"There's no need to fret, Young Master Xing," Fang Che said with a smile. "I am already forever indebted to you for this pill that you've given today. If you ever require my services in the future, feel free to call upon , and I'll be sure to answer your call."
"I'll hold you to that promise then!" Feng Xing imdiately agreed.
"Right now, you're not the one who needs . Instead, I need you to ensure my own survival," Fang Che said in a candid fashion.
"You're a smart man," Feng Xing chuckled. "You asked just now what my future aspirations are, so let turn the question on you. What do you think my future aspirations should be?"
A wry smile appeared on Fang Che's face as he said, "As soon as I raised the question, I knew that it was going to be a difficult one to answer, so I was content not to receive an answer, but you're turning the question on now!"
"It's because this question is very important to ."
"In that case, can I ask you a few other questions before I give you my answer?"
"You may."
"After all these years, I'm sure you already have countless generations of seniors in your clan. I'm presuming they're all still... around, right?"
"The vast majority of them are no longer around."
"How?" Fang Che exclaid, very much taken aback by this answer.
Most of Feng Du's descendants surely possessed exceptional aptitude for cultivation, so lifespan was not an issue for them, and given that the Church of the Self-Righteous had a god on their side, he had imagined that the majority of them would've still been alive.
"It's a dangerous world up at the top," Feng Xing sighed. "So of them died during the course of internal conflicts, but the majority of them perished over the years as a result of Chief Strategist Dongfang's various plots. Throughout history, our main church has produced many more powerful warriors than the Guardians, but did you know that there was once a span of five thousand years in which we experienced a complete dearth of talent?"
"How did that happen?" Fang Che asked.
This was sothing that he had never heard of before, and he was truly intrigued.
"This is an extrely well-kept secret on both sides because it concerns so truly harrowing events. During the aforentioned five-thousand-year span, our predecessors continued to birth children as normal, but the vast majority of their offspring were completely diocre in aptitude. Regardless of how brilliant or talented the parents were, their offspring was always very lackluster.
"Five thousand years passed by like this, and no one knew what was going on. At the ti, we had already gained the ascendancy over the Guardians, but due to the lack of injection of new blood, not only did our expansion co to a screeching halt, we even lost the upper hand to the enemy. According to those who were around back then, the nine deputy popes were constantly in a state of fury over this malaise, but no one knew what the cause could be.
"We had tens of billions of people producing offspring, but there wasn't even a single bright prospect among them! One or two years of this wouldn't be particularly far-fetched, but the fact that this happened for thousands of years in succession clearly ant that sothing was very wrong, and our main church's plight of conquest was delayed indefinitely as a result of this.
"Without any new talent rising up the ranks, even if we were to conquer the entire continent, we would eventually lose everything to retaliation from the Guardians, and that would've placed us in an even worse situation. The cause of this malaise was tirelessly investigated for thousands of years, and finally, we discovered that it was all Chief Strategist Dongfang's doing!
"Apparently, right as we were about to gain a dominant advantage over the Guardians, Chief Strategist Dongfang decided to turn to a last-resort plan. He rounded up 36,500 child prodigies and had their essential blood extracted from their bodies, stripping them of their aptitude and robbing them of any chance at cultivation. On top of that, he sacrificed his own reproductive ability to set up a Great Reversal Array, drawing upon the power of the stars to reverse the flow of fortune, channeling the fortune of our church straight back into the heavens.
"Additionally, thirty-six of the Guardians' most powerful warriors voluntarily sacrificed their own lives, using their bodies and souls as tribute to create a Heavenly Star Array, drawing the reversed fortune of our church back out from the stars in the sky to reciprocate the Guardians.
"Even though they were only able to draw out a small portion of our reversed fortune, the result is that for five thousand years, we had no bright prospects erge from our ranks, while they enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth, with superb prodigies regularly erging. It was that span of five thousand years that established the current foundation of the Guardians.
"If it weren't for the extre asures taken by Chief Strategist Dongfang, our church would've already conquered the entire continent by now!"
Fang Che shuddered involuntarily at this harrowing tale.
"In the past, there were no first-tier clans in this world, but from that incident onward, three clans, naly the Feng, Yu, and Xue Clans, rose to the fore. In order to establish the two aforentioned arrays, a bloodline connection is required. The thirty-six top-tier warriors and 36,500 child prodigies were all contributed by those three clans!
"Their sacrifices brought the Guardians back from the brink of certain destruction, and from that point onward, they beca the undisputed top three clans on the continent. Even if everyone from one of those clans dies, as long as a single person remains, their status as one of the top three clans of the world will remain unshakeable."
Fang Che was stunned beyond words.
All of a sudden, a thought occurred to him, and he asked, "But aren't the Feng, Yu, and Xue Clans second-tier clans?"
"That's because there are no first-tier clans on this continent. None of the three clans wanted to bear the karmic burden of claiming the first-tier title, so they chose to regard themselves as second-tier clans, and as a result, the third tier is the upper limit for all other clans. However, everyone privy to these secrets acknowledges those three clans as honorary first-tier clans."
"I see. How did we manage to uncover this plot in the end? I'm sure the Guardians would've done everything in their power to keep it a secret."
"Even the most well-concealed plots will inevitably be exposed eventually. After five thousand years of this malaise, the pope of our main church ca out of seclusion, and he suspected that the Guardians were responsible. Thus, he traveled to the Guardian headquarters on his own, and after uncovering the conspiracy, he stord his way to the thirty-six mountains that served as the foundations of the arrays before destroying them one by one, thereby severing the connection between the Great Reversal Array and the Heavenly Star Array.
"In doing so, he also muddled the will of the heavens, making it impossible to use arrays to draw upon the power of the stars. Starting from the following year, the curse was lifted, and our predecessors were able to produce normal offspring again. However, as a result of the muddled will of the heavens, our church's connection to our god has also beco significantly weaker."
"That's incredible!" Fang Che praised with a look of admiration in his eyes. "That ans the pope single-handedly saved our church!"
"That's right, but ever since his return, he's been in seclusion and has never appeared again, so he must've paid a heavy price to put a stop to Chief Strategist Dongfang's nefarious plot."
The two of them exchanged a glance with each other, and each of them could see that the sa theory had taken shape in the other's mind, but neither of them articulated their thoughts.
"Many years after that, the patriarch of our Feng Clan also went into seclusion," Feng Xing continued. "Ever since then, the number of prodigies in our church has been steadily increasing year after year, and we were slowly able to regain the ground that we had lost, but it's been far from smooth sailing for us. Chief Strategist Dongfang's plots are impossible to predict, and he never seems to run out of ways to target and kill our top prodigies.
"One of those plots that you'll undoubtedly have heard of is the Cloud Weapon Archive. Following the release of the Cloud Weapon Archive, Chief Strategist Dongfang has released many more similar lists catered to the prodigies of the younger generation. The lists are always extrely skewed, with the vast majority of warriors on them coming from our side, and every once in a while, soone works their way up the ranks, challenging and killing our young prodigies one by one.
"Over the years, Chief Strategist Dongfang has been using this thod to repeatedly to kill off our top young prodigies before they get a chance to grow to their full potential, and that, in conjunction with all of his other plots, have ensured that our church has never been able to regain the ascendancy over the Guardians. In our eyes, the Guardians do have a god on their side, and that god is none other than Chief Strategist Dongfang, so we are essentially fighting against a god!"
In spite of Dongfang Sansan's status as the chief strategist of the enemy, Feng Xing spoke of him with a great deal of reverence and admiration.
Fang Che recalled that during his previous conversation with Dongfang Sansan, the latter had told him the sa thing, that the Guardians were fighting against a god.
Ironically, it seed that both sides were of the opinion that they were contending against a god.
At the sa ti, an overwhelming sense of pride and admiration welled up in his heart.
The enemy may have had a true god on their side, but the Guardians had soone no less mighty!
The Church of the Self-Righteous didn't even know where their god was, whereas the god of the Guardians was right here on this continent!
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