Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 741 - 740 - Divine Lies

Lind returned to the clearing at the heart of the village.  None of them came near him save the very young.  He was gentle and careful with them.  The innocent had nothing to fear from him.

The death of Melar weighed on him, but he had one last pressing concern before leaving.

Once at the clearing he went to the very center.  The mark from the Law Array lightning was still there.  He then spread out his senses and felt everything yet aside from the strange feeling of things not quite being in phase, nothing stood out.

"Senior, I heard your voice.  I may be slow on many things regarding cultivation but I am not an idiot."  He spoke aloud but his voice did not carry.  It was a simple trick of air Qi Shoti had shown him.

It simply made it so voices could not travel like they should.  Most Heaven and Immortal Realms seemed to rely on their superior abilities too much to think a simple trick of wind could hide from them.

"I have come across remarkable things in my journey but in both my lives I know coincidence only has so much rope before even the dullest of people know manipulation is afoot."  No answer came so he began to speak all he had considered after studying the Elementals and all Balgorn told him.

"Karma exists.  I have seen it in both forms on many people but there is a difference between me and others.  More specifically, there is a difference between those like me and the rest of the world."  He had seen vile, unforgivable actions hardly incur karmic wrath until a tribulation.  Even then, they could overcome it with just a few pills or now elixirs.

Yet, more than once, he had some how accrued massive amounts of karmic restitution more than once.  True, he had survived horrific violations of Heaven and Earth but there was a limit to credible results in his mind.

His taking on the karmic retribution in the Law Binding alone was nearly impossible to believe but as a single event it could be something to comment on as a one off event.  Yet, he had been through at least 4 or 5 of them.

It took him a while to see a pattern.  It was either Fiends or reborn individuals that allowed him to accrue a lot of luck and redemption but his rate of return was far above what others should have had as well.

He also seemed to possess a rather high number of encounters far beyond his realm.  The last was the way too many time he had touched his possible future.  So why?  Why when he was facing a rather mundane threat a 'Divine Karma' suddenly struck out to save him.

Balgorn knew about it but he only spoke of legends yet they all had something in common that only he recognized.  Each instance of Divine Karma was tied to a rather remarkable cultivator that had strange yet revolutionary ideas.

He also noted it was after several encounters many would call a 'Divine' incursion led Lind to thinking about the rules.

Each realm from mortal to Heaven had limits but the level of each realm was not static.  Some mortal realms could withstand even Sun Tiers but advancing in the Heaven Realm was very difficult inside mortal worlds.

Immortals suffered the same problem in the present.  They could advance but it was a snail's pace compared to Heaven Realms.

It was not unusual for a cultivator with decent resources and average ability to reach the Sun Tier in less than 2000 years.  It was that next step that was extremely difficult to overcome for each one until Lind came back with his new studies.

Even with all that, the next wave of Immortals would be the real test.  The Law Binding wave was the result of inability to advance so they did not rush their cultivation as there was no point.

Sun Tier was the peak inside yet even there, Lind had reached strength far above what he should.  He was not conceited enough to think so many 'coincidences' could be possible for a single person.

"I watched someone I love die with no way to stop it.  A creature called the Great One by the Fiends.  I want to know if I am just one more pawn in the war against it or what?  I think you are using us and wrecking lives and I am done being used."  Lind did not have the whole picture but after living as long as he had, he had a few conclusions.

Even the most benevolent cultivator did not move for purely selfless reasons.  Protecting someone in the heat of the moment spoke of good character but even he was guilty of simply seeing the potential in all to spite those that told him he had no future so long ago.

It did not make him a saint, but he had begun to see people to raise up for the future of his Empire and his children to keep them safe.  He planned to move on so he could not leave it all to chance.

Expanding on that thought, he came to a conclusion that made him angry.

"I hate that thing to my core, but I will not dance to another's tune.  I will stop it my way.  If you want to work with me, fine but I want whatever is on me to be removed.  I will do it of my own will, not yours."  Divine Karma was likely some kind of protection put on him and the other reborn.

Why else stop souls from advancing without a meeting?  Why else had he sometimes been saved or seen Divine beings get involved in his life like that?  Also, why wasn't one of the women he had met the voice at that moment of silver lightning?

[You were wise to come back here, little junior.  You're not entirely wrong, but not entirely right.]  The deep voice came back but it was weak.  [Time is not my friend, yet you really have earned the right of protection after facing the enemy of us all.  The Great One as we all know him is a terrifying enemy at our level.]

He felt no shock at all but the next words made him stumble.

[As to being free, you already are.  Your handlers have been punished for saving your life when they should have let you die.  It was not an accident you survived that karmic retribution storm.  They saved you.]  Lind closed his eyes.  Why?  Why did they save him?

"Are they alive?"  He recalled their smiles when he wished to meet them again.  He would like to believe those smiles were real.

[They are.  We are not so easy to kill but also, we need every able bodied Divine Realm cultivator to fight.  Your war is but a simple play compared to our issues.  I have been put in charge of you due to our history.]  Lind felt like his voice had gotten weaker.

If he had not been actively looking, he would have missed it.  The area far above was slightly distorted and shrinking.

"Why did you not save Lanbao?"  The question had to be asked and the silence made him angry.  He expected a lot of answers but the next words shook him.

[The Great One is stronger than us.  We could not stop him.  She saved you and we honored that by increasing the karmic tie to us on you.  If we sever it, you will be alone.  You have no idea what awaits you in the Celestial Fields.]  Lind scoffed but then had one last question occur to him.

"Why Earth?  Why have I come across so many people from Earth being reborn and not other worlds or even this one?"  The legends of rebirth were littered in the histories he had studied.

It was clear that rebirth was a known phenomenon to the point it was considered a Talent.  Some Immortals supposedly even plan it when they realize they can no longer advance.

Yet, in the over 2000 years he had been alive, he had encountered signs of clear trails left by modern Earth people.  Why?

A laugh filled his head finally and then a very weak voice came back to him.

[Your world brought it on yourselves.  A soul reborn is not the gift you think.  It risks your sanity among other issues as you have seen but if there is a Divine Karma, your planet currently suffers from it.  We do not know much about the Great One but we do know one thing for a fact.]  The voice paused as the connection nearly broke but it came back for a moment.

[He is from your planet.  He was a naturally reborn man as a Celestial.]

The connection was cut but Lind also felt something leave his body.  His once raging sun seemed to calm down.

He was on his own, or at least allowed to think so.  Still, he stood in shock at the center of the clearing looking up at the blue sky.  Birds chirped and wind moved across the leaves of the trees but he felt cold.

How many?  How many people had died and been consumed by Fiends?  How long had the war raged and for how long on how many fronts he knew nothing about?

Was it true?  Could it be another lie?  Lind wanted to deny it but the most cruel beings in existence were humans.  He knew that as much as anyone and it was true in the cultivation world as well.

Lind did not know the full truth but it did not matter.

"I will kill him.  No matter where he comes from, he will pay."  Lind left the clearing and began to plan his trip home.  He had a lot to do and it felt like time was no longer on his side.

He had pierced the secrets of a lot of things on this trip but now it was time to prepare.  He would become an Immortal Realm 6 elemental.