Tribulation of Myriad Races

The young man laughed again and continued his story, “At the time, I was nothing before the Devil Pseudo Emperor. Sigh. Everything has changed. A long life is indeed better than more strength. With a long enough lifespan, I was able to outlive him despite his strength.”

He shook his head as he immersed himself in his ancient memories. A sense of melancholy enveloped him as he was reminded of just how much everything had changed.

Empyrean Cloud waited in silence. After a while, the young man looked at Su Yu again. With a faint smile on his face, he looked Su Yu from head to toe, as though he was seeing through Su Yu’s entire existence.

Su Yu, for his part, hurriedly schooled his thoughts.

Only Soy Bun was left in his mind. The name of Little Furball’s father. What an adorable name. What a mundane name. Not bad at all!

The dad was Soy Bun while the son was Furball. What a suitable name. It would be inappropriate to call him Big Furball, right? Soy Bun was a much better name. Of course, he would only use that name in the big furball’s presence if he was feeling particularly suicidal.

As Su Yu continued thinking all sorts of thoughts related to the big furball, the young man continued studying him. After a while, he slowly said, “You opened your grand cycle acupoints, but you have yet to open your grand cycle apertures, right?”

“Yeah.” Su Yu hurriedly answered.

The young man said, “I guess you got lucky and somehow opened the heaven acupoint halfway. Or maybe you’re simply unlucky. This is not an acupoint you want to open halfway. In fact, it’s very troublesome. I see that you’re feeding it with death qi for now. What a creative idea. And what a…brazen idea.”

“Lord…I…”

The young man stopped him with a gesture and continued, “It’s not a good thing to fill it with too much death qi. One day, it will be full, and death qi will start overflowing from it. At that time, it won’t be so easy to do anything about it anymore.”

With a slightly complicated tone, the young man said, “But…nobody can say if this is a good thing or a bad thing for you. I don’t have the heaven acupoint open, so I don’t know too much about it. You might be the first cultivator to open the heaven acupoint after the ancient past…”

Su Yu explained, “I don’t think so. A human opened it in the recent past, but he died after failing to feed the yang acupoint with sufficient energy…”

“What’s his cultivation level?” asked the young man curiously.

Su Yu answered awkwardly, “Ninth-stage Cloudbreach.”

“…”

Empyrean Cloud sank into silence. The young man sank into silence as well.

Cloudbreach…what level was that again? It had been too long since they were that weak. They couldn’t remember anymore.

After a long time, the young man spoke again, “The human race…is indeed loved by the heavens. Again and again, you collapsed. Again and again, you returned.”

Su Yu blanked out.

“Collapsed again and again?”

What was the meaning of that?

The young man waved his hand and said, “Let’s talk about something else. Things must have changed a lot for humanity. Has your legacy been severed?”

Su Yu answered carefully, “Not really. We still have quite a lot of Invincibles…”

“I’m referring to the legacy from the ancient past.”

Su Yu shook his head, “I don’t know. I’m a nobody in the Human Realm. I lack information.”

He was being honest. He didn’t know humanity that well. When he left, he was still a mere Skysoar.

Empyrean Cloud seemed to know more about this topic. She offered her knowledge, “I believe they lost their legacy. They are only sustaining themselves on some ancient ruins. That was how they gained some Eternals out of nowhere a few hundred years ago.”

The young man sighed and said, “They are truly blessed by the heavens. Their fortune has yet to wither. With only some remnants of their ancient legacy, they were able to produce dozens of Eternals. How inconceivable. This is both luck and talent at work.”

Su Yu nodded in agreement. Humanity was actually quite impressive. A few hundred years ago, it did not have a single Invincible. But when it was on the brink of destruction, it had produced dozens of Invincibles in the blink of an eye. That must have caught the myriad races by complete surprise.

Any other race would have failed to produce so many Invincibles at the same time, even with access to sufficient ancient ruins.

Humanity had indeed done the impossible, changing the balance of the Myriad Realms and securing the rise of humanity, placing humanity among the ten or even the five strongest races.

The young man maintained his gaze on Su Yu as he muttered, “You have the grand cycle acupoints opened. You have also learned the Five Elemental Art, even if it’s slightly incomplete due to a lack of use. The gap between your willpower and body is too big. As for your body, you cultivate the…72-Forged Iron Devourer? It looks to be near completion. What a surprise.”

He continued, “Your character technique…”

A look of recognition appeared on his face. But after some time, he shook his head as he said, “The difference is still quite big. You’re far from completion. Is this a good thing? Or is this a bad thing?”

“Culture Tomb?” Suddenly, he blanked out.

Meanwhile, Su Yu was alarmed. How did this man notice even the Culture Tomb?

After a slight hesitation, the young man explained, “This…is an inauspicious item. I would advise…no, forget it. This is the legacy of your line. But it’s not a good thing to keep around. Back then…it wasn’t forged for the sake of inheritance. Rather, it was truly meant to serve as a tomb.”

Su Yu asked in confusion, “A real tomb?”

The young man said, “Yes. A group of character cultivators at the end of the road forged it to grieve for that man. With destruction as the price, they forged this tomb. I did not expect to see this tomb out of its resting place.”

Empyrean Cloud said, “No wonder it looked familiar. So it’s really that tomb!”

The young man nodded, “Yes, it’s the same tomb. It has actually left its resting place. This shouldn’t have happened…”

He looked at Su Yu and asked, “Who brought it out?”

After a slight hesitation, Su Yu answered, “The first principal of Great Xia Cultural Research Academy, younger brother of Great Xia King.”

“Great Xia King…” The young man sank into contemplation. After a long time, he said, “The person capable of taking this tomb out will not be an ordinary person. Great Xia…Great Xia King…is this perhaps the bloodline of an ancient human king?”

“…”

Su Yu blanked out again. What was this new term? Human king? What was that?

The young man did not elaborate. Instead, he said, “I guess you should keep the tomb. It might be an inauspicious item, but it has the same origin as your line. It should be fine for you to keep it. That won’t be the case for someone not from your line. Bad things might happen.”

At this point, Su Yu was fully confused. He only knew that the tomb might be a bigger deal than he had expected. Whose tomb was it? Where did Xia Chen uncover it back then?

It was said that he had discovered it in a ruin. Unlike the other Invincibles at the time, Xia Chen did not manage to enter the Invincible Realm from the ruin he found. Instead, he found the tomb.

Su Yu couldn’t resist asking, “Lord, I heard the Culture Tomb was found in a ruin. Over the years, humanity has gained a lot from these ruins. All our founding kings had affirmed their dao in these ruins. However, the ruin this tomb came from contained nothing else…”

After a short silence, the young man said, “Ruins…and dao affirmation…There are many variations of what you can represent with the term ruin. The ruin you understand might be different from what I understand.”

The young man explained, “For me, a ruin is the location where items of inheritance from the ancient past can be found. Some of these things might not be particularly powerful, but their importance can’t be doubted. Their value is far higher than the ability to affirm one’s dao.” “Some of these items might not be able to provide you with much direct strength, but they are still very important. Not everything left from the ancient past is meant to directly increase your strength. Some are meant to help you thread your own path, to explore your own dao.”

“As for the ruins you’re referring to…” After a short pause, he said, “They remind me of the legacy humanity left behind during their first return.”

Yet again, Su Yu blanked out. This seemed to be happening a lot today. But this time, he was both confused and alarmed as he asked, “Lord…what do you mean by the first return?”

The young man asked, “Do you believe that the current balance of power is the result of the ancient collapse?”

Su Yu stared blankly. Was that not the case?

Empyrean Cloud explained, “After the ancient collapse, the various races have returned multiple times. When I say return, I mean the return of their civilization. This applies to humanity as well. The Human Realm has reconnected to the Allheaven Battlefield multiple times before. The world you see today is a result of multiple collapses and returns.”

Su Yu was shocked. This was completely different from the history he knew. Then again, the recorded history of humanity he knew only went back as far as four hundred or so years.

Prior to that, humanity was ruled by a feudal dynasty. One day, the dynasty was destroyed as foreign invaders arrived. Then, the various founding kings rose in power, giving rise to the era of prefectures. That was the history Su Yu and many others knew. There were barely any records about the time before then.

And now, someone was telling him that the Human Realm had actually been reconnected to the Allheaven Battlefield multiple times before. And humanity had also been destroyed multiple times before.

That was…inconceivable.

Empyrean Cloud didn’t have much reaction to the reveal. She indifferently said, “The last collapse of humanity happened about five thousand years ago. I still remember some of the events from back then since my mayor at the time was a human.”

Su Yu’s mind was in a mess from the overdose of information. He said, “So…the ruins we have today aren’t even from the ancient past?”

“How was the ancient past supposed to leave enough ruins to last so many collapses?”

Empyrean Cloud said, “As far as I’m aware, the Luminous Domain Mansion is a real ruin from the ancient past. As for the rest, very few of them are actual ancient past ruins. Granted, I have only seen a few of these so-called ruins, but I’m sure about that. Most of the proper ancient past ruins I saw had been emptied long ago. But based on what you said, the younger brother of Great Xia King might have entered a real ancient past ruin. As for Great Xia King, the ruin he entered was probably a ruin from the recent past.

“Why would the humans of the ancient past spend all their time leaving places of dao affirmation behind? At the time, such locations could be found everywhere. Most of these ruins were left behind by humanity during the first return. Numerous trump cards were left behind to ensure the continuation of human civilization.”

Realization dawned on Su Yu. So that was how it was. In the ancient past, people could affirm their dao everywhere. There was no need to leave these special dao affirmation spots behind. Furthermore, the humans of the ancient past must not have seen their civilization collapsing. They never bothered to leave proper inheritances behind to help their descendants. It was completely unnecessary.

But after the first collapse, humanity stopped believing in its invincibility. They knew that their civilization might collapse for a second time. After all, it had happened even during the peak of their civilization. That was when they decided to leave some inheritances behind to help their descendants. That was perfectly logical.

After rearranging his thoughts, Su Yu inhaled deeply and asked, “In that case…how many times have humanity collapsed and returned?”

Empyrean Cloud smiled and said, “I won’t really put things in such absolute terms. One time, humanity won. Most of the time, both sides were left equally damaged. There is simply no way for humanity to avoid becoming the target of the myriad races. Their immunity to the suppressive force of the various realms is too threatening. Each time they returned, they had to either defeat the myriad races or endure yet another collapse.

“Nobody is willing to tolerate humanity’s existence. Furthermore, humanity is too warlike. I remember that during the first return, numerous human experts proclaimed that they would recover their ancient glory and declared war against the myriad races. Ultimately, they were defeated and nearly suffered extinction.”

“Has humanity not produced even one cultural researcher Invincible? Has nobody ever managed to reactivate Human Realm’s suppressive force?”

Empyrean Cloud hesitated to answer, but the young man laughed and said, “We don’t know too much about the suppressive force of Human Realm since we’re not humans. But I do know that the difficulty of reactivation is massive. Perhaps only humanity itself will know the truth.

“In short, throughout the ages, humanity had gone through numerous cycles of outright defeat or short-lived domination before defeat. It always ended with the collapse of your civilization. Why? Because the myriad races would not give up even during your initial victories. They would keep fighting. And eventually, they would win. Humanity had not been able to return to its previous height even once in its many returns.”