Chapter 410: Seeing the Dao Lord!

Wang Ping's voice echoed through the great hall, booming like a golden bell as it reverberated with the resonance of the Dao.

In that moment, Xia Qinghou suddenly decided he didn't want to die.

Fuck. If Wang Ping had dragged nothing out of him and he died a martyr, he would be guaranteed a seat among the Protector Courtyard's Dao Gods. In that case, death would be nothing more than a cool summer night.

But things were different now.

Heaven only knew what this Water qi Dao Child was scheming. The guy hadn't even interrogated him; he had just muttered a bunch of things to himself, gasped, and suddenly figured it all out.

To be honest, Xia Qinghou had no idea if Wang Ping was right. But the man argued with such sound logic that it was genuinely intimidating. Plus, some of the details were dead on—like the fact that Xia Qinghou really was a direct subordinate temporarily promoted by Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang, and he really had been tasked with making the Water qi the scapegoat.

If the details were right, then maybe his conclusion was spot-on too?

So all of his lord's meticulous schemes and grand designs had just been inexplicably deduced out of thin air by this Water qi Dao Child—a mere lowly cultivator?

Holy hell!

Xia Qinghou's scalp crawled. He could think with his ass and still know that if he went back and told anyone about this, ten out of ten people wouldn't believe a word of it.

Rather than believe a Water qi Dao Child had unraveled their lord's plot out of thin air, they would just assume Xia Qinghou had leaked the secret himself. Then they would strip him of his Dao God candidacy...

At that thought, Xia Qinghou instantly came to a realization:

I can't die!

The way things were going, if he died now, he might just stay dead. At that terrifying prospect, the picture of unwavering loyalty on his face rapidly disintegrated.

The Immortal Gate had never harbored any true loyalty. Their so-called fearlessness in the face of death only existed because they knew they wouldn't truly die. Now that permanent death was on the table, Xia Qinghou immediately changed his tune. "Senior Brother is absolutely right," he said hurriedly. "I was indeed merely following Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang's orders this time."

"It has absolutely nothing to do with the Protector Courtyard!"

Wang Ping glanced at him and burst into loud laughter. "I preferred how arrogant and unruly you were a moment ago, Fellow Daoist. Could you go back to that?"

Xia Qinghou's expression instantly turned solemn.

"To tell you the truth, I've been sick of Biyang's Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang for a long time now. Deep down, I've always been trying to figure out how to abandon the dark and join the light."

"Now, I finally have my chance."

Now that he thought about it carefully, the art he cultivated was Earth Yin Water. No matter how you looked at it, it was at least tangentially related to the Water qi. Serving the Earth qi before had been a complete waste of his talents.

Now was the perfect time to bring order out of chaos!

Having justified this to himself, Xia Qinghou immediately bowed deeply to Wang Ping in a respectful Daoist salute. His eyes practically brimmed with absolute loyalty.

"I'll march through boiling water and tread on fire for you, Senior Brother!"

"Hahaha!"

Wang Ping barked a laugh. Without bothering to reply, he flipped his hand and sealed Xia Qinghou back into the Profound Darkness. Then he turned his gaze to Yi Xuangong.

Ever since Wang Ping revealed that both the Water and Fire in Harmony and Earth Fire in Eclipse paths had been provided by the Fire qi, the dao field's sect master had stood frozen in place. Yi Xuangong's face was as stiff and pale as if coated in frost, and his hands trembled uncontrollably. It was obvious just how monumental this shock was to him.

Wang Ping, on the other hand, was completely unfazed.

Even though he had just deduced a terrifying conclusion, his mood remained completely calm. Or rather, he was getting quite used to this sort of thing.

Simply put, he was numb to it.

He could even perfectly understand how Yi Xuangong was feeling right now. To put it bluntly, discovering you had been played like a fiddle by higher cultivators from start to finish was enough to make anyone suffer a minor mental breakdown.

Back when he was in the Eight Trigrams Furnace, he had been in the exact same boat as Yi Xuangong. He had thought the mysterious Xun Trigram True Person was a higher cultivator he could rely on. He had thought the Heavenly Work cultivators, Tianqu, and the others inside the Ever-Suppressing Six Harmonies Cauldron could help him turn the tables. But in the end? They had all turned out to be Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang's alternate identities.

Wang Ping still remembered the absolute despair he had felt at the time.

Good grief. He had thought that with so many True Persons laying out their schemes, at least one of them would lend him a hand. But fuck no—every single True Person turned out to be an enemy.

Sigh. Just thinking about it brought tears to his eyes.

In comparison, even though Yi Xuangong had a higher cultivation base and was much older, he still had a Dao Lord shielding him from above. Clearly, he lacked experience when it came to this sort of betrayal.

Sigh. Ancient cultivators were just too naive.

With that in mind, Wang Ping felt that as someone who had been through the wringer, he ought to offer Yi Xuangong some comfort. "Honestly, Senior, you shouldn't despair too much."

"This is just what it's like dealing with higher cultivators."

"You have a long life of despair ahead of you."

Only then did Yi Xuangong seem to snap out of it. He looked at Wang Ping and forced a stiff twitch of his lips. "Truly worthy of a Water qi Dao Child. I'm the one who lost my composure."

Taking a deep breath, Yi Xuangong regained the majestic bearing of a dao field sect master. He fell into deep thought, seemingly organizing all the deductions Wang Ping had just laid out. A moment later, he suddenly looked up with a frown. "Hold on. Between the two paths, the benefits the Fire qi reaps seem to be completely different."

"The Water and Fire in Harmony path requires the Dao Lord to accomplish a major task for the Fire qi."

"The Earth Fire in Eclipse path only requires us to die and the dao field to be destroyed. It doesn't require anyone to risk their life working for the Fire qi. If that's the case, what does the Fire qi gain from it?"

This was Yi Xuangong's burning question.

Wang Ping shook his head. "That concerns the secrets of the Earth Fire in Eclipse, an ultimate cosmic station. That isn't something a lowly cultivator like me is qualified to understand."

"Even so."

Yi Xuangong stared intently at Wang Ping, lowering his voice. "Since you managed to deduce all of this, Fellow Daoist, you must have your own theories, don't you?"

Wang Ping fell silent.

Indeed, he did.

The Water and Fire in Harmony path was clearly the result of the Water qi and Fire qi joining forces. However, given the current situation, the Earth Fire in Eclipse path might not have anything to do with the Water qi at all.

No, not necessarily... Wang Ping thought. Even though Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang cooperated with the Fire qi to set up the Earth Fire in Eclipse scheme and deliberately pinned the blame on the Water qi, he also handed Xia Qinghou over to me as a chess piece. To some extent, that was him actively showing goodwill to the Water qi.

The Water qi, the Fire qi, and Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang.

These three parties might be plotting their own petty moves in secret, each calculating their own angles, but Wang Ping felt that, broadly speaking, they actually shared a tacit understanding.

Including the Earth Fire in Eclipse.

Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang's primary goal is almost certainly to kill the Master of Secret Traces. If the Earth Fire in Eclipse scheme really offered absolutely no benefit toward achieving that goal...

...why would he cooperate with it?

At this thought, Wang Ping lowered his voice. "I wouldn't dare say for sure, but barring any surprises, the Earth Fire in Eclipse and Water and Fire in Harmony are actually the same thing."

"Regardless of which path the Dao Lord chooses, that major task will still need to be done."

"The only difference lies in the process."

Wang Ping's flash of insight was becoming increasingly clear. Perhaps this was one of the reasons his own True Monarch had sent him here: to answer questions and resolve the doubts of this ancient Dao Lord.

The Fire qi most likely set up the Earth Fire in Eclipse path in secret, only for my True Monarch to discover it. That's why he sent me here to expose the hidden traps within it. Otherwise, on the surface, just as Yi Xuangong thought, the Earth Fire in Eclipse undoubtedly looks like a better deal than Water and Fire in Harmony.

Because of that, this ancient Dao Lord would have been highly likely to choose the Earth Fire in Eclipse.

But now that I've exposed that both paths are the handiwork of the Fire qi, He will inevitably start feeling suspicious of the far more secretive Earth Fire in Eclipse.

That nudged the scales right back to a balanced position.

However, it all circled back to the same golden rule.

Unless the True Monarch says it himself, it doesn't count. I might feel like I've just uncovered the truth, but this truth might just be yet another scheme.

It could just be a ploy to manipulate this ancient Dao Lord through Wang Ping's mouth.

Of course, none of this was something a lowly cultivator like him needed to worry about. All he had to do was voice the conclusions he had drawn from the available intelligence.

With that in mind, Wang Ping immediately said, "Cultivating the Water and Fire in Harmony is hard at first, but gets easier. It requires the Dao Lord to complete that major task before he can use the imagery of accomplishment to transition into the position of a Supreme True Lord."

"Cultivating the Earth Fire in Eclipse, on the other hand, makes it look like the Dao Lord doesn't have to accomplish a thing. At first glance, sacrificing the dao field is enough to transition to a True Monarch. But this path might be easy at first, then incredibly hard later. Once the Dao Lord becomes a True Monarch, the Fire qi almost certainly has some method to force the Dao Lord to carry out that major task anyway!"

"In short, the latter path carries far more hidden dangers."

The Fire qi wasn't running a charity, and free lunches didn't just fall from the sky. The smoother and simpler things were up front, the heavier the price that would inevitably be exacted later.

Clang—!

The very instant Wang Ping finished speaking, the grand hall—which was filled with profound phenomena but completely sealed off from the outside world—suddenly opened up. However, it wasn't the doors that had been pushed open.

Instead, a brilliant light suddenly flared to life inside the hall. Under its radiant glow, the already spacious hall began expanding at a visible rate. Space stretched and warped until a pathway leading even deeper into the darkness manifested out of thin air.

Rumble!

Daoist tones vibrated with a profound resonance, as if calling for Wang Ping to step forward. Yi Xuangong jerked his head around, a look of genuine excitement flashing across his face.

"Dao Lord!"

He couldn't help but force the cry out through clenched teeth. All of his previous loss, dejection, and conflict were instantly swept clean from his face.

It was as if he had finally found his guiding pillar again.

Immediately afterward, he leaned forward slightly and tilted his head, listening as if someone were whispering right next to his ear. A moment later, he gave a slight nod and spoke with deep reverence.

"...Yes, your disciple understands."

Then, he stood up straight and looked back at Wang Ping.

"After you, Fellow Daoist."

Stepping aside to clear the way, Yi Xuangong gestured toward the brilliant light. "The Dao Lord wishes to meet with you," he said calmly.