Li Yuan had a faint suspicion in his heart, but he did not interrupt the old man, only listening quietly.
“When I first arrived here, I didn’t know what to do. Failing to ascend meant the path back was completely cut off. There is no Heavenly Dao guidance here, so even if my injuries healed, I couldn't hope to ascend a second time. Just when I thought I could only linger on in this strange world—” The old man’s voice suddenly slowed, and a very faint light flickered in his clouded eyes again, “—I met her.”
He turned his head to look at the girl in the coffin.
“Vernas—she was the one who rescued me from the wilderness. Back then, I was struggling just to breathe, covered in blood, and I had almost forgotten who I was. She treated my wounds and used her divine power to repair my divine soul—even though it wasn't very effective, she still persisted. I asked her why she was helping me, and she said—‘Because you need it.’ Just those few words... truly, just those short words. Do you know how much I wanted to cry then?”
He lowered his head, looking at his gaunt hands, his voice a bit softer than before.
“I’ve never met someone like that in my life. In the Weihai Realm, no cultivator would be kind to another for no reason. Someone who doesn't harm you is already considered a good person; someone who helps you wholeheartedly is a fool. But she wasn't a fool—she was smart, so smart that sometimes I felt like I was the one who knew nothing. She just... felt she should help me, so she did.”
The old man’s voice paused for a long time here, and Li Yuan thought he did not intend to continue. Then the old man took a deep breath and slowly poured out the past events that he hadn't mentioned to anyone for a long time.
“In the years that followed, my injuries slowly recovered with her help. Although my strength was still far from what it used to be, at least I could walk, eat, and speak like a normal person. During that time, I was also slowly... changed by her quite a bit. She was gentle, kind, and when she smiled, it was exceptionally bright—things I had never possessed in my life. So, I had a thought I had never considered before.”
He looked up at Li Yuan, his clouded eyes swirling with a complex and sincere emotion.
“I wanted to stay. Right here, with her. Start a family and live out this life normally.”
Li Yuan remained silent. Hearing such words from an evil cultivator was indeed hard to believe, but he could see that the old man showed no signs of guilt or concealment as he spoke.
“About six hundred years ago,” the old man continued, his pace a bit faster than before, “she agreed to become my Dao companion and took me to a place called the ‘Divine Realm.’ That is the base for all the gods of the Ogu Continent. She wanted me to stay there too, but I refused. I simply don't like crowded places—where there are people, there are schemes and power struggles. I’ve seen too much of that and was long since tired of it. So she agreed to go into seclusion with me. Just the two of us, finding a piece of uninhabited wasteland, building a small cottage, and living a quiet life.”
He pointed to the ground beneath his feet.
“This is the wasteland we found back then. At that time, there was no City of Divine Grace, no temple, no plaza—only a wilderness overgrown with weeds and a few commoners fleeing for their lives. We saved them along the way, and they said they wanted to follow us. Vernas didn't refuse. Later, more and more people gathered, the settlement grew larger, and the city was slowly built...”
His voice gradually grew lower.
“But I didn't care about any of that. The only thing I cared about was her. As long as she was by my side, it didn't matter where we lived.”
The old man’s Adam's apple bobbed, and his voice finally carried a hint of uncontrollable trembling.
“We lived like that for about a hundred years. For people like us, that time was just a blink of an eye. Then one day, a summons came from the Divine Realm. Enemies were invading, and she needed to return to fight. I wanted to go with her, but although my physical body had recovered quite a bit, the damage to my divine soul was still severe, and I couldn't use much power. She wouldn't agree to let me follow, and I couldn't win the argument, so I could only stay behind.”
His fingers clenched tighter and tighter, the veins on the back of his hands bulging.
“In the end, I waited for a few years, only to have her return with a shattered godhead, on the brink of death. It was I who... personally placed her in this coffin.”
The old man suddenly laughed, a dry and short sound, as if squeezed out from deep in his throat, then stopped abruptly. He lowered his head and stopped speaking, just quietly looking at his hands.
Li Yuan looked at those hands and remained silent for a long while before slowly speaking.
“....It's a good story.”
The old man’s shoulders moved slightly. Li Yuan stood up, his gaze lingering for a moment on the peaceful sleeping face in the coffin, then turned to the old man, his tone serious.
“But you still haven't answered my question—what's the deal with your cultivation technique, the vow power in the City of Divine Grace, and the spokespersons who have died over the past century?”
The old man looked up at him and raised a hand, signaling Li Yuan to be patient. “Please rest assured, I will explain everything one by one. Please give me a little more time... As for the deaths of the girls you are most concerned about, they haven't truly died... I can guarantee that.”
Li Yuan's brow furrowed slightly.
“I saw what happened on the altar with my own eyes.” His tone was colder than before. “When that massive amount of faith and vow power poured into Ramina’s body, her soul was nearly shattered by the impact. If I hadn't left a trace of spiritual energy in her body beforehand to protect her soul source, she would be just like the girls who died before—her soul would have suffered irreversible damage, and she would have died before long.”
After hearing this, the expression on the old man’s face didn't change much; he only slowly shook his head.
“You are correct, Fellow Daoist, but only half right.”
Li Yuan looked at him, waiting for a reasonable explanation.
The old man turned around and sat back down on the low stool by the coffin, one hand habitually resting on the edge of the lid. He fell silent for a few seconds before slowly speaking.
“The moment faith and vow power entered her body, she temporarily became the ‘God of Light.’”
Li Yuan was momentarily stunned upon hearing this, then immediately recalled the scene on the altar when he had scanned Ramina’s body with his Divine Sense—that ball of white light occupying the core of her consciousness.
Then his pupils constricted, and he blurted out, “Possession?”
The old man nodded.
“That faith and vow power originally belonged to Vernas. Without her godhead to attract it, these powers could never be absorbed. You should also know, Fellow Daoist, that faith and vow power cannot be intercepted by others.”
Li Yuan remained silent, which was a tacit admission. He did know this—when he was investigating the City of Divine Grace earlier, he couldn't figure out why the accumulated vow power hadn't dissipated if the God of Light had lost consciousness.
The answer was—the God of Light’s godhead was still there; it just needed a living body as a vessel to receive the offerings of the believers.
“So there never was a ‘spokesperson,’” Li Yuan said slowly. “Those girls were chosen as vessels from the very beginning.”
“That's not a pleasant way to put it, but it is indeed the truth.” The old man didn't deny it, his tone still calm. “However, it's not entirely possession... Vernas’s soul is only a remnant now. Even if she temporarily borrows the bodies of those girls, it is only to absorb the vow power. After each festival ends, she returns to this body.”
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