"Five thousand years ago?" Scarlet asked with a confused look on her face. "What about five thousand years ago? I was doing nothing at the time."
She looked around and watched everyone's faces. "I came out to make some changes to the rules and help provide Phoenix flames from time to time, but that's it," she said. "I didn't do anything else noteworthy for a long time."
Yao Ning was slightly confused as well. "But… is that your final proper memory, lady phoenix?" she asked.
"No," Scarlet said. "My proper memory is one from around… I don't know, maybe a few dozen years ago? Or maybe a century or two ago. But those memories aren't very noteworthy either."
Alex tried to make sense of things but something wasn't right. The timeline was off.
"Lady Phoenix," Yao Ning spoke. "You died, not a century or two ago, but rather Five thousand years ago."
Scarlet's eyes went wide. "What? That's can't be. How could I have died Five thousand years ago when I was only reborn a dozen years ago? The most an Immortal realm Phoenix like me should have taken to be reborn was just a few dozen years or a couple of centuries at best. You are lying," she said.
"No, we're not," Yao Ning and the rest said.
"They're not," Alex said. "This continent has been missing a Phoenix for the past 5 thousand years. That much is for certain."
"But…" Scarlet looked desperate. "It can't be. It's not possible for me to have lost so many years."
"Maybe it was a special case," Alex said, thinking for a bit. "5 thousand years ago… something does come to my mind now that I think about it."
"Please let me explain to you what happened, lady Phoenix. Maybe that will shed some light on the reason why you took over 5 thousand years to be reborn," Yao Ning said.
"Yes," Scarlet said. "Explain it to me, from the very start."
Yao Ning nodded. "It all started one day Five thousand years ago… when the disaster struck. We received a bunch of distress messages as well as felt the change that had happened in the world."
Alex's eyes narrowed when he heard that. He had pretty much guessed that this was most likely the case, so now he was listening to what more details he could hear from that time.
"The Sunborn Sanctuary was alerted to something… weird happening in the Central continent and you called for the best of us to help you during that period."
"We gathered in the Sunborn Sanctuary late afternoon and did what we could to help the people that were running away through the Intercontinental Teleportation formation. Apparently, something big was happening," Yao Ning said.
"What… what happened to the Central Continent?" Scarlet asked.
"On the inside? No one but you could know that lady Phoenix," Yao Ning said. "But a ferocious Qi barrier had appeared out of nowhere on the outside, blocking off all entry and exit from that area. Even the Teleportation formations didn't work, they still don't."
"Once you realized something was very wrong, you flew away to the Central continent as fast as you could," Yao Ning said. "And then… we waited for you to come back."
Scarlet took a deep breath. "Then?"
"Then… you returned around 6 hours later. When you did—"
"Wait, 6 hours later? What about the Central continent? What happened there?" Scarlet asked.
"We don't have any reliable information, but from what we learned, the ruler of the Western Continent, the White Tiger decided to become the only ruler of the world. He apparently did that by taking over the Central continent first, where all the Teleportation formations were."
"We are told that you bravely fought against the White Tiger, along with the other two rulers of the Northern and the Eastern continent. You successfully killed the White Tiger, saving the entire world in the process, but you also seemed to have been hurt in the process," Yao Ning said.
"The White Tiger tried to take over the world?" Scarlet's eyes narrowed. "That can't be true. Why the hell would he ever try to usurp us?"
"We don't know, lady Phoenix, but that is what we heard," Yao Ning said.
"What you heard is bullshit," Alex said. "I don't know who twisted the events, but what you heard is not true."
Everyone looked at Alex in surprise, including Scarlet. "What do you know?" she asked.
"Some… thing appeared in the Central continent and created the Qi mess we see now. The distress was there and you all did leave to see what it was. Apparently, you, the Tortoise, the Snake, and the Dragon reached there around the same time. You waited for the Tiger, but the Tiger was already fighting the monster inside," Alex explained.
"Monster? What monster?" the Phoenix asked.
"I don't know," Alex said. "Senior Xuan Luhei said it was a humanoid being with no cultivation base that fought all 5 of you at the same time when you were inside. However, even when fighting together, you could not win at all."
Scarlet's eyes narrowed. "Xuan Luhei?" she asked. "He told you what happened?"
"Yes," Alex said. "And he's very angry about the misinformation regarding the White Tiger. Apparently, the White Tiger saved the four of you by letting you escape while he fought off the monster."
"Senior described the 2 minutes event they felt as being one of the most terrifying experiences of his entire life. He said he felt like the world was caving on itself. Then, 2 minutes later, the feeling vanished, and both the White Tiger and the monster were dead."
"So… that White Tiger really is dead," Scarlet couldn't believe it at all.
Alex looked to the elders. "The White Tiger saved this world, sacrificing himself to defeat the monsters, and you repaid his sacrifice by raiding his domain, killing his people, and looting what little he had," he said.
The elder's face went pale with horror when they heard that. "Th-that can't be true," they said. "That's not what we were told."
"You were told the White Tiger was behind everything," Scarlet said as she looked at the elders.
The elders quickly nodded.
"And who told you that?" she asked.
"It… it was the Dragon Emperor. He told us that and asked us to help him get revenge against the White Tigers by attacking them," the elders said.
Scarlet's face was full of disdain. "You believed some half-dragon who clearly had ulterior motives," she said. "Shame on you."
The elders dropped their faces in shame, not daring to look at her. Scarlet turned towards Alex, who was looking at the entire situation without much emotion on his face.
"When did you meet Luhei?" She asked.
"About…" Alex thought for a bit, surprising himself by the answer he had come up with. "20 years ago now. He was hiding in this domain because he's hurt and can't heal himself because of the lack of Qi."
Scarlet nodded and turned towards the elders. "Did you really do what he said you did?" she asked. "Did you raid the Western Continent, killing its people?"
"We… we had no choice but to raid, lady Phoenix," they said. "We required the resources. It was that, or we let the entire Southern Continent go to ruin as a wasteland."
"Because of the Phoenix flames in the Wasteland," Alex said, remembering what Qiu Jianhong had told him. "You went to the Western Continent to get Spirit veins to create a barrier to stop people from coming in."
"To stop people that would bring Phoenix flames in. There is a difference there," the elders said.
"I have so many questions about the Wasteland myself, like how it came to be in the first place. Last I remembered, it was just a desert, nothing else. And now, it's nothing but a place where you can't even cultivate," Scarlet said.
The elders hesitated to answer the question, and before they could, Scarlet turned towards Alex. "Can you give me a proper recounting of what happened after the White Tiger sacrificed itself?" she asked.
"Let's see," Alex said. "Senior Luhei said he was separated from his brother when they flew out of the terrifying barrier. He was hurt and had exerted himself, so he had to hide in the secret realm. The dragon went to the Western Continent to tell the White Tiger's family that he had sacrificed himself, before returning to the Western Continent to heal himself."
"Of the 5 beasts, you are the only one I lack knowledge of. I do not know what happened to you after you flew away from the Central continent," Alex said.
"I should be able to fill in on that," Yao Ning spoke. "Lady Phoenix, I do not know what happened exactly, but you took 6 hours to return back from the Central continent."
"We were alerted from the north that you had been seen flying through the ocean to the east. But you weren't… okay. You weren't yourself at all," she said. "You were very hurt and… we didn't realize it at the time but… you were dying."
Scarlet looked at Yao Ning, waiting for her to explain further.
"We got the report a little too late," she said. "By the time we left to intercept you, you had already crossed all the way from the desert to the mountains. That was when we saw your… state."
"What state?" Scarlet asked.
"You… were hurt and bleeding," Yao Ning said. "But it was not normal at all."
"How so?"
Yao Ning hesitated a little. "You were not only bleeding blood, but you were also bleeding Phoenix fire."
