A seam opening in the heavens was, to all the living beings within the Flourishing of the Many Realms, like a beam of celestial light suddenly piercing the end of an endless night.
And so the entire world erupted in excitement.
Stirred by this fervor, countless beings broke through bottleneck after bottleneck, while those who had not yet reached a bottleneck advanced by leaps and bounds. They all remained in the form of spirit bodies, unburdened by mortal flesh; once their Dao hearts attained clarity, their cultivation progressed far faster than it would have in the outside world.
With a seam opening in the heavens, even the immortal flora grew restless. Although they could no longer advance in rank, this was a rare opportunity to directly absorb the primal qi of heaven and earth.
After the Flourishing of the Many Realms had formed, Wei Yuan's heart-image world had become sealed. Only the heart-image world itself could absorb the primal qi of heaven and earth, convert it into its own spiritual energy, and then supply it for the immortal flora to absorb.
Only immortal plants of sufficiently exalted stature, such as the young Jianmu sapling and the celestial laurel tree, could reach through the barrier of heaven and earth to absorb primal qi directly.
At this moment, Wei Yuan gained an even deeper and more thorough understanding of how a heart-image world operated. The primal qi of heaven and earth was far too violent for the vast majority of living things, laden with countless impurities and alien energies—to ordinary beings, it was pure poison. Only a tiny handful of the mightiest beings could directly ingest and respire heaven and earth's primal qi.
Once the heart-image world drew in primal qi, however, it transformed it into spiritual energy. Spiritual energy could then be absorbed by many living beings, gradually refining and elevating their fundamental nature.
Within any world, only the strongest beings needed to directly absorb heaven and earth's primal qi, for only by doing so could they shatter the world's shackles and advance to higher realms. Immortals, meanwhile, had to transcend their world entirely, ascend above the Immortal Heaven, and harvest primal chaos qi.
Having grasped some of the fundamental truths of how the heart-image world functioned, Wei Yuan sometimes felt that the heart-image world was itself a unique kind of living entity—constantly transforming harmful primal qi into spiritual energy, nurturing within itself ever greater numbers and varieties of living beings, though beings that were clearly far more fragile.
In the twelve shichen preceding the opening of the celestial seam, countless strands of sword qi converged continuously upon the heavenly demon, slowly sealing it away. All living beings felt waves of relief washing over them, and their cultivation speed surged by leaps and bounds.
As all living beings boiled with excitement, Wei Yuan was surprised to find that the entire Flourishing of the Many Realms was subtly elevated, and his own cultivation was rising along with it.
Several years had passed since the initial formation of the Flourishing of the Many Realms, yet Wei Yuan had never formally stepped into Scenery Command. Only now was he completely suppressing and sealing the heavenly demon for the first time, removing all restraints.
This was primarily because he had always worried that once he fully advanced to Scenery Command, it might become difficult to return to the perfection of the dharma idol realm, and the might of Counter-Slay would be drastically diminished as a result.
Right now, Wei Yuan relied on the deterrent might of Counter-Slay to keep Cangwu at bay. Hundreds of millions of strands of human destiny were already enough to severely wound Cangwu; stacked with Counter-Slay, its power became terrifying enough that even if the strike failed to hit dead-on, it could still slay Cangwu on the spot.
Under such circumstances, Cangwu would not wager his life even once; he would only give Wei Yuan a wide berth.
Even a mighty true immortal like Immortal Zhao Li would never be willing to take such a blow. After all, Wei Yuan was a child of karmic destiny; no one could say for certain whether their tribulation-evading techniques would actually work when the moment came. If they failed and Immortal Zhao Li took the full brunt of a Counter-Slay backed by hundreds of millions of strands of human destiny, even he risked falling.
Having attained true immortality, let alone a ten or twenty percent chance of demise, they would never risk even one chance in ten thousand.
Yet now, watching the joyful, exultant beings and sensing the immense bliss permeating heaven and earth, Wei Yuan suddenly felt that perhaps he had been wrong in the past.
The beings within the Flourishing of the Many Realms increasingly resembled humans, shamans, or Mountain Folk of genuine flesh and blood, making it impossible for Wei Yuan to view them as mere stones and soil any longer.
He remembered back in the days of Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, when there had been no living creatures aside from the celestial laurel tree and the Yimiao Treasure Tree—only ubiquitous stones that could be molded into whatever he wished.
Later, in the era of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, Wei Yuan had long regarded the people within as mere stones as well, since they were all part of the heart-image world anyway. Especially so because many of them were not reincarnated souls, but had simply materialized out of thin air.
Yet now, feeling the collective joy welling up from all these beings, Wei Yuan realized that though they lacked flesh and blood, they possessed joy, anger, sorrow, and delight; they too felt the need to pursue hopes and dreams.
Wei Yuan stood quietly upon the earth beneath the celestial vault, looking down over the entire realm.
Within the Holy Battle Hall, several hall masters had each entered quiet meditation chambers, calmly awaiting their moment.
When the hour arrived, the entire world suddenly began to tremble. Central City expanded outward ceaselessly, and at its very center, a profound, esoteric grand hall began to emerge. Without any need for Wei Yuan's intervention, its intricate details were already perfecting themselves.
Wei Yuan was startled. Only after studying it closely for a long while did he dare conclude: this was a spirit manor!
He had only just stepped into Scenery Command—how could a spirit manor already be appearing? Where was his true spirit? What authority over the great Dao of heaven and earth did it govern? Without even a true spirit, whence came a spirit manor?
At this moment, the spirit manor was still under construction, and Wei Yuan could not enter. Furthermore, rashly intruding right now could very well disrupt its formation. In Scenery Command, a spirit manor that arose spontaneously from heaven and earth was of the highest echelon, and must never be interrupted mid-stride.
Yet the spirit manor grew taller and larger by the moment. In the blink of an eye, measured by mortal eyes, it had already exceeded a hundred zhang in height, and it continued to grow without any sign of stopping.
According to the Daoist scriptures, the few spirit manors renowned in history were roughly a hundred zhang in height. Yet the spirit manor before Wei Yuan's eyes was visibly on the verge of surpassing the patriarchs of past generations and rivaling the Three Immortals of antiquity.
As for the founding patriarch, there was actually no record. By the patriarch's own account, after attaining Scenery Command in his day, he had fought his way across battlefields without pause, having no time to dedicate to disciplined cultivation. Yet a true spirit had emerged quite naturally, built its own spirit manor, seized authority over heaven and earth on its own, and then he simply ascended to immortality.
Consequently, the patriarch had little impression of Scenery Command and left behind virtually no records of it. After ascending to immortality, he had hurried westward to fight a decisive battle against the Heavenly Shamans atop the City of Heaven.
Just as Wei Yuan was watching the spirit manor's progress, his heart stirred. A beam of spiritual light suddenly shot straight into the sky from the Holy Battle Hall, whereupon the entire Central City dimmed and fell into deep night.
Across the night sky, specks of starlight ignited one by one, until finally three hundred and sixty stars glimmered together, forming a starry night vault.
This was the heart-image world Jun Weizhi had formed upon achieving Scenery Command: the Nightfall Starry Vault.
One glance was enough to see that this heart-image world held boundless mysteries, closely tied to the heavenly constellations. Its divine abilities were sure to be plentiful, and its stature exceptionally high. One needed only observe how, upon its manifestation, it even shielded away the power of heaven and earth from the Flourishing of the Many Realms and plunged all of Central City into deep night to see its caliber.
Wei Yuan was full of praise. Had Jun Weizhi been born into this world, he would certainly have been a peerless prodigy renowned throughout the land.
Right then, another beam of sword qi soared into the sky, slashing open the curtain of night before breaking into myriad motes of light that rained down. Wherever a speck of light landed, a cluster of jade-colored bamboo sprouted, turning into a forest of jade bamboo in the blink of an eye.
Upon every stalk of jade bamboo grew not bamboo leaves, but immortal swords!
To say nothing of what divine abilities this Sword Bamboo Forest possessed, one could see its ferocity simply from how the leaves of bamboo repeatedly slashed through the night sky as they swayed in the breeze.
This was Han Li's heart-image world. Though it was a hair slower to form than Jun Weizhi's, its slaughterous edge was even sharper. Wei Yuan only wondered how this grove of sword bamboo would compare with Zhang Sheng's World's Sword Tomb in terms of sheer number of swords and deadly killing intent.
Moments later, yet another light rose. Beneath the night sky, a green rock suddenly pushed up from the soil. Set within the rock was a broken piece of wood, and upon the wood grew a solitary sprig of lingzhi grass.
Green rock, broken wood, and lingzhi grass—all told, it occupied barely a zhang in breadth. Yet this tiny square of earth gave off the sensation of being utterly self-sufficient, a complete world unto itself. This small haven held its own against both the starry vault and the sea of bamboo, without yielding an inch.
This was Fuyao's heart-image world? Why did it appear so peaceful and serene?
Wei Yuan had previously maintained deep vigilance toward Fuyao, hoping to glean some clues from her heart-image world. He never expected that what she cultivated would be a tiny sanctuary akin to a hidden paradise.
As the saying went, form is born of the mind. In truth, a heart-image world was the unadulterated reflection of a cultivator's inner self; it could not deceive. Was Fuyao really just a little girl who cherished peace and only wanted to grow up quietly on her own?
With all three hall masters of the Holy Battle Hall having smoothly attained Scenery Command, the goal of opening a seam in the heavens had been achieved. Yet Wei Yuan was in no hurry to bring it to a close, intending to give Lei Ling and Dugu Cangqiong a little more time, even if he held out little hope for them.
Right at that moment, Wei Yuan's eyes narrowed. While his attention had been entirely drawn by the three heart-image worlds, the spirit manor had actually finished forming!
Chapter 1121