To tell the truth,
Xuan Yuan Wan's guess was correct.
Jun Xuanji's words were also correct.
The facts were indeed as such.
However, the events of today were not part of Gu Qingfeng's plan, nor had he ever planned anything. Everything was done step by step, following his heart.
He had indeed long sensed that there was something in the Great Northwest waiting for him.
That feeling was wondrous.
It was an indescribable, inexplicable feeling.
He did not know what was waiting for him, only that this thing was related to his karma.
As for nurturing an infinite number of Taiji Golden Cores within his body,
he truly had no intention of threatening the Three Thousand Great Daos.
It was purely a precautionary measure.
He neither knew what the infinite Taiji Golden Cores would nurture, nor what the evil golden core within his Zifu would nurture. But one thing was certain: whether it was the infinite Taiji Golden Cores or the evil golden core, once they were nurtured, they would be intolerable to Heaven and Earth.
His entire life had been spent dealing with various mysterious and unknown fortunes. Perhaps he could not see through all mysterious and unknown fortunes, but whether this kind of mysterious and unknown fortune would be tolerated by Heaven and Earth, he could more or less deduce.
After all, the Taiji Golden Core was something that inherited the True Fate and qualified one to aspire to the Human King.
The Human King was the one destined to rule over the Human Dao in the future.
The Human Dao was the foundation and the root of the Great Dao.
The Three Thousand Great Daos would not allow the Human Dao to go astray, and Heaven and Earth would not permit it either. This thing would, after all, affect the fortune and destiny of Heaven and Earth. Under such circumstances, how could Heaven and Earth tolerate it?
As for that evil golden core, it went without saying. When it condensed and derived, it not only absorbed Gu Qingfeng's Lifebound Netherfire but also the ever-renewing seed of the Great Nature, as well as a mysterious Lone Star Tear filled with deathly stillness, coupled with the infinite Taiji fortune. Putting aside everything else, just the endless evil aura alone would be something Heaven and Earth could never tolerate.
Why?
No reason.
The reason the Three Thousand Great Daos considered Gu Qingfeng a threat was that after the Calamity, the Source of the Great Daos had all been re-derived and were extremely weak.
Such was the case for the Source of the Great Daos, and even more so for the Source of Heaven and Earth.
The Calamity had just passed; the Source of Heaven and Earth was also being reborn. If the Source of the Great Daos was weak, the Source of Heaven and Earth was equally weak.
At this time, Heaven and Earth absolutely would not tolerate any mysterious and unknown existence.
What would be the consequence of being intolerable to Heaven and Earth?
Judgment.
Judgment from Heaven and Earth.
If possible, Gu Qingfeng truly did not want to provoke this thing.
He was not afraid of death.
Moreover, he did not believe that the Judgment from Heaven and Earth could judge him to death.
He had confidence.
Of course.
It was only confidence in not dying. As for when he would revive?
And what state he would be in after reviving? That was unknown.
Therefore, he had always hoped that the Three Thousand Great Daos would take action to seal the Blood of Original Sin.
In his mind, if the Three Thousand Great Daos acted, they should be able to seal the Blood of Original Sin. Even if they could not seal it, they could definitely suppress it. But what he never expected was that the Three Thousand Great Daos actually could not take the Blood of Original Sin away from this world; they could not even break through the world's barrier.
A mysterious force seemed to have already sealed the Blood of Original Sin within this world.
At first, he thought it was Jun Xuanji's doing, as she was the World-Venerable, ruling over the Source Laws of this world. If anyone could seal this thing within this world, that person must be Jun Xuanji.
But upon further reflection later, it did not seem like Jun Xuanji.
He discovered that this mysterious force came from the Four-Sided Great Cauldron.
This thing was said to have been forged by Canyang Wuyou.
Presumably, it was she who sealed the Blood of Original Sin within this world.
He had never met this woman.
He only knew she had been hiding inside the well within the Canyang Secret Realm.
As if dead.
Truly so.
Gu Qingfeng had probed at the time; that woman lay inside without a trace of vitality.
What exactly Canyang Wuyou intended to do using the Blood of Original Sin, Gu Qingfeng now had no chance to investigate.
He could feel the Blood of Original Sin inside the Four-Sided Great Cauldron growing increasingly intense, so intense that he wished to merge with it right now.
Faced with the call of the Blood of Original Sin,
he was unable to resist.
It was an innate inability to resist. Just as Jun Xuanji had said, he originally belonged to the Blood of Original Sin, so how could he resist it?
However.
Being unable to resist merging did not mean Gu Qingfeng would accept it.
Therefore.
He prepared to gamble.
Since he could not resist, he might as well merge.
To see whose fate was harder.
Gu Qingfeng hoped the Blood of Original Sin would be judged by Heaven and Earth.
Of course.
It was only a hope.
This hope was extremely slim. Gu Qingfeng even suspected that even if Heaven and Earth judged him to death, they probably could not judge this thing to death.
That was not important.
What was important was the Judgment of Heaven and Earth.
As long as Heaven and Earth delivered Judgment, he would have a chance to enter Nirvana. As long as he entered Nirvana, he was confident he could take control of himself during his rebirth.
Why had he always been unwilling to merge with the Blood of Original Sin?
What he feared was that after merging, he would no longer be himself.
This was very important.
Jun Xuanji had lost herself.
Yun Nichang had lost herself.
Feng Zhuyue had also lost herself.
He did not want to lose himself.
"The karma is wrong...
It has been wrong from the very beginning...
Everything...
is wrong..." Jun Xuanji gazed at the Four-Sided Great Cauldron carrying the Blood of Original Sin and murmured, "And you are walking further and further down this already wrong path of karma..."
"Why?"
"Why is all of this happening?"
Jun Xuanji shook her head again, her expression growing more bewildered, hesitant, and pained. "I truly don't know, I know nothing. I don't know why it's like this...
I want to end it, to end all of this...
But I don't know how to end it..."
"I don't even know who I am..." Jun Xuanji seemed to go mad, clutching her hair, her expression especially agonized as she cried out, "Why, why is it like this!"
"Why did I lose myself..."
"Lost...
Lost...
It's me...
It's me...
It was I who wanted to lose myself..."
"Yes!
It wasn't the karma that made me lose myself, it was me...
It was I who wanted to lose myself...
It was I who wanted to forget."
Jun Xuanji kept asking why, and kept murmuring about who she was. Her expression grew more hesitant, more confused, and more pained.
"End, how to end..."
"I don't know, I truly don't know..."
"I'm sorry, I've forgotten...
Forgotten everything..."
"I'm sorry..." As Jun Xuanji's voice grew increasingly ethereal, her figure also became more and more illusory.
She left, and the blood sea filling the sky vanished along with her. The pair of bloody sun and moon also grew increasingly blurry, flickering in and out before disappearing.
Her appearance had been sudden, and her disappearance was just as sudden.
It had been so in the past, and it remained so now.
Gu Qingfeng gazed at the fading afterimage of Jun Xuanji, just gazing. Only after a long while did he reply, "You have never owed me anything, and there is no need to say you're sorry."
And at that moment,
a strange sound slowly drifted over.
Gu Qingfeng knew that the Judgment of Heaven and Earth was about to descend.