That crag indeed looked very much like a vessel—a massive stone ship of emerald green propped atop the peak, its prow slanted downward, far larger than the mountaintop itself.
There was little light in the darkness, yet a luminescence radiated from this Emerald Rock. The glow was not blinding, but hazy, like moonlight.
There were two Emerald Rocks. One was in the Earth Immortal Realm; Emperor Haotian had comprehended a portion of the Emerald Rock inscriptions, attained the Taiyi Enlightenment, overthrown the Demon Immortal Court, and established the orthodoxy of the Human Immortal Court, founding the cave abyss cultivation system.
When that Emerald Rock departed, it took away the Dao Ancestors and Dao Lords of the great ancestral courts. The Dao weeping erupted from within the cave abysses, burying that ancient era.
The other Emerald Rock stood upon the mountain directly ahead of Xu Ying.
Xu Ying guessed that the Emerald Rock which flew away held supreme cultivation arts, while the Emerald Rock atop the mountain ahead held the supreme Great Dao.
"The two complement each other. Together, they can lead one to transcend even the Supreme and the wondrous realm!"
Xu Ying walked forward. Yet as he drew nearer, the pressure bearing down upon his Leakless Golden Body grew ever heavier, and the Emerald Rock's influence grew increasingly powerful!
Xu Ying was confident that with his current strength, he could hold his ground for a long time even before the great fissure of the Taishang Cave Abyss. Yet before this Emerald Rock, he struggled to take even a few steps.
Flaws even began to surface upon his flawless physical body. Strands of Dao weeping began sneaking into his form from unknown origins!
Though the Dao weeping entering him was slight, the closer he got to the Emerald Rock, the more it multiplied.
Accumulating at this rate, it would inevitably deal Xu Ying a fatal blow!
His cultivation realm was trapped at the Ascension Stage, leaving him unable to become an immortal. Thus, if the Dao weeping invaded him, his fate would be even worse than that of the white skeletons. He would not even qualify to become a skeleton, let alone form a Zang to survive in another state.
"Daoist Wukong's Leakless Golden Body has a flaw!"
Thoughts flashed through Xu Ying's mind like lightning, and he instantly realized the source of this flaw.
Because the Taishang Cave Abyss was flawed, marred by a massive fissure, it was masterless, an entity beneath the dignity of high hands like the Dao Ancestors to claim. In that era, the grassroots without backing all cultivated the Taishang Dao, drawing power from the Taishang Cave Abyss.
Daoist Wukong cultivated the Taishang Dao; he was the supreme achiever of that path.
And because the Taishang Cave Abyss possessed a flaw, that meant the Taishang Dao also had a flaw, leaving his dao methods and divine powers imperfect!
This was why the great Dao Ancestors and figures like the Last Lord of Ziwei had refused to claim the Taishang Cave Abyss—the flaw was too glaring, too easily exploited.
Now, before his Leakless Golden Body was even broken, the sounds of Dao weeping had already begun seeping into Xu Ying's flesh, proving that like the Taishang Dao, the Leakless Golden Body harbored hidden flaws.
This flaw could not be detected in the Taishang Cave Abyss, and in duels against other powerhouses, opponents would hardly ever spot it. Yet the Great Dao radiating from the Emerald Rock could lay it bare, allowing the Dao weeping to infiltrate Xu Ying's Leakless Golden Body!
"This flaw is deadly! I wonder if Daoist Wukong knows about it?"
Xu Ying halted his steps. When the Emerald Rock plummeted from beyond the heavens into the mortal realm, its Great Dao had been in an eruptive phase, its power thousands or tens of thousands of times greater than now!
Presently, the Emerald Rock was in a dormant phase—the prime opportunity to draw close and study its Great Dao. Yet seizing this prime opportunity was still agonizingly difficult, for the stone's might remained terrifyingly formidable!
He sat cross-legged at the foot of the mountain, carefully pondering the Great Dao expounded by that elderly Zang in Daoist robes, attempting to neutralize the Dao weeping.
The elderly Zang had been a pinnacle powerhouse of the eighth Dao realm, surely a supreme talent of the human race back in his day. His wisdom was peerless, and even transformed into a Zang, he remained extraordinary.
He had wished to pass the truths he comprehended down to the disciples and pupils who followed him, yet those disciples were mere projections of his memories. Xu Ying's timely arrival had granted them a brief bond as master and disciple, so everything he taught was true knowledge.
Xu Ying pondered for a long time. The Dao weeping accumulating inside him multiplied, gradually threatening his life.
He exhaled a breath of turbid qi and opened his eyes; he had finally gained a thorough understanding of what the elderly Zang had imparted. With this foundation, he could make an even bolder attempt!
"If my deduction is correct, then Taiyi Enlightenment, paired with the Taishang Cave Abyss, can absorb and refine the Dao weeping radiated by the Emerald Rock!"
Xu Ying's eyes gleamed. The Xu family's Taiyi Inborn Technique had likely been passed down by the current Immortal Emperor Supreme, a technique derived from Emperor Haotian's *Taiyi Enlightenment*.
The complete *Taiyi Enlightenment* was far more complex than the Taiyi Inborn Technique, holding the key to comprehending the Taiyi Cave Abyss. Back at the Ziwei Ancestral Court, he had already cultivated the Taiyi Cave Abyss, and not long ago, he had even summoned it from another space-time into the present world!
Though he had drawn on the spiritual energy within the Taiyi Cave Abyss to cultivate, he had never found the time to enter it and contemplate the Taiyi Dao.
"The wondrous dao contained in the Taiyi Cave Abyss might be the foundation of the Emerald Rock's Great Dao. To verify this guess, there is only one way."
Xu Ying drew a long breath, pushing the Taiyi Indestructible Scripture to its limits!
"In the outside world, I cannot use the Taiyi Cave Abyss, but in this exile ground of the Mortal Realm, I can deploy it freely! Could that sneak of an Immortal Emperor Supreme possibly be exiled to the Mortal Realm as well?"
Within the Taiyi Cave Abyss, the Divine Mother, Fairy Gushe, and the others were engrossed in cultivation. The spiritual energy in the cave abyss was astonishingly abundant, far surpassing Yingzhou's. Over these past days, merely lingering on the periphery of the Taiyi Cave Abyss had caused their cultivation and power to advance by leaps and bounds!
The spiritual energy poured into them like a deluge, driving their cultivation upward.
These people were all prodigies gathered across more than forty thousand years from the myriad worlds by the former Immortal Master of Penglai, Meng Wuhuai. In the past, Penglai's small size and scarcity of resources had limited their achievements.
Now that the Taiyi Cave Abyss was wide open for them to cultivate, they soon reached the Heavenly Immortal realm, surpassing tens of thousands of years of bitter cultivation in the past!
Patriarch Yan Yu, the earliest to enter Penglai, had even begun charging toward the Immortal King realm.
Thinking back to when the seven patriarchs of Penglai were crammed onto a palm-sized immortal mountain, it truly felt like a dream.
Back then, because the Seven Patriarchs of Penglai possessed high talent and hailed from the same sect, Meng Wuhuai had guarded against them, deliberately making things difficult for them and withholding resources to stall their advancement.
Just then, the Taiyi Cave Abyss shook violently. While everyone was gripped with bewilderment, the Taiyi Cave Abyss suddenly shot out of the Yingzhou Cave Abyss at astonishing speed!
"This is... the Immortal Master summoning the Taiyi Cave Abyss!"
The crowd was seized by panic. Only through the protection of the Yingzhou Cave Abyss and the Taiyi Cave Abyss had they survived in the Mortal Realm. If the Taiyi Cave Abyss flew out of Yingzhou and was exposed to the Mortal Realm's Dao weeping, wouldn't they perish beneath it?
To their immense relief and delight, however, even after the Taiyi Cave Abyss flew out of Yingzhou, the Dao weeping still failed to invade.
"Why is the Immortal Master summoning the Taiyi Cave Abyss?" the Divine Mother asked in surprise.
At that moment, the Taiyi Cave Abyss hovered behind Xu Ying's head like an enormous wheel. Boundless and vast, its perimeter dividing it from the outside seemed impossibly thin—bordering on nonexistent!
Standing inside the circle, the Divine Mother, Gushe, and the others appeared minuscule, many times thinner than a single strand of Xu Ying's hair.
The Taiyi Cave Abyss behind Xu Ying's head radiated a pure spiritual radiance. Spiritual energy flowed from the abyss like white smoke, contrasting sharply with the darkness outside.
He sat in silence, running the Taiyi Indestructible Scripture to comprehend the Great Dao embedded within the Dao weeping.
Just then, a wondrous rhythm of the Dao echoed from the Taiyi Cave Abyss, harmonizing with the Dao weeping. While the Dao weeping was the cry produced when the Great Dao of heaven and earth withered, the Dao rhythm issuing from the Taiyi Cave Abyss sounded like the budding of the Great Dao.
The two marvelous sounds of the Dao struck a near-perfect balance!
Xu Ying's heart gradually settled. He had finally touched upon the Great Dao contained within the Emerald Rock ahead!
Inside his body, the invading Dao weeping began to be refined, and he gradually comprehended some of the truths of the Great Dao within the Emerald Rock, an existence that surpassed the Taiyi Dao.
Yet as his understanding deepened, Xu Ying only found the Emerald Rock's Great Dao increasingly unfathomable. To gain deeper insight, he had to reach the rock's side!
He rose and walked toward the Emerald Rock.
The Dao weeping surged forward with a droning roar. Xu Ying's Leakless Golden Body was pushed to its limit, crumbling at its flaw as the Dao weeping invaded!
Xu Ying circulated the Taiyi Indestructible Scripture to refine the weeping encroaching upon him. The spiritual energy and power pouring from the Taiyi Cave Abyss grew even more vast, and the Dao rhythm echoing from its depths rang louder, resonating in tandem with the Dao weeping!
Waves of terrifying shockwaves struck in succession. The Divine Mother, Gushe, Hua Cuoying, and the rest felt the space around them jolting violently. At this moment, Xu Ying and the Taiyi Cave Abyss resembled a battered cart on the verge of falling apart at any second!
And they were like specks of dust riding inside it—more fragile than dust itself. When the cart broke apart, it would likely spell their doom!
"Do not panic, everyone!"
The Divine Mother looked around, taking in the terror on the immortals' faces, and smiled. "I have already performed a divine divination. The Immortal Master will turn this calamity into good fortune! Eat what you should, drink what you should! Bring out all the fine treasures you usually couldn't bear to enjoy, and celebrate the Immortal Master's grand success!"
The immortals erupted in cheers.
The Divine Mother turned to Gushe and Yuan Tiangang. "You two are fond of each other, yet you haven't wed, have you? Why not hold the ceremony today?"
Gushe and Yuan Tiangang's hearts gave a jolt, spawning grim forebodings.
The Divine Mother said with a beaming smile, "Don't think nonsense, it's just doubling the joy! After today, there might not be a tomorrow... I didn't say the Immortal Master is going to die, stop guessing wildly!"
After an indeterminate time, Xu Ying finally weathered the mounting Dao weeping and reached the mountain summit. The Emerald Rock was right before him; countless branching textures upon its surface flickered unpredictably with light and dark.
Reaching the point where moving any further was impossible, Xu Ying sat down to contemplate the Emerald Rock right where he was.
The Taiyi Cave Abyss was like a boundless bright moon, yet far grander than any moon, suspended behind him. Under the Emerald Rock's oppression, it trembled continuously, as if about to split open.
"Turn calamity to fortune, turn calamity to fortune!"
The Divine Mother stared at the Emerald Rock outside, muttering under her breath, "If we make it through safe and sound, I'll change my name to Feng Huaji once I get out! Wait, the Immortal Master is using the Taiyi Cave Abyss to shine so brightly. If the Immortal Emperor Supreme notices..."
At that thought, she burst out laughing, chastising herself for being foolish.
"The Immortal Emperor Supreme is in the Immortal Court. Would he ever come to a godforsaken place like this?" She shook her head.
The elderly Zang looked up, his gaze solemn and distant as he peered toward the summit.
Over the past few days, he had observed Xu Ying's transformations. A strange sense of gratification welled in his heart, as if seeing his own disciple coming alive and growing under his tutelage.
Suddenly, something stirred in his senses. He turned to look, only to see a tall, burly elder stepping out from the darkness.
*A powerful being,* he thought silently.
From afar, the Immortal Emperor Supreme gazed at the peak where the Emerald Rock sat. He saw Xu Ying seated not far from the rock, with the boundless spiritual energy and power of the Taiyi Cave Abyss pouring into his frame.
His gaze burned with fervor as he watched the scene.
The Taiyi Cave Abyss merged the nine powers—vitality, divine consciousness, primordial qi, soul power, yin and yang, heart power, life and death, principle, and void—into primeval chaos, refining them into Taiyi. So mighty, so extraordinary!
"Sixty myriad years of painstaking cultivation... finally bearing fruit..."
Tears trembled in the Immortal Emperor Supreme's eyes. At this moment, he saw the hope of breaking free from control.
Suddenly, sensing something, he turned his head.
The elderly Zang also felt it and looked back toward the territory bathed in the Heavenly Dao.
The Ancestral God and the Dragon Bell had arrived there, reaching the Shiquan Dao Sect.
"This one is Tong Hao, acting patriarch of the Shiquan Dao Sect. Greetings, fellow Daoists." The young immortal boy stepped forward to pay respects to the Ancestral God and the Dragon Bell.
The immortal crane watched from afar, gloating inwardly: *This sickly old man and that hideous bell clearly aren't good folk. Patriarch Tong going forward is pure suicide. After this, I'll smoothly succeed him as the Shiquan Dao Ancestor—Dao Ancestor Crane!*
To its surprise, however, though the Dragon Bell was a bit fierce and ugly, and the Ancestral God was frail and sickly, neither struck to kill. Instead, they politely inquired about Xu Ying's whereabouts.
Learning that Xu Ying had ventured into the darkness months ago and had yet to return, both the Ancestral God and the Dragon Bell were taken aback.
Tong Hao, the young immortal boy, spoke with unease, "You know Dao Ancestor Xu? I had no intention of usurping his position, but Dao Ancestor Xu vanished for nearly three months. His corpse must have gone cold long ago, which is why I succeeded him as Dao Ancestor..."
Upon entering the territory of the Heavenly Dao, the Ancestral God's spirits lifted, and his injuries mostly healed. He said, "Xu Ying is a clever rascal. Since he entered the darkness of his own accord, he must have been confident in protecting himself. If he hasn't returned after these months, he must be trapped."
The big bell said, "Let us go into the darkness to search for him!"
The Big Dragon said, "Search for him? The Earth Immortal Realm encompasses the Immortal Realm, the Ancestral Court, and the myriad worlds, along with a portion of the Heavenly Sea and boundless starry skies, with millions of star rivers large and small across vast, limitless terrain. The Mortal Realm is ten times that of the Earth Immortal Realm! Where do we even begin looking?"
The Ancestral God said, "The only way is for me to revive the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao and purge the darkness, restoring a bright and clear world to the Mortal Realm. Even if Xu Ying is trapped, he will be freed as a result!"
He arrived at the sacred mountain's summit and chuckled. "Old Dragon, big bell, stand witness for me. Today, I shall mend the heavens for the mortal world!"
His appearance rapidly shifted from an old man to a youth. Limitless light erupted from within his body, and his figure grew taller and larger, swiftly reaching a thousand zhang, ten thousand zhang, a hundred thousand, a million zhang, and continuing to rise!
"I am the Co-Lord of the Three Realms, the primordial spirit of the universe, the progenitor of all gods, the ancestral teacher of all daos!"
The Ancestral God lifted both hands to support the heavens. His voice grew thunderous, booming across every corner of the sky like rolling thunder. The firmament was pushed wide by his hands, and the power of the Heavenly Dao surged, crushing the surrounding darkness and sweeping out in all directions!
"I am the light of the universe, the master of all living things! Everything beneath the heavens is my domain! All vegetation, beasts, and teeming mortals are my people!"
Brilliant light burst from his entire body, rousing the Great Dao of heaven and earth across the Mortal Realm, light rolling outward like an ocean tide!
That majestic divine might was truly unstoppable!
Furthermore, alongside the revival of the Mortal Realm's Great Dao, the Ancestral God's power climbed, forming a cycle of mutual enhancement.
Under his pressure, whether Zang or white skeletons, all were exposed beneath the Heavenly Dao. These dark creatures fled wildly, yet how could they outrun the expanding light?
The first to perish were the white skeletons; swath upon swath collapsed, their bones shattering across the ground.
The Zang fared little better. Even when they let out Dao weeping to resist the Heavenly Dao, they were quickly turned to ash beneath its illumination!
Only the Zang with territories who hid deep underground managed to survive the initial wave. Yet the Heavenly Dao's shroud penetrated into the earth as well; fleeing would not keep them safe for long.
Before long, even the Zang underground would be refined away!
Such was the majestic might of the Ancestral God. The big bell watched in excitement, tolling with ringing clangs.
"Ah Ying is saved for sure!" the big bell cried in joy.
Beside the Emerald Rock, Xu Ying was focusing his mind, doing everything in his power to resist the Dao weeping while comprehending the Emerald Rock's Great Dao. Suddenly, heaven and earth convulsed violently, and the light on the surface of the Emerald Rock intensified by thousands of times in an instant, countering the Heavenly Dao's encroachment and matching the Ancestral God!
In the distance, the Immortal Emperor Supreme's expression changed drastically. He retreated at top speed to evade the Emerald Rock's power!
That power, amplified thousands of times over, was nearly reenacting the Emerald Rock's apocalypse. It was utterly terrifying!
"Disaster! Xu Ying is right beneath that Emerald Rock!"
The Immortal Emperor Supreme looked over in haste, only to see Xu Ying, who had been cultivating beside the Emerald Rock, shuddering violently. His physical structure altered, and countless branching textures sprouted behind him in all directions, swiftly turning him into a Zang crouching upon the ground.
The Immortal Emperor Supreme froze in disbelief. "Dead? The fruit of my labor... dead?"
The Zang that was Xu Ying straightened its back and unleashed a piercing cry of Dao weeping from its mouth.
"I told you two to get married, didn't I? Regretting it now is too late," the Divine Mother said, her face pale as ash, addressing Gushe and Yuan Tiangang inside the Taiyi Cave Abyss.
Chapter 573