A World Worth Protecting

1

Wang Baole remembered the girl to be very pretty and very good-looking. But she was too thin… it seemed as if a breeze would knock her over.

Her thinness was what resulted in her weak immunity. In this strange state of consciousness, Wang Baole seemed to remember that in her next life, she had perished because of this exact reason.

Wang Baole felt that he should help this soul while he was painting the Corpse Face. He added a few additional strokes while following the image that had surfaced in his memory… Finally, he was done. He looked at the chubby-looking soul in the mirror and smiled, pleased with himself.

With a wave of his hand, the bewildered soul vanished, only to be replaced with another soul…

Wang Baole began his life of painting at the Dark Sect. He painted Corpse Faces every day. The fewest he painted were ten thousand faces, the most forty to fifty thousand faces a day. He had still been unfamiliar with the art, but he soon got used to it and began to paint with ease. He improved at a startling rate.

He didn’t even need to look at the mirror. He could simply lift his hand and paint. Such an ability would prove to be useful and extremely effective when facing opponents in battle.

Time passed. It had been two weeks since Wang Baole returned to the Dark Sect. During this period, besides painting Corpse Faces, the face that he saw the most was his freckle-faced senior brother.

After finding out that Wang Baole had a dream while following their master off to ferry souls, and had woken up feeling slightly confused, his senior brother, Chen Qing, expressed great sympathy towards Wang Baole. He helped him organize his memories. This allowed Wang Baole to slowly recollect and clarify his memories during this period.

His memories prior to entering the Dark Sect remained vague, but his memories of the Dark Sect grew clearer. He knew that he wasn’t only Ming Kunzi’s disciple but that he also had more than a hundred senior brothers…

They were all Ming Kunzi’s disciples. Their ages differed, with the eldest of them having already trained for nearly half a century. He himself had many disciples as well. Wang Baole was the youngest of all these disciples. Despite his young age and his later admission to the sect, his rank was considerably high.

This resulted in a great many disciples addressing him as Uncle-Master or other respectful terms when he was in the sect. Wang Baole felt extremely pleased with their address. This also further strengthened his resolve to become the sect lord of the Dark Sect!

He felt that this was the path that most suited him. The Federation President was something that happened in a dream. Even though he felt it quite a loss when he thought back about it, he reminded himself that he had simply woken up too soon. Else, he firmly believed that he would’ve become the Federation President in his dream.

As his memories of the Dark Sect came back to him, he also remembered the status that the Dark Sect held in this part of the universe. The Dark Sect controlled rebirth and death in this part of the universe. All that had perished were under its jurisdiction. The Dark Sect reigned supreme here, over countless civilizations and countless sects. It represented death!

This could clearly be seen in the name of this part of the universe. It was called… the Dark Universe!

The universe of the Dark Sect!

The place Wang Baole was only formed a small part of the Dark Universe. The Dark Sect was spread out across nine parts in the universe. These nine starfields were scattered across space, and a Grand Elder presided over each starfield. This region was presided over by Ming Kunzi!

While the Dark Sect was strong and powerful, the sect wasn’t without its foe. Its archenemy was… formed from numerous powerful entities and civilizations that didn’t wish to die. As a result, they came together and formed… the Never-Ending Clan!

They were called the Never-Ending Clan because “Never-Ending ” represented the absence of an end. It stood for their desire to live forever. There would never be a day where they would face true death. Even if they should fall from grace, they would be reborn according to their own will instead of entering the cycle of rebirth, where all traces of their past lives would be wiped away before they were reborn into the next life!

The two entities were like life and death. They clashed numerous times in space. However, there seemed to be a pattern to their dance. There were never large-scale wars or battles. A balance had been struck. This was because the Never-Ending Clan didn’t have full confidence of victory against the Dark Sect.

The Dark Sect had no ambitions of their own. The mission of the Dark Sect was to ferry the souls of the dead. They were to serve on behalf of the Heavenly Dao!

They didn’t act in aggression. After all, balance was also a part of the Heavenly Dao!

Everything should be strange and foreign to him, but Wang Baole could still sense familiar memories surfacing clearly in his mind. He finally had a basic grasp of the Dark Sect and the universe.

He also realized what the stone monument the huge hordes of beasts and cultivators had been trying to construct on that planet was…

“This is the Dark Child Monument!” Wang Baole’s senior brother, the freckle-faced youth, gazed at the distant stone monument and told Wang Baole. There was a tinge of pride in his eyes when he said that, as well as a deep fervor.

“Dark Child, this is an identity and a symbol!

“Only when one becomes a Dark Child could he venture out alone and be qualified to ferry the souls of the dead… There are two ways to become a Dark Child. One is what you and I did, which is to become a disciple under the nine Grand Elders. By doing so, you’ll automatically be seen as a Dark Child!

“But that is only a reflection of your status… it doesn’t mean that you’re a real Dark Child. To become a real Dark Child, there is only one way, the second way. That is… to get your name on the Dark Child Monument!

“You can’t do it yourself. Only a Grand Elder has the right to put a name there. After that, whether the name remains on the monument is yet another important step. This would involve the approval and recognition by the Heavenly Dao!

“Baole, if the Heavenly Dao acknowledges you, your name will remain on the stone monument. If it doesn’t, the Dark Child Monument will wipe it off after our master has carved it into the monument!”

“As for my name… our master will carve it into the monument after this Dark Child Monument is built. I believe that the Heavenly Dao will recognize and approve of me. That’s why you have to buck up, Baole!” There was a fierce light shining in Chen Qing’s eyes. At this moment, he wasn’t the youth that had been painting Corpse Faces with Wang Baole. He was one of the disciples of Ming Kunzi, whose cultivation might not be the highest, but whose natural gifts and talents were incomparable!

After regaining his memories, Wang Baole remembered that Chen Qing’s gifts were so great that they were beyond this world. The other Grand Elders in the Dark Sect had said that he had surpassed all limits. In fact, he might even become the tenth Grand Elder many years later!

His cultivation was also extremely powerful currently. In Wang Baole’s memories, the Dark Sect categorized the levels of cultivation into five great realms: the Spirit Immortal realm, the Planet realm, the Eternal Star realm, the Galaxy realm, and the Universe realm!

Each great realm was further split into different stages. For example, the first Spirit Immortal realm was divided into the Foundation Establishment realm, the Core Formation realm, the Nascent Soul realm, the Soul Conduit realm, and finally, the Spirit Immortal realm!

The Planet realm, the Eternal Star realm, and the Galaxy realm worked the same way. The final Universe realm was the only exception. It was mysterious and unfathomable. At present, only the ninth Grand Elder had reached the Universe realm!

The other Grand Elders were all at the perfected Galaxy realm. The next step towards the Universe realm was extremely challenging.

Chen Qing himself wasn’t yet three hundred years old, but his cultivation had progressed at an astonishing rate. He had a breakthrough six months ago, advancing from the final stage in the Planet realm into the first stage of the Eternal Star realm!

Such natural talent could even be deemed as a gift from the heavens!

Wang Baole looked at his overperforming senior brother, who had stolen all the limelight, and sighed secretly. He felt such immense stress. As his memories returned to him, he began to remember what freaks his senior brothers and senior sisters were. Each one of them was worse than the next. The strongest of them was already at the Galaxy realm.

The weakest of them was already at the Planet realm… he was the only one still at the perfected Foundation Establishment realm within the Spirit Immortal realm. He hadn’t yet even reached the Core Formation realm…

While Wang Baole was lamenting inwardly, Chen Qing, who had been bursting with passionate, heartfelt emotion, seemed to have suddenly remembered something. He looked around, then lowered his head and grabbed hold of Wang Baole’s shoulder. He had a mysterious look on his face as he whispered, “Baole, do you know whose soul I met when I drew the Corpse Face yesterday?”

Wang Baole eyed his senior brother, who was trying to act mysterious but had a perverted look on his face. He rolled his eyes.

“Senior Brother, I’ve regained a significant portion of my memories. You don’t have to scare me…”

“When the living perishes, unless there are massive deaths that might have been a result of the destruction of a planet, we of the Dark Sect are often not required to ferry those souls personally. The Heavenly Dao would lead and guide them to the nearest Rebirth Abyss of the Dark Sect, and the souls will enter our Corpse Face Mirrors. We will then paint the faces for their next lives…

“When we are painting the Corpse Faces, the will of the Heavenly Dao will descend upon us and let us know what the soul will look like in their next life. We can paint their faces, but we won’t be able to know this soul’s past life or how they looked in that past life. That’s why you won’t be able to recognize anyone, no matter who appears in the mirror!”

Chen Qing stared. He looked around, then leaned closer to Wang Baole and whispered.

“Of course, I’m aware that we can’t see the past life of the dead soul, but I can see its next life. Yesterday… I met a soul and saw her next life. She’s going to be my Dao partner! She’ll accompany me by my side. We will love each other for the rest of our lives, until the end of time. We’ll even have three children…”

“That’s why I got excited. I unleashed a hundred and twenty percent of my ability and painted her into a beauty. Both her figure and her face aligned perfectly with my aesthetics!” At that, Chen Qing smiled happily. He had a look of anticipation on his face.

“You mean you can do that!” Wang Baole was stunned. He found that incredulous.