Chapter 440: Heart to Heart Talk with the Devil
After Miaomiao and the gang returned, he distributed the extorted items to his women. Each received five golden chestnuts to increase their dantian size.
The dubious second-hand lingerie was passed to Wu Guotai, the secret yin slave of Miaomiao. Aside from Wei Yuan, Zhao Bao, Miaomiao, and Kang Yan, nobody was aware that it was a used item.
Of course, it had already been washed. No one would suspect a thing!
Unknown technique books and artifacts were stored in the new sect's vault, which was sealed under the yin slave mansion. The vault also hid many backup essence cores that Miaomiao had allocated as the sect's treasury.
The number of ownerless heaven-grade items in the vault had just reached 20. As for the sky-grade items and lower quality artifacts, they were kept in the newly constructed treasure vault on the surface.
Zhao Bao, Wei Yuan, and Kang Yan excused themselves to inspect the new items that they had received from the demon tree.
As for Miaomiao, he put the dark grimoire in his system inventory and returned to his room. He placed essence cores around the room and activated a system skill that he had stolen from a clone.
Heaven Disguising Array
This system skill was useless in battle, but it was useful in daily life as it could hide the nasty eyes of Heavenly Tribulation Clouds and world guardians. Furthermore, no one could enter the array as long as Miaomiao kept feeding it his energy. The only way to break it was to attack the array with brute force.
Miaomiao had never used it before since it consumed 10,000 essence cores per minute, but he needed it now.
After all, the next serious conversation would be about his fate, his secrets, and other sensitive information. Miaomiao didn't want anyone to hear it, even if they were his wives.
Miaomiao sat on his bed and opened his system menu. Then, he started thinking, sending his mental voice to the nosy dao gods and stream viewers.
'Devil, you there?'
Ding
[The Devil is listening.]
'Do you know anything about the multiverse, parallel universe, or a world without my existence?'
[The Devil cunningly smiles and nods.]
[The Devil has sent a message to Macho Joshua.]
[Macho Joshua temporarily disables the live-streaming channels and the broadcasting features.]
Ding
[The sudden random advertisement section of the channel upsets many dao gods and immortals.]
[The Sun Crow and the Monkey King dislike ads. They voiced their complaints to Joshua.]
Ding
[The reaction mode had been disabled.]
[Only the Anonymous Devil and Macho Joshua can see you.]
[You may freely communicate with them.]
'We need to talk.'
[The Devil shakes his head and places his index finger on top of his lips.]
[The Devil has sent you messages.]
["It is not the time for you to know the truth. You're too weak to jump into the divine realm's political world right now. It will only create a heart demon if you were to know everything we know."]
'So, you guys know something, and you have been using me.'
["I've never used you. I've been raising you while I protect the mortal realm from the great calamity."]
["Those are all the hints I can give you. If you want to know the truth, kill Ling Tianlong before he can reach the 8th-stage. Although I can't see him, I can tell from the amount of his luck that he's close to that level!"]
Again, Miaomiao was tired of the cliché cryptic prophecy. He didn't understand why the Devil had to be this secretive.
["I know that I have troubled you a lot in the past. But believe in me. I have done everything so far for the sake of making you stronger. I've left many goodies in your system so that you can slowly unlock your true potential and strengthen your foundation."]
["Let's say, I want you to become a strong dao god in the future."]
'And, what's the catch? You must have been nurturing me for a reason.'
["Just kill the protagonists I told you to kill. Oh, you can leave Ma Moxi alone since he's harmless now."]
'That's it? Are you sure?'
Miaomiao gained nothing from talking with the devil. He didn't really reveal any information about his motive.
Miaomiao suspected that the Devil had been lying to him. But again, he found half of the Devil's words reasonable since he had mentioned something about a calamity.
'Tell me more. Are the protagonists the source of this world's calamity?'
["You used to read many novels in your previous world. What do you think of protagonists in the novels?"]
'They're selfish psychopathic mass-murderer assholes.'
In most wuxia novels that Miaomiao had read, heroes usually got involved in mass genocides, such as country destruction, clan wipe, family extermination, or murders.
Every conflict around the main characters could be easily avoided had the protagonists knew the meaning of humility, humbleness, and anger management. Most of the time, all conflicts started from a trivial matter in a bar, then it escalated to the country-wide war or a clan war.
Everywhere the protagonists went, chaos ensued. Someone would show up and pick a fight with the protagonists, and the latter would be so domineering and unforgiving, turning a quarrel to a brawl, a brawl to a murder, and murders to genocides.
Rarely, good protagonists spared them. But most of the time, they ended up in a bloodbath until one side was perished.
Regardless of whether their actions were justified or not according to the stories or the motives of the villains, it didn't change the fact that the hands of MCs were always soaked with blood.
No one could tell if the main characters of those novels had killed innocent bystanders, who were just doing their duties of protecting their families, sects, or clans.
What would happen to the local people after the protagonists ascend?
What about the commoners?
What about the aftermath after the protagonists became successful?
Not many novels explained these parts. Most of them ended abruptly, stating that those protagonists became gods and lived happily after like a fairy tale.
The one-sided endings left so many questions in Miaomiao's mind. Even now, he pondered if they were REALLY heroes from the perspective of the bystanders.
Was there any chance that they might be the catalysts of destruction?
But one thing for sure, Miaomiao believed that Xie Tian and Ling Tianlong might have killed millions of innocent people during their quests for supremacy!
Thinking this far, Miaomiao's heart felt heavy.
["Hypothetically speaking, had you never killed Xie Tian, what do you think would have happened to the Wei Clan and the Silver Phoenix Sect?"]
'Xie Tian would have gotten stronger to the point that he could come back and slaughter… everyone.'
["Yes. You killed him before he could slaughter innocent demons, disciples of Mountain Goose Sect, People of Mountain Goose City, and many women in Silver Phoenix Sect, who had no idea about Xie Tian's issues."]
["Xie Tian would have collected multiple murals of time-and-space during his journey. Of course, he would have destroyed the dryad realm due to his petty grudge against Emerald Hopea and her subordinates."]
["You killed Xie Tian and saved those people, Miaomiao. Your wives are alive because of you. Many poor souls are still alive because of you. You managed to bring Cernun's soul to this world and gave him a new hope while Xie Tian would have just destroyed everyone he came across."]
["You saved so many people, Miaomiao."]
"…"
Although Miaomiao was praised, his face turned pale, imagining the scenario that he had failed to kill Xie Tian and ended up feeding him EXP instead.
He was horrified by the alternate scenario!
["Again, I know that we don't have a good start. But have faith in me. I did everything for the sake of greater good, even though my methods can be considered dubious."]
Miaomiao shook off the other thoughts. He sighed and slowly nodded.
"I trust you."
[Macho Joshua wiped the tears on his cheek. The friendship between you and the Devil is so beautiful.]
[The Devil's face flushed in anger and embarrassment, "SHUT IT!"]
"HAHAHAHA!"
Miaomiao was caught off guard by Joshua. He couldn't help it.
"Anyway, what's your name, exactly? I don't want to keep calling you Devil."
["I'll tell you when we can meet in person. For now, get stronger, a lot stronger than you are now! Abuse and exploit your system. Your primary goal is to become the strongest mortal of that world and kill Ling Tianlong."]
["Once Ling Tianlong is dead, everything will become easier, A LOT easier than the tutorial quests that I had rigged them for you."]
"You'd better not be lying. I don't want to hear that this shit is all for entertainment again. I want to see no machinery, puppeteering, or indirect manipulation of my fate this time."
["Sorry about that. I needed to motivate you, or you would have been lazing around, spreading STD to every woman like a horny rabbit instead of cultivating back then. You were pretty much a scum of society that I had to intervene."]
The Devil's words somehow stabbed Miaomiao's black heart.
He was right. Miaomiao had planned to stay away from the worldly affair and enjoy his slow life as a dual-cultivator!
["But to be honest, I didn't think you would actually succeed! It was fun watching you struggle like a lab rat. Congrats for living through that shit!"]
"SON OF A...!!"
Sometimes, Miaomiao didn't know if the Devil was sincere, or he was just messing up with him.
Still, he managed to extract a lot of information from this conversation. He felt like what he had done so far wasn't in vain.
"Okay, you know what? Let our past interactions become water under the bridge. Let's work together from now on, but I won't be your vessel or your apostle. I'll kill protagonists for you. In turn, you watch my back and keep those nasty evil gods from me and my family, okay?"
["That was what I and Joshua have been doing. Why do you think that Kishin Douji, Samsara, and Yuan Hua haven't descended to your planet and killed you yet? I and Joshua here have been working hard, you know?"]
[Joshua proudly nods as he reminisces of the rough skirmishes against Kishin Douji and Yuan Hua's goons in the Heaven Realms and Immortal Realms.]
[Joshua suggests that you should focus on getting stronger as quickly as possible as anything can happen in the future.]
"Will do. Thank you, Joshua."
It was funny. In the past, Dion always complained that he needed Jesus because of his personality. Now, he got the Devil and JESUS on his side.
["That will be all. If you want to know more that badly, why don't you just cultivate the time-and-space technique of Cernun's mural?"]
"But won't that cripple my soul and my cultivation?"
["It definitely will. But if you want to take a shortcut, you have to pay the price. But if you want to take it steady, stay clear from the incomplete time-and-space technique until you have all the dragon balls, you hear?"]
"Okay..."
…
10 minutes later
Even though the Devil, Joshua, and Miaomiao had ended the conversation, they hadn't resumed the live streaming yet.
Joshua postponed the live stream schedule, but Miaomiao hadn't realized it. The latter's mind was occupied by something else.
Currently, Miaomiao stared at the second piece of time-and-space mural, which Hopea had given him.
This piece was supposed to be under Cernun's protection, but Miaomiao was now its owner.
Miaomiao grumbled, hesitated if he should practice the incomplete time-and-space technique.
There were six of the seven intel that Miaomiao had learned from all four pieces of the mural, Lu Fengxian's memory, and Ling Tianlong's ability.
The first piece of Xie Tian contained the secret of time reversal.
Sun Wu's mural contained the power of time distortion, similar to the Isolation Training Space, which twisted the time flow.
Nero's time and space mural had the secret of teleportation and spatial travel. It appeared to have the same foundation as spatial ring, which distorted the spatial size. However, it was more profound as it could be applied to living beings while spatial rings couldn't.
Lu Fengxian's copied record of time-and-space mural contained the secret of time freezing ability. It reminded Miaomiao of a JOJO villain and a certain maid from the Scarlet Devil Mansion of a game series.
As for Ling Tianlong's piece, Miaomiao suspected that it involved the gravity law.
And lastly, the most interesting piece, aka Cernun's mural, seemed to contain nothing but a stabilizer technique at a glance. However, it hid a secret of precognition, foresight, prophecy, or fortune-telling-related ability.
After all, Cernun seemed to be able to see the future!
Miaomiao's eyes became bloodshot, hesitated if he should open the Pandora Box and learn the incomplete technique. He might have to sacrifice a portion of his power or injure his soul in the process, but the information of the future event might be worth the investment.
High Risk, High Reward!
But Miaomiao didn't want to take risks!
Before Miaomiao was tempted to learn the technique, he put the mural piece away. He slapped his face to stop his stupid brain from ordering him to do something reckless.
There was another way to learn this skill. The answer lied with his OP system.
The Isolation Training Space Clones!
Or, if Miaomiao couldn't find an opponent with a foresight ability, he could gamble his luck with the skill fusion menu until the right skill would show up!
Miaomiao had not forgotten. He could manipulate the skill fusion result once a year!
As long as he could pinpoint the right combination, he would learn this ability without taking the risk of sacrificing his power!
He took a deep breath and smiled. For once, he was proud of his intelligence and his wisdom.
When one was lost, all they had to do was to look back at the beginning of their journey! All Miaomiao's early power came from the system skills, and the system might be the answer!
Ding
[Seeing you graduating from being a stupid donkey, the Devil is moved to tears.]
"Shaddap! I'm always a genius!"
[Macho Joshua and the Devil are laughing hysterically.]
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