Chapter 371 359: When a Chaotic Age Descends, Calamity is Sure to Arise

Song Ciwan heard a new key term at the banquet: Spiritual Energy Tide!

Her perspective was limited; she could often only understand things she had personally seen or heard. Judging by the Great Cyan God's tone, the concept of a Spiritual Energy Tide had been circulating for a long time in certain circles and was no great secret.

But Song Ciwan had never encountered it before. So, the moment she suddenly heard this term, a stirring realization dawned on her.

Sometimes, for a person with a sharp mind, a complete explanation isn't necessary. A mere hint is enough to set their thoughts racing.

It was as if a whirlpool had suddenly formed in the depths of Song Ciwan's heart, stirred by a powerful current. For a moment, her thoughts churned tumultuously.

Certain images that had once drifted idly through her mind now came rushing back, flashing through her consciousness in an instant.

For instance, when she first started working at the Demon Refining Platform, people in the Washing Room would often lament, "It's been so strange these past few years. There are more and more Demon Fiends, and more and more people are dying. SIGH!"

In Jishan Square, the number of junior officials who were colleagues of her father, Song Youde, also dwindled as more and more of them died...

When Song Ciwan performed a Demon Washing, her hands would touch the Demon Fiends' corpses, and she would occasionally see flashes of their lives. Fiends were one thing—the most common in the world were animal fiends. For an animal to become a fiend, it just needed to be in a place with abundant Vitality, cultivate for some years, and have a bit of a special bloodline. Considering the sheer number of animals, it wasn't actually that difficult.

But for an inanimate object to become a demon was a truly rare and ethereal thing.

And yet, the number of demons in the Mortal World was undeniably on the rise.

Take, for example, the first demon from an inanimate object that Song Ciwan had washed: a Leaking Pot from a Night Watchman.

'How did that Leaking Pot become a demon again?'

'Oh, right. It seems it was because it had been tainted by too many chaotic energies of the mortal world: greed, anger, ignorance, hatred, love, malice, desire... The human heart is boundless, and so the Leaking Pot became a demon.'

At the time, Song Ciwan was just beginning to encounter these things. She simply thought it was normal for objects to become demons and that there was nothing strange about it.

After all, it was an extremely Low-Level demon. It could only harm mortals who were physically weak or weak-willed. If it were someone with a stronger will, even a child with a sound mind, such a Low-Level demon couldn't affect them at all.

And so, the Song Ciwan of the past had completely overlooked all of this.

She had mistaken the abnormal for the normal. Only later did she gradually come to understand that in the world of mortals, Demon Fiends should not be a common sight.

If Demon Fiends became common, there was usually only one reason: an age of chaos was coming!

When heaven brings an age of chaos, disaster is sure to follow.

Then there was the Dragon Maiden turning into a monster at the bottom of Bibo Lake, the strange departure from Cold Hill Mountain, the frequent mutations in Illusory Nether City, and the Immortal Spirit Secret Realm outside Pinglan City...

No, those Spirit Realm Secret Realms were no longer exclusive to Pinglan City. They were now popping up all over the Great Zhou Empire, blooming everywhere!

A thousand thoughts swirled in Song Ciwan's mind, and all her confusion gave way to a sudden realization. 'So that's it! It was all because of the Spiritual Energy Tide!'

She had arrived in a great era.

Or perhaps, it was precisely because of the Spiritual Energy Tide and the dawn of this great era that she, Song Ciwan, was able to awaken her Innate Wisdom from a past life and forge a new path out of a desperate situation.

Thinking further about the appearance of the Heaven and Earth Scale, Song Ciwan felt an even greater sense of the turning wheels of fate, of a vast and surging tide of destiny.

Regarding the Heaven and Earth Scale, although Song Ciwan had accepted it readily from the start, it wasn't true that she had no doubts about this treasure.

Song Ciwan had her suspicions, her doubts, and her worries.

She had just quickly found a way to reconcile it logically. 'The original me, with both parents dead and reduced to working in the Washing Room, had already lost everything.'

'At that time, having nothing, I suddenly awakened my Innate Wisdom from a past life and obtained the Heaven and Earth Scale—a world-shocking Divine Artifact that transcends the Three Realms and Five Elements. For the Song Ciwan of that time, the Heaven and Earth Scale was both a miraculous encounter and my only lifeline.'

A person can doubt many things, but not the one thing that saves them in a desperate situation.

The reason was simple. Once you let go of that one thing, you would be consumed by your despair.

'For someone who is about to lose even their present, what future is there to speak of?'

'At a time like that, even if your only lifeline is poisonous, you have to take it!'

Fortunately, as things stood, the Heaven and Earth Scale was not only non-toxic, but a truly genuine Transcendent Divine Artifact.

Even if Song Ciwan had her doubts, she would always hold onto it tightly.

She would do everything in her power, striving with all her might to grow. She would seek her own Dao, hold fast to her original intentions, and continue walking down the path she had chosen for herself.

Until one day, should she encounter an obstacle, she would hack through the thorns and ride the waves forward.

'Even if I die for my Dao, I will have no regrets!'

The Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting circulated within Song Ciwan's body, silent and unnoticeable. In her Sea of Consciousness, however, the Illusion Text of the character for "Dao" glowed softly, seeming to have gained an extra layer of profound charm at that moment.

She sat there, seemingly unchanged, yet it felt as if something about her was different.

The Great Cyan God, who had been pontificating endlessly about the state of the world, suddenly fell silent and shot Song Ciwan a peculiar glance.

At that moment, if Song Ciwan possessed a Mind Reading Technique powerful enough to see into a Divine Spirit's thoughts, she would have heard the Great Cyan God muttering to himself, 'This is ridiculous! I just said one casual thing, so how did this Human Race Celestial Pride just have an Enlightenment? What did she even comprehend? How can she just have an epiphany so easily?'

The Great Cyan God was filled with an indescribable frustration.