Seeing that extreme reaction, Alm and Bruno felt a rage beginning to well up inside them. The whale snorted dryly, and the whole atmosphere seemed to chill. All those figures jumped and turned to the whale; in the next second, all that wild aura coming from them evaporated as if it had never existed.
The whale continued to stare at them. Suddenly, the man who seemed to be the leader trembled and fell to his knees. "Forgive us, sir!" He roared, and everyone fell beside him and bowed fearfully.
"Is... is the immortal lord... a Heavenly Guardian?" The man spoke with his head bowed, unable to look up.
"Hm... something like that, I suppose." The whale replied lightly. That name they didn’t know, but they felt it was correct to affirm.
All the figures trembled in unison. At that moment, Coha seemed completely shocked and couldn’t breathe. She was the only one looking at the whale, but her body and mind weren’t reacting.
The silence lingered, and the whale sighed. Then spoke dryly. "What a waste of time, take me to your race. I don’t know much about you, but since Heaven’s Will has brought us together, I’ll take a look."
"Yes!" They all spoke in unison and stood up after hearing his command.
The group thought they would take him somewhere, but they didn’t. That man simply took out something hidden within his rudimentary fur clothing. It was a small, rounded gray object.
Alm and Bruno looked at it, and their eyes narrowed, sensing a familiar power. The laws of chaos...
"Immortal lord, this is the Chaos Gem." The man spoke respectfully, showing it to the whale. "Our ancestors created it countless years ago. Inside, there is a world similar to the spatial rings that cultivators in the universe use. But, this creation allows our entire race to live inside. And we are not directly affected by the formation of this continent."
Everyone in the group widened their eyes. "You can live and cultivate in this small world?" Rehvka asked, astonished.
The man turned to her. "Unfortunately, no QI or laws can enter this world. Everything is isolated from the outside. That’s why my race has still persisted since time immemorial. But technically, we can cultivate if we manage to bring resources inside. The suppression doesn’t affect us."
Everyone nodded in understanding. With this, they should be able to survive on this continent and become stronger. But why did they choose to live so isolated from the world? Everyone wondered.
"Let’s get going." The whale spoke emotionlessly.
Soon, the man nodded, and the gray gem shimmered. The whale felt no malice or any danger from it; his instincts were his greatest weapon and defense. The light covered them, and in a second, they entered that place.
It was a completely gray world as if they were literally inside a gemstone. The skies and horizon were covered in shades of gray, creating a surreal and desolate landscape. As they looked around, they saw an expanse of tens of kilometers, vast and imposing. The air was dry and heavy, and the land barren and lifeless. There were no traces of vitality; everything there was morbid, cold, and strange.
Alm observed the desolate scenery and reflected that, even within the abyss and in its sea of Yin, there was still life; however, there was nothing but complete emptiness here. They could live in this place... no, they merely survived somehow; their lives were so miserable and difficult that he could barely imagine.
The man appeared alongside 10 others. One of them was responsible for taking care of the gem outside.
"This is our home... the city is nearby. The elder will explain everything to you, sir. Please, follow me." He spoke politely and moved.
They all followed him and walked through the morbid desert. It didn’t take long for them to spot a ’city’. It was all made of bones and stones, emanating a sense of misery and poverty.
It was as Alm and Bruno thought: they had that technique, but couldn’t use it without a huge risk of dying. Thus, they were nowhere near dominant on that continent; they fought tooth and nail for every herb and tiny treasure with the beasts in a savage struggle.
Everyone calmly entered the city, and soon, several other people ran to greet them. One of the men, who was Coha’s father, bowed politely to Thea and picked up his daughter on his back. Soon, other men picked up Ondar and took them to a house.
The group was led to the center of the village, and they observed everything. There should have been between one hundred and one hundred fifty thousand people of that race. Their lives were difficult in every sense; their birthrate seemed poor, and the survival of a young one was even worse. They couldn’t take it easy and protect anyone; every resource was contested, and a weak person living among them cost something they barely had; it was better not to exist. It was a harsh and desperate reality that everyone faced.
Alm and Bruno felt something a little distant from that city; it was almost an instinctual call. As they reflected, they entered a small enclosed structure made of stones.
The man bowed and left along with everyone from his race. Inside, there was only one red woman, looking old and hunched. She stared fixedly at the whale without saying anything. Alm and Bruno waited, but after a while, they lost patience, and the whale spoke.
"I came only to learn about you..."
"The fate of our race is connected to you," the woman cut in gently. "Yes... and to the Heaven’s Will. You, sir, are a Heavenly Guardian."
"First, tell me from the beginning, who are you and how did you end up here?" The whale spoke bluntly, getting straight to the point.
The stories of this race were unknown to Alm and Bruno, and there were no records on that planet. They were something ancient, very ancient. According to the woman, they were born in parallel with the ancestors of the humanoids, the Chromaraic. They didn’t have a real connection, although they had some similar characteristics; it was a convergent evolution.
They called themselves ’Oni’. This word was not unfamiliar to Alm and Bruno; surprisingly, they had heard it on Earth. Obviously, it didn’t correspond in almost anything to reality, like all the other things they knew from Earth and only truly came to know later. But, since they had heard this name before, they felt it wasn’t a fantasy created by this woman’s race.
Their heritage comes from millions and millions of years ago, before the queen ruled the universe. They were a prosperous race that existed on almost all divine planets, but currently... these few survivors should represent the last remaining.
Their race was massacred by the queen when she began to dominate this universe, which was her original home. They didn’t accept her reign and were the first resistance front against her. That was the reason for their downfall.
Since that ancient time, the queen was supreme. But to Alm and Bruno’s surprise, the Onis had immortal cultivators on their side; they didn’t lose immediately and managed to resist for millions of years... but everything had a limit. The longer it went, the more heroes were born, and the more immortal cultivators sprouted on her side.
Seeing the imminent end, an immortal Oni managed to create something, but it wasn’t just his power. According to the woman, this Oni received help from the Heaven’s Will. Five Chaos Gems were created, capable of sealing a small space for their race to live and survive; it was undetectable even for the queen and celestial laws.
Everyone from the race was divided into five and scattered. Still, they were gradually being destroyed. The woman stated confidently: all four items were gone, all were killed.
As the race’s last hope of survival, the ancestors had the idea to infiltrate one of the planets where a primordial beast was sealed. Near the seal, on all the planets, the formation nullifies all the QI from the beast and all cultivators; no one would properly look for them there.
It was a safe place, even if there was suspicion. Not even the heroes could use their full power there. How would they find a small gem in the middle of this continent? Thus, they randomly chose this planet and lived hidden until the present day.
It’s not like this idea came up only after almost everyone was gone. The risks of living too close to the queen’s followers were gigantic, but by some miracle, nothing happened to them. In all these years, there were no records of heroes looking for them. Alm and Bruno nodded, acknowledging the intense manipulation of the Heaven’s Will.
"The immortal Oni ancestor left us three legacies. The first of them was a prediction of the future, or rather, a message from the Heaven’s Will. He said the guardian will come; he will guide us and save us. All our pain will end, just resist and wait for the day that..."
The woman spoke and stopped halfway, as if some information was missing. The whale didn’t mind, and she just changed the subject and continued.
They didn’t have a method to cultivate and gather QI in that place. They could even manage to rise a few realms with the help of herbs or other treasures from that continent, but they would have to fight for it; and obviously, hardly anyone could. Most just learned to manipulate QI in the most basic way, they weren’t real cultivators. And it was all because of that primitive technique.
By the way, the second gift left was this ancestral technique, something that records showed even the queen used as the basis of her power in ancient times. It was called the ’Scripture of Will’. It was a technique that existed before she dominated everything, and no one knew how it originated.
Alm and Bruno had already felt the manipulation of the Heaven’s Will over everything. The first two things seemed to have been planned for them: a message about their arrival and the technique, which was something important for them to discover.
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The woman continued explaining. The third and last thing left was in the center of the small world within the chaos gem, an inheritance from the immortal cultivator. That was a test for all the Onis, a chance to strengthen themselves. Even without being able to cultivate, this inheritance strengthened them and their bodies were elevated with infinite potential.
"It’s inside an underground cave, with seven lower levels, each designed to test the understanding level of the inheritance. As for the inheritance, it’s available for everyone to read and try to learn. It’s called ’FiendGod’s Physical Refinement’. All the Onis seek to learn it, but there has never been anyone who passed the fourth level." She spoke slowly, with extreme sorrow in her eyes. "According to the words left behind, learning all seven levels of the technique would give a great chance of becoming immortal cultivators. Only those who manage to learn everything completely are allowed to separate from the race and go to the world."
The whale paused with pensive eyes. ’FiendGod’s Physical Refinement... it’s something focused on physical enhancement, and its name is extremely similar to the Physical Cultivation Technique: FiendGod’s Hegemony; our physical cultivation.’ Bruno analyzed.
Alm smirked villainously. ’There’s no doubt, everything was prepared and left for us. This technique should help us, and certainly, at the end of this inheritance, we’ll gain a lot.’