Chapter 1043: Xi

Li Qi checked the situation Li Qi was encountering.

From various clues, Li Qi's will spread out like a net.

At this moment, La Qi instantly experienced what 'terror' was.

In La Qi's eyes, he could feel his existence constantly fluctuating, and his memories began to change.

This change was traceable, so La Qi's self-perception wouldn't be problematic. He could clearly perceive the process of change, as well as the two states before and after the change.

He could clearly feel that in his past life, one 'Master' after another began to appear.

Yet, he had clearly gone through that experience alone.

But now, the altered memory told him that a Master had been by his side during that experience, even though the Master hadn't changed anything about the situation or offered him any protection, but had merely investigated through the time he was in.

Fourth Grade possessed incomplete substantiality. This incompleteness was because while they could maintain their own substantiality, they couldn't become the substantiality of others.

In other words, they could exist in the world without a cornerstone. They could be their own cause, but they couldn't be the cause of others.

This allowed him to perceive the changes within himself, even though he was powerless to stop them.

Soon, another change occurred.

The Master who had appeared earlier had disappeared again.

This was strange. In his memory, for example, the Master hadn't been present at a certain ceremony.

But just now, the Master had appeared in his memory, standing below the ceremony.

Then, he found that the Master was gone again, and had been absent from the very beginning.

This kind of memory confusion caused La Qi immense pain, to the point where he almost couldn't distinguish what reality was.

However, in the next moment, La Qi discovered something even stranger.

In his memories, many 'people' began to disappear.

These were people he was familiar with, many of whom were unrelated and had no suspicious points.

But they just disappeared.

Such a disappearance directly led to a huge upheaval, causing a significant deviation in his life.

However, before he could go astray, Li Qi suddenly reappeared and began to mend this discrepancy, preventing his life from deviating too far.

Finally, Li Qi returned to the present, grabbed La Qi, and then directly took him, Transmitting through space.

The next moment, La Qi saw his 'acquaintances', but they quickly flashed by, without focusing on them.

Within Li Qi's will, spreading like a spiderweb, an eye opened.

An eye also opened on Li Qi's forehead.

An eye of the Heavenly Demon, the True Knowledge Dao Resonance that Li Qi possessed.

Li Qi rarely used this item anymore, because his own observational abilities were already powerful enough, and after all, this thing came from the Heavenly Demon, so Li Qi generally wouldn't use it.

But at this time, there was no need to be apprehensive.

Li Qi had been tracing La Qi's power upwards.

Then, he took La Qi and crashed into a strange place.

This seemed to be an independent Heavens, and it was not open to the outside world.

He placed La Qi beside him and then looked at the owner within.

"Hey, so it was you who manipulated my disciple's life, and did it so subtly that you almost hid it from me too."

La Qi was startled and followed Li Qi's gaze.

Then, La Qi saw a beautiful woman.

One of her eyes was gold, and the other was silver, dazzling and beautiful.

With a falling jade hairpin and light pink silk, one couldn't help but gaze at the hem of her skirt, where moonlight shone at night, and flower branches were faint, with a trailing璎珞, and where the flowing mist poured, purple light shone on red and green.

Who is this person?

Why manipulate his life?

La Qi didn't understand.

So he chose to hold his breath and obediently watch his Master negotiate with the other party.

He watched Li Qi walk up and say, "Oh... you weren't targeting La Qi, you were setting a trap for me."

Hmm?

How did it come to setting a trap for the Master again?

La Qi was confused.

And Li Qi, looking at the woman, had already recognized her.

Xi.

The woman with golden and silver eyes standing before Li Qi now was the source of Chang Xi and Xi He, the goddess of the moon, the mother of the ten suns and twelve moons, Emperor Jun's wife, the calendar maker of ancient times, the Heavenly God of the sun and moon—'Xi'.

So she had revived.

Does that mean that the Great Shaman Chang Xi, who once gifted him 'Moonlight Wine', was already dead?

This is truly...

Then, looking back... his action of freeing Xiangliu still played a part in fanning the flames, and perhaps the Tai Sui incident was also related to this.

He had thought that La Qi's life being controlled meant someone was targeting La Qi, but it turned out they wanted to use La Qi to set a trap for him.

"I have no intention of interfering in the internal disputes of the Heavenly Gods; you don't need to set your sights on me," Li Qi said to Xi before him.

"Really? But you've already interfered." Xi blinked, and as she blinked, the surrounding time also changed.

Li Qi seemed to find it a bit dazzling, so he stomped his foot, and the surroundings calmed down, no longer having so many mysterious special effects. At the same time, he said, "Is it about Tai Sui? That time was not my intention. My only enemy is the Demonic Dao, and I don't plan to support any side of the Heavenly Gods."

"Is that so? But can you still disentangle yourself from the matters of the Heavenly Gods? You and Haotian, you and Yao Ji, you and Taiyi, and your unsealing of Xiangliu, helping me revive, and even... have you forgotten your conversation with the Old Ancestor of the Human Dao Eclectic School? You've learned those things, you can't leave now," Xi said to Li Qi.

Li Qi rubbed his temples.

This is truly something.

Was the Eclectic School Old Ancestor telling him those things for today?

These people are truly always causing trouble for him.

"No, I still have a way to leave. The struggles of the Heavenly Gods cannot drag me in. If you insist on pulling me in, I will defect," Li Qi warned.

"Many times, it's not about forcing you to join, but because once you see those things, you must join. Do you know Yao Ji's identity?" Xi asked.

"Haotian's daughter, essentially the remnants from Haotian's birth. What about her?" Li Qi asked.

"What do you think about letting Yao Ji take charge of Haotian's authority?" Xi asked.

Li Qi turned and walked away.

He didn't want to discuss such trivial matters; he didn't even want to hear about them.

Moreover, these Heavenly Gods who wanted to exterminate Mortals shouldn't have lured him over with La Qi. Any cooperation could have been discussed face-to-face. The fact that they insisted on testing Li Qi through La Qi already made it unlikely for Li Qi to choose to cooperate.

Looking at Li Qi's back, Xi continued, "After Yao Ji becomes Haotian, she will also be very interested in exterminating devils."

Li Qi stopped, then turned his head and said, "I will handle the matter of exterminating devils myself. Whether you do it or not is your business. Don't use that to bargain with me."

With that, Li Qi left immediately, without any hesitation.

However, he still kept a close watch.

The other party starting with La Qi certainly wasn't that simple, which meant his leisurely days were probably coming to an end.

After leaving that place, Li Qi and La Qi reappeared in the Museum of the End of Time.

La Qi stood upright.

Li Qi patted his shoulder, and a mark appeared on La Qi's body: "I'll keep an eye on you, so you don't have to worry too much. Just do what you need to do."

"However, your cultivation should also be improved, but there's a problem... you've learned too many secrets in advance. The more you know, the harder it will be to Breakthrough. You'll have to solve this yourself," Li Qi said.

"Then, Master, their matter—" La Qi seemed to want to say something.

But Li Qi waved his hand: "Alright, you don't need to worry about these things. Just focus on yourself. This mark is here. I need to deal with these matters now. You work hard and keep an eye out."

Then, just like with Zhu Fengdan, Li Qi didn't give La Qi a chance to refuse and simply fled.

Leaving only La Qi, like Li Qi once was, in disarray in the wind.

His Master was so impulsive, so what was he supposed to do?

Finally, he could only give a wry smile.

What else could he do?

This was probably the only way.

———————————

Li Qi rushed non-stop towards the location of the pagoda.

That pagoda was the one Kasyapa had created, and the Demonic Prince was reading the Da Sanzang there.

However, as far as Li Qi knew, a few years ago, when the Human Emperor fell, the Demonic Prince immediately stopped accumulating the Da Sanzang and ran directly to the Da Zhengzang, wanting to move the entire Da Zhengzang back.

Ultimately, he failed. The Da Zhengzang and the Three Teachings' fusion behind it were key projects of the Human Dao. Even with the Human Emperor's fall, these areas could not be relaxed. In the end, he, many Great Bodhisattvas, and Second Grade who hoped to obtain the Da Zhengzang, even when working together, could not succeed.

But it wasn't without any gains. Although they didn't snatch the Da Zhengzang, they still used methods, secretly creating a diversion, and managed to copy a version of it.

This copied version lacked divine will, so it was much inferior, but at least the original text was mostly obtained, so everyone knew when to quit and went their separate ways.

For all the time afterward, the Demonic Prince had been studying the Da Zhengzang and Da Sanzang, comparing them to extract the 'Dao' they intended to express.

Da Zhengzang, Da Sanzang.

One is all the Buddhist scriptures compiled by the Human Dao, from which they screened and extracted what they considered valuable parts. The other is the Buddha's sayings compiled by Buddha's disciples after the Buddha's nirvana.

Both seemed very important to the Demonic Prince. He had been reading the Da Sanzang before, and the Da Zhengzang was in the Human Dao's hands, so he could only say it would be dealt with later, slowly finding a way.

But a great gift package fell from the sky; the Human Emperor suddenly disappeared, so now, both the Da Zhengzang and Da Sanzang were in his hands. Although the Da Zhengzang lacked divine will, making its study much more difficult, it was still 'difficult' and not 'impossible'.

It could be said that the Demonic Prince's matter was almost resolved.

And Li Qi had already obtained the Desire Realm, and from the Desire Realm, he found even deeper source code of the Heavenly Demon regarding the operating logic of the Reality Universe.

Everything was ready, just waiting for the opportune moment.

Li Qi had originally planned to wait for the opportune moment, living a comfortable life every day, cultivating disciples, and catering to his Master, until the Demonic Prince was fully prepared and the opportune moment arrived, then he would begin the next step of exterminating devils.

However, the Heavenly Gods seemed unwilling to give him this opportunity. Now, the conflict between the two factions of Heavenly Gods seemed to have reached its breaking point.

It had even reached the point of wanting to usurp Haotian.

Haotian had been suppressing all actions of the Heavenly Gods, and not just the Heavenly Gods. Whether it was Taiyi, Huanglong, the Human Dao, Shaman Dao, or other struggles, as long as they involved severing the possibilities of the Universe, Haotian would intervene.

This had probably caused much dissatisfaction.

That group of Heavenly Gods who believed Mortals should all be exterminated, including Gonggong, Emperor Jun, and Emperor Hundun, were themselves extremely arrogant. As the First Gods, they initially did not believe that the Acquired Mortal races had the right to be on par with them.

Thus, the ten suns, the Golden Crows, scorched the earth; thus, Gonggong wanted to stir up floods to submerge the Heavens. Nine Infants, Xiuzhe, Hebo, and other Heavenly Gods also stood with them. These were all choices made to target Mortals.

But Haotian and some more moderate Heavenly Gods stopped them.

Zhu Rong punished Gonggong for the sake of Mortals, exiling Gonggong, while Yi, at Emperor Yao's instigation, shot down nine suns, leaving only the single sun that exists today.

Yi's wife was even entrapped because of this, ascending to the moon controlled by Xi, imprisoned and unable to return. He eventually died at the hands of Pang Meng.

To these Heavenly Gods, Mortals existed in the world only because of their 'benevolence' and 'grace'.

If not for them, Mortals would have long been extinct.

The initial cultivation systems basically appeared by imitating the Gods, and even now, they cannot escape these shadows. Imitating Haotian's body is still the most common and widespread cultivation method.

But now, these Mortals were in turn slaughtering Gods, and even wanted to 'replace Heaven with humans'. Even the Shamanes, who had the best relationship with the Heavenly Gods, thought of being on equal footing.

It was simply an inversion of cosmic order.

And Haotian actually accepted it.

It's conceivable that Haotian's 'hands-off' policy towards Mortals, his indifference towards all things including the Heavenly Gods, and the Mortals' own arrogance, even to the point of slaughtering the Gods who created them, had become intolerable to these Heavenly Gods.

From their perspective, it was like a pet dog they had been carefully feeding one day bit and killed their family.

And Haotian, as their Parent, paid no attention to this.

Then they could only take matters into their own hands.

Fortunately, Li Qi, in their classification, did not belong to Mortals... This might be because Li Qi was created by the Heavenly Demon and also had Heavenly God characteristics, rather than being a Mortal who cultivated his way up.

But no matter what, Li Qi didn't want to interfere in such matters, nor did he want these things to become obstacles for him.

He must inform the Demonic Prince.

Don't wait for the opportune moment anymore.