Chapter 4023: An Ironic Name

High Elder Palm Saber continued. "The Righteous expert began using them to punish captured criminals. Those judged guilty were struck by the Cestuses."

One of the elders frowned. "That’s where the name came from?"

"Eventually," Palm Saber answered. "The Mountain Crushing Cestuses became symbols of punishment. Their wielder declared that no injustice could survive beneath their fists. Over generations, people began calling them the Justice Crushing Cestuses."

Lin Mu found the name rather ironic.

High Elder Palm Saber seemed to agree. "The problem was that their definition of justice changed with every wielder."

Several elders fell silent.

"One wielder used them against murderers. Another used them against demonic cultivators. Another punished sect traitors. Later, someone used them against political enemies. Another wielder supposedly executed an entire clan after declaring them accomplices to one man’s crimes."

Lin Mu looked through the barrier at the swirling grey, black, violet, red, and white mass. ’Countless people, judgments, despair and deaths were needed to create these.’

Xukong’s theory about fragmented souls suddenly seemed much more plausible.

High Elder Palm Saber sighed. "Eventually, the Cestuses gained an ominous reputation. People claimed they remembered everyone they punished. Some wielders reported hearing voices. Others said the weapons became heavier whenever they hesitated to strike someone they had judged guilty."

A disciple swallowed. "Then why did anyone keep using them?"

High Elder Palm Saber looked at him strangely. "Power."

The disciple had no response.

"The Cesti were passed through many hands across the Righteous Path. At some point, one was destroyed or lost. Records conflict on what happened. The remaining Cestus continued to circulate until it disappeared completely."

High Elder Palm Saber stared at the pedestal. "Replicas appeared afterward. Some sects created ceremonial versions. A few body cultivators forged weapons based on the same design. None possessed the properties attributed to the original."

He paused.

Then he looked at Lin Mu. "When I saw Taegong’s recording, I assumed the object he showed was one of those replicas."

Lin Mu finally understood. ’So that’s why.’

High Elder Palm Saber had already seen the weapon in the recording, yet his reaction upon entering the Forbidden Relic Section had been far stronger. He had never believed Taegong possessed access to the genuine article.

High Elder Palm Saber looked at the twelve barriers again. "But this..." His voice became quieter. "The sect would never seal a replica like this."

Lin Mu stroked his beard and his eyes returned to the Justice Crushing Cestus.

The weapon had started as the crude creation of an unorthodox body cultivator. Then it became a trophy. Then an instrument of punishment. Then a symbol of justice. Then something feared even by those who claimed to uphold justice.

And somewhere during those countless battles, executions, punishments, and changes of ownership, the souls of those struck by it had accumulated within the weapon until even its spirit had transformed.

The title suddenly carried another meaning.

Perhaps the Cestus had once crushed people in the name of justice. Perhaps, after enough millennia, it had begun crushing the very idea of justice imposed upon it. Lin Mu could not yet tell and there was only one way to learn more.

He would have to touch it.

His gaze slowly moved across the twelve barriers and that presented another problem. Taegong had clearly possessed some method of accessing the Cestus. Which meant somewhere within this hidden chamber, or somewhere among the records Taegong had tried to erase, there had to be a way through those twelve seals.

Lin Mu’s lips curled into the faintest smile beneath Zhenyu’s long white beard as he found himself considerably more intrigued by the Justice Crushing Cestus after hearing High Elder Palm Saber’s explanation.

When he had first discovered Taegong’s plan, he had assumed the weapon was some forbidden artifact whose importance came from its place within the Heavenly Stream Guardian Sect’s history.

He had never expected there to be replicas scattered throughout the Immortal Realm, much less an entire legend surrounding the original weapon. That only made the object before him more interesting.

There was little doubt in Lin Mu’s mind that this was the genuine Justice Crushing Cestus.

Replicas might be able to imitate the crude appearance, as a sufficiently talented craftsman could reproduce the thick metal tubes, the enormous iron spheres, the worn surface, and perhaps even the remnants of the ancient characters engraved along its wrist.

With enough historical records, someone could make a copy that looked indistinguishable from the original to the naked eye. but they could not easily reproduce what Lin Mu saw through Spatial Perception.

The mass of grey, black, violet, red, and white continued to churn within the Cestus.

Countless fragmented remnants had accumulated inside it and fused together until the weapon itself seemed to possess an existence beyond that of an ordinary Immortal Tool. Even after countless years of isolation, that strange burden had survived.

A replica could imitate history, but it could not inherit it. Lin Mu’s thoughts, however, had already moved beyond the weapon itself. There was one detail in Palm Saber’s story that stood out above everything else.

That prominent expert of the Righteous Path.

The man who had fought the Big Fist Warrior, defeated him, and had taken the Mountain Crushing Cesti as his spoil. High Elder Palm Saber did not know his name. Perhaps the records had genuinely lost it over time or perhaps someone had deliberately erased it.

There was also the possibility that the oldest surviving stories had simply replaced the man’s identity with grand titles until later generations forgot who those titles originally referred to. But Lin Mu had a very strong suspicion.

’Virtuous Calamity Daoist.’ The name appeared in his mind immediately.

The more Lin Mu considered it, the more the pieces seemed to fit.

Virtuous Calamity Daoist had possessed a peculiar understanding of judgment. From everything Lin Mu had learned so far, the man’s idea of virtue had never been as simple as following laws or behaving according to the expectations of the Righteous Path.