The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 488 The Truth Behind the Heaven Sacrifice and the Core of the Earth Sacrifice

Upon hearing that the cultivators of Renxin Pavilion possessed some demon blood, Wu Chang's eyes lit up with realization. No wonder when he used his spatial domain to kill two elders of Renxin Pavilion, he triggered the Wen Yun's damage-enhancing effect on demons.

He recalled that when An Rong was guessing the identity of the poisoner, he had mentioned that there were high-level demons who could transform into human form and infiltrate Zhenyue City to attack the cultivators of the Human Alliance.

It now seems that the ones who made the move were probably not high-level demons, but humans with demon bloodlines like the cultivators of the Benevolent Heart Pavilion.

In the world instance dimension, those who possess two bloodlines are not targeted by either set of rules, but are favored by both spiritual energy and demonic energy.

The fact that everyone from Renxin Pavilion was present to witness the activation of the Ziwei Exorcising Array, and that nothing seemed amiss, proves this point.

This also explains why, when the painter mentioned that he was recruited by the demon race and obtained the method to transform into a demon, he specifically asked An Rong if he had guessed something.

An Rong probably had some doubts at that time, but never dared to confirm them.

The cultivators of Renxin Pavilion have demon blood and have been lurking in the Human Alliance, with close ties to the demon race.

Once this conclusion is reached, all the previous doubts can be explained.

Judging from Gu Yuchen's performance just now, Renxin Pavilion holds a high position among the demon race and can join forces with the Demon King to a certain extent.

This also explains how the person who poisoned An Rong persuaded Zhu Yin Hai to obtain the candle worms from him, and how they dared to send someone to Hulu Mountain, confident in persuading Qing Yu Niao to ambush An Rong.

Renxin Pavilion: People's hearts are unfathomable. Who would have thought that Tao Xian's sect would collude with the Demon King and be devoted to the demons?

Compared to the fact that the cultivators of Renxin Pavilion had demon blood, Wu Chang was more surprised that An Rong claimed to also have demon blood.

Despite being a half-human, half-demon hybrid, he gained the approval of the immortals and acquired the most powerful strength among human cultivators.

So favored by the heavens, a human-demon hybrid is definitely the answer to the world's dungeon, no wonder An Rong is blessed with the great fortune of a chosen one of the planes.

However, this is a good thing for Wu Chang. Going against the version will not end well, and who doesn't want to be a strong hero in the current version?

He explained:

"Is the reason why Tai Sui is so uneasy and hesitant is because of the demon bloodline in your body?"

"In my opinion, this is not a big deal. There is a saying in our area that weapons are neither good nor evil; good and evil depend on the person who uses them. The power in one's blood is like the weapon in one's hand; it does not determine good or evil in itself."

"As Tai Sui just saw, I actually have some aquatic blood in my body. Many celestial beings have other bloodlines mixed in. As long as we control this power well and don't let it control us, it's just a tool, no different from other spells."

An Rong seemed to be thinking after hearing this, and was persuaded by Wu Chang. It wasn't that Wu Chang's reasoning was particularly convincing, but rather that Wu Chang's performance just now was too persuasive.

Even if someone were a true demon, let alone someone with demon blood, they wouldn't be as monstrous as Wu Chang just now.

The fact that he can transform into a demon god and then return to human form while still maintaining his original heart is enough to prove that what Wu Chang said is true.

An Rong paused for a moment and then said:
"What Your Excellency says makes sense, but what I have in mind is related to the bloodline of the demon race, yet it is also unrelated."

Wu Chang said solemnly:
"If you have any troubles in your heart, you can speak them directly. Whatever you say, as long as it comes out of your mouth, it will enter my ears. No matter what I hear, I will not tell any third party."

Before speaking, An Rong opened the screen beside the altar. He had already intended to say something, and now that things had come to this point, he said:
"Your Excellency Peace, I asked you a question before. You said that the revival of spiritual energy would make the world a better place.

"You didn't answer me then, but now I want to hear your answer."

Wu Chang pondered An Rong's purpose. Did An Rong want him to say yes or no when he asked this question?
His answer is not important; what matters is that it suits An Rong's taste.

"From the perspective of an ordinary cultivator, the existence of spiritual energy is the same as the weapons and bloodlines I mentioned before. They are all tools; they are righteous when used for good and evil when used for evil."

“Spells formed from spiritual energy can heal the sick and save lives, bring good weather and abundant harvests to the world, and benefit all people; they can also incite strife, stimulate ambition, amplify the differences between people, and make those in high positions even more indifferent to life.”

Wu Chang's answer was standard, but what he said seemed to be different from what An Rong was referring to.

Wu Chang caught a glimpse of disappointment in An Rong's eyes, and before An Rong could speak, he changed the subject, saying:

"But from the perspective of the celestial beings, or rather, by shifting our focus away from the Great Mystery or even the singular concept of Heaven and Earth, we can look down upon this world."

"I don't believe that the resurgence of spiritual energy will make the world a better place."

An Rong's eyes lit up with curiosity as he asked:
"What does this mean?"

Wu Chang paused for a moment, then spoke in a low, story-filled voice:
"The general trend of the world is that after a long period of division, there will be unity, and after a long period of unity, there will be division. The rise and fall of dynasties, the succession of civilizations, and the replacement of old things by new things are all natural laws. It may seem that the world will be in chaos for a while, but there is order in the chaos."

“But spiritual energy is different. The source of spiritual energy is the chaos of the world. It does not refer to the chaos of the Great Xuan, or even the chaos of this world, but the chaos that spans thousands of worlds.”

“Once spiritual energy appears, it will cause chaos in the world, enticing people to devote all their energy to it, allowing it to grow and spread, and become the most important thing in the world.”

"Then take the whole world and head to a higher, more expansive world."

Although what Wu Chang said was not what An Rong had thought, this macroscopic theory of spiritual energy that transcended the independent world firmly attracted An Rong's attention.

An Rong asked, "The higher world, beyond the Heavenly Gate?"

Wu Chang nodded and said, "It's not just those immortals who are connected with the Human Alliance, but also those in the Upper Realm beyond the Heavenly Gate, all of whom are affected by the chaos brought about by the spiritual energy."

"The higher you go, the harder it is to escape."

An Rong fell silent. After hesitating for a moment, he asked:
"What will happen to those worlds if we can't escape?"

Wu Chang shook his head and said:
"I don't know. That's a problem that even the people of the Upper Realm can't solve. It's beyond our reach right now. I can only sense it, but I have no solution."

An Rong took a deep breath, clearing his mind of all distractions, and then suddenly burst into laughter.

"Your Excellency is learned and knowledgeable, and has a wide range of experiences. No wonder you were able to gain the approval of the master of the Heavenly Authority Immortal Mansion when you first arrived in the Great Xuan Dynasty and entered the Heavenly Authority Immortal Mansion."

"I have never heard anyone mention this theory of chaotic spiritual energy. Even those true immortals who left behind their immortal destiny have never uttered a single word about it."

"I thought the matter I was concerned with was the most weighty and difficult to decide in the world, but compared with what you have said, it suddenly seems petty."

An Rong was stunned by the information Wu Chang provided. He had originally thought that Wu Chang, as a celestial being, did not understand the world and spirits that Da Xuan was in, so he wanted to share the information he knew so that Wu Chang would know the true nature of this world and its spiritual energy.

Before he could even speak, Wu Chang had already reshaped his understanding of heaven, earth, and spiritual energy.

The frustration and annoyance that had been weighing on his heart these past few days suddenly seemed like a joke. It was as if what he thought was a great secret hidden from the world when he was a child was nothing more than childishly sprinkling water on the sheets to cover up bedwetting in the eyes of adults.

An Rong adjusted his distorted mindset and then said:
"The reason I asked you this question, inquiring about your views on spiritual energy, stems from what I saw at the altar when I entered Calabash Mountain that day."

An Rong adjusted his words and revealed the information he had seen at the sacrificial altar, information that he had been keeping hidden.

"What I saw at the altar of the Heaven-worshiping ceremony was not just the ritual itself, but also the source of the calamity that preceded the ritual."

"The source of the disaster aura?" Wu Chang repeated in a puzzled tone. Could it be that there was another hidden reason behind the appearance of the disaster aura?
An Rong asked:

"What do you think is the relationship between calamities and sacrificial rituals to heaven?"

Wu Chang said, "In order to quell the four calamities that were ravaging the world, the cultivators used a sacrificial ceremony to borrow the power of the upper realm to quell the four calamities..."

At this point, he realized something: "Could it be that this isn't the case?"

An Rong sighed and said:
"It's mostly correct, but there's one misconception. In ancient times, the purpose of worshipping the heavens was not to suppress the four calamities. On the contrary, the ritual actually had five stages. The first stage was called 'inviting calamities'."

"From the very beginning, the Four Calamities were not calamities inherent to this world, but rather originated from beyond the Heavenly Gate!"

"They were the first batch of Earth Immortals in ancient times. They communicated with the Upper Realm through a sacrificial ceremony and opened the Heavenly Gate. The people of the Upper Realm behind the Heavenly Gate then ordered the cultivators of the Lower Realm to cooperate with the Upper Realm through a sacrificial ceremony to release the Qi of the Four Calamities into the Lower Realm."

"The four calamities are diluted by the lives and faith of beings in the lower realm, and then the calamities are transformed into auspicious celestial energy through a sacrificial ceremony. A portion of this celestial energy is returned to the upper realm, while the remaining celestial energy is divided among the various forces that cooperate with the sacrifice."

An Rong paused for a moment, giving Wu Chang some time to process the information, before continuing: "The Seven Star Immortals discovered the true nature of the sacrificial ceremony and wanted to change everything, freeing this world from the control of the entity behind the Heavenly Gate."

"So they devised a ritual to worship the earth, hoping to gain supernatural powers from the upper realm. When the time was right, they would replace the heavens with the earth and no longer use the lives and faith of the people in the lower realm to deal with the disasters in the upper realm."

"Unfortunately, the upper realm did not give them a chance. They discovered their plan to replace heaven with earth, so they created the demon race, intending to eliminate the Seven Star Immortals and the earth-sacrificing ritual together."

"Next came the ancient war between humans and demons, when heaven and earth closed and spiritual energy was cut off."

Upon hearing An Rong's description, Wu Chang suddenly had a strange thought: was the upper realm behind the Heavenly Gate dumping garbage into the lower realm?

Each layer of the abyss has a limited capacity to accommodate abyssal erosion; excessive abyssal erosion will lead to dimensional imbalance.

For example, there is an overabundance of extraordinary items, the level of contamination in dungeons increases rapidly, and the difficulty of dungeons increases.

The proliferation of extraordinary beings will further lead to a chain reaction, such as an increase in out-of-control planes, which will cause reality to be eroded by the Wilderness Realm instance, and the Crimson Garden of the Realm of Reason to be eroded by the Realm of Reason instance.

However, due to the rule that abyssal erosion only intensifies and never weakens, abyssal erosion only shifts from the shallow to the deep layers.

The world instance where the players are currently in is essentially a large-scale dumping of garbage. The Abyss Corruption accumulated over a long period of time in the Desolate Realm is thrown directly into the Realm of Reason through the world instance.

Before the world instance was downgraded, it was still in the Realm of Reason. If behind the Heavenly Gate is the third layer of the Abyss, and like the Light Society connecting to the world instance, there is a sacrificial ceremony set up on the other side, it is actually an Abyss player from the third layer of the Abyss.

So, wouldn't sending the calamity down through a sacrificial ceremony be like throwing the Abyss Erosion from the third layer of the Abyss into the Realm of Reason?

Wu Changyue thought about it more and more and it seemed similar. Not only was the way the dungeons were deployed downwards similar, but the existence of the entire world dungeon also seemed to be the product of player intervention.

The most incongruous element is the presence of the Big Dipper.

Wu Chang was unsure whether the Martial Star Lord existed in the abyss. However, assuming no one impersonated the Martial Star Lord, the wooden carving of the Martial Star Lord could confirm that there might indeed be a Martial Star Lord deep within the abyss.

But does the Martial Star Lord in the abyss have six other colleagues who could form a complete Big Dipper constellation? Is the other name corresponding to the Martial Star Kaiyang?
Wu Chang couldn't be sure about these things, but the existence of the Big Dipper in the world instance, its common name, and its corresponding abilities were all too similar to the myths in Blue Star.

It is important to know that the myths on Earth are mostly formed by the blending of different historical events and myths over time, and are completely different from the gods in the abyss.

Often, the same mythological identity may be a combination of five, six, or even dozens of mythological figures.

For example, Erlang Shen, whose original form was a worship of the River God, evolved from Li Bing to Li Jia Erlang, and then incorporated the identities of Guankou Erlang and Zhao Jia Erlang. The most well-known Erlang Shen, Yang Jian, appeared last and has the least established origins.

In other words, the image of the deity worshipped on Earth, even if the original deity being worshipped as a reference actually exists, will deviate from the original deity as beliefs change.

The Big Dipper in the world instance corresponds perfectly with the mythology of Earth, which is too deliberate and practically impossible to achieve.

This reminded him of the utopian divinity of the Light Society, who would somehow make virtual deities on Earth seem real, and then grant those who merged with that divinity fictitious divine power.

It is very likely that the beings behind the Heavenly Gate also possessed similar methods, creating the Big Dipper and casting its divinity into the mortal realm as a destiny for immortality.

But there's another problem: the amount of calamity energy released through the sacrificial altar each time is not much. Is the purpose behind the Heavenly Gate really just to "throw away garbage"?
So they created the Big Dipper and condensed seven powerful deities just to make them rebel against them?
It doesn't make sense.

Let him think about what the Seven Star Immortals did in the world instance.

They created the Earth-worshiping ritual based on the Heaven-worshiping ritual, wanting to replace Heaven with Earth. This aroused the dissatisfaction of the upper realm, so it is not this point.

Using their individual strengths, they created various cultivation techniques, which not only raised the cultivation level of the world's dungeon planes, but also allowed all seven of them to reach the pinnacle of the Realm of Reason, just one step away from becoming mid-level gods.

That's not right either. They're not any particular player's loyal followers, so becoming a mid-level god wouldn't be of any benefit to them.

What else is there?
and also……

Wu Chang's inspiration came into play; a flash of lightning streaked through his mind, reminding him of the calamity-averting banner.

To be precise, it is a set of command flags for warding off disasters, issuing imperial edicts, and bestowing auspicious omens.

This set of command flags was made with reference to the Heaven Worship Ceremony. Unlike the Earth Worship Ceremony, it can perform the abilities that the Heaven Worship Ceremony only has without relying on the power of faith or the arrangement of formations.

More importantly, the three command flags together bear the inscription "The Method of Seizing Heaven"!
The celestial realm not only arranged sacrificial ceremonies to heaven and continuously released calamities, but also created the divinity of the Big Dipper and selected the targets that best matched the divinity to make them immortal. Could their true purpose be to make them invent this method of seizing heaven?

The three command flags correspond to the three steps of the Heaven-worshiping ceremony. Could the method of seizing Heaven be the same as the purpose of the Heaven-worshiping ceremony?

From the perspective of the nature of the practice, the ritual of offering sacrifices to heaven to ward off disasters and bring good fortune is actually changing the nature of the abyss's erosion.

Just as he had answered An Rong before, the source of extraordinary power is the erosion of the abyss.

Spiritual energy is, demonic energy is, immortal energy and calamity energy are also!
However, the difference between the two is that humans cannot absorb demonic energy and calamity energy for cultivation, but they can absorb spiritual energy and immortal energy.

When he first saw the transformation between demonic energy and spiritual energy at Kaiyang Immortal Mansion, he was amazed, because it was a method to transform unabsorbable abyssal erosion into absorbable abyssal erosion.

If one truly masters this ability, then one can transform all unabsorbable abyssal erosion into absorbable abyssal erosion.

At first glance, the effect may not seem strong, but upon closer inspection, the amount of unabsorbable abyssal erosion is simply overwhelming.

Just from what Wu Chang has experienced, the high-energy weapons and various research of the Holy Song Company, the core of the extraordinary steam engine, demonic power and calamity energy are all abyssal corruptions that humans cannot absorb.

Putting aside these desolate realm energies, he had also encountered higher-level energies that eroded his core. If it were even higher, there would be the beginning of all things that constituted the abyss, the Primordial Spirit Pivot.

These energies all belong to the Abyss Corruption, which players, as humans, cannot absorb.

If one could reach this level of the so-called "method of seizing the heavens," not only could one not only reach the third level of the abyss, but one could probably even forge a path to the fourth level of the abyss using this method.

Wu Chang suppressed his excitement and tried to keep his tone calm.

He asked An Rong:

"Why is there such a big difference between the information you saw at the altar of worship and the information we saw at the altar of worship?"

If what An Rong said is true, then the part of the scene he saw must have been information deliberately left behind by the Seven Star Immortals so that future cultivators would discover it.

Wu Chang's powerful intuition allowed him to see far more information in the sacrificial altar than Jian Xing and others, but compared to An Rong, it seemed insignificant.

He knew that An Rong was born with the destiny of a chosen one of the world, so it was only right that he saw more of her, but he was still somewhat unconvinced.

He felt that the Seven Star Immortal must have cheated, deliberately hiding the information that An Rong saw, so that only those who met certain conditions could see it.

This time, An Rong answered without hesitation, saying:

"I can see more than you because this intelligence was originally meant for me."

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow, revealing an "I knew it" expression. In any normal competition, his intuition would not have allowed the sacrificial altar to keep so much secret.

He then asked, "Why?"

An Rong did not answer directly, but asked instead:

"The sacrificial ceremony to Heaven is arranged with four altars for worshipping Heaven in a formation, with the Heavenly Gate as the core. The Heavenly Gate is the central point of the sacrificial ceremony to Heaven."

"Looking at the Earth Worship Ceremony, it uses the Seven Star Immortals' Immortal Abode and the Great Xuan World as its array, but within the Earth Worship Ceremony Temple, there is no absolute central hub like the Heavenly Gate. Don't you find that strange?"

Wu Chang nodded. He had noticed this before, but he hadn't found the answer.

An Rong didn't keep them in suspense and said directly:

"Because the core of the earth-worshiping ceremony is not the concept of the earth, but the Tai Sui (Grand Duke Jupiter)."

(End of this chapter)