God of Pets

Chapter 269 The Ten Heavenly Kings

Qin Ziyu needs to level up and cultivate diligently. Once he reaches the third awakening, he will go to the Qin family to challenge the Qin King's Formation and then defeat Qin Qiu to prove himself.

After parting ways with Qin Ziyu, Chen Guan and Duan Shulin returned to the shelter.

Although they didn't get the Child of the Mysterious God this time, it wasn't entirely without benefits. They not only witnessed a glimpse of the power of those powerful clans, but also learned Shang Ziyi's movement techniques and rhythm.

At night, Ji Nanhong nestled in Chen Guan's arms like a kitten, her fingers resting on his firm chest, strumming them like she was playing the piano.

"The Ten Heavenly Kings' influence is already above the Ancestral Court. To put it nicely, the Chief Judge is the highest law enforcer in the Divine Continent. To put it bluntly, the Chief Judge is just a middleman chosen by the Ten Heavenly Kings to mediate conflicts of interest between the Ten Heavenly Kings and the Ten Great Families."

"So, the judge is just an empty shell?" Chen Guan pondered.

“That’s not entirely true.” Ji Nanhong thought for a moment and continued, “Whether the judge has power, and how much power he has, depends on the balance of the ten major families. If the strength of the ten major families is not much different, then the judge will have a lot of power and can benefit from both sides.”

"But if one of the ten great families becomes dominant, then the Chief Justice's power will be very limited." Ji Nanhong paused and then said, "Fortunately, since the reconstruction of the ancestral court, although the strength of the ten great families has fluctuated, it has been relatively stable. No one has been able to break this balance. After more than eight hundred years of development, the resources possessed by the Chief Justice are almost comparable to those of the weaker of the ten great families."

“My father’s lifelong wish was to bring the ten great families under the rule of the ancestral court and achieve equality for all under the ancestral court.” Ji Nanhong sighed and said, “Unfortunately, there is an important problem that cannot be solved.”

"What important question?" Chen Guan asked.

"Do you know why it's the Ten Heavenly Kings, and not the other four, five, six, seven, eight Heavenly Kings, or some other number?" Ji Nanhong didn't answer Chen Guan directly, but asked a question instead.

"Because the Ten Heavenly Kings are the strongest?" Chen Guan didn't know much about this and just said it casually, waiting for Ji Nanhong's answer.

Ji Nanhong nodded and said, "Yes, it's because they are the ten strongest. Their strength is something even the judge cannot match."

"The reason why they are the ten strongest, and not some other number, has remained unchanged for nearly a thousand years. No matter how the situation changes, the Ten Heavenly Kings have remained as stable as Mount Tai and have never fallen. That is because there are only ten Great Grotto Heavens in the Divine Continent, and they are each occupied by one of the Ten Heavenly Kings."

This was the first time Chen Guan had realized that the Great Cave Heaven had such a powerful influence: "Is the Great Cave Heaven so influential because of its resources?"

"Of course, resources are everything. Only with resources can one possess everything. The resources of the Great Cave Heaven are the foundation of the ten great families, including the Son of the Mysterious God and the inheritance of the Mysterious God."

Ji Nanhong continued, "Each secret realm is vast, even larger than the Divine Continent. None of the currently discovered secret realms have been fully explored, but some have speculated that each secret realm actually has a ruler." "This ruler doesn't refer to humans, but rather to a secret god. The area occupied by humans within a secret realm is only a small part of the realm itself, and to the secret god who rules it, it's utterly insignificant—a tiny speck, the size of a fingernail."

"Some even speculate that the so-called emergence of the Mysterious God is nothing more than an experiment by the ruler of the Mysterious Realm, allowing humans to coexist with the Mysterious God in order to test the possibility of humans and the Mysterious God growing together. It seems that humans benefit, but in reality, humans are just experimental subjects."

"Even so, humanity has gained enormous benefits from this, and its overall strength has increased due to the appearance of the Son of the Mysterious God."

"Even among the children of the Mysterious God, there is a difference in strength. Generally speaking, the children of the Mysterious God from the Cave Heaven are more talented and stronger than those from the Blessed Land."

"The children of the Mysterious Gods of the Great Cave Heaven are the strongest Mysterious Gods, and the power they bestow upon cultivators is also the strongest. Unlike ordinary pets, the children of the Mysterious Gods can also grant their hosts many other inherited abilities, and can fight as one with their hosts."

Chen Guan understood and pondered, "So, the reason they are the Ten Heavenly Kings is because they all have a pet that is the son of a secret god from a great grotto-heaven, giving them an absolute advantage in combat power that others cannot match?"

“Indeed, no one can match him.” Ji Nanhong nodded.

"How did that great demon Qingbai manage to break into the ancestral court in the first place?" Chen Guan asked after thinking for a moment.

"The reason why the great demon was able to enter the ancestral court has nothing to do with the great demon himself; he was simply a person chosen by the times."

Ji Nanhong thought for a moment and said, "In my own understanding, before the Great Demon King, the big families almost monopolized more than 99% of the resources. Ordinary people could hardly survive. They would either die in silence or erupt in silence. Even if there was no Great Demon King Qingbai, there would have been a Great Demon King Hongbai, or a Great Demon King Lubai."

"It doesn't matter who this person is. That era was destined to produce such a person to break the monopoly of the big families. It was only after that that the Ancestral Court gained some real power, and the Court Chief was able to truly develop and reach the point where he can now rival the Ten Great Families."

Chen Guan nodded slightly; that was a good point.

Ji Nanhong continued, "But the same problem will keep repeating itself as long as a solution is not found. After so many years, resources are once again flowing into the hands of the big families. Although the ancestral court is mediating, the resources held by the big families are now approaching a critical point."

“If we can’t get rid of the Ten Great Families and make the distribution of resources more equitable, then in the near future, another great demon may very well emerge.” Ji Nanhong sighed. “The reason my father was so loyal to the Chief Justice was that he hoped to bring down the Ten Great Families and establish a relatively fair world order. It’s just a pity that the Heavenly Kings backed by the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens are too strong. It’s too difficult to bring them down.”

Chen Guan thought to himself, "Whether the Chief Justice's people and the Heavenly Court Army can enter the Great Cave Heaven for cultivation depends on the Ten Heavenly Kings' attitude. Under such circumstances, it is indeed too difficult to overthrow the Ten Heavenly Kings. Moreover, because they need to enter the Great Cave Heaven for cultivation, the Chief Justice has no choice but to compromise. Even the Heavenly Court Army, the Chief Justice's personal guard, has a large number of members from the Ten Great Families. Even if such forces defeat the Ten Heavenly Kings and overthrow the Ten Great Families, they will only be able to elect a few new Ten Heavenly Kings."

(End of this chapter)