Destiny in Cinders

Chapter 34: Seven Arcs

The Seven Arcs encompassed the evil, odd, mixed, root, miracle, divine and celestial arcs. Divine and celestial arcs were limited only to reincarnations of celestial or divine beings and was a sign of providence and heavenly will. The most precious category of lifearc was the miracle arc, which was further subdivided into Heavenly Rectifier, Earthly Lethalizer, mountain, sea, star and sky.

Bai Qinghan’s arc was the most precious among starruin miracle arcs: the Profound Yin Star Arc! The mere fact that such an arc appeared right at the start of the ritual made everything worth it, even if everyone else in the ritual perished.

Naturally, the manor lord didn’t actually voice such thoughts, for he knew that this batch was far better than he could ever have imagined. Just because a precious arc was the first to manifest didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be more!

The Imperial Sky Starslaying Grand Ritual borrowed the power of the Olden Heavenly Father and the foreign heavenly fiend. Those that participated in the ritual would be plunged into tribulation by the heavenly fiend’s power only to overcome it using the Heavenly Father’s power. It was a lethal gamble that generated mystical qi from uncertainty, celestial order from fiendish chaos, life from death, divine mysteries from tribulation.

Direlife Canyon was a place where a sword immortal had felled a fiend during the grand calamity of Void Embrace. As such, it contained leftover traces of fiendish and godly power, greatly enhancing the effects of the ritual. The crossroads of yin and yang, life and death, allowed the ritual undertakers to enter a dao-comprehension state. If they managed to overcome it, they would be able to awaken their lifearcs!

”Bai Qinghan...” The manor lord nodded with satisfaction. ”As expected of an orphan from Hanhai. There had to be a reason why she survived the fiend calamity for ten years.”

He raised his hands high in excitement, cutting his arm with a jade dagger and spilling some blood. ”Keep going! I pay my respects to the Imperial Sky! Illuminate us with heavenly will!”

The other ritual organizers chanted the same as they sustained the ritual. The light that the grand formation gave off reflected across the white, sandy grounds, forming patterns of mountains and oceans. Everyone’s fate seemed connected with the ritual, with those who succeeded going on to take on the burden of the formation to keep it going.

As for those who failed and died, their soul, vigor and everything else would be refined into blood brews after the ritual to benefit the ones who succeeded. They could be used to grow one’s cultivation and increase one’s lifespan.

This was also one of the reasons the cult didn’t spare any expense in nurturing the children. The ones unlucky enough to perish would still end up becoming consumed by those who did, becoming a part of them and benefiting them in the process.

Attempting to shortcut heavenly will required lots of sacrifice to make up for the massive burden. The deaths that resulted from the ritual would be made up for in the form of feedback from the ritual.

Just like that, the ritual kept going. At the same time, An Jing’s memories flashed through his mind. Around the time of his birth, his father had attended his third state examination. Having failed that attempt and completely given up, he intended to return home to take over family affairs, only for the Hanhai Fiend Calamity to cut off the northern highway.

So, he had to take a detour to the divine capital, which made his journey many times harder. By the time he returned, An Jing was already two years old. Being smart and vigilant, the child immediately cried out for his family to push the large, bearded stranger on the ground.

The other townsfolk had thought that An Jing’s father perished from the fiend calamity in Gufeng County. He didn’t seem to mind the initial misunderstanding and pulled his wife, Madam Shen, into his arms as he laughed, only to see the child introduce himself as his son, the son his wife had carried right before his departure. It took him so long to finally meet him.

An Jing was far smarter than his father could ever be. The An Clan of Gufeng was a martial clan, founded by an ancestor who had helped Grand Chen expand its borders. They owned a hundred mu[1] of fertile farmland and ran various businesses in the county’s capital. Otherwise, there was no way An Jing’s father would be able to afford his many attempts to take the state examination.

Though An Jing’s father was busy after giving up on academics and switching back to martial practice, he would still find the time to read ancient tomes. An Jing would sit by his side and recite the words from the tome with his father.

Though he had thought his son was merely there for his company, he soon realized that the bright boy actually understood what he was reciting. Not only that, he could also read well.

Intrigued, he handed his son a book titled ”Honglie Astronomy” and asked, ”Do you understand this book?”

An Jing flipped through the pages as information surfaced in his mind. He felt that he had read similar content before. Though the shape of the words was different, he still recognized them. He began to recite, ”The forms of the heavens are myriad and varied, casting a grand illumination...”

His reading got more and more fluent to the point that he shook in an animated fashion as he read. An Jing’s father immediately fell into a mix of bliss and concern. It was as if his son was a star that had descended onto the mortal realm. He was much smarter than he could ever hope to be.

Destiny was incredibly important in Grand Chen, so the members of the An clan didn’t doubt what he said at all. Though he had had his fair share of achievements, there was only so far he could go with his capabilities. There was no way he could compare against someone with the Spark.

An Jing’s father didn’t quite have talent for the martial path, just barely being considered an initiate after three decades of training, reaching the River Aura Stage. Despite his inadequacy, the clan had many impressive tomes that were of use all the way up to the Hundred Meridians Clearing Realm. So, he helped his son establish a firm basis before he would send him off to a martial academy.

Grand Chen was a martial nation, though it was also ruled by laws and conventions. As such, both martial and scholarly achievements were prized. An Jing’s father couldn’t decide which path to set his son on, so he decided to push it back until his son matured and focus on giving him a good foundation instead.

Gufeng County was situated at the northernmost part of Grand Chen. It used to be nothing but a derelict village in Xuanque Prefecture, but it had grown into a prosperous county. Farther north was Green Jade Pass, which kept the dangers of the wilderness and the northern frontier at bay.

The wild fiends and beasts near Gufeng County had been exterminated two centuries prior by those who came before. During An Jing’s era, things were peaceful and stable.

By the time he turned six, trade boomed at the frontier. The trade routes brought more and more prosperity to Gufeng County. An Jing’s father also played a part in it and got so busy that he left his son mainly in his wife’s care. Madam Shen was also from a martial clan, and while her talent wasn’t impressive either, she was more than qualified to teach the basics.

Gradually, the prosperity in Gufeng County grew and grew. An Jing had also built a firm foundation for his body and was also well read on many topics. All his tutors praised him for being the son of a commended and believed that he would be able to gain an even higher official position in the divine capital if his talent continued to be honed.

Alas, on one summer day during An Jing’s ninth year, trade suddenly ceased at the markets near the north. An Jing’s father’s business was no longer viable, forcing him to take his employees to Green Jade Pass to look for new opportunities there.

Not long after their departure, however, news of war spread from the north. The thirteen northern barbarians kings had launched an invasion with three hundred thousand troops under one banner. With doom looming over them, Grand Chen also mustered their forces to meet the invading force.

From Greenjade Pass to Whitedew River, Yungu County to the city of Brightmont, Northwatch Mountain to the hundred and twenty cities beyond, none of these places were spared from the flames of battle. In less than two years, the forces on both sides were exhausted from the conflict while An Jing’s father was still missing in action.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the snow calamity that only happened once every one thousand years put even more pressure on the denizens of the north who had already suffered through the war.

It wasn’t like there were no signs of the incoming snow calamity. Even without taking the Hanhai Fiend Calamity into consideration, the northern barbarians in the frontier noticed that the climate got colder year by year, resulting in progressively worse crop harvests. They engaged in trade as a last resort to make up for the bad crop. Eventually, the northern barbarians were forced to unite when their stores ran dry, having no other choice but to march south for greener pastures.

The An clan quickly fell along with the rest of Gufeng County by a thousand cuts, starting from increased wartime taxes, military appropriations, and the snow calamity that ravaged much of their estate. There was no rain, only heavy snowfall, and the barbarian invasion plunged everyone into despair.

The denizens of Gufeng County had no choice but to flee south before they ran out of food. What they had left soon ran out as they were prevented from growing more food due to the snow calamity. All they could do was break the ground ice in hopes of finding roots to chew on, or try their luck with tree bark.

When things got even more desperate, some stooped to eating their own kin. It wasn’t even a hard decision to make. There simply was hunger, and there were people who would sate that hunger.

As the An clan had gathered quite a bit of wealth over the years, they didn’t suffer too much, but that didn’t mean they were much better off. Much of their business had been in agriculture and land development, after all.

An Jing’s father had also spent quite a bit of fortune on collecting ancient tomes. During normal times, this was a legitimate way to improve one’s clan. Had there been peace to allow for normal development, the clan would have produced an accomplished martialist or scholar that could bring the whole clan to an even higher standing.

However, the compounding disasters rendered all that useless. The clan’s agricultural business was appropriated to feed the troops, though eventually even their crops expired too. The ancient tomes were no more useful than scrap paper in those times, while the land they owned turned completely worthless.

The elders of the clan were unwilling to leave the land that their forebears had developed across generations and chose to perish there. The rest were gradually picked off by bandits. By the time the nation’s troops came, the An clan had already been beaten and scattered.

An Jing and his mother managed to break out of heavy encirclement time and again until she suffered a heavy blow one day near the center of the northern frontier in the vicinity of Brightmont.

The chain of memories pulsed nonstop within him like a mirage. Within the haze, An Jing saw utter pitch blackness. It was neither light nor shadow, star nor god. Instead, a lonely void, broiling with primordial chaos, flowed across his vision, accompanied by a voice. ”What is thy destiny?”

1. 亩, a traditional unit used to measure farmland ☜