Volume One: The Devil's Nature Never Changes
Arc: The Great Guerrilla War
Scarlet King stared at the flute for several long moments before picking it up and examining it.
His thoughts churned.
(Legend says the Immortal Shrine will not open until all eleven musical instruments are played. Every instrument has been found except the flute. And when the shrine opens, there will be trials. The victor will become the Immortal's inheritor and obtain all of his treasures… That would bring enormous gains. But the Immortal Melody Ceremony will take place in a few months… no, wait. It is actually one year from now. So there is no point in playing it yet.)
The Immortal Shrine was the resting place of someone from the Eternal Dimensions who had decided to pass his inheritance on to someone from the Mortal Dimensions.
He had scattered eleven musical instruments throughout the Mortal Dimensions alone, not the Eternal Dimensions.
That meant the treasures would only fall to people from the Mortal Dimensions.
After the expert died, the shrine moved and came to exist within the Primordial Chaos.
Because the Primordial Chaos was extraordinarily dangerous, no one from the Mortal Dimensions could travel directly to it.
The shrine also possessed powerful defenses, and its location deep within the Primordial Chaos made reaching it even more dangerous.
That was why the musical instruments were necessary to open a gateway.
Anyone who possessed one of the instruments could travel with a very small group to the shrine and compete for victory.
But in the end, there were only two possible outcomes—
death or survival.
And when had all of this happened?
More than six hundred and sixty-six thousand years ago.
There were unknown trials that those who played the instruments would have to overcome before reaching the end and obtaining the legendary inheritance of the Immortal—
someone from the Eternal Dimensions.
But because the flute had disappeared and no one had ever found it, no one had ever entered the Immortal Shrine.
That meant no one knew what lay inside.
However, this was extremely dangerous for Scarlet King.
If anyone discovered that he possessed the flute, it could trigger a pursuit he had absolutely no need for.
So he decided to conceal it even from his closest allies.
He would tell no one until the time of the Immortal Melody Ceremony, because simply knowing about it would place them at risk.
Scarlet King was a devil who did not even trust himself.
And someone expected him to trust a few allies?
Still, this made Scarlet King think:
(Why would something that has been missing for 666,000 years suddenly appear directly beneath my feet, exactly one year before the worldwide performance meant to test whether the shrine can be opened?)
(And the fact that I keep finding extremely powerful treasures that no one else discovers is suspicious as well.)
(It cannot simply be the arrangement of Heaven's Will or one of the Great Concepts. I am their first, strongest, and most dangerous enemy. Helping me would be like handing even more power to someone who is already powerful so he can wreak even greater havoc.)
(Still, I cannot say it is impossible for Heaven's Will to do something like this. Heaven is overwhelmingly intelligent. It is the smartest among all the Great Concepts and one of the only entities, alongside a few individuals, capable of seriously and genuinely competing with me in intelligence.)
(Perhaps it is planning something I do not know about.)
(It is nearly omniscient. The only reason it is not truly omniscient is because of me and the Sea of Memories I possess. That place is so chaotic that knowing anything within it is impossible, which is why Heaven was never recognized as truly omniscient.)
(But perhaps it was the Concept of Luck? The Rebirth Wheel? Heaven's Will? Or something else?)
(No one knows except whatever caused this and the Existential Emperor. Those two are the only ones who know.)
Scarlet King looked at the flute and began inspecting it.
(The resources used to create this flute are worth as much as the combined wealth of every inhabitant across all the Mortal Dimensions.)
(But when I use it, I will need to wear earplugs. I am extremely weak against music, and powerful music can make me fall asleep.)
(I could dismantle the flute and sell it, but that would be absolute stupidity. A single treasure among the dozens that may exist inside the shrine could be worth more than all eleven instruments combined.)
(What kind of idiot would do that?)
(Maybe Lin Yuan.)
(More importantly, every instrument is currently owned by someone from the Mortal Dimensions, but they are located in dimensions higher than the First Dimension.)
(Most likely, their owners belong to major powers within those dimensions and are hiding the instruments so that a power from an even higher dimension does not simply descend, take all of them, and send only its own subordinates into the shrine to retrieve the treasures.)
Scarlet King suddenly felt as though someone was watching him.
He immediately turned and fired his laser.
There was no one there.
(Strange. This is the same thing that happened to the Writer near the coffin before. The Writer sensed something behind him, but when he attacked, he found nothing.)
(That greatly increases the possibility that the same person is watching me now. And because they were able to ignore the Writer's attack, that strengthens the possibility that they come from the Eternal Dimensions.)
(That means this person could kill me without the slightest effort. Even thinking about killing me would require more effort than necessary. They could kill me simply because they felt like it.)
(After all, even the weakest cultivator from the Eternal Dimensions is capable of erasing the Mortal Dimensions from the face of the Map of Existence.)
(The Map of Existence consists of the Dimensions, followed by the Primordial Chaos, then the Void, then Nothingness, and finally Beyond Nothingness.)
(And each region is inhabited by one of the Seven Pillars of Existence.)
(The Dimensions come first. Then the Chaos Clan resides within the Primordial Chaos. The Sacred Collapse Court resides within the Void. The Saintesses' Court exists within Nothingness. The Ink Clan resides within Beyond Nothingness.)
(And I… live anywhere.)
(I have no fixed location.)
The Seven Pillars of Existence was a title given to the most famous, powerful, and influential forces throughout the entire Primordial Origin World.
They were:
The Chaos Clan.
The Classical Existential Dimensions.
The Demonic Existential Dimensions.
The Ink Clan.
The Sacred Collapse Court.
The Eleven Beast Clans.
And finally—
the Devil of Rebirth, Scarlet King himself.
These were the Seven Pillars of Existence.
There was also the Saintesses' Court, but it was not considered a force that interfered with existence.
It was a place where Saintesses lived after completing their task of constructing eras, while new generations of Saintesses went there to learn from the experiences of the older generations.
And what about the Saint?
The Saint always died during the construction of the dimensions.
He served as the primary energy source from which the Saintesses drew the power required to form a new era.
Eventually, his energy would be completely depleted, causing his death and leaving only the Saintesses behind.
Most Saintesses possessed Type-One Immortality or other forms of immortality.
Most likely, after reconstructing an era and living for some time within the Saintesses' Court, they would eventually kill themselves out of boredom or simply because there was nothing else left for them to do.
Immortality was not always a blessing.
What use was eternal life without Eternal Rest?
Scarlet King immediately concealed the flute inside his coat and continued deeper into the mist.
However, he gradually noticed that the fog was becoming thinner.
When he finally emerged, he found himself back at the exact same place from which he had entered.
And how did he know?
Because the guard was still standing there.
That confirmed Scarlet King's suspicion.
Someone had interfered with his sense of direction and deliberately guided him safely out of the storm.
Scarlet King ignored the guard and flew toward where Ikalat and Lin Yuan were sitting.
The two were seated inside an icy energy barrier that helped lessen the sect's heat while watching several disciples fight in another arena.
Ikalat asked:
"Did you find anything useful inside the space-time storms?"
Scarlet King answered as he sat down in a chair beside him:
"I found nothing except spatial rifts that cut off my hand and my head. Anyway, where is Financial Elder Shen Wan Cai? We need to discuss the taxes."
Lin Yuan answered while drinking Qi juice:
"He is waiting for you in the Distinguished Guests Hall."
Scarlet King remained silent for several seconds.
Then he flew toward the Distinguished Guests Hall.