Chapter 545: Nameless Tomb, Overnight Stay in the Inner Palace

Chapter 545: The Nameless Grave, Spending the Night in the Harem

As far as the eye could see, a stretch of... void.

"Blind Maiden?"

Qi Yuan called out again, but alas, where his gaze fell, there was no trace of the Blind Maiden's graceful figure.

Qi Yuan quickly swept his eyes around, a puzzled expression on his face.

Now, the place where he stood was eerie, illusory, and dazzling.

Apart from the paths he remembered walking, the rest of the terrain was formless, or had not yet coalesced into matter.

It was like strands of broken, multicolored threads, like fireflies, like a jumble of digital code.

[Fragments of Nothingness, a chaos, unknowable, invisible, unspyable.]

Those chaotic, disordered things—Qi Yuan sensed a thick threat from them.

Yet he understood that if he were an ordinary person, he might not see the Fragments of Nothingness.

It was because his eyes could see hidden information that he could perceive them.

Without time to ponder further, Qi Yuan followed the usual path toward the Blind Maiden's dwelling.

Except for the paths he often walked, which had solidified into matter, the surrounding environment was all Fragments of Nothingness.

Like garbled code, they could not be touched even if he reached out.

Of course, Qi Yuan dared not casually stretch out his hand to touch them.

Soon, he arrived at the Blind Maiden's residence.

Originally, in Qi Yuan's perception, there was a wooden house and a courtyard there.

But now, it seemed there was nothing but a babbling brook.

As if the memories of the past were all illusions.

Qi Yuan's gaze turned serious.

He went to other places.

Yet as far as his eyes could see, aside from the few paths he often walked that had solidified into matter, everything else was Fragments of Nothingness.

He stood on the rocky path; the original solid ground and sunlight were gone.

Only the Fragments of Nothingness clinging to the walls, like fireflies, remained.

The Fragments of Nothingness seemed to be constantly devouring... this material world.

The entire Divine Tree Abyss was empty, with no living beings other than Qi Yuan.

Not even an ant, let alone a paramecium or bacterium.

"Could it be... it was all fake?"

Qi Yuan frowned.

"Then what is real?"

This matter was fraught with endless strangeness.

He stood alone in the Divine Tree Abyss.

The Blind Maiden was gone, her house was gone, the swing was gone.

The fruit she had given Qi Yuan to eat was also gone.

"Pity I don't defecate, otherwise... maybe I could find remnants of the fruit."

"Could it be that all this time, I've been talking to air, and eating air?"

"No, the art of artifact forging is real, and my memories don't deceive me. So... I need to use my clever brain."

Qi Yuan thought seriously.

After all, in the Divine Tree Abyss, strange occurrences were not limited to one—like that night of passion, the faint floral scent.

To this day, Qi Yuan did not know who had pushed him.

If it was all fake...

Well, it certainly wasn't fake; Qi Yuan's memories were very vivid.

"Regarding the Blind Maiden... I can make a bold guess or two."

"First, is it possible that she truly existed, but in the end, to help me mend the final flaw of the Divine Descent, she exhausted everything and vanished?"

This speculation had some plausibility.

The Blind Maiden truly existed, but after giving Qi Yuan the 'One Branch of Spring,' she used up all her strength and was gone.

"Second, everything is an illusion... The blind artifact master actually had a mental illness; the Blind Maiden was his fantasy, not real."

This was also highly possible.

Back on Blue Star, Qi Yuan had seen a movie where the protagonist wanted to learn martial arts, met a martial god, trained under him, and only later discovered that the martial god did not exist—it was all his imagination.

"Third, only by being blind... could one trigger the condition to see the Blind Maiden. Now that my eyes are healed, I cannot see her?"

This world held too many oddities.

Just as two-dimensional beings cannot imagine three-dimensional ones, ordinary humans can only see light visible to the naked eye.

As for what the naked eye cannot see, even imagining it is impossible.

Thinking this, Qi Yuan closed his eyes.

The world turned dark again.

"Blind Maiden?"

He called softly, but only heard his own echo; no one answered him.

He opened his eyes again.

Suddenly, he thought of something.

"The Blind Maiden once said she taught the Sheng Maiden the art of artifact forging... If I see the Sheng Maiden, wouldn't I know... whether the Blind Maiden truly exists?"

The Sheng Maiden was not blind.

"So, find the Sheng Maiden!"

"Perhaps everything will be resolved."

With this thought, Qi Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.

He hesitated no longer, looked at the empty Divine Tree Abyss, and said solemnly, "Blind Maiden, I remember the swing. And your eyes... I remember them too."

After he spoke, his figure vanished from the Divine Tree Abyss.

Through that tiny, grain-of-rice-like radiance, he traveled to the Divine Tree Chasm.

In the Divine Tree Abyss, it was empty and silent.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, and there seemed to be the sound of falling leaves, and also the creaking of a swing swaying.

……

In the Divine Tree Abyss.

The handsome fairy spirit gazed at Qi Yuan, his eyes strange: "I never thought you'd be bouncing back so quickly from such a heavy injury."

The last time he saw Qi Yuan, he was still unconscious, gravely wounded and near death.

The handsome fairy spirit mused that only the Realm Lord's intervention could truly heal him.

As for other methods, they would likely only treat the symptoms, not the root cause.

Yet, Qi Yuan had recovered with ease.

"Since you're alive, it seems this mission of mine will end in failure." The handsome fairy spirit spread his hands, a helpless expression on his face.

His task this time was to help the Thorn Blood transform the Divine Tree into a Wraith.

Thereby turning the Qingshan Realm into a ghost domain.

With Qi Yuan as a top-tier combatant here, he certainly couldn't complete the mission.

So he might as well abandon the task and just explore the Divine Tree Abyss.

"Any discoveries in the Divine Tree Abyss?" Qi Yuan asked casually.

The Divine Tree Abyss was an extremely peculiar place, containing not only a Divine Tree but perhaps other treasures as well.

Qi Yuan had speculated that the Divine Tree might be connected to the Blind Girl.

But when he saw the Divine Tree with his own eyes, the information he gleaned was that it was indeed a special tree, comparable to the legendary Jianmu, yet unrelated to the Blind Girl.

The handsome fairy spirit frowned: "No major discoveries, but there's one odd thing—I found a tomb here."

"A tomb?" Qi Yuan narrowed his eyes.

"Come, I'll take you to see it." The handsome fairy spirit led the way, and Qi Yuan followed.

After about a quarter of an hour, the two turned into streaks of light and landed in a secluded valley.

The valley was piled with withered yellow leaves, and the wind blew, creating a thick atmosphere.

Qi Yuan's attention was immediately drawn to a tombstone ahead.

"The tombstone is nameless. I looked at it with my celestial eye, and the coffin inside is empty. I don't know whose tomb it is." The handsome fairy spirit said flatly.

Qi Yuan's expression turned strange.

Ahead, the stone tablet was smooth and flat, with no characters carved on it, only some crude and simple patterns.

This tombstone seemed to have endured eons, and Qi Yuan even saw the "aged" twilight of an old man upon it.

"This tombstone..."

Qi Yuan's face was peculiar.

He had seen this tombstone before.

"You recognize it? Do you know whose tomb it is?" The handsome fairy spirit asked curiously.

Qi Yuan shook his head.

When the role of the son-in-law Qi Yuan was perfected, the new role he awakened to play was a strange stone.

Most of that strange stone was used by the Goddess to mend the earth.

The remaining part was fashioned into a tombstone.

This was that very tombstone.

So, the tomb's owner was... the Goddess?

"What if I said this tombstone is me? Would you believe it?" Qi Yuan said.

"Tch, you might as well say you're the tomb's owner—I might actually believe that." The handsome fairy spirit said, looking at Qi Yuan with a complex expression. "This mission failed, so I have to return to the Void Paradise. Brother Qi... take care."

He sighed with emotion.

Qi Yuan's talent was the strongest he had ever seen in his life.

Able to defeat Feng Ti, in the Zhou Universe, many Realm Lords would vie to take him as a disciple.

Of course, there was also the possibility of being "possessed."

Unfortunately, he lived in a cosmic embryo, a world that couldn't even complete a single epoch.

His fate was destined to be tragic.

No matter how dazzling a prodigy's brilliance, they couldn't reverse the grand scheme.

"Thanks, NPC." Qi Yuan smiled. "Go back and read more books. If I ever have something I don't understand, I'll ask you again."

"Alright." The handsome fairy spirit's figure vanished.

Qi Yuan stood before the nameless tombstone for a long time.

"Time to return to the Raksha Kingdom. Send the New Divine Arrival... and then look into Sheng Woman's information, find out where she is now!" As for the end, he still had to play.

The role of Divine Arrival wasn't yet fully perfected; the role of the Blind Artificer was already perfected, and he had awakened a new role to play.

Once Divine Arrival was over, he'd probably have to go play that new role.

Qi Yuan's figure flickered, and when he reappeared, he landed beside a hot spring.

In the hot spring, Shen Lingxuan wore a black dress, completely drenched, her long legs casually arranged, especially eye-catching.

Leaving aside her beauty, if Junior Sister Jiang Lingsu's most striking features were her large, tender breasts, and the Golden Canary and Ning Tao's most captivating were their jade-like slender feet, then Shen Lingxuan's were her long, rounded jade legs—flawless, smooth as jade.

From Qi Yuan's male gaze, they were perfect to wrap around his waist.

At this moment, she still wore a veil, obscuring her face.

Seeing her now, compared to when he had tasted her before, it was a different feeling—pleasing to the eye.

"Let's go. We're heading to the Raksha Kingdom."

Qi Yuan wrapped his arm around Shen Lingxuan's waist, and the water droplets on her dissipated, her clothes drying in an instant, the long skirt falling to cover her fair, delicate jade legs completely.

Only Qi Yuan knew what hidden charms lay beneath the restraint.

"Alright." Shen Lingxuan replied.

The Insect Girl Caidie flew over then, tiny as she was, landing on Shen Lingxuan's shoulder.

She was still somewhat listless, as if the trauma from forcing her way into the Divine Tree Abyss still lingered.

"But before heading to the Raksha Kingdom, I need to go somewhere else to check if those white moonshines have been diligent.

If they haven't been working hard, I'll have to bag their ancestors in eighteen sacks."

By "bag their ancestors in eighteen sacks," he meant chopping up their ancestors and stuffing them into bags, filling eighteen of them.

...

Thorn Blood stronghold.

Nothing different from usual.

Fifth Qingyan's obese face was ashen. As the princess of the Raksha Kingdom, her appearance was quite ugly.

At this moment, she clenched her teeth, her face full of resentment.

"Qingyan, calm yourself. A mere Divine Arrival is not worth mentioning," said the Thornblood leader, a dismissive look in his eyes.

Though it was said that Divine Arrival slew gods blocking his path, wiping out the six gods of the Raksha Kingdom.

Such strength could be called terrifying.

But the Thornblood leader had secretly stepped into the Great Venerable realm.

"When they emerge from the Divine Wood Abyss, I shall personally act to capture them," said the Thornblood leader, brimming with confidence.

Now that he had entered the Great Venerable realm, he was considered the strongest in the Green Mountain Realm in ten thousand years.

As long as he obtained all the Divine Wood Tokens, entered the Divine Wood Abyss, and refined the Divine Wood into a Wraith, his mission would be complete, and the rewards would be substantial.

"Leader, Divine Arrival has come out of the Divine Wood Abyss!"

Just then, a Heaven-grade Imperial Soldier Envoy approached, his face filled with awe.

Upon hearing this, Diwu Qingyan's face blazed with murderous intent: "Leader, please avenge me!"

"Hmph, since he's out, then... there's no chance he'll survive!" the Thornblood leader said casually, as if it were nothing. "I shall go meet him now."

But just then, a gentle voice suddenly rang out in the air.

"Hey, while I was away, have you all been training hard? Have your cultivation levels increased?"

"Hmm, why are you all so weak? Not even ten Divine-grade among you?"

"Can't you look at yourselves and reflect?"

In the sky, a peerlessly handsome young man held a graceful woman by the waist, his face showing an expression of disappointment at their lack of progress.

Within the Thornblood stronghold, everyone who heard Qi Yuan's voice turned pale with terror.

Diwu Qingyan looked terrified, but seeing the leader beside her, she quickly said, "Leader, it's him! He is Divine Arrival Qi Yuan!"

The other Divine-grade and Heaven-grade Imperial Soldier Envoys all sized up Qi Yuan; his words were too bizarre and strange.

What business was it of his whether they trained hard or not?

The Thornblood leader narrowed his eyes, killing intent spreading: "Qi Yuan, you have quite the nerve, daring to storm my Thornblood. Don't expect to leave alive today!"

Thornblood is not the Raksha Kingdom.

Behind Thornblood stands Black Heaven!

"Since you're so unambitious and love to lie flat, I'll make you lie flat forever!"

Just then, Qi Yuan turned his hand into a sword.

A sharp sword light descended from the sky, falling into the Thornblood stronghold.

Light radiated everywhere, blood flew.

This sword light swept through as if no one could oppose it, slaughtering indiscriminately.

"Die!" The Thornblood leader unleashed his Divine Domain, a terrifying aura spreading.

Yet the next moment, he deflated like a balloon, pierced through by that sword light.

He couldn't stay cool for two seconds, falling straight from the sky, dead on the spot.

"How is this possible?" The remaining Thornblood members were horrified.

The leader couldn't even withstand a single blow.

How could he be so powerful?

Without any hesitation, they fled in panic.

Unfortunately, the gap between them and Qi Yuan was too vast; that sword light slew gods and demons alike, and even a Divine-grade Imperial Soldier Envoy died upon contact.

In an instant, the entire Thornblood stronghold was slaughtered by Qi Yuan.

"Let you lie flat? This is your fate!"

Qi Yuan looked at the bloody corpses at the Thornblood stronghold, his expression calm.

"The experience from a bunch of people is less than what one life of Phoenix Cry gave."

He no longer looked at the Thornblood stronghold, but instead held Shen Lingxuan's waist: "Wife, let's go. Tonight we'll sleep in the harem."

His figure vanished again.

About a few hours later, several Imperial Soldier Envoys arrived at the Thornblood stronghold, their faces showing extreme terror.

...

"Divine Arrival has come. I wonder what will become of the Raksha Kingdom in the future."

In the Raksha Kingdom's palace, Qi Yuan placed the new Divine Arrival into the palace, his emotions complex.

With the "A Spring Branch" gifted by the Blind Maiden, the new Divine Arrival was full of infinite possibilities, always advancing toward perfection.

Liu Sheng lowered his head, his face full of reverence, and his heart still filled with awe.

Divine Arrival Qi Yuan not only had divine-level combat power but could also forge divine artifacts.

This was somewhat terrifying.

"With Divine Arrival here, I believe... the future of the Raksha Kingdom will surely be eternally bright!" Liu Sheng said earnestly.

This time when he returned, he would also instruct his clan to act with caution.

"I hope so," Qi Yuan said indifferently. "When can you compile the information about Sheng Nu for me?"

Liu Sheng bowed his head: "Information about Sheng Nu is recorded in the palace and several other prefectures. Within three days, this old man will present all the archives and books that record Sheng Nu."

"Good," Qi Yuan nodded. Three days wasn't long.

"I'll sleep in this harem for these three days. Don't disturb me unless it's important," Qi Yuan waved his hand.

Liu Sheng lowered his head and respectfully walked out of the hall, not daring to look around.

In the resplendent hall, only Qi Yuan and Shen Lingxuan remained.

Qi Yuan looked at Shen Lingxuan, a smile in his eyes: "I haven't really looked at your face yet."

With a tug of his hand, the light veil on Shen Lingxuan's face fell to the ground.

A stunningly beautiful snow-white face came into Qi Yuan's view.

What a face it was—Qi Yuan could hardly describe it. With just one glance, he seemed to see a femme fatale of overwhelming allure.

Though her expression was cold and her features pure, Qi Yuan saw in her the seductive charm of all beings.

As if all types of enchanting women had merged into one, captivating the soul.

In an instant, an amorous atmosphere filled the air, and a blush crept up to Shen Lingxuan's ears.

Under Qi Yuan's aggressive and appreciative gaze, Shen Lingxuan dared not move, her breath quickening slightly, her ample chest rising and falling.

"I've always had a dream of sleeping in a harem. I never thought it would come true today."

His hand brushed past her ankle, lifting her skirt, revealing jade-like legs smooth as fine jade, exposed to the air like a priceless treasure one couldn't bear to let go.

Her thighs exposed to the air, fair and tender, Shen Lingxuan felt the chill of the night, a stark contrast to the warmth of his hand. A blush spread across her cold face: "Don't look..."

She felt a hint of shyness, and her jade-like hand couldn't help covering Qi Yuan's eyes, but as if afraid he might reproach her with words, she clumsily sealed his lips with her own.

Three days passed quickly.

Qi Yuan had also fulfilled his dream from Blue Star—spending the night in the harem.

With the arrival of the new divine descent, many changes had taken place in Raksha Country.

If one were to speak of the greatest change, it was actually the dead.

The new rules had descended, emphasizing not pursuing past transgressions.

Of course, major incidents like wanton murder were still traced according to the original divine descent laws.

The world is rarely perfect, or rather, few things are both complete and satisfactory—even Qi Yuan could not achieve it.

However, after the baptism of blood, Raksha Country was far better than its former state of chaos and lawlessness.

At least it now had vitality, or rather, the breath of spring.

"Master Qi, all the information materials regarding Sheng Nu are here." Liu Sheng respectfully handed over the storage artifact.

These three days, he had traveled through several provinces, collecting all information about Sheng Nu.

Qi Yuan opened the storage artifact and raised an eyebrow: "Why are there also a few divine artifacts? Are they related to Sheng Nu as well?"

There are also differences between divine artifacts.

Ordinary divine artifacts, naturally, do not possess the miraculous power and formidable combat strength of the divine descent.

"...They are not related." Liu Sheng said nervously.

The most precious things in Raksha Country were these few divine artifacts.

He had thought to collect these divine-grade items and present them to Qi Yuan.

"Since they are unrelated, return them to their original owners." Qi Yuan said casually.

He was very particular.

He would not take anything that was not his white moonlight.

Even if he wanted something belonging to his white moonlight, it was not out of greed, but because he wished to inherit the legacy of the white moonlight, using these legacies to prove that these white moons had once existed.

(End of chapter)