Chapter 706 148: Black Mist

The moment the two objects made contact, they fused together as seamlessly as milk blending with water. Zhang Deming remained on full alert.

After a long while, once the two balls of black mist had merged, not even the slightest fluctuation of consciousness appeared. Only then did Zhang Deming let out a soft sigh of relief.

Gazing at the black mist hovering quietly before him, Zhang Deming wore a solemn expression. He first tucked an ugly doll, brimming with a Life Aura, into his robes. Only then did his eyes begin to shine with a dream-like light.

A phantom Jade Vine, seeming both real and illusory, emerged from between Zhang Deming's eyebrows. Gazing at the strange vine, Zhang Deming hesitated for a moment before it plunged into the black mist like a bolt of lightning.

The black mist rippled slightly, and the phantom vine began to flicker with light. As the vine flickered, the black mist started to churn violently. Amidst the turmoil, fragmented images of varying lengths flashed into view.

"Ngh..."

As the black mist roiled, Zhang Deming shuddered and entered a peculiar state. The dream-like light in his eyes flickered, and his gaze lost its focus.

Following Zhang Deming's muffled groan, his entire body floated into the air. As his Law-Level Dream Technique operated at full power, his body began to emit a dream-like glow, and his entire form started to flicker rapidly between the illusory and the real.

Zhang Deming felt himself enter a strange state. 'I am myself, yet I am not myself. It's as if I'm watching another version of me live through one life after another, all from a god's-eye view.'

'My vision is blurry, like I'm watching everything through a fogged-up pane of glass.'

But at the same time, he felt as if he were there, experiencing it all firsthand. This profound contradiction, this severe sense of dislocation, interfered with his immersion, causing both his illusory form and the black mist to fluctuate violently.

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A long, long time ago, the Five Elements Blessed Land fell, and all the Five Elements Disciples vanished. The Five Elements Five Races, once at the pinnacle of their power, crumbled and fell apart overnight.

Hunted, surrounded, and cut off by the various temples of Spirit Mountain, the Five Elements Five Races met their doom.

Countless monks who had not yet declared their Original Vows, and were thus not bound by the strict Precepts, transformed into demons walking the Human World. They hunted down and slaughtered the disciples of the Five Races, showing no mercy. It mattered not if they were good or evil, only that they belonged to one of the Five Races.

All of this happened simply because of a single sentence from the Celestial Secret Old Daoist of that era: "From the Five Elements, turmoil shall arise; a fulfilled vow, the root of calamity. Disaster will throw Hongmeng into chaos; when will order ever return?"

The High Monks who had once achieved the status of Bodhisattva and Buddha through the Five Elements Blessed Land knew well that the prophecies of the Celestial Secret Dao were never baseless. Thus, the Buddhist Family became exceptionally intolerant of the Five Elements Five Races. Acting with the conviction of Buddhas and the ruthlessness of demons, they pursued their quarry regardless of the true nature of any given Five Elements disciple.

The surviving members of the Five Races dwindled in number until only five villages remained. They retreated deep into the Hengduan Mountain Range, just barely managing to survive.

Thousands of years passed in a flash. The five villages of the Five Races found survival in the deep mountains increasingly difficult, eventually facing the brink of extinction.

But misfortunes never come singly. One day, while out hunting, all the clan leaders of the Five Races died simultaneously. The countdown to their final doom had begun.

The turning point came several months later. The widows of the five great clan leaders all gave birth to infants at the same time, and every single one was a Demon Fiend of exceptional Talent.

On the day the five children were born, a strange phenomenon appeared in the heavens. The Holy Object, the Celestial Heart Altar, inexplicably returned, ushering in a new era for the Five Races.

They built their homes underground; they focused on developing their strength; every few years, they sent a number of their people out to wreak havoc in the outside world.

Having endured such dark times, the already embittered Five Races chose to cast aside their humanity completely. They would stop at nothing to reclaim their former glory.

Generations of clan members died, but before death, each clan leader would undergo a private succession, a process the clan called "Continuation."

Every clan leader who underwent this Continuation, regardless of their own Talent, would experience rapid growth in their Cultivation.

And so it went, generation after generation. At some unknown point, it became clear that while the five leaders of the Five Races were different individuals in each generation, they also seemed to be the very same leaders from the beginning.

Tens of thousands of years passed, until the annihilation of the Cyan Wood Guan Family, when the Five Races once again faced the threat of total extinction.

In the face of this devastating blow, the Celestial Heart Altar appeared on its own. This marked the beginning of the Five Races' sacrificial rites. It also marked an end to the clan leaders' cycle of "Continuation," heralding an age where a single individual could transcend the limits of their lifespan and exist indefinitely.

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As Zhang Deming's body flickered, he felt as though he had lived through countless lives, yet at the same time, was merely a spectator. Each life was but a fleeting glimpse, many of which were too blurry and indistinct to see clearly.

The further he peered into the memories, the more fragmented the images became. The fog on the metaphorical glass grew thicker, blurring his vision.

After a long while, the black mist suddenly shuddered. The mass, originally the size of a goose egg, expanded to the size of a fist and lost its core cohesion, as if something inside had shattered. Then, it fell completely still.

No matter how the phantom vine stirred it, there was no longer the slightest ripple. It could no longer be considered a soul; it was now nothing more than a special, high-grade material.

As that special something within the black mist shattered, Zhang Deming flickered and resolidified into his physical form. His eyes, however, remained unfocused for a long time, filled with an ancient weariness, as if he were still immersed in the countless years of the past.

It took a long time for him to come back to his senses. Although there were many things he had not seen clearly, his understanding of the Five Elements Five Races was now incredibly thorough.

He had not only learned the general origins of the Five Elements Remnants, but also many details about the early days of the Five Elements Blessed Land, as well as numerous ancient secrets.

Of course, there was still much he did not know, especially the specific steps of the so-called 'Celestial Heart Sacrifice'. It was as if Qu Wenbai's subconscious had hidden those memories, preventing him from seeing anything at all.

Whenever the topic arose, the fog on the metaphorical glass before him would grow incredibly thick, and that dislocated feeling of being a mere spectator would intensify, allowing him to grasp only the vaguest outline.

He had shattered the core of the black mist before he could finish viewing all the lives within. The main reason was that every single life was, to some degree, related to the sacrifice. The constant repulsive fluctuations generated by this topic were what ultimately caused the core to break.