Despair

This sudden shift—almost like a confirmation of the suspicion in his heart—caused Yaoguang's pupils to constrict sharply. "It's real!?" Stormy waves surged within him. It was actually true!? That high-energy region marked upon the star map... Was it truly a Gate of the Immortal Realm!? A brand-new Gate of the Immortal Realm!? "How is that possible...?" He muttered those words involuntarily. What did a Gate of the Immortal Realm signify? It was an existence capable of driving countless Dao Lords into madness. Countless Dao Lords had departed Beihai Star one after another, journeying into the depths of the starry skies in search of opportunities. Among those opportunities, the greatest by far was undoubtedly the discovery of a brand-new Gate of the Immortal Realm—one where competition was relatively light. The coordinates to such a gate... Could easily fetch an astronomical sum in the hundreds of billions. Moreover, they could be sold repeatedly. Only after being sold to dozens or hundreds of buyers, until the secret could no longer be kept, would its value finally be exhausted. Depending on the seller's means and deterrent power, the total value of such coordinates was definitely in the trillions, or even tens of trillions. No wonder the experience accumulated in the [Merchant] branch had suddenly skyrocketed to more than a dozen times what he had gained from slaying a Dao Lord. "Phew!" After a long while, Yaoguang exhaled a long breath, gradually recovering from the pleasant shock of a brand-new Gate of the Immortal Realm. "I wonder how many Dao Lords have gathered around it... But regardless of the number, it won't impact its value all that much. And if it's a completely newly manifested gate... even ten trillion wouldn't cover it. If someone could monopolize such a gate..." Yaoguang hardly dared to imagine it. However, the likelihood of monopolizing a Gate of the Immortal Realm was very low. Back then on Beihai Star, a formidable faction had attempted to blockade the gate and claim it for themselves. The result... They provoked public outrage. The Dao Lords joined forces and attacked en masse, completely uprooting that faction and turning it into dust in the annals of history. Ever since then, no sect had dared to risk offending every Dao Lord just to claim a Gate of the Immortal Realm as their personal domain. Thus, even Yaoguang reined in that thought for the moment. He glanced at the star map in his hand, then looked at the various locations marked by Dao Lord Yuanxu—places Yuanxu had intended to continue exploring if his lifespan permitted... Suddenly, Yaoguang chuckled. Yet after laughing for a moment, his amusement shifted into sighs and melancholy. "Timing and destiny." It truly was fate. Dao Lord Yuanxu had lived for one hundred and twenty thousand years, constantly bustling about and struggling for a chance to enter a Gate of the Immortal Realm and ascend to the immortal realm. In the end, he had missed it when he was merely one step away from success. "Perhaps this is also a form of karmic backlash in some sense." A glimmer of comprehension dawned on Yaoguang. Dao Lord Yuanxu's petty and vindictive nature was not something that had developed only in his old age. Even in his youth, he had always acted with overbearing cruelty. It was just that in his twilight years, he had grown increasingly deranged. Whenever he learned that a genius of the Path of the Void had emerged, he would strike, butchering them to the last and leaving no survivors. Yet every chosen prodigy with hopes of becoming a Dao Lord was born bearing immense karmic destiny. By repeatedly smothering such prodigies in the cradle, Dao Lord Yuanxu had long since turned his own karmic luck negative. In the end... Even with an opportunity right before his eyes, the backlash of luck and karma still caused him to brush past the chance of ascending to the immortal realm. One had to realize that even if numerous Dao Lords had already gathered around such a gate, its value still far surpassed that of any pinnacle Dao artifact. If Dao Lord Yuanxu had used the coordinates of this gate to hire Dao Lords to escort him and secure his entry, he could have easily enlisted more than a dozen or two. United, they would have been more than enough to push aside all other Dao Lords of the Path of the Void and safely escort him through the Gate of the Immortal Realm. Yet now... There was no longer any point in pondering it. Dao Lord Yuanxu was already dead. Through Yuanxu's fate, Yaoguang could not help drawing further connections. "Demonic cultivators have a lower success rate when attempting Dao Integration than orthodox cultivators. Add to that what happened to Dao Lord Yuanxu... it should all stem from karma and karmic luck. Karma and luck in this world—or rather, destiny—truly must exist! Could it be... that this is the reason many cultivators cannot pinpoint why they managed to integrate successfully? Those unknown factors are actually the workings of the Dao of Karma and the Dao of Fate?" As Yaoguang pondered, his expression grew increasingly solemn. The very fabric of this world was constituted by the three thousand Grand Daos. The power of the three thousand Grand Daos was omnipresent. It encompassed not only all things in the cosmos, but also all living beings. Every life and every speck of matter was a part of the three thousand Grand Daos. Therefore, in his future actions... He had to take a broader perspective into account. After secretly cautioning himself, Yaoguang focused his mind on the [Merchant] branch, which was brimming with surging energy. "This time, it truly is striking it rich overnight." He chuckled softly. The next moment, all the energy accumulated in the [Merchant] branch poured entirely into [Dao Integration: Void]. With this influx of energy, the progress on the branch surged forward rapidly. 5/10,000, 7/10,000, 10/10,000... The branch's progress directly broke into the range of one-thousandth, and continued to climb higher. 15/10,000, 20/10,000... Finally, the [Dao Integration: Void] branch, representing the core of his cultivation, ground to a halt at 81/10,000. "It's nearly at one percent." Yaoguang murmured inwardly. Along with the leap in progress, a colossal torrent of information flooded his mind. And within this information, one particular revelation captured his full attention. "A Dao Lord serves as the foundation for becoming an immortal. Only by embarking on the paths of the five classes of immortals does one become a true immortal. Immortality itself is divided into four realms... Aside from the initial immortal realm, when one's compatibility with a Grand Dao reaches one percent, one may be titled an Immortal Venerable; at ten percent, an Immortal King; and finally, the Dao Ancestor who holds absolute command over an entire Grand Dao." Reading up to this point, Yaoguang felt not the slightest ease. Instead, an unspeakable weight bore down upon him. In particular, when he saw the true meaning behind what an immortal, Immortal Venerable, Immortal King, and Dao Ancestor represented, the pressure rolled in like an overwhelming tsunami, threatening to swallow him whole. "How could this be...?" Yaoguang's gaze lost focus. His entire being seemed shaken by the terrifying impact of this revelation, his mind unsteady. "How is this possible...?" He murmured unconsciously to himself. The reason this revelation struck him with such immense shock was entirely because... "There is a fixed limit to Dao Lords!" Yaoguang muttered. Across the starry cosmos and the vast immortal realm, each Grand Dao could only accommodate ten thousand Dao Lords, or one thousand immortals, one hundred Immortal Venerables, ten Immortal Kings, and... A single Dao Ancestor! Whether Dao Lords or immortals, or even Immortal Venerables and Immortal Kings, none could overlap! The cake was only so large. The cake represented by each Grand Dao had only a mere ten thousand slices! A Void Shattering cultivator advancing to Dao Lord, or a Dao Lord advancing to immortal, was essentially snatching a share and seizing a portion from the hands of other Dao Lords and immortals. Under such circumstances, who would ever allow lower-tier cultivators to rise? How could Dao Lords permit Void Shattering cultivators to attain Dao Lordship!? How could immortals allow Dao Lords to become immortals!? And for Immortal Venerables, Immortal Kings, and Dao Ancestors, it was all the more so. Suddenly, a flash of insight struck Yaoguang's mind. "I finally understand why every Void Shattering cultivator speaks so vaguely about their comprehension of attempting Dao Integration. Some well-prepared figures might perish in the process of Dao assimilation, while others who take a desperate gamble against nine-to-one odds of death somehow manage to become Dao Lords... Even if those who succeeded were asked to attempt Dao Integration a second time, they wouldn't dare claim they had enough certainty..." Shares! It was all because of the shares of the Grand Dao! Each Grand Dao had only so many available shares. At a particular point in time, a Void Shattering cultivator might attempt the breakthrough, and with a solid foundation, they could smoothly succeed. By the same token, take that very same expert and place them at a different point in time: if the shares were exhausted, no matter how thoroughly prepared that Void Shattering cultivator was when attempting Dao Integration... They would still meet a grim demise. "There is a fixed limit to Dao Lords." The entire immortal realm—or rather, the entire cosmos—could at most accommodate thirty million Dao Lords! Three million immortals, three hundred thousand Immortal Venerables, thirty thousand Immortal Kings, or... Three thousand Dao Ancestors! This number was not vast; it was terribly, excruciatingly small. So small that it drove latecomers to despair, suffocating them. It was precisely because he "saw" this piece of information, which existed only in the immortal realm, that Yaoguang experienced such a violent shock, to the extent that his mind was shaken and he could scarcely control his words and emotions. "Too few... this number is far too small..." Yaoguang murmured, repeating it continuously. A single Grand Dao had only ten thousand slots for Dao Lords! If nine Immortal Kings were born along that Grand Dao, it would only permit a thousand Dao Lords to exist. At this moment, another thought occurred to him. "Why is it that I have never been able to touch upon the Grand Dao of Fate or the Grand Dao of Karma!? Could it be because Dao Ancestors already exist for both Fate and Karma? As long as those two Dao Ancestors do not perish, no latecomer can ever traverse those two Grand Daos?" Did those two Grand Daos have no remaining shares whatsoever? Immediately following that, he understood why, once a cultivator broke through from Void Shattering to Dao Lord, their strength became essentially fixed, making further significant growth extraordinarily difficult. Even as formidable as Dao Lord Penglai—hailed as the number-one powerhouse of Beihai Star—she found it exceedingly strenuous to face three to five Dao Lords working together. Other Dao Lords... Could only manage one-on-one battles, or at most one against two. Yet that was still not the most terrifying aspect. What was truly chilling was... "If every Grand Dao has a mere ten thousand shares, then in order to acquire larger shares and evolve toward Immortal Venerable, Immortal King, or even Dao Ancestor, just how ruthless must these high-ranking immortals be toward newly ascended Dao Lords!? Dao Lords do not ascend in the traditional sense; they travel to the immortal realm through a Gate of the Immortal Realm. Once they arrive, does what awaits them truly mean longevity and immortality?" Yaoguang did not know. It was an enigma. However... Over countless years, although scraps of information regarding the immortal realm had trickled down, not a single Dao Lord who entered the immortal realm had ever returned to the lower realms... From that alone, one could already deduce quite a bit. Every Dao Lord walking the same path was in direct competition. The way for immortals to increase their cultivation was to slaughter Dao Lords weaker than themselves and claim their 0.01 percent shares. Whether it was a Void Shattering cultivator advancing to Dao Lord or a Dao Lord becoming an immortal, none of it was achieved merely through cultivation, but rather through... Queueing for an open seat! Only when the Dao Lords and immortals ahead died could the Void Shattering cultivators and Dao Lords behind step up to fill the void. "If this is true... then... just how desperate must that immortal realm be—the very place every Dao Lord scrambles toward and yearns for with all their heart!"