In the eighth month of the second year of Hongjing, Lu Jiande rallied numerous rebel factions into what was dubbed the Eighteen Beacons of Rebellion. With two million troops under his command, he advanced upon Jidu, shaking the entire State of Ji to its core. The King of Ji issued an imperial edict to all under heaven, summoning loyalist forces to unite against the rebellion.
Wei Yuan captured an inner demon.
In the ninth month, Lu Jiande shattered the ragtag nine-hundred-thousand-strong army mustered by the State of Ji and pushed directly beneath Jiebing Pass. Jiebing Pass was the final gateway before Jidu, spanning barely a single li across its front. Both sides clashed before the pass for a whole month, sustaining catastrophic casualties.
Wei Yuan captured an inner demon.
In the tenth month, unable to breach the pass after a protracted siege and with his rations exhausted, Lu Jiande suffered a crushing defeat and retreated. The Eighteen Beacons of Rebellion scattered in all directions. The State of Ji appointed the Duke of Long as commander-in-chief, pursuing the retreat with eight hundred thousand men. Lu Jiande suffered thirteen consecutive defeats before finally shaking off his pursuers. The Duke of Long reclaimed forty thousand li of lost territory, his renown soaring unrivaled for a time!
Wei Yuan captured an inner demon—and then another came to rescue it, resulting in both falling into his net.
Wei Yuan: ?
Didn't inner demons come one at a time? Why had two arrived at once? And what was their relationship? To act so profoundly loyal and devoted that they were actually willing to live and die together! For that matter, did inner demons have genders? He had studied so many of them; how had he never noticed?
With no answers to this barrage of questions, Wei Yuan suddenly wondered: was it truly as popular novels claimed—that opposite sexes existed only for procreation, while true love was found between the same sex?
Wei Yuan tried founding several academic disciplines regarding inner demons, including but not limited to Inner Demon Psychology and Inner Demon Sociology. Though he anticipated that research into these subjects would likely generate vast piles of useless essays, so long as a few proved genuinely illuminating, the effort would not be in vain.
Once the disciplines were established, hundreds of mortals immediately stepped forward to take on the tasks. Wei Yuan set the matter aside for the time being.
Although the end of the inner demon tribulation remained out of sight, his mindscape world was continually evolving, which didn't hinder his ascension to Scenery Command in the slightest.
In any case, the entire Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World along with the three great grotto-heavens would require a substantial amount of time to fully evolve anyway. Wei Yuan felt that clashing with inner demons was a good way to patch the final flaw in his Dao heart. As for what that final flaw was, he couldn't say for sure himself.
By now, the combat situation within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World had stabilized. Three platforms for transporting cultivators back and forth had been constructed, and an even larger platform equipped for combat had also been completed. Its firepower alone equaled that of over a dozen Dharma Idol cultivators. This was the very first time within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World that the destructive power of external machinery surpassed that of cultivators.
Apart from the Holy Battle Hall, a new military force was formed within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World: the Battle-Hardened Legion.
The legion's soldiers were entirely composed of Dao Foundation cultivators, mostly those whose cultivation talent was modest and who had been left languishing in frustration within the Holy Battle Hall.
As soon as the legion was founded, it drew away over a hundred Dao Foundation cultivators from the Holy Battle Hall and established its first special operations company.
Wei Yuan was glad to see competition, so he refrained from intervening and watched how things unfolded.
Yet when Wei Yuan saw that Fuyao—along with Lei Ling, who wore Long Wushuang's physical body—had also joined the legion, he suddenly grew somewhat unsettled.
Wei Yuan had already noticed various oddities within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, and the chief source was none other than this Fuyao. However, her presence was immensely useful for spiritual plants, especially her success in cultivating the Phoenix Blood Longevity Moss, which had taken Wei Yuan completely by surprise.
The Phoenix Blood Longevity Moss had already expanded to cover an area the size of a washbasin, on the verge of birthing spirituality. This meant another immortal plant added to his repertoire. Although Wei Yuan harbored suspicions about Fuyao, as long as she didn't cross the line, he was willing to tolerate her.
The only issue was that cultivating Phoenix Blood Longevity Moss required nourishment from divine beast blood. There were no true phoenixes in the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, so Fuyao had somehow sweet-talked the shadow dragon into coming over every few days to shed a drop of blood for it. Now, that patch of Phoenix Blood Longevity Moss was blackish-red, radiating an increasingly dense nether aura. Its longevity benefits were waning while its bizarre properties steadily mounted, turning it into something unrecognizable.
After inspecting the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, Wei Yuan quieted his mind to continue studying the fourth grotto-heaven. Whenever an insight struck him, he would pen another page of the Three Realms Ruyi Sutra.
Wei Yuan knew writing this sutra was fraught with peril, but this was the Dao of heaven and earth he had comprehended, and it was necessary to record it for future generations.
Furthermore, the true meaning contained within this Dao was something Wei Yuan had never encountered in any other Buddhist scripture from the Great Baohua Pure Land, which always left him feeling a piece was missing.
Now, the general outline of the sutra had reached its final section—precisely the missing piece Wei Yuan felt the Buddhist canons lacked.
Wei Yuan spread jade paper across his desk in the study, dipped a brush into clear water, and began writing. In reality, the paper showed only wet traces without visible ink.
Within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, however, the corresponding words manifested upon the paper:
"The Buddha Dharma has two aspects: one is cultivating oneself, the other is delivering others—"
Having written to this point, Wei Yuan suddenly felt the brush vibrate faintly. Puzzled, he glanced around only to find the entire study shaking. Immediately afterward came a crack of thunder, and torrential rain came pouring down.
Violent wind and rainstorms were frequent in this season. With most of the commandery's boundary stones uprooted, storms and lightning had grown all the more relentless, bringing ceaseless natural disasters. Spring had been plagued by drought, late summer and early autumn by raging floods, and late autumn brought thunder and hail, tormenting the common folk beyond measure.
Wei Yuan had witnessed plenty of heavenly tribulations and paid ordinary natural disasters no mind, continuing to write:
"Yet if the sea of suffering endures forever, the people of the world can never be fully delivered—"
Before he could finish the sentence, the brush in Wei Yuan's hand abruptly exploded into flying ash, and pale white flames ignited across the entire study! The temperature of this pale fire was bone-chillingly frigid, nearly freezing Wei Yuan stiff, yet it burned everything it touched, reducing the entire study to ash in an instant!
Struggling to recover from the freezing paralysis, Wei Yuan immediately channeled the power of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World to strike back, only to find layer upon layer of heavenly tribulation manifesting within the realm as well! Fortunately, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was currently undergoing the inner demon tribulation, and those otherworldly demons inadvertently absorbed much of the lightning tribulation.
These demons possessed tremendous resistance against heavenly tribulations; a single strike of tribulation lightning could not even kill a Dharma Idol demon. Consequently, most of the heavenly tribulation's power turned toward the otherworldly demons, allowing Wei Yuan to weather this lightning tribulation with remarkable ease.
With the tribulation descending, Wei Yuan knew he could not continue writing for now, lest he invite further heavenly retribution. If multiple tribulations stacked together, who knew what bizarre horrors might unfold?
Wei Yuan had learned by now never to test the bottom line of heaven and earth's Great Dao. Once you did, you would discover that heaven and earth had no bottom line whatsoever.
Wei Yuan shook his head, glanced at the study that had been reduced to nothingness, and channeled the power of his grotto-heaven to extinguish the lingering pale fire.
By then, his subordinates had noticed the disturbance and rushed over. Wei Yuan waved a hand and said casually, "It's nothing. I had a sudden insight just now and weathered a small heavenly tribulation. Pay it no mind."
His subordinates were filled with awe and admiration. The Realm Lord truly was a godlike figure; weathering a tribulation was as effortless for him as eating and drinking.
Wei Yuan composed himself. While he couldn't write the sutra for the moment, he still had plenty of other matters to attend to. For instance, after months of flight, the newest floating skyship was on the verge of arriving. With Zhang Sheng escorting it this time, nothing should go wrong... right?
Within a serene Taoist temple, a young immortal sat in meditation. Dressed in a plain white Taoist robe whose hem fell like drifting clouds, an ethereal wisp of clear qi seemed to envelop him. Before him stood two incense burners, their light smoke coiling like serpents to form a unique formation array. A wooden puzzle sphere hovered and spun slowly on its own within the array. Exquisitely complex and amber in hue, it had been carved from ten-thousand-year spiritual wood and etched with the sun, moon, stars, the five elements, and the eight trigrams. Each of its tremors resembled the breath of a living creature; all things seemed compressed within its modest dimensions, simulating the very workings of heaven and earth.
Yet right at that moment, a brilliant light suddenly shot out from the formation. A component of the wooden puzzle sphere abruptly erupted in flames, reduced to ashes in an instant! A gap appeared in the entire artifact!
The young immortal was shocked. Dark qi immediately rushed to his face as he roared in fury, "Ah! My immortal artifact!! Why would there be a heavenly tribulation? Who is undergoing a tribulation at a time like this? Who is it?!"
His voice pierced the void, echoing throughout Immortal Heaven. Several colossal wills nearby responded, but all indicated they had no knowledge of the matter.
Having failed to obtain the answer he sought, the young immortal could only perform deductions himself.
Yet heavenly tribulations were nearly impossible to divine; even for an immortal, the chances were slim. What was more, this tribulation was the exceptionally rare Netherworld Pale Fire Tribulation, far surpassing the young immortal's abilities. Naturally, his efforts yielded nothing.
At this, the young immortal's fury mounted even further. Though he knew being angry was futile, he was going to be furious anyway.
Chapter 975