Aftermath and Flower in Distress

Skip this part if you perfectly understand what happened in the previous chapters. This is a short summary for those who don't.

I won't get into the nitty and gritty of the whole situation but due to some weird things happening in the Abyss of Nothingness, the Ancestral God decided she needed to fix everything. To do that, she had to come back to life with full power.

To reach her original level of strength, she needed 1000 cycles of reincarnation and only on her last cycle she would live her life completely unaware of who she was until the end of her life. In the last cycle, the Ancestral God reincarnated as Xiao Lingxi.

In Yun Che's first life, Xia Qingyue did not exist. Xiao Ying saved the life of the Float Cloud City Governor's daughter instead whose name is Situ Xuan. On his wedding day with Situ Xuan, he got poisoned to death which led to Xiao Lingxi's extreme sorrow.

Due to her intense emotions at the moment, the Ancestral God's slumbering will woke up from its slumber prematurely. Since both of them were essentially the same being, Xiao Lingxi half understood who she really was. Due to that, she was afraid that merging with the Ancestral God's will would dampen her feelings for Yun Che.

Of course she didn't want that and begged the Ancestral God's will to save Yun Che. The will explained that it would momentarily save his life. He will encounter danger again and again and would definitely die an early death due to his crippled profound veins.

This convinced Xiao Lingxi to make the Will completely alter Yun Che's fate. He would be luckiest man in the world, fortunes and treasures most people couldn't dream of obtaining in a hundred lifetimes would land in Yun Che's palm at a tender age.

However, fate automatically seeks balance and fortune would come along with misfortune. Since the degree of fortune was ridiculously high, so would the misfortune. To prevent Yun Che from going through all that, the Will created an Artifact of Fate and linked it to Yun Che using the Chain of Fate.

Through the Chain of Fate, the misfortune that was supposed to befall Yun Che would instead go to the Artifact of Fate. Yun Che's fortune equaled the Artifact of Fate's misfortune. This Artifact of Fate is Xia Qingyue.

Since she didn't exist in Yun Che's first life, Xia Yuanba got all of the benefits of being Yue Wugou's offspring since he was an only-child. After he successfully fused with all of the primordial energy in his body, he would gain the Divine Body of Great Rage. At the time of Yun Che's wedding, only one-tenth of the energy had fused with his body.

The Will took the remaining and gave it to Xia Qingyue. This meant Xia Yuanba was left with the Tyrannical Emperor's Divine Veins and not the Divine Body of Great Rage. The Will created Xia Qingyue through Yue Wugou and Yue Wuya. 

Thus, she was their child event though never consummated and it was Xia Hongyi who impreganted Yue Wugou, but she wasn't Xia Hongyi's daughter. 

Yun Che would have the Ancestral God's Sacred Body of Nothingness, allowing him to comprehend the Law of Nothingness from the World-Defying Heaven Manual. Even though Yun Che would have all the fortune in the world, his willpower wouldn't be up to the mark because he was sheltered heavily by Xiao Lingxi and Xiao Lie.

So, the Will had him born in the Azure Cloud Continent in his second life and he would be under the tutelage of Yun Gu. From there he would have the Sky Poison Pearl. As time passed on in the Azure Cloud Continent, the Will froze time in the rest of the planet and resumed it once Yun Che died in his second life.

The Will then reversed the time on the Azure Cloud Continent so Yun Che never existed there and Yun Gu was still alive, allowing him to take the other half of the Sky Poison Pearl once he went to he Azure Cloud Continent for the Heretic God's Seed of Darkness.

After dying in his second life, he would be sent back to the Profound Sky Continet's Xiao Clan in Floating Cloud City on his wedding day with his memories intact and his bride would be Xia Qingyue.

His memories were altered so that he wouldn't know anything about changes made in his third life. From his knowledge, Xiao Ying saved Xia Qingyue's life and he was going to marry. He knew nothing about Situ Xuan. 

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After examining all his spoils, Raphael started going back to Floating Cloud City to confirm the aftermath of Yun Che's death. No profound beats ran into him because of his cultivation level at 1st Level Nascent Profound Realm since he wasn't deep into the forest so there were only weak profound beats. 

There were no guards at the entrance like yesterday, causing him to raise an eyebrow but he entered the city anyway. 

He walked in the city and noticed that everything seemed to be the same as yesterday, just that the people were slightly louder than normal. There were random loud whispers as well. 

"Did you hear? The grandson of the Xiao Clan's Fifth Elder, Xiao Che was poisoned yesterday before the wedding. Who do you think is the culprit?"

So this was what the city was discussing about. Someone must've leaked the news to the public. Though overall it didn't seemed like the people cared all that much. At most it was an interesting piece of news to them. The Xiao Clan didn't seem like they were seriously investigating the matter either, or maybe they were doing it secretly. But there was something else he was more interested in:

"Heh! Not only was it the crippled trash who died, the Fifth Elder's daughter committed suicide as well!" 

"Seems like they were really close with just an year of age gap between them." 

"The Fifth Elder was so angry and full of sorrow, he looked like he had aged 10 more years!" 

"The Xiao Clan obviously didn't try to investigate the murder of that crippled trash. In fact, they must be thankful that he died because of how many resources they are bound to save since they can invest them on a person who can actually cultivate!" 

"Hey, hey, not only that! The Fifth Elder himself committed suicide this morning!"

"What?!"

"Are you serious?! The Fifth Elder?!"

"He's the strongest expert in this City! He also died just like that?!"

This was the news he really cared about and he wanted to confirm just that. He thought he might need to personally ask someone but it seemed like the people couldn't shut up about the matter themselves. 

Usually, Raphael would've attracted attention wherever he went but the news of the death of an elder of the Xiao Clan who was also the strongest in the city was enough to send shocks through everyone's hearts. However, it wouldn't take too long for them to recover before he would garner unnecessary attention.

So he quickly made his way out of the city. He got what he came for anyway, no use staying there any longer.

Jasmine was supposed to have landed at the wilderness somewhere near the Xiao clan. He went out of the city and and went into the wilderness. He navigated through the place for about an hour and finally found the area which was around the Xiao Clan. 

Right then, the Sky Poison Pearl started glowing which indicated the position of star concealing grass nearby. This meant he was close to Jasmine's location. 

He kept looking around until he found a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years old on the ground with some black substance coming off her. He came closer and touched her shoulder, giving it a nudge, which opened her eyes. 

The black substance tried to envelope him but the Sky Poison Pearl purified it quite easily. This caught her attention and she murmered, "Sky…Poison…Pearl….," and bit his finger, sucking some blood. After that she started glowing and vanished into the Sky Poison Pearl in his left palm. 

"That's it," a victorious smile formed on his face, "I've taken everything that's useful here. Yun Che, Xiao Lingxi and Xiao Lie have all died. All that's left is for her to wake up." Of course he didn't say it out loud. He didn't want Jasmine or anyone else hearing it by some freak accident. 

Knowing that the star concealing grass would be useful, he stored all of it inside the Sky Poison Pearl and made his way somewhere near the gates of the city.

There was a board which signaled the route towards neighbouring towns and cities.

West, two hundred kilometers: Cyan Forest Town

West, five hundred fifty kilometers: New Moon City 

After looking at the directions, he started brisk walking to his destination. Even though he was at the nascent profound realm, it would take him a few days at least to travel two hundred kilometers. 

Thankfully, there were still no profound beasts who could threaten his life.

However, he still engaged in a few battles on his way to the town to get used to his physique, profound energy and test his strength. To say he was surprised would be an understatement. Though he fought beasts that were weaker than his cultivation level, he had killed them far too easily, sometimes with just a slap. They couldn't act as an accurate test of strength at all. The difference in strength between cultivation levels shouldn't be this big at the early stages. 

Four days into his journey, he encountered a profound beast at the second level of Nascent Profound realm. Assuming it would give him a more accurate picture of his power level, he decided to fight it. However, it went down with a single punch with less than half his strength. He didn't even use any profound energy yet.

Why was this happening?

He didn't have the Heretic God's profound veins or any set of special profound veins, though all of them were open. Nor was he using any top tier fighting technique. He was just using the standard fighting techniques he learnt to become a soldier. 

He just figured it was because of the incomplete Divine Body of Great Rage. About one-fourth of the primordial energy had fused with his body. To think it would still give him such a powerful physique! How many levels could he skip once all the primordial energy had successfully fused and after acquiring the Heretic God's Profound Veins? Two and half great realms? Maybe. 

Realizing it was going to be a waste of time bullying these beasts, he simply focused on getting to his destination as soon as possible. 

2 days later…

Raphael was walking towards Cyan Forest Town which was about 30 kilometers away. He could've been much faster but there was still quite some time before Jasmine's awakening. 

He wouldn't really have anything to do in the town anyway, so he took his time killing some beasts and cooking them. From what he understood, the stronger a beast was the more nutritious its meat would be. However, eating the meat of a beast that was much stronger than yourself could potentially harm you. Though the taste really depended on the species.

For example, a non-aggressive profound beast of the water element would have a mild taste compared to an aggressive fire element beast. 

He tasted a variety and they were all pretty good. His cooking skills were half-assed at best and he didn't really use any ingredients except for whatever taste enhancing plants he could find, courtesy of Yun Che's memories. 

He was simply minding his own business when a black-clothed figure suddenly flew towards him from some bushes about few hundred meters away. As a cultivator, his senses were much sharper than the average human but he still couldn't detect him until he came out. It was probably some concealing technique.

The aggressor was at the third level of nascent profound realm which gave him the confidence to attack Raphael. If only he knew…

Before the black-clothed goober could land an attack at him, Raphael quickly caught his arm before grabbing the back of his neck and slammed him to the hard ground. The guy groaned in pain before it turned into a blood curdling scream when Raphael snapped the arm in his hand and tightly squeezed his neck.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked the guy whose life was now completely in his hands. 

The goober stopped wailing and said, "I am a high ranking member of the Black Sheep Mercenary Group of Cyan Forest Town!! Let me go or my group will slaughter you and nine generations of your clan as punishment!!"

Raphael's facial muscles kept twitching as he really, really tried to not laugh. The first cultivator he fought could make such funny threats. 

The group was not mentioned at all in the novel and this goober was already a high ranking member. Deducing the roup's power could not harm him whatsoever, he simply snapped his neck and killed him before taking away all his valuables. 

There was a good amount of money, some weapons and some token. He put away the items in the Sky Poison Pearl and threw the man's corpse in front of some beasts before continuing his journey.