Illustration One Hundred Fourteen: Returning to Them in Kind

Sang Sang looked down at Rocky, her eyes clear and childlike, her smile innocent and radiant. “I come from a second-level civilization. To the Temple, I am a savage native who knows nothing of civilized courtesy. Just as you like to be prepared for every eventuality, I prefer to answer others in kind.”

Rocky shouted furiously, “A Creation Artifact and the Danzha Painted Realm—aren’t those enough compensation?”

“How can a Creation Artifact you cannot control, and the Danzha Painted Realm you do not even care about, offset what you have done?” Sang Sang turned to the Goddess of Danzha. “I believe the Goddess would rather bear the consequences herself than have Priest Rocky—or me—bear them for her.”

The Goddess of Danzha nodded. “Though those consequences did not originate from my own hands, they arose because of me. Naturally, I should bear them.”

Rocky sat in the water, staring blankly at the woman he had longed for over tens of thousands of years. When he heard her answer, his entire being fell into a daze.

Why had it come to this?

Who bore the karmic retribution did not matter, so long as it was not Danzha!

Unable to use force, unable to roam the stars, trapped in a small world containing only a single continent—how could proud and free-spirited Danzha possibly endure such a life?

Without pride and freedom, could Danzha still be Danzha?

He had persisted for tens of thousands of years because he wanted to resurrect the complete Danzha, not create a shackled vessel that merely housed her soul.

Rocky’s gaze gradually focused. His aura began to change, and the spiritual energy around him shifted with his mood. A storm seemed about to break, with an icy chill arriving first.

The Goddess of Danzha turned back and frowned. “What foolish thing are you thinking of now?”

Rocky rose and approached her. Opening his arms, he embraced her, his voice tender and indulgent. “I know you won’t be able to bear it. I was wrong. I’ve thought it through. If all that awaits us is pain and torment, why resurrect you at all? This time, we’ll die together and be reborn together. We’ll meet again in our next lives...”

“Your mind truly hasn’t improved at all in tens of thousands of years!” The Goddess of Danzha ground her teeth, shoved Rocky away, and kicked him into the Genesis Pool. Planting one foot on him, she leaned down and demanded, “Why didn’t you think that way when the trouble first began? Now that everything is settled, you regret it. How do you know I won’t be able to endure it?”

Rocky answered instinctively, “You won’t be able to fight or leave. You definitely won’t be able to endure it.”

The Goddess of Danzha pressed her foot down harder. “Am I really that fragile in your eyes?”

Rocky sensed that something was wrong and fell silent.

“Don’t run away whenever trouble arises, only to regret it afterward.” The Goddess of Danzha stared at him for a long while. Then she suddenly sighed, pulled him to his feet, and embraced him tightly. “If you had accompanied me into reincarnation back then, I would have been very happy. But things have come this far, and now we can only face them. Since this is karma, it can be unraveled. Once we break free of these karmic shackles, we can still travel through the stars. When we grow tired of that, we can find an interesting civilization and a beautiful planet on which to be reborn.”

The surging tide of spiritual energy gradually subsided.

“All right. We’ll do it together.” Rocky buried his face against the side of the Goddess of Danzha’s neck. “Danzha, I should have agreed to resurrect King Qingyun back then.”

“Stop saying foolish things. You don’t possess the Laws of Time and Space—how could you have known what the future held?” The Goddess of Danzha felt the heat against her neck and scolded him softly. “Tell me honestly what you’ve done all these years. Don’t lie, don’t hide anything, and don’t be evasive. Every detail, no matter how small, will affect how our karma is unraveled in the future...”

Sang Sang left Danzha Sea Island. Looking back at the sea glowing like flames of sunset, she let out a long sigh of relief.

The Heavenly Emperor appeared behind her, wrapped both arms around her, and rested his chin on the top of her head. He hummed and grumbled, “That Goddess of Danzha is rather interesting. As for old man Rocky, his resolve is far too weak. Back then, he should either have agreed to resurrect that so-called prince and secretly sabotaged the process—by the time the other side realized something was wrong, they would both have been long gone—or, before refusing, he should have prepared for the other party’s rage and protected the people who mattered. If it were me, I would never give anyone the chance to hurt you.”

“I’m not the Goddess of Danzha. I wouldn’t put myself in danger. If I ever encountered a situation like that, I would endure it for a while. As long as I survived, there would always come a day when I could kill my enemy. Besides, the Goddess of Danzha retained her memories even in her soul state. After tens of thousands of years of torment, the pride in her was worn away, leaving only an unyielding backbone. She learned how to endure.”

Sang Sang jerked her head backward, striking the Heavenly Emperor’s chin and making him bite his tongue.

He stuck out his tongue and hissed through the pain. “How heartless. Your teacher in the Path of Painting is looking for you. I can smell Aslan’s aura on him.”

Sang Sang smoothed her disheveled hair with her fingers. “My strength is still insufficient, but the power of the Laws of Time and Space exceeds imagination. It’s time I checked on Teacher Aslan.”

The Ring-Shaped Interstellar City

Boya was speaking with Sena when he sensed Sang Sang’s approach. He rose and crossed the atrium to welcome her on the bridge.

Sang Sang bowed. “Teacher.”

Boya smiled in satisfaction. “Very good. Your cultivation has advanced again. You should be close to condensing your Astral Core Avatar, aren’t you?”

Sang Sang nodded. The Astral Core Avatar was the general term for those at or above the seventh astral rank. Once an avatar could manifest outside the body, one entered the Void rank.

After returning to the sitting room, Sena offered exaggerated congratulations. “Your Highness, congratulations on obtaining your first Faith Domain! You’ve taken the difficult first step. From here on, everything will surely go smoothly. You’ll claim first place in the internship and become a Titled Saintess the moment the finals end.”

Sang Sang smiled with pressed lips. “I must also thank you, Teacher Boya. Without your recommendation, I would never have obtained the opportunity presented by the Danzha Painted Realm.”

“This is more than an opportunity—it is an adventure. Although the Danzha Painted Realm is sinister, its Law of Creation is excellent. With your Laws of Time and Space, even if Rocky attacked, you would still be capable of escaping back to the Interstellar City.” Boya paused, then continued with a sigh, “I had imagined that you might ease the deterioration of the Goddess of Danzha’s soul and delay Rocky’s descent into madness. But I never expected you to pass through the torrent of time and space, connect the Goddess of Danzha’s soul with the past, and give her a chance to return to her peak. When this news reached the Temple, it shook many people.”

The Danzha Painted Realm was not unknown within the Temple, especially among the elders who were several thousand or even ten thousand years old. In the past, the Temple’s upper echelons had even convened a council over the Danzha Painted Realm to discuss whether its autonomy should be revoked. In the end, however, they allowed Rocky to continue as he pleased. Afterward, Rocky became somewhat more restrained in ambushing powerful experts and plundering their origins.

In the past few thousand years, as Danzha’s condition grew worse, he no longer dared leave. The Interstellar City was stationed outside, and he could exchange for whatever he needed there. Only then did the name of the Danzha Painted Realm gradually fade into silence within the Temple.

In truth, there had been people capable of resurrecting Danzha back then. Unfortunately, Rocky demanded a perfect resurrection at the absolute peak of strength. His pickiness angered the masses, and many resurrection masters famous throughout the stars declared that whoever could perfectly resurrect the Goddess of Danzha would earn their sincere submission.

For a newcomer, Sang Sang’s acquisition of the Danzha Painted Realm as a Faith Domain merely seemed like good fortune—the lucky discovery of an unclaimed small world in which to establish a faith. But to the elders who knew how troublesome the Danzha Painted Realm was, it was a massive bombshell.

Those elders had originally regarded the Saint Prince and Saintess Selection Tournament as nothing more than a children’s game and paid little attention to it. Because of this incident, however, they emerged one after another, asking who the intern saintess, Sang Hongye, really was and how she had managed to handle the irrational Rocky.

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