📖 Chapter 1163 - Wait and See!

21 Nov, 2023

Wang Baole didn’t care what item his senior brother needed from the Underworld River. At the moment, he was ambling through the grounds of the Underworld Sect, completely disregarding the numerous spell formations all over the place. Everything here gave him a sense of familiarity, causing memories of the Underworld Dream of so many years ago to surface in his mind.

He walked past the familiar palaces and wandered around the intimate streams and cliffs. Gazing out into the distance, at the place where heaven and earth met on the horizon, he saw an illusory apparition of the wheel of reincarnation soundlessly turning. As the mysteries of Dao permeated his body and soul, Wang Baole unknowingly began to see figures from ages past.

These figures were his fellow disciples from the Underworld Dream. Although the Daoist robes of the Underworld Sect on their bodies made them seem grim and solemn, their faces held gentle smiles. Some went out to summon the souls of the deceased, and others guided the souls back into the wheel of reincarnation.

As the wheel turned, Wang Baole saw more of his fellow disciples working busily to maintain the smooth operation of the Heavenly Dao. They checked the deceased’s past lives and sketched Corpse Faces for the next lives, all the while furthering their own cultivation.

“Underworld Sect…” A soft murmur came from Wang Baole’s mouth. Before he knew it, he had walked to the edge of a cliff. Staring into the horizon, he seemed to see his master’s kind gaze, as well as his senior brother leaning in conspiratorially and whispering about how he’d seen his next life’s Dao companion…

“Although it was just a dream, it’s already ingrained in my soul.” Wang Baole sighed softly. When he took a second look, everything was gone. The figures of his fellow disciples from the past had disappeared, replaced by a few scattered cultivators glaring at him warily from the distance. Rather than warmth, their eyes were filled with hostility.

It wasn’t strange for them to be hostile. However, they didn’t know that the status of Underworld Child that they cared about so much was worth nothing in Wang Baole’s eyes.

“If not for Master, if not for Senior Brother, then this Underworld Sect… would have nothing to do with me.” Wang Baole gently shook his head. His heart was full of various thoughts, but these thoughts were entangled by deep emotions. In the end, they turned into a sigh, leaving Wang Baole’s mouth as he turned to look at the depths of the Underworld Sect…

In that direction, he sensed a gaze that had been locked onto him every since he first entered Planet Underworld.

Wang Baole didn’t know who the owner of this gaze was, but he could feel powerful fluctuations of Underworld Fire coming from their body. These fluctuations were… even purer than his own.

However, there was something missing from them, something that Wang Baole’s own Underworld Fire didn’t lack. It was… approval.

Not Chen Qingzi’s approval – Wang Baole could sense the approval of his senior brother in these new Underworld Fire fluctuations. Instead, it was the approval of the Underworld Sect’s Underworld Child Monument, as well as the approval of one of the Underworld Sect’s nine grand elders.

“He doesn’t seem very old… Perhaps he is the Underworld Child chosen by the present Underworld Sect?” Wang Baole withdrew his gaze. Comprehension flashing through his mind, he walked toward the center of the Underworld Sect.

His destination was none other than his residence in the Underworld Dream… the side palace next to the Underworld Child Palace.

Indeed, back in the Underworld Dream, he hadn’t lived in the main Underworld Child Palace. That place had been reserved for his senior brother; Wang Baole himself could only live in the side palace. Now, on the present-day Planet Underworld, Wang Baole followed that familiar path and soon arrived just outside the side palace’s doors.

None of the restrictions on the way troubled him in the slightest, and he resolved them all with a few hand seals. It wasn’t because his cultivation base had reached an indescribable level, but rather because… each and every restriction was precisely the same as in the Underworld Dream.

Perhaps these similarities were exactly why Wang Baole felt that the current Underworld Sect was both familiar and unfamiliar.

What made it familiar was everything before his eyes, and what made it unfamiliar was… the fact that a dream was, in the end, just a dream. His senior brother… was no longer the same as he used to be. Everything seemed to have changed so quickly, but in fact… perhaps, it was all part of Chen Qingzi’s plan.

“To fuse with the Heavenly Dao and restore the Underworld Sect…” Wang Baole fell silent. Entering the side palace, he looked at the familiar architecture all around him before sitting down. Then, he closed his eyes and became still.

Seven days passed in a flash.

In these seven days, Wang Baole didn’t leave the side palace or meet with any Underworld Sect cultivators. Instead, he immersed himself in his memories of the Underworld Dream and his insights into the law of the underworld.

Likewise, no one from the Underworld Sect sought him out even though… everyone on Planet Underworld was aware of his identity by now.

It wasn’t until a few more days passed that the first Underworld Sect cultivator arrived at the side palace where Wang Baole was staying. This person was a young man dressed in the robes of the Underworld Sect. His demeanor was exceptionally cold, and the fluctuations of the underworld law on his body were extremely strong. Furthermore, at the center of his brows was… half an Underworld Fire mark!

This mark designated him as a pseudo-Underworld Child. According to the rules of the Underworld Sect, there were several such pseudo-Underworld Children under the command of each generation’s true Underworld Child.

In fact, although there was a master-subordinate relationship between them and the Underworld Child, there was also a competitive one. Because the Underworld Sect had nine grand elders, there were also nine pseudo-Underworld Children. These nine pseudo-Underworld Children had to prove themselves against the others, and the one who gained the approval of the Heavenly Dao in the end and engraved their name on the Underworld Monument would become the true Underworld Child, or in other words… the next Lord of the Underworld.

It was precisely because of this that Wang Baole was rejected by the members of the Underworld Sect. To them, Wang Baole was an outsider who didn’t belong to a proper lineage. Thus, now that he appeared with the status of an Underworld Child, the nine pseudo-Underworld Children of the current generation who had spent their lives cultivating hard were extremely dissatisfied.

However, they didn’t dare to say a word to Chen Qingzi. After all, Chen Qingzi’s status was extremely high, and he had even been given the right to act on behalf of the Lord of the Underworld. Moreover, it was only thanks to him that the nearly-eradicated Underworld Sect was still able to remain standing to this day.

And the current Chen Qingzi had even merged with the Underworld Sect’s Heavenly Dao, becoming a supreme existence within the sect. But even though no one dared to rebuke Chen Qingzi, that only caused their dissatisfaction with Wang Baole to grow. Many of them were full of fighting intent.

The young man who had just arrived was exactly one such person. Standing outside the palace, he stared coldly for a long time before suddenly speaking.

“This highness is Kun Lingzi. It’s been quite some time since I met a cultivator from the world of the living. Fellow Daoist, since you’re someone from the living world, let’s have a match. I’d like to see just how strong the outside world’s current generation has become!”

Seated cross-legged in meditation, Wang Baole’s expression didn’t change at all. However, as he opened his eyes, his gaze seemed to penetrate the walls of the palace and look upon the young man standing outside. This young man’s cultivation base wasn’t bad at all; he was in the great circle of the Eternal Star Realm, and his foundation was clearly stable. Placed in the outside world, although he couldn’t rank among the top tier of Chosen, he would still be one of the strongest in the second tier.

However, Wang Baole’s voice was flat as he replied tersely before closing his eyes again.

“Not interested.”

“Huh?” When the young man heard Wang Baole’s words, his eyes flickered slightly.

“You’re not interested… or you don’t dare? Someone with such a personality is unworthy of being my Underworld Sect’s Underworld Child! Since that’s the case, I might as well do everyone a favor and see what you can do.” Sneering, the young man walked closer to the side palace door. He lifted his hand, about to push the door open, but then he suddenly heard a voice echo out from within the palace.

“Open that door only if you’re ready to lose your hand.”

These words were spoken neither coldly nor harshly, but when they fell into the young man’s ears, he couldn’t help but shiver. His intuition told him… that the one inside the side palace was fully capable of carrying out their threat. Thus, he instinctively paused, hesitating over whether or not to push the door open.

While he was hesitating, several divine senses suddenly descended nearby, each giving off the fluctuations of the Star Domain Realm. As soon as they appeared, the young man’s spirits lifted, and the corners of his mouth curled up in a sneer again. He decisively thrust his right hand forward, causing the door of the side palace to swing open and revealing the figure of Wang Baole meditating inside.

Wang Baole frowned slightly, sighing in his heart. He obviously could feel the Star Domain Realm divine senses outside. At the same time, he could sense four or five people aside from the young man waiting nearby. These few people actually had fluctuations of Underworld Fire rolling off of them that weren’t inferior to the young man’s in the slightest.

Obviously, they were other pseudo-Underworld Children of the present-day Underworld Sect.

Aside from the Star Domain Realm divine senses and the pseudo-Underworld Children, there were still many gazes converging on this location from all over the Underworld Sect. Wang Baole could even faintly sense three rays of divine sense originating from ancient experts not inferior to the Flame Patriarch.

And there was also… the gaze coming from the very depths of the sect that had been trained on him since stepping foot on Planet Underworld. This gaze seemed to contain a greed that couldn’t be completely hidden, leaking out for an instant before being reined in the next moment.

Wang Baole was silent. In his heart, he became even more dissatisfied with this Underworld Sect.

‘Wait and see, wait and see…’