In the next instant, the phantom of Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan high above the nine heavens abruptly transformed into a face, half radiating righteous dignity and half twisted into something uncanny. At the same time, the figures floating in the surrounding void vanished, turning into faces that converged upon that enormous, twisted face of good and evil, becoming part of it. The face kept shifting; in every passing moment, strange faces flashed across it—men and women, old and young. With just one fleeting glance, Huang Huai saw no fewer than hundreds, even thousands.
As that hideously shifting face roared toward him, a realization rose in Huang Huai's heart: those faces, now reduced to parts of the monstrous visage, might belong to people who had once received the inheritance within the Jade Ruyi, but had refused to submit to Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan.
He marveled that the Jade Ruyi had passed through so many hands. At the same time, Huang Huai couldn't help but marvel that there were so many others like him who refused to submit to Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan. That alone proved there had to be something he didn't understand about all this. If someone submitted to him inside this illusion, there was likely some enormous hidden danger, with consequences too terrible to bear.
But seeing what had become of so many who came before him, Huang Huai knew that unless some miracle occurred, he would become one of the many faces in that hideous visage.
"Lord Guan Er, save me!"
A sudden inspiration struck. Huang Huai thought of Holy Lord Emperor Guan, whom he had worshiped for more than ten years, ever since childhood, and instinctively cried out.
In Huang Huai's room at Xunzhen Temple, he seemed to be trapped in a nightmare. His face was full of panic, as though something had frightened him. At the center of the string of beads around his wrist, the lifelike statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan, carved from black obsidian and about the size of a thumb, flashed with light.
As Huang Huai's cry for help faded, winds and clouds surged through the boundless void. A flash of divine radiance appeared before his eyes, and a towering figure emerged in the void, light shining all around him. Who else could it be but Holy Lord Emperor Guan?
Seeing Holy Lord Emperor Guan appear, Huang Huai's heart settled.
At that moment, Holy Lord Emperor Guan's towering figure, wreathed in divine light, stood before Huang Huai. High above the nine heavens, the enormous face formed from the phantom of Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan—seeming to shroud that entire stretch of space—charged straight at Holy Lord Emperor Guan.
The face seemed to lack intelligence, more like a kind of imprint. But when it suddenly sensed Holy Lord Emperor Guan's presence, its furious roar grew louder, and it hurtled forward even faster.
Holy Lord Emperor Guan stroked his beard with one hand and held the Green Dragon Crescent Blade in the other. His phoenix eyes lowered slightly. In the next instant, an unbearably proud voice rang out: "A braggart with a wooden marker for a head! Guan is here, and you still dare to run wild!"
A flash of blade light streaked through the air. The hideous face, sweeping toward them like the sky itself, shattered in an instant. Watching this, Huang Huai seemed to hear something break; then his body abruptly plummeted.
In that fleeting glimpse, Huang Huai saw Lord Guan Er casually cleave the sky apart, still wearing that same proud expression. The great Divine Body seemed to glance at him before vanishing.
"Ah!"
With a cry, Huang Huai, who had been lying in bed, suddenly sat upright. His eyes still held the lingering terror of someone who had barely escaped death.
Huang Huai's face was pale. He gasped for breath, and only after a while did his racing heart settle. Then he immediately lifted the pillow beneath him and looked toward the head of the bed.
He remembered clearly: before going to sleep, he had casually tucked the Jade Ruyi and the pale Azure Treasure Bead under his pillow.
But what he saw now made Huang Huai let out a long sigh. The once exquisite and ancient-looking Jade Ruyi had shattered into a pile of fragments, while the pale Azure Treasure Bead was nowhere to be found, no matter how he searched.
The Jade Ruyi had been in his possession for several days, and he had even carried it close to his body without anything unusual happening. Yet simply because he had placed it together with that pale Azure Treasure Bead, the incident in his dream had occurred as soon as he fell asleep.
There was no doubt that the Jade Ruyi's inheritance had been activated because of that pale Azure Treasure Bead.
But now was not the time to dwell on the vanished bead. He needed to consider the illusion he had just experienced, an illusion that had felt utterly real.
After taking a deep breath, Huang Huai got out of bed. He no longer felt like sleeping, so he sat at the table, found a small jar of Spilled Jade Spirit Nourishing Tea, and brewed himself a cup with one leaf.
The dreamlike experience still stirred ripples in Huang Huai's heart. Now, all he had to do was calm his mind, and the cultivation method known as the "Xuan Yuan Casting God Method," along with some newly acquired information about it, would appear in his thoughts.
If not for what had happened, Huang Huai would never have dreamed that Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan had planted such a dangerous trap inside the Jade Ruyi that bore the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method.
Huang Huai lifted the tea and drained it in one go. Its cool, clean fragrance soothed his mind. He sat there, drinking cup after cup, until suddenly he couldn't help laughing.
"Haha! Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan, you never imagined I had Holy Lord Emperor Guan's protection. Now the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method is in my hands. Would you call that losing both your wife and your army?"
To be honest, if not for the information about the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method that had suddenly appeared in his mind after the illusion shattered, Huang Huai really might have hesitated over whether to practice it.
After all, Huang Huai couldn't be sure whether the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method passed down by Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan had any hidden dangers. But after receiving that information about the method, he was completely reassured.
If Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan had created the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method, then there would have been a strong chance that the method concealed some hidden danger. But the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method had not been created by Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan.
Instead, Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan had obtained the cultivation method called the "Xuan Yuan Casting God Method" and only then cultivated to the status of an Emperor Lord, taking Xuan Yuan as his honorific title.
In one case, Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan had existed before the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method; in the other, the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method had existed before Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan. The two were naturally not the same.
Now that Huang Huai had confirmed the Xuan Yuan Casting God Method hadn't been left behind by someone as ruthless and vicious as Emperor Lord Xuan Yuan, his mood was unbelievably bright.
"I managed to escape disaster today and even obtained that cultivation method. I have Lord Guan Er to thank for that."
Thinking of Lord Guan Er's display of divine might in the illusion, at the moment when life and death hung in the balance, Huang Huai could no longer sit still.
The eastern sky had just begun to pale, and dawn still lay beneath a gray haze. Yet Huang Huai made his way to the side hall, took incense and candles, and respectfully bowed before Holy Lord Emperor Guan.
The side hall was silent, its atmosphere solemn and reverent. Incense drifted softly through the air. Being there brought peace to the heart and mind, leaving no room for stray thoughts.
Before the statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan, Huang Huai sat cross-legged on a prayer mat, his expression solemn. In his mind, the profound Xuan Yuan Casting God Method surfaced.
[Third update. Please vote, read on, and tip!]
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