Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy - Chapter 3273

Chapter 3273: The Previous War
Shumi didn’t answer immediately, seemingly hesitating on whether to reveal whatever she knew or not. Alex tried to figure out anything he could, based on her expressions, but it wasn’t so simple. She didn’t let much show on her face.

In the end, she answered herself.

“Our seers have long since divined about the upcoming wars. They are preparing for it right this second,” she said. “But the future isn’t defined just yet, and divinations can always turn out to be wrong as well.”

“Still,” Alex said, “they are preparing for the upcoming war, so they must think there is a need to prepare.”

“No,” Shumi said. “They aren’t preparing for the coming war. They are preparing for a war should it come. There is a difference, I believe.”

Alex nodded thoughtfully. “How do you feel about it?”

“It’s awful,” Shumi said immediately. “What the humans did to the demons is awful. Do you know how many people they killed? The demons kept a count. Over one and a half trillion individuals died in the war back then. And that’s just the recorded deaths over the eons. The Forest Moon Realm alone saw the death of over 500 billion people during the tail end of the war. I will never hope to see another war like that.”

Alex couldn’t help but stare blankly when he heard the number.

One and a half trillion. That was a number he couldn’t yet fathom. A single Immortal realm held anywhere from a couple dozen to a hundred billion people. So, for that many people to have died, it was similar to 15 large Immortal realms being wiped clean.

Alex understood that number was over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, and he also understood that there were dozens, if not more, realms within that conversation that used to house demons.

And yet, that number was just so… unreal.

“One and a half trillion,” Alex said slowly. “And that was the demons alone. I can’t imagine less than half of that dying on the humans’ side as well, maybe even more. So many lives lost, and all for…”

What was it all for?

The upcoming war had a simple reason as far as Alex understood. Resources for the upper echelon of cultivators were drying out, mostly stored away in cultivators who would live for another eternity. The only way to reap the benefits of those resources was to kill the cultivator and let their Qi return to the world.

However, hundreds of thousands of years ago, maybe even millions of years ago, that shouldn’t have been the case, right? Were things as dire as they were now back then as well?

The Artifact God’s memory suggested something along that line, but he was born only 500 thousand years ago. And the war had been going on for way longer than that.

Even if it had come down to that in the end, what did start the war at first? Was it really the lack of resources? Or was there another reason?

He looked to Shumi again, hoping she would have the answer. “Do you know why the demons went to war back then?”

Shumi crossed her arms in a slightly aggrieved expression. “The demons didn’t go to war. The war was brought to them. All they did was defend themselves, that’s all.”

Alex blinked. “Okay. So do you know why the humans brought the war to the demons?” he asked.

Shumi’s arms dropped a little this time. “Umm, there are a bit too many reasons to be sure what the true one is. The war started so long ago that we don’t even know when it did, let alone the reasons behind it.”

“Just tell me what you know,” Alex said.

“Well… according to the records of the Nine Moon Hall, the main reason was likely some sort of territory dispute. Both humans and demons fought over whether a few of the worlds belonged to them or not. That led to the all-out war. Other reasons include the humans attempting to expand their empire, their attempt to take our resources, the ire of a prince who was denied a beautiful demon as his bride, unjust retribution for a crime they think the demons committed, or… maybe it was just because the demons were different from them and that threatened them somehow.”

Alex listened to it all, each one a decent possibility. “I see,” he said in the end. “If it does happen again, this time it will be for the resources.”

“We are prepared,” Shumi said with no small amount of resolution in her voice.

Alex didn’t say anything else. Now that he had learned so much about the war, he began thinking about it. He soon lost himself in his thoughts, wondering which one of the possibilities could’ve been true, or if there were some other possibilities that were true that Shumi hadn’t told him about.

In the first place, could he even trust her words?

Ignoring the fact that Shumi could very well be lying, which he didn’t want to believe at the moment, the words she was repeating could’ve been false to begin with, propaganda that was set into her from a young age when she was taken away by the demons.

It could very well be the demons that started the war and lied about it to her. He couldn’t take anything as concrete information just yet.

While his mind was lost in thought, he didn’t let it impact his search for the entryway. He continued walking at a steady pace, checking through not just the base of the mountain but even slightly higher and lower.

But nowhere was there a hollow region that they could break through or a trigger to open a door.

Hours passed in silence, and in the end, they returned back to where they had started, with nothing to show for their efforts.

“That was pointless,” Shumi said with a bit of a sigh. “All that work and we still don’t have a way in.”

Alex frowned as well, but he still didn’t give up. “We’re missing something. But what?”