A World Worth Protecting

At that thought, Wang Baole began to run through the conversation he had with Xie Haiyang carefully. Something flickered in his eyes after a long moment. He remembered something Xie Haiyang had said.

Xie Haiyang said that the Xie family can’t abuse its power without a legitimate reason… Wang Baole had thought that Xie Haiyang had been making excuses then, but now, after some analysis, he realized that there might be some truth to his guesses.

Is he trying to sabotage the right-hand elder? Or me? Wang Baole narrowed his eyes and considered the matter. He suddenly laughed, then sat down, shut his eyes, and began to meditate. Time passed steadily, but he didn’t contact Xie Haiyang to check on the progress of breaking the seal.

Xie Haiyang didn’t contact him again either. The two of them seemed to have reached a silent agreement and forgotten all about this matter. Ten days went by. On the eleventh day, the man-made sun hovering high in the sky suddenly flared up momentarily with unprecedented brightness. The moment of abnormality had been fleeting, and everything resumed normalcy immediately. Nevertheless, Wang Baole had opened his eyes and looked up to stare into the sun.

At that exact moment, inside the man-made Eternal Star, the right-hand elder of the Heavenly Spirit Sect, who had been sitting inside the Spirit Pool and healing himself, opened his eyes too. A smile appeared on his face. He rose to his feet slowly, his Planet realm cultivation coursing through his body before erupting suddenly. The injuries on his person vanished. In fact, he seemed to be slightly more powerful than before.

The right-hand elder was encouraged by the thought. At the same time, he felt confident about his chances of killing Wang Baole. Even though he hadn’t had any progress when it came to the search for Wang Baole, he was aware of the caliber of cultivators from the Earth Spirit civilization. He would have been surprised if they managed to find Wang Baole.

“Long Nanzi, your time is up!” the right-hand elder said proudly to himself. He formed a hand seal with his right hand and pointed at an empty spot next to him. The man-made Eternal Star trembled faintly, and a star map materialized in front of the right-hand elder in the next moment.

The star map was a map of the entire Earth Spirit civilization and all its planets. As soon as it appeared before the right-hand elder, his Divine Will surged out and entered the star map. Augmented and amplified by the star map, his Divine Sense rushed out of the man-made Eternal Star and headed for the Earth Spirit civilization. It spread across the entire civilization and enveloped it entirely.

The right-hand elder’s Divine Will blanketed the entire civilization within the blink of an eye. It began searching across every planet and every life in the civilization. It seemed to be able to see through every meteoroid and speck of dust in the cosmos. However… as time passed steadily, the look on the right-hand elder’s face gradually turned from one of confidence to one of anger and solemnity. He began to frown.

His Divine Will had blanketed the entire Earth Spirit civilization and scanned the civilization five times, but he hadn’t been able to locate Wang Baole!

He was confident that the seal hadn’t been broken. This meant that Long Nanzi couldn’t have left. He was still trapped somewhere within the Earth Spirit civilization. The fact that he hadn’t yet found him meant only one thing—Long Nanzi… had the means to conceal himself almost flawlessly from his enemy!

He was right. Wang Baole could alter the aura of his essence body. Unless one was at the Eternal Star realm, it would be very difficult to find Wang Baole while he was hidden.

In fact, the right-hand elder’s Divine Will had swept past the mountain peak that Wang Baole was on repeatedly. Wang Baole hadn’t hidden himself deliberately and was simply sitting there and looking at the sun with a dispassionate look in his eyes.

But Wang Baole knew very well that no matter how powerful his essence body was, he was still at a great disadvantage. After all, he wasn’t of the Earth Spirit civilization. There was nothing in his life signs that tied him to the civilization. Things wouldn’t have been so bad if the Earth Spirit civilization were an ordinary civilization. If that were the case, Wang Baole was confident that he would have been able to hide himself perfectly.

But he was within a civilization… with a man-made Eternal Star. The lives of the people there and their cultivation were controlled by the Eternal Star. That was why it was only a matter of time before the right-hand elder found him.

Xie Haiyang’s attempted sabotage… should I trust him this time? Wang Baole retracted his gaze and ignored the right-hand elder’s Divine Will. He recalled the deal that he had struck with Xie Haiyang.

While Wang Baole was deep in contemplation, the right-hand elder was looking increasingly upset. After some time, he snorted, took a deep breath, and raised both his hands to form a series of hand seals. Without batting an eye, he spat out a mouthful of his essence and fused it with the star map, activating the full power of the man-made Eternal Star for a more thorough scan!

He knew that Long Nanzi must possess some unique means that was preventing his discovery. But that didn’t matter. He might not be able to find Long Nanzi, but he could search and locate every other entity in the Earth Spirit civilization, regardless of whether they were alive or lifeless objects like rocks and rivers.

To a certain extent, the Eternal Star that the Violet Gold civilization had created resembled an artifact spirit that possessed both intelligence and life. It was like one of the Federation’s supercomputers. Every existence in the Earth Spirit civilization was recorded in the Eternal Star’s memory upon its appearance. The Eternal Star would map its relationship to other existences and create an intangible and invisible record of the entity.

That was why… the Earth Spirit civilization was like a painting in the eyes of the right-hand elder. He could freeze everything in the painting with a snap of his finger and, in the next moment, go through every entity in the painting, eliminating all suspects. Whatever appeared out of place would become even more obvious then.

Finding an inkblot on a piece of black paper might seem like an impossible task, but if one were to turn the piece of paper white, the inkblot would become visible to the eye like it had never been before.

That was why it didn’t matter how good Wang Baole was at hiding himself. He couldn’t hide the fact that he didn’t belong to this civilization and his alien status!

Using the man-made Eternal Star to perform a search this way expended a considerable portion of the right-hand elder’s essence, but it led to great results. In the next moment, the right-hand elder saw almost every light on the star map vanish. Only one bright spot remained.

“Long Nanzi!” The right-hand elder burst into laughter, took a step forward, then vanished.

Wang Baole, who had been seated on the mountain peak, suddenly flew back and reappeared ten thousand feet away almost at the same moment. As soon as he reappeared in his new location, an incredible power descended from the heavens, materializing as a beam of light that spanned ten thousand feet in width. It blasted the spot where Wang Baole had sat a moment ago.

In the blink of an eye, the mountain peak and everything ten thousand feet away from it disintegrated instantly, turning to dust and disappearing without a trace…

The right-hand elder appeared in midair then. He looked down at Wang Baole with condescension in his eyes and spoke coolly.

“Long Nanzi, any last words?”

Hovering behind him was the man-made sun. Its glare brightened then, transforming into a suppressive force that blanketed the entire area. Alarm bells blared loudly in Wang Baole’s head. There was no hint of panic or fear on his face though. Instead, a strange look had settled on his face. He cranked his neck upwards and stared at the smug-looking right-hand elder. He didn’t answer the latter’s question, the question that showed how confident the latter was in killing Wang Baole. Instead, Wang Baole coughed, then pulled out a white jade token from his storage bag and held it up in the air.

“Right-Hand Elder, do you see this token of mine? Get down on your knees right this moment and kowtow to your daddy. Then get your ass out of here and find somewhere a hundred light-years away!”

The right-hand elder froze. The arrogance in Wang Baole’s voice made his blood boil with murderous intent. His eyes landed on the token. He immediately saw the inscription on the token, and the word “peace” appeared instantly in his head.

“This is…” He froze momentarily in the midst of his charge. The look on his face shifted immediately. He didn’t recognize the token, but he had heard of it. His breathing stuttered. It was then that he suddenly remembered. In the Never-Ending Dao Domain, there were stories about a token called the Peace Token that was issued by the vast, ancient and powerful Xie family.

No one was to harm the holder of such a token. To do otherwise… would turn one into the enemy of the entire Xie family!

However… the Xie family was simply too vast a family clan. If one were to compare the Xie family to the sun, then the Violet Gold civilization would be a planet, a very small planet. The Heavenly Spirit Sect’s right-hand elder would be smaller than a speck of dust.

Such a difference in power led to awe and respect. It also made the Xie family seem like a distant, faraway thing. Such distance oftentimes led to a sense of surrealism. It made men foolhardy.

This was truer in a remote place like the Earth Spirit civilization. To abandon pursuit because of a token and retreat hundreds of light-years away… the right-hand elder couldn’t make himself do that!

After a moment of internal struggle, the murderous intent he was harboring spiked, and he growled.

“Nothing but a cheap trick. I don’t recognize what you’re holding!” He unleashed his full cultivation as he spoke, his form transforming into a fearsome hurricane that rose to the skies and rushed thunderously towards Wang Baole!