Chapter 50: Elements of World Destruction

Three of the Nine Tripods shattered??

“Has the physical entity of the Nine Tripods that we forged shattered?” Director Zhao asked gravely.

The Nine Tripods were not nine literal bronze cauldrons in the physical sense.

In historical records, the Nine Tripods’ symbolic significance had long surpassed their material form. Beyond the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, even the Tang and Song dynasties had recast them.

Though their physical forms had changed, their symbolic power in the realm of mysticism endured. When Yu the Great first forged the Nine Tripods, each one represented a province, engraved with the patterns of the mountains and rivers it governed. Their very existence symbolized the stability of the realm and served to suppress chaos.

It was precisely because of the Nine Tripods’ suppressive power that anomalous events did not occur too frequently.

At the same time, they shielded against other anomalous forces, making divination within their influence far more accurate.

With each dynastic transition, their symbolic significance would transfer to a newly forged set of Nine Tripods, while the previous set lost its mystical power and became mere antiquities.

In truth, the true Nine Tripods did not exist in physical reality. They manifested through the cauldrons forged by human hands, exerting their influence via those recreated vessels.

The physical cauldrons were placed in various locations to guard different regions.

Only those with exceptionally keen perception could glimpse the ethereal little tripods hovering above their physical carriers, like spiritual entities.

As long as the Nine Tripods remained intact, no major catastrophes would befall the nation.

When anomalies stirred in the Qin Emperor’s Mausoleum, one of the Tripods had been brought in to suppress them. It was only after communicating with the Yin Soldier General that it was withdrawn.

If any had shattered, it would surely be one of the physical vessels—the ones reforged later on.

That was Director Zhao’s thought.

The true Nine Tripods existed on a symbolic level, intangible and untouchable. How could something like that shatter?

Professor Lü nodded in agreement. He had inspected the reforged Nine Tripods himself and, with his sharp senses, could see the faint, illusory green spiritual tripod hovering above the physical one. Though it appeared small, it carried the immense weight of an entire province.

He could not fathom what it would mean for such a spiritualized tripod to be shattered.

The physical cauldrons had shattered before—for instance, the one taken to the Qin Emperor’s Mausoleum. It had been used to suppress the Yin Soldiers and prevent them from emerging. The general commanding the Yin Soldiers had rallied all his troops and the ley lines of the mausoleum itself, smashing the physical carrier.

Yet the consciousness it bore remained unscathed, reattaching itself once the cauldron was reforged.

“The physical tripod shattered… Have you traced the source of the seismograph’s vibrations?” Director Zhao continued.

He instinctively assumed it was a physical tripod that had been destroyed, and any anomaly capable of such a feat was no small matter—more than enough to set off the seismograph.

“No, it wasn’t the physical tripod that shattered,” came the bitter reply from the other end.

“It was the spiritual entity hovering above the Nine Tripods!”

“What?!”

“Impossible!”

Director Zhao and Professor Lü exclaimed in unison.

Could the spiritual form of the Nine Tripods truly shatter?

Such an absurd turn of events had actually come to pass?!

After a few seconds of contemplation, Professor Lü let out a breath.

Drawing from his interpretation of the oracle bone inscriptions, a bold hypothesis struck him.

“Old Zhao… Do you think the shattering of the Nine Tripods’ spiritual forms signifies that the world has been destroyed three times?” Professor Lü ventured.

“Perhaps they shielded us from those disasters, and that’s why they broke?”

It was a daring speculation from Professor Lü.

By now, Director Zhao had fallen silent too.

“I wouldn’t dare say it… Old Lü, I wouldn’t dare say it!”

The end of the world?

How could they presume to make such a judgment on a matter of that magnitude?

~~~

These side matters were unknown to the Su family far away in B City.

Su Mingyao’s eyes fluttered open and shut, and he returned to the third floor of the Shen Family Villa.

Opening his eyes fully, he saw Su Bingyao sitting before him.

To Su Bingyao, it might have seemed like Su Mingyao had simply dozed off for a moment, lost in thought. But for Su Mingyao, he had endured an excruciatingly long time in the space after its destruction.

Sensing something off about Su Mingyao—the vibrant energy of the previous second replaced by utter exhaustion, like a puddle of mud, his whole body radiating the world-weary vicissitudes of someone who had lived too long—Su Bingyao hesitated for a second.

“Mingyao, did… did Luo Shang destroy the world again?”

Because he had passed through that space after the world’s destruction and emerged in this state!

“When was it destroyed? And why?” Su Bingyao demanded.

It seemed he hadn’t been pulled into the events yet, still regarded as just another person in the world. Su Bingyao felt a flicker of relief at that—finally, they weren’t dragging him along.

Moreover, judging by Luo Shang’s habits, he typically restarted the world to a point just before its destruction. That meant the catastrophe that doomed everything hadn’t occurred yet.

“Yes, the world was destroyed.”

Su Mingyao’s mind raced with ways to deal with the intruder.

Su Bingyao had no memory of his prior experiences now, so he had no idea how his counterpart had handled that person after escaping.

“But I know how to avert it,” Su Mingyao continued, his voice trembling slightly.

“We just have to stay right here and not go out.”

“Is it really that simple?” Su Bingyao was surprised.

“Don’t go out?” His thoughts spun quickly. “Does that mean if we tried to escape after discussing it, Luo Shang would discover we’d figured him out along the way?”

Given how Luo Shang had reset the world last time over something as minor as the wheelchair, Su Bingyao figured his theory made perfect sense.

“No,” Su Mingyao said slowly.

“Big Bro, do you remember what happened at the recognition banquet yesterday?”

“What happened? I only recall us following the plot and heading back home. What could there possibly be?” Su Bingyao looked puzzled.

What else could it be? Wait—had the world ended back then too?

Su Bingyao racked his brain for any anomalies, but all he could recall was a terrifying nightmare from the night before.

“As I thought.” Su Mingyao still remembered the suffocating pressure of death when the necromancer descended—a creature forged entirely from the essence of death, capable of siphoning life force from anyone merely by existing.

That time, Luo Shang had held off on destroying the world thanks to the necromancer’s mental spell. But without it this time, he’d wiped everything out.

If Su Mingyao hadn’t ventured into the ruined world himself, he might never have recalled it either.

“Nothing much happened. Let me explain why he destroyed the world.”

As Su Mingyao laid it out, Su Bingyao’s expression grew grave. He understood now why staying put on the third floor was the safest bet.

The trigger for this apocalypse wasn’t Shen Changqing’s performance downstairs—he’d actually bluffed his way through.

No, it was Su Mingyao’s own actions. But those stemmed from someone else spotting his anomaly.

“I get it. As long as we’re holed up here, he can’t reach us,” Su Bingyao said.

They were still inside the Shen Family Villa. As long as they didn’t head downstairs or step outside, their pursuer couldn’t very well scale the walls and crash through a third-floor window.

Eventually, though, they’d have to leave. If the guy kept staking out the place, it would derail their ability to follow the plot later on.

So what now?

“Let’s call the police,” Su Bingyao suggested.

After running through their options, it seemed like the only viable move.

“And if he claims he’s watching you because of some anomaly on your person, no cop’s going to buy that. It sounds way too outlandish,” Su Bingyao added.

If Luo Shang hadn’t literally hauled him into that post-apocalyptic void, Su Bingyao wouldn’t have believed it on hearsay alone.

Since even he had doubted it at first, the police would dismiss it outright—probably chalk it up to the guy’s ravings. And that would safeguard Su Mingyao’s secret about his rebirth.

“Agreed,” Su Mingyao said.

What they didn’t anticipate was that Roland, trudging toward the Shen Family Villa with his compass in hand, suddenly got an urgent call.

“What’s going on? Did someone pick up a lead?” Roland answered.

He scanned his surroundings. B City lay calm and serene, showing no signs of a major anomaly brewing.

Events like the emergence of the Nine Tripods or the excavation of the Qin Emperor’s Mausoleum would set off the seismograph, with clear precursors rippling through the area beforehand.

Before the Nine Tripods surfaced, anomaly incidents within a hundred miles would plummet, creating a vacuum zone on the computers’ readouts. Any extraordinary caught inside would revert to powerless normalcy.

The Qin Emperor’s Mausoleum, meanwhile, spiked yin energy levels across its district, shrouding locals in baleful auras that brought illness and misfortune. Even extraordinaries felt an unnatural chill there.

But this time, Roland sensed nothing unusual in B City. The only lingering anomaly was that unreported thunderstorm from before.

Still, he refused to drop his guard or grow complacent.

This situation didn’t prove there were no anomalies here. Quite the opposite—it suggested that the anomaly had become sentient, clever enough to hide itself!

The Nine Tripods were spiritual inanimate objects, while the Qin Emperor’s Mausoleum housed a vast number of Yin Soldiers. The latter possessed a consciousness capable of communication, unlike the former, but those Yin Soldiers had never left the mausoleum. They were simply trapped inside.

This time, however, it might be a living creature.

Roland recalled how he’d detected an anomaly by the riverbank, only for it to vanish right after.

A living thing like that could flee anywhere, which only made tracking it down that much harder.

What sort of existence could rival the Nine Tripods and the Qin Emperor’s Mausoleum?

An ancient divine beast that had awakened? That had been Roland’s initial guess.

He hadn’t found any clues yet when his phone rang.

Given the urgency, it had to be the anomaly that had set off the seismograph.

Roland reluctantly abandoned his theory of a sentient beast.

But the voice on the other end shattered his expectations once again.

“Terminate the mission. Return at once and attend the strategic conference for further assignments.”

“Why?” Roland asked in surprise before he could stop himself.

As a man with a military background, he knew he shouldn’t question orders—but his curiosity had gotten the better of him this time.

Had something else happened? By now, Roland had followed the compass’s needle to the vicinity of the Shen Family Villa.

“We’re upgrading the mission target’s classification—from a national disaster to the highest level.”

The voice on the line replied gravely.

“That’s an entity capable of destroying the world!”

“The new code name is: Apocalypse Element.”