1561 The Truth Is Always Surprising
When the sunlight of the early morning fell upon the white mists, there were no living enemies left in the swamp.
Only the heavens knew what sort of night it had been and what the tragically unlucky Sunesians had experienced. In any case, when the sun rose, what appeared before the animals was a feast. The blood and bodies were a most sumptuous banquet for the alligators of the swamp, and those impatient vultures had begun circling in the air long before the Skywings had left.
Xia Geng had carried out his promise, and none of the more than ten thousand warriors preparing to attack the White City had survived. The barbarians who had considered themselves professionals at surviving in the swamp had first been overrun by the Skywings, and then they had been picked out of the depths of the swamp and beheaded.
On this night, Xia Fan showed a remarkable ability to hunt. His sense of smell was so sharp that he could even find enemies who had hidden under the water. The Skywing wolves even began to wonder if Xia Fan’s strange ability was going to bring a change to the clan!
!!
After all, when Xia Fan’s father, Xia Fei, returned to the Skywings, he had brought with him the Lone Wolf tactic, which ultimately became the key behind the Skywings’ conquests. Xia Fan’s sense of smell was also unique. Perhaps he could become just as famous as his father in the future!
—
“Dead… they killed them all!…”
Armstrong’s eyes were wide open as he stared at the blood and organs strewn across the swamp in the dawn light. Whether it was numbers or quality, the barbaric Sunesians were definitely top-cla.s.s in the continent. The surrounding kingdoms all lived in fear of them, but there was nothing that they could do about them.
But when the Sunesians were compared to the Skywings, it was clear who the real barbarians were. The violent Skywings were a hundred times more barbaric, a true pack of devils!
In one night, the Sunesians had ceased to exist. It sounded like Xia Geng intended to head to the Sunesian base in the swamp and exterminate the old and children as well, putting an end to the threat for good.
Armstrong couldn’t help but a.s.sociate the Skywings with terror. When he found out that they were just a scouting party of the Skywing Clan, his composure completely fell apart.
‘These people are all comparable to Demon Kings!’ Armstrong cried to himself.
—
Standing on a high point, Xia Fan faced the breeze and breathed in deeply three times, letting the air of the swamp fill his lungs.
“I can confirm that there are no more enemies, but the Sunesian base should be in that direction,” Xia Fan pointed.
“Thank you.”
Xia Geng spoke with a genial expression, one hand around Queen Meryl while the other hand held Xia Di by the hand. One night seemed to have completely transformed him from an ironblooded warrior into a kind father. Xia Fan had already seen these two whispering into each other’s ears multiple times, Queen Meryl’s face blus.h.i.+ng hard.
“Disgusting. I feel like I’m about to throw up. Can you two restrain yourself a little?” Xia Yu sighed as he grumbled. Still single, he was very resentful of this couple’s actions, feeling like the two of them were being so affectionate on purpose to torture all the single dogs in the clan.
“What a happy family…” Xia Fan muttered. Meanwhile, his parents were nothing more than distant names for him. Xia Fan had never seen them once, and they seemed so busy that he always seemed to be just missing them.
He didn’t know when their family would be reunited. Apparently, he also had a big brother and big sister, both of whom were already top-cla.s.s warriors. Xia Fan discovered that his reputation in Ashen Moon was pointless, for when his speed was compared to the rest of his family, it wasn’t even worth mentioning! His only pride was probably his sharp nose!
Xia Fei and Avril were two of the most dutiful people in the universe, but they were also extremely irresponsible parents. To search for their son, they had busted through the Cosmic Gate and swept through the Great Chiliocosm. But when they found that the universe faced an even greater danger, they quickly forgot about Xia Fan.
Xia Yu didn’t want to watch the two lovers any longer, so he took some of the brothers to clear out the Sunesian base. The Skywings had already killed the adult warriors last night, and the rest were the old, young, and infirm. There would be nothing stopping them from pulling out the roots!
——
The rest of the group traveled to the White City at the base of the White Spirit Mountain. They entered the city through a secret tunnel without alarming the civilians, who had no idea of the calamity they had just avoided.
If not for the sudden appearance of Xia Fan’s group, the White City might have already fallen, the men slaughtered and the women becoming birthing tools for the Sunesians. In the Lower Realm, talent decided everything. While the White City was vast, it had only three hundred-some real warriors, not at all on the same level as the Sunesians.
As for the symbols on the arms of warriors, that was a sign of their talents. They were decided the moment they were born. Cultivation and hard work didn’t exist in the Lower Realm. Mortals without a symbol could spend their entire lives working and still only amount to a farmer in the fields.
A feast was held in the castle, and the carefree att.i.tudes of the Skywings left Armstrong shocked once more. When these speed maniacs relaxed, they became like a pile of loose sand. He had thought that Xia Geng was the leader of the group, a n.o.ble of some sort, but he saw with his own eyes Xia Geng being forced to drink by his brothers, and then he watched as everyone laughed, stripped Xia Geng of his clothes, and threw him into the pond in the garden to feed the fishes!
Armstrong only then realized that the Skywings actually didn’t have a leader. Xia Geng’s role was akin to that of a battlefield commander. Only on the battlefield would his brothers heed his orders. When they weren’t fighting, Xia Geng was an ordinary person like everyone else!
Queen Meryl was engulfed in a familiar sense of happiness. In the eyes of the Skywings, she had never been some queen, only Mei Mei. She could converse to her heart’s content with everyone, sharing drinks without any concern about looks from others.
This sense of freedom was why Meryl had been unwilling to return home for so long. It was only when her father sent her a mental transmission that he was on the verge of death that she had finally hardened her heart and left Xia Geng and her son.
After messing around for a while, the Skywings turned serious, which caught Armstrong off guard. Several minutes ago, they had been feasting away, but when they heard Xia Fan asking about the Lower Realm, they instantly turned serious, perking up their ears and listening carefully. Their carefree att.i.tudes from before had utterly disappeared!
Xia Geng grabbed Mei Mei’s hands and said encouragingly, “They’re all our brothers. You don’t need to hide anything from them.”
Mei Mei nodded. “What I know is a little different from what you know. When my father was still alive, he once told me that the Lower Realm is actually a kind of filtration system.”
A filtration system?
This was a very surprising way of describing it. In the Middle Realm, Xia Fan had been told that the Lower Realm was h.e.l.l; that when the strong died, their souls were reborn in the Lower Realm. This was a place of fire and blood, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with cruelty and torment, so why did Meryl describe this underworld as a filtration system?
Meryl continued, “Because only the souls of the strong can be born here, only a scant number of the innumerable people in the Great Chiliocosm can actually be reborn here after death. After being reborn in the Lower Realm, there is an even crueler filtration system. The Sunesians you encountered and the people of the White City had ancestors who were once the most feared existences in the Great Chiliocosm. But after round after round of elimination, their descendants sank down to being commoners and barbarians, no longer possessing any extraordinary abilities.
“And at the same time, those who pa.s.sed the tests and successfully ascended to the summit became kings, even Demon Kings, just like my father. He defeated countless powerful opponents to ultimately become the king of this place.
“But not long after my father died, the kingdom faced a stiff challenge. If I am unable to hold onto my father’s base and the White City is destroyed, then my descendants and I will also sink down to become like the commoners living outside the city.
“Father said that this is the cruelest elimination of the weakest. All of the famous experts of the Middle Realm are gathered together and sent to the Lower Realm, where they will begin a new test, with the best genes and most powerful warriors being selected.
“My father couched all of this in nicer terms. When describing how souls transmitted between the Three Realms, he said that it was like breeding, raising up livestock and selecting the strongest to produce even better livestock. The livestock that are eliminated are killed and eaten…”
Meryl’s words sent chills down everyone’s spines. They couldn’t help but think about their own experiences. Only the strongest warriors could break through the Cosmic Gate; that was a form of elimination in of itself! Mortals without special abilities were imprisoned in their own universes to continue breeding, much like they were living in giant ranches!
When the Skywings broke through the Cosmic Gate and entered the Great Chiliocosm, what they suddenly faced was a contest with the other powerful experts of the universe. These experts were also top-cla.s.s existences of their respective universes, and they had also charged out of their Cosmic Gates!
There was also the Demonic Ant. He was like a wolf thrown among the lambs, forcing the lambs to run or fight for their lives, stimulating their potential to the maximum!
Meryl frowned, but Xia Geng encouraged her to let go of all her apprehensions and speak bluntly. “They’re definitely getting impatient. The potential the Skywings have shown means that they would definitely enter the Law Realm after they die. But this would require far too long. You’re at the level where you can escape the limits of lifespan and live forever.
“The only way of getting you into the Lower Realm is to have someone successfully challenge the Skywings and kill all of you. But that doesn’t seem possible. I’ve been to the Great Chiliocosm before, and no one there is capable of killing the Skywings. You are undefeated within the Divine Path.
“Perhaps the Lower Realm’s people grew impatient. They couldn’t wait for the Divine Path to produce an army stronger than the Skywings who would then kill you. There’s a high chance that there will never be an existence in the Great Chiliocosm stronger than the Skywings.
“Thus, they opened a path for the Skywings, drawing Xia Fei and the Skywing warriors into the Lower Realm. You guys were able to avoid this fate because you were a search team out on a mission. When Xia Fei came here, you guys remained in the Middle Realm.”
After voicing her thoughts, Meryl sighed. “These are my conjectures. My father liked to research strange things, and he was often called a madman because of it. I’m just following my father’s line of thought to speculate as to why the main force of the Skywings suddenly disappeared. What I said is highly like to not be the reality, so you can just use it as a reference.”
The hall was very quiet for a while. If Meryl’s theory was right, then wasn’t this world a little too cruel?
Xia Geng was confused, scratching his head. “Who are these people you are talking about? How can we meet them?”