629 High Treason

After one gulp straight from the gourd, Da Wei slumped against his own shoulders and fell asleep.

Neither Gu Jie nor Alice moved.

They waited for another second, then another, watching him carefully in case he suddenly opened his eyes and revealed that he had seen through them all along. Gu Jie even consulted her own ‘eyes’ and peered into the possibilities of the future, searching for any sign that Da Wei would awaken.

When it became clear that he truly would not wake, the two women collectively released the sigh of relief they had been holding.

“And here I was thinking it wasn’t actually going to work,” Alice remarked.

It probably shouldn’t have.

Da Wei could have simply tanked the oblivion tea laced in the liquor. If that failed, his Ophanim might have warned him of its effects before he ever drank it. The fact that neither had happened said more about his current condition than Gu Jie cared to admit.

He was exhausted.

More importantly, he was weakened.

“I felt the same, Mother,” Gu Jie said. “I didn’t think Xin Yune would actually be able to replicate her ancestral soul’s miraculous oblivion tea. She’d probably be furious if she learned what we intended to use it for.”

Her gaze settled on Da Wei.

“Still, I have to ask. Are we really going to do this, Mother? Once we cross this line, there’s no going back.”

Alice remained silent for a moment.

“If there’s an alternative path forward,” she finally said, “then say it now.”

Gu Jie had no answer.

When Alice suffered that mysterious miscarriage, she had confided everything in Gu Jie. She had held nothing back, and together they had begun trying to unravel the identity of the true enemy lurking behind everything that had happened.

They had found nothing.

Not yet.

But that uncertainty was precisely what frightened Gu Jie.

If Da Wei continued down his current path, something irreversible could happen to him. The Supreme Heart was powerful, dangerous, and manipulative, but he was not the end of the problem. There was something beyond him. Something they still could not see.

“We could honestly have avoided this,” Gu Jie said quietly.

She was thinking about Nongmin.

Inflicting True Death upon him would solve the paradox at its source. Nongmin's existence was the contradiction that had created the current Supreme Heart. Remove Nongmin from the equation, and the current Supreme Heart would revert into the Yellow Emperor.

Simple.

Except Da Wei would never approve of it.

“Avoided?” Alice asked.

“Yes.”

“At the cost of everything Da Wei believes in,” Alice replied, her voice hardened. “At the cost of betraying the faith everyone around him placed in him. We can’t do that. He has suffered enough slander and defamation. I say no more.”

Gu Jie lowered her eyes. She knew exactly what Alice meant.

There had been the Unholy Taint. Then that twisted religion that had attempted to corrupt the godhood aspects of Da Wei. Wen Yuhan had twisted his story back in the False Earth after the Yama King’s invasion, turning the truth into something far uglier than it had ever been. There had been the tyranny committed by Da Wei’s dark mirror from an alternate timeline. Then came the world war, a conflict that only fed further into the image of Da Wei as a god of war. And after the Great Beast's apocalyptic emergence, countless lives had been lost and entire populations had been displaced.

To many, Da Wei was a hero. To just as many, he was a villain.

The worst part was that Da Wei himself had never entirely rejected the latter. That was why he blamed himself so readily. Why he buried himself in work. Why he kept moving forward even when there was no reason for him to punish himself in silence.

The Supreme Heart’s mind games had only made that weakness worse. The contest had pushed Da Wei far beyond his limits, and although he had maintained a brave front throughout it all, Gu Jie could see the cracks beneath the surface.

His emotions were closer to the surface. His judgment was more vulnerable. And his ‘heart’ had become far easier for someone like the Supreme Heart to manipulate.

“We’re doing this,” Alice said.

She stepped forward and lifted Da Wei into her arms.

Gu Jie watched her for a moment before taking out the bamboo flask. She carefully poured more oblivion tea between Da Wei’s lips.

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Without his Supremacy Trait, the tea could finally affect him. But Gu Jie had not merely relied on Xin Yune’s creation. She had modified it herself. A particular destiny had been attached to the tea, one designed to ensure that their plan to remove Da Wei from the spotlight would succeed.

Whatever ‘eye’ Alice had sensed observing Da Wei would not be able to follow where they intended to send him. That was the entire point. They weren't killing him. They were removing him.

Exiling the Holy Emperor somewhere even the likes of the Supreme Fate would struggle to reach.

Waiting just outside was a single soaring boat equipped with dual advanced warp mechanisms.

It was a new experimental technology that allowed sequential warps, something that could carry its passengers through multiple consecutive spatial transitions without requiring the vessel to stabilize between each jump.

It was dangerous and untested, but perfect for what they intended.

Hei Mao was waiting beside it.

The moment he saw Alice carrying the sleeping Da Wei, his expression became complicated. “You do know this is high treason, right?” he asked, glancing at Da Wei. “You’re basically planning to exile the Holy Emperor.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Gu Jie scoffed, looking directly at Hei Mao. “My precious junior brother. If you’re so against it, then why are you here? Are you going to stop us? No. I don’t see that happening, because we see eye to eye on this. Father... Master. Our Master cannot continue like this.”

Hei Mao’s expression turned sorrowful. “You know this is not a good look. You ambushed the Holy Emperor while he was at his weakest. To anyone looking from the outside, this could easily be seen as a power grab. A coup.”

Gu Jie said nothing, since he was right.

This was her father they were talking about. The Holy Emperor. The singular existence who essentially held the imperfect heavens hovering above the Hollowed World together through his own existence. Da Wei was undoubtedly the most powerful being within the Hollowed World, and given enough time, he might very well become the strongest existence in the entire universe. He had always been like that. He overcame impossible odds through sheer valor, repeatedly finding himself in the role of the underdog and being forced to punch far above his weight class. Yet, strangely enough, Da Wei had a tendency to lose against opponents around his own level, or even those barely capable of reaching it.

Supreme Heart and Da Wei should have been in the same realm.

And yet Da Wei had still been outplayed.

That was because the Supreme Heart was not like most adversaries.

Against enemies who confronted him openly, Da Wei was terrifying. With his closest allies at his side, with the people he considered family fighting alongside him, he was almost unstoppable.

But if the scheming and stabbing came from behind his back, Da Wei had little opportunity to resist.

Their current situation was proof enough.

Gu Jie snarled.

“Let’s stop with the charades. If you weren’t willing to go through with this, you wouldn’t have restrained Starshroud and Red Hare.”

She pointed upward.

Just above Hei Mao, trapped between layers of shadows and countless dark chains, were two figures. One was a dark-skinned woman, Starshroud, her armor-like body struggling against the restraints. The other was a crimson horse, Red Hare, who had been bound so thoroughly that even its furious neighing could barely escape.

Hei Mao glanced upward.

“Should we keep Ding Cai in the dark?”

Gu Jie fell silent. She consulted her eyes. Then she followed the countless threads of destiny branching around them, tracing the possibilities of what would happen if Ding Cai learned the truth.

There were too many variables and ways for the situation to spiral out of control.

“It’s better that junior sister doesn’t know,” Gu Jie finally said.

Hei Mao looked away.

Alice had already carried Da Wei toward the soaring boat. As she reached the vessel, she turned back and took Hei Mao’s hand. “Please,” she said quietly. “Take care of him.”

Her voice trembled.

“I...”

She couldn't finish the sentence.

Gu Jie understood. The place they were sending Da Wei to was not exactly better. It certainly wasn't safer. In some ways, it was considerably more dangerous.

Taking away the Holy Emperor’s memories was only the bare minimum required for his exile. Even without his memories, there was no guarantee they would remain gone forever. At some point, Da Wei would inevitably recover them.

Worse, his cultivation would remain.

It might regress under the conditions of their plan, but even a diminished Da Wei would still possess a cultivation that was powerful, unique, and far too recognizable.

Even if the Hollowed World’s laws could suppress his cultivation down to the Immortal Realm, Da Wei would still be capable of making an enormous difference in a short amount of time.

It wouldn't take long for someone to notice him.

They needed somewhere he could disappear completely. Somewhere his identity meant nothing. Somewhere he would have little access to the powers that had made him the Holy Emperor.

There was only one place that came to mind, that being the False Earth.

The Supreme Void's presence made it an incredibly dangerous destination, but that was precisely what made it suitable. The Void's existence would interfere with the mysterious eye observing Da Wei, preventing it from maintaining the same degree of surveillance.

It was dangerous enough to hide him.

And hopefully, dangerous enough to keep him alive.

“I wasn't there when Master defended New Willow back in False Earth,” Hei Mao said, his voice heavy with uncertainty, “but you were. Are you really certain about this, Gu Jie?”

He looked toward Alice.

“I remember the stories Master told about that place. I remember how terrified he was of the Supreme Void. Lady Alice, you should know too.”

Alice's expression hardened.

“Believe me when I say this. The constant surveying eye watching Da Wei is far more dangerous than the Supreme Void.”

Gu Jie felt the same.

She couldn't remember her own encounter with that thing clearly. Her memories surrounding it had been distorted, almost as though something had deliberately scraped away the details.

But she remembered enough. She was almost certain she knew what that eye represented. And whatever it was, she would rather send Da Wei into the territory of the Supreme Void than leave him exposed to it.

Hei Mao released a slow breath.

“Then I suppose this is farewell.”

He looked toward Da Wei.

“I'll be gone for quite some time. While I'm away, look after the Underworld on my behalf.”

Gu Jie nodded. She already knew what Hei Mao's journey would entail. He would have to avoid the Sun and Moon. That alone was a gargantuan task, considering how those two guardians scale up and adapt to the threat before them.

At the same time, Hei Mao would need to avoid crossing paths with Ru Qiu, who had been going in and out of the False Earth with increasing frequency.

Worst of all, Hei Mao had to remain consciously aware of the distance throughout his journey. If he lost awareness and became caught in the gravitational pull of False Earth, he might never escape. The strange suppression properties of that world could even damage his ghost cultivation.

Alice tightened her grip on Hei Mao's hand. “Promise me you'll deliver him safely.”

Hei Mao stared at her, and then he looked at the sleeping Da Wei. “I swear on my life.”

Only then did Alice let go.

Gu Jie watched as Hei Mao stepped aboard the soaring boat. For a moment, none of them spoke. They were committing high treason against her own father. Against their Master. Against family. Against the Holy Emperor himself. And yet, as Gu Jie looked at Da Wei's sleeping face, she couldn't bring herself to regret it.

They weren't betraying him.

They were trying to save him from something none of them could yet understand.