Ascension of the Golden Ship

Immortal Emperor Supreme watched the Holy Venerable depart into the distance, his face stony and devoid of expression. He walked over, intending to pull Dan Xuanzi out of the Yuantu Seven-Color Lamp, but when he reached out, he discovered his hand was trembling. The harder he tried to control the shaking, the more violently his hand trembled, refusing to stop. He felt weak in the knees, so limp he could barely stand. He composed himself, panting heavily. It had been even more exhausting than his life-and-death struggle against Xu Ying at the Heavenly Abyss back then. That terror and oppressive weight were feelings he had never experienced before. Watching this scene from afar, Lu Yiren shook his head and did not go seek out Immortal Emperor Supreme. "The leader of complete Zangification cannot be someone like this. Mingzun definitely wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of complete Zangification. If I show myself and explain its benefits, he would certainly comply, but his temperament is not what I need." Turning to leave, he murmured, "I need someone of extraordinary charisma—powerful, adaptable, able to expand and contract, appear and vanish like a dragon. Someone like the Holy Venerable, or Xu Ying. Only such a person can guide an era and lead the Three Realms into complete Zangification. Mingzun clearly cannot. He lacks the mettle." He could not help thinking back to the white bone divine dragon, frowning slightly. "To think he has survived until now. I thought he had perished beneath the Dao weeping long ago..." He had spent a brief period of time with this white bone divine dragon, after his parents fell in battle. He had no idea why that battle broke out. He only knew that aboard the World-Crossing Golden Ship, the powerhouses of the dragon race had treated his family of three with the utmost courtesy. Just days before, they had been chatting and laughing in perfect harmony, when slaughter suddenly erupted. Never before had he seen his father and mother show such ferocity, nor had he ever seen those dragon race powerhouses—who had been teasing him and joking with him moments earlier—turn so grim and terrifying. In that battle, Qin Daoquan, the Dragon Court's most inconspicuous historiographer, had displayed astounding combat strength, turning the tide and dragging Lu Yiren's father down to mutual destruction at the final moment. His mother perished in that battle as well. On the entire ship, only he and the Dragon Court's Heavenly Prime Minister, Bi Yanhai, remained. He still remembered Bi Yanhai's expression. With his life force exhausted, Bi Yanhai stood on the World-Crossing Golden Ship, watching the Emerald Rock pierce through the Three Realms. Lu Yiren could never forget that sight, nor could he forget Bi Yanhai's expression: despair, fury, powerlessness. Dragging his gravely injured body, Bi Yanhai walked toward him, intent on killing him. Lu Yiren fled in hiding, and the two pursued each other amidst the corpses carpeting the deck. In the end, Bi Yanhai caught him, yet seeing that he was merely a child, Bi Yanhai raised his butcher's blade several times but could never bring himself to strike the fatal blow. Back then, Lu Yiren was just an ignorant child. During their leisure, his father and mother had taught him to read and write and instructed him in the wonders of the Li framework. He had not even fully grasped the Li framework yet. At the time, he possessed no judgment of good and evil, right and wrong. He thought Bi Yanhai was an evil man, yet he felt Bi Yanhai didn't seem evil either. They lived together in that cosmic apocalypse for several dozen days—the hardest days Lu Yiren had ever endured. Over those dozens of days, Bi Yanhai had harbored murderous intent countless times, yet endured it every time. The World-Crossing Golden Ship carried them back to the Three Realms. Upon reaching the Realm of the Great Void, Bi Yanhai's injuries flared up, and he could hold on no longer. Mustering his final ounce of strength, he threw Lu Yiren off the World-Crossing Golden Ship, casting him toward the Mortal Realm. "Your parents committed countless evil deeds, but you did not. I grant you a chance to live!" He still remembered those words. Recalling this, Lu Yiren sighed and whispered, "He succumbed to Zangification after all, unable to recognize me anymore. After throwing me out, he must have lost his cultivation, gradually turned into white bone by the Dao weeping. But true Zangification is different. True Zangification involves learning and cultivating the divine arts and Dao methods of the Li framework from childhood. When the Dao methods do not conflict, one will not turn into white bone." His figure vanished into the darkness. The Holy Venerable traveled along the River of Spiritual Light, taking over a month to finally make his way from the Mortal Realm to the Earth Immortal Realm. Before long, he found his disciple, Lou Mingyu. At this moment, Lou Mingyu was leading hundreds of disciples, preaching the New Dao and expounding on Dao methods across the Great Taiyin World. Six years had passed since the battle between Xu Ying and the Immortal Emperor. Over these six years, Lou Mingyu and the others had spread the Dao on Xu Ying's behalf, and more and more people took up the New Dao. Lou Mingyu had also reached the Dao Landscape realm. The cave abyss he had cultivated was nearly a Supreme cave abyss; only a breakthrough into the Supreme realm remained before he could become a New Dao Supreme. His cultivation was immense, significantly deeper even than Xu Ying's back then. Seeing the Holy Venerable, he could not help feeling a bit apprehensive. Back then, performing the half-disciple rite toward Xu Ying was his way of showing he had not betrayed his master's lineage, yet in the Holy Venerable's eyes, it still carried a whiff of treachery. The Holy Venerable got straight to the point, stating bluntly, "The cultivation method of yesteryear harbored traps, and the summoned cave abysses concealed flaws. This master has already taken Xu Ying as my teacher, discarded my prior cultivation, and switched to cultivating Dao Ancestor Xu's New Dao. Mingyu, I need you to protect me as my Dao guardian!" Lou Mingyu froze, his head buzzing. The Holy Venerable was the most powerful existence beneath the heavens. How could he bear to discard the old method and turn to cultivating the New Dao? What staggering resolve did this take? However, that was not what occupied his mind. *The Holy Venerable took Dao Ancestor Xu as his master, while I address Dao Ancestor Xu as a fellow Daoist—though he is Dao Brother to me. Doesn't that mean my master has to call me martial uncle?* He blinked, thinking to himself, *Even if Master doesn't call me martial uncle, he would have to call me senior martial brother. After all, I also performed the half-disciple rite toward Dao Ancestor Xu. The seniority between us two seems a bit messed up. Let me sort this out...* Unaware of the thoughts swirling in his disciple's head, the Holy Venerable continued, "Of my three great cave abysses, only the Earth Immortal Realm cave abyss was not summoned, but rather refined from the immortal mountains and blessed lands of the Earth Immortal Realm. That cave abyss is safe. Now, I shall sever two of my cave abysses and then sever my own cultivation. Once my cultivation is discarded, I will be frail and require you to guard me for a time." Forgetting about sorting out their seniority, Lou Mingyu hurried to ask, "Master, what will you do with the two severed cave abysses?" The Holy Venerable replied, "Seal them away. Exploring the ninth realm may require an extraordinarily vast reservoir of magic power to break through. Naturally, the more Supreme cave abysses, the better." Lou Mingyu immediately departed with the Holy Venerable, searching together for a secure place to seal the surrounding heaven and earth. The Holy Venerable severed his own cultivation, cutting down his realms one by one and refining them into a treasure known as the Dao Body Sacred Weapon, storing it within the Daming Palace. This Dao body was formed from the Holy Venerable's seventeen realms. In appearance, it resembled a human form, yet inside it housed the Five Peaks, the Elixir Crucible, the Layered Pavilions, the Jasper Pool, the bodhimanda, the Dao tree, the Dao flowers, and other constructs, as well as a Great Grand Luo bodhimanda. It merely lacked someone to wield it. He preserved this Dao body, first to avoid waste by refining his cultivation into a supreme treasure to keep handy against future peril, and second to verify whether his Dao body would perish when the cave abyss Dao weeping occurred. If it perished, that would prove summoning cave abysses was indeed a trap! *Master has severed his cultivation.* Lou Mingyu sat outside the Holy Venerable's seclusion grounds, his expression shifting between dark and bright. *Now is the best chance to eliminate Master. He is so frail, with only his physical cultivation remaining that cannot be severed. As long as I eliminate him... Wait. Even if I eliminate him, I wouldn't be able to inherit the position of Holy Venerable. What am I thinking?* His expression smoothed back to normal. A few days later, Lou Mingyu returned to his disciples alongside a fair-skinned, red-lipped youth, resuming their journey across the rivers and mountains to spread the Dao far and wide. This handsome, extraordinary youth was the Holy Venerable. After severing his realms, even his appearance had grown far younger, yet the extraordinary air about him remained unmistakably distinct, marking him as no ordinary figure. Over these years of spreading the Dao, Lou Mingyu had taken on the bearing of a second saint, causing the Holy Venerable to sigh with admiration. This disciple of his was bound for greatness; his future accomplishments might not necessarily be lower than his own. The Holy Venerable cultivated alongside him for two months, and his cultivation had already climbed to the Six Daos realm, where he paused. The Six Daos realm was the eighth realm before ascension and of critical importance. In this realm, one needed to cultivate diverse Great Daos and amass abundant cave abysses, especially Supreme-grade Great Daos. If one cultivated Heavenly Monarch-grade Great Daos at this stage, there would be no hope whatsoever of achieving Supreme status! The Holy Venerable had witnessed the re-cultivation process of Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang. Possessing seasoned, sharp insight, he perceived the crux of the New Dao's cultivation. Thus, he was exceedingly cautious in this realm and held back from breaking through. He needed to refine more Supreme-grade Great Daos, waiting until he possessed complete certainty before breaking through to the next realm. On this day, a sudden radiance flared in the starry sky toward the Mortal Realm. Noticing this, the Holy Venerable felt a stir in his heart and remarked, "The half-year deadline has arrived. That is the light generated by Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang undergoing tribulation." Lou Mingyu looked toward the stars and asked, "How many times has Dao Ancestor Xu undergone tribulation and ascended now?" The Holy Venerable shook his head as well. Xu Ying had relied on tribulation ascension to carve out half the Mortal Realm for himself; who knew if he might pull off another such stunt. "For Xu Ying to undergo tribulation now, he must believe his foundation is rock-solid and can find no more flaws to mend," the Holy Venerable said. "Unfortunately, I still have not patched all my own flaws; vulnerabilities can still be found." He judged that his attainments in martial arts certainly could not match Xu Ying's, making it impossible to refine a martial cave abyss, but Xu Ying definitely did not possess an Earth Immortal Realm cave abyss either. This was an area where Xu Ying could not rival him. *Can Xu Ying truly break through the Dao domain, the six domains, the bodhimanda, and the Dao Landscape realm within half a year?* he thought silently. *The Immortal Emperor today is no longer the Immortal Emperor who clashed with him back then. His strength has advanced by leaps and bounds over these six or seven years. If Xu Ying doesn't break through the Dao Landscape realm to step into the Supreme realm, it will be very difficult to win!* Yet to advance from the Dao domain to the Dao Landscape within half a year was already hard enough; breaking through to the Supreme realm was harder still! In the Mortal Realm, Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang were undergoing tribulation simultaneously. Although both cultivated the New Dao and progressed at roughly the same pace, their tribulations and heavenly tribulations differed. Yuan Weiyang's heavenly tribulation was fiercely overbearing, struck by continuous lightning with an endless variety of lightning tribulations. Though they could not compare to the Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder Xu Ying had once faced, they were remarkably diverse in form. Xu Ying's heavenly tribulation was far simpler. A mass of Hongmeng purple qi drifted across the sky, accompanied by countless chants, condensing into a bolt of lightning that sliced downward. Yet this bolt possessed little destructive might. As it struck Xu Ying, he felt only a warm current coursing throughout his entire body, leaving him light and airy. Xu Ying felt thoroughly refreshed. Looking again, he saw that the Hongmeng purple qi had transformed into a Hongmeng Dao landscape, entering his martial cave abyss. To his surprise, this heavenly tribulation did not produce a single Purple Firmament Tribulation Thunder. Reflecting on it a moment later, he realized that the first-life Xu Ying had died; therefore, all the tribulations accumulated in the past had dispersed with the death of that first life. The Xu Ying of this life had not inherited the tribulations of the first life. On the contrary, because he was the Dao Ancestor, he received the blessing of the Hongmeng purple qi. *The Heavenly Dao is truly simple,* Xu Ying could not help shaking his head, musing silently. *To the Heavenly Dao, the first-life me is already dead, and whatever he did has nothing to do with me. But to the mortals of the world, whether it is the me of the first life, the me of today, or the me across the past forty-eight thousand years, all of them are me. In their eyes, the one who severed the Heavenly Path to obstruct people's ascension is me, the one who revived the Ancestral Court is me, the one who wreaked havoc in the Immortal Court is me, the Everlasting Immortal is me, and the Dao Ancestor of the New Dao is me.* Xu Ying remained perfectly tranquil. The "me" in his own heart, the "me" in the eyes of others, and the "me" perceived by the Heavenly Dao were each distinct. Ascension glow spilled downward. Bathed in the radiant light, Xu Ying attained an epiphany. The many "me"s are not me, yet all of them are me. I am not the first-life Xu Ying, yet in the eyes of all living beings I am the first-life Xu Ying, so I am the first-life Xu Ying. I am the first-life Xu Ying, yet in the eyes of the Heavenly Dao I am not the first-life Xu Ying, so I am not the first-life Xu Ying. I am the Everlasting Immortal through ten thousand lifetimes across the past forty-eight thousand years, yet I am also not that Everlasting Immortal of ten thousand lifetimes. I am the physical me, the spiritual me, the me in the eyes of all living beings, the me in the eyes of the Heavenly Dao. And I can exist independently outside them all, unbound by the body, unbound by the spirit, unbound by living beings, and unbound by the Heavenly Dao. This is the true self. Yuan Weiyang's heavenly tribulation concluded, and a beam of ascension glow likewise descended. The glow guided them, pulling them toward the sky. Xu Ying reached out his hand, grasping toward the World-Crossing Golden Ship below. The massive golden ship creaked, and drawn by the ascension glow, it too slowly lifted into the air. Seeing this, Yuan Weiyang also reached out toward the golden ship. The vessel gradually accelerated, coming to rest beneath their feet. The two beams of ascension glow strained under the burden, bearing both of them and this colossal golden ship as they drifted sluggishly skyward. Xu Ying spoke with considerable excitement, "Weiyang, the ascension glow will carry us out of the Mortal Realm, allowing us to journey across the cosmos, weave through quasar marshes, enter the Return to Ruins black hole, fly out of the hole, and leap into the Earth Immortal Realm. From the Earth Immortal Realm, passing through all manner of wondrous, inconceivable places, we shall ascend to the Heavenly Immortal Realm! Then we will be seized by the ascension glow from the other shore, flying straight toward the other shore!" Stirred by his words, Yuan Weiyang looked toward the sky, only to see the World-Crossing Golden Ship still crawling along, while the two beams of glow hauling it seemed to strain more and more with every passing moment. Xu Ying bristled with irritation. "When one man ascends, his chickens and dogs ascend with him! I didn't drag my whole family along, only brought a single ship, and now we can't ascend?" Yuan Weiyang remarked, "The Ancestral God is still on the ship; that must be the reason." She looked toward the Ancestral God, only to find he had already vanished without a trace, having departed who knew when. Xu Ying said, "The Ancestral God left while we were undergoing our tribulation. Most of his injuries had healed long ago. He only stayed behind out of concern that the Immortal Emperor and the others might ambush us." Now only the two of them and the white bone divine dragon remained aboard the ship. The ascension glow hauled the World-Crossing Golden Ship far too slowly. Unable to stand it any longer, Yuan Weiyang smiled. "With the golden ship in our possession, why do we need ascension glow to journey through the wonders of the cosmos? Even without the glow, we can still ascend!" She invoked the Golden Key, and the World-Crossing Golden Ship surged with speed, charging directly against the ascension glow. With a whoosh, it pierced through both beams of ascension glow and tore through the void! "Ascension? Who cares for it!" Her crisp laughter rang out. "I shall ascend whenever I please; I have no need for your glow!" Aboard the golden ship, the white bone divine dragon clutched the bow in excitement as the World-Crossing Golden Ship broke through the Mortal Realm, with thousands of stars rushing toward its face. The dragon opened its maw and roared with delight—for the first time, its throat produced no Dao weeping, but a deep, resonant dragon roar. With a whoosh, the World-Crossing Golden Ship leapt into the Milky Way, sailing through the river formed by countless streaming stars. A ship of pure dreams stirred countless ripples of starlight. Back in the Mortal Realm, the Ancestral God raised His head toward the ripples in the starry sky, a smile gracing His face as He said, "I won't kill you, because I truly want to see your duel against Xu Ying half a year from now." He suddenly leapt upward, transforming into an undying beam of spiritual light that flowed beneath the Milky Way, propelling the ship faster and farther. Only after He left did Immortal Emperor Supreme finally exhale a long breath, walking tremulously toward the Yuantu Seven-Color Lamp to rescue Dan Xuanzi trapped within. He wanted to steady himself, but his hands defied his will, shaking uncontrollably. All around him, Creation Supreme, Yaoluo Supreme, Patriarch Boshan, and the others lay sprawled across the ground in total disarray. The Ancestral God had done what the Holy Venerable had done all over again.