But Shao Lingxu's next quiet remark made Fang Han's heart jolt.
"Once your Creation Realm has been taken, death is all but certain. How could I have known you would survive? But..."
"You were hardly the only one whose Creation Realm I stripped away."
"One dies a hundred times over, a thousand times over..."
"But what about ten thousand?"
"With enough people, someone will always survive that fated calamity and be reborn."
A towering stench of blood lurked beneath Shao Lingxu's calm words.
What he said sent a chill down Fang Han's spine.
"There were more than ten thousand people like me?"
After a moment of stunned silence, Fang Han could no longer suppress the killing intent in his eyes.
"What use was it to steal the Creation Realm of ten thousand people?"
"You're still trapped at the Creation Stage!"
The truth had veered wildly from what Fang Han expected, and Shao Lingxu seemed more inscrutable than ever.
Fang Han did not act rashly.
He tried to learn more before making a move.
Shao Lingxu, for his part, was remarkably cooperative. He held nothing back.
He answered with a question, his voice proud. "I entered the Creation Stage two hundred years ago. What use would the Creation Realm, as ordinary people understand it, be to me?"
"Living beings number in the hundreds of millions. How many can attain the Creation Stage? And those at the Creation Stage who can glimpse the Cosmos Realm are all but extinct."
"I've reached the summit of a cultivator's path. Why would I covet your talents?"
The pride in Shao Lingxu's words did not sound false.
"Then the people you stripped..."
In an instant, Fang Han thought of his cousin, who had supposedly become Shao Lingxu's disciple.
He began to understand. "You gave what was