Chapter Thirty-Six: The Truth Behind the Legend

A deathly silence hung in the underground chamber. Luo Longyu said nothing, his lips pressed into a tight line. Long Shaoxian fixed her gaze upon him and spoke coldly, “Why are you so quiet now? Don’t you usually have plenty of excuses? Go on, say something.”

Luo Longyu glanced at Long Shaoxian but remained silent, seated off to the side. The atmosphere grew awkward.

Luo Mengxuan looked from one to the other, then mustered her courage and said softly, “Sister Shaoxian, maybe you shouldn’t scold Longyu now. The Void Spirits’ intentions are clear—things are urgent. We don’t have much time.”

Long Shaoxian shot Luo Mengxuan a look, inhaled deeply to quell her anger, and massaged her temples. “You’re right. I nearly fainted from anger.” After a pause, she turned to Luo Longyu. “I won’t waste words. From now on, do as you see fit.” With that, she walked toward the winged tower, looked up, and murmured, “With the Xuan Gold stolen, their next step will be to seek out another Myriad Gates.”

“Certainly,” Luo Mengxuan replied worriedly. “If it were the ancient era or the time of the gods, it might be possible to find the coordinates of other Myriad Gates—but after so much history, with the gods long gone, no one knows where the others are.”

Luo Longyu’s gaze was heavy. He spoke slowly, “I think we may have guessed wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Long Shaoxian looked at him.

Luo Longyu stood. “Do any of you know of King Void?”

“King Void?” Long Shaoxian frowned in thought. “I’ve heard of him. He was one of the three Void Kings, and almost destroyed the entire solar system single-handedly. But he was sealed away during the Fourth Era—his whereabouts are unknown.”

Luo Longyu nodded, then after a moment’s thought, asked, “Do you think the Xuan Gold could be used for something other than opening the Myriad Gates? Perhaps to break a seal?”

“Of course it could,” Long Shaoxian replied. “Opening the Myriad Gates is like entering a password; a seal works the same way—input the right code and the program unlocks. Wait, are you saying they want the Xuan Gold to unseal King Void?”

Luo Longyu nodded. “That’s what I believe. If King Void truly possesses the power you described—to destroy the solar system alone—then he could also reopen the Myriad Gates unaided. If the Void Spirits free King Void and bring their main force, they could sweep the stars clean. So all we need to do is find where King Void is sealed and destroy their plan at its root.”

“Only the angels of the Fourth Era knew where that seal is, and it might not even be on Earth,” Long Shaoxian said darkly. The angelic civilization left Earth sixty-five million years ago; no one knows their interstellar coordinates, and there’s no way to contact them.

The three fell silent again. Luo Longyu paced the expanse of the ancient city, then abruptly changed the subject. “This Celestial Myriad City must have existed for at least half a billion years, right?”

“Yes, the Third Era was destroyed five hundred million years ago, so it must be at least that old. Why do you ask?” Luo Mengxuan replied, looking at him.

Luo Longyu was silent for a long while, until both women looked at him with anticipation, before he finally spoke—and nearly made them cough up blood with his words. “Um… It’s been five hundred million years. Is the Myriad Gate even still functional?”

The silence was instant and complete.

“Mengxuan, keep your distance from him in the future—he might lower your intelligence,” Long Shaoxian said to Luo Mengxuan, turning away from Luo Longyu.

After that exchange, Luo Longyu finally asked a more serious question. “By the way, I’ve always wondered—why is it that the First, Second, Third, and even Fourth Eras never developed a technological civilization, but humanity in the Fifth Era has no great powers and instead walks the path of technology?”

Long Shaoxian offered a wry smile. “It’s not that modern humans can’t possess great power. Do you know that humans of the Fifth Era were considered the gods’ most perfect creation? The power within them, if awakened, would rival the gods themselves. Throughout a lifetime, the average person uses less than twenty percent of their brain—the rest remains dormant. You’ve heard of people with paranormal abilities, right? Their brains are a bit more active, but only slightly.”

“Then why…” Luo Longyu was puzzled.

“It’s a long story,” Long Shaoxian said. “In the Third Era, beings like gods and monsters truly existed. When the gods left Earth in the Fourth Era, some returned to begin the Restoration Project—essentially, creating humanity. The gods nurtured primates, implanted divine genes, and shaped humans, who became very powerful. But then the experiment went awry—some rebelled against the gods, leading to a war that triggered the great flood and nearly wiped out humanity. In the West, the angels destroyed cities to warn humanity. In the East, our ancestors fought bitterly.”

“In the end, those rebels were suppressed. When their bodies were studied, it was discovered that some of their genes weren’t divine, but from the Void Spirits—they were violent, cruel, and power-hungry. The gods had no choice but to impose brain locks, sealing off humanity’s divine powers, leaving only the path of cultivation—a test, in essence.”

“But life is inherently unpredictable, beyond the control of any force—not even gods. Human nature is complex; there are those who become sages, and those who become monsters. Even after ascending, not all are holy; and after falling, not all are irredeemable. The gods couldn’t judge good and evil by their own standards. In the end, as they faded away, their attempts to guide humanity failed.”

Luo Longyu and Luo Mengxuan listened intently. When Long Shaoxian paused, Luo Longyu asked, “Didn’t the gods foresee all this? Aren’t gods supposed to be omnipotent?”

Long Shaoxian laughed. “What omnipotence? In the Third Era, ‘god’ was just a species name, like you’re a Corpse and Mengxuan is a Demon. The dominant race of that era was called ‘gods,’ but they weren’t truly divine. They lived long, but even they aged and died. How could any life be omnipotent?”

“After the Restoration Project began, about six thousand years ago, the gods started debating humanity’s future—because of a small incident: the death of Hou Yi.”

“Hou Yi? The legendary archer?” Luo Longyu asked.

Long Shaoxian nodded. “Yes. Hou Yi was once a remnant god from the Third Era, who descended to Earth, reshaped himself as a human, and taught the ancients. In the early Fifth Era, that was common—many gods gave up their status to become kings, guiding human civilization. After Hou Yi’s arrival, Void Spirits infiltrated the demon race—today’s royal demon line. They managed the space defenses, and the Void Spirits planted a virus in the system. The nine main energy cores, originally fuel for the royal fleet, all activated, making the sky appear to have ten suns. There wasn’t time to repair the system; life on Earth couldn’t survive long. The gods built a remote weapon system to launch the cores out of the solar system and destroy them. Hou Yi was chosen to operate this system. Do you know what it was?”

“Um…” Luo Longyu’s mind raced toward the answer, but he could hardly speak it—it was too astounding. It was the legendary tale of Hou Yi shooting the suns!

Seeing Luo Longyu’s shock, Long Shaoxian nodded. “Yes, it’s what you think. The system was the mythical Sun-shooting Bow. Due to the urgency, activating it created a terrifying force field—even if the shots succeeded, the operator would be gravely injured. At the time, the Corpse Dao had already vanished into the stars, so Hou Yi volunteered, sacrificing his divine power to fire nine shots and destroy the nine cores. Some fragments fell to Earth, later called ‘Wojiao’ and sank to the seabed.”

“Afterward, Hou Yi’s body was ruined, his power gone. In the end, he was killed by his own disciple, Feng Meng. Do you know why? Jealousy. Feng Meng had always been Hou Yi’s most talented student, a master archer, but as long as Hou Yi lived, he was always second-best. So he killed his teacher. That’s a microcosm of human nature—a stain on the Restoration Project. After this event, the gods fiercely debated whether to destroy or remake humanity.”

“But before the Eastern gods reached a conclusion, the Western gods began their purge, unleashing the great flood, which further spurred debate in the East. Gonggong advocated another disaster, like the flood, while others, including Zhu Rong, objected. Gonggong acted alone, Zhu Rong tried to stop him, and the two fought near the World Passage.”

“That passage is the legendary Buzhou Mountain. It supported the greatest spaceport of the gods. Their battle caused massive destruction—the passage collapsed, the spaceport fell and devastated the ozone layer. Gonggong then unleashed the great flood, leading to the legends of Nüwa patching the sky and Yu controlling the waters.”

As Long Shaoxian recounted the ancient past, Luo Longyu’s mind was numb with shock. So the legends were not just fables, but forgotten history—different in detail, but essentially true.

The Third Era’s spaceport was the legendary Celestial Court, and Buzhou Mountain was the ground passage to it!

“And then?” Luo Longyu pressed.

Long Shaoxian was silent for a while. “Then? There’s no more ‘then.’ After all this, the gods imposed the brain lock—because having power alone isn’t enough. It’s like giving everyone nuclear weapons; who knows what would happen? Human nature is flawed. The gods were not perfect, but they were better at controlling power, given their long history.”

“Afterward, the gods realized they couldn’t control human nature. They withdrew, leaving humanity to develop on its own, intervening only at key moments, wary of the lurking Void Spirits. As time passed, the gods died out, the path of cultivation weakened, and humanity found a shortcut—technology. Thus, humanity embarked upon a single-track technological civilization. Compared to the dual path of mysticism and technology the gods once had, a single-track civilization is fragile. That is the great crisis humanity faces today.” Long Shaoxian looked at Luo Longyu, her expression tinged with bitterness and gravity.