Chapter 440: Heart to Heart Talk with the Devil (1/2)
After Miaomiao and the gang returned, he distributed the extorted items to his women. Each received five golden chestnuts to increase their dantian size.
The dubious second-hand lingerie was passed to Wu Guotai, the secret yin slave of Miaomiao. Aside from Wei Yuan, Zhao Bao, Miaomiao, and Kang Yan, nobody was aware that it was a used item.
Of course, it had already been washed. No one would suspect a thing!
Unknown technique books and artifacts were stored in the new sect's vault, which was sealed under the yin slave mansion. The vault also hid many backup essence cores that Miaomiao had allocated as the sect's treasury.
The number of ownerless heaven-grade items in the vault had just reached 20. As for the sky-grade items and lower quality artifacts, they were kept in the newly constructed treasure vault on the surface.
Zhao Bao, Wei Yuan, and Kang Yan excused themselves to inspect the new items that they had received from the demon tree.
As for Miaomiao, he put the dark grimoire in his system inventory and returned to his room. He placed essence cores around the room and activated a system skill that he had stolen from a clone.
Heaven Disguising Array
This system skill was useless in battle, but it was useful in daily life as it could hide the nasty eyes of Heavenly Tribulation Clouds and world guardians. Furthermore, no one could enter the array as long as Miaomiao kept feeding it his energy. The only way to break it was to attack the array with brute force.
Miaomiao had never used it before since it consumed 10,000 essence cores per minute, but he needed it now.
After all, the next serious conversation would be about his fate, his secrets, and other sensitive information. Miaomiao didn't want anyone to hear it, even if they were his wives.
Miaomiao sat on his bed and opened his system menu. Then, he started thinking, sending his mental voice to the nosy dao gods and stream viewers.
'Devil, you there?'
Ding
[The Devil is listening.]
'Do you know anything about the multiverse, parallel universe, or a world without my existence?'
[The Devil cunningly smiles and nods.]
[The Devil has sent a message to Macho Joshua.]
[Macho Joshua temporarily disables the live-streaming channels and the broadcasting features.]
Ding
[The sudden random advertisement section of the channel upsets many dao gods and immortals.]
[The Sun Crow and the Monkey King dislike ads. They voiced their complaints to Joshua.]
Ding
[The reaction mode had been disabled.]
[Only the Anonymous Devil and Macho Joshua can see you.]
[You may freely communicate with them.]
'We need to talk.'
[The Devil shakes his head and places his index finger on top of his lips.]
[The Devil has sent you messages.]
[”It is not the time for you to know the truth. You're too weak to jump into the divine realm's political world right now. It will only create a heart demon if you were to know everything we know.”]
'So, you guys know something, and you have been using me.'
[”I've never used you. I've been raising you while I protect the mortal realm from the great calamity.”]
[”Those are all the hints I can give you. If you want to know the truth, kill Ling Tianlong before he can reach the 8th-stage. Although I can't see him, I can tell from the amount of his luck that he's close to that level!”]
Again, Miaomiao was tired of the cliché cryptic prophecy. He didn't understand why the Devil had to be this secretive.
[”I know that I have troubled you a lot in the past. But believe in me. I have done everything so far for the sake of making you stronger. I've left many goodies in your system so that you can slowly unlock your true potential and strengthen your foundation.”]
[”Let's say, I want you to become a strong dao god in the future.”]
'And, what's the catch? You must have been nurturing me for a reason.'
[”Just kill the protagonists I told you to kill. Oh, you can leave Ma Moxi alone since he's harmless now.”]
'That's it? Are you sure?'
Miaomiao gained nothing from talking with the devil. He didn't really reveal any information about his motive.
Miaomiao suspected that the Devil had been lying to him. But again, he found half of the Devil's words reasonable since he had mentioned something about a calamity.
'Tell me more. Are the protagonists the source of this world's calamity?'
[”You used to read many novels in your previous world. What do you think of protagonists in the novels?”]
'They're selfish psychopathic mass-murderer assholes.'
In most wuxia novels that Miaomiao had read, heroes usually got involved in mass genocides, such as country destruction, clan wipe, family extermination, or murders.
Every conflict around the main characters could be easily avoided had the protagonists knew the meaning of humility, humbleness, and anger management. Most of the time, all conflicts started from a trivial matter in a bar, then it escalated to the country-wide war or a clan war.
Everywhere the protagonists went, chaos ensued. Someone would show up and pick a fight with the protagonists, and the latter would be so domineering and unforgiving, turning a quarrel to a brawl, a brawl to a murder, and murders to genocides.
Rarely, good protagonists spared them. But most of the time, they ended up in a bloodbath until one side was perished.
Regardless of whether their actions were justified or not according to the stories or the motives of the villains, it didn't change the fact that the hands of MCs were always soaked with blood.
No one could tell if the main characters of those novels had killed innocent bystanders, who were just doing their duties of protecting their families, sects, or clans.
What would happen to the local people after the protagonists ascend?
What about the commoners?
What about the aftermath after the protagonists became successful?
Not many novels explained these parts. Most of them ended abruptly, stating that those protagonists became gods and lived happily after like a fairy tale.
The one-sided endings left so many questions in Miaomiao's mind. Even now, he pondered if they were REALLY heroes from the perspective of the bystanders.
Was there any chance that they might be the catalysts of destruction?
But one thing for sure, Miaomiao believed that Xie Tian and Ling Tianlong might have killed millions of innocent people during their quests for supremacy!
Thinking this far, Miaomiao's heart felt heavy.
[”Hypothetically speaking, had you never killed Xie Tian, what do you think would have happened to the Wei Clan and the Silver Phoenix Sect?”]
'Xie Tian would have gotten stronger to the point that he could come back and slaughter… everyone.'
[”Yes. You killed him before he could slaughter innocent demons, disciples of Mountain Goose Sect, People of Mountain Goose City, and many women in Silver Phoenix Sect, who had no idea about Xie Tian's issues.”]
[”Xie Tian would have collected multiple murals of time-and-space during his journey. Of course, he would have destroyed the dryad realm due to his petty grudge against Emerald Hopea and her subordinates.”]
[”You killed Xie Tian and saved those people, Miaomiao. Your wives are alive because of you. Many poor souls are still alive because of you. You managed to bring Cernun's soul to this world and gave him a new hope while Xie Tian would have just destroyed everyone he came across.”]