Chapter 48

I must admit, Qi Xing was actually still a little curious. But it would take too much time to torture a five-hundred-year-old vampire until she begged for mercy. Qi Xing wanted to hurry up and kill that detestable dark-skinned guy right now. So, let's just leave it at that.

"Then we have a deal."

"Very well!"

Francesca crossed her arms and finally revealed a satisfied smile.

"Now, I will tell you exactly what the mythological archetype Romanie obtained using the silver coin is."

"That's not some dark-skinned guy's mythological figure at all; if anything, it's the exact opposite."

The exact opposite? So, is this some white god? Could it have something to do with the Nazi?

"A white god? The Nazi? Ha! Your imagination is too wild! Though, I suppose it's not entirely wrong."

The vampire smiled slyly.

"That is the god of the Aryans."

"It is the Great Demon God of India."

"It is the [Strongest Asura King on Earth]. An ultimate powerhouse who simultaneously possesses the Fire of Shiva, the Illusionary Power of Vishnu, and the Immortality Blessing of Brahma."

"A super NTR and a super cuckold."

"The Great Demon King Jalandhara."

051: I'm going to be the NTR? Really?

Jalandhara?

What is Jalandhara?

—Qi Xing, lacking knowledge, would probably ask this kind of question again! However, this time, that really wasn't the case.

Because Qi Xing was, after all, a cultivator.

These days, many cultivators no longer understand truly ancient mythology or those arcane secrets. However, Qi Xing, at least within his own field of expertise, had tentatively read some books, understood some Taoism, and studied some Buddhism. As for the mythology and arcane secrets of East Asia, Qi Xing had basically at least seriously learned about them.

As for India and Southeast Asia, although Qi Xing didn't particularly understand them, he had at least read a few books, such as the Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita, and a small portion of the Puranas translations.

As for the Mahabharata, that thing is really too long to read in its entirety; please go find an expert on the subject.

"Jalandhara."

He recalled the name and frowned.

"The Asura King from the Shiva Purana myth, a Demon King who simultaneously possesses the power of the Trimurti. So that's why. I didn't feel anything when hitting him because of Vishnu's Maya illusionary power, and I couldn't kill him because of… that damned Brahma blessing…"

Hinduism.

One of the world's major religions, it holds a dominant position in South Asia and has had an inextricable relationship with Buddhism for many years, competing for the ranking of the world's third-largest religion.

Although Hinduism is a polytheistic religion, its various sects all acknowledge one ultimate absolute truth: [Brahman]. They also believe that this supreme [truth] manifests in three different forms—these are the Trimurti, the three main deities of Hinduism.

The God of Creation and Knowledge, Brahma.

The God of Maintenance and Protection, Vishnu.

The God of Destruction and Transformation, Shiva.

Different sects within Hinduism argue over which divine form is the greatest, and which divine form represents the [Supreme Truth]. The Vaishnavas believe it is Vishnu; the Shaivites believe it is Shiva; the Shaktas believe it is Shiva's wife, the supreme Great Goddess.

The Brahma sect? There is almost no Brahma sect left in the 21st century. The era when Brahma was most valued and worshipped was in the pre-Christian era, during the early stages of the Indian Brahmanical Vedic religion. Later, with the rise of Buddhism, which attacked the worship of Brahma, the Indian religion underwent self-reform. Although Brahma remains one of the three main deities, few Hindus actually worship him today.

Today in India, there are tens of thousands of temples dedicated to the other two main deities, Vishnu and Shiva, but temples dedicated to Brahma are rare. Followers of the Brahma sect have become very scarce.

Actually, from a religious studies perspective, this is easy to understand.

Brahma's followers represented the Aryan Brahmin class; those who believed in Shiva were mostly powerful indigenous people of India; those who believed in Vishnu were mostly the newly rich who were originally of the lower Vaishya caste.

Around the beginning of the Common Era, the ancient Brahmanical religion gradually declined. The newly developed Vaishnavas and the indigenous Indian Shaivites certainly did not like the old Brahmins, the followers of Brahma, who were resting on their laurels.

The changes in real society were reflected in mythology and religion, naturally leading to the decline of Brahma worship and the rise of the other two great gods.

But regardless, the supreme reality in Hinduism, the three manifestations of Brahman, remain these Trimurti.

The Asura King [Jalandhara] that Francesca just mentioned is an ultimate powerhouse who simultaneously possesses the power of the Trimurti, the strongest Asura in Indian mythology, the most powerful Demon King, bar none.

The likes of Rahu, who swallows the sun and moon, and Vritra, who fought a great battle with the Heavenly Emperor Indra, are completely incomparable to Jalandhara. The heavens of the three realms were all conquered by this Great Demon King; the Heavenly Emperor's Vajra thunderbolt, in the face of the sky-filling waves raised by Jalandhara, was about as effective as a toothpick stirring a water vat.

Because Jalandhara was originally a ball of rage emitted from the third eye on Shiva's forehead, possessing the divine power to destroy everything. Shiva cast it into the sea, where it condensed and bloomed with the seawater, transforming into an Asura infant.

An infant born from the [Rage] of the Destroyer God was already terrifying enough. However, it was as if the Trimurti, when designing a new BOSS, felt the stats and mechanics weren't enough, so the passing Creator God Brahma fished him out of the seawater. Seeing that the child was gifted and possessed primordial power, he named the child and bestowed a blessing upon him: "Since you grew up in the water, I bestow upon you the great name Jalandhara."

Everyone who knows a little bit about occultism should know that one person naming another is, in itself, a powerful ritual that can carry mysterious power. Jalandhara was born of the Destroyer God and named by the Creator God; this was great, it was like they were afraid things weren't troublesome enough.

Later… some things happened during this period, which I will elaborate on later… In short, Jalandhara later learned Vishnu's ultimate technique—the Maya Illusion—due to some events.

Hinduism believes that everything in the world is an illusion, that [Brahman] is the source of all things and the ultimate reality, while the present world is relatively just an unreal phenomenon. That is why it is [Illusion], the [Veil (Maya)].

The visible universe is merely produced from illusion. Although the world is undoubtedly colorful, it is ultimately an illusion. This illusion is completely unsolvable; neither sentient beings nor gods can penetrate it—this concept was later absorbed by Buddhism and became the foundation of Indian religions.

Vishnu is known as the [Heavenly King of Illusion]. Only he can manifest illusions on a cosmic scale through illusionary power. And its depth is unfathomable, even to Brahma, Indra, or Shiva.

Jalandhara is such a monster, having maxed out all the skills of the Trimurti, possessing Shiva's combat power, Brahma's bestowed immortality, and Vishnu's illusionary power. It's like some idiot game designer had a brain malfunction and decided to copy and paste the skills and mechanics of the final BOSSes of three expansion packs onto the same new BOSS.

Very stupid, and very unimaginative.

Oh? Qi Xing happens to know such a stupid game designer, and she also works part-time as a cosmic creator god and system maintenance personnel!

"Excuse me for a moment."

He immediately found an empty ruin room nearby, then tapped his shadow to call out the idiot Creator.

"Excuse me, Miss Brahma, please explain."

"Uh, don't glare at me with such a stern expression."

Samael crawled out from the shadow, looking uncharacteristically nervous.

"Before I made it like this, my intentions were still very good."

"Intentions?"

Qi Xing didn't believe in intentions at all.

There are endless stories in Indian mythology about main gods blindly bestowing blessings and causing bugs; there is even a mature process: Asceticism—moving Brahma or Shiva to obtain a blessing—wishing for an immortal body—becoming arrogant and acting recklessly—beating up the Heavenly Emperor—beating up the Heavenly Emperor—ruling the world—acting recklessly, acting recklessly—finally being killed by one of the gods who finds a loophole in the immortality.

There are those who wished to only be killed by a child born within seven days, beat up the Heavenly Emperor, dominated the battlefield, and were finally killed by Shiva's son.

There are those who thought women don't go to the battlefield and wished to only be killed by a woman, but it turned out Shiva's wife was a great war goddess with top-tier combat power.

The epitome of the "no one can kill me" direction is someone who wished to only be killed by the son of Shiva and Vishnu, probably thinking that two male gods couldn't possibly create a child? Well, they actually could.

Some people thought, if I can't stop others anyway, then I should just strengthen myself!

There were those who started with location, wishing for immortality in the heavens and on earth, and guess what? They were killed while placed on someone's lap.

There were those who started with opposing weapons, wishing not to be harmed by metal, wood, earth, or stone, only to be killed by Indra using a vajra made of bone.

There were those who started with time, also accounting for weapons, wishing not to be killed by day or night, not by dry things or wet things, only to have someone pick a specific day and kill them at twilight using foam.

There were those who started with opponents, wishing that gods, asuras, yaksas, and all such powerful beings could not kill them. But they forgot about humans and animals. Consequently, Vishnu reincarnated as the human king Rama and killed him.

The culmination of all this was another Asura King, Hiranyakashipu. His ascetic practices moved the creator god Brahma, who appeared to grant him a boon. Hiranyakashipu wanted absolute immortality, but Brahma said that all living things must die, and he could not grant that.

Hiranyakashipu thought for a moment and said he could die. But he could not die during the day or the night; he could not die indoors or outdoors; he could not die on the ground or in the sky; he could not be killed by gods, nor by beasts or mortals; he could not die by weapons, nor by bare hands.

If I were to go into detail about what happened after that, it would be too tedious. If you're interested, you can look it up yourselves. In short, in Qi Xing's view, this was simply a series of absurd stories about creating bugs and then patching them indefinitely.

"This isn't a bug, but rather, when setting up immortality, one must leave a backdoor. Otherwise, if the program glitches, that would be a real bug."

Samael explained calmly, "You've seen my true form, don't you understand yet? I'm the god who didn't write in any death conditions, got beaten up by my big brother, and am now stuck in a bug, half-dead."

Isn't that just your own fault?

But then again, in Indian mythology, these great demon kings who wished for immortality were basically killed because they deserved it.

Thinking carefully, and returning to the current situation, Qi Xing suddenly realized with a start that perhaps most of the [Silver Coin Messengers] in this world's history had also become arrogant after obtaining invincible power, acted recklessly, and then crashed and burned.

As Samael said, desire has never truly changed.

"Since things have come to this, and you already know it's Jalandhara, I'll just say it directly."

So the Loli Evil God continued to speak, explaining further, "I told you before that after I created this world, I quickly discovered that primitive tribes would constantly [redacted] for the sake of power. Regardless of the tribe or race, they all fell under the control of greed and lust."

"What to do? I had to think of another way for humans to obtain power, for example, forbidden [redacted] ascetic practices, allowing them to obtain different types of power at the system mechanism level through other means, attracting them away from messing around with [redacted] all day long… Do you understand now? Do you remember what Jalandhara's boon from Brahma was?"

Qi Xing finally frowned.

There are several different versions of the specific content of the boon received by the great demon king Jalandhara from Brahma.

Qi Xing had only read the Shiva Purana; the version he saw was [Jalandhara can only be killed by Shiva].

But this seemed too boring and didn't fit Samael's style.

So Qi Xing walked out of the room and returned to Lady Remina and Francesca, asking directly, "There are many versions of the Puranas. Which version of Brahma's immortality boon does the Asura King Jalandhara, whom Romanie drew with the silver coin, actually have?"

"As expected, you also know there are several versions." Francesca grinned.

"Based on my experience of encountering [Silver Coin Messengers] several times over the past five hundred years, I speculate that the mythological powers humans obtain through [silver coins] reflect the holder's personality and skills. If a myth has many versions or composite attributes, they will only obtain the part that best suits them."

"So, which version Romanie obtained is actually easy to judge from his personality and behavior."

"His version of immortality is—[As long as his own wife remains a virgin, and he himself has not violated the purity of any virgin, he will never die]."

Qi Xing was truly speechless for a moment.

Although it sounded absurd, and although this version was relatively rare—the more common ones were the two other versions promoted by the Shaiva and Vaishnava sects—Indian mythology was sometimes just like that.

Connecting this to what Romanie had done before and what Francesca had said, Qi Xing understood even more clearly, "So he can only [redacted] women who are already married, or at least have similar emotional relationships—he can only be a cuckolder."

In the Indian Puranic mythology, the boon of the Asura King Jalandhara, regardless of the version, at least partly comes from this. As long as his wife, the beautiful Asura demoness Vrinda, kept her virginal purity, her husband Jalandhara had an immortal body.

Conversely, Jalandhara himself would run off to steal other people's wives.

For example, he once used Maya to disguise himself as Shiva, attempting to [redacted] Shiva's wife, Goddess Parvati. He almost succeeded, which infuriated Shiva. However, even the furious Lord of Destruction himself could not kill Jalandhara at first. Because he possessed the Destroyer's wrath, the Creator's boon of immortality, and Maya.

Even Shiva could only fight Jalandhara to a draw at first. Until… until… uh… can you guess how this story is finally resolved in Indian mythology?

Innocent children hearing this probably wouldn't know how it ends! How can one prevent the invincible great demon king Jalandhara from overturning the cosmic order of Dharma? How terrifying!

In fact, in the blink of an eye, Qi Xing thought of an obvious way to solve the problem.

But he found it hard to accept.

"Does it have to be like this?"

"If you were very, very, very, very strong—ten times stronger than Romanie—then of course you wouldn't have to worry about so much. But obviously, you are not that strong yet."

Francesca pursed her lips, "I'll answer your next question while I'm at it—[Did Romani Domingo actually have a wife?] Yeah, I was actually quite surprised too, because I've never seen it either. A black guy would actually obediently get married and not run away immediately?"

"But I guess, most likely, he has always had a secret [wife]. Nominally a wife, but actually a virgin, hidden in the underground of Herculaneum—hidden deep within his own [Inner Realm]."

"That concludes my entire presentation."

" [Rep-Man], you have obtained the intelligence, what do you plan to do next?"

052: Is cuckolding really such an inconvenient thing?

[Rep-Man], the intelligence has been given to you. Now what are you going to do?

Lady Remina, Francesca, and even Elaine were watching him through the communication stone, waiting for Qi Xing to answer this question.

Francesca clearly thought that [Rep-Man], of course, would immediately run off to [redacted] Romani Domingo's [wife]. This wasn't even something that needed hesitation!

Elaine, who was more familiar with Qi Xing than her, believed that Qi Xing couldn't possibly do such a thing. What Qi Xing hated were perpetrators like Romani. His anger was churning; perhaps he would use his fists to cruelly kill Romani and tear him into ten pieces. But Qi Xing's hatred and anger toward this lecherous world would certainly not be projected onto an innocent girl; he would never [redacted] an innocent woman… right?

On the other hand, Lady Remina… she didn't reveal any expression beforehand; she just raised her eyebrows and watched, as if waiting, and also as if observing.

So everything still had to come back to Qi Xing himself.

He… perhaps because Samael had just teased him for being conflicted a few hours ago, Qi Xing didn't dither for long. He froze for two seconds, then sighed.

"What to do?"

"Obviously, I don't want to use [redacted] to solve the problem at all. Especially, I don't want to be forced to [redacted]."

If it were yesterday's Qi Xing, he probably would have wavered for a while. Fortunately, Samael had just tempted him a few hours ago. After debating with the devil, the current Qi Xing was actually calmer.

"I will not do what I am unwilling to do. Even if the fate of the world hangs by a thread, I will not be forced into doing it."