Chapter 383: Everything Is a Cycle

Chapter 383 Everything Is a Cycle

Within the blood-red space.

Chen Huaian leaned on the Black Scales Sword, his clothes in tatters, three claw-like gashes ripped across his back, and one pant leg mysteriously missing.

He stared at the Tiger King in front of him, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“No wonder you’re a Demon Core-stage beast… You’ve got some real bite.

You actually managed to injure me this badly! Pretty damn strong!”

“Human, don’t you feel ashamed saying that?”

The Tiger King raised a pair of blood-pit-like eyes.

Compared to the human cultivator before it, the Tiger King’s injuries were far worse—its body was covered in densely packed sword wounds. The fatal one was in the right side of its chest: a tree-stump-sized hole clean through, with the blood-red sky visible through the other end.

“I believe you now. You’re not one of the Ascenders.”

Blood Amber Mountain Lord coughed, vomiting mouthfuls of blood onto the ground.

Its body remained as massive as a mountain, but the aura radiating from it was quickly fading.

“Why? Because I’m that strong?” Chen Huaian recalled something Wang Shouyi had said.

Wang had told him that Ascenders at the same realm usually had to fight monsters two-on-one to win.

Yet he had just taken down the Tiger King one-on-one—and even while crossing an entire major realm gap.

“No.” Blood Amber Mountain Lord shook its head. “From the moment you drew your sword, I sensed the aura of the Ancestral Dragon… At first, I wasn’t sure. But when you unleashed that sword strike—”

It looked down at the gaping wound in its chest. That strike had been ferocious, unstoppable, and accompanied by the echo of a dragon’s roar.

The moment it heard that roar, it had given up on defending.

“So what?” Chen Huaian frowned slightly.

He didn’t understand the point of what the Tiger King was saying.

Did this tiger have some connection to the Ancestral Dragon?

“Right, now that the fight’s over, before you die—

Answer me one question.”

“Everyone says monsters eat humans, that you’re all unforgivable beasts.

But when the Demon-Locking Tower emerged, you didn’t attack ordinary people—you only targeted Ascenders and Awakened ones.

Why is that? What are you planning?”

Chen Huaian didn’t expect a real answer.

He’d even predicted how the tiger would respond.

Probably with some maniacal laugh and a defiant shout—“Even if I die, I won’t tell you!”

But this time, he was wrong.

“The mortals of Great Xia carry the blood of the Ancestral Dragon. Though they are ignorant, unable to discern right from wrong, we monsters spare them for the Ancestral Dragon’s sake.

Ascenders are different. Once a mortal becomes an Ascender, they are the enemy of the Ancestral Dragon—a traitor! They are our enemies too!”

Blood Amber Mountain Lord’s eyes were filled with hatred and killing intent.

“The Awakened will eventually become Ascenders. We simply nip them in the bud.”

Chen Huaian’s brows furrowed deeper.

Wang Shouyi had said there wasn’t a single good monster—they were all vile beasts and mortal enemies of the Ascenders.

All the other Ascenders treated monsters with zero tolerance.

If not for Chen’s presence, Wang wouldn’t even treat Bajii or Xiao Qing politely.

Now Blood Amber Mountain Lord also said that monsters and Ascenders were sworn enemies—

Yet they could spare mortals because of the Ancestral Dragon’s legacy.

Despite the contradictions between both sides’ claims—

As the inheritor of the True Dragon Physique, Chen was more inclined to side with the Ancestral Dragon. Which meant… the tiger’s words were likely true.

“What kind of grudge do you monsters have with the Ascenders?”

Chen Huaian put on a robot-like smile on purpose. “All this killing—what’s the point? For the sake of peace, for love, why not all sit down and talk it out? We could all share this beautiful world together!”

Blood Amber Mountain Lord looked at Chen for a long moment.

It didn’t get angry—maybe it saw through his sarcasm. In fact, it spoke calmly:

“Do you know that when this world was first born, there were no gods or Buddhas?”

“That much I get,” Chen Huaian replied with his own understanding.

“At the start, the world was chaos. From chaos came the Heavenly Dao, which birthed all things. Then came living beings and humans, who cultivated against the heavens and passed its trials.

That’s how monsters, immortals, and Buddhas came to be. Right?”

“Right and wrong.”

Blood Amber Mountain Lord took a deep breath, seeming barely able to stay upright. From a kneeling posture, it shifted to sitting cross-legged.

“You’re describing the events of the Age of Deification.

But after the Age of Deification came a great catastrophe. The gods and Buddhas perished—none were spared.

Those who submitted lived. Those who resisted died.

The ones who remained became lapdogs for Them.”

“Them?”

Chen Huaian was puzzled, but the Mountain Lord didn’t elaborate.

Its eyes were filled with deep dread, and it changed the subject:

“The world entered a cycle. First, spiritual energy dried up. Then it revived. Then it dried up again…

In this loop of spiritual recovery and decay, countless living beings go through prosperity, war, and apocalypse.

This cycle alone would be bearable. After all, the strong can always survive. It’s just another form of the law of the jungle.”

“Until one day—”

The Mountain Lord paused. Its voice trembled.

“Time… was reset.”

“When time resets, development halts. No matter what you do, it’s meaningless.

It means the entire world becomes a prison of endless repetition.

Every cycle wipes memory and life clean. No matter how strong you are, you’ll vanish into nothing.”

Chen Huaian stood frozen.

He suddenly remembered the relics left by the Bone Porcelain Bodhisattva and the Corpse King Emperor Jiang.

Each bore the same number: 137.

“How many cycles has it been already? 137?”

“I don’t know.” Blood Amber Mountain Lord shook its head.

“Our monster race, following the Ancestral Dragon’s will, refuses to become Ascenders.

So we can preserve a few fragments of memory with each cycle.

But those fragments don’t allow us to recognize exactly how many cycles have passed.

As for the Ascenders…”

The Tiger King sneered.

“They’re just a bunch of lab rats controlled by Them.

To put it in your modern human terms, Ascenders are test subjects, pawns.

They may seem glamorous on the surface, but when the cycle resets, they won’t remember a thing.

They might not even exist in the next cycle—completely randomized.”

At those words, the fog of confusion in Chen Huaian’s mind suddenly cleared.

No wonder he always felt something off about the Ascenders.

Leveling up by just doing tasks step by step.

Advancing in cultivation with no barriers.

Sitting in the Ascension Pillar for a while and boom—breakthrough.

Wasn’t that exactly like a video game character leveling up as easily as drinking water?

And what’s the biggest threat to a game character?

With each patch, the developers can wipe the slate clean—delete, edit, reshape.

In one version, spellcasters are strong.

Next version? Body cultivators are overpowered.

How it changes depends entirely on the whim of whoever’s pulling the strings.

…

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