"Master? I hardly dare accept that title."
Dongxuan's gaze fell upon Taiyi, his face suddenly darkening as ripples stirred unbidden in his mind.
Separated by more than one hundred million years, master and disciple met once more, each filled with melancholy.
Back then, Taiyi was merely a stocky, mature youth who followed him to seek knowledge, constantly asking all manner of questions and approaching his studies with utter devotion.
Now, meeting again, Taiyi had become a stocky, mature elder, yet between them there was no longer any bond of master and disciple.
In Daoist Dongxuan's heart, toward Taiyi, there was only hatred and the agonizing pain of betrayal.
"How could I, Dongxuan, be worthy of having a disciple who murders his master?" Dongxuan sneered mockingly. "How could I be worthy of having a disciple who repays kindness with enmity? A disciple who wipes out everything to the last root? Disloyal, unfilial, devoid of benevolence and righteousness—could scum like this truly have been taught by me?"
Flames of rage burned fiercely in his eyes, killing intent laid bare. For all these years, his Dao heart had been haunted by hatred and betrayal; seeing Taiyi now, he could no longer hold it back!
"We of Tianjing took disciples from the other shore, and what we received in return was not respect for masters or the Dao, nor repayment of kindness, but slaughter! My fellow Tianjing people were slaughtered by the very apprentices we taught! Hahaha! To think I trained the executioner who drove my race to extinction!"
Dongxuan's laughter sounded like weeping. "The disciple I taught used my Dao methods, used my divine powers, to slaughter tens of thousands, millions of my clansmen! What an irony—"
"Master, when you taught us those Dao methods back then, you never told us that bringing them back to the other shore would trigger a mass extinction of our living beings," Grand Dao Lord Taiyi said solemnly. "Snows of Dao ash fell over my other shore for a full million-plus years, transforming the Great Daos of heaven and earth into those of Tianjing. Over that million years, the living beings who died on the other shore were no fewer than those in Tianjing! When less than one in a hundred of our people remained alive, Tianjing relocated its people to the other shore to cultivate there—what was Tianjing's intention then?"
Dongxuan's face turned grim. "So according to you, we were at fault for teaching you Dao methods and divine powers back then? We did not know that bringing the rational scripts to the other shore would cause such a massive extinction event! As for our entering the other shore, we were merely seeking a place to survive. What fault is there in migrating for the survival of one's race?"
Taiyi said, "Could it be that you were not shifting calamitous destiny onto us?"
Dongxuan threw his head back and laughed loudly. "You slaughtered every last person of Tianjing, and yet you dare slander us with shifting calamitous destiny? The height of shamelessness!"
Behind him, the Taiyi Cave Abyss abruptly erupted, and the Taiyi Great Dao displayed the magnificent spectacle of ten thousand Daos converging into one.
Such a phenomenon was a unique trait belonging exclusively to the Taiyi Great Dao.
The Taiyi Great Dao was the ancestor of ten thousand Daos; apart from the Nine Innate Daos, all other Daos—even including the Void—were encompassed within Taiyi. (Of course, Taiyi encompassed only a portion of the Void, not the entirety of it.)
Xu Ying looked up and beheld a Taiyi Great Dao far vaster than his own, accommodating a greater and more complex array of Daos.
In just a fleeting moment, he detected three thousand distinct Daos!
These three thousand Daos could by no means be thoroughly fathomed and integrated into Taiyi in a mere hundred million years!
"For a single person to comprehend a single Dao from scratch and elevate it to the level of a Dao Master might require over a hundred million years. To comprehend three thousand Daos from scratch and raise them to the Dao Master level could easily demand more than three hundred billion years!"
Xu Ying's eyes flickered. Even if other Dao Masters had comprehended different Daos to the Dao Master level, the time required would still be counted in hundreds of millions of years!
With the other shore's foundation, it was still nowhere near achieving this.
The reason Xu Ying had been able to comprehend nearly three hundred Daos in a short span and merge them into the Taiyi Great Dao was that the cultivation techniques for these Daos had already been compiled by predecessors; there were ready-made methods to learn and existing experiences to draw upon.
If starting from scratch, even comprehending the simplest innate Dao would likely take an extraordinarily long time for him!
"Dongxuan's Taiyi Great Dao is built upon Tianjing's unimaginably ancient history, pushed to an even greater extreme than what the other shore or the Three Realms have achieved!" he thought inwardly. "If the other shore cannot compare to Tianjing, then Taiyi cannot compare to Dongxuan."
"Taiyi, use the skills I taught you to fight me to the death!" Dongxuan said chillingly.
Behind Grand Dao Lord Taiyi's head, the Taiyi Cave Abyss manifested. Although both possessed a Taiyi Cave Abyss, each bore distinct differences.
Dongxuan's cave abyss focused on integrating ever more Daos into the abyss, having the Daos merge into one stream to form the Taiyi Great Dao.
Taiyi's cave abyss also featured a confluence of Daos, yet the number of Daos integrated was far inferior to Dongxuan's.
"Even if that old scoundrel Taiyi harvested countless myriad universes, in terms of Dao attainments, he is still vastly inferior to Dongxuan. Their cultivation levels are roughly on par, but the moment they clash, old thief Taiyi will meet defeat and death," Xu Ying murmured inwardly. "Dongxuan's strength is far too superior to his! More critically, before the Dao tide, Dongxuan was a Dao Master!"
Standing at the height of a Dao Master, looking upon the Indestructible was as clear as reading lines on one's palm, as bright and distinct as observing a fire.
"Then is the demonstration the rebel Taiyi wanted me to see a demonstration of his defeat?" Xu Ying wondered.
Just as this thought crossed his mind, Taiyi and Dongxuan had already clashed. Neither held back in the slightest. Both wielded Taiyi Dao power, and both unleashed Taiyi divine powers.
Dongxuan's divine power integrated three thousand different innate Daos—wind, rain, thunder, lightning; metal, wood, water, fire; Greater Yin, Greater Yang; Lesser Yin, Lesser Yang; Nine Palaces, Eight Trigrams; Four Emblems, Eight Extremes, Center Extreme; Black Tortoise, Vermilion Bird, Azure Dragon, White Tiger; soul, spirit, vigor, and more—the Dao powers of countless Daos were pierced through and unified by Taiyi!
The might of three thousand Daos fused into one. Even Xu Ying, an entity at the Grand Dao Lord tier himself, could not help but pale before such a strike, suspecting that under a single blow, his soul would likely return to the beyond.
As for Grand Dao Lord Taiyi's divine power, the innate Daos integrated into it were far fewer than Dongxuan's. Curiously, however, while Dongxuan's attainments across his three thousand Daos varied between high and low, Taiyi's three hundred Daos were astonishingly uniform—every single one was at the Great Perfection of the Indestructible realm.
"Strange. The Daos contained within that rebel's Taiyi are as uniform as a freshly sheared patch of leeks—far too neat. What on earth did he learn from Emperor Haotian?"
Xu Ying was immensely astonished. Any normal person cultivating different Daos would surely have variations in depth and mastery; it was impossible for them to be uniform across the board.
Take Xu Ying himself: his attainments in the Nine Innate Daos varied in height and were by no means evenly matched.
Yet Taiyi's condition was something Xu Ying had never encountered before.
At the very instant their techniques collided, Xu Ying witnessed a scene that defied all comprehension: the number of Daos contained within Grand Dao Lord Taiyi's Taiyi Great Dao surged past the three-hundred mark!
Just a moment ago, Taiyi's Daos numbered barely three hundred, yet now, an additional Dao suddenly emerged within his Taiyi Great Dao!
Not only that—a second, a third, a fourth rapidly manifested!
What was even more bizarre was that in a mere breath, these newly appeared Daos advanced from nonexistence to existence, from complete ignorance to the Great Perfection of the Indestructible realm!
The sheer speed of it nearly drove Xu Ying mad!
Even during the years of his own meteoric rise after arriving at the other shore, his cultivation speed had never come close to this!
"Of course! The old scoundrel Taiyi must have mastered these Daos long ago and merged them into his Taiyi Great Dao. He concealed them before to hide his true strength, and now he is simply unleashing them."
Just as Xu Ying thought this, the two clashed again, various Taiyi divine powers emerging in an endless barrage. Yet even more Daos surged forth from Taiyi's Dao, likewise advancing at breakneck speed to the Great Perfection of the Indestructible realm!
"Wait, he isn't revealing hidden strength—he's copying! He's copying Dongxuan's Daos!"
Xu Ying suddenly realized: every newly added Dao in Taiyi could be matched to one among the three thousand Daos encompassed by Dongxuan's Taiyi Great Dao!
In other words, as Taiyi fought Dongxuan, he was learning the Daos mastered by his opponent one by one!
Yet such learning speed and efficiency were simply absurd!
"There is no way such learning speed could exist in this world. It's impossible..."
Xu Ying felt dazed, staring blankly at the two figures locked in combat. Earlier, Dongxuan was still able to suppress Grand Dao Lord Taiyi, but now the two were practically neck and neck!
Even though the number of Daos Dongxuan mastered was still greater than Taiyi's, and even though in his past life he had been the Grand Dao Master of the Taiyi Great Dao, he could no longer gain the slightest upper hand!
"No, that's not it, that's not it!"
Xu Ying watched their clash and saw that the number of Daos Taiyi wielded was still growing. In a short span, it leapt from three hundred to eight hundred!
Each Dao he acquired grew to the peak of the Indestructible realm before coming to a clean halt.
These five hundred newly acquired Daos were identical to the previous three hundred—perfectly uniform, with no distinction between high and low!
"If they were learned, if he comprehended them himself, there would surely be highs and lows, depths and shallows. Yet these newly cultivated Daos of Taiyi seem as though they already existed within the Taiyi Great Dao he practiced all along!"
Xu Ying stared blankly at the scene, muttering inwardly, "It's just that these inherently present Daos had not manifested before. When he clashed with his opponent, stimulated by his opponent, these Daos manifested as a result. He never studied or comprehended these Daos—these Daos were already present within Taiyi from the start!"
This was what Grand Dao Lord Taiyi had learned from Emperor Haotian.
He had grasped the true essence of the Taiyi Great Dao!
In the moment Xu Ying was lost in thought, the situation had completely reversed. Daoist Dongxuan had gone from suppressing Taiyi to being matched by him, and now he was blasted backward, coughing up blood.
Taiyi's Daos had already reached nearly two thousand!
Given just a bit more time, he would be able to draw full inspiration from Daoist Dongxuan and awaken three thousand Daos within his Taiyi Great Dao!
"What technique is this?" Dongxuan steadied his footing, repeatedly coughing up blood.
Grand Dao Lord Taiyi's expression remained tranquil. "Master, this was comprehended by one of my disciples. You taught me that Taiyi is the ancestor of ten thousand Daos, and therefore, to fathom the true essence of Taiyi, one must continually learn other Daos and integrate them into Taiyi."
Daoist Dongxuan nodded gently. "That is the foundation of the Taiyi Great Dao."
Grand Dao Lord Taiyi replied, "Yet the Taiyi Great Dao my disciple comprehended is that Taiyi is the underlying law of ten thousand Daos; ten thousand Daos are born from Taiyi, and forcefully striving to learn myriad Daos is merely chasing the branches while neglecting the root. To realize the true essence of Taiyi, one must know that within Taiyi, one's nature is self-sufficient."
"'Within Taiyi, one's nature is self-sufficient?'" Daoist Dongxuan murmured.
Grand Dao Lord Taiyi said, "This is the true legacy of his Taiyi Great Dao, distinct from the true legacy you taught me. But Master, your comprehension is insufficient; in this lifetime, it is impossible for you to grasp the profundities of this true transmission."
As he spoke, his Taiyi Great Dao continued to self-evolve, birthing even more Daos and causing his cultivation to climb step by step!
"Who was that disciple of yours?"
Daoist Dongxuan pondered carefully, finding those words increasingly profound and fathomless. Even if he exhausted a lifetime of wisdom, he could not comprehend the mysteries within, and he could not help but ask, "Where is he?"
A flicker of panic rose in his heart. If the other shore possessed such a heaven-sent genius, it would surely mean another existence on par with the Dao Venerable!
Perhaps even the Dao Venerable could not compare to him!
Grand Dao Lord Taiyi's expression dimmed, and he turned to leave. "He is already dead."
He did not deal a killing blow to Daoist Dongxuan. Setting out alone, he soon vanished without a trace.
"Ling Xuzi, do not pursue him," Daoist Dongxuan said. "He is luring Dao Master Luo to appear; he wants to strike at Dao Master Luo."
Ling Xuzi was startled. "You mean the Dao Masters he revived are lurking nearby?"
Daoist Dongxuan nodded gently. "We must leave quickly as well. Otherwise, if we are targeted by the other shore's powerhouses, we will be buried here!"
He sighed and thought to himself, 'The other shore is so replete with genius. One died, yet another remains...'
In Tianjue City, Xu Ying withdrew his gaze, feeling dazed and disoriented. Qingxuan, the Holy Venerable, Jiu Zeng, and the others were discussing the cause behind the explosive surge in Grand Dao Lord Taiyi's Daos, while only Xu Ying stood pale-faced, not uttering a word.
"'Within Taiyi, one's nature is self-sufficient.' Those words were spoken by Grand Dao Lord Haoyi. Back when he was still my senior martial brother, he always had that phrase on his lips," Dao Lord Jiu Zeng said. "Originally, no one took those words to heart, but seeing it now, Master comprehended something remarkable from them."
Daoist Wukong inquired, "Is Grand Dao Lord Haoyi Emperor Haotian?"
Qingxuan nodded slightly. "It is him. Back then, legends in the Earth Immortal Realm claimed that Emperor Taihao murdered Emperor Haotian to ascend the throne. Later, Yuan Yu and I went to dig up his grave, only to find the burial mound empty—he wasn't inside. Evidently, he did not die back then, but abdicated in favor of Taihao and departed for the other shore."
The Holy Venerable, Yuan Yu, murmured, "What he comprehended seems even more formidable than a Dao Master. If he hadn't died..."
Jiu Zeng sighed, dejected. "If he hadn't died, I'm afraid the three Dao Masters would have had to make room."
Xu Ying remained in a daze, that single phrase churning over and over in his mind: "Within Taiyi, one's nature is self-sufficient... Within Taiyi, one's nature is self-sufficient..."
Several days passed before he finally came to his senses. He spoke to Qingxuan, the Holy Venerable, and the others, "I need to take a long journey. I leave this place in the hands of you, my senior and junior martial brothers. My primordial spirit will remain guarding here; sensing through the Dao, it will protect the Taiyi Dao Sect."
The Holy Venerable asked, "If the Sect Master goes and never returns, then who will serve as Sect Master of Taiyi?"
"Qingxuan," Xu Ying answered without a second thought.
The Holy Venerable cast a hateful glare at Qingxuan.
Xu Ying bid farewell to the group and set off.
More than a month later, he arrived at a long-unvisited forbidden zone: Haoyi's enlightenment ground.
Xu Ying lifted his head and re-examined the various divine power imprints blanketing the sky.
"Beyond 'Within Taiyi, one's nature is self-sufficient,' there is also: within Samsara, one's nature is self-sufficient! And Wuji, Calamitous Destiny, Slaughter, Nirvana, Chaos, Grand Primordium!"
Chapter 834