Chapter 447 – Su Xing’s Four Doubts, the Strange Celestial Demon Domain!
by spirapiraChapter 447 – Su Xing’s Four Doubts, the Strange Celestial Demon Domain!
In the Real World, Su Xing breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this.
“No matter what, I’ve finally arrived at the Celestial Demon Domain…”
“Even though it took twice as long as expected, that’s because it was the first voyage and I wasn’t familiar with it yet.”
“It’ll only get faster from here on…”
What truly startled Su Xing was the so-called “Death Wasteland” within the Endless Sea!
Composed entirely of countless red-eyed aliens, confined within a “world fragment” resembling a half-plane, forever lost and wandering through the Endless Sea, madly devouring all living creatures!
It had become the most dangerous existence in the Endless Sea!
Even a Supreme Unity Golden Immortal would have no choice but to flee in panic when faced with the Death Wasteland!
“So… why does this Death Wasteland exist?”
“Those red-eyed aliens… they should all be Red Moon’s subordinates… If they were recalled into the alien forces, their combined strength would skyrocket!”
“And yet, they can only drift aimlessly, lost in the barren Endless Sea…”
A question arose in Su Xing’s mind. The existence of the Death Wasteland seemed to be yet another significant secret.
“Sigh… It seems I can only ask the Celestial Secrets Pavilion Master about it when I get the chance!”
Su Xing made a mental note.
“But for now, the most critical thing after arriving at the Celestial Demon Domain is finding the Celestial Demon General!”
“As the commander of the Celestial Demon Prison, the Celestial Demon General should be in this realm… Surely he wouldn’t be as elusive as the Celestial Secrets Pavilion Master, appearing and vanishing like a divine dragon?”
Su Xing hoped to find the Celestial Demon General, to learn the truth about what happened back then, and to find out exactly what the Luotian Ancestor had left behind for Luo Tian’s descendants.
Carrying these doubts, Su Xing turned his gaze to the simulation panel.
【After arriving at the Celestial Demon Domain, your first glimpse left you somewhat stunned.】
【The entire Celestial Demon Domain gave you a feeling of grim severity and bloodthirst…】
【This feeling did not come from what your eyes could see. In fact, the vast majority of worlds within the Celestial Demon Domain were similar to the Azure Origin Domain and the Heavenly Secrets Domain… the sky was blue, the water was clear…】
【But what differed was the feeling between heaven and earth!】
【It was as if… the Heavenly Dao was weeping!】
【As though countless living beings had perished in this region… and as if the Heavenly Dao was ceaselessly wailing in grief!】
【With a trace of doubt in your heart, you quickly found a lesser chiliocosm.】
【You disguised yourself and concealed your breath, erasing all traces of your identity, and soon traveled through this lesser chiliocosm known as “Stone Realm.”】
In the Real World, Su Xing pondered upon seeing this.
“This trip to the new domain has gone fairly smoothly. At the very least, I didn’t encounter the kind of situation I faced when I first arrived at the Heavenly Secrets Domain…”
“With my strength comparable to the initial stage of Supreme Unity, my safety in the Celestial Demon Domain should be assured.”
“But what exactly is this ‘weeping of the Heavenly Dao’ that the simulation text describes?”
Su Xing was rather curious about this.
The Five Great Domains were each in different situations now.
Among them, the central domain — the Heavenly Secrets Domain — was relatively stable thanks to the White Emperor’s guardianship and having the most powerful cultivators.
The northern Azure Origin Domain, however, after five or six hundred years in the simulation, had likely already had over a third of its worlds conquered and devoured by the aliens.
As for the Eastern Domain, Su Xing had never been there, but he’d heard it was a gathering place for independent cultivators — leaderless and chaotic.
It was probably even worse off than the Azure Origin Domain.
As for the Southern Barbarian Domain… it was likely the most devastated of the Five Great Domains!
By simulation year fifteen hundred, the entire domain had been wiped out!
One had to understand how vast a single domain was — even an alien invasion surely couldn’t accomplish that overnight.
This meant that even in Su Xing’s current real timeline, the Southern Barbarian Domain had probably already been invaded for the most part, hadn’t it?
“As for the western domain, the Celestial Demon Domain…”
Su Xing shook his head slightly. His understanding of the Celestial Demon Domain was actually rather limited.
What he roughly knew was that the Celestial Demon General was a veteran Great Firmament Golden Immortal whose strength was likely no less than the White Emperor’s.
Moreover, this individual was a hawk, much like an “iron-blooded soldier.”
He struck at the alien race with every ounce of his power!
For tens of millions of years, the Celestial Demon Domain had been in constant warfare, exterminating aliens virtually every moment of every day.
At the same time, the “Celestial Demon Prison” established by the Celestial Demon General was essentially an organization dedicated to striking down aliens and all “traitors of the human race.”
As a result, over tens of millions of years, the Celestial Demon Prison had likely suffered the greatest casualties of all!
Though the casualties were heavy… the cultivators of the Celestial Demon Domain were also among the top one or two of the Five Great Domains.
Aside from the Heavenly Secrets Domain, the Celestial Demon Domain had the strongest overall power!
Furthermore, cultivators of the Celestial Demon Domain valued martial prowess, and nearly the majority of them followed the path of dual cultivation of qi and body, making their combat strength formidable among peers of the same realm…
Intelligence about the Celestial Demon Domain flashed through Su Xing’s mind.
“At the end of the day… hearing all this intelligence is no substitute for seeing it with my own eyes!”
Su Xing murmured.
After all, this was Su Xing’s first time visiting the Celestial Demon Domain.
Even if the simulation text described things in detail, it couldn’t compare to Su Xing experiencing it firsthand.
Moreover, Su Xing also needed to receive certain intelligence from the simulation, such as new sea routes through the Endless Sea and so on.
With that thought, Su Xing silently recited:
“Activate immersive simulation, duration… 10 years!”
【Ding… remaining origin energy: 21,751,237 points…】
As the Chime faded, Su Xing’s consciousness entered the simulation world.
…
When Su Xing opened his eyes again, he was already within Stone Realm.
At this moment, the place where Su Xing stood had just been through a downpour.
Feeling the calm after the heavy rain, with the scent of earth and flower petals mingling in the air, Su Xing took a moment to savor it.
“Indeed… the Celestial Demon Domain and the Heavenly Secrets Domain feel fundamentally different!”
Su Xing narrowed his eyes. This difference was not something the naked eye could perceive.
Rather, after advancing to Golden Immortal, Su Xing’s sensitivity to heaven and earth, to nature, and to the Great Dao had greatly heightened.
After achieving Three Flowers gathered Above the Crown, Su Xing could sense the breathing of heaven and earth — which was actually the Dao essence flowing through all of creation, the omnipresent Heavenly Dao.
And right now, Su Xing could clearly feel that the Heavenly Dao of Stone Realm had… a twisted quality to it!
It was indeed mixed with some negative emotions, just as the simulation text had described… as if the Heavenly Dao was weeping!
“So… why is all of this happening?”
Su Xing furrowed his brow slightly, and his divine sense swept out like a tide, enveloping most of Stone Realm.
“The strongest cultivator in all of Stone Realm is roughly at Peak Celestial Immortal… which is indeed a bit stronger than the average lesser worlds in the Azure Origin Domain!”
“It’s just that… the martial culture among the cultivators here seems quite intense!”
Su Xing blinked.
At this moment, he was in an independent cultivators’ city within Stone Realm.
Everywhere he looked, there were body tempering cultivators standing nine feet tall, their bodies packed with explosive muscles!
At five foot eleven with a proportional build, Su Xing looked almost like a dwarf among these cultivators…
One had to understand that cultivators refined their bodies, pursued the Dao, and also cultivated their true nature — even Foundation Establishment stage cultivators had some degree of control over their physique.
Most ordinary cultivators had proportional builds that better aligned with conventional aesthetics.
But in Stone Realm, it wasn’t just the male cultivators — even the female cultivators sported imposing, muscular frames.
In common parlance — absolute muscle monsters!
…
“Indeed, the Celestial Demon Domain has quite the martial culture! Even cultivators who primarily practice qi refinement also train in body tempering on the side…”
Su Xing rubbed his chin.
He had stayed in Stone Realm for several days and discovered that within the Celestial Demon Domain, there was an abundance of body tempering techniques, pills, and precious natural treasures for sale.
Moreover, compared to the Heavenly Secrets Domain and the Azure Origin Domain, the Celestial Demon Domain also had an extremely prosperous “alien” trade!
The blood essence of aliens was a potent tonic for these body tempering cultivators. Long-term consumption was greatly beneficial to their cultivation progress!
Although the Celestial Demon Domain didn’t have Rebirth Pills and couldn’t utilize alien blood essence as efficiently as Su Xing could…
The Celestial Demon Domain had long since developed methods to counteract the berserk energy within alien flesh.
This prevented cultivators from completely losing their minds and descending into madness after prolonged consumption…
“As expected, the Celestial Demon Domain has long since developed a strategy of sustaining war through war!”
“The aliens grow stronger by devouring human flesh… and the body cultivators of the Celestial Demon Domain can likewise strengthen themselves by consuming alien flesh.”
“It’s precisely because of this that the Celestial Demon Domain has been able to fight the aliens for tens of millions of years without declining…”
Su Xing was deep in thought.
If the other domains had followed the Celestial Demon Domain’s example — practicing both body tempering and qi refinement, using alien flesh as nourishment to strengthen themselves — their power would surely have grown, and they wouldn’t have been driven to such desperate straits.
In fact, in the Azure Origin Domain, aside from a small number of body tempering cultivators, most qi refinement cultivators turned their noses up at alien blood essence!
They even considered alien flesh to be crude and filthy… believing that consuming it, even if beneficial to cultivation, would cause one to fall into a heretical path!
To this, Su Xing could only offer a derisive scoff.
The aliens hunted humans to strengthen themselves. With one side growing while the other weakened, the human race was destined to lose.
And in a war of extermination, those so-called “righteous path cultivators” still insisted on “principles and honor” — truly laughable!
In the end, all that awaited them was racial annihilation!
Thinking back carefully, Su Xing had occasionally encountered trades involving demon beast flesh and blood in the Lesser Azure Origin Domain.
But those were limited to demon cultivator blood essence. Alien race blood essence could only be traded near Celestial Demon City.
Was this why the human race had always been suppressed by the alien races?
It had been this way for tens of millions of years… with one side waning as the other waxed for tens of millions of years, how could the human race possibly compete?
Su Xing knew full well that those deity-level aliens would casually sacrifice an entire city or even an entire realm’s worth of human cultivators to strengthen themselves… it was an incomparable difference…
“Alas, but saying all this now is too late!”
“According to the normal timeline’s progression… in a few thousand years, the human race will likely be devoured by the alien races!”
“Even if we started consuming alien flesh now, it would be too late…”
Su Xing let out a soft sigh, feeling somewhat regretful.
“However, the situation in the Celestial Demon Domain is actually better than I imagined!”
“Although their combat strength isn’t as great as the Heavenly Secrets Domain… given the willfulness of the Celestial Demon Domain’s cultivators, in a few thousand years, it might actually be the Celestial Demon Domain that holds out the longest!”
Su Xing thought to himself.
The Celestial Demon Domain had given him a very favorable first impression. At least when it came to resisting the alien races, it was the best among the Five Great Domains!
It wasn’t just the Celestial Demon Prison leading the resistance against the aliens.
Even civilian rogue cultivators spontaneously organized themselves to fight the alien races, and it had already become a tradition.
“However, a single lesser chiliocosm like the Stone Realm isn’t enough to generalize from!”
“Next, I should go explore other worlds in the Celestial Demon Domain…”
Su Xing murmured.
After that, Su Xing located a Celestial Demon Prison branch office in the Stone Realm.
The Celestial Demon Prison’s operations throughout the Celestial Demon Domain were extremely extensive—not only did they fight alien races, but they also ran merchant guilds.
Spending a sum of spirit stones, Su Xing purchased navigation routes for several nearby worlds.
He prepared to travel through them one by one, heading to the nearest Greater World—the Demon Heart Realm!
…
In the blink of an eye, five years passed!
The Demon Heart Realm, its most prosperous city.
Su Xing had altered his appearance and was walking through this cultivator city.
“Five years… I’ve explored dozens of worlds, and sure enough, the Celestial Demon Domain takes the fight against alien races far more seriously than any other domain!”
“Rogue cultivators even band together, led by high-ranking cultivators, to fight aliens across realm boundaries!”
“Whenever news of alien activity spreads… cultivators from all realms unite to resist… even Supreme Unity Golden Immortals fight on the front lines against the aliens!”
Su Xing was lost in thought.
A question lingered in his mind…
Why did the Celestial Demon Domain despise the alien races so much?
And why did the Celestial Demon Domain resist them so fiercely?
Was it merely because the Celestial Demon General hated the alien races?
“Then… what exactly happened in the past to make the entire Celestial Demon Domain and the Celestial Demon General loathe the alien races so deeply, even going so far as to make this the Celestial Demon Domain’s top priority?”
Su Xing couldn’t quite understand it.
Even in the Heavenly Secrets Domain, which was teeming with experts, the fight against aliens was mostly handled by the Celestial Secrets Pavilion and the White Emperor Tower alone.
Ordinary rogue cultivators would never directly encounter alien races.
By the time they did encounter aliens… their world had usually already been invaded…
But in the Celestial Demon Domain, nearly every cultivator yearned to go to the battlefield and slay aliens!
As a result, from what Su Xing had observed over the past five years, the Celestial Demon Domain had the fewest worlds invaded by alien races!
From what Su Xing understood, fewer than one-tenth of the worlds in the entire Celestial Demon Prison’s territory had been occupied by alien races.
This was even more stable than the Heavenly Secrets Domain!
“So… why is the Celestial Demon Domain like this? And why does the Heavenly Dao weep?”
“It seems… the answers can only be found within the Celestial Demon Prison!”
Su Xing narrowed his eyes.
To learn the truth of all this, the only thing Su Xing could do was travel to the Celestial Demon Prison headquarters and meet the Celestial Demon General himself or the upper echelons of the Celestial Demon Prison.
“Then next… I’ll head for the core region of the Celestial Demon Domain…”
Su Xing murmured.
“To be safe, I should first join the Celestial Demon Prison as a rogue cultivator and observe the situation…”
Having made his decision, Su Xing headed toward the nearest Celestial Demon Prison branch.
Over the next several years, Su Xing joined the Celestial Demon Prison under the identity of a Golden Immortal body cultivator.
He then began fighting on all fronts, following other Celestial Demon Prison members in their battles against the alien races.
…
Soon, the immersive simulation ended, and Su Xing’s consciousness returned to reality.
Rubbing the space between his brows, Su Xing digested his experiences over the past decade, an expression of keen interest appearing on his face.
“The Celestial Demon Prison… is truly a remarkable organization!”
Su Xing murmured.
“Within the Celestial Demon Prison, there’s a department specifically dedicated to hunting alien races. When you join, your rank isn’t determined by your strength—only by the number of aliens you’ve killed!”
“From Heaven Forty-Nine to Heaven One… the hierarchy is clear and well-defined, just like military merit in an army. It certainly serves its purpose well!”
Su Xing recalled the intelligence he’d gathered about the Celestial Demon Prison.
The structure of the Celestial Demon Prison bore some resemblance to the Celestial Demon City in the Lesser Azure Cloud Realm.
The difference was that the Celestial Demon Prison headquarters was clearly far more refined.
Cultivators who had just joined the Celestial Demon Prison, regardless of their cultivation level, all started at rank Heaven Forty-Nine!
After each mission and alien hunt, their rank would be promoted based on military achievements and performance.
The lowest was Heaven Forty-Nine, the highest Heaven One!
It both suited the Celestial Demon Prison’s name and subtly echoed the meaning of “the Great Dao numbers fifty, and Heaven derives forty-nine”!
And as one’s rank continued to rise, they would be continuously reassigned.
From relatively safe worlds to increasingly dangerous ones.
Over five years, Su Xing had participated in three operations.
He had slain nearly a million aliens, among whom there were a good ten thousand alien deities…
Leveraging the strength of his true body, Su Xing’s rank within the Celestial Demon Prison had risen rapidly.
From the starting rank of Heaven Forty-Nine, he had already risen to Heaven Thirty-Nine!
It wasn’t that Su Xing lacked the strength—it was that time was too limited!
“Although I performed exceptionally in every battle, the areas I was stationed in had few powerful aliens… I hadn’t even encountered an alien deity…”
“Only by being reassigned to more dangerous regions can I advance my rank quickly enough to meet the Celestial Demon General and the other high-ranking leaders of the Celestial Demon Domain!”
“After all, the truly powerful members of the Celestial Demon Prison are all fighting on the front lines in the most dangerous zones!”
A peculiar expression crossed Su Xing’s face.
The Celestial Demon Domain was different from the other great domains.
Whether it was the Heavenly Secrets Domain or the Azure Origin Domain, it was always the peripheral regions that were more dangerous, with alien races and the Advent Cult active in those areas.
For example, both the Celestial Secrets Realm and the Azure Cloud Realm were in the core regions of their respective domains, making their surroundings relatively safe.
But the Celestial Demon Domain was the exact opposite…
It was like concentric circles—the closer to the core, the closer to the center of the Celestial Demon Domain, the more aliens there were and the more dangerous it became!
By comparison, it was actually the peripheral regions of the Celestial Demon Domain that were safer.
For instance, the Stone Realm where Su Xing had first arrived was relatively safe, with lower-level aliens.
Thus, the more central the region of the Celestial Demon Domain, the stronger the aliens, with large numbers of deities roaming about.
And the Celestial Demon Domain’s most powerful cultivators were also concentrated there.
“This distribution… is quite interesting indeed!”
Su Xing raised an eyebrow.
“It’s as if… they’re concentrating all their strongest forces to bottle up the alien armies in the core region of the Celestial Demon Domain…”
“So why is it like this?”
An even more intrigued expression appeared on Su Xing’s face.
Since entering the Celestial Demon Domain, numerous questions had arisen in Su Xing’s mind.
Why did the Celestial Demon General harbor such deep hatred for the alien races?
Why were the cultivators of the Celestial Demon Domain so united in fighting the aliens?
Why was the distribution of the Celestial Demon Prison’s strongest forces the complete opposite of every other domain?
And finally… why did the Heavenly Dao of the Celestial Demon Domain weep?
“All these answers… once I meet the Celestial Demon General, they should all be resolved!”
“But to meet him, I must reach the innermost core of the Celestial Demon Domain…”
“It seems I’ll have to keep accumulating rank, step by step!”
Su Xing murmured. Five years was simply too short.
But Su Xing still had at least several hundred years ahead of him, plenty of time to gradually accumulate military merit.
With strength approaching that of a Supreme Unity Golden Immortal, infiltrating the upper echelons of the Celestial Demon Prison shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
“When that time comes… all the answers will be revealed!”
Su Xing’s heart was filled with anticipation as his gaze turned toward the simulation panel.