Chapter 2897 - A Harbinger of Tribulations
Fog permeated the air, and a clamor of voices rang out.
The red-robed man furrowed his brow and said coldly, “Where are you, you cowards? If you’ve got the guts, come out and face me!”
“Oho, it seems the new Destiny’s Chosen is angry.”
“With a temperament like that, you deserved to be tricked!”
“Quit poking fun at him. We’re all in the same boat,” said an indolent voice. “Enough. Let me ask him some questions!”
The clamor of voices instantly died down.
The speaker was none other than Mo Hanyi.
“Friend, you’re from the Abyss of Endless Tribulations, and you indeed have reason to be confident, but you aren’t worthy of our attention,” said Mo Hanyi, his tone casual and natural. “I deign to speak with you, not for your sake, but to give the Little Destiny’s Chosen face. I’m giving him some of the answers he’s after.”
Su Yi’s eyebrows rose. So, Mo Hanyi knows I’m listening!
“I have no interest in chatting with you,” the man in red said coldly.
“That’s because you don't understand your situation yet,” said Mo Hanyi. “The imprint of the former Destiny’s Chosen remains in the Book of Destiny. Don’t tell me you don’t realize the implications?”
The man in red robes furrowed his brow. “The imprint remains, but the man doesn’t. What can he do to me?”
Mo Hanyi looked at him pityingly. “The Little Chosen can control the Book of Destiny. That means he has the former Chosen’s approval. Given the circumstances, if the Little Chosen wants to deal with you, he’ll have no trouble at all.”
The red-robed man fell silent.
Mo Hanyi continued, “Little Chosen, that man is from the Abyss of Endless Tribulations. He’s a Harbinger of Tribulations with innate power over the Tribulations of Destiny. Even River Ancestors would fall beneath his tribulations.
“Harbingers of Tribulations mean nothing to us old-timers, but there’s no denying that they’re quite rare! Your odds of encountering a River Ancestor on the River of Destiny are already quite low, but Harbingers of Tribulations are at least ten... no, one hundred times rarer! Because people like him can almost never escape the Abyss of Endless Tribulations. Finding one is as rare as meat pies raining down from the heavens.
“During the Primordial Era, the Abyss of Endless Tribulations was the source of all calamities, as well as the source of all of the River of Destiny’s tribulations. Practically all of the tribulations the denizens of the river encounter in their lives originate from the Abyss of Endless Tribulations. And the Harbingers of Tribulations are those who preside over these tribulations.
“But they’re different from Tribulation Spirits. Tribulation Spirits are born of Tribulations of Destiny, while Harbingers of Tribulations are made from the souls of cultivators.
“Of course, those souls capable of becoming Harbingers of Tribulations are all extraordinary. That guy was most likely a River Ancestor before he became a Harbinger of Tribulations. After he entered the Abyss of Endless Tribulations, he ultimately had no choice but to sacrifice his life for an opportunity to become a Harbinger of Tribulations.”
The words flowed out of Mo Hanyi as he laid all of the Harbinger of Tribulations’ secrets out in the open.
The man in red sat there in silence throughout this explanation, his expression shifting erratically. Sometimes he was stunned, other times he looked dazed, but there was always lingering grief.
Su Yi gradually started to understand.
“Little Chosen, if all is as I suspect, you ran into this Harbinger of Tribulations due to the Book of Destiny’s influence. Fortunately, you’re clever, and you managed to seize an opportunity to avert this Tribulation of Destiny.”
Su Yi knew exactly what Mo Hanyi was talking about.
The red-robed man seized the Book of Destiny with such fearlessness because he’d had no idea that the Book of Destiny wasn’t fully Su Yi’s; it still contained Xiao Jian’s imprint.
Su Yi had exploited this gap in his opponent’s knowledge to trick him.
“Now that I think about it, you really ought to thank us old-timers, Little Chosen,” Mo Hanyi said suddenly. “If we hadn’t complained about Xiao Jian’s imprint so many times, you likely would never have known that it remained in the Book of Destiny.”
Su Yi didn’t deny it.
Mo Hanyi sighed. “Perhaps this is fate, as subtle as the wind brushing the tips of the duckweed or the waves taking shape between the billows. Who could have imagined that such a trivial, unassuming variable would lead to your ultimate victory against this Harbinger of Tribulations?”
Su Yi’s eyebrows rose. It seems that Mo Hanyi is a bit... unwilling to see me defeat my opponent.
But he didn’t say anything out loud. He just listened quietly without a word as Mo Hanyi rattled on.
“Ridiculous. I haven’t lost yet, so why speak of victory and defeat?”
Mo Hanyi said, “It’s not that you aren’t unwilling to accept reality, or that you’re just bluffing. You have reason to be confident. But it’s strange. You’re a Harbinger of Tribulations trapped in the Divine Punishment Destiny Ruin. How could you possibly escape?”
The man in red robes laughed coldly. “You’re quite clever, aren’t you? Why not guess?”
Mo Hanyi sighed. “A single leaf is enough to obscure one’s vision, preventing one from seeing a divine mountain. Let me have a good look at you, and I might well see the truth.”
The man in red was stunned. A look at me would be enough for him to realize the truth? Who is this guy, and where does he get the confidence to say such things?
Su Yi’s gaze was a bit strange, too. When listening to speech, you had to take note of the tone. When listening to music, you had to search for the underlying rhythms.
Su Yi understood that, so he naturally understood what Mo Hanyi was getting at. He obviously wants to seize this opportunity to make a deal with me. If I give him the opportunity, he’ll help me probe the red-robed man’s true limits.
But Su Yi ignored Mo Hanyi’s offer. Rather, he pretended not to understand it.
Mo Hanyi then proceeded to expose him. He laughed. “Little Chosen, since you’re on guard against me, forget it. All I dare to say with certainty is that he has reason to be confident. You’d best be careful.”
The man in blood-red robes snorted coldly. “No matter how careful you are, you cannot hold onto the Book of Destiny, or can you escape your impending tribulation!”
Mo Hanyi disregarded him and continued, entirely unperturbed. “Little Chosen, I’m not saying this to alarm you, but he’s a Harbinger of Tribulations. It’s practically impossible for them to leave the Abyss of Endless Tribulations, yet here he is, standing right in front of you. No matter his origins, in this regard, he’s quite unusual. That’s all I have to say. Whether you listen or not is up to you, Little Chosen.”
With that, Mo Hanyi said no more on the matter.
Su Yi pondered briefly, then finally responded. A wisp of heart power swept outward, and his voice echoed throughout the Divine Punishment Destiny Ruin.
“Go ahead, see if you can escape the Book of Destiny.”
Before this voice had even finished echoing through the air, Su Yi activated the Spirit Platform Chapter, drawing on the full force of his heart power.
Boom!
Chaos churned within the Divine Punishment Destiny Ruin. Chains of Destiny’s Wrath suddenly rose in a dense cluster.
The red-robed man looked up at the power of Destiny’s Wrath, his gaze a complicated mix of deep-seated dread and undisguised longing.
A streak of Destiny’s Wrath descended, cracking like a whip.
The man in red shifted, dodging by a hair.
But a moment later, more and more chains of Destiny’s Wrath attacked from all sides, bringing with them dazzling radiance. Within moments, the red-robed man had taken countless lashes, leaving his body a horrifying mishmash of wounds.
Strangely, it wasn’t blood that flowed from his wounds, but rather, murky gray tribulation light!
“It’s a pity.” The red-robed man sighed, but just stood there, making no effort to dodge. He just let the chains of Destiny’s Wrath lash his body. There was no sign of agony on his face. On the contrary, he looked utterly melancholy.
“Want to chat a bit?” Su Yi’s voice suddenly resounded throughout the Divine Punishment Destiny Ruin.
The man in red robes shook his head. “I know you want to squeeze information out of me, but I urge you to give up on the idea.”
Su Yi’s brow furrowed. “Then I’ll just ask you this. Why not kill me before seizing the Book of Destiny?”
The man in red froze, then laughed. “Do you think of me as a demonic, evil villain?”
“Just about, yeah,” Su Yi admitted.
“Out of consideration for your honesty, I’ll share a few things with you,” said the man in red. A complicated, grief-stricken expression appeared on his face. “Before I became a Harbinger of Tribulations, my title was Lu Shu.”
He’s River Ancestor Lu Shu!? Su Yi gaped at him as countless thoughts arose in his sea of consciousness. He thought of the bones holding the Spirit Treasure Celestial City aloft, of the stone stele standing in the Abhorrent Evil Origin Zone, and of the three heart devils they’d killed earlier. As well as the vision he’d seen earlier: River Ancestor Lu Shu holding the Great Ceremonial Destiny Stele as he charged decisively into the Abyss of Endless Trinbulations.
He also recalled River Ancestor Shen Xiao’s evaluation of River Ancestor Lu Shu. In the Primordial Era, River Ancestor Lu Shu was highly prestigious, forthright, and honest, a man admired by all!
The red-robed man before him did, of course, look identical to River Ancestor Lu Shu, but no one had taken him for the real deal. They figured he was a terrifying monster, even mightier than a Tribulation Spirit.
Thus, Su Yi couldn’t help but be surprised to learn that this really was River Ancestor Lu Shu.
“But that was the former me,” said the red-robe man, his voice soft and low, as if he were just muttering to himself. “And I am not what I once was.”
Su Yi tried to ask further questions, but the red-robed man refused to say another word to him. He just stood there, letting the whips of Destiny’s Wrath cleave into his flesh, leaving him covered in wounds. His features were increasingly indistinct.
It seemed he was just passively waiting to die.
Su Yi pondered, then stopped the attack. He wasn’t going to strike the killing blow.
In any event, there was no way he could escape the Book of Destiny any time soon. Plus, Mo Hanyi and the other old monsters served as an invisible deterrent.
Su Yi closed the Book of Destiny and looked around, only to discover that the scenery had changed. He wasn’t sure when, but the blood-red, illusory world had receded, and they now stood on Heart-Devouring Ridge once more.
“What happened, my dear little brother?” River Ancestor Shen Xiao was the first to ask. He and the others had been waiting nervously all this time.
Su Yi told them everything that had happened after the red-robed man was trapped, simply and concisely, but without hiding anything.
The group sighed in relief.
The red-robed man had put far, far too much pressure on them. He might be trapped, not dead, but they nonetheless felt much more relaxed.
