The youth had held on through the night without dying. When the following morning arrived, the many wanderers reluctantly flew away. In the end, one skeletal wanderer wanted to land one more vicious blow on Xu Ying, but sunlight shone down. That skeletal wanderer seemed terrified of the sunlight and immediately took flight.
*Thump!*
Hearing the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground, the villagers leaned against their window lattices and peered outside. They saw the youth slam into the earth, bounce twice, and lie motionless.
"Is he dead?" People poked their heads out, looking around nervously.
Just then, the youth raised an arm and crawled forward with difficulty.
"He's actually not dead!"
The people of this village were stunned. Since ancient times, no one had ever survived the jaws of the wanderers!
Those skeletal wanderers were peculiar creatures that roamed the wasteland, always appearing at night and making strange weeping sounds. If they heard an unusual noise, they would appear like ghosts to kill and devour whatever made the sound.
Over the years, human infants born here neither cried nor made noise, for those who cried had long since been weeded out.
Also eliminated were people who snored in their sleep, as well as beasts and monsters that hid by day and hunted by night.
No creature could compete with the wanderers here. They either adapted or perished.
The villagers were immensely curious, yet felt an inexplicable terror toward that youth, not daring to approach. The unknown was always frightening.
By mealtime, they saw the youth crawl over beneath a large tree, struggling to prop up his upper body against the trunk, looking extremely frail.
After Xiao Man finished eating, she sneaked out and carefully approached the large tree. Her father called in a trembling voice from behind her, "Xiao Bao, come back quickly! Watch out, he might be a monster!"
A mob of wanderers had beaten him for an entire night without killing him; clearly he was either a monster or an immortal. In all these years, no immortal had ever fallen from the sky, so he had to be a monster.
Xiao Man did not dare get too close. The youth looked toward her, his gaze fierce, before suddenly making a funny face at her. Terrified, the little girl turned and fled, bawling at the top of her lungs. Xu Ying burst out laughing, only to pull at his wounds, grimacing in pain.
After a night of arduous cultivation, his complexion looked much better. Beyond resetting the bones in one arm, he had repaired his throat, neck, and skull.
At the rate of progress of the Leakless Golden Body, it would not take more than a few days to restore his physical body.
However, the Dao weeping had still inflicted tremendous damage upon his Luo Tian Ten Sceneries. Within them had blossomed Dao flowers, formed after he consumed the ginseng Dao fruits and containing extraordinary power. Now, these Dao flowers actually showed signs of decaying!
Within the Luo Tian Ten Sceneries, the Chaos Sea surged violently, foul qi constantly welling up from its depths. The Black and Yellow Qi collapsed and annihilated, the Glazed Pure Emptiness was tainted, the indestructible spiritual light grew dull and lusterless, the Jade Capital Immortal City rotted and crumbled, the Taiji Immortal Domain became filthy and foul, the God Bridge was snapped, countless corpses of Xu Ying drifted along the Indeterminate Long River, and the flame of the void flickered unstably, as though it could extinguish at any moment.
His Hunyuan Dao Scenery, the Taiyi Cave Abyss, had not been affected much, but neither could he mobilize it.
"The Ancestral God has truly done me dirty. If I cannot repair my physical body as soon as possible, I fear that once the second night arrives, the Dao weeping of those skeletal fiends will dissolve my cultivation. Even if I don't die, my cultivation will be severely damaged."
Xu Ying closed his eyes to concentrate, turning his gaze inward to examine his hidden scenery. He saw that the various Dao manifestations he had comprehended were already decaying and disintegrating. Under the Dao weeping, nothing could escape disaster!
Whether it was the Dao manifestations of divine powers he had comprehended in his first life, such as the Dao Burial Abyss and the Eight Desolations Sun Refining Furnace, or the various divine powers he had learned from the Imperial Monarch, Imperial Monarch Cangtian, and others, all dissolved into nothingness amidst the Dao weeping.
They were like rootless duckweed: seemingly born in water, but as soon as a flood arrived, they were swept away without leaving any foundation behind.
"These divine powers are not immortal divine powers."
Xu Ying continued to inspect his hidden scenery. Out of all his divine powers, only the Taiyi Golden Bridge had survived, untouched by total destruction from the Dao weeping; yet it too was affected, losing its former marvelous wonder.
"Immortality... How can one achieve immortality?"
Even the two Dao Ancestors of Taiqing and Shangqing might not be able to answer this question, so naturally he had no answer either.
He checked his various magic treasures, and his heart sank. Except for the Landscape Heaven-Measuring Ruler, his other treasures were covered in rust. Affected by the Dao weeping, most of the Dao patterns and talismans upon them had fallen into disorder.
"I've suffered a massive loss this time—not even passing the Tribulation of the Three Realms can make up for it!"
Xu Ying shook his head and continued running the Leakless Golden Body. Suddenly, he noticed that as the sun rose, an inexplicable Dao was radiating across heaven and earth.
"Eh? The Heavenly Dao of this world is reviving!"
Xu Ying was profoundly astonished. Straining to lift his head, he looked all around. He saw nothing unusual in the sky, yet wondrous Great Daos were indeed slowly reviving and awakening between heaven and earth!
There was even a barely perceptible Dao resonance echoing softly throughout heaven and earth!
At that moment, the busy villagers halted whatever they were doing. Each stood frozen in place, arms outstretched, palms facing the heavens, seemingly performing some bizarre ritual—or perhaps wholeheartedly comprehending the drifting, fragmented Great Daos of heaven and earth.
Children like Xiao Man and Xiao Lou, who had been frolicking, stopped playing as well. Mimicking the adults' postures with solemn effort, they too focused their hearts on sensing the Great Dao of heaven and earth. They and this world, this nature, merged into harmonious unity.
The Heavenly Dao was reviving. They comprehended the Heavenly Dao, comprehended nature, and under their comprehension, the Heavenly Dao was also being restored by them, bit by bit!
Seeing this spectacle, Xu Ying could not help but be moved.
"The Ancestral God couldn't understand why, after the Mortal Realm was destroyed and plunged into perpetual darkness, light suddenly appeared, and why the Heavenly Dao suddenly revived. In truth, it wasn't sudden at all."
He reflected silently in his heart, "Rather, it is because across tens of millions of years, the people struggling to survive upon these ruins have continued to comprehend the Heavenly Dao and reshape nature."
Without taking single steps, one cannot cover a thousand li; without gathering small streams, one cannot form rivers and seas.
Having experienced tens of millions of years of ordinary people's comprehension, this ruined land of the Mortal Realm had accumulated their scattered insights over millennia, finally ushering in the revival of the Heavenly Dao!
Facing the cataclysm, the Dragon Clan had chosen three plans to avoid the disaster, attempting to escape the catastrophe and make a comeback. Faced with that calamity, they had been utterly powerless to resist.
Yet those ordinary living beings had survived the catastrophe, transforming the natural world shattered by the disaster and reawakening the Great Dao of heaven and earth.
This strength was unimaginably frail, yet so immensely powerful that it shook Xu Ying to his soul.
"They are communing with the Heavenly Dao! This is entering the Dao!"
He found it hard to believe. Entering the Dao was extraordinarily difficult, requiring someone of peerless talent. How could these mortal folk, who clearly possessed no cultivation whatsoever, enter the Dao so naturally?
If they knew how to cultivate, wouldn't their progress soar by leaps and bounds, allowing them to become immortals in mere decades?
Sitting beneath the tree, he closed his eyes as well, seeking to comprehend the Heavenly Dao just like these mortals, resonating and communing with the Heavenly Dao and nature.
After a long time, the Heavenly Dao gradually returned to tranquility, growing stronger than before. The people awakened from entering the Dao one after another; the adults resumed their labor, and the children resumed their games, peaceful and joyous.
Only a few villagers with better comprehension felt somewhat puzzled, sensing that for some reason, the speed at which the Great Daos of heaven and earth recovered had increased dramatically.
Xu Ying also woke from entering the Dao. Sitting quietly beneath the tree, a thought suddenly stirred in his heart: "My cultivation is still intact. Although I cannot use Dao methods, my cultivation has already reached the Ascension stage. Doesn't that mean I can sense the heavenly tribulation right now and ascend by crossing the tribulation?"
He blinked. He had no need to comprehend the Heavenly Dao slowly like these mortals—he could simply summon the heavenly tribulation and comprehend the Heavenly Dao while overcoming it!
"Once I survive the heavenly tribulation and obtain the Heavenly Dao of the Mortal Realm, I will surely bring blessings to the people here!"
Full of confidence, Xu Ying immediately resonated with heaven and earth, using his own calamity to summon the tribulation clouds!
"Overcoming a heavenly tribulation is child's play for me!"
A moment later, he looked up at the sky, and the smile on his face gradually froze.
The people toiling in the fields stopped their work once more and raised their heads to look at the sky. Dark clouds pressed down from above, forming a swirling vortex that grew larger and larger, blanketing the four wildernesses!
These dark clouds had already expanded beyond their field of vision, covering an ever-wider expanse!
Possessing mere mortal flesh, they could not see the limits of this tribulation cloud. But Xu Ying could see it with absolute clarity: this tribulation cloud had far exceeded the thousand-li radius of an Earth Immortal Realm tribulation, reaching a span of ten thousand li! What was more, it was still expanding!
The heavenly majesty was so grim and oppressive that even he felt his heart palpitate, almost skipping a beat.
Suddenly, the tribulation cloud began to contract. The energy within it seemed to be absorbed by something, causing the cloud layer's thickness and breadth to shrink continuously. By the time it had contracted to about a hundred li, Xu Ying's face had turned ashen.
The tribulation cloud above his head turned a brilliant gold, a hundred times brighter than the sun!
The golden tribulation cloud continued to shrink. When it reached a hundred zhang across, its color shifted from gold to cyan.
Cyan lightning surged within the cloud. With every flicker, Xu Ying felt an ominous dread that doom was inescapable.
"Something is wrong with this cloud!"
Flustered, Xu Ying hastily dropped to the ground. Pushing with his single functioning arm, he crawled vigorously in an attempt to flee the area. Above his head, the hundred-zhang cyan cloud continued to shrink, swiftly turning purple until it was only half a mu in size!
The purple lightning surged within the cloud. With every leap of an arc, Xu Ying felt as though his head was about to part from his shoulders.
Crawling with one arm, he dragged his severely injured body along like the wind, dashing away—
*Craaack!*
A sudden peal of thunder erupted across the sky, purple radiance illuminating the human world and startling countless wanderers sheltering from the sunlight. Huddled inside caverns or deep underground, they shivered at the sound of the thunder and packed themselves even tighter together.
Meanwhile, in the Earth Immortal Realm, at the Heavenly Dao Ancestral Court.
The Ancestral God was attending as usual to repairing the Big Dragon's damaged primordial spirit. He said, "Old Dragon, have you heard the news? With the Tide of the Three Realms, an immemorial ferry port has appeared in the Heavenly Sea. Immortals from the Immortal Realm discovered the skeleton of an immemorial divine dragon beneath the ferry port, glowing all over with spiritual light. It extends endlessly from the Heavenly Sea."
The Big Dragon said nonchalantly, "That is the mortal body of my first life. It died long ago. I abandoned that body and ascended to the Abyssal Sea to attain great liberation."
The Ancestral God said, "The people of the Immortal Court are exploring where this passage leads."
The Big Dragon said, "To the Mortal Realm, of course. But this is an ancient path, and my fleshly body was heavily damaged during the great catastrophe. I fear the ancient path was broken long ago; it is bound to be perilous beyond measure."
He cared nothing for the Immortal Court and was only worried about Xu Ying's safety. After all, the revival of the Dragon Clan still depended on Xu Ying. He said, "Ancestral God, for some reason, I keep having an ominous premonition. Won't anything go wrong with that kid going to the Mortal Realm to cross his tribulation?"
"Of course not," the Ancestral God said calmly. "Old Dragon, aren't you underestimating me? The force of my throw was more than enough to deliver him safely to the Mortal Realm without the slightest mishap!"
The Big Dragon said, "I trust your precision in controlling force. It's just..." He hesitated before continuing, "What worries me is whether he can successfully pass the tribulation. After all, once he reaches the Mortal Realm, he certainly won't be able to use Dao methods or divine powers. Crossing the tribulation naturally won't be as effortless..."
The Ancestral God chuckled. "You worry too much. Since the era of your Dragon Court, heavenly tribulations have varied in strength. The tribulation does not depend on the height of your cultivation; it isn't that higher cultivation brings a stronger tribulation and lower cultivation a weaker one. A true heavenly tribulation resonates with heaven and responds to mortals: the higher your virtue, the more people remember your benevolence, and the weaker the tribulation's might. If you have committed countless evils, so that people curse and resent you, the tribulation's might is immense."
He smiled faintly and added, "The longer you commit evil, the more frequently you do evil, and the more people hate you, the greater the tribulation's might becomes. Xu Ying is not a man who has committed countless evils; not many people hate him."
The big bell had been listening to their conversation all along. Hearing this, its heart skipped a beat: *Oh no! Ah Ying is in deep trouble!*
Hearing this, the Big Dragon breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. "That kid may have a dark face, but his heart is kind. He must be someone who accumulates good deeds and virtue; the tribulation's might will be pathetically small."
The Ancestral God said, "I too saw that his character isn't bad and that he is worthy of instruction, which is why I favored him, guiding him multiple times and having him study the primordial spirit here with me."
The Big Dragon looked up at the heavenly canopy, observing the stellar domain of the Mortal Realm. It was still shrouded in pitch darkness, with only scattered sparks of light twinkling.
After a moment, the Big Dragon asked, "Ancestral God, how does one judge the magnitude of a heavenly tribulation's might?"
Channeling indestructible spiritual light to focus on healing him, the Ancestral God said, "The larger a heavenly tribulation, the stronger its might. However, once it reaches a certain threshold, a qualitative transformation occurs. When the energy of an ordinary heavenly tribulation contracts sharply, it turns red, known as Pure Yang Heavenly Thunder. When Pure Yang Heavenly Thunder contracts further, it turns golden, known as Nine Heavens Divine Thunder. When Nine Heavens Divine Thunder contracts further, it turns cyan, known as Qingyang Tribulation Thunder. When Qingyang Tribulation Thunder contracts even further, it turns purple, known as Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder."
The Big Dragon faintly glimpsed a streak of purple within the lights of the Mortal Realm. He asked suspiciously, "Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder... just how much sin would someone have to commit to summon that?"
The Ancestral God pondered and said, "Slaughtering cities and exterminating kingdoms wouldn't be enough to trigger it; exterminating entire clans and species would at most make the tribulation cloud span several thousand li. Destroying one or two worlds might condense it into Pure Yang Heavenly Thunder. Unless someone could make everyone throughout the myriad heavens and realms harbor hatred toward them day in and day out for tens of thousands of years, only then could they summon Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder."
Having said this, He could not help chuckling. "In this world, there has never been anyone who has committed such countless evils."
Neither the Big Dragon nor the big bell spoke. Long dragon whiskers sprouted from the dragon-bell, trembling incessantly.
The Ancestral God was somewhat puzzled. Seeing the dragon-bell staring up at the heavenly canopy, He also looked up.
Right at that moment, within the light of the Mortal Realm, a streak of purple lightning burst forth, illuminating more than half of the Mortal Realm, a realm even vaster than the Earth Immortal Realm!
Chapter 563