Duality of Shadows

After grabbing the golden box, Kakarotto moved toward a central mountain, which was way bigger than the others. Just as he got closer, the divine seed in his inventory was pulled in like it was a magnet.

He released it, and just like before, something seemed to enter the seed... or maybe return to it...

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’According to logic, in the third place, it should be complete?’ Bruno pondered.

The group calmly returned to the imperial castle. When they arrived, there were already 20,000 allies waiting. Everyone from the Empire Nine Secrets had teamed up with those from the Empire Natural Harmony. Alm and Bruno ordered them to head to the two secret locations of the empires, studying and enjoying everything they had to offer.

The allies brought for the mission totaled about thirty thousand. With two-thirds already located, Alm and Bruno could only hope to find the rest in the Empire New Order. If they weren’t there, it would mean they had ascended as Divine Inquisitors, which could be a big problem.

’Everyone needs to cultivate the techniques of the empires. It shouldn’t be hard to turn everyone into Divine Inquisitors and ascend together to the "Divine Planet,"’ Bruno reflected. ’The mission requires mastering Anima cultivation and then saving the tree. But we’ll need to infiltrate to understand the situation better.’

As they prepared, they tried to sense the contents of the two golden boxes but had no luck. Opening them seemed like the only way to find out what was inside, but Maelik’s info about it made them hesitate.

In one of his lives in the Empire Natural Harmony, Maelik had infiltrated the army of a Divine Inquisitor before he broke into that realm.

Maelik witnessed the moment the cultivator ascended after a lot of effort. He was sure the guy knew exactly what he needed to do, like he had already cultivated before and returned to the beginning.

It was a strange feeling, like he remembered his past lives. Maelik thought the guy might be an ally in a situation similar to his, so he approached the cultivator. But upon seeing the heinous acts of his army, which killed and oppressed indiscriminately, he realized he was mistaken.

When it was time for the cultivator to ascend as a Divine Inquisitor, he went to the Path of Courage, bringing his army to protect him. He seemed very scared of being attacked. ’But who would dare to attack someone at that level?’ Maelik wondered, confused.

He combined his nine cores to break through realms. Then he went to the throne and took out the golden box. In the end, he didn’t hesitate to give his last orders to the army.

"I’ll leave immediately, and everyone is free again; the army will be dissolved. But because of our connection, I’ll give you a valuable piece of advice. If any of you can advance to Divine Inquisitor, you’ll realize you’ll have to leave immediately. Let me be clear: Don’t advance without enough to conquer a sacred treasure, or you’ll regret it bitterly."

After saying that, he opened the box, and a small golden sphere, seemingly made of pure energy, appeared. Nobody knew what it was, but Maelik recognized it right away.

He felt an immense amount of Qi inside the sphere, like it was a cramped spatial ring. The cultivator then absorbed the sphere directly and shot up into the sky, leaving the three empires forever.

Back to Kakarotto, who was holding the two golden boxes, Alm and Bruno were seriously reflecting. ’If there are three sacred places that are completely different locations, that means there could be three distinct treasures in each box,’ Bruno murmured.

’God Tuzwu insisted he needed one of the three treasures and even offered us the other two without a problem. That bastard was also really impressive, at a level way above the other cultivators... it’s possible he’s like the Divine Inquisitor Maelik met, someone who was born knowing the way.’

Alm scoffed: ’It seems like a Divine Inquisitor has to conquer one of these items for sure. We could choose two allies and ascend as a trio to avoid drawing attention. But the mission requires us to master Anima cultivation. I feel like to truly master it, we need to have all three treasures together.’

’There’s not much to think about. Let’s absorb all three at once and head to that place with a colossal army,’ Bruno said excitedly.

Historically, every generation sees two to six Divine Inquisitors emerge, and they leave pretty quickly. What would happen if they arrived at that superior planet with thirty thousand of them?

Probably chaos and danger. But the bigger the danger, the greater the opportunity. They didn’t seem to have the option to act discreetly, so they’d do the exact opposite.

Twenty thousand were already moving quickly. With the memories of their past lives and Maelik’s help, the soldiers wouldn’t be ordinary Divine Inquisitors. They would master dozens of laws from various different empires, becoming incredibly powerful. With thirty thousand of them, they could create unprecedented chaos.

With all the allies ready, Corin arrived with the latest news he had gathered from the Empire New Order. It was the most recent information about the current situation.

This empire had no King or Queen. Right now, it was led by a woman named Cipen, from the Alv race.

They were the third empire in terms of power, and the other two practically exploited the Empire New Order to the point where a king would just be a ridiculous puppet. So, instead of seeking conflict, Cipen chose a different path.

She had a talent for the Daos of construction and used it to benefit her people. She taught them to focus on that area. While the other empires focused on cultivation and power, the Empire New Order thrived in areas like forging weapons, mining, alchemy, and other unusual trades.

Cipen created several cities dedicated to specific studies. Being a weaker empire, she maintained good relations with the other two, and her people could move freely between the other empires.

She knew her path didn’t please everyone. So, she encouraged the three beast races to seek materials from the other empires, becoming adventurers, hunting for ores and rarities. This way, these races could improve, fighting as they preferred.

The two natural races, on the other hand, lived in isolation, cultivating in untouched forests where only they could enter. In those areas, rare herbs grew, helping alchemists and benefiting everyone.

The other four races could learn forging, alchemy, or dive into studying inscriptions. The commander encouraged everyone to create something and make a living from it, or even explore the other empires if they wanted to.

Cipen was a ruler who studied each race to keep them under control while also letting them be free. She fostered peace among all her allies and with the two neighboring empires, ensuring security since they became too valuable to be trampled on.

However, despite everything seeming positive, the cultivation and power of this empire were completely degraded. Almost all of its members were way weaker than those of the other two races, and the gap just kept growing.

The gap was so huge that this empire would probably never produce another Divine Inquisitor. They were so weak and harmless that any powerful cultivator from outside could exploit, steal, and do whatever they wanted in that territory.

In short, all the cultivators from the other two empires, when visiting this one, treated the locals like slaves. Weakness in the cultivation world was seen as a sin, and even though the commander created a safe ecosystem that satisfied everyone, there were still many cases of foreign cultivators pillaging and killing without stopping.

"Peace for the weak isn’t an option," Kakarotto commented while reading the reports. The other three were deep in thought.

Corin quickly spoke up: "Master, Cipen is only good at forging, even though she encourages people in other areas. Her specialty is creating things with pure Yang energy. She leads the people with a lot of study, aiming for peace. Plus, she’s a really quiet Alv who likes to live alone, which is a weird trait for a leader. But the people seem to really like her."

Bruno sighed heavily, relieved. Alm, on the other hand, coldly said, "Yeah, it could be Thea. That young leader is really something strange. But if the people like her, then she’s doing a good job... after all, they’ll all end up being massacred and turned into slaves. At least they’ll do it with a smile on their faces. They haven’t produced any cultivators anymore…"

Alm was interrupted when an Alv rushed into the King’s room with a tense expression.

"King, something big has happened! News just came in that a new Divine Inquisitor has emerged in the Empire New Order! Everyone on the planet can feel the phenomena. He’s in that part of the empire…"

’What the hell? Shit.’ Alm and Bruno said in sync.