking to three divine statues. His words appeared with utmost clarity in Li Huowang's ears:

"Heavenly Venerate, during a recent tomb raid, a secret was revealed from an ancient jade slip. Your disciple doesn't know if it's true or false; I pray for your answers and guidance.""Why does the world suffer? Why does this land endure natural disasters? Why are the various sects so strange and different? The ancient jade slip offered an answer."As he spoke, the blind old Daoist priest's expression turned to fear, and his voice began to tremble, as if he desperately wished not to believe what he was about to say, yet felt compelled to. "This... is because of the karma we are due. This world should not be the mortal realm; it is inherently a realm of ghosts. We subjects were not mortals to begin with, but suffering ghosts!""The primordial Nuo ritual was rampant, and the Five Realms and Six Paths of reincarnation were complete. Thus, everything is so distorted: humans are not like humans, and ghosts are not like ghosts."After finally uttering these words, the blind old Daoist priest seemed to have exhausted all his strength, letting out a desolate, miserable laugh. "Heavenly Venerate, if we are all ghosts, then what Dao do we cultivate, and what immortal can we become?"

The visual vanished instantly, and when Li Huowang regained his senses, he found himself back inside the White Jade Capital. "What?! This world is riddled with strangeness because Great Liang was once the underworld?!" He recalled the Flesh Bodhisattva of Zhengde Temple, the Fly Guanyin of An Ci Temple, and the charred Gu God of Manichaeism, and a strange sense of logic arose within him. The intense shock caused Li Huowang's mind to momentarily shut down, and in that brief instant, the Three Pure Ones gained distance again. Shaking his head vigorously, Li Huowang cursed under his breath, "What on earth is this nonsense?!" This secret wasn't the main point at all. The key was that the Three Pure Ones intended to use this secret to hinder him. Only the Three Pure Ones, masters of the Heavenly Dao of Secrets, could use secrets for defense in this way.

Looking at the Three Pure Ones, now some distance away, Li Huowang couldn't let them keep running. Heaven knew where they would lead him if they continued. He stood up, supporting himself on Yang Na's back, and with a powerful leap from the motorcycle's rear seat, he surged forward. As there was still some distance to cover, Li Huowang's brow furrowed, and Peng Longteng appeared beside him. Peng Longteng swung his massive halberd, hooked Li Huowang, and powerfully hurled him forward. This throw closed the distance. Li Huowang raised the blood-stained knife in his hand, roaring, and fiercely stabbed it into the Three Pure Ones.

Li Huowang held the military knife with one hand, on the verge of tearing the Three Pure Ones apart completely, when wisps of threads adhered to Li Huowang's head and violently pulled him upwards. Forced to look up, Li Huowang froze when he clearly saw what was above him. The White Jade Capital was supposed to be chaotic and disordered, where black and white were indistinguishable. Yet, directly above him, the situation had dramatically changed. The seven-colored black, which had once completely immersed Great Qi and could animate everything, reappeared. This time, it wasn't a liquid; it had transformed into a peculiar color that dyed the entire sky black. Li Huowang hadn't forgotten where he was! He was in the White Jade Capital! The Blessed Life Heavenly Venerate had somehow, at some unknown point, assimilated a part of the White Jade Capital! And this was different from last time; previously, a rift had appeared, but this time it was assimilation, and it had assimilated more than half of the White Jade Capital's sky, if the White Jade Capital could even be said to have a sky. And within the dim, seven-colored black, those colors pulsed continuously as if alive, seemingly gestating some terrifying life.