To split open heaven and earth amid chaos and establish an independent universe did not fundamentally depend on carving out space, but on the sentient beings within the new realm. Living beings alone were not enough; the crux lay in having spirit—awakened, sapient beings who understood "I am who I am."
In this battle against the woman, the Chaos Sea had been drawn out to manifest. This was an incomparable Dao encounter: many Great Daos that Wei Yuan could never normally glimpse had revealed themselves, giving him an entirely new understanding of sundering heaven and earth to restart a world, revealing that the true cornerstone of a realm lay in spirit.
The woman wished to destroy the land of vitality and return everything to the Chaos Sea. Her nature at this moment was akin to a projection of the Chaos Sea's Great Dao; though she appeared no different from an ordinary immortal, she could effectively be regarded as part of the Chaos Sea itself.
Having seen through her nature, Wei Yuan met her head-on, gathering the spirits of all living beings into a single strike to split open heaven and earth within her, transforming her as well.
For the first time, she paled. Beneath her shock was a faint trace of dread. Wei Yuan's blow struck straight at her fatal vulnerability; however much of her essence was converted would be permanently lost, with no possibility of reversal. Furthermore, the amount of spiritual nature contained in Wei Yuan's strike far exceeded her imagination—thousands, tens of thousands of times greater than what the land of vitality possessed. If this blow landed, the greater part of her immortal substance would be erased!
In an instant, the moment of life and death arrived.
Across the battlefield, a clear, composed voice suddenly rang out: "Laying hands on a junior—do you take this old fellow for nothing?"
True Monarch Xuanyue warped the surrounding space and suddenly appeared before the stream of light. Unleashing all his dharmic powers and divine arts, he actually moved to intercept the fatal strike with his own body!
Wei Yuan was horrified, but his all-out strike was already underway and locked onto his opponent. The crushing weight of two worlds held him utterly paralyzed.
Seeing Wei Yuan's distress, True Monarch Xuanyue laughed easily. "Others might not see it, but how could I, your grandmaster, fail to know? This realm beyond the heavens is where your Dao path truly lies, not that bullcrap immortal heaven in our home realm! After I die, do as you please with that dharmic body of mine.
"Come, come! Let me see just how you so-called transcendent expert from beyond the heavens can kill me!"
The streaming light flickered faintly, crashing straight through True Monarch Xuanyue, yet he was completely unharmed. Watching the streaming light surge through his body, Xuanyue froze for a moment before realizing that the stream of light and he were not in the same dimension, nor even in the same spacetime. Ordinary means could not stop it at all. True Monarch Xuanyue had been willing to sacrifice his true spirit, only to discover that the meager Dao power of a dharma puppet was incapable of intercepting it.
Just then, several sword-lights cut across the void, yet they too struck nothing. Zhu Yan and Yanshi were equally helpless; deciphering the streaming light in mere moments was virtually impossible.
True Monarch Xuanyue's words had awakened the cultivators: Wei Yuan's true Dao path lay here in this realm beyond the heavens. The immense merit of sundering heaven and earth was enough to shatter every obstacle upon his path, and as Wei Yuan grew alongside the new world, his upper limit would far exceed the heavily restricted home realm.
Yet the station of this streaming light was exalted to the utmost, traversing the void from a higher dimension. How could it be blocked?
Within Qingming, True Monarch Xuanyue's true body shot into the sky, plunging straight toward the immortal heaven in an attempt to route through it and reach the realm beyond the heavens. Xuanyue's divine art could distort gravity, which allowed him to warp space, and taking it further could even distort station. There was a slim chance he could drag the stream of light down from the higher dimension onto himself, turning this blow from one meant to destroy the realm beyond the heavens into one that obliterated Xuanyue's past and future lives.
The streaming light struck only a single point. That was what made it terrifying, yet therein lay the sole glimmer of hope. If Xuanyue could pull the strike onto himself, he could substitute himself for the calamity. Not even Yanshi and Zhu Yan could manage this; Zhu Yan was unskilled in such profound immortal arts, while Yanshi's heavenly secret divination placed extreme demands on station, and at this moment his station fell far short of their opponent's, leaving him unable to shake her techniques.
The two Palace Masters of the Sword Palace were also at a loss. Perhaps they had methods, but while stepping forward out of righteousness for Wei Yuan was one thing, taking the calamity and dying in his stead was out of the question.
Yet before Xuanyue's true body could enter the immortal heaven, he discovered that the realm beyond the heavens had vanished. Wei Yuan had mobilized the power of the Qingming realm, completely shielding Xuanyue's true body from sensing the realm beyond the heavens and severing the connection between his true body and true spirit, determined not to let Xuanyue throw his life away.
Xuanyue's dharma puppet suddenly cracked open. He was actually going to project his true spirit, intending to clash head-on against the stream of light with his true spirit alone!
Right then, a figure abruptly appeared behind Xuanyue, seized him with one hand, flung him backward, and said, "Old thief Chunqiu, with those meager tricks of yours, don't embarrass yourself. Let me do it!"
The one who had stepped in was none other than the Hall Master of the Bright King. His hand seemed to descend from the highest reaches, piercing layer upon layer of heavenly canopies to descend into the mortal realm, grabbing Xuanyue and casting him aside.
Xuanyue was stunned. "Y-you, how could you..."
The Hall Master of the Bright King stood with his hands behind his back. The boundless stream of light unexpectedly swept back in reverse, converging entirely upon him. Countless figures manifested around him—men and women, young and old—all of them his incarnations across past reincarnations, now shattering one after another.
The streaming light came from ancient antiquity, destroying the Hall Master of the Bright King's past lives along its course, before it would vanish into the endless reaches of the future.
Watching the silhouettes arising and perishing around him, the Hall Master of the Bright King sighed. "So this is what 'I am who I am' truly means. To hear the Dao today brings me a small measure of joy."
Seeing True Monarch Xuanyue's expression, the Hall Master of the Bright King burst into laughter. "Look at you, what a pathetic sight! With such an outstanding junior, what's wrong with me becoming a stepping stone on his path to attaining the Dao?"
Thinking of all their bickering and squabbles over the past century, Xuanyue was momentarily at a loss for words, repeating over and over, "This should have been my task! With your abilities, you can't die—how could you die?..."
The Hall Master of the Bright King shook his head. "My divine art is called 'Ward Off Calamity,' but if reversed, it becomes 'Substitute for Calamity.' That is the true use of this divine art. So don't torment yourself; you couldn't take this calamity for him—only I could. Well then, I'm off! Old thief Chunqiu, look after my disciples and grand-disciples!"
The streaming light surged into the mortal world, swallowing the Hall Master of the Bright King, and then rushed onward, rolling ahead.
In his place remained only an empty dharma puppet. The Hall Master of the Bright King's true spirit was gone, and his true body within Qingming had turned to rotten earth.
As the stream of light receded, the woman was both shocked and enraged. Yet Wei Yuan's speck of spiritual light was better than locked on—it felt as though a colossal world bore down upon her, leaving her utterly unable to move!
Wei Yuan had drawn upon every speck of living spirit he could reach—not only from the Flourishing of the Many Realms and the realm beyond the heavens, but also the Buddha Lands of the Sea of Bitterness, the shrines and temples of the Three Realms, and every living soul beyond Qingming who placed their faith in Wei Yuan, extending even to the Liao people, the Shaman Clan, and the mountain folk and sea women.
With the power of driving a world, Wei Yuan thrust the spiritual radiance gathered from hundreds of millions of living beings straight into the space between her brows.
The woman instantly looked to be in excruciating agony. Her face twisted and her features cracked open, from which countless branches and leaves sprouted. Splendid blossoms burst into bloom, colorful butterflies fluttered among the flowers, spirit beasts darted through the foliage, and finally luan birds wheeled about overhead. In the blink of an eye, she was transformed into a vibrant, verdant fairyland!
A head pushed out from among the blossoms, upon which the woman's face appeared. She stared at Wei Yuan and said, "You can read the Great Dao I inscribed upon the Chaos Sea? Who are you? A rebel, or the reincarnation of some ancient demon? Are you... Huanxi?"
As she spoke that last name, her voice suddenly changed, but her immortal substance was already exhausted. No further words could be heard; only two drops of pitch-black bloody tears slowly rolled from the corners of her eyes.
The flowers and trees grew wildly, vitality bursting forth, burning through the last trace of her immortal substance in an instant. Then the flowers and trees withered and rotted, the myriad beasts collapsed dead, the birds and insects went extinct, and the entire world turned to decaying soil, returning once more to nothingness.
A world that should have evolved slowly over hundreds of millions of years had completed its cycle of reincarnation in mere breaths.
In the palm of Wei Yuan's hand rested two ink-black pearls—the only remnants of this great battle.
Deep in the Chaos Sea, a figure's station was ascending without limit. Time and imagery shifted and transformed in the blink of an eye before its eyes: the mortal world, illusions, joy, serenity, and the breaths of countless living beings... The figure's footsteps halted at the moment when the eternal night broke into dawn. Before it, an expanse of light gradually appeared, growing brighter and brighter, and within it something seemed to be drawing close to the mortal realm.
This was the light of fruition—another Great Dao fruition was about to manifest in the world!
Yet just as the figure's hand was about to touch the radiance, its little finger suddenly ruptured, oozing a drop of ink-black blood, and its flaw-free body was lost!
The heavenly light rapidly dimmed, and the fruition drifted away. The figure roared in bitter unwillingness, yet it was entwined by countless strands of black qi from below and slowly dragged down into the darkness.
Chapter 1453