The interior of the other shore's First Sacred Ground was exceedingly peculiar, resembling the universe of the other shore flattened into two opposing planes.
Xu Ying had long since refined this sacred ground and kept it by his side to aid his cultivation and contemplate the wondrous mysteries of the other shore's Dao.
The First Sacred Ground was the very foothold left behind when Xu Ying and the Ancestral God had opened the Hongyuan of the other shore in ancient times. In a sense, the other shore had originated here.
Within this sacred ground lay the Three Thousand Great Daos. Furthermore, it was here that Xu Ying had attained the realm of Primordial Dao Master, so replenishing the nineteen missing Heavenly Daos was as easy as turning over his hand.
"How strange. How could over a dozen Heavenly Daos of the other shore have shattered?"
Xu Ying was puzzled. He had sensed his perception clouded by calamitous destiny and had returned to the other shore for that reason, never expecting that upon arrival he would find nineteen Great Daos broken.
Though he had now restored all nineteen Heavenly Daos, he could sense that they were still unstable, lacking the firmness of the original Heavenly Daos.
Over these years, he had cultivated diligently without pause in the Three Realms, advancing his verification of the nine Daos to the pinnacle of the Immortal realm, falling just slightly short of becoming a Grand Dao Lord.
"The reason my senses were clouded by calamitous destiny is that all my Daos were attained in the other shore. I am the Primordial Dao Master who opened the other shore. If calamitous destiny could blind even me, then the calamitous destiny weighing on the other shore must be far more complicated than I anticipated."
As the Primordial Dao Master who had opened the other shore, Xu Ying was virtually the wellspring of its Great Dao. If even he could be blinded, unable to sense whether the calamitous destiny was catching up to him or acting upon his person, one could well imagine how tangled and sinister it was.
Had he not asked Yuan Weiyang to observe him using his All-Knowing Eye, he might never have noticed the impending calamity at all.
Suddenly, a faint palpitation stirred within Xu Ying's heart, warning him that the calamitous destiny had yet to dissipate. He thought, *I had better go see Taiyi first.*
He set off toward Daoji Heaven, only to see that the lush green peaks of the other shore were no more, buried beneath mounds of Dao ash.
He walked over, scooped up a handful of Dao ash, and caught the scent of decay. This was the ash left behind after the Heavenly Daos shattered and the worldly origin Qi that contained them died away.
"I restored the nineteen missing Heavenly Daos. Logically, this Dao ash should have reverted to worldly origin Qi as well. Why hasn't it?"
Xu Ying frowned slightly.
This was not the first time such an occurrence had taken place in the other shore.
In an intact universe, Chaos Qi could not remain chaotic forever; it would gradually transform into Heavenly Daos. Yet in the other shore, Chaos Qi failed to convert into Heavenly Daos, instead gathering into stagnant masses.
This meant the universe of the other shore had lost the power to transform chaos, declining from prosperity toward decay!
Now that the Dao ash was similarly failing to revert, the calamitous destiny was bound to be even fiercer than Xu Ying had previously estimated.
*Once this calamitous destiny spreads to the First Sacred Ground, the doom of the other shore may become irreversible. Fortunately, the First Sacred Ground remains largely uncompromised for now.*
Just then, Xu Ying felt a violent surge from the Taiyi Great Dao. His heart stirred, and he immediately followed the fluctuations.
Before long, he arrived outside Daoji Heaven, where he saw Dao Master Shi Lan and four figures bearing an uncanny resemblance to Dao Master Lin laying siege to Dongxuanzi.
"Dao bodies of Dao Master Lin!"
Xu Ying raised an eyebrow. Behind each of these four Lin Dao Masters manifested the phenomenon of a macrocosmic universe. Each cultivated a distinct Great Dao and channeled the Dao power of their respective universe, unleashing surging, tempestuous might that vastly outstripped Dongxuanzi's!
Dongxuanzi had attained the Dao through Taiyi and possessed profound cultivation. The Taiyi Great Dao was an undifferentiated whole, the progenitor of all Daos. Whether it was Dao Master Shi Lan or the four Dao bodies of Dao Master Lin, the Daos they practiced all fell within the fold of Taiyi, subordinate to its lineage.
However, Dongxuanzi's cultivation was only at the mid-stage of the Dao Master realm, and his Dao power fell short of any single one of the four Dao bodies.
The four Dao bodies of Dao Master Lin were at the pinnacle of the Dao Master realm. Rather than competing with him in Dao arts and divine powers—where they were certain to be outmatched—they simply brought out numinous treasures to blast him, overpowering all techniques with sheer might and suppressing Dongxuanzi through the treasures' overwhelming force!
As for Dao Master Shi Lan, though she also joined the assault, she was merely taking advantage of the situation, sneaking in a strike or two whenever Dongxuanzi's guard slipped.
Covered in blood, Dongxuanzi mobilized his Taiyi cave abyss against the onslaught of the four Dao bodies. As his Taiyi Dao arts circulated, all the Daos of the myriad heavens formed a Great Luo canopy, harmonizing diverse Dao powers into an indivisible unity of peerless elegance!
Witnessing this, Xu Ying could not help but sigh in admiration. "The old man truly lives up to his name as the wellspring of the Taiyi Great Dao for both the other shore and the Three Realms. His divine powers are formidable indeed!"
Dongxuanzi's divine powers possessed a concise beauty, yet beneath that minimalist exterior lay the intricate interplay and entanglement of yin and yang, space and time, gods and demons, life and death. The underlying structure was unimaginably complex.
With an effortless thrust of his palm, different permutations of the Heavenly Daos yielded vastly different effects and potencies. At times yin and yang took prominence, condensing myriad Daos into Taiji; at other times space and time led the way, sending attacks striking from the past and future, impossible to ward off.
In one hand he held life and death, and with the other he could plunge the cosmos into darkness or perpetual daylight, making Xu Ying marvel in admiration.
Yet against the suppression of innate numinous treasures and Dao power several times his own, such wondrous divine powers availed him little.
Xu Ying watched as tens of thousands of spatiotemporal layers unfolded behind Dongxuanzi, from which palm prints blotted out the sky and poured toward the four Lin Dao Masters. He could not resist shouting in praise, "Splendidly struck, Grandmaster!"
Across from him, each of the four Dao bodies of Dao Master Lin activated their innate numinous treasures and pressed down with crushing force. Spitting blood, Dongxuanzi was sent flying backward.
The blood-drenched figure tumbled across tens of thousands of li through the air, completely unable to halt his momentum.
Xu Ying flew after him, arriving beside the tumbling Dongxuanzi in an instant. Looking at the elder, who was still coughing blood as he hurtled backward, Xu Ying praised, "Grandmaster's divine powers have attained the absolute peak of mastery. This disciple possesses no such skill. You fought brilliantly!"
Dongxuanzi glanced at him, and blood began to trickle from his nostrils as well.
Doing his utmost to steady himself, he glared fiercely at Xu Ying. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, another mouthful of blood surged up.
"You brat..."
Before he could finish the sentence, his footing faltered and he nearly plummeted.
Xu Ying reached out and caught the back of his robes, keeping him from dropping, and commended him further, "The only other person I have ever seen wield such divine powers was Grand Dao Lord Haoyi; not even Dao Master Taiyi is this refined. Grandmaster, back when you were hunting me through the Chaos Sea, you never displayed such exquisite divine powers."
Dongxuanzi struggled to plant his feet, but his Dao injuries flared again, nearly causing him to faint.
Yet at that very moment, he felt a continuous trickle of Dao power flowing from the palm resting against his lower back. It comprised the powers of all the various Daos subordinate to the Taiyi Great Dao—endless and purer even than the arts he himself had tempered over countless trials!
*This brat sounds as if he's mocking me when he flatters me, but he truly respects his elders and honors the Dao,* Dongxuanzi thought.
The four Dao bodies of Dao Master Lin flew forward and raised the Great Luo Sky-Blasting Drum, the Dao Sovereign Three Calamities Sword, the Mystic Yin Chaos-Sky Dipper, and the Primordial Dao Seal, trapping Xu Ying and Dongxuanzi in their midst with murderous aura surging.
Dao Master Shi Lan arrived on their heels. Her gaze fell on Xu Ying, filled with pleasant surprise, and she laughed. "So it's you! Xu Ying, you had an open road to heaven yet chose not to take it..."
Xu Ying cut her off without hesitation: "Shi Lan, I told you that if you crossed me again, I would erase eighteen generations of your ancestors from history. And yet you dare cross me once more!"
Before Dao Master Shi Lan could reply, space and time suddenly warped, and boundless temporal flow poured backward from the present into the past.
The universe of the other shore seemed to enter a cycle of temporal Samsara. They stood outside the cycle, while time itself flowed within it!
Alarmed, Dao Master Shi Lan was about to speak when the reversing flow of time came to an abrupt halt. Before her appeared her parents.
Her father had been an ancient god, and her mother a demigod; both had perished in ages long gone by.
Yet at this moment, her parents had not even conceived her.
She saw Xu Ying press two fingers together like a blade. With his Immortal-Slaying Sword Finger, he twisted Samsara, merging cause and effect, calamitous destiny, and slaughter into a single thrust aimed straight at her parents!
"Xu Ying, you said not to cross the Three Realms again, not you..."
Dao Master Shi Lan had only spoken that far when her entire form vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the Dao of Stone she had cultivated, which surged forward against Xu Ying.
The might of this Heavenly Dao was formidable indeed, yet it merely caused Xu Ying's robes to flutter faintly before subsiding into nothingness.
"My apologies, that slipped my mind,"
Xu Ying said apologetically, though he felt not the slightest remorse. His action had been something of a display of skill, for with his current strength, killing Dao Master Shi Lan head-on was far simpler than stepping into the past to erase her forebears—there had been no need for such excess.
Xu Ying dispersed his divine power, and the warped ring of Samsara vanished, returning everything to the present.
Yet though Dao Master Shi Lan was gone, another Dao Master stood before him in her place—Bright King Lingyan, clutching the Heaven-Containing Pillar, exuding murderous aura as he encircled Xu Ying and Dongxuanzi alongside the four Dao bodies of Dao Master Lin.
Xu Ying was taken aback. At that moment, laughter rang out from one of the Lin Dao Masters: "Xu Ying, your comprehension of cause and effect has yet to reach the point of total clarity. You may have erased Shi Lan, ensuring she never existed in the entire history of the other shore, but you cannot alter cause and effect."
Another Lin Dao Master in white robes smiled and added, "Because I required a Dao Master to serve as my lackey, no matter whom you erased, I would still have one at my disposal."
Hearing this, Bright King Lingyan looked puzzled. "Shi Lan? Who is Shi Lan?"
He had attained the Dao over a hundred million years ago and had never heard the name Dao Master Shi Lan in his life!
Xu Ying looked over in surprise. "Could it be that Dao Master Lin attained the Dao through Cause and Effect?"
The four Lin Dao Masters nodded together and smiled. "Fellow Daoist Xu had already suspected as much, so why pretend to be surprised? In my early years, I became the Dao Master of the Spirit Dao, only to realize soon after that it was ill-suited to me."
Xu Ying ventured, "You must have been exceptionally clever."
Dao Master Lin sighed. "What use is cleverness? Mastering the Nine Innate Daos is simply too difficult. I lacked Dao Master Luo's genius to extrapolate all the way from the Soul Dao to the Void, nor did I possess Dao Master Hua's aptitude to cultivate Taiyi from nothing. I had only a modest wit, and I could only advance step by step like Dao Master Taiyi, figuring things out on my own."
The other three Lin Dao Masters smiled. "Fortunately, I was slightly cleverer than Taiyi. While Taiyi cultivated various Daos to the Immortal realm and incorporated them into the Taiyi Great Dao, I had already cultivated those same Daos to the Dao Master realm. I refined them one by one into the Dao Master level, knowing that the Heavenly Daos are the foundation of the Nine Innate Daos. Whichever of the Nine Innate Daos one seeks to cultivate, one must first command an ample number of innate Daos."
Dao Master Lin continued, "And so, I elevated three hundred Heavenly Daos to the level of Dao Master."
Xu Ying was genuinely moved. Such comprehension was on par with Xuhuang's!
Before attaining the realization that one's nature is inherently sufficient, Xuhuang had likely been inferior to Dao Master Lin!
Seeing the look on his face, Dao Master Lin was immensely pleased and smiled. "Once I possessed three hundred Heavenly Daos at the Dao Master level, I needed to choose one of the Nine Innate Daos to comprehend. Yet the time required to master such a Dao would likely exceed what I had spent on the three hundred Heavenly Daos. That was when Hong Tiangang's Great Dao of Cause and Effect caught my eye."
Xu Ying instantly grasped why he had chosen Cause and Effect, remarking, "Whenever the three Dao Masters faced momentous decisions, you all invited Hong Tiangang to divine cause and effect, which made you covet that Dao intensely."
The four Lin Dao Masters nodded in agreement and clapped with laughter. "Daoshengzi, who cultivated Samsara, possessed mediocre strength at best. Grand Dao Lord Taiyi, who practiced Taiyi, was unremarkable as well. As for Hunyuan Dao Lord who practiced Chaos, Ling Duyu who practiced Primordial Origin, and Guangzheng who practiced Wuji—not one of them was worth a second glance.
"Only the Great Dao of Cause and Effect wielded by Hong Tiangang made my eyes light up. It was then that I realized: of the Nine Innate Daos, Cause and Effect is foremost!
"If I could master this Dao, I would know the past and future, hold sway over all things, pursue fortune while evading calamity, and wiping out any adversary would be trivial!
"Thus, I exerted immense effort in the Great Dao of Cause and Effect. Long before Grand Dao Lord Taiyi ever became a Dao Master, I had already attained the Dao through Cause and Effect, becoming the very first Innate Dao Master!"
Hearing this, Xu Ying expressed genuine admiration: "Dao Master Lin's comprehension is truly monstrous. Alas, as astonishing as your comprehension was, it still could not rival Taiyi's good fortune in taking a worthy disciple."
The four Dao bodies of Dao Master Lin all revealed looks of jealousy upon hearing this, nodding in agreement. "Indeed. What stature did Taiyi have to accept a genius like Haoyi as his disciple? Were it not for Haoyi, Taiyi would at best be a second-rate Dao Master today, far from a match for me! My true rivals should only have been Dao Master Hua, Dao Master Luo, and the Dao Venerable! What right did Taiyi have?"
They were thoroughly indignant.
Haoyi had comprehended that the Dao of Taiyi meant one's nature was inherently sufficient. Once Dao Master Taiyi grasped this truth, he made a sudden leap forward, mastering all Heavenly Daos and raising them to the Dao Master level, thereby acquiring the capital to stand on equal footing with the three great Dao Masters.
Another Lin Dao Master in purple robes sighed, "Taiyi's good fortune did not stop there. He took you as his disciple as well. With his natural aptitude and comprehension, he was originally doomed never to attain the Dao Master realm, yet under your pressure, he managed to attain the Dao and become a Dao Master."
The other Dao bodies shook their heads in unison.
Dao Master Taiyi's luck was simply too good—so good that it filled them with envy.
"Yet no matter how good his fortune, it ends today."
The white-robed Lin Dao Master smiled, murder in his eyes. "I will let Taiyi know that his master Dongxuan and his disciple Xu Ying both died because of him. He cannot mend the heavens, nor can he save his master or his disciple! He is an utter, absolute fail—"
*Boom!*
Xu Ying flipped his hand, and purple qi instantly flooded the heavens. In a flash, the First Sacred Ground drew upon the Three Thousand Heavenly Daos of the other shore, piercing the starry expanse and bestowing their blessing upon him.
As Xu Ying brought his palm down, the Primordial Dao power of eight universes, including the Que Realm, was fully mobilized and channeled into his strike!
Before the white-robed Lin Dao Master could finish speaking, Xu Ying's massive palm print descended. He hastily struck the Great Luo Sky-Blasting Drum, but the moment the drum sounded, Xu Ying's palm print shattered the sound wave and smashed against the drumhead!
The Sky-Blasting Drum, bearing the full brunt of Xu Ying's palm power, crushed downward. The white-robed Lin Dao Master pushed forward with both hands, yet his physical body detonated with a deafening roar, blown into utter oblivion!
The other three Lin Dao Masters lunged forward. The Dao Sovereign Three Calamities Sword in the purple-robed Lin Dao Master's grasp changed hands as Xu Ying seized it, turned it around, and plunged it into his chest, slicing him into three pieces!
The black-robed Lin Dao Master raised the Mystic Yin Chaos-Sky Dipper, attempting to draw Xu Ying inside and dissolve him into foul sludge. But before he could pull Xu Ying in, Xu Ying cleaved him clean in half with an axe.
The yellow-robed Lin Dao Master hurled the Primordial Dao Seal down, only for the seal to land in Xu Ying's grip. Xu Ying raised it instead and smashed him into paste!
In the span of a spark, Xu Ying had eliminated all four Dao bodies of Dao Master Lin. Seeing that the tide had turned, Bright King Lingyan attempted to flee, but Xu Ying swept him into the Mystic Yin Chaos-Sky Dipper and refined him into a pool of putrid water!
*Self-sufficiency of one's nature, coupled with harvesting the Dao power of macrocosmic universes, truly yields tremendous growth!*
A surge of fierce hostility welled up uncontrollably within Xu Ying's chest. Eyes gleaming with ferocity, he shouted, "I have harvested only eight universes. If I were to reap every single macrocosmic universe, I could blow the Dao Venerable to pieces through the Primordial Great Dao alone and reign supreme over the Chaos Sea!
"My Three Realms shall become the other shore to all the macrocosmic universes!"
Chapter 890