452: At the end of the immortal path, who stands at the peak?

"Huh?"

Little Wang Flying Dagger had just covered the stone tablet with his Spiritual Sense when his expression suddenly changed.

The writing on the stone tablet was clear, but... it was layered over some ancient text.

Clearly, someone had come later and carved a new layer over the original ancient text, making the layer underneath illegible.

"Damn, so uncivilized!"

Little Wang Flying Dagger cursed loudly.

After cursing, he looked closely at the stone tablet again; the top layer of text was very clear and easy to recognize:

"I, Helian Meng, came here today and saw the Sacred Emperor's Legacy. I held it in contempt and took nothing, leaving only these words behind."

"What a lunatic!"

Little Wang Flying Dagger's composure broke.

It was one thing for Helian Meng to leave a message, but he could have at least left something related to the Legacy or insights, right?

What was the point of leaving words mocking the Sacred Emperor?

You, Helian Meng, might look down on the Legacy, but we need it!

"What an oddball. Is someone like this really the last Ascender?"

Little Wang Flying Dagger shook his head and carefully tried to identify the obscured ancient text.

He could vaguely see that it consisted of two sentences.

The first half was barely legible, roughly meaning:

"Who is the peak at the end of the immortal path?"

The second half seemed to have been deliberately ground down by Helian Meng. Little Wang Flying Dagger tried various permutations and could roughly determine it should be:

"Upon seeing XX, the Dao becomes empty."

The "XX" in the middle was impossible to identify.

Little Wang Flying Dagger thought, perhaps it was a name? Or a Daoist title?

He could feel the weight of these words, as if the Sacred Emperor had met some extraordinary figure and from then on lost all hope, never daring to think of Immortal Ascension again, accepting his own mediocrity.

"Hmm?"

Thinking of this, Little Wang Flying Dagger suddenly realized a key point.

If the Sacred Emperor here in the Prison Land and the Sacred Emperor on Burial Emperor Star were the same person... then according to the timeline, the Sacred Emperor should have ascended from the Prison Land to Burial Emperor Star and then created a myth in that larger space.

If there was any figure who could make him bow his head completely, it could only be someone from Burial Emperor Star.

So, records concerning this figure should also have been left on Burial Emperor Star.

But how could they be left in the Prison Land?

"Did the Sacred Emperor return to the Prison Land from Burial Emperor Star in his later years?"

At this thought, Little Wang Flying Dagger felt his breathing quicken.

A Sacred Emperor who could leave his name on Burial Emperor Star and was seen as having the potential to prove his Dao and become an Emperor—if he returned to Sacred Emperor Mountain in his old age and left something here... Good heavens, that would be a completely different matter from what he left before departing; they wouldn't be on the same level at all.

"Of course, that's assuming these two Sacred Emperors are the same person..."

Whether it was the Sacred Emperor of the Prison Land or the one from Burial Emperor Star, both were figures from extremely ancient history. There were no direct Bloodlines, no direct Legacies, and even records were scarce, leaving only a few legends.

Too many secrets had been submerged in the long course of history.

"But I am a Diviner..."

Little Wang Flying Dagger swallowed hard. He suddenly wanted to cast a divination to see if these two Sacred Emperors were the same person and determine if there was a higher-level Legacy here... but the thought flashed by and he ultimately didn't dare.

Divinations involving High-level Cultivators would not only yield nothing but could also lead to immediate death.

The risk was too high; Little Wang Flying Dagger truly didn't dare.

He shook his head and looked at the second stone tablet. That bastard Helian Meng hadn't carved anything on it, so the ancient text was clear.

The meaning was roughly:

"In his whole life, he had no great enemies, intimidating all races and suppressing the Forbidden Zones of Life. How enviable."

Little Wang Flying Dagger thought about it; this probably didn't refer to the Sacred Emperor, but to that powerhouse who had made the Sacred Emperor feel despair.

He frowned, suddenly feeling that this place seemed like a spot where the Sacred Emperor vented his frustrations in his later years, rather than a place containing a Legacy.

He hurried to check the other tablets, only to find that they indeed mostly contained content about the mysterious powerhouse:

"There should be a bell remaining, its whereabouts unknown. How sorrowful."

"There should be a scripture remaining, also of unknown whereabouts. How lamentable."

"There must be a Saint Body and a Dao Fetus, but alas, they cannot be obtained."

"Today's Jade Lake is not the Jade Lake of yesteryear. Disappointing."

"Does time truly show no mercy?"

"Rumor has it a Female Saint practiced his Dao Techniques, but she cannot be found."

"Why turn one's back on all living beings?"

"..."

The more Little Wang Flying Dagger read, the more helpless he felt.

Perhaps the Sacred Emperor only returned to Sacred Emperor Mountain when he was old and near death, leaving behind various reflections, or rather, complaints.

These things were... completely meaningless to Little Wang Flying Dagger!

He felt that the Sacred Emperor might have spent a long time searching for a certain powerhouse's Legacy, only to come up empty-handed.

The question was, if even such a powerful Sacred Emperor couldn't find it, could they, the players, find it?

It would just be one more person complaining.

"No wonder Helian Meng was so contemptuous, even carving words about the Sacred Emperor being cowardly. This man had completely lost his heart for seeking the Dao, merely following in the footsteps of his predecessors to no avail."

Helpless, Little Wang Flying Dagger took photos of all the stone tablet records and posted them to the Forum.

"Hmm?"

After posting, he realized that although they were images, they could be detected with Spiritual Sense, and he could even feel the Sacred Emperor's reflective state of mind through them.

Little Wang Flying Dagger remembered that when the players of Dragon Seeking City explored the Ancient Battlefield of the East Sea, something similar happened—Sword Intent from countless years ago had killed players in the rear through a live broadcast.

At that time, it caused a panic among the player base, and many players didn't dare to watch the live stream anymore.

"Thinking about it this way..."

Little Wang Flying Dagger calmed down and thought carefully.

It seemed these High-level Cultivators possessed the ability to hide Concepts or other Xuanhuan elements and then spread them using any available "information."

It was hard to explain, but the principle was roughly this:

Suppose the Sacred Emperor left a Legacy in the stone tablets; this Legacy wasn't written text but a Concept.

Then, when Little Wang Flying Dagger posted the images of the tablets to the Forum, this Concept would also spread through the Forum.

If the Forum was too "player-centric," then in a normal Xuanhuan World, the Concept left by the Sacred Emperor should be able to spread through the discussions and records of the tablets by Cultivators.

Thinking about it was somewhat terrifying, as if the methods of these High-level Cultivators were everywhere.

Looking at it from another angle, since the Sacred Emperor used such a method to preserve the Legacy and ensure it spread as widely as possible, then what he left behind absolutely couldn't be just complaints.

"There must be a Legacy I haven't noticed yet, one that Helian Meng found but didn't take..."

Little Wang Flying Dagger continued to pace in the secret room but still couldn't find a clue.

"Should I continue divining?"

The deeper he went, the greater the risk for a Diviner; Little Wang Flying Dagger was very afraid of the risks.

"No, wait a moment. I've already posted the tablet records on the Forum. Maybe other players will resonate with the Legacy within them, and then I won't need to divine."

Little Wang Flying Dagger simply sat in a corner, quietly waiting for the situation to change.

He felt that players who were currently obsessed with the Nascent Soul Method like madmen could not possibly ignore the Sacred Emperor's Legacy.