Chapter 501: The Mysterious Force Is Truly Mysterious

Qi Suian watched as Zuo Fan was being hunted.

However, after a single glance at the fortune granted by the protagonist’s halo surrounding him, Qi Suian decided not to interfere.

Zuo Fan wouldn’t die. He might look like a cornered dog being hounded right now, but he was actually capable of turning the tables and killing his pursuer.

So there was no need to worry about him dying.

Qi Suian was a protagonist who couldn’t just have a sudden burst of power, but that didn’t mean other protagonists lacked that feature.

Even a cornered rabbit will bite back, to say nothing of a protagonist.

The potential within Zuo Fan’s body was immense, not to mention he also possessed the Pure Yang Fire Seed.

’What’s the deal with Cheng Zhen’s origins? It’s like he appeared out of thin air.’ Qi Suian was more concerned with the Yanghuang Sect traitor, Layman Red Lotus.

According to the intelligence Qi Suian had gathered, Cheng Zhen had been active over a decade ago and was being hunted by the Yanghuang Sect.

With no news for so many years, he was either dead or had retired into seclusion.

Even if it were the latter, he shouldn’t have been able to possess this level of power.

The things Cheng Zhen let slip in his speech were particularly concerning. He had an organization behind him, one that knew about the Pure Yang Fire Seed and had arranged for him to collect it.

Qi Suian directly activated his script-reading ability. He wasn’t very proficient with it, but after a period of acclimation and practice, he was much better at it than when he’d first spied on Zuo Fan.

’Huh, it’s all been severed.’ As Qi Suian perused the script, he discovered he could only see traces of Cheng Zhen’s life on this planet.

A massive chunk was simply missing.

’So, during the time he was missing, he wasn’t actually on this planet?’

’He mastered interstellar transport technology? Does that even make sense?’ No matter how Qi Suian looked at Cheng Zhen, who seemed no different from someone from ancient times, he found it incredible.

’And it’s not just the technology. He also has a corresponding protection mechanism capable of blocking my clumsy script-reading ability.’

Qi Suian knew this was his own fault. Having grown powerful so suddenly, he couldn’t perfectly control many of his abilities.

Otherwise, even as just a nascent world, seeing these truths wouldn’t have been difficult.

A proper world has existed for eons. For him to try and catch up in such a short time was impossible, even for a Long Aotian.

He estimated that getting a handle on things within several years would already be incredibly fast. How much time had actually passed? It was normal for his control over his abilities to be poor.

Besides, he was a world that had been *made*, not born. Compared to a natural world, he was bound to have all sorts of innate shortcomings.

These were all things Qi Suian needed to compensate for, bit by bit.

’Cheng Zhen is a dead man walking, but that’s good news for me.’

’Next, I just need to monitor the entire planet closely, and I’ll be able to trace this back to the source.’

’But if they need the Pure Yang Fire Seed, I suspect that’s not the *only* thing they’re after.’

Qi Suian’s eyes narrowed. There were four other treasures similar to the Pure Yang Fire Seed: the Qianyuan Golden Mother, the Wind-Thunder Wood Element, the Profound Marsh Water Spirit, and the Earth Element.

Together, they formed the Five Elements, the very foundation of all Spiritual Techniques.

Qi Suian had known for a while that all Spiritual Techniques belonged to one of the five elements, which in turn could be used to manifest various other attributes.

As for Yin and Yang, they could also be encompassed within the Five Elements. For instance, Wood was divided into Jia Wood and Yi Wood, with Jia being Yang Wood and Yi being Yin Wood.

The Yanghuang Sect’s foundational attribute was Fire, and its Yang aspect was a derivative of that Fire element.

This struck Qi Suian as strange, as if the natural order had been turned on its head. In his mind, it had always been Yin-Yang and the Five Elements, but here it had become the Five Elements and Yin-Yang.

At first glance, it seemed the order was simply reversed, but that wasn’t the case—the underlying principles themselves had changed along with it.

’The problem is... where are the other four?’ Qi Suian frowned. His senses swept across the globe once more, but aside from the Pure Yang Fire Seed on Zuo Fan, there were no traces of the other four Five Elements Spiritual Treasures.

As for how he knew all this, he had naturally found the information in ancient texts.

After seeing the Pure Yang Fire Seed on Zuo Fan, he had made a conscious effort to search for information.

’Could it be... they’re on other planets?’ Qi Suian suddenly thought of this possibility.

The simplest explanation was Cheng Zhen’s disappearance. He must have been living on another planet all this time. If he could leave, then it wasn’t impossible for the other four Five Elements Spiritual Treasures to be on other planets as well.

’And it might not be just one other planet, but several.’

’Strange, why didn’t the spaceship encounter them? Don’t tell me their locations are also in the fringe regions.’ Qi Suian’s eyes narrowed, considering the possibility.

’You know, that’s actually quite plausible.’

’Spreading them across one planet versus several planets... theoretically, there isn’t much difference.’

Qi Suian knew that as long as you had the technology, many things weren’t a big deal.

’Maybe I should save Cheng Zhen’s life?’ Qi Suian needed a guide.

But he quickly rejected the idea. Not because he feared exposing himself, but because Cheng Zhen likely wasn’t valuable enough for the organization behind him to open a portal for a remote extraction.

Why would a faction with interstellar capabilities care about a weakling like Cheng Zhen?

’Wait, there’s a contradiction here.’

’If they possess that level of technology, it implies they have a powerful military. So why would they send just Cheng Zhen back to get the Pure Yang Fire Seed?’

Two possibilities surfaced in Qi Suian’s mind. The first was that the Pure Yang Fire Seed was only worth a low-cost investment to this organization.

That’s why they sent someone like Cheng Zhen.

In fact, their estimate was quite accurate. If you excluded Qi Suian and Zuo Fan’s rapidly solidifying protagonist halo, Cheng Zhen’s power was more than enough for the job.

Not even Xu Ziyang, the Sect Leader of the world’s greatest sect, was a match for Cheng Zhen.

The other possibility, of course, was that it was all a bluff.

The organization was fighting on multiple fronts and could only spare a single person like Cheng Zhen.

They simply didn’t have the personnel or resources to spare anyone else.

Qi Suian was more inclined to believe the first possibility, but that seemed far too arrogant on their part.

At the very least, they should have sent a small team, not just let Cheng Zhen go it alone.

Two heads are better than one, after all. No matter how strong Cheng Zhen was, there was always a chance of failure. They should have sent two people at a minimum.

However, analyzing the data he’d collected from Cheng Zhen made the second possibility seem more likely.

Cheng Zhen’s mindset, thoughts, and even his habits hadn’t deviated much from his past self.

It would be like a person from ancient times living in a modern society for over a decade and then suddenly returning to their own era.

They would definitely exhibit an out-of-place demeanor, use different slang, and so on. A decade is more than enough time to assimilate a person.

Just like Qi Suian himself, who seemed utterly out of place in every Doomsday World he visited.

That was why he never hesitated to kill.

Cheng Zhen, however, was different. He was still the same person he was back then, which was rather strange.

Surely the social structure of the organization behind him couldn’t be identical to this planet’s?

Fine, but even if it were, possessing such technology would surely mean they had a more advanced society and means of production.

Those things would have a subtle, transformative influence on a person.

Yet Qi Suian couldn’t see any such differences in him.

’Could they be a group of lucky people who just stumbled upon a space station or some other complete construct from an advanced civilization?’

Qi Suian couldn’t help but consider it. That was also a possibility.

’Otherwise, if they were truly a powerful faction wielding cosmic-level technology, Zuo Fan wouldn’t stand a chance, even if he could ascend to the heavens.’

Zuo Fan’s absolute upper limit wouldn’t even get him into space. At best, he was a city-level threat; even becoming invincible on the planet’s surface would be difficult for him.

No matter how powerful his protagonist halo was, it couldn’t withstand a blast from a star-destroying cannon.

Therefore, if Zuo Fan were to have any chance of a comeback, it could only mean this faction wasn’t a true cosmic-level power, but just a group of lucky natives.

After stumbling upon an artifact from a cosmic civilization, they were using it without understanding how it truly worked, letting it fuel their ambitions.

’As for the truth, I’ll just have to wait and see.’ Qi Suian was very patient now, no longer so hasty in his actions.

After all, he had all the time in the world.

And what if he encountered a universe-ending crisis? That was simple, too. The Doomsday Game was still bound to him. Though it was currently dormant, he could slap it awake.

When the time came, the two of them could work together, escape, and find another world to stay in. That wouldn’t be a big problem.

"Cough... so you really did gain the recognition of the Pure Yang Fire Seed."

"But don’t think killing me will be the end of it." Cheng Zhen coughed up a mouthful of burning blood.

Zuo Fan’s Li Huo Giant Sword had pierced through his chest, and his life force was rapidly dissipating with the burning flames.

"I know. There’s an organization behind you. But I will rip them out, root and stem," Zuo Fan said, his voice laced with savagery.

After using the true form of the Flame Demon so many times at high intensity, his bloodlust had grown to an extreme level.

He now suspected that even if he stopped using the true form of the Flame Demon, the bloodlust he had accumulated would continue to affect him indirectly.

This infuriated him. He could have avoided these side effects and peacefully cultivated the Flame Demon Body Refining Technique to the stage of great completion.

Then, he would have been able to use the true form of the Flame Demon without any side effects or limitations.

While reaching great completion now would also purge the bloodlust, how was he supposed to achieve that in such a short amount of time?

If it were that easy, the world would have been filled with Spiritual Technique masters long ago.

"Is that so? How naive of you." A smile spread across Cheng Zhen’s face before he collapsed to the ground.

The final look in his eyes was one of utter resentment.

Seeing him die, Zuo Fan deactivated the true form of the Flame Demon and, with a single motion of his Li Huo Sword, cut off the man’s head.

’The bounty on Layman Red Lotus may have gathered dust, but it was never rescinded.’

’The head of a Yanghuang Sect traitor like him should be worth a hefty reward.’

’I’ll make a trip back, have the Yanghuang Sect investigate this mysterious organization, and collect the reward at the same time.’

’While I’m there, I’ll check on the Sect Leader’s condition. I hope he hasn’t actually turned into a Flame Demon.’ Zuo Fan could only feel that the world was spiraling deeper into chaos.