Chapter 1097: The Cursed Immortal Dao
“What is this?” Everyone in the Tomb of Heaven and Earth paused, staring blankly at the white flowers floating down around them. No one knew the reason for the phenomenon.
“These flowers… seem to be the Dao Flower of the worlds,” murmured a cultivator from a sacred land when he closed his hand around one. The crystalline flower in his hand slowly faded away.
“You’re wrong, the Dao Flower doesn’t belong to the worlds, it belongs to the chaos.” A sacred palace cultivator shook his head.
“Huh? Then why does the Dao Flower appear in the worlds?” the sacred land cultivator asked with bafflement. As eternal overlords, they could naturally see that the Dao Flower had taken root in the worlds.
The sacred palace cultivator shook his head without responding.
……
“He did it.” Six magnificent figures standing in the void outside the tomb smiled at the immortal dao surging into the structure.
“The seeds of immortal dao have finally taken root in the chaos!” The Nirvana monarch almost trembled from the force of his emotions. “This means we can finally practice the immortal dao and use it to ascend beyond the chaos. We won’t have to be afraid of the energy of the worlds anymore!”
“Indeed, we’ve finally succeeded.” The other palace monarchs smiled happily as well.
They carefully protected the light of the dao from the world of immortals, deathly afraid that something would disrupt it. Sacred power bloomed as the six highest orders shielded the radiance of immortal dao and concealed it.
“So what is it that supports the nine sacred lands from the shadows?” Leize asked. “The creation seed is a harbinger of mayhem and turmoil in the chaos. Thank goodness there’s only the nine sacred lands. If there were ten or eleven of them, then they’d be the masters of the realm.”
The expressions of the other five monarchs turned unpleasant when the sacred lands were mentioned.
When Leize had destroyed the water elemental land, he’d actually wanted to make use of the opportunity to get rid of them all. However, a terrifying existence would’ve destroyed him if he’d continued his rampage then.
Therefore, while the sacred palaces had always displayed a domineering attitude toward the sacred lands and kept them underfoot, they didn’t actually dare consider razing the sacred lands from existence.
Continuously taking their sovereigns and assimilating these experts into the sacred palaces was the most they could do. When it came to the worlds, the six palaces could only stand by and watch as the sacred lands launched their offensives and set their schemes in motion.
All of this had to do with the creation seed that the entire chaos viewed as the ultimate treasure, and its eleventh was born today!
If it wasn’t for another great master supporting the sacred palaces, the one behind the creation seed likely would’ve broken the six palaces long ago.
……
Lu Yun’s cultivation level was now at High Immortal of the Great Firmament. The colossal power that his dao fruit had collected flooded into his body, propelling his cultivation upwards.
Golden Immortal of Grand Unity, Arcane Immortal of the Nine Heavens, and Supreme Immortal of Original Order!
And further breakthroughs, again!
The ingress, primordial, and principal realm!
Lu Yun cultivation finally stabilized at peak principal realm—corresponding to fourth level mortal realm in the chaos.
Though his cultivation level had been finalized after the refinement of his dao fruit, his eyes remained close. He was becoming one with his past self—all of its experiences, feelings, everything it’d ever weathered flowed into Lu Yun’s heart.
All of this was his to begin with, so it very naturally became part of him again.
“I had thought that my past self had brought the immortal dao into the mythological realm, but it turns out that the immortal dao comes from Hongmeng, or the even more sophisticated fourth realm.” Lu Yun suddenly opened his eyes.
He’d finished becoming one with his past self and fully grasped everything he’d ever encountered.
“You had quite a difficult time of things too.” Lu Yun smiled ruefully at the little fox.
“Eh? What happened?” The little fox sprang away from him like a startled rabbit.
“You don’t know what you did?” He glared at her. When she’d opened the passageway to the past and future, she’d also sent a bit of her soul force through to keep the Lu Yuns company.
“Nope!” She shook her head resolutely. “I sent my soul force over only to teach you how to refine your own body as a dao fruit, so how did I become Mistress Tushan Miao to her?!”
She actually wanted to cry about the situation. Lu Yun looked at her blankly, taken aback.
“Master got drunk once and kept calling out for Mistress Qing Yu, then took you to his bed…” Qing Han clarified awkwardly.
Lu Yun’s expression immediately darkened and he glared ominously at Qing Han. She tucked her head in and stuck her tongue out at her master.
“So you always did have other intentions toward me!” the little fox shrieked.
Lu Yun grumbled something unintelligible and refused to engage in conversation.
“Right, where’s my replica then?” the little fox frowned. “Lu Yun found his and my soul force grew into a replica too. Where did it go? Did it also die here?”
Qing Han blinked and frowned as well. “I don’t know, I was already dead then. I don’t know where you went, Mistress Tushan.”
The little fox hadn’t been able to get in contact with her replica all this time. They were separated by time when the mythological realm existed, but after its destruction and reversion to the chaos, she still couldn’t sense it.
There was only one possible explanation—the replica formed by her soul force had scattered on the wind. There was nothing left of it at all.
“It probably died… and died completely. If it didn’t, I would’ve searched myself out,” murmured the little fox with a tilt of her head. “That’s just as well, that replica was such a loose woman. She climbed into someone’s bed just like that!”
“And gave birth to a junior brother,” added Qing Han.
The little fox froze.
“I’m still an unmarried, decent fox! How come I already have a child?!” she shrieked in renewed piercing tones. “Lu Yun, you need to take responsibility for what you’ve done!!”
Lu Yun felt a migraine setting in. He had indeed taken responsibility for his actions in the past and treated her as his dao partner—not a Qing Yu substitute. But back in the present, he didn’t know how to face Qing Yu and actually felt a bit guilty toward the little fox.
“I’ll tell Qing Yu everything when we go back,” he said with a woeful expression. “As for you, my past self went through so much with your replica and our experiences are engraved in my heart. But you haven’t experienced any of that. You don’t hold those sort of feelings for me, do you?”
The little fox blinked in consideration. She did indeed have some good feelings for Lu Yun in the bottom of her heart. But love? Those inclinations were a far cry from that level of affection.
“Alright, I’ll let you off the hook for now. My good disciple, where’s my son?” A strange feeling itched in the fox’s heart when she thought of her replica giving birth to a child.
The strange feeling wasn’t that she was suddenly a mother, but that she’d always known of the child’s existence and had even seen him before!
Yes, I’ve seen him before.
The little fox was suddenly very certain of that, but she didn’t know who the child was.
“…I don’t know.” Qing Han shook her head helplessly. “When the cataclysm arrived, the little junior brother wasn’t in the worlds. Maybe he was dead, or maybe he’s still alive.”
“Alright, Qing Han’s just been reborn. We should stop peppering her with questions.” Lu Yun interrupted the girl mentally wracking her mind. He noticed a bit of confusion in her thoughts—her true spirit had just been recollected and her soul was still fragmented.
“Seal your cultivation level to peerless immortal realm and recover in hell,” he said to Qing Han.
“I must protect master!” she immediately refused.
“There’s no need. If you fight now, your soul will be further damaged and it’ll be even more difficult to repair it in the future.” Lu Yun shook his head. “Your current cultivation level is equivalent to sovereign realm. You’re one of my aces and you can’t be exposed too early!
“Besides, no one can stop me if I really want to leave. Have you forgotten the presence of the hadal hell?”
“Then… alright…?” Qing Han agreed reluctantly upon hearing this.
“Go rest in the sea of Hell Flowers and give pointers to those cultivating there.” Lu Yun opened the Gates of the Abyss and Qing Han strode through them.
She was a sovereign, but her true level was beyond the chaos. She practiced the immortal dao, one that was practically the same as the current immortal dao.
“Master!” Qing Han’s voice sounded in Lu Yun’s mind. She’d suddenly recalled something very important. “I almost forgot, our immortal dao is cursed!”
“Hmm? Oh yes, I know that. We’ve taken care of it.” Lu Yun raised his eyebrows.
“Whether it’s the one you know or the one I know, neither immortal dao can be cultivated!” Qing Han was incomparably grave. “Our world, our realm fell because of it!”
“What?!” Shock jarred Lu Yun’s face. “Tell me this in greater detail!”
“The immortal dao is cursed, anyone who cultivates it and reaches creator realm will become a zombie. I became a zombie because of it and used my last remaining reason to commit suicide with my sword.
“But before that, I derived a pure and clean immortal dao that’s never been cursed. I gave it to a creator and told him to wait for your arrival. That immortal dao originates from the Immortal Myriadtree and isn’t cursed.”
With her cultivation level beyond the chaos, Qing Han could’ve challenged the dreadful curse. But in order to help the future, she’d focused her energies on deriving a pristine immortal dao that had avoided the curse.
Sadly, she herself couldn’t cultivate it and thus turned into a zombie in the end. The creator that she’d given it to had cultivated it and avoided the same fate. Though he’d died in the end, his will lingered on in non-zombie form.