"Great Deities Palace!" The Lightning King looked at them sharply. "Are you sure it"s related to the Great Deities Palace?"
The man nodded with certainty. "Your Majesty, do you remember the chaos that reigned in the demon descendants community 80 years ago, which nearly destroyed the Buddhist a.s.sociation? The instigator of the chaos was a Taoist who had abandoned the religion. He was called...called…"
"The Forgotten Demon." The Lightning King was in no mood to mock any other demons for being too young. "He was a low-profile disciple of Quanzhen. The war was raging back then. Countless lives were lost. The disciples of the sect wandered down the mountains to help the civilians. This person wandered around for a long time. After he came back, he was like a different person. He had attained cultivation. With that, came an increased ambition. He betrayed his own origins and committed treason."
"The Buddhist a.s.sociation and the orthodox sects a.s.sembled a team of 6,000 highly-skilled demon descendants and trapped him on Zhongnan Mountain. After that battle, less than 10% of those demons survived. The demon descendants community took a huge hit. This was known as the Tragedy of Quanzhen."
The man said, "You would surely know the reason behind him attaining cultivation."
The Lightning King nodded. "Great Deities Palace. He had stumbled upon it accidentally and attained something from it. After world peace was restored, countless demon descendants searched for it, but to no avail. After the Forgotten Demon died, his secrets and its whereabouts were buried along with him."
The man remained silent for a while before saying, "We have the key to the Great Deities Palace!"
The Lightning King"s eyes lit up.
"The key is in my solar plexus. Your Majesty, please unchain me. I"ll extract it for you," the man said.
The Lightning King flicked his fingers, causing a few thunderbolts to fly across the room. Subsequently, the chains that bound his limbs were snapped. The man relaxed his wrists and caught his breath. After a few moments, a light emanated from his solar plexus, as it slowly made its way out of his body.
As it left his body, the Lightning King could no longer restrain himself and reached out his hand to grasp it. This was an unusual metal fragment. It resembled something like gold, but it felt like jade. It was out of his realm of knowledge. He could not identify the materials it was made of either.
Dim rays of light continued to emanate from it. It was definitely a supernatural sight.
"How did you get this?" the Lightning King boomed.
The man shook his head in reply. "We have had it since young. This object awakened my sister and me. It made it easier for us to practice our martial arts. However, Qingqing and I realized that it was the key to the Great Deities Palace only after a major ordeal."
The Lightning King held the fragment and remained silent for a long time. After that, he left without speaking a single word.
"Your Majesty!" the man called out.
The Lightning King stopped and replied, "I didn"t promise you anything, but Baoze is a democratic and humane organization. You guys committed a crime punishable by death, but you have earned significant credit as well. I will recommend a lighter sentence for you guys."
The man and Qingqing heaved sighs of relief. Qingqing then called out, "Wait."
The Lightning King turned back and frowned.
Qingqing bit her lip, mustered her courage and said, "I want to complain. The wardens keep hara.s.sing me everyday."
The Lightning King said, "You mean the Tentacle Demon? He only likes to tie people up. He won"t actually touch you. You should be glad that this floor"s warden is not Old Master Qin, the guy who captured both of you."
As he finished his words, he closed the door and left.
As he left, four iron hoops floated in the air towards the two demons. They were wrapped around by four tentacles. As the tentacles approached Room 9, the man was re-chained. The demon used another tentacle to hit Qingqing"s b.u.t.t, causing her to scream in pain.
12:33 AM.
In meeting room 5, the Lightning King sat alone. He started up the 3D projector in the room and made a conference call to the big boss.
A few minutes later, a blue ray of light shot out from the projector. A young man in pyjamas stood in the middle of the ray as he yawned.
"Why aren"t you sleeping at night? What"s the matter?" the man complained incessantly. "Don"t you have a s.e.x life? I do. My sis… I mean my wife and I are trying for a second baby this year."
"Big Boss," the Lightning King whispered. "The doors of the Great Deities Palace is about to be opened."
The man stopped complaining as his expression and tone turned serious. "What"s going on?"
"A few days ago, Old Master Qin captured two criminal demon descendants who had offended. They were awakened after the Early Days. They had the blood of a few humans on their hands. According to the rules, they should be killed. However, not long ago, they requested to see me, saying that they had to tell me about an important matter. They wanted to atone for their sins with credit…"
He narrated the entire story and proceeded to put the metal fragment on the table, continuing, "I"ve tested this. This object is indestructible. On the other hand, I checked the records and matched the pictures. I think this is the real thing. The key looks charged, which means that this is about to happen."
The man walked to the side of the table and reached out his hand to feel the fragment. His hand pa.s.sed through the key, causing the image of him to ripple. "Psh, two small, insignificant demon descendants have the key to the Great Deities Palace?"
The Lightning King replied, "I have doubts too. Hence, I investigated the Tragedy of Quanzhen back then. The Buddhist a.s.sociation remains tight-lipped about that incident. The records only show the rough happenings of the incident. There"s only a few hundred words. Regarding the instigator of the chaos, even less is written about him. However, I found out that he was intimately involved with a fox spirit. After he died, the key vanished. It was likely that the fox spirit took it with her."
There were two types of history in this world. The first was actual recorded human history, while the second was the history of the demon descendants.
The man lowered his head and looked at the key, remaining silent for a long time. The Lightning King, seeing that he did not speak, did not dare to mutter a word as well, for fear of disrupting his boss"s train of thought.
"Eighty years ago, the Great Deities Palace was opened. The last time it was opened up was 20 years ago. There was about a 60-year gap between these two occurrences. This time, the key shows that it"s charged. It means that the doors are about to be opened up again. However, there"s only a 20-year gap between these occurrences."
The man looked up and asked, "Tell me, is it possible that that thing has been revived?"
The Lightning King replied helplessly, "Big Boss, how would I know this?"
The man was taken aback. "I"m not asking you this."
The Lightning King appeared lost. If it wasn"t me, who was he asking then?
The man waved his hand. "Send someone to investigate this matter. Look into the backgrounds of those two demon descendants. After the Forgotten Demon died, he didn"t leave too many clues regarding the Great Deities Palace. However, his followers back then should have left something behind. Send people to try and recover these pieces of information. Every time the doors of the Great Deities Palace open, chaos will ensue. It"s troublesome. I haven"t had many peaceful days these few years. I"m forced to pretend to be good constantly…"
This slowly turned into his own personal rant.
The Lightning King had gotten used to his boss"s ways. He liked to pretend as if he was good, but hated to show this side in front of other people. He said that he had always been forced to do this.
The employees had a private nickname for him: the King of Good.
"Will there be any good news?" the Lightning King asked unconfidently. "So many people, but none of them have found the Great Deities Palace all these years."
"It"s normal not to. I guess that it does not exist in our world," the man said. "It"s recorded in history books. A scholar, surnamed Tao, stepped into an otherworldly paradise inadvertently. That place was sealed off from our world. Utopilike, people did not lock their doors at night nor steal any belongings that had been dropped on the road. It had no connection with the outside world. He stayed there for many days before leaving. However, the next time he tried to find it again, it had disappeared. If that place really existed, why did it disappear?"
Lightning King asked, "You mean, he entered another world?"
Li Xianyu nodded. "This world isn"t big. There are so many stars around. If someone really wanted to find a certain place, it wouldn"t have required so much effort from the demon descendants community for so many years."
"There"s one more thing. Do you remember the descendants of the Li family?" the Lightning King asked in a worried tone. "Li Wuxiang entered the Great Deities Palace 20 years ago. He was the only person after the Forgotten Demon to enter that place. No one knows what he brought out from there. After he died, all his secrets were buried along with him. However, the doors to that place is about to open. Those two demon descendants had people after their lives. Now that the key is with us, outsiders will not covet it. At this time, the Li family should come to their minds."
The man frowned. "I don"t know much about what happened that year. When Li Wuxiang died, his son was still in his mother"s womb. What can he know?"
The Lightning King smiled bitterly. "He doesn"t know, but the war spirit in their family knows. No, actually she doesn"t, but outsiders may not believe it. In other words, Li Xianyu is in danger. He had another layer of cover in terms of being a law enforcer - other people would not make trouble for him. However, at present, this may not be sufficient to protect him."
The man replied, "Isn"t San Wu protecting him? War Spirit Wushuang"s powers has been excessively sealed. Even after six generations, her powers have not been restored. She"s meaningless to me right now. In other words, don"t just let her idle around. You can release her and let her see what this generation has done."
The man"s shadow flickered and disappeared with a ray of light, as he turned off the message transmitter.