23
The sect leader said, “The Heavenly Dao is a great villain, intent on taking over Lục Trầm Mặc’s body.”
When he saw how calmly I accepted this, he asked in surprise:
“You believe me?”
I replied:
“Why wouldn’t I? That’s what all the novels say.”
It was just that our Heavenly Dao was a little stronger and more forceful, that’s all.
The only thing I was unsure about was:
“Old man, what part do you play in all this?”
The old man said he was a good person.
No, more accurately, everyone in his sect, from top to bottom, was good.
“I know about you and the Heavenly Dao… because this isn’t the first time the Heavenly Dao has done this.”
“No, that’s not right. More accurately, it wasn’t just one Heavenly Dao that did this.”
What he’d said before hadn’t confused me, but now I was genuinely baffled.
What did he mean, there wasn’t just one Heavenly Dao?
The white-bearded old man explained at length, until I was practically falling asleep.
When he finished, I—a hopeless student—tried to sum it up:
The Heavenly Dao is born from heaven and earth, then gives back to them, taking charge of the workings of all things.
But the Heavenly Dao is sentient, and every so often it doesn’t want to do its job anymore.
Still, even if it does nothing, it can’t just cause trouble.
Who knows how many years passed before the Heavenly Dao suddenly came up with a wicked scheme:
Ordinary people couldn’t withstand the Heavenly Dao’s divine sense.
But that was all right. Heaven and earth had a kind of being called a “Child of Fortune”—a child of fate.
The Heavenly Dao would find a Child of Fortune, nurture him until he grew powerful, then possess his body and destroy this world to win its freedom.
The Heavenly Dao would be free, but this continent would perish.
The Child of Fortune would also vanish without a trace.
Cultivators—even lowly ants—wanted to survive.
And so the Heavenly Sword Sect, a sect dedicated to slaying the Heavenly Dao, was born.
When the Heavenly Dao dies, heaven and earth will give rise to a new one on their own.
But if the Heavenly Dao runs away, heaven and earth will still assume it exists, while in reality no one is in control, leaving all living things to suffer.
How ironic.
I swallowed hard:
“May I ask how many Heavenly Daos your sect has destroyed?”
The sect leader held up a finger, indicating a number.
24
This time, the Heavenly Dao was especially cunning.
The sect leader said this was a major challenge:
“At least it knows to call in outside help now.”
That outside help was me.
Before, the Heavenly Dao had always stayed close to the favored child of heaven. The Heavenly Sword Sect only had to keep a careful watch to spot it.
But this time, I was the one by Lục Trầm Mặc’s side.
“How devious.”
I asked the sect leader if there was a way to deal with it.
The sect leader nodded:
“The sect has a treasured heirloom, the Trảm Thiên Kiếm. It can slay the Heavenly Dao.”
“Then why don’t you hurry up and kill it?”
“We have to wait until the Heavenly Dao possesses the favored child of heaven. Only then can we kill it for good.”
Me: ???
“You took Lục Trầm Mặc as your disciple just so you could kill him?”
The sect leader was silent for a long while before he spoke:
“Or there’s another way.”
I listened intently.
“Your soul is connected to the Heavenly Dao’s divine sense. Otherwise, it couldn’t have brought you here.”
“Stand right here like a good girl, and I’ll slay you and the Heavenly Dao together in one stroke.”
25
That night, the sect leader ultimately didn’t act.
“The deadline is after Lục Trầm Mặc’s decisive battle at Mount Thương.”
“The Heavenly Dao cannot be allowed to remain. Think carefully about whom you’re going to kill.”
I asked the sect leader:
“Does Lục Trầm Mặc know about this?”
“Lục Trầm Mặc must not know. If he does, the Heavenly Dao will know too.”
People are born with feelings.
The sect leader’s mission was to slay the Heavenly Dao. To keep the closest possible watch on its every move, he had to take Lục Trầm Mặc as his disciple.
But a teacher-student bond had formed between them.
And I loved Lục Trầm Mặc.
I asked the sect leader:
“Doesn’t Lục Trầm Mặc deserve to be treated kindly?”
I first met him when his family was struck by disaster.
Miss Bội Chi came to break off their engagement, and that young man’s sincere heart was left covered in wounds.
Before he could even collect himself, bandits looted his home and wiped out his entire family.
That day, he hid in a mountain cave as the sound of searching footsteps echoed outside. Using a voice transmission, he said to me:
“Đồng Đồng, I have nothing left.”
At the time, I thought: *Don’t be afraid. You still have the Heavenly Dao protecting you, and you still have me.*
Later, when he wanted to become a disciple, I climbed all the steps up Mount Thiên Kiếm with him.
The steps up Mount Thiên Kiếm were so long.
The sect leader and the elders stood at the summit of Mount Thiên Kiếm.
Back then, the sect leader truly treated him well.
So I said happily:
“Lục Trầm Mặc, you have a new home now.”
There were many people in the world who suffered. Lục Trầm Mặc wasn’t the most unfortunate of them all.
But I still couldn’t help feeling heartache for him.
Because I loved Lục Trầm Mặc more than anyone.
The Heavenly Dao had designs on him. The sect leader had to abandon him for the sake of his mission.
As for me, I had approached him with ulterior motives from the very beginning.
26
That day, while Lục Trầm Mặc and Bách Lý Hứa fought their decisive battle at Thương Sơn, I faced the Heavenly Dao.
On one side, the two of them fought fiercely on Thương Sơn.
On the other, the Heavenly Dao and I came to blows over a disagreement.
The Heavenly Dao’s divine sense was like a vast ocean. Compared to it, I was no more than a leaf drifting in the current.
In that great ocean, one careless moment could doom me for all eternity.
My only advantage was that my divine sense was connected to the Heavenly Dao’s.
The Heavenly Dao couldn’t die, which meant it couldn’t destroy me, either.
I hadn’t meant to let my soul be shattered. Though the sect leader said that either Lục Trầm Mặc or I had to die, I thought we could hold off for now and wait for another solution.
As long as you’re alive, there’s always a chance.
But the Heavenly Dao couldn’t stand my interference. It wanted to barge straight into Lục Trầm Mặc’s sea of consciousness and deal with Bách Lý Hứa itself.
So I poured all my strength into…
As a result, I shattered my divine sense and soul.
I hadn’t realized the Heavenly Dao had bound its divine sense to my soul.
When I shattered, the Heavenly Dao’s divine sense disintegrated with me.
Lục Trầm Mặc lay atop Thương Sơn, surrounded by disciples of the Heavenly Sword Sect standing on alert and waiting for orders.
The moment they discovered that the Heavenly Dao had taken over Lục Trầm Mặc’s body, they would receive the sect leader’s command and attack all at once.
But the Heavenly Dao had vanished.
I struggled to hold my shattered soul together and appeared before Lục Trầm Mặc.
“Trầm Mặc, I have to go.”
“You need to attain the Dao and become an Immortal Venerable, while I have to return to my own world.”
The sect leader had once said that when the “system” soul was shattered, it meant the Heavenly Dao had been destroyed…
27
“That’s not right!” Lý Dực reacted at once. “The Heavenly Dao has been destroyed, so the one we have to deal with is…”
He fell silent before he could finish.
“You understand now.” I smiled faintly. “Very clever. You’ve figured it out.”
The disciples of the Heavenly Sword Sect had no idea what was happening on the day Lục Trầm Mặc and Bách Lý Hứa fought their decisive battle on Thương Sơn.
Besides me, only the sect leader knew the Heavenly Dao’s secret.
If nothing unexpected happened, I would be utterly destroyed, while Lục Trầm Mặc would wait a few hundred years for a new Heavenly Dao to form, then ascend without a hitch.
According to the sect leader, a few hundred years was no more than the blink of an eye.
But who could have guessed that Lục Trầm Mặc would realize I hadn’t truly left?
Following the faintest clues, he gathered my soul bit by bit.
But what he gathered wasn’t just my soul…
The Heavenly Dao had bound its divine sense to my soul.
When Lục Trầm Mặc sent my soul into reincarnation, the one who truly reincarnated was no longer me, but the Heavenly Dao.
Wasn’t that young woman Đồng Đồng none other than the Heavenly Dao?
That explained why the bell rang whenever she came near.
She wanted Lục Trầm Mặc to mistake her for me.
Either she wanted to take over Lục Trầm Mặc’s body, or she wanted to wipe out the threat posed by the Heavenly Sword Sect.
But whatever her motives, one thing was certain: she wasn’t me.
Lục Trầm Mặc knew that.
Perhaps he had known all along.
…
But there was something Lục Trầm Mặc didn’t know.
For example, that the Heavenly Dao had bound its divine sense to my soul.
That was why Đồng Đồng was so hostile toward me.
Because the moment I set foot on Thiên Kiếm Mountain, she knew I had returned.
If a soul and a divine sense were bound together, the ending would be unchanged.
If the Heavenly Dao died, I would be utterly destroyed too.
If Lục Trầm Mặc gathered my soul again, that would mean he was also gathering the Heavenly Dao’s soul.
If they killed the Heavenly Dao, they would be killing me.
This time, my soul could never be pieced back together.
I warned Lý Dực:
“I’m telling you all this just in case… If Lục Trầm Mặc discovers something and can’t bring himself to act…”
Lý Dực looked at me in disbelief:
“Đồng Đồng, you really are ruthless.”
Ruthless?
I was just about to laugh when Ông Bình beside me suddenly went on alert, the Heaven-Slaying Sword ready in his hand:
“They’re here.”