Immortal Demon World.
Although only three months had passed in Star Realm, nearly three years had flown by inside Immortal Demon World.
It had already been over two years since children of destiny first appeared. The people here gradually got used to this phenomenon, and just like those on Heaven and Earth Star, they even began to take advantage of the children of destiny.
On the eastern side of the continent, a young man quickly walked into a secluded courtyard in the Yan Dynasty.
"Eldest Miss, we've finished capturing this month's children of destiny, with a total of 142 people caught," the young man reported to the empty courtyard as he entered.
His name was Gu Qing, the person most deserving of the title "rising star" in the Gu family these days.
Although reincarnation was banned by the official authorities in Star Realm, it really did give people a major boost in cultivation speed.
Ever since the Gu family secretly gathered some of its members and organized reincarnation trips for them, many people revealed amazing potential.
Gu Qing was one of them. He was originally a nobody within the Gu family, and his cultivation was merely average for an Innate Realm cultivator. To say he was talented was out of the question.
However, ever since he started gaining experience in Immortal Demon World, his actual cultivation level also soared. A month ago, he actually broke through to Prodigious Realm.
As of today, he was already the third junior in his family to break through to Prodigious Realm with the help of reincarnation.
But even so, Gu Qing still dared not show even the slightest disrespect to the "Eldest Miss" he just spoke to.
It wasn't only due to the other party's accumulated prestige over the years, but also because her own strength far exceeded that of these three rising stars.
To put it bluntly, even if all three of them attacked together, they would still be no match for the Eldest Miss.
Gu Qing's voice slowly echoed in the courtyard, but he didn't hear an answer. Instead, what greeted him was a gale from behind.
Gu Qing suddenly turned around and threw a heavy punch, only to see Gu Nian's expressionless face.
Gu Qing's face showed slight surprise, but he didn't stop his punch and even added more strength to it. He felt that Eldest Miss was testing him.
But he soon regretted it, because he realized that the strength of Gu Nian's counterattack was exactly the same as his punch.
In Gu Qing's senses, he felt as if he'd hit an invisible and soft wall that perfectly countered all his strength back onto his fist.
This kind of feeling was very strange. Gu Qing seemed to gain an inexplicable understanding in his heart at this instant.
"It's not the physical characteristics of the wall that countered my punch, but rather, the law of 'countering' itself…" He rubbed his sore right hand. "Eldest Miss, is this your law? How scary."
"It's a new application of my law that I recently developed," Gu Nian replied calmly, then looked into the air. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction?"
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction; life and death are also equal and opposing forces.
Although much had changed with the passage of time, she still remembered a certain someone's casual sentence back then and even successfully put it into practice.
After all, of everyone she'd ever met, he was the only person who recognized her law.
Gu Qing shook his head slightly and didn't respond. Anyhow, it wasn't like this was the first time his Eldest Miss had done bizarre things. He wouldn't be surprised no matter what happened.
"I heard your report on the children of destiny. Let's handle it like usual. Take away as many of their fortune treasures as you can and give them to our people to use… There seems to be more and more children of destiny now?"
"Yes." Gu Qing's expression looked a little grave. "Recently, their numbers are constantly rising and have grown by over 50% since half a year ago. Moreover, we recently discovered an organization named 'White Mist' that's also been wantonly hunting down and capturing children of destiny."
"White Mist?" Gu Nian frowned slightly. "Don't clash with them for the time being. Have the people in Ruby Fish Star investigate this organization to see if they can find out about its background."
Gu Qing nodded, then added, "We also found a rather… special child of destiny."
"Special how?"
"It's someone who calls himself Ye Chen." Gu Qing said, "He's been in the public eye for a little over two years now, but we only recently confirmed that he's also a child of destiny."
Gu Nian was silent for a moment, then said seriously, "Children of destiny have very obvious characteristics. Why did we only discover him now?"
"We didn't find any fortune treasures on him. His cultivation advanced very quickly was all. Only recently did we realize that he was one—right after he declared that he wants to set up a country belonging solely to children of destiny."
"A country that belongs to children of destiny?" Gu Nian's lips couldn't help curling up. "Then how does he explain his lack of a fortune treasure?"
Gu Qing's expression looked somewhat strange. "He says his situation is… rebirth."
...
No matter whether such a thing like rebirth truly existed or not, it was an indisputable fact that Ye Chen started from scratch inside Immortal Demon World and once again stepped into Prodigious Realm in just three years.
He even preliminarily recruited some children of destiny, gathering them by his side, and conquered a city in the center of the mainland, renaming it Wu Gui City.
After that, Ye Chen, who had already spent decades as the King of the Northern Region, quickly fell into the rhythm of conquering other cities.
In the following days, he led his subordinates and continuously expanded their territory. Before the three major forces could react, Ye Chen and his country had already seized a sizable amount of territory.
The force with the biggest reaction to Wu Gui City's abrupt rise to power was Azure Dragon Hall in the West.
The reason was also very simple: it was because the current Wu Gui City was Azure Dragon Hall's place of origin, where the earliest headquarters of Azure Dragon Hall was located.
Even though both the times and the people in Azure Dragon Hall had changed—they even moved their headquarters twice—the ancestral land still held great significance as a memorial site.
"We cannot lose our ancestral land! The so-called children of destiny are nothing more than lucky ones who are blessed by Heaven. What's there to fear?"
"Hall Master, we'll immediately slaughter everyone in Wu Gui City as soon as you give the order!"
"Hall Master…"
The clamoring discussions in the main hall gradually dissipated, and Yan Xiaoxiao stood up wearily, staring blankly at the empty hall.
Her subordinates' fury was right beside her ears, but she suppressed their discontent.
She didn't explain anything when faced with her older subordinates' resentful confusion, nor could she explain.
Although the generals below could be hot-headed, she could not.
'It's true that it'll be easy to take over one Wu Gui City, but who's going to guard against the dynasty and the sect in the East if we rashly send our troops out? Will you do it, or will I do it?'
Either one of the enemy organizations in the East had a higher number of powerhouses than Azure Dragon Hall. Yan Xiaoxiao knew this better than anyone else, but she couldn't explain this to her subordinates.
'Should I tell them that I went behind their backs and traveled to that dynasty and sect many times to investigate the enemies' inside information?'
'Or should I tell them that all the experts in those two organizations are actually reincarnators, and their actual strength is far superior to ours?'
"Not enough, it's still not enough." Calculating the difference in strength between the two sides, Yan Xiaoxiao inwardly sighed. "I wonder when I'll be able to finally drive all these people out of this world."
'Back then… If I didn't choose to stay in this world, then would I also have become one of them?'
Yan Xiaoxiao looked towards the east, her gaze faraway but somewhat grave and stern. The next moment, she suddenly turned around, as a figure slowly walked out from behind her.
"I thought I'd never see you again." There was a light smile on her face. It was a smile that could only be seen between friends.
"Looks like you're very perplexed." Lin Jun's smile was as gentle as ever. "Do you want to have a chat with me?"