章 345: Primordial Betrayal
The Spirit Plane Lord had been feeling uneasy, ever since Yaan lay down his first formation. She could feel the disturbance to the 6th Layer of Heaven when he created this formation, and with each formation he made after that. After he finished building all 3,000 of the formations on this layer, her unease grew many times stronger.
However, she trusted her sister, the Primordial Sage. Based on her sister's words of warning to her, reminding her that she absolutely needed to leave Yaan alone so that he could seek dao without the interference of any other divinities, it seemed that she had some idea about what he was doing.
She had trusted her sister for three million years now. She didn't always understand her sister's plans, and on more than one occasion, the Sage had actually lied to her…but in the end, it was always for her benefit. The Sage always acted for the benefit of the Primordial Demons.
And so, despite the fact that she could clearly feel Yaan's interference with the 6th Layer of Heaven, the Spirit Plane Lord suppressed the temptation to examine exactly what it was that he had done. She also didn't watch him as he moved onto the next layer, and repeated his strange actions there.
With each layer that Yaan passed through, the feeling of unease in her heart grew stronger. Even though she didn't actively seek to examine Yaan's formations, she was connected by dao to the Spirit Plane, so she could sense that the very fabric of certain layers had been interfered with. The temptation to take a closer look at this grew stronger and stronger, but for the sake of her brother and his pursuit of dao, she resisted.
If it was for her brother, she could even allow half of the Spirit Plane to be torn apart and remodelled. If that was what he needed to do in order to return to his former self…then so be it. It pained her to think about, but she was willing to make such a sacrifice for the sake of her brother.
She had her doubts, but the hope and desire that she felt towards her brother's recovery overpowered these uncertainties.
That is, until Yaan completed the 3,000th formation on the 6th Layer of Abyss.
When Yaan completed this formation, he accidentally caused Devil's lingering karma to resurface. This was the event that resulted in the Primordial Devil crossing over to the Qi Plane earlier than expected…and it was also the beginning of the Spirit Plane Lord's search for the truth.
She didn't mean to see it, really, but she simply couldn't help it. She had been making an active effort to avoid looking into Yaan's actions, but in the end, she was the spirit of the Spirit Plane, she was too heavily intertwined with the 19 layers. When Yaan's karmic formation collided against Devil's lingering karma, the various karmic chains suddenly manifested within the world to such an extreme extent, that the Spirit Plane Lord accidentally saw everything.
She saw the brief but intense battle between the two karmas. She saw those karmic links manifesting as visible karmic chains, connecting Yaan to the Dao Clones and to the Primordial Devil…
Most importantly, she saw the karmic chain which connected him to the Primordial Devil, and she sensed her brother's presence within that chain. She sensed her brother's overwhelmingly proud nature, the nature that she had believed he had lost…and it came from the other end of the karmic link, not from Yaan himself.
The Spirit Plane Lord was shocked and confused, but she didn't jump to any conclusions. She wasn't entirely sure what it was that she had just witnessed, though she could certainly think of several potential possibilities. Regardless, she was a wise old monster with three million years of life experience, so she was able to calm herself and think things through logically.
She was suspicious of Yaan.
She was suspicious…but she was not certain of anything right now. The last thing she wanted to do was to act on her vague concerns and end up causing her brother troubles, so she needed to be very careful with how she went about this. Not only that, but if she was wrong about this, if she really had just misunderstood due to the bizarre nature of her brother's reincarnation, then she definitely didn't want either her brother or sister to find out that she had doubted him.
To begin with, the Spirit Plane Lord had several hundred of her 10,000 bodies enter seclusion to meditate on this matter. She always had many bodies to spare - 10,000 bodies was simply far too many, she didn't need nearly this many to manage the Spirit Plane. At any one time, around two thirds of her bodies were in some kind of secluded cultivation anyway, many of them simply maintaining the stability of the Spirit Plane.
Most of her bodies were 'weak', only measuring up to Immortal Step cultivators. Since she was taking this issue very seriously, she also had one of her strongest bodies with the strength of a Divine Step being meditate on this matter.
She ended up spending three years in meditation before she had determined a foolproof plan. Whilst investigating Yaan would be all too easy for her, coming up with a means of investigating him that she could execute without disturbing him, or alerting anyone else to her actions, was far more difficult.
The Spirit Plane Lord once again lamented the fact that none of the people she sent out to the Qi Plane had returned over the past 2,000 years. Ever since the Primordial Devil and Primordial Asura vanished from the world, she had put in the utmost effort to investigating, but for some reason, none of the people she sent out had managed to return…
Now that the cycle of rebirth was destroyed, she didn't even have the ability to send others to the Qi Plane, and it would be even more difficult for her subordinates to return to the Spirit Plane, so she could only rely on herself now.
After leaving seclusion, the first thing she did was have three of her most powerful bodies work together in order to investigate the changes on the 6th Layer of Heaven. This was the first layer that Yaan had journeyed across, and it was also very far away from his current position. It had been many years since Yaan had been there, so she believed that probing this layer would have the lowest chance of being discovered.
Even so, she remained cautious, remembering her sister's warning. The Primordial Sage had claimed that any investigation into his actions could potentially interfere with his path, and despite her doubts and suspicions, her main concern was still her brother.
And so, by combining the power of three of her strongest bodies, she stared into the 6th Layer of Heaven. She didn't even look at the 3,000 formations that Yaan had placed down, but directed her investigation towards the fabric of the 6th Layer of Heaven itself.
Immediately, she was able to confirm her long-held suspicion - the very fabric of the 6th Layer of Heaven had been tampered with, and this was clearly a result of those 3,000 formations. She already knew that Yaan had placed another 3,000 formations down on the Layers of Heaven that he had journeyed across so far, so she could guess that the situation on those layers would be the same.
Just this alone didn't prove anything, however. She already knew that Yaan was tampering with the layers across the Spirit Plane, she just didn't know exactly what it was that he was doing, only that it related to karma. Her concern wasn't really this interference itself, though…
Her concern, was that 'Yaan'…was not actually her brother.
She didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to believe that her sister would deceive her to this extent. She didn't want to believe…that she had been assisting some unknown entity, related to her brother, but not her brother, for all these years…
And she was terrified regarding what this would imply, if her suspicions turned out to be true.
Even so, she didn't panic, she remained calm and approached the situation carefully and methodically. Gradually, she deepened her investigation into the fabric of the 6th Layer of Heaven, whilst avoiding alerting anyone to her actions by not directly investigation those 3,000 formations themselves.
Due to being forced to act so carefully, her progress was excruciatingly slow. And as her investigation went on, Yaan continued to progress up the Layers of Abyss, approaching the Central Layer. As this happened, her feeling of unease and foreboding grew increasingly powerful…
Very, very slowly, the Spirit Plane Lord used her powerful bodies to investigate deeper into the changes on the 6th Layer of Heaven. She avoided not only the 3,000 sub-formations placed down by Yaan, but she even avoided looking into any of the paths that he and the mad elephant had taken along their journey.
This was why her investigation was taking so long. She was concerned that if she directly analysed Yaan's path of formations, then it might interfere with his path…or he might notice that she had grown suspicious. For now, she absolutely didn't want either of these things to happen.
By taking the utmost care to not interfere with his pathway directly, she avoided disturbing him, and even the Primordial Sage was unable to see through her probing. The Primordial Sage was impressive, but the Spirit Plane Lord was nigh omnipotent on the Spirit Plane; in this world, nobody could measure up to her.
Of course, it was no trouble at all for the Primordial Sage to hide all traces of her actions from the Spirit Plane Lord. She really hadn't done much, other than helping Yaan cross over the World Layers, but the Spirit Plane Lord was already aware that she was doing this much, since the Sage had told her this herself.
Eventually, the Spirit Plane Lord became certain now - the formation across the 6th Layer of Heaven was directly interfering with the world's karma! And for some reason…she felt that the dao of destruction had become intertwined with this karma…
Eventually, she had no choice but to move on to the 5th Layer of Heaven, where she repeated her same actions once again.
Then, the 4th Layer…
The 3rd Layer…
The 2nd Layer…
The 1st Layer…
Abyss.
She followed after Yaan, investigating every part of the World Layers aside from the portions that he had interacted with. It would be hundreds of times easier just to directly examine his formations, but she felt that if she did this, Yaan might somehow notice.
The more she investigated, the more solemn she felt.
Each layer formation, made up from 3,000 sub-formations across each layer, was a massive layer spanning across each of the core layers of the Spirit Plane. By the time Yaan reached the Central Layer, she wasn't just feeling uneasy - a sense of fear and foreboding had encompassed her heart.
However, she still didn't quite understand…
She could feel that each of the sub-formations made up a larger formation layer, across each layer of the Spirit Plane. By now, she had also realised that Yaan almost certainly planned to link each of these layers of formations together…and her instincts were screaming at her that this would reach its finale after he placed down the final formation on the Central Layer.
By now, she was actually feeling a powerful sense of danger. As Yaan approached the Central Hall of Rebirth, she was debating whether or not to throw caution to the wind, and to just investigate this formation properly…
But then, something changed.
When Devil died, those karmic chains appeared once again. This time, she was prepared…this time, due to her growing fear, she couldn't help but stare into these karmic links, analysing them properly.
She immediately realised now that all three of Yaan's Dao Clones had died…and yet, there was an even stronger karmic link remaining, connecting Yaan to someone else, someone far away…
To her brother.
She could no longer delude herself, the truth was now far too obvious. This reality which she had prayed not to be true…was without a doubt, true.
Her brother was alive and well…
But Yaan was not her brother.
As countless emotions, from shock, confusion, anger, hatred and betrayal, flooded her heart, the Spirit Plane Lord immediately rushed into the Central Hall of Rebirth, where she was met with four other divinities, including the Primordial Sage.
Seeing the Sage in this place, her final, worst concerns, were confirmed.
"Sister…all this time, you were lying to me…" The Spirit Plane Lord completely ignored the Divine Court members, staring at her sister with a confused, pained gaze.
"Yes, sister, you are correct." The Primordial Sage replied without a trace of emotion.
The Spirit Plane Lord felt her heart sink.
Even now, in this situation, her sister showed not a trace of emotion.
"Sister…why? Why did you lie to me? Why did you tell me that…he…is brother? Why did you tell me that I must not interfere with his path? Why…are you helping him?!"
She paused, then as she clenched her fists so tightly that explosions of black and gold lightning erupted in every direction, throwing two of the three Divine Court divinities back by hundreds of miles, she stared into her sister's eyes, and asked:
"Sister Sage…what happened to brother, and just who…or what…is Yaan?"
The Primordial Sage fell silent for a while. She remained silent, until she saw the growing rage in her sister's eyes. At this point, she knew that she no longer had the ability to stall for time. If she continued to lie, or if she remained silent, then the Primordial Spirit would immediately rush towards Yaan and capture him.
In fact, it was inevitable that she would do this regardless, and on the Spirit Plane, the Primordial Sage knew that she could not stop her. However…
If she directly revealed the truth, the shock of this revelation might buy Yaan another couple of seconds.
"It is as you have suspected, sister. I have been deceiving you ever since I returned. Yaan is not our brother…our brother is currently on the Qi Plane, waiting for Yaan's arrival."
"Waiting? Why…why is he waiting…?" The Spirit Plane Lord asked as her eyes filled with tears. Her heart felt like it was being torn apart due to pain…
Her sister had lied to her before, but this? This…was too far.
This was a betrayal. Even she could see this now.
After three million years of kinship…she had been betrayed. Truly, betrayed…
"Brother is waiting for Yaan's arrival, because those two are fated to battle to the death. They will fight for the sake of their own continued existence, until one is destroyed, and the other emerges victorious. This battle is fated to be, sister. After all…Yaan is the physical incarnation of brother's heart demon. He is the greatest enemy of the Primordial Demons, and all this time, I have been helping him."
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