When Highspire Warden finally realized it, the threads of fate had already been woven. The Saint of the Great Wilderness Mountain, like Lifesmith, was ultimately pushed by an inescapable trajectory he could not avoid, helplessly moving toward a predetermined outcome.

Author’s Note:

“The gods in heaven... only then came the Three Sovereigns” is from “Chronicles of the Three and Five Eras”

Chapter 77: Previous Causes …

Ironhorn died in battle and transformed into the Blood Maple Forest. Dawn Sovereign, moved by his bravery, conferred upon him the title of God of War.

From that moment on, all the shamans and demons under heaven came under the command of Highspire Warden, sheltered by the mountains.

Yet after that great war, peace did not return to the people of the earth. Wars continued to break out—between tribes, between races, and even within a single tribe, there were still divisions and hierarchies.

Highspire Warden never showed his face; he was always waiting.

Ever since he watched Faelan Sage fall, Lifesmith withdraw from the world, and Embergrower lose his divine power and fade into obscurity, he had been waiting.

He witnessed Dawnborne raise Ironhorn’s head high, but said nothing. He thought anyone would do, as long as someone could restore peace and prosperity to the world.

He kept waiting for the Golden Sovereign to unify the divine land, waiting for all disputes to settle. Yet after a lifetime of conquest, the House of Dawnborne had only just begun to see results before quietly passing away.

The descendants of the Yan and Huang Emperors began to vie for power. The East was restless as well. Ironhorn’s descendant, Sunpiercer, by chance obtained the great bow left by High Sage Faelan, assumed the title of “Lord Ember,” ventured deep into the wilds, unified the eastern tribes, and allied with the shamans of the Great Wilderness.

That year, all the crows fell silent on the ground. The long-dormant descendants of the Embergrower Line, the water god Torrent Warden and the House of Dawnborne’s descendant Flameborn, reignited their conflict.

Torrent Warden governed water and was a descendant of the Flame Sovereign. The Drakeborn, spirits of the water, were the first to take sides. Countless other demon clans were drawn in. Although Sunpiercer did not have time to intervene in the Central Plains’ wars, the two races of shamans and demons, both under the protection of the Great Wilderness Saint, were already showing signs of splitting apart.

In that war, countless demon clans perished, blood flowed like rivers, and the entire continent was in turmoil. The souls of demons trapped on earth wailed day and night in misery, the land scorched and barren.

After Ironhorn’s death, having earned the respect of his greatest rival, the descendants he could never rest easy about burned down the God of War’s shrine. Gradually, the human, shaman, and demon races all forgot this ancestor, forgot the violent yet valiant legacy left in their blood.

In folk tales, Ironhorn gradually became a hideous evil god.

Highspire Warden was finally disappointed.

Only then did he understand why Lifesmith’s expression had been so desperate and alarmed back then. She had already seen, at the very beginning of creating humans, such a world shrouded in chaos and filth. Unable to resist, she could only withdraw for countless years, neither hearing nor seeing, neither thinking nor caring.

Highspire Warden governed the hundred thousand great mountains of the mortal world, always fond of mountain and water spirits. Ironhorn had painstakingly schemed against him, luring the young cat to swallow the God of War’s blood. Though Highspire Warden had no choice but to bear the karma for that foolish creature, he also kept his promise to Ironhorn, caring for the shamans and demons who lived off the mountains and waters for many years.

He watched them grow, cultivate, and enter the world.

Now, once again under his very eyes, they were to die like worthless weeds in wave after wave of fire, struggling to survive in the cracks of catastrophe.

If this was the will of heaven—if the will of heaven meant endless, unceasing, boundless chaos and war, if it meant an eternity of turmoil and the inevitable decline after every peak—

Torrent Warden, defeated, fled on the Celestial Drake, preparing to rise again. The Drakeborn had always been dearest to Highspire Warden’s heart, yet when they reached the great abyss in the northwest, Highspire Warden still ruthlessly blinded the Celestial Drake. Torrent Warden and the Celestial Drake crashed into Buzhou Mountain, smashing a hole in the Faelan’s Seal beneath it.

In the land of great disrespect, a hundred thousand evil ghosts of the underworld wailed together, their resentment soaring to the heavens. Like the gods atop the mountains, they knew neither heaven nor earth, howling as they swept across Buzhou Mountain. Highspire Warden aided with a soul fire on his left shoulder, igniting the silent underworld, breaking the pillar of heaven in half, causing the sky to collapse and the earth to crack.

“Where is the axis held, where is the pole set? When will the eight pillars stand, why is the southeast lacking?”

The Saint atop Kunlun, once ethereal, had finally grown up, embarking on a path completely different from the ancient sages. The long-missing Lifesmith finally reappeared, yet she could hardly recognize the child she had coaxed for years with a little kitten—his blue robe whipped by the mountain winds, his gaze sharp, faintly reminiscent of the godly axe that split the heavens.

Highspire Warden had already sent the little cat who had accompanied him for years down to the mortal world. Amid the thunderous collapse of the heavenly pillar, he turned back, hands clasped behind him, and upon seeing Lifesmith, his expression calm, he spoke softly: “All the things you couldn’t bear or dared not do back then, I have done for you.”

Prime Shaper spent his life separating heaven and earth, shattering the primordial darkness, and in the end, forced by fate, died of exhaustion. The gods who grew up in the wilds, braving the elements—why should they bow to such an intangible force? Why should they be manipulated, forced toward a predetermined tragic end?

“I want the Flameborn Kin to be buried for the pure wilderness. I want heaven and earth never to meet again, so that the gods beyond the world can no longer spy upon us. I want the heavenly path severed, all things in the world to be like the Sage's Wheel, yin and yang giving birth to each other, forming a world of their own. I want no one to control my fate, no one to judge my rights and wrongs. I want to carve pens from the dead god-trees of the land of great disrespect, so that every living being can write their own rights and wrongs—I want to purge all of this.”

Lifesmith looked at him, unable to speak.

“As for everything else, let it come at me—Prime Shaper and Faelan Sage are gone, only you and I remain. You hide your light and bide your time, but I am still not reconciled.” Highspire Warden suddenly let out a soft laugh, his voice almost shattered by the wind, “If you have the ability, let a bolt of heavenly lightning strike down, split Kunlun Mountain, and kill me. Otherwise, I refuse to submit.”

With almost every word he spoke, a bolt of heavenly lightning struck down. Snow and ice flew from the peak of Kunlun Mountain. Lifesmith was blinded by the intense light, her eyes filled with tears, unable to see anything.

But she heard Highspire Warden’s wild, unrestrained laughter.

The heavenly lightning fell all night long. On earth, torrential rain poured, ghosts roamed freely. The next day, Highspire Warden’s clothes were in tatters, his body charred black, sitting naked in the same spot.

After an unknown time, he finally stood up again. His skin shed like a cicada’s shell, and suddenly new flesh grew.

He reached out, and a leaf fell from the great god-tree, wrapping around him to become a blue robe once more. Highspire Warden gathered his loose hair behind him, stood tall, then suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood. With blood still staining his lips, he looked up and smiled at Lifesmith: “See? What can it do to me?”

That smile seemed as carefree and innocent as ever.

Lifesmith finally spoke: “Kunlun, come with me to find the stone to mend the sky. Don’t be stubborn.”

“But I want to try.” Highspire Warden said softly, “No matter what, I want to try... Even if I die, I want to die like Kunlun Mountain, not as some nameless grave in the wilderness.”

After speaking, he walked down the mountain without looking back.

Prime Shaper died of exhaustion, and then that irresistible force used Lifesmith’s hand to create humanity, planting countless hidden threads. Faelan Sage said nothing, but hinted with the Balance Sigil, yet in the end could not escape, dying upon the Bagua. Embergrower declined, gradually fading into the masses. Only Lifesmith remained, cautious and alone.

One sage after another fell, and now, it was finally Highspire Warden’s turn.

In this world, is it only those who are not strong enough and remain ignorant who can live briefly and foolishly?

The morning mushroom knows nothing of dusk and dawn; the cicada knows nothing of spring and autumn.

In later legends, Kunlun Mountain is the land of gods and men. No one knows that, in fact, the Saint of the Great Wilderness, Highspire Warden, was the very first to rebel so openly.

Highspire Warden descended from Kunlun Mountain, only to see the released underworld evil ghosts wandering everywhere. These were true ghosts—not the souls of the dead, but entities formed from the accumulated resentment sealed in the land of great disrespect. Suppressed for years, they had long gone mad, eating people and drinking blood, capable of anything.

Yet even among such beings, there were laughably still ranks.

The lowest were not even human-shaped, rolling on the ground like sludge, feeding on corpses. Slightly higher were those with heads and bodies, standing upright like humans, but covered in sores, with twisted features and violent tempers—these were the “you-chu” (feral ghosts).

The higher the rank, the more human they appeared. If one became a ghost king, they could even possess the bearing of an immortal. It seemed the more filthy, the more beautiful.

Legend had it that in the boundless underworld, there were only two uniquely gifted ghost kings, said to be even more precious than the Three Sovereigns of the human world. As fate would have it, when Highspire Warden descended from the peak of Kunlun, arriving at Declan Grove, the burial place of Titanchaser, he happened to encounter one.