Chapter 669: Those Who Defy Providence Shall Die

As the Heaven's Will Xuan Bird, Little Hei knew all too well how extraordinary Xu Ke's providence was.

Purple-gold providence—one in a billion. Wherever he went, he could turn misfortune into fortune, calamity into blessing.

Countless treasures fell into his hands; opportunities came without cease.

How could someone like that die so easily?

Providence was not omnipotent, of course. Even those who carried great providence were not invincible. If they ran into a calamity their fate could not bear, the risk of falling remained present.

But Xu Ke didn’t only have his own providence to rely on. He also had the protection of Mister Bai's red cord. Even a single thread from that cord had been enough to gravely wound Crimson Nine-Heads, the supreme powerhouse of the demonic beast race.

Mister Bai's strength was terrifying beyond imagination. From Little Hei's last exchange with Xu Ke, he knew that some of the red cord still remained on his wrist. Little Hei firmly believed that no matter what danger Xu Ke encountered in the Xuanhuang World, the remaining cord would help him escape alive.

So Xu Ke's inexplicable death was something Little Hei simply could not understand or accept. He swore he would uncover the cause of it.

When the restriction imposed by Sovereign Tapir Tertius loosened, Little Hei ignored the shackles this world placed on him and forcefully left the Beastkin World. He tried to trace the path Xu Ke had taken, to uncover the secret behind his death.

The Xuanhuang World had countless attached minor worlds. Trying to find the truth from a few scattered clues from years past was, of course, exceedingly difficult.

Yet Xu Ke and the Heaven's Will Xuan Bird had once been master and servant, bound by some obscure thread of fate. After a thousand years of searching, Little Hei stumbled by chance into a rather vast minor world. The corpse of Crimson Nine-Heads floating in the sky told him he had finally found the right place.

And when he met his old friend, the Azure Luan Bird, he learned from her what had actually happened.

After the Beast Taming Sect settled in a minor world called the Spiritvoid World, it went through a period of relatively stable development.

The concentration of spiritual qi in the Spiritvoid World was somewhat lower than in the Xuanhuang World, but enough to keep the sect's disciples alive.

Because the rule of the Exclusivity of Techniques still held, the Beast Taming Sect drew up two parallel plans for the future.

The first was to gather the sect's most talented disciples and have the sect leader and elders pass down their lifelong knowledge to them as one, in the hope that this group would eventually derive new techniques for the sect's members to cultivate.

The second was to research a method that would let them form a spiritual connection with demonic beasts without needing to cultivate the Beast Taming True Art.

One plan was the Derivation of Techniques; the other was Beast Taming. If both were pursued at once, and the Beast Taming Sect were given enough time, they might yet regain their former strength.

Xu Ke had little talent for comprehending the Dao, but he possessed a natural affinity with all kinds of demonic beasts. So, at the sect leader's direction, he joined the group researching the new Beast Taming Method. Every day he studied the sect's supreme treasure, the Myriad Beasts Revolving Wheel, so absorbed that he lost all track of time.

Then one day, Xu Ke suddenly received word that his senior brother, Lu Ya, had been gravely wounded and had fallen unconscious. In shock, he ignored everyone's objections and secretly returned alone to the Xuanhuang World.

At that time, a terrible miasma was beginning to spread from the bodies of mortals, flooding the entire cultivation world. Once Xu Ke returned, he too was inevitably infected. Fortunately, luck was on his side; seven days later, he recovered on his own, for no clear reason.

It was at this moment that Lu Ya, on the verge of death, seemed to sense Xu Ke's arrival and suddenly woke. His complexion was ruddy, showing no sign of severe illness at all. Yet Xu Ke knew this was only Lu Ya's final radiance before death, that his time was short, and grief welled up in him.

Lu Ya's expression was gentle. He sent everyone else away and called Xu Ke alone to his bedside.

That night, no one knew what the two of them discussed.

But from that day forward, Xu Ke remained in the old grounds of the Beast Taming Sect in the Xuanhuang World. Not until the Great Migration plan began did he, as the Beast Taming Sect's sole remaining member and representative, take charge of transporting countless mortals into the qi-depleted minor worlds.

A hundred years drifted by in an instant.

The last group of mortals was sent to the very minor world where he had first encountered Crimson Nine-Heads.

After helping complete the migration, Xu Ke, for reasons unknown, never returned to the Beast Taming Sect in the Spiritvoid World. He even severed all ties of his own accord. From then on, he hid his name and lived in seclusion as a commoner.

Of course, it was not a purely mortal existence.

Unnoticed by those around him, he used the six severed heads of Crimson Nine-Heads as a culture medium. Drawing on the gentle-tempered demonic beasts he had brought from the Beast Taming Sect as breeding stock, he began cultivating and propagating all manner of mutated exotic beasts.

Little Qing and Little Hong, the two birds fortunate enough to stay by his side, never understood his purpose. Yet they helped him faithfully all the same, meticulously recording every result of his research.

Over several generations, both the variety and number of mutated exotic beasts grew.

These mutated exotic beasts were considerably weaker than the original demonic beasts, but the ferocity in their bloodlines had diminished as well. At the very least, they no longer attacked humans without cause.

So, after many years, the population of new exotic beast species in this world prospered.

One day, for reasons unknown, Crimson Nine-Heads descended upon this place once more.

It still seemed haunted by fear, crouching in the firmament for a long while as it surveyed the situation below. Only once it saw no threats did it relax. With it came a great brown Peng bird. Both looked wretched, their bodies marked with numerous scorched patches.

"I knew it. I should have gone with Sovereign Primus. Then I wouldn't have to suffer this humiliation in the Xuanhuang World!"

"Without Sovereign Primus's guidance, we demonic beasts have indeed declined year by year. I thought that after the great calamity, humanity would be wiped out quickly. But I never expected formidable fellows to keep emerging! There's no justice!"

"That fellow from the Purple Firmament Sect had passable strength, nothing outrageous. When it comes to true powerhouses, back in my day...

"Hmph, even now these scars on my head throb with pain from time to time!"

The two terrifying demonic beasts conversed in the sky without a shred of restraint, regarding the countless mortals below as nothing more than rations to restore their vitality.

"Hehe, Elder Brother, no need to dwell on it. Once we devour this realm and restore our strength, we'll go settle scores with those bastards!" The Peng bird's eyes locked onto the trembling mortals below, drool nearly spilling from its maw.

Yet even among demonic beasts, hierarchy was ironclad.

"Elder Brother, you go first!" the great Peng said, forcing down the hunger gnawing at it, its tone fawning.

Crimson Nine-Heads let out a cold snort, and its form swelled again in an instant. It spread its three remaining maws wide, cavernous jaws ready to devour the entire world.

But then... it saw that familiar flash of red again.

"How is this possible..."

This time, Crimson Nine-Heads had no such luck.

The thread pierced straight through its body and yanked it down from beyond the world.

Watching its elder brother cut down in a single instant, the great Peng was struck with soul-shattering terror.

Forgetting all bonds of kinship, it transformed into a bolt of black light and fled in frantic haste.

To mortal eyes, the full scope of the event was invisible. All they understood was that the two vicious demonic beasts in the sky, on the verge of committing atrocities, had been slain by an immortal.

Grateful for their narrow escape, they burst into cheers, praising the immortal's grace and might.

Only Xu Ke, standing among the crowd, quietly stroked the red cord around his wrist, now another thread thinner.

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