Welcome Back, Qian Renxue

Chapter 10. Welcome Back, Qian Renxue

"Xiaoxue... you have to live on." Her hand trembled slightly as it gently caressed her cheek, but in the end, it fell limply.

Heaven itself seemed to have played a cruel joke on me. I had been kept in the dark my entire life, only learning the truth at the moment of my mother's death. Yet everything was already beyond redemption.

My Divine Throne had shattered, and my mother had died beneath his sword. The city walls crumbled, smoke filled the air, and the armies of the two great empires stormed into Spirit Hall, looting without restraint. I watched Spirit Hall's thousand-year legacy be destroyed in an instant.

Helplessness and regret could not describe the pain in my heart.

After burying my mother and the elders who had fallen in that war, I hid in the shadows, concealing myself as I silently witnessed the enemy revel in their victory. What pained me most was not that they celebrated atop the ruins of the Spirit Hall Empire, but—

In a village, a child asked timidly, "Village Chief Grandpa, have the bad people left?"

The village chief comforted him, "Don't be afraid, child. Those villains from the Spirit Hall Empire who wanted to invade Heaven Dou will never come again."

"They have already been defeated by Lord Sea God."

Grandfather, are these the people I swore to protect?

Mother was a sinner of Spirit Hall. She had placed Spirit Hall in an unjust position and made it the target of all. I tried to save Spirit Hall, to rule this continent through my own means, yet I failed to spread the glory of the Angels across this land. In the end, Sea God Tang San, the victor, became the faith of the continent.

Our era came to an end, while the story of the Shrek Seven Devils became legend. People praised the beauty of the Sea God Era as they watched them ascend, never realizing that the demons had already been unleashed.

The old order had collapsed, yet a new order was never established. Sea God had only used his pressure to rule the continent during his era. After he left, shadows quietly gathered in unseen corners.

The era of Spirit Hall ended, but Martial Soul awakenings continued. Policies differed from place to place. Lords would only awaken the Martial Souls of their own subjects, and every territory had its own fee system. Some territories did not even take responsibility for awakenings, leaving villagers unable to awaken their Martial Souls for their entire lives and burying countless commoner geniuses. Even where commoners could awaken successfully, their talents would only become cannon fodder in the hands of nobles.

You commoner Soul Masters who, in Spirit Hall's era, proclaimed that you did not want to become Spirit Hall's lapdogs and only wished to be free Soul Masters—were you truly free?

Without Spirit Hall, the truce period set by Sea God came to an end. After Sea God ascended, wars between nations once more shrouded this world. Yet after several thousand years, the two great powers of Heaven Dou and Star Luo maintained a strange balance, neither able to swallow the other.

I watched the Tang Sect sell Hidden Weapons, Shrek Academy produce talents, and the forces Tang San had left behind, such as the Clear Sky Sect. They stood above the world, secretly maintaining the continent's balance. For thousands of years, the situation remained a standoff between Heaven Dou and Star Luo, until the Heaven Dou Empire split in two and the three nations fought without end.

And I—

My life had long since been extinguished, yet the shattered Divine Seed fused with my soul, preventing me from entering reincarnation. I could only drift helplessly through the river of time and space. I witnessed everything that happened in the future.

The first Evil Spirit Master Rebellion. They emerged from the shadows into the open, and wherever they passed, countless families were destroyed. Evil Spirit Masters cultivated with their victims' blood and souls. Behind every accomplished Evil Spirit Master lay mountains of corpses.

Only then did people begin to yearn for the descent of Angels.

Yes, our clan possessed a natural restraint against Evil Spirit Masters. Once an ordinary Angel Soul Master cultivated to the level of a Title Douluo, they would become a calamity for Evil Spirit Masters. An Angel Title Douluo could easily kill an extreme Evil Spirit Master through the power of restraint alone.

In Spirit Hall's era, every generation of Popes had been Angels, and there were even Limit Angel existences. Evil Spirit Masters had never been able to rise to prominence.

However, after that war ended in defeat, our clan had long since gone into hiding. The occasional Angel Soul Master who appeared on the continent still could not escape the brutal slaughter of Evil Spirit Masters. Evil Spirit Masters were extremely cunning; they would never allow a Soul Master with an Angel Martial Soul to cultivate to the Title Douluo rank.

Yet as the scourge of Evil Spirit Masters continued, Shrek Academy stepped in like a savior. They used Sea God's Light to suppress the Evil Spirit Masters. Those who survived the catastrophe bathed in Sea God's Light and sincerely thanked Sea God for saving them.

However, Evil Spirit Masters came like waves, one after another without end, continuing for tens of thousands of years.

Six thousand years later, I watched another continent drift over from beyond the sea. They came with ambitions similar to ours and launched a war, attempting to conquer this continent. They established an advantage through Soul Tools, but their path to unification was forcibly halted by Shrek Academy's powerful influence. Yet their Soul Tools also caused the Tang Sect founded by Sea God to decline.

Four thousand years later, the weakened Tang Sect reached an entirely new peak because of a genius who emerged as suddenly as Tang San had.

In that era, the Sun Moon Empire launched a war of unification. Yet at the very moment it was about to unify the continent, Tang San—who had already been a god for Ten Thousand Years—intervened and stopped it. That teenage genius ultimately attained a Divine Throne as well, but he was nothing more than Tang San's lapdog.

Several thousand more years passed, and the continent was finally unified. But Space Rifts appeared, and beings from Other Planes began invading this world. Countless heroic deeds emerged in that era. They stood on the front lines of the Space Rifts, stopping the invasion of creatures from Other Planes.

What moving, what stirring stories. Yet for some reason, they made my soul tremble, because I knew more than those heroes who had long since fallen asleep.

I knew that Tang San's father had become the Lord of the Plane, and his mother had seized the core of life through Body Seizure. They were fully capable of stopping this invasion, yet they merely watched coldly as this catastrophe befell all living beings.

My consciousness gradually wore away in the river of time, on the verge of scattering.

I thought of that scene at the entrance of the village twenty thousand years ago—

"Village Chief Grandpa, have the bad people left?"

"Don't be afraid, child. Those villains from the Spirit Hall Empire who wanted to invade Heaven Dou will never come again."

The lambs and wolves had joined forces to drive away the Fierce Tiger. How ironic.

At last, I felt my soul reach its end, my consciousness scattering...

"Mother, I'm coming to find you."

Qian Renxue slowly opened her eyes and looked around in confusion. She found herself inside a magnificent hall, where Spirit Qi capable of granting immortality filled the air.

She did not feel the drifting sensation of a soul after death. Instead, she had regained a body.

Instinctively, Qian Renxue summoned her Martial Soul.

Fallen Angel.

Six black and three red, the same configuration as back then. The side effects from her shattered Divine Core were gone, but her Divine Throne had also been stripped from her. She was now a level 99 Limit Douluo, with the strength of a quasi-god.

"Welcome back, Qian Renxue."