World's No. 1 Swordsman-Chapter 574: Thirty Percent Primordial Power

"You know the whole story?" Wang Sheng asked.

"Mm..."

"Can you tell me?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, Wang Sheng felt a twinge of regret. When did I become so impulsive?

He quickly added, "I don't mean to pry into your past, but I do find it hard to understand. Elder Linyuan seems so deeply troubled by it that even the sect master suspects he has done something that weighs on his conscience."

A hint of helplessness flickered in Lishang's eyes. She took two steps across the white cloud and sat down near Wang Sheng.

Beneath them, mountain ranges and forests swept past. Above, a sky full of shining stars stretched out. They could make out ferocious, mountain-sized beasts slumbering in the valleys in the distance.

This place was certainly perilous, yet breathtaking scenery kept unfolding along the path that Wang Sheng and Lishang traveled.

Lishang sighed softly. In a distant and subdued tone, she revealed, "Our race never learned what calamity befell us. From the Ancient Era onward, our kin passed away one after another. Even our Golden Immortals met all manner of tribulations.

"According to Mother, our ancestors committed some taboo in the Ancient Era, drawing a heavenly might warning. In the end, the Great Dao abandoned and condemned us to vanish among the countless stars."

A heavenly might warning? Abandoned by the Great Dao?

Wang Sheng couldn't help but ask, "Vice Sect Master, did you inherit any memories about the warning?"

"I believe so. Among the memories that my mother passed to me, there are a few blurred images of what looked like a pair of eyes... watching us."

Wang Sheng's heart tightened as he smiled bitterly. "I've seen those eyes twice."

Lishang was clearly startled. "Oh? How did you provoke the heavenly might?"

Wang Sheng's smile turned into a wry one. "My ideas about cultivation went too far, but there's no need to dwell on it. Thankfully, I still have one last warning left. Anyway, please continue. This is the first time I've heard of the Great Dao abandoning someone."

Haotian had suffered the same fate, but Wang Sheng found no reason to share it right now.

Lishang said with concern, "There should be detailed records in here. Later, I can help you look into how to avoid such a fate."

She then began recounting past events.

After the Great Dao had abandoned them, Nuwa's lineage gradually withered. Their branch had long resided in the Eastern Sky Region, with their ancestral land changing locations according to the Fuxi Trigram. However, in a final attempt to save themselves, the last few of their kin left it one by one to search for ways to preserve their race.

About thirty thousand years ago, Lishang's parents traveled to the Immortal Realm to seek out their race's old friends, hoping for aid. The beings they were looking for then were, at the very least, Golden Immortals or Taiyi Golden Immortals.

They tried many methods, yet no one could restore their fortune. Those whom the Great Dao had abandoned couldn't escape decline. Once forsaken, even races with many Golden Immortals eventually faced extinction.

All existence within the vast cosmos resided within the Dao, and the transformation of all things followed its laws.

One of their old friends did help them in one regard; he refined a qi pill and gifted it to Lishang's mother.

Her parents then secluded themselves in the Immortal Realm, quietly nurturing her for three thousand years. Finally, her egg was formed.

Yet calamity struck immediately. Lishang's father managed to protect his wife and child from the tribulation, but he ended up having to sacrifice himself.

Enduring the grief, her mother secretly brought her back to their ancestral land to continue incubating her. However, at some point, Lishang suffered an undetectable injury that prevented her from hatching.

"Because of it, my mother had to spend over ten thousand years continuously transferring her bloodline power to me." Lishang's eyes filled with helplessness as she hugged herself by the shoulders. "I only managed to survive because my mother nearly sacrificed herself.

"Even then, disasters still kept coming. To save me, my mother allowed her cultivation realm to fall. She once stood at the peak of the Golden Immortal Realm, just half a step away from Taiyi Golden Immortal Realm. However, she eventually dropped past even the Golden Immortal Realm.

"When I finally regained the ability to hatch, six uninvited guests visited our ancestral land, which had always remained perfectly hidden. They should never have been able to approach our hideout, but my mother made a choice."

Wang Sheng frowned. "She let them in?"

Lishang smiled bitterly. "Mm. I can still clearly remember what my mother told me then. She intended to test the intruders' character and entrust me to one of them, hoping that I'd be able to borrow the fortune of the human race and perhaps reverse the calamity I was destined for.

"After some time, they entered the forbidden area and discovered my mother and me. I was still in my egg then, yet I can vividly recall the terrifying greed in their expressions. They immediately attacked my mother, intending to kill her and seize the treasures in the forbidden area.

"Only Master Linyuan stepped forward and tried to protect us. He reasoned with the others that we were descendants of humanity's Holy Mother and should not be treated in such a way. However, as you've probably already guessed, the five instead turned on him and tried to kill him."

Wang Sheng sighed deeply. "And then?"

"My mother killed the five. Even with her cultivation realm diminished, she was far too strong for Heavenly Immortals to deal with. However, she was also gravely wounded. She sent my master and me out of the ancestral land, then sealed the forbidden area."

Lishang's eyes reddened as she turned to Wang Sheng. Without realizing it, a tear rolled past the corner of her mouth.

"My master blamed himself for the incident, but he never talked to me about it. He simply brought me back to the Xinghai Sect and gave me every cultivation resource he could spare. My mother stayed behind here, in our ancestral land. She sacrificed herself to cast a fate-shifting spell, taking the calamity that was mine onto herself. I never went back, but I know my mother had secretly prepared the spell long ago.

"Elder Pi—no, Wang Sheng, tell me. Am I a scheming and contemptible person?"

Wang Sheng smiled bitterly. "How could you be? Back then, you were still just an egg."

"I understand why my master carries that guilt, yet I have never been able to face him calmly." Lishang sighed softly. "I don't even know how I managed to spend ten thousand years in the Xinghai Sect.

"I know that Martial Uncle Yao Xingzi was the one who divinated the location of my ancestral land, and that Master Linyuan was the one who led the intruders to it. But I also know that my mother was, in truth, using my master as part of her own plan to help me borrow the fortune of the human race and be born safely.

"My mother died to fulfill that goal, and my master ended up carrying guilt for ten thousand years because of it. Despite knowing all of this, I still refused to destroy the safe, comfortable life I had. Is that not contemptible?

"The Great Dao itself imposed all those punishments. Even without them, we would have suffered other calamities. Our entire race would inevitably be driven toward extinction!"

Wang Sheng didn't know how to respond. Just as he was about to speak, a wave of deep exhaustion surged from his Primordial Spirit. The earlier battle had truly drained him.

"I'm tired, Vice Sect Master. Let me rest for a while."

Lishang nodded gently. Failing to notice the fingers of her other hand quietly begin to glow, Wang Sheng slowly slumped to the side. She hurriedly reached out to catch him and let him lean against her.

Ahead, near what seemed to be the edge of the small world, she wrapped Wang Sheng in her immortal power and carried him gently down toward a mirror-smooth pool.

A golden mark appeared on her forehead. Fine ripples spread across the pool's surface, which slowly split open to reveal a passage. Inside was another small world, like a hidden paradise.

Supporting the unconscious Wang Sheng, Lishang descended into it. The opening behind them sealed shut immediately.

A faint, obscure Dao Rhythm slowly spread from the pool. Throughout the ancestral land, the ferocious beasts awakened from their slumber and roared.

The world beneath the pool was actually quite small. It only had a sky with slowly changing weather, islands floating in midair, a ring of beautiful land, and the pearl-like pool itself.

Celestial birds flew about, spirit beasts played freely, and spiritual herbs grew everywhere. Yet while the primal qi here was abundant, traces of the Great Dao were faint. Living things could grow without worry, but it was extremely difficult to embark on the path of cultivation.

Simple stone palaces stood upon the islands. Though not grand in scale, they blended naturally into the scenery.

Lishang looked around, then flew straight toward the largest island with Wang Sheng. On it stood a towering ancient tree that was thousands of meters tall. Its canopy covered most of the island, and its roots reached every corner of the area.

Lishang brought Wang Sheng under the great tree as if searching for something. Soon, within a cluster of flowers, she found a jade statue with features similar to her own. Like her, it had a human upper body and a serpentine lower body. It had a faint smile on its lips, and its tail lay relaxed. With its eyes tightly closed, it had been leaning against a protruding root.

"Mother..."

Lishang bit her lip, settled Wang Sheng to the side, and slowly kowtowed.

The jade carving seemed to release a soft sigh. As Lishang bowed, it dissolved into countless points of light.

The light gathered into a single hand that gently brushed Lishang's cheek, then scattered with the wind. The sigh carried contentment, as though finally free of attachment or regret.

With her tail coiled beneath her, Lishang remained in place. She stared at the place where the jade light had faded for some time.

"Mother, no matter the hardships ahead, I will change the fate of our race and continue our bloodline."

Lishang then turned to Wang Sheng. She gave him a complicated look at first, but her gaze soon softened into calm tenderness.

She lifted Wang Sheng and laid him where the jade carving had been. Afterward, she flew into a nearby stone palace and soon returned with a shell-shaped container. Inside was a mass of golden spiritual herb that flowed like fine sand.

She transformed her tail into slender legs, sat beside Wang Sheng, and rested his head on the part of her thighs that her skirt couldn't cover. Carefully, she poured the golden sand into his mouth.

The sand immediately turned into streams of light and slowly circulated within Wang Sheng.

"I have given you thirty percent of the primordial power my mother left me. Consider this my payment for protecting me on this journey. If I gave you more, I fear I would not have enough left to attempt my own breakthrough to the Heavenly Immortal Realm. I also know that if you were awake, you would refuse it, so I had to knock you unconscious. Sleep for a while."

As she murmured, Lishang took out a jade pendant and inscribed small characters upon it. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

I am going into seclusion in the stone palace to break through to the Heavenly Immortal Realm. At the latest, I will emerge in three years. You may recuperate here and freely use the spiritual herbs and treasures.

She then lowered her head and quietly gazed at Wang Sheng.