The King of Sins cannot be stopped. Shei felt that fact to his very bones.
Even the Demon King who destroyed the world was killed by the King of Sins. Whether it be qi arts or magic, nothing can stand against the King of Sins. Even if all of humanity united, they would ultimately be defeated.
Now, there is only one method left.
Preventing the King of Sins from being born in the first place.
That is, dealing with the disasters that would become the catalyst for his appearance in advance.
[So that is the future you have seen.]
"Yeah. That's it."
The Heavenly Saintess would always appear and show herself whenever Shei sought her. She thought for quite a long time and then said.
[Shei, those words carry the same meaning as blocking all the sins of the world alone. It is too rough and arduous a path.]
"I have no such intention. If I just solve the immediate problems, the King of Sins won't appear, right?"
[Perhaps no one will understand you, nor will they trust and follow you completely. Even if you save someone, those on the other side who were not saved will be hostile to you and criticize you.]
"Why would they be hostile and criticize me? It's to stop the King of Sins and the world's destruction, isn't it?"
[….]
The Heavenly Saintess agonized for quite a while before speaking.
[Shei. Experience the world once. And if your thoughts remain the same... ]
"Huh? What about Dixian? What about Yunshi?"
[I will stay awake. My time will flow, but it will be worth it, right?]
Shei couldn't even fathom what that might mean. However, as long as the Heavenly Saintess was awake, the world would not be the same as before.
With the regression, Shei's body also returned to its original state. While his realizations and know-how in handling qi arts remained, his strength and stamina were reset.
However, the Tianpan Jing still remained with Shei even after the regression. Now that he had started a new cycle, there was no need to walk cautiously.
Taking Tianying with him, Shei went to Jianhou to receive training. Jianhou, seeing Shei for the first time in this cycle, naturally guarded against him, but when Shei showed her the Tianpan Jing and spoke truthfully, she acknowledged him as her disciple. It would be hard for anyone to guess how deeply moved Shei was by the master-disciple relationship that continued even across regressions.
But Jianhou's next words were shocking.
"There is nothing more I can teach you."
"Huh? That can't be right!"
Shei had grown quite strong, but he was only at the level of a decent late-stage expert. He fought with the power of the relics, Tianying and Dizhan, but his qi arts were far from sufficient. Even in Shei's eyes, he had not reached a level where there was nothing more to learn from Jianhou.
"The Tianpan Jing is a qi art that carves karma into the flesh. Once you learn its intent and form, the rest depends on what you build up. Now, you must carve the Tianpan Jing as your own karma."
"The master from last time taught me for much longer..."
"Perhaps, out of excessive worry, I overprotected my newly taken disciple. If I truly thought of my disciple, I should have sent her away."
Even as Jianhou acknowledged Shei as her disciple, she clearly distinguished herself from the Jianhou in Shei's memories.
"...However, if you truly possess the power to return from death, as you say. If you can carve death into that body multiple times. The one who reaches the ultimate might just be you."
In this cycle, Jianhou guided Shei with all her might. It was a much harsher and more intense training than what Shei had experienced in the previous cycle.
His skills had clearly improved, yet the training was even harder than before. Shei thought that Jianhou still did not consider her a disciple. However, Jianhou had merely increased the training intensity in proportion to her improved skills.
After finishing a certain amount of training, Jianhou asked.
"You said you must save the world from the King of Sins. What do you plan to do now?"
"I'll stop Dixian as I always do, and this time, I'll try to stop the Demonic Federation's Yunshi."
"No. You must not do that."
"Huh?"
Having heard about the apocalypse and the regression from Shei, Jianhou accepted the story without a doubt.
"Shei, if you have the ability to regress from death, and if the world truly faces destruction, then until you succeed, all cycles and deaths are nothing more than your training process. If you've resolved something once, you can put it off for a while."
Dixian and Aoman are just one trial. If you have resolved them once, there is no need to be bound by them; you can put them aside for a moment, and it is also necessary to find other information.
The words were easy to say, but it was the same as telling her to give up on this cycle. When the apocalypse comes, Jianhou of this cycle would die as well, so how could she say such a thing without any fear?
Perhaps Jianhou had been preparing for death even before meeting Shei. Shei suddenly had that thought.
"Following the Saintess's advice, try going on a xiaxing in this cycle."
"How do I do a xiaxing? Do I just wander the world and beat up bad guys?"
"If only it were that simple."
Jianhou looked at Shei with worry.
"I am worried that you might be deceived and used by someone."
"Who would deceive me?"
"Anyone who needs only your power, not your will."
After thinking for a moment, Jianhou handed Shei a red cross.
"They say there is a vampire near the Endor Plains."
"Should I go and subjugate it?"
"It's a vampire that saves people."
"Then there's no need to subjugate it?"
Jianhou didn't feel the need to explain further and simply ordered.
"Go."
"Yes."
***
Proper vampires reside in the Mist Duchy. They are pureblood vampires who received blood from the Progenitor, proficient in Xuezhaoshu, and capable of perfectly controlling their bloodsucking impulses.
In other words, it means that vampires outside the Mist Duchy are all rotten.
The ghouls created as the Progenitor marched against the Shenghuang Ting in the past, the victims who were captured as prisoners, had their blood sucked, and were cursed and abandoned, and the moths who took the blood of the Ain and Yeirling who died in battle.
They left countless ghost stories and tragedies across the continent, and vampires were considered synonymous with fear.
And that was equally true for a vampire who devoted herself to treating people.
"Lir Nightingale... She is called Yixian in these parts."
Lir Nightingale. A vampire whose origin and strength are impossible to gauge.
She was a divine physician who had saved thousands from the brink of death, and at the same time, a vampire who exploited the blood of thousands. Hearing the conflicting testimonies, Shei tilted his head.
"But they call a vampire a Divine Immortal? Even if it's the frontier, that's too much. If I had heard this from the Tianshenjiao, they wouldn't have just let it slide."
The orphanage where Shei grew up was maintained by the director's devout faith, and the military nation that succeeded the kingdom still had the faith of the Heavenly God widespread. Since Shei himself was close to the Shenghuang Ting, Shei's way of thinking was exactly the same as that of an ordinary believer.
"How can one become a Divine Immortal when they drink blood? Did she brainwash them?"
And what Shei encountered was a group of people setting fire to the clinic.
"It's a vampire's altar!"
"Burn it all down!"
"The people inside are either apostates who offered their necks to the vampire, or they've already become food! We must burn and purify them!"
Shei did not hesitate about his priorities between the arsonists in the act and the vampire. Shei swung Tianying to subdue the arsonists and put out the fire. The patients cowering inside the tent expressed their gratitude to Shei.
And there, Shei met the Yixian.
"Thank you for saving my patients. Additionally, thank you for increasing my patients."
"Patients? These guys committed arson..."
"Anyone injured in front of me is my patient. Without distinguishing anyone."
The Yixian treated the arsonists who had been thoroughly beaten by Shei. Resisting fiercely with their deep-rooted distrust of vampires, the Yixian forcibly restrained them and didn't let them go until they were fully healed.
"They threw firebombs and attacked your patients, you know?"
"Because of that, they are now my patients."
"That's not wrong, but... aren't you a vampire? I heard vampires view humans as livestock."
"I am a doctor before I am a vampire. Therefore, they are my patients first."
"Either way, you admit you're a vampire. Don't you want to suck blood?"
"Of course, I also have bloodsucking impulses."
The Yixian said while continuing her treatment.
"That is why I will treat my patients. The patients I treat will survive and produce blood, and I will drink that blood as payment."
"Like livestock?"
"Like a patient who gets healthy through treatment, and a doctor who receives the payment."
Shei felt that made sense. Except for the payment being changed to blood, the Yixian's actions weren't much different from a normal doctor's. If it wasn't much different, there was no reason it couldn't be done.
"And I believe this is the most ideal relationship between vampires and humans."
"Huh? This relationship?"
"No. It is the only method that both my past self as a human and my current self as a vampire can accept simultaneously."
Well, that's because vampires were also human before receiving the Progenitor's blood. If the Yixian had once been human, if she had a time when she was livestock before becoming a blood aristocrat, she might not have been able to treat others like livestock.
"That is why I will insist on my role."
The Yixian continued her treatment. Shei tilted his head and followed her.
Shei spent a few months as a live-in helper at the Yixian's clinic. The Yixian taught Shei simple first aid methods and how to concoct elixirs for special situations. Actually, she taught him even more difficult things, but Shei couldn't remember them.
Treating people and putting those who tried to hinder the treatment into a state requiring treatment was a somewhat meaningful experience in its own way. Shei got the opportunity to think about many things at the Red Cross clinic where patients never ceased to come.
"Lir Nightingale. How about slowly calling it quits?"
"As long as there are patients, my treatment does not end."
"But there's no money, no people, and no blood to move you anymore. There will be no good in doing more here."
What the Yixian did was a clear good. However, the Yixian was a vampire, and to some people, only that mattered.
Those who feared left, and those who feared but couldn't leave remained. And those who did not fear came and fought each other.
The Red Cross clinic became filled with those who came to kill the Yixian and failed, and those who came to her holding onto their last hope. The difficulty of treatment rose, but the compensation gradually decreased. Even those who helped the Yixian out of goodwill eventually grew exhausted and fell away.
The grace of the Yixian's treatment became taken for granted, and grateful hearts became increasingly hard to find. Nevertheless, the Yixian steadily continued her treatment.
"That is what I desire."
Her blood energy became increasingly insufficient, but her skill grew sharper day by day. She diagnosed illnesses through the minute flow and reactions of the bloodstream, and treated patients using Xuezhaoshu to the absolute minimum.
Lir Nightingale, who was called Yixian as a skilled doctor in the neighborhood, was being reborn as a true Yixian through this endless training and service.
However, a Divine Immortal cannot live in the secular world. The filth of the secular world grabs them and drags them down.
"It's that vampire! That quack vampire killed my child!"
Because the Yixian was not a god, there were lives she couldn't bear to save. People stepped forward to shift the sin born from that death onto the Yixian.
"The vampire is deceiving people with evil methods, turning them into vampires under the guise of curing illnesses!"
There are doctors pushed out by a doctor. Unable to follow the groundbreaking surgical methods that only a vampire could perform, they doubted and slandered the Yixian's treatment methods.
"If you saved my enemy's life, then you are also my enemy."
The patients the Yixian treated and those who had grudges. They defined the Yixian, who treated their enemies, as an enemy as well.
"Humans are the most superior race. A race that preys on such humans shouldn't exist."
And some denied the vampire race itself.
All of this was done in the name of the Heavenly God. The reason was nothing special. It was simply the sharpest knife when butchering vampires.
When Shei briefly stepped away and returned, the Red Cross clinic was burning in bright red flames. The Yixian was pinned to a burning cross with a stake piercing her abdomen.
If she were in perfect condition, it would have been impossible for them to be a match for the Yixian. She was quite a high-rank vampire. However, lacking blood energy, she was merely a human who didn't get hurt easily. She couldn't overcome the group of humans brimming with malice while protecting her patients.
Shei watched the sight of goodwill being trampled by malice.