After the Great Dao Died

It came from the Thunder-Concealing Sword Scripture!

The Sword of the Thunder-Holding Heavenly King, its most formidable strike, slashed down—infused with the thunder qi of his Six Qi True Method and nearly all the spiritual qi in his qi sea.

The wind tore apart with a low wail, carrying Chen Lingxi’s Dragon Roar Technique, which had already brushed the Wondrous State.

Wherever the sword light passed, the sky and earth abruptly changed color!

At first, that sword light was no more than a pale golden arc, yet in an instant it engulfed the heavens, surging like a cascade of thunder across the sky as it crashed down toward the King of the East atop Flowing Cloud Mountain.

Thunder boomed across heaven and earth, as though hundreds and thousands of bolts had detonated at the exact same moment.

The force shook the snow loose from Flowing Cloud Mountain and sent the sea of clouds along its slopes churning and rolling backward.

It was an earth-shattering strike!

Chen Lingxi’s eyes remained calm, untouched by joy, sorrow, or the slightest hint of fear.

Far in the distance, Xiao Changlv turned his head to look at Chen Lingxi.What on earth was wrong with Chen Lingxi?

Just moments ago, the man had gone to great lengths to obtain his Entering Profound essence blood. Yet now, he was charging straight to his death!

At that very moment, the King of the East, who had stood with his hands clasped behind his back the entire time, cast a disdainful look down from on high, and then...

He threw a punch!

Standing atop Flowing Cloud Mountain before that world-rending bolt of thunderous sword light and the terrifying torrent of sword aura pouring down like a waterfall, he neither dodged nor retreated.

He simply raised his right hand, clenched his five fingers into a fist, and then...

He punched straight out!

Boom!

The King of the East’s punch descended like a gale roaring down from the heavens, solidifying into surging fist aura!

The fist aura tore through the sky, obliterating the surrounding air into nothingness and sending visible rings of white light rippling outward layer upon layer.

Wherever that terrifying blood qi swept past, it sounded as though great mountains were truly collapsing with a deafening roar.

Then the punch collided head-on with Chen Lingxi’s thunderous sword light.

A strange excitement lit Chen Lingxi’s eyes. ’An Entering Profound powerhouse really is overwhelmingly strong!’

The unstoppable thunderous sword light in his hand was like delicate glazed jade struck by a heavy sledgehammer!

It shattered right down the middle with a thunderous crash!

It dissolved into a sky full of pale golden spiritual light, showering down through the air.

That single punch was terrifying beyond measure.

Even after smashing the thunderous sword light to pieces, its momentum did not flag in the slightest as it hurtled straight toward Chen Lingxi.

Vast, crushing pressure crashed down over his head like an invisible tidal wave.

Chen Lingxi felt the blood qi throughout his body seize up.

Deep within his bones, his blood qi—refined like Nine Revolutions golden crystal—groaned under the unbearable weight of that pressure.

The overwhelming tide of blood qi swallowed him whole, sweeping Chen Lingxi and the Longevity Bridge alike down toward the earth.

Boom!

With a deafening crash, smoke and dust billowed high into the sky.

Absolute Perception shattered!

Chen Lingxi’s consciousness returned to the Divine Chamber, still lingering on the almost tangible blood qi of the Entering Profound King of the East and the unfathomable, profound vigor surging within it.

’A martial artist of the Entering Profound realm is actually this formidable.’

’No wonder he was able to slay a Heaven-Facing Tenth Floor cultivator.’

Inside the Divine Chamber, clouds and mist churned as waves of profound aura radiated outward.

’It seems I won’t be able to defeat this Entering Profound King of the East unless I advance to the Tenth Floor realm.’

As Chen Lingxi pondered this, a chorus of profound voices echoed beside his ears once more.

”Steal the spiritual perception of heaven and earth; seize the spiritual opportunities of past and present.”

Chen Lingxi’s thoughts stirred.

At once, that drop of Entering Profound essence blood returned with him to the real world!

At this very moment, Chen Lingxi was sitting cross-legged in the Eastern Warm Pavilion in the back courtyard of Jiren Hall.

Outside the window, the night had grown deep, and several old pagoda trees in the garden rustled softly in the night breeze.

Chen Lingxi held out his hands, where two items had now appeared.

An imperial edict, and a drop of essence blood.

The drop of essence blood hovered about a cun above his palm, wrapped in a gentle layer of spiritual qi that made it look like a star sealed in amber.

Though tiny and crystal clear throughout, the drop seemed to contain a volcano on the verge of erupting.

As that inner volcano pulsed, a searing, overwhelming pressure radiated from within.

’Let’s give it a try. If I can use Vision Roaming on Emperor Daye, so much the better.’

Chen Lingxi held the imperial edict in one hand while the drop of essence blood gleamed above the other.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and sank his consciousness into the Divine Chamber.

Lines of golden tadpole script slowly surfaced before his eyes.

[Divine Ability: Vision Roaming]

[1: Chen Lingxi]

[2: Lin Suri]

[3: Unbound]

Without hesitation, he focused his consciousness straight onto the blank third line!

Inside the Divine Chamber, as if touched by the mandate of heaven, Chen Lingxi suddenly spoke—

”He who practices Vision Roaming first beholds the roaming of others, riding the true course of heaven and earth and harnessing the changes of the six qi to roam the boundless infinite!”

The drop of essence blood in his hand flashed brightly, while droplets of flowing light rippled across the imperial edict!

Chen Lingxi spoke softly...

”Ying Xian!”

With karma as the bridge and essence blood as the guide, he cast Vision Roaming upon the emperor!

In the void of the Divine Chamber, that previously blank line of tadpole script suddenly blazed with light.

An indescribable, ancient aura spilled out from the void, enveloping the entire Divine Chamber in a faint, shifting golden glow in the blink of an eye.

Chen Lingxi sensed the shift at once.

An unimaginable force seized his consciousness and wrenched it forward.

Then it flew out of the Divine Chamber.

In a flash, heaven and earth spun upside down in a blur of fracturing light and shadow.

His vision soared over the courtyard walls of Jiren Hall, over the many long streets of Yuanjiang Prefecture, and over the roof ridges and tiled eaves arranged like fish scales and comb teeth, sweeping across the vast stretch of Yuanjiang Prefecture straight toward the Imperial Capital.

It was blindingly fast.

Beneath his gaze, mountains and rivers unfurled like a wildly scrolling painting.

Hurtling into the Capital, Chen Lingxi passed through grand palaces and halls gleaming with gold and jade until, at last...

He descended into the deepest reaches of the imperial palace.

Another great palace hall stood there.

The hall was magnificent beyond words. A high vaulted ceiling gleamed with gold overhead, while the floor was paved with mutton-fat white jade tiles polished bright enough to reflect a person’s face. Massive brocade tapestries embroidered with dragons and clouds hung down all four walls in unimaginable luxury.

Yet Chen Lingxi had no mind to admire the splendid architecture.

All his attention was caught by the tables before him.

Fully several dozen massive red sandalwood long tables filled his field of view!

They stood in neat rows right down the center of the palace hall, casting flickering shadows in the candlelight.

’What... what are these things...’

The moment Chen Lingxi realized what he was looking at, he instinctively wanted to hold his breath.

Everything laid out across those tables was a severed body part!

Human body parts!

Arms, legs, torsos, heads—every part imaginable was there.

Yet these severed remains were not a mangled mess of gore; instead, they were remarkably clean.

The cuts were smooth, as if sliced through by a razor-sharp blade. On some of the limbs, the skin and membranes had been meticulously peeled back, exposing the distinct grain of muscle and bone beneath.

Some strange power seemed to have sealed the blood vessels; the blood inside had neither dried up nor spilled a single drop.

Candlelight from the grand palace hall fell across the severed remains, glinting with an eerie, cold sheen.

It made the grisly display all the more horrifying.

Yet even that alone was not what shook Chen Lingxi the most.

What truly chilled him was the small writing carved into the remains.

—Every single one of those severed body parts was covered in dense, tiny annotations.

Chen Lingxi drew his vision closer, scanning the dense lines of text.

First, his gaze fell on an arm. Its muscles were firm, its five fingers slightly curled with intact fingernails, and a jade bracelet still rested around its wrist.

A faint luster still flowed through the jade bracelet, its spiritual qi not yet fully dispersed.

The small characters inscribed on the arm read:

”Luo Shuang, cultivator of the Realm of Nothingness in the Great Xuanzhuo Realm, Qi Circulation 6th Floor. Captured in Guanzhong. Practiced the Scattered Fire Parting Qi Chapter; wielded the Scattered Fire Divine Ability.” Chen Lingxi then looked toward a torso whose chest had been split open down the middle, exposing the heart inside.

Golden light flowed across the surface of that heart—and remarkably, it was still beating.

”Zhuo Fengxiu, cultivator of the Southern Heaven Region in the Great Xuanzhuo Realm, Qi Circulation 5th Floor. Corpse recovered in Chentang. Practiced the Profound Ming Dao Formula; cultivated the Purple Light Golden Wheel Divine Ability.”

Next, he saw a severed head with grizzled hair and a face like withered bark.

Even into that bark-like skin, tiny characters had been carved.

”Feng Yuan, member of the Feng Family of Beique Pass in the Great Xuanzhuo Realm, Qi Circulation Tenth Floor. Presented by the King of the East.”

Chen Lingxi’s mind raced.

’So this is the Heaven-Facing Tenth Floor cultivator slain by the King of the East?’

An extraordinary figure at the Tenth Floor of Qi Circulation had actually had his head severed and placed upon this long table like a piece of merchandise laid out for inspection.

Chen Lingxi drew in a deep breath.

The inscriptions exploded through his mind like one thunderclap after another.

The Southern Heaven Region, the Realm of Nothingness, Beique Pass, Ehai... Name after name of places from the Greater World met his eyes.

Most of these cultivators belonged to the Middle Three Floors, yet among them were also figures of the Upper Three Floors, and even the Heaven-Facing Three Floors.

No matter how illustrious they had been in life, no matter how prominent their sects or how formidable the divine abilities they had once commanded—

Right now, every last one of them had been reduced to mutilated shells laid out across these red sandalwood tables!

Thoughts churned in Chen Lingxi’s mind as he forced himself to calm down.

Then Emperor Daye’s gaze shifted again, coming to rest at the far end of the long aisle, in the deep shadows beyond the reach of the candlelight.

Chen Lingxi was startled all over again.

He saw a woman.

She was not a severed limb; her body was still whole.

Clad in a plain white gown, she had an icy, ethereal bearing, like a figure of jade carved from ten-thousand-year-old ice.

Her features were exquisitely beautiful.

Yet there was not a trace of color in that delicate face. Her eyes were shut tight, as though she were fast asleep.

Deep between her brows, however, a faint crack extended outward into the void.

Faint spiritual light circulated slowly within the fissure.

’She’s still alive.’

Chen Lingxi could clearly see that spiritual qi was still circulating through the woman’s body.

Still, the fluctuations of that spiritual qi were erratic and terribly weak, like a guttering candle in the wind that might go out at any moment.

Even so, the sheer level of her spiritual qi sent a tremor through Chen Lingxi’s heart.

What startled Chen Lingxi even more was...

’This fluctuation of spiritual qi is remarkably similar to Rong Chun’s inside the Ancestral Mountain—only far deeper and far denser.’

If Rong Chun’s spiritual qi was no more than a mountain stream, then this woman’s spiritual qi was a mighty river of immense depth!

’Not just Rong Chun—those three women from the Heavenly Boat, too.’

Chen Lingxi wondered to himself, ’Just who is this woman?’

At present, the woman was bound in numerous pitch-black chains as thick as a child’s arm, every link etched with intricate, eerie runes.

Those runes were not static; they flowed endlessly along the chains.

With every cycle, an indescribable, profound ripple spread slowly from the chains and surged into the woman’s body.

Each time a ripple passed through her, a tremor ran through her frame, and the crack between her brows deepened a fraction more.

’Where on earth is this place?’

Chen Lingxi’s vision shifted along with Emperor Daye’s gaze.

The severed limbs, the inscriptions, the woman, the chains—all of it set off a tempest in his mind.

He shifted his focus.

The scene changed, pulling back into a third-person view.

In the deepest part of the palace hall, atop a high dais where the candlelight flickered between light and shadow, stood a red sandalwood dragon throne.

A man sat upon the dragon throne... He wore a tall crown, his frame hunched, and his bright yellow dragon robe hung loosely over him like cloth draped across a bare skeleton.

There was not the slightest trace of imperial majesty about him.

Chen Lingxi looked closer.

The man’s face was covered in wrinkles as deep as ravines, stacked layer upon layer.

His dry, grizzled hair clung sparsely to his scalp like dead autumn grass beaten flat by frost.

He was utterly decrepit.

Yet he was none other than...

Emperor Daye!

The monarch who had ruled the Great Li empire for decades, deciding the life and death of all under heaven with a single word!

The tyrant who took the mountains and rivers as his witness, drove 10 million laborers to dig the grand canal, and buried 30 million wronged souls beneath the yellow earth.

’Emperor Daye shouldn’t be this old and frail.’

Gazing at this old man who resembled rotting wood, a dried-up well, and a dying lamp, Chen Lingxi was deeply baffled. And then...

Chen Lingxi saw Emperor Daye’s eyes.

Within those cloudy, nearly blind old eyes, two clusters of golden flame danced slowly.

As the flames flickered, unimaginably profound runes leaped and flashed inside them without cease.

At the same time, Chen Lingxi acutely sensed an ancient aura bursting forth from Emperor Daye’s eyes.

’This ancient aura—could it be another Cauldron Vessel Fragment?’

Suspicion rose in Chen Lingxi’s mind.

Just then, Emperor Daye slowly raised his head, braced his hands on the armrests of the dragon throne to push himself up, and walked step by step down the high dais.

He moved at a crawl, like an old man with one foot in the grave, making his way slowly to stand before the woman.

The next instant—

The golden flames in Emperor Daye’s eyes flared with blinding intensity, erupting from his gaze and bathing the entire palace hall in dazzling gold.

At the same moment, an unimaginable aura exploded from Emperor Daye’s body. It was not spiritual qi at all, but something far older, far more profound, and unfathomably deep.

Formless and intangible, that power nonetheless seemed to brim with the mysteries of the Dao.

Then Chen Lingxi witnessed a startling sight.

He saw Emperor Daye murmur softly:

”This time, to whom should I grant your memories?”