The Ancestral God had never previously sensed another Heavenly Dao within the darkened Mortal Realm, but at this very moment, he became aware of it. That power of the Heavenly Dao was awakening—profound, overbearing, and far more exalted than that of the Mortal Realm!
The Heavenly Dao of the darkened Mortal Realm was beyond his control, and even beyond his comprehension!
He was the oldest of gods, the primordial spirit of the cosmos, the soul of the starry sky, and the innate indestructible spiritual light. Wherever star domains stretched, his Great Dao was present.
Yet the Heavenly Dao of the darkened Mortal Realm did not belong to him. This could only mean that it originated from outside this universe.
*Someone is undergoing a tribulation under the dark Heavenly Dao right now. Could it be Xu Ying?*
The Ancestral God was stunned. It had been he who sent Xu Ying to the Mortal Realm to undergo his tribulation, but his purpose had been for Xu Ying to cross the tribulation of the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao, not that of the dark Heavenly Dao!
*That brat must have fallen into demonic obsession!*
Furious and anxious, terrified that Xu Ying was descending into the demonic path, the Ancestral God rose to go search for him.
*If I completely restrain my aura, I should be able to resist the pressure of the dark Heavenly Dao, locate him, and bring him back.*
Just as the Ancestral God set off, another heavenly tribulation suddenly arose in response to fate. Tribulation fortune permeated heaven and earth, and as the tribulation count reset to zero, the heavenly tribulation erupted.
The Ancestral God froze. He knew this tribulation fortune and tribulation count intimately—they belonged unmistakably to Xu Ying!
In tribulation fortune, "fortune" referred to the momentum and sway of the heavenly tribulation. The "tribulation count" was the tribulation's intensity and its appointed timing.
An ascending cultivator undergoing a tribulation could merely sense this fortune and count, but an existence like the Ancestral God could see straight through them at a glance, and even discern who was undergoing the trial.
The fortune and count stirring the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao right now were indeed Xu Ying's. But wasn't Xu Ying undergoing the dark heavenly tribulation?
Could tribulations born of different Heavenly Daos be undergone simultaneously?
*Perhaps this means that once the dark Heavenly Dao—which did not originally belong to this universe—fell into it, it became subject to our universe as well.*
A sudden epiphany struck the Ancestral God: Xu Ying's tribulation was an unprecedented opportunity for him.
He commanded the Heavenly Dao of this universe. Whether it was the myriad heavens and realms, the Netherworld, and the Immortal Realm that made up the Lesser Three Realms, or the Mortal Realm, Earth Immortal Realm, and Heavenly Immortal Realm that formed the Greater Three Realms, all lay beneath his Heavenly Dao. Yet when catastrophe befell the Mortal Realm, the dark Heavenly Dao that emerged had remained outside his grasp.
Now Xu Ying was undergoing the tribulation of the Three Realms and the dark tribulation together. This was the first time anyone had ever faced the tribulation of the dark Heavenly Dao; as he crossed it, its profound mysteries would inevitably be laid bare in full!
If the Ancestral God could seize this opportunity and comprehend the subtleties of the dark Heavenly Dao, the darkness of the Mortal Realm would cease to be a deadly poison to him—it would instead become a part of him.
*That boy Xu Ying committed countless wicked deeds, which is why he triggered the Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder. But precisely because he piled up so many offenses, even the Heavenly Dao could no longer turn a blind eye.*
The Ancestral God paused, a look of anticipation surfacing on his face. *This is also the first heavenly tribulation since the formation of the dark Heavenly Dao, so its power will surely be extraordinary. The boy has gone through painstaking pains—I must seize this chance!*
He remained at the Perfect Dao Sect. The Heavenly Dao of the Mortal Realm was swayed by the sheer weight of this tribulation fortune, casting streaks of radiant light across the sky from east to west, spanning the firmament—no fewer than three thousand of them!
Xu Ying's tribulation fortune was so colossal that the Heavenly Dao had been forced to manifest it in physical numbers!
In mortal parlance, he had sinned so egregiously that he was incurring heavenly wrath.
Above the Emerald Rock, where the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao converged with that of the darkened Mortal Realm, a vortex turned unhurriedly over Xu Ying's head, growing ever thicker and heavier.
Muffled thunder shook the very fabric of space and time, making the nearby Zang tremble. Even their skeletal bones rattled and creaked as if ready to fall apart.
Ming Wangsun looked up to see the two Heavenly Daos merging into yin and yang currents, cutting and intertwining with each other.
They flowed together until each held a part of the other.
From afar, it resembled a grand Taiji diagram.
Comparatively speaking, the tribulation formed by the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao was larger; perhaps because of the vast karmic entanglements involved, its might was terrifying beyond measure.
Though the scale of the tribulation formed by the dark Heavenly Dao on the other side was slightly smaller, the pressure it exerted was even greater than that of the Mortal Realm's tribulation, its power equally formidable.
"Master's tribulation is probably even more terrifying than the legendary Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder!" Ming Wangsun shouted. "Senior Brother, do you remember those purple lightning strikes from a while ago? The fellow who got struck was surely undergoing the legendary Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder!"
Of course Jingming remembered. He hollered back, "In the tens of millions of years since my earliest memories, I have never seen a Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder—it truly opened my eyes recently! But that fellow who was struck so many times should be dead by now, shouldn't he?"
As Xu Ying's tribulation clouds continued to form, gale-force winds howled in all directions.
"Of course he's dead!" Ming Wangsun shouted. "After taking so many strikes, how could he possibly survive?"
Jingming nodded. "That man did evil without restraint and got what he deserved. Just how grave a crime must one commit to draw down the Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder? Wait, look! Master's tribulation thunder is turning purple too!"
The two stared in astonishment. The tribulation cloud formed by the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao was shrinking rapidly, collapsing from an ordinary cloud into red, then gold, then azure, and finally purple, until it was only half an acre across.
The tribulation cloud of the dark Heavenly Dao shrank alongside it, condensing to a half-acre expanse as well.
The two clouds locked together, spinning like a Taiji diagram.
The pair froze, looking at each other in disbelief. "That great villain who summoned the Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder... couldn't be Master, could it?"
Within the Taiji diagram, two kinds of tribulation thunder brewed, coalescing in their respective clouds into spheres of purple and black lightning that crackled and sparked with blinding electricity.
The other Zang and skeletons had long since fled in sheer terror, their wits scattered. Only Jingming and Ming Wangsun, bolstered by their immense strength, remained behind to watch.
This was an unprecedented opportunity—the very first tribulation since the birth of the dark Heavenly Dao. They had to grasp it. If they could gain some comprehension from this, it would serve them well when their own cultivation reached the point of facing a tribulation.
Suddenly, brilliant thunder erupted. One sphere of the Taiji diagram unleashed the lightning of the Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder, while the other burst with the electricity of the dark Heavenly Dao. The two currents merged into a torrent, and heavenly Dao resonance roared like a cataclysm!
*Crack!*
At that instant, the entire Mortal Realm was illuminated, light and darkness reflecting off each other. The lightning descended like a sword, slashing straight toward the Emerald Rock.
Atop the rock, the Taiyi Divine Bridge manifested beneath Xu Ying. He sat cross-legged, physical body and primordial spirit refined into one, his golden body pristine and flawless, allowing the sword-like thunder to strike.
*Clang—!*
Brilliant Dao radiance blazed above his head, colliding with the sword of lightning with the resounding chime of an ancient bronze bell.
Celestial light exploded around him. The thunder carried the voice of the Heavenly Dao, while the scattered lightning of the dark Heavenly Dao formed countless branching textures crisscrossing through the air, shaping majestic phantoms of ancient gods that chanted around Xu Ying.
On the other side, the radiant light of the Heavenly Dao condensed into powerful, ancient Dao deities whose mouths chanted resonant Dao sounds!
They pressed their palms downward as though suppressing Xu Ying—suppressing this tiny mortal and crushing his Dao heart that dared defy the heavens.
The golden bridge pressed into the Emerald Rock as the shockwave from Xu Ying's descent blasted into the ground with a resounding boom, sending fierce astral winds surging out in all directions.
Jingming and Ming Wangsun raised their hands to shield their faces. Once the dust settled, they saw Xu Ying standing atop the golden bridge, which was now webbed with cracks.
The youth bore no wounds on his body, save for a trickle of dark blood at his glabella, where residual electricity crackled against the split skin.
In the sky, the two spheres within the Taiji diagram spun rapidly around each other. With another deafening crash, the lightning converged, and a second bolt cleaved downward!
Ming Wangsun and Jingming were shaken. "There is supposed to be only one strike of Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder! Why is there a second?"
The Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder was simply too destructive. Usually, a single strike reduced the challenger to dust, leaving nothing behind; a second was never needed.
In Xu Ying's previous tribulations, he had clearly drawn the Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder, but because the tribulation had been incomplete, he could not ascend, resulting in strike after strike.
This time was different: the dark Heavenly Dao had merged with the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao, rendering it complete.
Xu Ying remained seated without moving. Behind him, a dark Dao wheel emerged, encompassing the Taiyi Cave Abyss as an inexhaustible stream of immortal spiritual qi and spiritual power poured from the abyss into his body.
Another radiance behind his head was the Ruyi Great Luo Heaven, which unfolded flat, the Ten Scenes of Great Luo encircling his form.
*Crack!*
The second bolt of lightning crashed down, piercing through the Great Luo Heaven to strike the crown of his head.
Xu Ying's body shuddered violently. Faint cracks appeared across his dark Dao wheel, and several of the Ten Scenes of Great Luo fractured. Branching patterns intertwined, forming phantoms of ancient gods that imprinted themselves directly into the Great Luo Heaven.
Above, yin and yang circulated within the Taiji diagram. As the two spheres spun with blinding speed, a third bolt of lightning struck!
This bolt tore a massive gash through the Great Luo Heaven. The Taiyi Golden Bridge beneath Xu Ying shattered with a loud crackle, and the wound at his glabella deepened!
Yet he remained seated, unbowed and uncast into the dust.
With another thunderous roar and heaven-filling Dao resonance, a fourth bolt plummeted from the firmament, surging through the torn Great Luo Heaven to strike Xu Ying's head.
The cracks in the dark Dao wheel widened, the wound between his brows split further, and crackling lightning gathered at his glabella.
Yet after this strike, Xu Ying remained seated cross-legged in midair. Far from falling, he rose higher and higher. Ming Wangsun and Jingming looked up to see Xu Ying suspended aloft, surrounded by primordial deities composed of the branching textures carved by each lightning strike—the very principles of the dark Heavenly Dao!
These principles were branded into the Great Luo Heaven, growing increasingly tangible with each of the four strikes!
Though the dark Dao wheel behind his head was fractured, those branching textures were actively growing and repairing themselves, swelling with even greater vitality!
Lightning continued to strike without pause, yet Xu Ying ascended steadily higher, bathing in the tempest. Amidst the fire and lightning, the phantoms of the ancient gods imprinted in the Great Luo Heaven grew ever more real.
Ming Wangsun and Jingming seized this fleeting moment to listen intently to the Dao resonance within the thunder, immersing themselves in comprehension.
Meanwhile, within the domain of the Heavenly Dao, the Ancestral God also raced to comprehend the changes unfolding. As the Heavenly Dao of the cosmos and the ancestor of all gods, Xu Ying undergoing the tribulation of the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao was tantamount to doing so right before his eyes; the dark Heavenly Dao's tribulation was similarly captured within his sight.
While they focused on their insights, the tribulation clouds in the sky shrank smaller and smaller. The two lightning spheres unleashed their power one final time, spending the last of their energy before dispersing into nothingness.
As the final bolt fell upon Xu Ying, waves of immortal qi surged from his body, incomparably sacred.
Xu Ying sat aloft, now an immense distance from the earth.
He could no longer see the Emerald Rock, nor Ming Wangsun and Jingming. He felt the Mortal Realm's Heavenly Dao and the dark Heavenly Dao fusing together, sensing a brand-new vitality coursing through the Mortal Realm.
At the same time, he felt transcendence.
He drew in the Great Luo Heaven. The phantoms of ancient gods branded within it gathered alongside it, transforming into a halo of light that stood behind his head.
The dark Dao wheel behind him grew even more solid and profound, encircling the Taiyi Cave Abyss, while a faint glow radiated outward from the wheel's darkness.
Xu Ying began to fly downward. He wished to give Jingming and Ming Wangsun a few parting instructions, see the Ancestral God and the Dragon Bell to bid them farewell, and visit the Perfect Dao Sect to arrange the succession of the next Dao Ancestor.
Yet the moment he moved, a beam of light from an unknown source suddenly cast down upon him.
Within this light, Xu Ying felt an unprecedented pull, his body drifting upward along the beam against his will.
He looked up and saw the sky appearing to crack open. The pure, sacred radiance poured down from that rift, while the other end of the light seemed to gleam with all the colors of an ocean floor. The light drew him higher and higher, and the Dao resonance whispering by his ears was intoxicating, as if the Great Dao of a higher realm were sounding beside him.
*Have I ascended?*
Xu Ying was momentarily bewildered. Only after a beat did the truth dawn on him.
*I've ascended! I've finally ascended!*
His heart was overcome by an ineffable, boundless joy, and tears welled in his eyes. He had finally ascended; he was finally an immortal!
He was no longer Xu Ying the Qi Refiner, no longer Xu Ying the fugitive, no longer the Immortal of Undying!
After falling forty-eight thousand years ago and enduring endless sinking and drifting, he had finally ascended once more!
His speed grew faster and faster as he soared through the rift in the sky. He watched a colossal red sun pass by; he moved so swiftly that stars streaked past his feet in a blur.
Carried by this ascension radiance, he cut through magnificent layers of cloud, past star marshes that sprayed torrents like heavenly swords cleaving the cosmos, through immense lightning storms spanning hundreds of millions of li, and into boundless spiritual radiance.
The ascension light crossed a swath of absolute darkness—the Sea of Ruin of the cosmos, the place of sinking.
In just a brief moment, he beheld sights of unprecedented magnificence within that light, journeying through realm after realm where the Great Dao converged.
Suddenly, as if piercing through the edge of the universe or some intangible barrier, he emerged above the Earth Immortal Realm.
He saw that most of the myriad heavens and realms had already merged, while the Immortal Realm swayed precariously in the cosmic tides, filling the gaps of the Earth Immortal Realm.
Further away, the Ancestral Court drifted, drawing nearer to the Earth Immortal Realm.
Looking as far as his vision could reach, Xu Ying saw the magnificent Netherworld; the two Nether Seas were beginning to merge, and the Lesser Three Realms of the Immortal Realm, myriad realms, and Netherworld were on the verge of uniting into the Earth Immortal Realm!
Yet his flight did not cease. Borne upward past the Earth Immortal Realm, the ascension radiance carried him across the ancient Heavenly River, over the vast, boundless Nether Sea, and past unexplored Dao realms veiled within the Netherworld.
He passed through Dao realms and flew between Daoist Qingxuan's Ten Scenes of the Great Void, abruptly leaping into another space-time and soaring toward an even higher firmament.
*Am I going to ascend to the Heavenly Immortal Realm? But the Heavenly Immortal Realm was destroyed—it should be a place of utter silence and death!*
Just as the thought crossed Xu Ying's mind, he saw the entrance to another space-time slowly open within the ascension radiance.
The ascension light, minute as a mote of dust, flew toward that grand and ancient space-time. At its threshold, dragon skeletons of staggering scale met Xu Ying's eyes.
Colossal dragon bones piled like mountains, strewn in chaos everywhere.
An aura of apocalyptic ruin rushed over him.
As he drew closer, that sense of unease grew increasingly overwhelming.
Just as he was about to be led into the Heavenly Immortal Realm by the ascension light, another strange beam suddenly swept in, scattering the first radiance and bathing Xu Ying. With a violent wrench, it pulled him away from the threshold of the Heavenly Immortal Realm!
Alarmed and uncertain, Xu Ying was about to struggle when he realized that what enveloped him was another ascension light!
This was a second ascension radiance, arriving to guide his ascent as well!
*Wait! What is going on?*
Xu Ying had a sudden realization. *I see! This ascension light comes from the space-time of the Emerald Rock! Because it does not belong to our space-time, it arrived later. It is guiding me to...*
Xu Ying looked toward the source of the radiance and murmured, "...the other shore."
That light carried him howling forward, far more fierce and forceful than the previous ascension light. Countless flashes of brilliance streaked before his eyes, crossing untold distances in the blink of an eye.
After an unknown stretch of time and crossing through countless layers of void, the radiance suddenly slowed, carrying him toward the silhouette of an ancient continent.
The light shimmered with brilliant hues as it bore him along. As they drew closer to that ancient land, even before arriving, Xu Ying sensed an aura of the Great Dao identical to that of the Emerald Rock, filling him with refreshed wonder.
Then he saw towering peaks rising across the land ahead. Upon one magnificent mountain, Buddhist light shone resplendently, illuminating everything around it.
A great Buddha of ten thousand fathoms stood amidst all-encompassing light, with thousands of Buddhas seated within the halo behind his head.
Catching sight of Xu Ying within the radiance, the great Buddha showed a look of astonishment and abruptly rose to his feet, making the earth tremble and the mountains shake.
Xu Ying was stunned. "He is... the Buddha Ancestor of Mount Sumeru's Great Thunderclap Temple?"
The great Buddha extended a hand and channeled his dharmic power. Instantly, Sanskrit chanting erupted, suppressing the light carrying Xu Ying. The radiance violently convulsed, and under the reinforcement of the Buddha Ancestor's power, it reversed direction, hurtling back the way it had come.
In his haste, Xu Ying looked back. Behind the Buddha Ancestor, the thousands of Buddhas within the halo wore expressions of panic, waving their hands frantically at him as they cried out in warning:
"Do not ascend!"
"Do not ascend!"
"Do not ascend!"
Behind the Buddha, heaven and earth suddenly detonated as a figure a hundred times more colossal slowly rose, swinging a titanic hammer downward.
Chapter 581