The peerless black hand that covers the sky

Chapter 1146: Beginning with bitter leaves, ending in sorrow!
Chu Feng felt that he had already guessed the truth of the matter, and that was indeed the case!
He is the relic, and the relic is him, born into the human world, bearing a great mission!
In order to help him grow and awaken, almost all the Immortal Emperors and even stronger beings, who were like his parents and relatives, were willing to sacrifice themselves, allowing him to leave with the Time Furnace, a supreme treasure, to experience the trials and tribulations of the mortal world and achieve enlightenment from the inside out!
As for those Immortal Emperors themselves... they remained behind. Without the cover of heavenly secrets and the shield of cause and effect, they were inevitably found by the Evil Ancestor and all of them were annihilated!

It can be said that all of these people died for Chu Feng!

"what!"

Chu Feng was overwhelmed with grief. At this moment, he felt an endless heaviness pressing down on his heart. Sadness and pain filled his eyes, and blood and tears flowed from them. The truth, every word of the village chief, pierced his heart like a sharp knife, making him tremble all over.

And in that gradually fading historical imprint, the evil ancestor's tyranny still continues. Faced with the old village chief's words, He remains as arrogant and disdainful as ever, "If it can come, then let it come!"

"Even if I bear the burden of countless ages of karma and need to manipulate the birth and death of humanity with one hand, I, the Evil Ancestor, am still invincible in the world!"

As he spoke, two hands shot out simultaneously, reaching out to grab the village chief.

Perhaps, even someone as powerful as the Evil Ancestor wasn't as certain in his heart as he claimed. These Immortal Emperors and above had shaken his soul with their lives, albeit only slightly.

With a single hand, he could cover the sky; killing Grandpa Jiang and destroying the ancient city were just a matter of a single move.

At this moment, with both hands moving simultaneously, they may be harboring certain thoughts: to suppress the village chief and investigate the so-called secrets of the relic.

But how could the village chief do as he wished?
A terrifying light burst forth, and a stone zither appeared, resonating with him and playing celestial music, as if mourning the burial of countless ages, and also mourning for himself!
In the light, the two sky-covering black hands were blasted into a shower of blood, revealing white bones!

As a price, the village chief vanished in the light, forever silenced!
"Humph!"

Enraged by his failure, the evil ancestor unleashed his bone claws, determined to obliterate everything and destroy the last trace of this small village.

However, such a fierce battle seemed to have touched something. The ancient mountains and rivers of this star were shining, permeating time and space, and converging into an ocean of light, shaking the past and present, to fight against the evil ancestor!

"Huh? This star..."

The Evil Ancestor uttered a surprised and doubtful sound from within the dark mist, "It really is a special place..."

"Destroy?"

“It’s not that it’s impossible… but releasing the power here would disrupt the balance and interfere with my plans…”

The Evil Ancestor muttered to himself, "So be it. I can cover up the sky with one hand and deceive the world through the annals of history, but what difficulty is there in deceiving the masses?"

In a whisper, the Evil Ancestor unveiled the darkness, and the ancient landscape unfolded like a painting. He splashed ink on the original painting, arbitrarily trampling on the years and years, and concealing the truth!
In the act of concealing, He is transcendent and extraordinary: "Your passion, your courage... Ah, your sacrifice is meaningless. Under the annals of history, everything will be buried, and no one will remember you..."

"To kill you is to erase your lives... to erase your trace in history is to erase your spirit..."

"what!"

Chu Feng went completely mad. He smashed out the Time Furnace with all his might, shattering the sky and causing the Evil Ancestor's sky-covering black hand to break and disappear. But this... was just a broken image, not a real battle across time.

The final image freezes, revealing a terrifying cause and effect, a shocking secret, and overwhelming fluctuations... Chaos reigns, everything is in chaos, and everything is gone forever, collapsing and crumbling.

boom!
The terrifying power hidden within this star surged forth, suppressing the outbreak of cataclysm, ending the rewind of time, and everything returned to "normal."

Only a young man, consumed by hatred, was left behind, helplessly looking up, his face streaked with blood and tears.

Suddenly, he collapsed onto the desolate and broken land, his body hunched over, like a mortal in extreme pain, curled up like an infant.

Moreover, he kept coughing, his mouth full of blood and saliva, staining the ground beneath him red.

"Woooo..."

He cried, in pain, heartbreak, and even more... anger, wishing he could tear that day apart, destroy this era, and kick the Evil Ancestor off his high altar!

However, Chu Feng knew even more that he was completely incapable of doing any of this. He was merely a Celestial King, powerless to rewrite the tragedy that had already occurred. This suffocated him, driving him completely insane!

If incompetence can be excused, after all, strength needs to be accumulated and grown step by step, then there are still reasons to shift the blame.

Then... the Time Furnace on him, the ability to conceal the secrets of heaven and shield cause and effect disappeared from this small village, leading to the tragedy that followed... This made it impossible for him to forgive himself no matter what!

Even if we can tell from what we see in the imprint of time that all of this was planned, it was a necessary sacrifice for the worldly entry, growth and awakening of a "relic". How can one attain enlightenment without experiencing it?

But Chu Feng couldn't accept it, he simply couldn't accept it!
"what!"

He knelt on the ground, frantically pounding the earth, abandoning his unparalleled cultivation and extraordinary life level, using his purest and most ordinary flesh and blood to make himself a bloody mess... He was punishing himself!
"Crack!"

Longma watched from the side, chewing on a magical herb. It was speechless, wondering if it should play along, squeeze out a few tears, and get into character.
but……

'It's already quite an achievement that I can keep my expression in check...'

The thought that all that passion and sacrifice was just an act makes me want to laugh...

'However, I can't laugh... This young man is on the verge of a breakdown. If I laugh, he might just smash me to death with the time furnace in the next moment...'

'Sigh... How can the mastermind deceive a young person like this, driving them to the brink of a mental breakdown?'

'The bitter leaves of the past have now become... a deceitful beast?'

'He's so miserable and wretched now, you could even say... pitiful?'

Longma sighed inwardly, a chill creeping down his spine, and he dared not do anything out of line.

What exactly are they trying to achieve?

Longma pondered.

Its strength is not very good, and it is not among the top in the Bitter Leaf School.

This doesn't mean it didn't try... it actually tried very hard.

However, it was merely a Holy Spirit, though it often mingled with Black Emperor, Duan De, and others, becoming a turbid current in the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths.

But... everyone is really different. When it came to discussing backgrounds and connections, Ryoma was completely dumbfounded—was he the only horse swimming naked?
Even though they both eat the Leaf Blood Bun, its effects are not as good as others... After all, some people have bloodline enhancements, making them incredibly powerful, as their bloodlines flow within the bodies of Demon Ancestors and Evil Ancestors!

At the peak of Quasi-Immortal Emperor, standing on the threshold of Immortal Emperor, it truly did its best.

However, despite its lack of strength, the Bitter Leaf Sect never abandoned it. They played with it, shared bitter leaves with it, and explored cultivation together... Even though its strength was not great, its vision was outstanding. It witnessed the birth of one Immortal Emperor after another, and even the achievement of a Dao Lord.

At this moment, it pondered, seemingly lost in thought.

Perhaps it couldn't understand the thinking of those actors, the great figures who performed sacrifices or even transcended worldly concerns... but the Immortal Emperor, it vaguely grasped a certain pattern.

"The initial sacrifice to the Dao... was a high-stakes gamble, a fight to the death, a process of burning one's own Dao fruit and sacrificing one's evolutionary path in order to transcend." "It's incredibly difficult, fraught with uncertainty... but the barrier to entry is actually quite low, as long as you dare to gamble."

"Unlike later overlords and Dao masters, the certainty has decreased, but the difficulty has actually increased, requiring greater personal wisdom and talent."

'Beyond these, there exists a special kind of being called the Progenitor, who relies purely on external forces… What is the price? The price is that they cease to be themselves, replaced by a bizarre true spirit.'

'But while the progenitor's sacrifice was immense, it proved that external forces could intervene… What if this external force didn't directly affect its own transformation, but instead reduced external uncertainty?'

Ryoma's eyes flickered, feeling that he was following the train of thought of some of the actors.

'If it's impossible for people to sacrifice to the Tao, then let the Tao sacrifice to people, putting them to death... and then reverse it again, turning the world's yin and yang upside down, and bringing people back from eternal death...'

'A crucial link, a bridge between life and death... relics...'

Longma thought of the tenth Dao Lord among the nine Dao Lords of the previous era—Dao Lord Kuye!
This Dao Lord emerged from eternal silence!
If we take this as a prototype and expand and elevate it...

'The Bitter Leaf Daoist Master is a single account shared by all the Immortal Emperors of the Bitter Leaf Sect, and there are actually major issues with the shareholding structure... Many ancestral court Immortal Emperors were once tricked into doing manual labor, and the Pollen Heavenly Emperor was sold out by the Red-Haired Ancestor and still helped count the money... There are too many obstacles.'

'It needs to be refined and purified...'

'Leaving aside the Ancestral Court Immortal Emperor... just the right to interpret this Pollen Road, hmm?'

Ryoma's expression became subtle!

'It seems we're about to get our hands on it, we've hit the nail on the head. Is the pollen road going to have two days?'

—Ye Qingxian!

This is the one who succeeded the Lord of the Bitter Leaf Sect, achieving the path of sacrifice in this world, although at a very heavy price.

'This is incredible... It might actually open up a path to the heavens, giving the once-powerful Bitter Leaf Sect its most brilliant future, and producing a whole host of sacrificial cultivators!'

'Taking bitter leaves as its prototype, and sorrow as its fulfillment!'

'And the consequence is that Ye and Chu will remember this, make a list of names, and unleash their fury upon learning the truth... especially the latter!'

Looking at Chu Feng, who was in so much pain, Longma felt a pang of pity for him, even though it was as heartless as it was.

'Alright, now we don't need to worry about the self-forgetfulness that comes with transcending worldly desires. I think that young Chu will definitely have a very strong obsession at that time...'

—Come here, I need to talk to you about something!
'But then again... as the saying goes, "If I hear the Way in the morning, I can die content in the evening."'

'If you don't even dare to offend people, how can you talk about living and dying for the Way?'

'If offending people could lead to advancement, there would be countless people in this world who would want to do that…'

'I...I'm interested too!'

Longma's heart pounded. 'Perhaps, I must do everything in my power to become an Immortal Emperor, and then catch up with Qichu...'

Its eyes darted around, it swallowed the elixir in its mouth, then squeezed its eyes to make them moist, its expression solemn, giving itself a heavy and sorrowful air, perfectly complementing and accompanying Chu Feng.

"call!"

The cold wind blows, and snowflakes fall, gradually burying this place, as if burying sorrow and pain.

Gradually, Chu Feng stopped punishing himself. He seemed tired, not physically, but mentally, exhausted from the inside out. He collapsed in the snow, staring blankly at the sky.

Sun rises and sets, stars shift and time flows by, but Chu Feng lies there, motionless.

Ryoma was very patient, but also a little worried—won't this child be ruined?
Snow stopped.

Winter is over.

A thunderclap resounded, the ice and snow melted, and all things came back to life.

However, Chu Feng's fingers twitched slightly before returning to their deathly stillness.

He did not recover.

With grass growing tall and birds singing, all creatures thriving, and light shining brightly on the world, the footsteps of midsummer arrive silently.

Chu Feng remained unmoved.

Until... a delicate fragrance, indescribable and refreshing, wafted over, soothing the soul!
Bored, Ryoma suddenly opened his eyes wide and breathed greedily, as if many distracting thoughts in his mind had been swept away in that instant, leaving him with an indescribable purity!

It suddenly turned its head and looked at the lake next to the small village.

The fragrance comes from the lake!

There, the lotus leaves stretch to the sky, an endless expanse of green, while the lotus blossoms, bathed in sunlight, are a vibrant red.

However, these are all ordinary flowers, and cannot touch even the most ordinary cultivator.

However, surprisingly, among these most ordinary lotus flowers, there was one that defied the heavens, its fragrance so strong that even the dragon horse of the Quasi-Immortal Emperor could not resist it!

Perhaps even the Celestial Emperor cannot ignore it; it is of great use to him!

There is a mystery of reincarnation in the fragrance, but it does not lead to reincarnation; rather, it is a state of mind that one can experience.

What is reincarnation in this life?
It means erasing the past life and ushering in the next!
Under the millstone at the end of reincarnation, all the memories, distractions, and emotions accumulated in this life will be ground away, or rather purified, leaving only the last bit of the purest spiritual seed to be cast into the cycle of reincarnation!

This lotus flower... has a similar effect. Its fragrance is even of great use to Immortal Emperors, helping to regulate their state of mind and even purify themselves, in accordance with the meaning of reincarnation!
Especially in this era!

In this era where even a single brick could hit several cultivators with mental health issues, people resort to memory empowerment to make themselves stronger in order to advance their cultivation and fulfill their personal desires and pursuits. However, this also means that their minds are no longer pure!
'This lotus flower…'

Ryoma's breath caught in his throat. 'Could it be... the antidote for this era?'

'No, it can't be that simple... but it should be the key ingredient...'

Longma wanted to step forward and find out what was going on.

But then it suddenly turned around and saw... Chu Feng sitting up!
The long-standing stillness was revived by the fragrance of the lotus!

(End of this chapter)