Ultragenic Warlord

Chapter 864: Theory of Debt

"No!" Feitian cried. "The xuluo have never invaded other worlds. We did it in order to maintain peace, to provide law and order! The third realm has limited resources, and all the energy has to be divided among three thousand worlds! If there are too many superior worlds, draining the realm of its energy, who knows what might happen?"

Zhang Lie raised his head to the sky and laughed. "Hahaha, haha! You pirates dare to speak of law and order? You might as well argue that you need to maintain income inequality! In that case, let me ask you: what happened to the energy from the destroyed superior worlds?"

Feitian frowned. "I don't know what you heard from others, but what you're doing now is destroying this world—and the realm with it."

Zhang Lie seemed unperturbed. "Don't try to fool me. You might claim again and again that all you're doing is in order to maintain balance in the realm, but you're simply finding excuses for destroying world after newly evolved world! You superior worlds then use that energy to strengthen and grow your own worlds—to consolidate power!"

Feitian narrowed its eyes. Its face turned fierce and evil, and it dropped the righteous tone from its speech. "You know more than you let on, don't you?"

Its eye was calm and placid, like the surface of an undisturbed lake, as though its flurry of emotions moments before was nothing more than an act.

Feitian was very surprised that Zhang Lie knew the truth that was hidden from all but the ten superior kings and their trusted aides. Indeed, the ten superior worlds had used "balance of power" as an excuse to invade newly formed superior worlds, collecting all that energy for themselves so that they and future generations might grow stronger and stronger.

Zhang Lie laughed coldly. "Did you think we were all ignorant and clueless?"

Each of the three thousand worlds of the realm had their own will, but these wills were all subordinate to the will of the third realm. Because the third realm had been divided into three thousand worlds, the will of the third realm itself was incomplete and existed in a rather passive state, but it was superior in quality to any of the wills of individual worlds. Even a superior king of the world was nothing more than an ant to the will of the third realm itself.

"I'm very curious which world you're from." Feitian narrowed its eye, which stared straight at Zhang Lie.

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Zhang Lie patted his chest. "I, Zhang Lie, stand for myself—I won't tie myself down to a single world!"

Feitian supposed that Zhang Lie was being backed up by another ancient superior world. "Don't you think I'd know what sort of world has the resources to cultivate a monster like you? Certainly not a run-of-the-mill world! I thought you represented the karmic backlash from the xuluo destroying and absorbing so many smaller worlds, but it seems as though the situation is more complex than that."

Zhang Lie's appearance was too much of a coincidence—why was he in the domain of the xuluo world, rather than in the domain of the other superior worlds?

This seemed like nothing more than a coincidence, but Feitian, who cultivated the arcane power of heaven's might, knew that there were no coincidences in this realm. All was linked to karma, to cause and effect.

Why had someone like Zhang Lie appeared in a newly evolved superior world?

Feitian's original hypothesis was "karma". The karmic backlash from the xuluo's actions would catch up to them sooner or later. Unlike the other superior worlds, the xuluo were particularly susceptible to karma because of the heaven's might they cultivated, just like how drowning was a disproportionately high cause of death for swimmers.

Those who made use of karma would ultimately die of karma.

Feitian had delved deep into the study of heaven's might, and it could barely glimpse the truth of the universe behind a veil of fog. It had been prepared for a karmic backlash someday—but it hadn't expected to fall prey to a scheme instead. None of the three thousand worlds would be able to avoid such schemes, not even a superior world like the world of the xuluo.

Zhang Lie's appearance was one such scheme—it wasn't only karma, but also the machinations and manipulations of the other superior worlds.

Feitian didn't know what sort of plan had been concocted: whether Zhang Lie had been recognized as a promising descendant and was sent to a world in the domain of the xuluo in his childhood to grow up to overthrow the xuluo, or whether he had developed into an elite before being sent into a world that was just about to evolve into a superior one.

Regardless of which possibility it was, Feitian shuddered at the depths of the plan that had to have gone into Zhang Lie's appearance now.

The mastermind behind that plan was surely an expert on karma, who was aware of the one weakness that the xuluo were unable to avoid. Sooner or later, they would be struck by karmic backlash on account of their racial arts.

Karma was something that might have been opaque or abstruse to any other race, but for the xuluo, karma was more rigorous than science itself.

Other superior worlds weren't able to make use of heaven's might, and they naturally wouldn't suffer any karmic backlash for having destroyed too many superior worlds. However, the xuluo were irrevocably linked to this art, and the tally of their evil could only be delayed and held back so long.

In the end, they would have to pay for their actions—as though the xuluo were a large corporation that had taken on one too many loans, were forced to repay them all with interest, and would necessarily go bankrupt as a result.

Feitian had been working to resolve this problem the moment he became aware of it, once he had mastered the power of heaven's might as deeply as he could, but by then, it was too late. Heaven's might had been in use for tens of thousands of years, and the backlash the xuluo would have to suffer had only snowballed since.

Most worryingly, the xuluo world now seemed to be subject to the machinations of its nine other ancient foes.

This was something that had been planned for millennia; Feitian was sure of it.

A few faces flashed across Feitian's mind, but there were only a scant few people in the third realm who had insight into karma as he did—and none were as skilled as to be able to identify this critical flaw in the xuluo world.

At the very least, there were no such sages among the xuluo's enemies.

Could it be an unknown sage he was unaware of, or perhaps someone from an even higher realm?

Regardless of these thoughts, it was clear that Feitian only had one path open to him: to get rid of the trouble standing in front of him at any cost.

To Feitian, Zhang Lie wasn't important—what mattered was the karmic backlash from the xuluo's actions. It had never paid attention to Zhang Lie from the very beginning.

Feitian's next step had to be to delay the karmic backlash further, to hold off the debt collectors for a bit longer...