151: Chapter 151 All Realms are Pastures, Ascension is Just Becoming a Buffalo?

"He thinks he's worthy?!"

These five words were like a thunderclap from the Nine Heavens, exploding over the ruins.

Sword Demon Zhang Cheng's Incarnation of Kindness was shaken back repeatedly by the confidence and dominance erupting from Lin Feng.

He stared blankly at Lin Feng.

He couldn't understand.

Why?

Why, after learning such a hopeless truth, did this person not collapse, but instead show an even stronger Battle Intent?

"You..."

Zhang Cheng's voice was a bit dry. "You simply don't understand what the Upper Realm represents."

"What does it represent? Isn't it just a BOSS with a slightly higher Rank and a thicker health bar?"

Lin Feng shrugged indifferently.

In his eyes, whether you were an Upper Realm powerhouse or a Lower Realm martial artist, slashing was all that mattered.

If one slash couldn't kill it, then two.

If a twenty-thousand-fold critical hit wasn't enough...

Then stack it to two hundred thousand, two million times!

Zhang Cheng looked at Lin Feng's "are you kidding me" expression and sighed deeply.

"Your confidence stems from your ignorance of what lies beyond this world."

Zhang Cheng's kindness seemed to have made a decision; he was going to tell Lin Feng everything.

"Do you think that Ascension to the Upper Realm means being free and easy, living forever?"

"Do you think the Upper Realm is the dream destination for all cultivators?"

Lin Feng raised an eyebrow. "Is it not? According to traditional stories, shouldn't it be that after Ascension, the sea is wide for the fish to leap and the sky is high for the birds to fly?"

"Stories?"

Zhang Cheng froze for a moment, then smiled bitterly. "Those are all lies."

"They are fodder fabricated by those high-and-mighty existences in the Upper Realm to feed the livestock of the Lower Realm."

"Livestock?"

Lin Feng's gaze turned cold.

"Yes, livestock."

Zhang Cheng's tone became cold and cruel as he began to reveal a truth grander and darker than Possession.

"Where do you think the myriad worlds come from?"

"They are nothing more than pastures where those powerhouses of the Upper Realm keep living beings!"

"Every Lower Realm world is an independent farm. Existences from the Upper Realm periodically sow the seeds of cultivation, which are the various Cultivation Techniques and Legacies."

"They wait, waiting for the creatures in these worlds to become plump and delicious through cultivation."

Lin Feng's heart sank bit by bit.

"The so-called Ascension..."

Zhang Cheng's voice carried a hint of trembling, a fear originating from the depths of his Soul.

"The so-called Ascension is not Immortal Ascension at all!"

"It is a harvest!"

"It is the master of the pasture coming to harvest the grown livestock!"

Zhang Cheng pointed to the rift in the sky that had not yet closed. "Do you know what awaits an Ascender in the Upper Realm?"

"The best outcome is to become a beast of burden."

"They will be branded by the various immortal sects and become the lowliest slaves. They will be sent to mine in the most dangerous Immortal Mines until their energy is exhausted and they die."

"They will be used as cannon fodder, driven to fight against Heavenly Demons and rival forces, consumed until their last bit of value is gone."

"They are literally beasts of burden, not even considered human."

Lin Feng fell silent.

This truth was even more messed up than he had imagined.

"And that's the best outcome."

Zhang Cheng's expression grew increasingly desperate. "What if your luck is bad and you are intercepted by a Heavenly Demon in the Ascension passage?"

"Heavenly Demon?"

Lin Feng remembered that demonic hand that had blotted out the sky just now.

"Yes, the Upper Realm is not a monolith. The Immortal Path and the Demonic Path are in constant conflict."

"To those Heavenly Demons, the experts who ascend from the Lower Realm are the freshest and most delicious 'food'!"

"They will enjoy the Ascender's Divine Soul and flesh like a delicacy, devouring them bit by bit to strengthen their own Demonic Technique."

"Ascension is a gamble."

"Gambling on whether you'll be taken as a beast of burden or as a snack."

"But regardless of which one it is, there is no dignity, no future, and no freedom."

"You jump from one cage into another larger, more cruel fire pit."

Zhang Cheng laughed miserably. "My original body rose from humble beginnings. Unwilling to be a beast of burden for a lifetime, he rose up in resistance and actually succeeded. But he still overestimated himself, and in the end... he became what you see now."

"He fled, fled to this former pasture, and went into hiding."

Lin Feng finally understood everything.

No wonder!

No wonder the martial arts of this world stopped at the Martial Extremity Realm.

It wasn't that it couldn't go higher, but that the pasture masters wouldn't allow it.

They set a limit; once that limit was reached, one must ascend, one must be harvested.

And Zhang Cheng's original body, this beast of burden who had escaped from the slaughterhouse, had sealed the Heavenly Gate and cut off the harvest channel.

On one hand, he was hiding from his enemies, but on the other, wasn't he also intercepting the goods?

He wanted to turn this pasture into his own private property.

He wanted to take Lin Feng or others—the strongest livestock in this pasture—for himself!

"So, after all that..."

Lin Feng slowly exhaled a breath of turbid Qi, his eyes terrifyingly cold.

"All of us, from birth to death, are just leeks grown by others?"

"To be harvested whenever they feel like it?"

Zhang Cheng nodded sorrowfully. "In their eyes, the creatures of the Lower Realm are no different from the pigs and sheep in a pen."

Lin Feng gripped the Life-Slaying Blade tightly.

He thought of his colleagues in the Demon Suppression Division who had followed one after another.

He thought of the ordinary people in this world who worked hard to live and struggled to survive.

Their entire lives, their struggles, their sacrifices...

In the end, it was all just a joke?

Just the process of livestock putting on fat?

"This Heavenly Gate..."

Lin Feng looked up at the sky.

"Rather than a gate to Ascension, it's more like the bars of a pigpen."

Zhang Cheng's Incarnation of Kindness looked at Lin Feng with a final glimmer of hope.

"Now, do you still think your meager strength is enough?"

"Do you still think my original body... is not worthy of possessing you?"

"What you are facing is not one person, but the entire Upper Realm, this cruel Law of the Pasture that has lasted for hundreds of millions of years!"

Lin Feng did not answer.

He just slowly, very slowly, raised the blade in his hand.

The tip of the blade pointed diagonally toward the firmament.

"Pigpen?"

"Law?"

Lin Feng laughed, laughing with extreme arrogance and coldness.

"I am here to go against the Heavens!"

Lin Feng's wild words left Zhang Cheng's Incarnation completely stunned.

Going against the Heavens?

How did he dare to even think it?!

That was the Law of the Myriad Worlds jointly laid down by the immortals and demons of the Upper Realm, an iron rule that hundreds of millions of years of living beings could not shake!

"You..."

"Don't be so quick to refute me."

Lin Feng interrupted him. "I only have one question for you."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

Lin Feng's gaze was as sharp as a blade, as if it wanted to pierce through the Soul of this Incarnation of Zhang Cheng.

"According to what you said, you are just a wisp of the original body's kindness. What you should be doing is helping him stabilize me and lull me into a false sense of security, instead of giving me spoilers here."

"Unless..."

Lin Feng narrowed his eyes. "You have betrayed your original body."

On the refined face of Zhang Cheng's Incarnation, an expression of extreme pain and struggle appeared.

His body even began to flicker between light and dark, as if it could dissipate at any moment.

"That's right."

After a long time, he spat out those two words.

"I betrayed him."

"I was originally him, and he was originally me. But... in the end, I am only a wisp of kindness."

"I have been severed from the original body for too long, so long that... I have almost forgotten him."

Zhang Cheng's gaze swept over the ruins, over the fallen colleagues of the Demon Suppression Division.

"I have experienced too much here."

"I have seen the struggles of the living beings in this world."

"Perhaps I am no longer that high-and-mighty Upper Realm powerhouse; I am just... Zhang Cheng."

"I don't want to see this world destroyed just like that."

His confession caused the last trace of doubt in Lin Feng's heart to vanish.

This Incarnation of Kindness truly wanted to save this world.

"So, you told me all this because you want me to stop him?" Lin Feng asked.

"Stop him? No..."

Zhang Cheng shook his head, the despair on his face deepening.

"I told you all this because I want you to... run."

"Run?"

"Yes, run! Run as far as you can!"

Zhang Cheng's emotions suddenly became agitated.

"Because it's too late for everything!"