I more or less understood what Lu Youxun meant.

  He didn’t believe the Divine Seal actually existed, yet he was convinced that the force which had altered everything was real. He didn’t know whether its source was a person, an object, or some pure phenomenon—but one thing was crystal clear: whatever it was, that force overwhelmingly favored ordinary humans.

  Even Mount Luo, even the Great Impermanents, feared the unknown. Until they fully uncovered the truth behind that power, no one dared make a reckless move.

  If I were the ruler of Mount Luo, where would I suspect that force originated?

  The first and most obvious candidate would be the group that benefited most from its existence—the class that actually ruled secular society.

  “We once suspected the ‘Divine Seal’ might be in the hands of the official authorities,” Lu Youxun said, still using “Divine Seal” as shorthand for the source of that power.

  From what I knew, the master of the Divine Seal was the giant enthroned in the misty dreamscape—the one Number One called “Number Zero.”

  Could the giant be part of the official powers?

  Was it he who, in the distant past, wished upon the Divine Seal for ordinary humans to rule the mortal world? And did that wish have any direct connection to what Number Four, Xuan Ming, described as “pushing the world to the brink of destruction”?

  This topic genuinely intrigued me.

  If he were just trying to recruit me into his faction, I’d want to end the conversation quickly. But when it came to matters tied to the apocalypse, anomalies, and hidden history, I couldn’t help but lean in.

  “You said ‘once suspected.’ Does that mean you’ve mostly ruled out the official authorities now?” I asked.

  “At least ninety percent,” Lu Youxun replied. “In truth, the ‘Divine Seal’ didn’t just affect us cultivators—it affected ordinary humans too.

  “Think about it calmly. We cultivators and ordinary humans live under the same sky. For both sides to pretend the other doesn’t exist, it’s not enough for cultivators to stay away from secular society—the mortals also have to leave us alone. Throughout history, countless people have sought immortality and the path of the immortals. Emperors and nobles obsessed with eternal life were legion. If they hadn’t also been restrained by that same force, how could there have been genuine non-interference?

  “When that force finally faded, the official authorities fell into profound confusion. They tried hard to cover it up, but they couldn’t hide it from our eyes. Still, as the saying goes, ‘the greatest hermits hide in the court.’ We considered the possibility that the master of the Divine Seal had concealed themselves within the halls of power—even the authorities themselves might not know—so we held back from rash action.”

  “You must have conducted plenty of probes,” I said.

  “Yes. And the results strongly suggest the ‘Divine Seal’ is probably not in the hands of the authorities—and may not even exist anymore.” He nodded. “It’s easy enough to deduce. No matter how profoundly the ‘Divine Seal’ once shaped our world, its influence has vanished.

  “Why did it disappear? Either the master changed their mind, or the ‘Divine Seal’ itself malfunctioned. Other possibilities exist, but we believe a malfunction is the most promising avenue for deeper investigation.

  “If we assume the ‘Divine Seal’ truly was an artifact, we can even speculate boldly that it may have shattered due to some cataclysm.”

  That bold speculation happened to be correct.

  Moreover, considering that Number Four, Xuan Ming—a Great Impermanent—already possessed a fragment of the Divine Seal, I began to suspect that both the existence of the Divine Seal and the fact that it had shattered might not be secrets among the Great Impermanents.

  “Now that we’ve come this far, you can probably guess what comes next—conflict between Mount Luo and the official authorities will erupt openly in the near future.” Lu Youxun pushed the conversation forward. “Z, I hope you’ll join our side.”

  There it was.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “But doesn’t your own faction still have internal divisions? Transcendentalism isn’t the absolute mainstream in Mount Luo, is it?” I asked.

  “Correct. There are voices within Mount Luo arguing that cultivators should integrate into secular society. But you may be misunderstanding what they mean by ‘integration.’ They’re not suggesting cultivators become mere cogs in the secular machine.” He continued, “Their goal is the same as ours—to become the new ruling class. The difference is that transcendentalists aim to become ‘gods,’ while they aim to become ‘monarchs.’”

  “Is that what Zhu Shi thinks too?” I asked.

  He gave a helpless laugh. “She probably prefers everything to stay exactly as it is. But even she can’t deny that it’s historically inevitable for cultivators to replace the outdated ruling class. The mistake lies with history itself.”

  “The authorities won’t just sit idly by. If war breaks out, a lot of ordinary people will die. Zhu Shi would never take part in something like that,” I said.

  “It won’t turn into a war. Mount Luo holds overwhelming power—the conflict will end very quickly.”

  “Because Mount Luo has Great Impermanents?”

  “Great Impermanents aren’t even necessary. Mount Luo alone is more than enough to rule this nation.” His calm tone carried unshakable confidence. “Z, how would you rate the monster you fought tonight? If Mount Luo stayed out of it and only the official forces went up against him, how do you think it would play out?”

  I thought for a moment and realized a terrifying possibility.

  He answered his own question. “You might see that monster as nothing more than roadside trash. But let me make this clear: that monster possessed physical enhancement abilities that stood out even among resident-level cultivators.

  “In the monster hierarchy, he was roughly mid-tier. He could move at speeds exceeding two hundred kilometers per hour. His mana-reinforced body could tear through steel armor with ease. He had dynamic vision sharp enough to track bullets in flight and reflexes quick enough to defend against them. He could withstand barrages of conventional firearms head-on. Small-arms weapons posed virtually no threat to him.

  “Put all that together, and all he needed was to employ flexible assassination and guerrilla tactics while making full use of his off-road mobility. Capturing or killing him would already be an extraordinarily difficult task—even before factoring in his anomalous ability.

  “That monster could teleport vast distances through shadows at will and summon powerful clones. The one you fought tonight even had the ability to instantly regenerate after being killed, rendering surprise saturation bombings with modern weapons useless. He could slip into the shadows whenever he pleased, appear anywhere he wanted, kill whoever he chose, and vanish again. The more he killed, the stronger and harder to stop he became.

  “A single monster like that—with just a bit of cunning—could dismantle the political structure of a small country single-handedly. And in our world, he was only at resident level. Scale him up to established level and pit him against a major nation—I’d wager fewer than ten would be needed to leave them completely helpless. Mount Luo has nearly ten Great Impermanents alone, not to mention a vast number of established-level cultivators. With such an overwhelming disparity in power, how could the authorities possibly stand against us?”

  I’m no expert in modern military affairs, but I had to admit his reasoning held water.

  In the past, I’d once imagined modern armies as hypothetical enemies—even pictured myself being bombarded by missiles and nuclear weapons—and had seriously researched the topic online.

  I hadn’t done it because I actually planned to fight modern militaries; it was purely an interest-driven thought experiment. Plenty of people will never encounter a tiger in their lifetime yet still fantasize about wrestling one bare-handed and earnestly ask online how a human could win such a fight. Same principle.

  After looking into it, I realized the enormous advantage a superhuman like me would have against a modern military. It wasn’t that I could ignore physical attacks or zip around battlefields via flame teleportation. The real issue was that modern military technology was never designed to counter “super-individuals” in the first place.

  Whether we’re talking about nuclear weapons—the pinnacle of destructive power in my mind—or aircraft carriers roaming the seas like steel behemoths, these strategic-level tools were built to target fixed positions and massed forces, not highly mobile entities with powerful offense and defense. Their threat to a “super-individual” was far less than I’d initially assumed.

  And that’s without even mentioning the more esoteric abilities Mount Luo’s demon hunters possessed. Lu Youxun had shown me the power to temporarily revive the dead and extract information from them; the monster had used an item to trap opponents in “spaces outside reality.” Somewhere in their ranks were surely experts in mind control and curses—powers that would wreak havoc on modern society.

  Whether mortal authority would change hands—and when—was never up to the current ruling class. It depended entirely on Mount Luo’s will.

  Their fear of the “master of the Divine Seal” was a thing of the past. If they still hadn’t acted, it was probably less about caution and more about not yet having agreed on how to divide the spoils.

  “By the way, Zhu Shi seems to have misunderstood something when she spoke to that monster earlier.” Lu Youxun pointed at the electronic telescope still lying on the table. “She believes today’s technological civilization is entirely the product of ordinary human effort—and I don’t deny that on the surface. But strictly speaking, technology isn’t ‘the power of mortals.’ It’s the power of intelligence.

  “Technological power has never favored any side. Mortals can harness it, yes—but cultivators can harness it too, and far more effectively. To treat it as proof that mortals surpass cultivators in certain respects is fundamentally mistaken.

  “What cultivators can use, mortals often cannot. That alone proves we are beings who completely transcend mortals while encompassing all their strengths—we are the true ‘transcendents.’

  “We stand at a turning point in history. For cultivators to replace mortals as rulers of the human world is inevitable.

  “So, Z—I extend the invitation here and now.

  “Join us.”