Am I the only one who didn't ascend?

Chapter 562 Doomsday
The great waves of the times often begin with a breeze or a ripple.

The first abnormality to occur was in a remote mountain village in Mingtai County, west of Xinheng.

An old man with a haggard face climbed over mountains and crossed rivers all night, almost barefoot, to the nearby county town. He did not even have time to drink a sip of water, and he pulled passers-by along the way, speaking in an almost unrecognizable accent, asking about the whereabouts of a magnificent building, and then crawled to the bottom of the building.

The two maids who were in charge of welcoming guests at the door became alert subconsciously when they saw the old man. One of them even called for support from the rear without saying a word, and soon a strong man from a local gang came out with his pubic hair exposed.

But the withered old man seemed not to notice the strong man in front of him who looked like a brown bear in the forest. He just stared at the beautifully dressed girl in front of the building and asked hoarsely, "Zhou, Zhou Guo Taixu Tower, that's yours, right?"

The young girl was stunned for a moment, then nodded and smiled - this was the strict rule that the instructor who trained them had repeatedly emphasized. When doing business in Mingtai County, they must have a full sense of service and serve the locals more respectfully than they did the natives of the Immortal Alliance. Only in this way can they promote the crystallization of civilization from the Immortal Alliance - the Illusionary Land - in a land with ignorant folk customs.

And it is indeed thanks to such a respectful and even humble service attitude that the [Mihuan Tower] from Zhouguo Taixu Division has firmly laid a foundation in Mingtai County. Not only has it built hundreds of Ten Directions Mirrors, it has also successfully put the first batch of Lishen Powder for the Xinheng people into use, and introduced nearly one million local residents who were once hostile to the Immortal Alliance into the magnificent world of Taixu Illusion.

Therefore, even when facing a poor village man who looked like he had no money and was full of troubles, the woman in front of Taixu Tower still maintained a good smile. She looked back and signaled the strong man who was guarding the courtyard to retreat for the time being, and asked with a smile: "Excuse me, sir, what do you need?"

The withered man coughed a few times and said, "The mirror in our village is broken, and we can't see the painting!"

The woman was stunned for a moment: "You mean the Ten Directions Mirror? Which village are you from? When was the mirror damaged? What are the specific symptoms?"

But the withered man was impatient: "You sent people to occupy the village land. When you were repairing the mirror, you clearly said that the mirror was durable and it would not matter if it was not maintained for ten years. But last night, when the competition was crucial, the mirror was out of light. The money we spent was in vain. We can't even place a bet if we want to!"

The welcoming lady was even more surprised: "Li Shen San also... Wait a moment, I will find someone to contact you and will definitely troubleshoot the problem for you as soon as possible!"

Although in principle, mirror failures should be extremely rare, but in the past few months of Xinheng's promotion and popularization, it has become commonplace for any Taixulou. Those mountain people in remote areas can always find ten thousand reasons to regard the bright mirror as an evil thing, and then try their best to damage it... Although the durability of the mirror was fully considered when it was designed, how can it compete with these deliberate and unruly people? Therefore, the damage rate of the mirror has remained high in the early stage of promotion.

The response plan of the major trading companies in the Immortal Alliance is also very simple: repair as much as is damaged, and never give in when it comes to promoting the Taixu Illusion Realm!

Soon, a young man with a simple face came out from Taixu Tower, carrying a wooden box. When he saw the ragged man, he didn't think much of him. Instead, he shook hands with him enthusiastically.

"Hello, I'm Li Qiu, the local Taixu Tower's expert on divination. You can just call me Xiao Li. After this, do you want to take a break, or..."

The withered man quickly pulled Li Qiu's arm and said, "If you don't rest, go back now!"

Li Qiu sighed in his heart, looked back at the welcoming girl, blinked, and signaled not to forget to record the overtime work on the business trip. Then he spread out the wooden box and made it float in the air, then pulled the withered man over to sit on the box and slowly flew away.

-

About two days later, Li Qiu, with a pale face, sat in a wooden box and landed on the roof of Taixu Building. He staggered as soon as he landed, and then simply rolled to the ground, sprawled out.

A fat colleague who happened to be having lunch on the rooftop saw this and couldn't help but be surprised: "Lao Li, what's wrong with you?"

Li Qiu said weakly, "I almost became a prisoner... It's really strange. I went to the Pianshui Village to check. The mirror, the Feng Shui formation, and the mother tree rain branch are all fine. Logically, I shouldn't be unable to enter Taixu, but when I got there, even I couldn't get out of my mind. I tried hundreds of methods in two days, and none of them worked. I have never seen such a situation before in the operation manual. The villagers have been gambling crazy for a long time. Relying on the gambling house's willingness to spend money in the early stage, they no longer farm the land or weave cloth. Men, women, young and old are all studying the odds of the Nine Zun Competition... If the Taixu Illusion is cut off, it will be fatal. If I can't repair the mirror, they wish they could tear me apart and sacrifice me on the spot!"

As he spoke, Li Qiu managed to stand up, glanced at the top floor, and asked curiously, "Where's Xiao Qian? Hasn't he been following you all the time?"

The fat man shook his head and said, "Just like you, I went on a business trip to a village in the south. The situation was similar. The mirror was dark and the Li Shen powder was ineffective. So, how did you solve it in the end?"

Li Qiu sighed and said, "How else can we solve it? According to the manual, we can just pass the buck! I told them that the mirror malfunctioned because someone in the village had a grudge against the Immortal Alliance and secretly ruined the mirror's spiritual path, and let them catch the traitor on their own..."

The fat man was so lost in thought that he didn't even bother to eat. He asked, "And then? Did you catch him?"

"They must have caught them, and there were more than one. Fortunately, before they could punish the traitors with their ancestors' methods, the mirror suddenly lit up."

"what?"

Li Qiu spread his hands and said, "Don't look at me. I don't know what happened. Anyway, I didn't do anything. Or rather, I worked hard for more than a day, but it was useless. The villagers spent a lot of time catching the traitor, and the mirror returned to normal. Even the Lishen Powder can be used normally."

"Fuck, there is such a thing!"

"This is a wild land, where everything is possible." Li Qiu sighed with emotion, "After staying here for three years, I have to go back no matter what. The job of promoting the Grand Illusionary Realm to the barbarians is really too hard..."

-

For the Taixu Tower in the western counties, this turmoil that broke out suddenly and ended just as suddenly was eventually forgotten over time. Even the people involved soon forgot their original intentions in the process of working overtime again and again, and gradually immersed themselves in the joy of work.

If the merchant groups operating Taixu Towers in various places had not still strictly abided by the regulations of the Taixu Mansion of the Immortal Alliance and kept detailed records of all kinds of events occurring in Xinheng, I am afraid that this little disturbance would have been completely buried in the dust of history.

Afterwards, the promotion of Taixu Illusion Realm in Xinheng was still in full swing, especially with the successful conclusion of the Nine Honors Competition. Zhu Wang lived up to everyone's expectations - especially those of the Xinheng people who had placed a heavy bet on Zhu Wang - and after winning the championship of the competition, the Xinheng people who used the Ten Directions Mirror to witness the whole process with their own eyes no longer had any aversion to this technology from the Immortal Alliance.

Perhaps on the surface they still have to maintain their hostility towards the Immortal Alliance and their belittlement and vigilance towards the Grand Illusionary Realm, but secretly, everyone has become inseparable from it.

By this point, the fantasy world of Taixu had taken root in Xinheng. A few months later, the first batch of Taixu scrolls from the Immortal Alliance officially landed in Xinheng, and the related Taixu Zhaotang and Taixu Qinglu also came into being. The Taixu Mansion of the Immortal Alliance even announced that it would cooperate with Xinheng to create exclusive Taixu content for Xinheng. With the tacit approval of the Xinheng court, this strategy comparable to Taixu colonization once again spread like wildfire and was unstoppable.

On this day, in a painting of Taixu.

Swords and sabers powerful enough to tear the sun and moon apart crossed each other in the dark haze, chopping a bloody golem that blocked out the sky into millions of broken threads. As the golem fell, the dark clouds gradually dissipated, the sun returned to the earth, and a burst of pleasant fairy music sounded.

On the land, more than twenty young men and women cheered and jumped for joy.

"First kill, first kill in the entire territory!"

“We did it, we finally did it!”

"Did you take any pictures of the process? Remember to post them to Taixu Zhaotang right away, don't walk around in the night in fancy clothes!"

While everyone was cheering, there was one person who was particularly out of place. He was wearing a jade-like fairy robe, with his feet on red clouds. He looked at the gradually dissipating remains of the golem and snorted coldly, "Boring."

Although the voice was not loud, it was not meant to be concealed, and was immediately heard by the people around him. Then, someone's smile froze and turned into an angry face.

"Boring, huh? You're bored, huh?! Playing with us makes you, the top genius in your grade, feel bored, right?!"

While scolding the strong man, he walked forward and grabbed the other person's collar.

"I have really put up with you for a long time! We invited you to join the team to explore the land because we are classmates, but you kept saying weird things along the way! Either you criticize the absurd design of the scroll, or you ridicule some operating model. If you don't cause trouble for others, don't you know how to talk!?"

A pretty young girl immediately came over to persuade him: "Alright, alright, stop talking. You know him. He's always been like that, and he's always harsh with his words. But if he hadn't helped us summarize the whole process, we wouldn't have gotten the first kill so quickly."

The girl spoke, and the sturdy man's anger subsided a little: "Just because you have made a contribution, you can talk nonsense!?"

"Oh, just pretend you didn't hear it. Why bother with him? Well, it's a rare first kill, why don't we go check out the spoils first?"

Seeing a fierce conflict about to be resolved by the team members who were good at dancing, the young man in the jade fairy clothes sneered at this time and said: "Ignorance is really hopeless at all times."

This sentence immediately caused the fire that had just been extinguished to explode. Not to mention the person who started the fight first, even the woman who spoke for him could not help herself.

"Student Yang Fu, are you done yet? We are all classmates, and you..."

The young man named Yang Fu said, "Since we are classmates, why can he grab my collar and accuse and slander me for no reason? And when you tried to stop the fight, you also had to put me in the position of the one who made the mistake and ask for tolerance? From beginning to end, did I do anything wrong? On the contrary, without my help, this team would have disbanded halfway. Why do you still look down on me and blame me?"

The woman said angrily: "No one is looking down on you and accusing you, but ask yourself, haven't you been sarcastic enough along the way?!"

Yang Fu asked, "I do have a lot of sarcasm, but I never target anyone in the team. No matter how low-level the loss of any of you is, I never blame you. I only target Zhu Wangren's Taixu Painting Scroll. I say it has low aesthetics and mediocre design, and it relies entirely on marketing to occupy the Xinheng market. Is there anything wrong with that? We just happened to become the practitioners of the painting scroll, not the hired workers of the workshop, so why can't we listen to criticism? Moreover, although I disdain its design ability, I have also praised its profound foundation of immortal magic, which is still beyond Xinheng's reach. Why are you selectively deaf again?"

The series of questions indeed left the others speechless, but being speechless does not mean being convinced. Instead, it makes people even more angry.

After a while, someone said, "I don't know what you mean by low aesthetics and mediocre design, but at least for those of us who are new to the Grand Illusionary Realm, this volume of "The Legend of Demon Slayer" is already exciting enough. We all travel together because we really like it. You can't expect us to be good-tempered when you criticize something we really like as worthless!"

However, Yang Fu said, "Since you also know that you are just getting started with the Taixu Painting Scroll, you should understand that the so-called exciting enough is just because you have never seen the mountains and the seas! This so-called flesh and blood golem is said to be the master of the three realms in the story setting, dominating the catastrophe of ten thousand years, but what is its actual performance? It's just a taller monster. What is the essential difference between it and the giant bear monster outside the novice village a month ago? Look at the skills, move and dodge, and then use the magic weapon in your hand to output with all your strength... When we were just starting out, we played the role of newcomers to draw in qi. Now we are at the peak of Mahayana, taking advantage of the time and place, and the ancient magic weapons to kill gods. But in essence, isn't it just using a wooden stick with a new skin and light effects to beat a giant bear monster with a new skin and light effects? How can you think this is exciting enough?!"

Although these words were not unreasonable, they were also very annoying because they were reasonable. However, before the teammates could organize their words to refute or clench their fists to refute violently...suddenly, someone pointed in the direction where the flesh golem fell dead and said in surprise.

"Hey, why does the sky over there look so strange?"

People turned their heads to look at the same time, only to see that the sky, which had just been bright due to the fall of the Demon Lord, was now showing signs of collapse... It was as if the dome was shattered, and all the clouds, light, and spirits were shattered, and then fell into the abyss above as if stretched.

The collapse of the sky was still far away at first, but in the blink of an eye, people were surprised to find that it had spread to the top of their heads and enveloped where they were! Then everyone felt their bodies go cold, followed by an indescribable chill.

As if they were in an incredible prison of ice, the magic weapons and protective treasures they had collected with great effort lost their effectiveness at this moment, and the "flesh and blood" in the scroll also melted rapidly under the severe cold. The value bar symbolizing vitality was at the bottom in the blink of an eye, and then even the "life bar" rooted in the basic framework of the scroll itself was shattered!

The whole process was accompanied by astonishing pain... The Taixu Painting Scroll had strict protection for the user, and any pain would not be completely transmitted to the soul. However, at this moment, everyone in the sky collapse clearly felt that they were being crushed into powder.

And when everything was shattered to pieces, a name clearly emerged in everyone's mind, the name of a person whose mere existence would cause everything around him to be distorted and shattered.

A name that perfectly fits the setting of the Demon Lord of the Three Realms.

Taichu Tianzun.

(End of this chapter)