In the consciousness of every living being within the Splendor of the Many Realms, a melodious voice rang out simultaneously: "The ascension of heaven and earth is about to commence. All living beings, please return to your designated posts and complete the specified preparations."
This voice possessed immense enchantment; the moment one heard it, one felt an instinctual urge to follow its bidding. Wei Yuan had realized more than once how useful the voice of Boundless Radiant Light was. On an impulse today, spurred by a sudden thought, he immediately employed Boundless Radiant Light's voice to suppress any potential variables.
If a being merely had a faint flicker of doubt, they would obey at once; only those harboring hidden motives or plotting elsewhere would hesitate. Immediately afterward, an unimaginably terrifying majesty swept across the vault of heaven. In an instant, every living being was gripped by the despair of impending doom—fully aware they were facing destruction, yet powerless to summon the slightest will to resist. From top to bottom, not a single being within the Splendor of the Many Realms was spared—not even Jun Weizhi or Fuyao.
This was Wei Yuan's will, scanning the entire mind-manifested world to root out any remaining flaws.
Now that Wei Yuan was determined to ascend to immortality, he held nothing back and offered no mercy. The moment anyone was caught making furtive moves, thunderous destruction descended upon them instantly.
There was no leniency here, nor any room for excuses; the voice of Boundless Radiant Light was itself the finest judgment.
Bolts of thunder crashed down in relentless succession, without so much as a cry of agony ringing out. Many well-known rebels, seeing the lightning filling the skies, were initially overcome with despair, only to discover in disbelief that the strikes were landing elsewhere.
They could not help but wonder: they had put so much effort into rebelling, yet they weren't even deemed worthy of a lightning strike! Just what had those struck down done to deserve such an honor? The rebels were not afraid of dying, but they found the indignity unbearable.
After purging more than three thousand moles in total, the Splendor of the Many Realms was finally clean. By this point, countless beings had received their assigned tasks and were circulating specific cultivation arts in their respective areas, forming vast arrays that gradually sank deep into the earth.
This moment was exceedingly important, yet not quite critical enough. Many deeply hidden moles instinctively thought: *Now is not yet the time; I must wait until the entire mind-manifested world begins its ascension...*
The instant that thought stirred, thunder crashed straight down upon their heads, blasting them into flying ash.
With hundreds of thunderbolts crashing down, the Pure Land felt considerably purer once more.
Even Wei Yuan was somewhat surprised that so many spies had been planted within the Splendor of the Many Realms. Many were originally natives of the Splendor of the Many Realms who had somehow been turned. Searching through their memories, however, revealed that some had merely caught sight of a flower of bizarre shape, while others had glimpsed a certain design from a specific angle—akin to a visualization technique, where gazing upon a particular pattern connected one's mind directly to a specific being.
Many had planted pawns. Nearly every renowned immortal had meddled, and even Xu Youyi and Immortal Zhao Li were no exception.
As their hidden pieces were slain by Wei Yuan, the immortals in the sky turned pale with shock, hurriedly pinching their fingers to divine what had happened. And the results of their divinations left them utterly astounded, beyond disbelief.
At this moment, the Immortal Heaven trembled. The Venerable Master's colossal divine sense rose from the depths of the Immortal Heaven, and a figure as towering as a mountain left his secret realm for the first time, appearing within the Immortal Heaven. He leaned slightly forward and cast his gaze downward toward the mortal realm.
Countless eyes fell upon that mountain-like figure. Its sheer, immense stature alone exerted a crushing pressure over the assembled immortals. Yet certain immortals held scorn in their hearts and entertained various thoughts, though none dared speak them aloud.
Just then, a crisp, clear voice rang out within the Immortal Heaven: "When the Martial Ancestor's restriction was still in place, you didn't dare poke your head out. Now that the Martial Ancestor's restriction is gone, you're bold enough to show yourself?"
This was Zhu Yan's voice; he had never been one to mince words.
The Venerable Master paid no heed whatsoever to this taunt. In terms of immortal power, Zhu Yan was like a mantis before him.
At this moment, the Venerable Master's immortal body was complete and without flaw, his aura profound, his status lofty; he did not look in the least injured. Casting a glance downward, he said, "An ignorant junior, daring to ascend to immortality without making any preparations whatsoever!"
The immortals all looked down together, only to see tribulation clouds rapidly gathering as the Immortal Heaven began to tremble slightly. These tribulation clouds were golden-red, with crisscrossing blue-white lightning raging within and thunderbolts flashing in all directions. The immortals were naturally quite familiar with this sight; back in their day, which among them had not been blasted half to death, surviving by the thinnest thread, before finally reaching the Immortal Heaven?
Yet seeing the tribulation clouds again, Duke Yansheng spoke in anger: "Deploying a heavenly tribulation of this sort—is it not making child's play of things? The Heavenly Dao grows ever more senile and incompetent! To hold the post while doing nothing like this—we must find a way to cast it aside!"
Those immortals whose cultivation was somewhat weaker were rather bewildered. Seeing that the tribulation clouds already spanned ten thousand li, just how much more formidable could they be? Back in their day, had they encountered tribulation clouds even half this size, they would have failed the tribulation long ago, their bodies destroyed and Dao extinguished.
An immortal suddenly remarked, "Why do these tribulation clouds look like they are over... over Qingming? Could it be..."
"Is it that Wei Yuan? Impossible! His appointed time is still far off!"
"It truly looks like Wei Yuan!"
At the edges of the tribulation clouds, faint green light drifted across the earth as an illusory realm slowly emerged from the ground. A tribulation cloud spanning ten thousand li could not even blanket this illusory realm, barely managing to cover its center!
Beyond the tribulation clouds, the illusory realm was entirely a boundless sea. Though monotonous, its vastness and sheer magnificence, reaching to the heavens and filling the earth, struck the immortals speechless! Before their eyes, a colossal realm of unfathomable proportions slowly surfaced from the earth. In the face of this immense realm spanning forty thousand li, many weaker immortals even had the illusion that it was not this world ascending toward the Immortal Heaven, but the Immortal Heaven tilting and plummeting downward into this world.
When immortals ascended, a mind-manifested world of a thousand li was already quite remarkable. After all, the larger the mind-manifested world, the more terrifying the required accumulation, and the stronger the heavenly tribulation upon ascending. A thousand-li mind-manifested world was enough to grant an immortal outstanding prowess and secure them a place in the immortal annals.
Back then, Immortal Monarch Yanshi's mind-manifested world had barely exceeded a thousand li, and combined with his cultivation in heavenly secrets arts, he had struck such dread into the immortals that they schemed from all sides, doing everything they could to entrap and ruin him. Zhu Yan's mind-manifested world had also been only around a thousand li.
Although the size of a mind-manifested world was not the sole metric of strength, a larger mind-manifested world clearly yielded greater power and divine abilities. Yet beholding this forty-thousand-li mind-manifested world, all the immortals fell silent, an instinctive question rising in their minds: *How is it going to ascend to the Immortal Heaven? And once it does, can the Immortal Heaven even bear it?*
As for the ascension tribulation, it was no longer an obstacle. Prior to today, no one knew that even a heavenly tribulation had its limits, yet today they witnessed it. A mere ten-thousand-li tribulation cloud, even if it blasted everything beneath it, would still leave the vast majority of Wei Yuan's mind-manifested world intact—more than enough for him to ascend to immortality.
A voice suddenly rose from somewhere unknown: "Could this perhaps be the greatest mind-manifested world under heaven since ancient times?"
The moment those words were spoken, the immortals nodded instinctively—only to realize an instant later that something was wrong! But by the time they came to their senses, it was too late. Down below, the brightness of the realm suddenly flared, having received the blessing of several strands of immortal karmic luck.
Dignified immortals had actually had their minds swayed, inadvertently contributing karmic luck!
The Venerable Master's voice rang out at that very moment: "The junior craves grandiosity and completeness. It seems this Venerable One need not even intervene today. How could such a cumbersome monstrosity ever rise to the Immortal Heaven?"
His words fell like gentle rain, soothing the uneasy hearts of the immortals.
Chapter 1427