Poison God's Heritage

Chapter 918: Yin Stage Cultivators

Honestly speaking, I was still very confused on how any of this happened.

The realization of my own state refused to settle cleanly in my mind.

I could feel it, undeniably so, coursing through my meridians with a smoothness I had never experienced before, yet understanding lagged far behind sensation.

I stood there, breathing steadily, trying to reconcile memory with reality. Just before losing consciousness, I had been barely holding myself together, burning through soul energy recklessly just to survive long enough to finish what I started.

There had been no breakthrough, no moment of clarity, no structured ascension. Just desperation, poison, and collapse. And yet here I was, standing upright, aware, and something far beyond what I had been before.

I mean, how did I get to be a Heaven Stage cultivator? The question wasn’t rhetorical. It sat there, heavy and unresolved, demanding logic that simply wasn’t present. I was not that high up on the Origin stage either.

I had made progress, yes, but nothing even remotely close to justifying a leap of this magnitude. The difference between stages wasn’t a step; it was a chasm.

A climb that required preparation, refinement, and more often than not, suffering through tribulation.

But to reach the Heaven Stage? And from the looks of it, I’m almost halfway through the stage itself.

That part bothered me the most. This wasn’t just a breakthrough. It was a jump forward inside the stage itself, as if time had been compressed and forcefully applied to my cultivation.

I couldn’t fully understand at first, but then again, I remembered something important. The memory surfaced slowly, like something dragged up from deep water.

The chamber. The enforcer. That conversation that felt half real and half beyond comprehension. It hadn’t been a dream. Not entirely. It carried too much coherence, too much weight.

The Enforcer himself had mentioned that I’ll need to come sees him whenever I’ll be facing a tribulation, basically he’ll be the tribulation instead of the thunder clouds.

That part came back with unsettling clarity. If that was true, then something had happened while I was unconscious. Something I didn’t consciously experience, or perhaps something I wasn’t meant to remember.

But, we didn’t fight.

That was the contradiction. There was no battle, no clash of power, no resistance. No trial in the way cultivators understood it.

’Still, I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, I’ll take what I can get." The thought came with a trace of dry practicality.

Confusion or not, power was power. And in a world where survival depended on being stronger than the next threat, questioning a gain too deeply sometimes bordered on stupidity.

"Lord, you seem confused."

The Automaton’s voice pulled me back outward. He stood where he had been, composed as ever, observing without intrusion but missing nothing.

"Oh, don’t worry just things I’m thinking about, speaking of my wives, I mean, Liang Yu and Yuyu, where did they go?" I asked. My tone shifted naturally, concern threading through it now that the immediate confusion had somewhere to anchor.

"Yes, Master Don Ma has taken them to his planet to cultivate."

My brows twitched immediately at that. The phrasing alone carried implications I didn’t particularly enjoy.

"He said that one of your wives have a bracelet you can use to contact him."

"You bet your ass I’m contacting him," I said, already reaching into my storage without hesitation. My fingers closed around one of the communication devices, and I activated it with a sharp flick of intent.

A small hologram of Liang Yu showed up in front of me. The projection flickered into clarity, hovering at chest level, detailed enough to catch every expression.

She was sweating and red faced. Something cultivators should be suffering. That alone told me enough about the environment she was in. Cultivators didn’t show signs like that unless pushed, or unless the environment itself demanded it.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"That’s the first thing you say after a month of being unconscious."

Her response came immediately, laced with just enough irritation to be familiar. Even through the projection, I could see the slight narrowing of her eyes.

"What else do you want me to ask then, the two of you just disappeared." I replied. There was no point dressing it up. A month gone and they vanished to another planet. Anyone would ask that first.

"We’re cultivating," Yuyu’s voice sounded from not so far away.

At my prompting, the perspective shifted, the projection widening slightly to reveal more of their surroundings.

I saw Yuyu seated on a black slab that radiated cold so intense it distorted the air around it. Frost had accumulated in layers, creeping outward like slow-growing crystal. Liang Yu, on the other hand, was positioned atop something resembling a tortoise shell, its surface etched with natural patterns that pulsed faintly with heat. Vines curled around it, not inert but alive, twisting in subtle motion, distorting space itself with the temperature they carried.

"Cultivating your elements?" I asked, taking in the details.

"Yes, master Don Ma gifted us this cave, where we can rapidly increase our cultivation along with a great deal of Origin Crystals."

"I see... he’s being very... generous." The pause was intentional. Generosity on that level always came with a question mark attached.

"Is that jealousy I hear?" Liang Yu teased.

"You don’t want to see me jealous," I replied, the words coming easily even as my mind noted the irony. "I’ll head over to the Dusking Sun, seems like he’ll need me for something. You got your escape talismans?" I asked. The shift back to practical concerns came naturally. Cultivation caves and gifts were one thing. Safety was another.

Liang Yu frowned, "Would that serve much if something happens?"

I frowned back instinctively. She had a point. Don Ma was fast. Too fast. If he intended harm, talismans might not matter. Still, nothing so far suggested ill intent. That didn’t mean blind trust was wise either.

"Fine, fine, I’ll come see you once I’m done with my business. Also, you know where Zhang Tian or Meng Hao are?" I asked, shifting topics before the conversation circled into unnecessary tension.

"No clue, last I saw they were with The Lord of Lords and the Wisest Sun." Liang Yu shrugged her shoulders at my words.

"Good then." I nodded slightly, committing that to memory.

Suddenly the rumbling seemed to stop outside, and the clouds around the planet of Solarous began dispersing. The violent churn that had wrapped the globe started to thin, red layers breaking apart as if some immense pressure had finally been released. The shift was gradual but unmistakable.

A powerful and clean energy emanated from inside Solarous. It spread outward in waves, no longer violent like the tribulation but stable, refined, controlled. Even from this distance, I could feel the difference. It was the kind of energy that came after surviving something immense.

Just as I was peering, a blue figure suddenly showed up in front of the Lord of Lords pagoda. She appeared without fanfare, stepping into view as if space had simply made room for her presence.

"Ho... you grew strong," I muttered, watching her with narrowed eyes. The difference in her aura was immediate. Denser. Cleaner. Controlled in a way it hadn’t been before. "Let her in, automaton."

A portal opened next to her and she walked in, "What do you think?" she smiled making a simple spin around herself. The motion was light, almost playful, but the energy around her remained steady, contained with deliberate ease.

I clapped, letting the gesture carry just enough acknowledgment without overdoing it. "A powerful figure had joined the confederation."

"No, I’m not planning on joining them," she shook her head.

I raised a brow at that. "I thought you’ll find it good to be here, among peers. And powerful cultivators." It was the logical path. Advancement, alliances, protection.

"No, I’ll be working with Tao Yang on this planet. We’ll rehabilitate it, and revive the lost fauna and flora."

"A grand task, a thankless one." I said, meaning every word. Restoring a world was never as celebrated as saving it.

"Worlds are easy to break, but are much harder to repair. Not to mention, this planet is very special," she said.

That caught my attention more sharply. "How so?"

"It seems that it has strands and slivers of an energy unlike what we know of. Something purer than Saint Qi, and Origin Qi."

"How? Is that even possible?" I asked. That kind of statement wasn’t something thrown around lightly.

"That’s the reason I believe the cultivators of Solarous were able to progress so fast. Something of that caliber can easily elevate a person’s cultivation, I don’t have proof of it, but I feel it. and now, more than ever."

I nodded slowly. It lined up with what I had seen. Rapid growth. Unusual breakthroughs. Solarous had always been different. Perhaps this was why.

"I’ll have to meet up with the Dusking Sun for something, got any idea where he could be?" I asked.

"I think he’s at the confederation with the Darkest Sun."

"Darkest? When did he get here?" I asked, genuinely surprised.

"Same time as everyone else, only he remained away, he had a hunch that there were more Rakshasas outside of Solarous..."

"Most of them were here though, we could have used his help..." I frowned. The Darkest Sun wasn’t someone I trusted easily, but he wasn’t a coward either. Avoiding the battlefield entirely didn’t fit.

"That’s what I also thought, until he brought the corpse of a First Born."

"What?" I asked, my voice rising without control. That wasn’t a small detail to drop casually.

"Yes, one of the First Borns, a younger one apparently was adaptable to space. And camouflaged itself with the darkness of space. If we had finished the killing of the Rakshasa and the Darkest Sun never made it here, we would never know that one of them still lived. It could have been more than capable of recreating this exact nightmare."

The implication settled heavily. A hidden survivor. A reset button for the entire disaster.

"How did he even kill it?" I asked.

"It was still stuck within the range of the broken Dao, so although he fought it to a standstill, once the Dao was corrected, the First Born lost its immunity to Qi. So, you still did the majority of the effort."

"Ah I see, I thought he was holding on us some vital information. Alright, I’ll head to the confederation then, you can stay here if you like." I said, letting the earlier irritation settle into something more neutral.

"I’ll need to stabilize my cultivation for a bit of time, see you soon Shen Bao."