Chapter 146: Secrets of the Imperial Calamity
More than seventy thousand years had passed.
Aside from ancient sects and lineages with long-standing inheritances, the world had gradually forgotten the earth-shaking War of the Imperial Calamity. Only scattered fragments remained.
Wandering Ascendants without inheritance and ordinary mortals knew only that immortals existed beneath heaven. How could they understand the difference between Immortals, Immortal Kings, and Immortal Emperors?
To them, all were simply immortals.
Besides, this was only a remote corner of Heavenstar Domain.
Forget ordinary people. Most Ascendants would never leave Heavenstar Domain in their entire lives, let alone learn the truth of The Infinite Realms.
To them, this patch of heaven and earth was the whole world.
Inside the tavern, someone asked,
"Sir, what caused the Great Calamity of the Immortals? A war like that couldn’t have started for no reason. There must have been a cause."
"It was destiny!"
The storyteller had no idea what the true reason was, so he put on an air of mystery and bluffed his way through it.
"All things live and die. All ages rise and fall. When prosperity reaches its peak, decline must follow!"
In this age where immortals no longer walked the world, the legendary era tens of thousands of years ago had indeed been prosperous beyond imagination.
By pure accident, the storyteller had struck upon the truth.
Longevity Immortal Emperor and the others had only been the trigger.
Even without them, someone else would have appeared.
Someone would eventually push the Age of Imperial Calamity toward decline.
That was the Dao.
That said, Oblivion Immortal Emperor had indeed gone a little too far.
Had it been someone else, the destruction might not have reached such a level.
He had acted with no regard for consequences.
Most of the Great Worlds had been shattered by him.
Vaelor fell into thought.
"Senior."
"What is it?"
"Do you think someone could have been manipulating everything from behind the scenes, causing the Great Calamity of the Immortals seventy thousand years ago?"
"Oh?"
Caelum seemed amused.
"What makes you think that?"
"It’s just a guess."
Vaelor himself did not fully believe it.
Scratching his head, he said,
"But it probably isn’t possible. How could someone like that exist? Those were immortals, after all. How could immortals be manipulated by anyone?"
"Hmph!"
A young girl’s voice suddenly came from the side.
Having heard Vaelor’s nonsense, she immediately shot back,
"Are immortals not people too?"
"Hm?"
Vaelor turned around.
Caelum had already vanished.
In his place stood a beautifully dressed young girl in fitted martial clothes.
Her bright eyes studied him closely.
A moment later, she suddenly burst into tears.
Vaelor was utterly baffled.
He hurriedly picked up the firewood and took it around to the tavern’s back door.
After receiving his pitiful payment, he bought two flatbreads and treated himself to a proper meal.
And just like that, the day passed.
When he returned to his shabby thatched hut, Vaelor froze.
The strange martial-clad girl was sitting inside his home, looking thoroughly annoyed.
Vaelor immediately frowned.
"You’re really rude, you know that?"
"You broke into my home without even asking. If you need something from me, just say it."
The girl remained silent.
Only after calming herself did she speak with the air of someone accepting a terrible fate.
"From today onward, you are my junior brother."
"I will teach in Master’s place and pass down cultivation methods, Martial Arts, and Mystic Arts to you."
"Together, we will step onto the path of Immortal Ascension."
Vaelor froze.
"Senior is willing to accept me as a disciple?"
"What senior?"
The girl frowned.
"I am the personal disciple of the Sect Master of Violetsun Palace. My name is Hazel."
"From now on, you are a disciple of Violetsun Palace."
The opportunity had arrived far too suddenly.
Vaelor originally wanted to ask Caelum’s opinion, but after several days passed without Caelum appearing, Hazel lost patience and dragged him away.
Just like that, he became a disciple of Violetsun Palace.
There was one thing Hazel did not mention.
According to the Sect Master’s divination, Vaelor was destined to become her Dao companion in the future.
The boy looked completely ordinary.
His aptitude was shockingly poor.
She naturally felt wronged.
But after spending a few days with him, she discovered that Vaelor possessed an excellent temperament.
Hazel gradually found him much more tolerable.
Most of her resentment faded.
Only after entering the sect did Vaelor learn that his and Hazel’s master bore the Dao title Violetsun.
Because Master Violetsun never stepped out of his secret realm, very few disciples in the sect had ever seen him.
Thunder exploded from a clear sky.
A bolt of lightning descended, blasting a nearby hill to pieces.
More than five hundred years passed.
Vaelor’s aptitude was poor, but Hazel spared no expense in nurturing him.
With countless heavenly treasures poured into his cultivation, he finally reached the Soulbound Realm.
The two had long since grown from ignorant youths into a handsome young man and a graceful young woman.
Hazel’s eyes were bright and clever.
"Junior Brother, I snuck into Master’s scripture vault yesterday and found a very interesting record of old events."
Vaelor asked curiously,
"What kind of record?"
"Do you know about the War of the Imperial Calamity?"
"I do. People nowadays call it the Great Calamity of the Immortals."
"Exactly. It’s about that!"
Hazel’s excitement grew.
"Do you remember what you said outside that tavern when we first met?"
Vaelor thought back carefully.
Then his pupils contracted.
He realized what she meant.
"Are you saying there really was someone behind the War of the Imperial Calamity?"
"Almost certainly!"
Hazel spoke with absolute confidence.
"Master seems to have personally lived through that war. In that record, he wrote that the ten figures who embodied the Imperial Calamity all came from the same sect."
"They were disciples taught by the same master."
Violetsun Palace had an ancient inheritance.
Naturally, it possessed detailed records of the War of the Imperial Calamity.
Every disciple of the palace had some understanding of that war.
All of them were deeply shaken by the power of the ten Immortal Emperors led by Longevity.
After all, those ten had nearly shattered an entire flourishing age with their own hands.
Without them, The Infinite Realms would never have fallen into the current Age of Immortal Silence.
"But isn’t that only a rumor?"
Vaelor frowned.
"No one has ever known what sect they came from, and no one has been able to uncover their origins."
"It wasn’t just a rumor!"
A lively light danced in Hazel’s eyes.
"Master wrote in that record that during the War of the Imperial Calamity, he once met the master of those ten people in person."
"That person really exists!"
"Hiss!"
Vaelor felt his scalp go numb.
If that was true, then that person was terrifying beyond imagination.
From behind the scenes, he had pushed the Imperial Calamity into a Boundless Tribulation and nearly buried the entire Age of Imperial Calamity.
Such methods were enough to shock gods and ghosts alike.
Fortunately, The Infinite Realms had not been completely destroyed.
That was the only reason the Great Worlds had survived.
The Age of Immortal Silence was already the best possible outcome.
It was still better than the destruction of heaven and earth itself.
There was no evidence proving that the master of those ten was the true mastermind.
But after the War of the Imperial Calamity, Master Violetsun had thought about it again and again.
The more he thought, the more wrong it felt.
That man was simply too mysterious.
Too unfathomable.
The possibility was impossible to ignore.
And the most terrifying part was this.
That person had never participated in the War of the Imperial Calamity.
Which meant he might still be hiding somewhere behind the scenes with his full strength intact.
That was what chilled Master Violetsun to the bone.
