Liang Chen slumped down next to Yi Ze after she ended her own life. His legs simply gave out on him now that the battle was over and the tension was lifted, his exhaustion was catching up with him. Turning the poison born from emotions physical had taken far more energy than turning a normal soul-based poison physical, it probably had something to do with it being an embryonic Prime law.
"You guys... Just stay in there for a while, won't you?"
He muttered to himself as he tinkered with his interspatial ring, activating the function that slowed down time inside of it. He didn't want Li Zhao Xu and the others to get antsy and nag about coming out just yet, he wanted a moment to catch his breath, a few minutes of silence and calm.
So he just sat there, a solitary figure in the ruined land. Gone was the picturesque island and the tranquil ocean, taking their place was torn up land and a pale white ocean spreading an unnaturally sweet and sickly smell.
It was a scene that Liang Chen was disappointingly familiar with at this point, a city brought to ruin and an untold number of lives uprooted and erased. If he took the previous cities as the average then there would probably only be around one or two people worth sparing here, and that was if he was lucky. Without a doubt, several thousands of sinners, scum worthy of death, had fallen here. They didn't die by his hand, but they undoubtedly died due to him.
But even so, he couldn't honestly say that he was happy about it. That exhilaration he felt back in the day when he first stepped onto this path, when he killed his first group of sinners and hardened his determination, it was nowhere to be found. But he didn't feel empty either, he just felt weary and a bit forlorn.
How many had he killed by now? It was a bit of a pointless question, he actually knew the answer well. He remembered all his kills, he knew every soul he hoisted onto his shoulders. It was a number that felt exaggeratedly high, it was to the point that he almost felt like laughing whenever he tried to say it out loud.
But even so, the scenery he saw whenever he turned his head remained the same. People went about their business as always, some lived their lives peacefully while others had the misfortune of getting dragged down by someone else's sin. How many did he have to kill to make a true difference? Would he have to leave this twisted place before he could actually hope to get anywhere close to making a difference or was the outside actually as twisted as this place, he just hadn't gotten to see it yet?
And above all that, what did they feel? When they dragged someone else down, did they feel exhilaration because of it? Did it bore them? Or did they perhaps not feel a thing at all, was it just another number to them? What were they thinking, did they believe that it was worth it as long as they could gain something, that it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things? He couldn't understand the people he killed, the sin he fought against.
Wherever he turned, he saw the same thing. Sin he couldn't understand, people whose thoughts didn't make sense to him. And no matter how much he worked, their numbers never seemed to dwindle, the things he didn't understand simply kept swimming around him, mocking his attempts at erasing them. The constant bloodshed, the seemingly bottomless desire for the pain of others, it made him weary. The number of people willing to do it, the number of people who happily forsook all others for their own pleasure and gain, it made him bitter and forlorn.
So he sat there, the death he sowed his only companion as he gaze upon the ruin he brought. He breathed in the sickly scent of the poison, the decay that now quietly ate away at the land beneath the surface of the white ocean. He was tired. He was sad. And perhaps, somewhere deep within, there was a part of him that just wanted it all to finally come to an end.
"But...So what?"
Yes, so what? He was tired and he was sad, but should he just stop because of that? Yes, there may be a part of him that just wanted it all to end, but that was just what it meant to be human. He had chosen this path, his feet had brought him onto it, and he would see it through to the end. And above all, he still remembered the smiles.
Moonset city. When he left to fight the Stone-Soul King, 12 million people had been left in that city, 12 million people that would have died if he hadn't stepped forward. Shen Fei called it a drop in the ocean, a number so low it didn't matter to the heartless multiverse. But it wasn't a drop in the ocean to them, and it hadn't been a drop in the ocean to Liang Chen. And the end result was that they got to smile, the children got to laugh and the parents got to cry in relief, they got to be happy for at least another day, they got to smile.
He spat out a heavy breath, temporarily forcing out the sorrow and the weariness with it. Those two emotions would probably cling to him for as long as he kept moving down this path, they marked him as human so perhaps he should be more worried about the day he stopped feeling them. But as long as the happiness inherent in those smiles was brighter than the bleak sorrow, he would be assured that they were emotions worth bearing.
"Now then... what do you have for me?"
Liang Chen slowly rose from his seated position, casting a glance at Yi Ze's body. Purgatory had pointed him here for a reward, but Yi Ze was all that remained of her sect. There hadn't been anything like a secret room, like the one that Wyvern's Wrath had, so he guessed that she likely had it on her. He removed the interspatial belt she had tied around her waist and sent his mind into it, and sure enough, he found his bounty before long.
"Ought to be you, no?"
He couldn't be confident that the item he found was actually what Purgatory had pointed him towards, the resonating sensation vanished the moment he set foot on the island. But the item in question radiated an aura far beyond anything else in the interspatial ring, just touching it with his mind made him feel as if he was standing at the bottom of a crystal clear ocean.
The object he pulled out from the interspatial ring was a weapon, a sword to be exact. The handle was made from gnarled wood still covered in bark, it was rough and irritating to the touch. The blade looked to be made from normal metal, although it was unlikely that it was indeed just normal metal, and it was polished until it resembled a mirror. But the true treasure, the heart of the blade, was the gem embedded in the handle, right where the blade and handle met.
It was a strange gem, from one angle it looked crystal clear, like glass, while another angle made it look as deep blue as the ocean itself. Something that looked like irregular blue veins stretched out from the gem and spread across the sword, as if the gem was trying to taint it with its own colour.
"...Things would have been quite different if she used you..."
Liang Chen's eyes couldn't help but narrow as he looked at the weapon, or rather the gem. All the aura radiating from the weapon came from this gem, it alone seemed to hold more water-based energy than the entire ocean around the island used to. Luckily, Yi Ze didn't have the law of water, nor was she proficient with a sword, otherwise things may have gone terribly different.
"Now then...How to approach the next step..."
Liang Chen had a plan, that was why he had specifically chosen this sect. He came here for water-based cultivation materials so that he could advance his body cultivation. He had a fair bit of wind and lightning-based cultivation resources from before, but water he was a bit scraped for, and what he lacked he could make up for using the excessive number of corpses he had on hand.
That had been his original plan, absorb the resources and use the Chaos King technique on the corpses to fill in any energy he was missing. But there was another factor he could take advantage of now, Li Zhao Xu. He hadn't expected her to join him after their first meeting, but since she was with him now there was a chance he could take advantage of her array knowledge.
"Wouldn't hurt to ask at the very least."
The first step would obviously be that, asking her if she would be willing to, or even could, help him. So he swiped his interspatial ring and brought of the non-disciples currently residing in his ring, Yumao, Sheng Lian, Li Zhao Xu, and Shen Fei. The four appeared a few steps away from him, Zhao Xu turning her head somewhat curiously right away.
"Aaaannnddd, we're out! Whatdya know, the scenery's gotten a little change. Was the previous calm not good enough for you?"
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She didn't even seem shocked at the fact that he had an item he could store living beings in, probably a perk of coming from an exalted background. As for her question, Liang Chen didn't even need to give an answer, Shen Fei took on that duty for him with a shrug and a somewhat bitter smirk.
"Yeah, I think that's just how he is. I haven't gotten to see it for myself yet, but I've heard a few smatterings of rumours that he may have gone a bit wild in the previous cities as well. That's what ya get when your given role is in the Weapon-category."
Role, the baseline of Shen Fei's belief and lifestyle, it was what pushed him to act as he did. He was born and given his Authority because his Universe wanted some entertainment, a toy to make it laugh. So that was how he saw the world, nothing but people given roles. And Liang Chen's role was a weapon, but whether it was one born out of necessity or twisted enjoyment wasn't something he knew just yet.
"Ah, so it's just natural to him, got it."
Zhao Xu didn't seem like she knew quite what Shen Fei meant when he said role or weapon-category, but she honestly didn't seem to care that much either as she just glossed over it. Liang Chen also chose to just gloss over it, shaking his head for a second before he turned to Zhao Xu with his inquiry.
"Oh, good lor... Forget it. Zhao Xu, do you happen to know any arrays that can concentrate specific elemental energies in one place? More specifically, water, wind, and lightning?"
He would technically also need the laws of Time and Void to further his body cultivation, but arrays dealing with Time were far rarer than others. As for Void, he doubted that there were even arrays dabbling in that law so he would have to supply those two on his own. Luckily, those two were much easier to get a hold of, at least for him. Zhao Xu tilted her head slightly at his question, as if he was asking something painfully obvious.
"Yeah? They're pretty standard in the attack category, I can draw anything from intermediate to expert ones. But if you're looking for basic ones then you're fucked, Father had a pretty weird way of teaching so I never actually got to dabble with the basics."
She couldn't help but look at him with a slight twist to her expression, was he really asking her if she knew such standard arrays? He already knew that her father was the Divine Emperor, but could it be that he didn't actually know what the Divine Emperor was famous for? Liang Chen ignored the look in her eyes, but indeed, he didn't actually know a thing about the Divine Emperor other than the fact that he ruled at least 9 major universes.
"That just sounds like the wrong way to go about it, but okay. If possible, I would like you to draw me four arrays. At the centre would be the three elemental arrays, preferably concentrating all their energies on one spot. And surrounding it all would be a sealing array to prevent any energy from escaping, the sealing array will have to be the strongest of them all, the strongest you can draw and support."
The sealing array would have to be stronger than any of the other arrays, and not just because it had to contain the energy they unleashed. No, there was one type of energy that Liang Chen would need to draw out, and if that wasn't properly contained then things could go horribly wrong so he needed a powerful sealing array. Zhao Xu tapped her temple for a short moment as she thought the request over, eventually nodding her head.
"Not impossible, but that's assuming that some prerequisites are handled. Firstly, I need blood that holds a bloodline tied to each of those three elements, the sealing array will just need blood filled with an overabundance of Qi, no particular bloodline required. Secondly, I need fuel for the arrays. There's a limit to how much they can achieve by just drawing in the surrounding Qi. Spirit Stones are okay, but blood or Demonic Cores of the corresponding elements would be best."
She was well-versed in arrays but that didn't mean that she carried around the things needed to draw them at all times. She could take some shortcuts thanks to her father's technique, but a few base ingredients would still be required to get the proper power and element for the arrays.
"I have an excessive number of cultivator corpses, can they be used?"
Liang Chen obviously wasn't lacking Spirit Stones after his massacres, but if there was some way to use the bodies of the cultivators instead then that would be for the best. After all, with so many corpses it was inevitable that more than a few of them had bloodlines suited for those arrays. It would also help him get rid of them, it may even be a better use than just devouring them with the Chaos King technique since he would convert them into energy of a more appropriate type.
"They can, technically at least. But I can't use them. I'd need to have an array that breaks them down into their base energy or one that draws out the energy within them, and I'm not proficient with either of those array types. Father... isn't terribly fond of them."
Sadly though, Zhao Xu shook her head. It wasn't that it was impossible, it was just that she wouldn't be able to do it, he'd have to find a different array master. But just as Liang Chen was about to nod his head, he'd just have to use his Spirit Stones instead, a voice piped up from the side.
"If it's that then I've got one, an array that breaks things down to their base energy."
Both Liang Chen and Zhao Xu turned their heads towards the source of the voice, the nonchalant Shen Fei that was standing right there. He rolled his eyes slightly when he saw the two of them turn towards him, both of them almost looking a bit incredulous.
"Don't look at me like that, I actually happen to know a thing or two. But this particular array I only know of because of my teacher, breaking things down into their base components is a good way to learn about them, and having extensive knowledge about things is a prerequisite of that one technique I showed you when we fought."
Liang Chen remembered his fight with Shen Fei vividly, the way he used illusions was different from others thanks to his Authority after all. As for which of his techniques he spoke of, Liang Chen wasn't actually sure. It could either be the technique he used to turn his illusion into reality, the one he used to turn reality into an illusion, or the one he used to create a slowly growing illusion that was both real and illusory at the same time.
As he went over the techniques in his head he was almost surprised to realize that Shen Fei was actually what you'd consider a pretty scary opponent. The fact that he had already beaten him and was moving on towards progressively stronger opponents had simply muddled that fact for a second. But that was only to be expected, Shen Fei hadn't gotten his title on the Multiverse list for no good reason, he deserved it just as much as everyone else on the list.
"Hey, you won't hear me complaining, I'll take it as a good chance to learn a new type of array. But yeah, in that case we can put all those corpses to use. We'll have to sort them out based on elements for the best effect, the ones that don't have a suitable element will just have to be used for a more standard fuel. Of course, that all relies on you having the blood needed."
Zhao Xu only smirked at Shen Fei's comment, she was more than happy to learn about any array type that her Father hadn't taught her about. Her final statement was pointed towards Liang Chen, he'd obviously have to cough up the ingredients for the arrays since he was the one who wanted them.
Liang Chen wasn't the type to carry around an overabundance of blood, he rarely had a use for it, especially with how high the grade of the blood had to be for it to be useful to him. But luckily, he had recently scoured through the storehouse of the Wyvern's Wrath sect, the sect that was built upon a foundation of bloodlines.
Almost all the bloodlines had been given to Sheng Lian, used to form the third row of petals that ended up giving her a human form. But three jars of blood had been saved, three different types of Divine Beast blood that matched his own laws. He didn't hesitate in the slightest and handed Zhao Xu the jars, they were meant to be used for cultivation anyway, and now it was finally the time to use them, as well as everything else he had gathered up so far.