Chapter 342: Zhi Nan’s Might Surpa.s.ses the Heavens and Dharma
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The same night, at the Draconic Penitentiary.
By now, after a few expansions, the System Prison which was used to imprison spirits of Extraordinaires had already turned into something spectacular.
It was a square cuboid, with three hundred meters length-wise and fifty meters in height.
There were two tall buildings within the cuboid.
One of it was called the Evil Suppression Tower. After being refurbished, it had ten floors in total with a capacity of twelve thousand people, of which 6322 were occupied.
The other building, the Ascension Tower, was empty and had never been used.
The work on the second floor of Fang Ning’s Draconic Arcane Realm had just been completed. The third floor had yet to be completed, so its intended purpose as a net for the Ascension Tower was still unused.
In the prison officer’s office, Anderson was questioning a thug-looking spirit.
“State your name.”
“w.a.n.g Lei.”
“Age?”
“Twenty four.”
“You’re used to answering these questions, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Gender?”
“Male.”
“Wrong. After you’ve been inducted, you no longer have a gender. Do you understand?”
“S–sir, I don’t wanna drop the soap.”
w.a.n.g Lei was scared and immediately freaked out.
‘It’s one thing to be locked in a prison after I die, it’s another to be told to drop the soap…’
“Who asked you to drop the soap?” reprimanded Anderson. “I was only reminding you that in this place, there will be no genders. Everyone will just be a spirit. So buck up and be an obedient ghost. I’ll ask you again, your gender?”
w.a.n.g Lei’s street smarts helped him wrap around the situation quickly. He responded, “No gender.”
Anderson was satisfied. They thought, ‘Soul Consumption Demons like me don’t have genders as well.
‘If we found our way into a male’s body, then we’ll be male, and female if we found a female body to inhabit. So these inmates will need to follow this.
Don’t think that prison officers cannot make decisions.
“What’s your deal? Lemme rephrase that, what power do you have?”
w.a.n.g Lei divulged his ability to generate electric frankly.
Anderson was immediately interested and brought him to an interrogation room next to it.
Half an hour later, Anderson exited the room, refreshed.
w.a.n.g Lei felt as if he had been sucked dry, so he inched out with the wall as his support.
“Mm, not bad, I’ll a.s.sign you to a single cell. This is a treatment only the earliest inmates were able to enjoy. All the new inmates have been a.s.signed to sharing cells. Only those with good performance and contribution were able to enjoy single cells.”
Anderson pointed to one side as w.a.n.g Lei was pulled by an invisible force to a single cell on the sixth floor of the Evil Suppression Tower.
Right after, Anderson returned to their office quickly and drafted a report.
“About the Conversion between New and Old Energy Sources: An Exploration”…
They thumped at the keyboard excitedly, ruminating on each phrasing in order for it to be clear and concise.
They believed the report would make the warden very happy.
As long as the job was done, their promotion would not be far away.
‘Hmph, those guys just wait. I, Anderson, will still be able to climb to the top even if I have fallen into h.e.l.l.’
They were silently congratulating themselves when a sound hit them. Dazed, it took them a while before they realized what was being spoken to them.
“Evil rises, evil falls, demons return to lair with this call…”
…
The voice reverberated in their mind for three times.
Immediately, they stopped typing on the keyboard and stood up soullessly.
Then, they moved sluggishly, heading out.
They kept waddling and swaying until they hit their head on the volcanic rock wall…
With a loud thud, Anderson snapped out of their trance.
They immediately realized many cells were in a chaotic mess within the Evil Suppression Tower. It seemed like all those who were causing troubles were demonic spirits.
“Quiet! Be quiet! How could you all be lured by this demonic voice! I think all of you were lacking the education of love and justice!”
As soon as the lot had heard the words ‘love and justice’, all the rooms quietened.
From there, it was easy to see how powerful love and justice was!
Anderson patrolled outside each of the cells that locked up demonic spirits.
After checking out the cells, Anderson was relieved. These guys could make noise all they want, it was impossible for them to break out.
War Demon Lei Tian’s cell was not an exception, of course, but they left the cell for the last to be inspected.
Anderson arrived at the single cell placed in the east of the top floor.
The cell was much more decorated than the other cells.
There were a Simmons bed, a bookshelf, a computer, and furniture. It was as nice as a three-star hotel room.
As the primary money-making staff, Lei Tian had brought Fang Ning enough wealth, so naturally, he could enjoy a slightly lax security.
Lei Tian was a huge person, but he was, at the moment, laying on the bed, playing Battle of the Beasts.
Seeing Lei Tian safe and quiet, Anderson was a little disappointed, but they still asked.
“Lei Tian, are you alright?”
“How could it have affected me? It was just a demon lord projecting its avatar to summon some slaves to work for it? Those lowly demon sp.a.w.ns were charmed by that.”
Hearing Anderson’s question, Lei Tian only turned his head and scoffed without even opening his eyes.
Anderson was taken aback. ‘As expected, I am so much to catch up on to this genius of a demon. He wasn’t even phased.
‘Were I not in this Draconic Penitentiary and was suppressed by Vigilante A, I would have been summoned over.’
They asked, “You must have heard the voice just now. Any idea whose avatar it was?”
Lei Tian seemed to have s.p.a.ced out, but he almost looked like he was thinking as well.
Anderson did not rush him. They knew he was using his Persona Part.i.tion to solve this question with his three alters.
Speaking of which, the warden was really happy when they turned in the Persona Part.i.tion’s technique. They wondered if the warden had any success in cultivating the technique.
After a while, Lei Tian said nonchalantly, “Even I have failed to deduce who it was. The mighty demon lords must have sent a cunning, strategically-gifted demon lord. If there’s anything I can say, it would be that it was related to Buddhism.”
Even though he was still scoffing, but Anderson could tell that he was really wary of the new villain.
They kept thinking until an ident.i.ty hit them. ” Could it be Demon Lord Zhi Nan1 ? I heard he had already succeeded in creating his nine avatars of knowledge, all with their own resourcefulness and wisdom. The Buddhist believes the number nine to be the limit, so it could be said that he had already achieved the peak in his path of seeking knowledge.”
Hearing that, Lei Tian opened his eyes and said confidently, “You do have some intelligence, after all. It must be him. After all, this is not a game I play, the demon lords wouldn’t send them waves of demonic creeps arranged by their power levels.
“If their physical power was limited by Earth’s Heavenly Axiom and could not utilize on their advantage, they would send the most intelligent player to steamroll over you.”
Anderson felt a heavy burden in their heart and blurted out, “Since the demons paid so much attention to this new world and kept sending powerhouses after powerhouses, why would the Dragon Clan only send an insignificant Dragon Carp to support?
“Aside from being a big eater and a lazy *ss, that thing doesn’t have any special abilities. The Venerable Dragon G.o.d is mighty, but he was still one person. Facing this new opponent, he might not be having such an easy time.”
They stopped talking.
Lei Tian said casually, “Who knows, maybe the dragons were strong enough to dismiss the demon lords.”
Anderson shook their head, “I’m worried the dragons were so used to being the strongest, they may not have taken into consideration that there’s a difference between this realm and theirs.
“This world was different than our land-form world, it was in a form of a universe, wide and boundless. The planet underneath our feet was like a grain of sand in the Ganges River, small and insignificant.
“Now, only this planet is connected with our world through a spatial pathway. If the demons entered this universe with Earth as a stepping stone, then…”
Lei Tian laughed sinisterly and scoffed, “You were only his prisoner, but why do you sound like you’ve forgotten all about from whence you came and stand on the side of the dragons? Why don’t you think about whether you have the qualification to do so? Are you even qualified to worry for them?”
Anderson fumed with anger. As expected, the discrimination and hate between the two clans were not so easily resolved just by working together for several months…
They stared at Lei Tian coldly, controlling their anger, and said calmly, “Hmph, I realized today that a certain demon was still stubborn about his own ego, maybe it’s time for him to be reeducated.”
Lei Tian was stunned.
…
Seeing that it was a calm night, Fang Ning was lazy to throw the birthday party. ‘What a wasteful thing, you even need to spend actual money.’
It was boring online, so he took a few tasteless pills for calming down, and he went to sleep.
It was a while before he slowly drifted off to sleep, but he was startled into wakefulness by the noise in the System Prison.
‘Someone’s trying to break out!’
Fang Ning scrambled up, left his room, and ran to the prison’s entrance.
He did not enter immediately but tried to sense for movements inside. At the same time, he inquired from the System.
“What happened inside?”
The System said, “Oh, according to Lei Tian’s and Anderson’s conversation, it looks like a demon lord’s avatar had been projected and tried to summon some of the inmates to work for him. What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he tried to poach my workers!”
Fang Ning was startled and immediately became speechless. “It sounds like you were not even phased by the demon lord. He must be a pretty strong enemy.
The System did not mind and replied, “That’s what Anderson said, ask them.”
After finding out what had transpired, Fang Ning pushed open the door with confidence and entered the System Prison.
Anderson was already waiting inside. As soon as he appeared, they told him everything that had happened.
Fang Ning was actually soothed by hearing what had happened.
‘That’s right, the first anniversary wouldn’t be so calm usually. So this was what happened.
‘What had happened had happened, just as long as Sir System was still there.’
Anderson did not know the warden’s true thoughts, they only said in a concerned tone, “Sir Warden, even though Demon Lord Zhi Nan was not the most powerful among the demon lords, his ranking is high.
“He was said to be a wise disciple of Buddha who strayed into the demonic path. He based the foundation of his path with the sentence ‘Zhi Nan’s might surpa.s.ses the heavens and Dharma’ and created his nine avatars of knowledge. Their intellectual reaches stretch far, so he was a really knotty enemy.”
Having heard that, Fang Ning inhaled sharply.
The opponents he had fought had never been tacticians, or they had been fighters like Lei Tian who behaved like an idiot more than a warrior.
Some were wiser, but those were handled by Ren Ruofeng while the System and he only needed to contribute a little.
From the get-go, this new enemy sounded like a final boss…
Sure enough, the reality was not a game. The NPCs would not line up according to their difficulty waiting for players to farm them.
It was like the USA in the older era. No one had been able to keep the USA in check when it wanted to attack the smaller nations…
Regulations and limitations were not useful at all… The only thing that could limit the states was still pure power.
The demons from the Upper Realm finally took them seriously and stopped sending cannon fodders, instead choosing to send a boss-level character to handle the situation.
The Heavenly Axiom looked like it was cruel to have arranged for the moon’s cras.h.i.+ng and the Divine List’s appearance, forcing the Earthlings to pick up their speed in their progression, but it was actually doing all it could to help the Earthlings.
If it were not for that, any Ocean-level powerhouse from the Upper Realm could have destroyed the entire Earth’s ecosystem.
From that perspective, the Heavenly Axiom was unblameable.