After the Great Dao Died

Chen Lingxi fled without pause, flying thousands of li until he confirmed there were no pursuing auras on his trail. Only then did he descend through the clouds and find a barren mountain cave.

He wasted no time. Sitting cross-legged in the cave, he closed his eyes, focused his mind, and began to refine the Celestial Ranking Spiritual Energy of the 32nd on the Immortal Ranking!

The spiritual energy circulated slowly within his Qi Sea, nourishing his spiritual qi at a rate several times faster than before.

The Six Qi True Method circulated through a grand circulation cycle within his body. With every cycle, it refined a fraction of that spiritual energy, blending it into his increasingly clear spiritual pool.

Through this secluded cultivation to refine the Celestial Ranking Spiritual Energy, his spiritual qi cultivation increased by a full thirty percent.

Beyond the growth of his spiritual qi, he diverted most of his focus to operate the profound method of the True Edict of Approaching the Dao. He used the pure essence within the Celestial Ranking Spiritual Energy, along with the Great Sage Breathing he tempered day and night, to continuously temper his physical body.

Nourished by this majestic essence, the petals of the Flower of Golden Essence grew increasingly dazzling, its golden light almost solidifying into substance.

In tandem, Chen Lingxi’s physical strength grew increasingly tyrannical.

Two months passed before Chen Lingxi slowly opened his eyes.

”This Celestial Ranking Spiritual Energy is truly profound.”

Chen Lingxi stood and sensed his body. His physical form had become equally formidable; every movement now carried a fierce, fearless momentum.

After two months of bitter cultivation, he had completely refined the Celestial Ranking Spiritual Energy. Not only had his spiritual qi cultivation made great strides—bringing the barrier to the Twelfth Floor within reach—but his physical strength had also reached a new height under the dual tempering of the Flower of Golden Essence and the True Edict of Approaching the Dao.

A sharp light flashed through his eyes as he took out a Jade Slip.

”I cannot slack off.”

His gaze swept over the names on the Jade Slip again, finally landing on two characters: ”Qiu Yue.”

Qiu Yue.

Ranked twenty-third, hailing from the Southern Heaven Region.

Chen Lingxi had read about Qiu Yue’s location. It was a small nation named Ning Country.

He put away the Jade Slip and rose to his feet. Circulating the Hidden Edge Method to conceal his spiritual qi, he left the barren mountain cave and headed north.

Ning Country was a small nation wedged between Great Li and several western vassal states. Its territory spanned no more than three prefectures, and its population was barely ten million.

A tiny state like this couldn’t even compare to the grain reserves of a single prefecture in Great Li on a normal day, much less produce any remarkable figures.

Yet today, this very speck of land exuded an unspeakable oddity.

Before Chen Lingxi even crossed Ning Country’s borders, he noticed the anomaly.

Standing atop the clouds and looking out from afar, he saw the cloud vapor within a hundred li of the Ning Country Capital converging in a single direction.

This vapor wasn’t drifting naturally; it was being dragged by some unseen force, surging thread by thread toward the Ning River outside the capital.

White mist churned above the river’s surface, faint spiritual light flickering within.

’It actually bears some resemblance to Emperor Daye’s profound method of linking mountains, rivers, and lakes to form a great spiritual energy array,’ Chen Lingxi thought to himself.

A technique that seized the good fortune of heaven and earth like this was absolutely not something an ordinary Qi Circulation cultivator could execute.

But on second thought...

’Perhaps Emperor Daye’s great array came from the memories of some Southern Heaven Region cultivator. It’s hard to say.’

With these speculations in mind, he drove straight into Ning Country, heading directly for the Imperial Palace.

Compared to the palaces of Great Li, the Imperial Palace of Ning Country lacked much of its brilliant extravagance.

Right now, within the Supreme Harmony Hall—the main hall of the Imperial Palace—the civil and military officials stood in solemn, absolute silence.

In the exact center of the hall was a raised platform. A jade curtain hung over it, behind which a figure could be faintly seen sitting upright on the dragon throne.

The figure was tall. Even through the jade curtain, one could tell he had broad shoulders and a perfectly straight back. His seated posture naturally carried an indescribable majesty.

Before the jade curtain, the Emperor of Ning Country knelt on the ground, leading all his officials in prostration.

The Emperor looked to be only in his thirties and had reasonably handsome features, but as he knelt there now, his face was pale and cold sweat drenched his forehead.

Behind him knelt a dense, dark crowd of civil ministers and military generals. Every single one kept their head bowed and their eyes lowered, not even daring to breathe too loudly.

The hall was dead silent.

A eunuch walked out from the side of the raised platform.

The pale, beardless eunuch, holding a fly whisk, walked over and stopped before the jade curtain.

”The Immortal has decreed: gather all the Flowing Brightness Jade in the country and cast it into the rivers of Ning Country! Is this matter completed?” his shrill voice echoed through the spacious hall.

The Emperor of Ning Country, clad in his dragon robes, took a deep breath where he knelt, just about to answer.

Right at that moment, a light breeze blew in from outside the hall.

The wind ruffled the hems of the officials’ robes and brushed against the jade curtain on the high platform, blowing open a corner of the tightly shut veil.

As the corner of the curtain lifted, the appearance of the middle-aged man behind it was revealed.

He was around forty years old, with slightly dark skin, high cheekbones, and a square jaw. His eyes weren’t particularly sharp; instead, they revealed a profound steadiness that had weathered the world.

He wore a black Daoist robe embroidered with extremely complex cloud patterns in gold thread. A jade belt cinched his waist, and he wore a Daoist crown inlaid with an emerald pearl.

He sat squarely on the dragon throne, one hand resting on the armrest, the other pinching a small jade piece that he slowly rubbed between his fingers.

The jade piece flipped between his fingers. With every turn, an incredibly faint wisp of spiritual light dissipated from it and vanished into the void, heading to who-knew-where.

This man was Qiu Yue of the Southern Heaven Region.

As the curtain blew open, Qiu Yue lifted his head.

He didn’t look at the trembling Emperor or the civil officials.

His gaze pierced through the hall doors, crossed the empty plaza outside, and landed on the empty air.

”Which Daoist Friend has arrived?” he asked.

The officials in the hall exchanged dismayed glances, unsure who the Immortal was speaking to.

The Emperor of Ning Country subconsciously raised his head and followed Qiu Yue’s gaze out of the hall.

Out in the open air beyond the hall, a mass of clouds had appeared at some unknown time.

The clouds hung several dozen zhang above the Imperial Palace. Beneath them, pale golden lightning flickered faintly.

A man stood atop those clouds.

He wore black robes that snapped wildly in the wind, outlining a tall, slender—but by no means frail—physique.

The man had extremely handsome features and looked to be only in his early twenties, yet his brow carried a steady bearing far beyond his years. He was like a famous sword hidden in its sheath—its edge concealed, yet exuding a chilling aura that warned no one to underestimate him!

Qiu Yue’s gaze landed on the cloud mass swirling with pale golden lightning beneath the man’s feet, and his eyebrows arched slightly.

He recognized the aura contained within that lightning.

”Are you a Daoist Friend from the Thunder Pool?” Qiu Yue asked.

Standing atop the cloud, Chen Lingxi peered down at Qiu Yue inside the hall, his eyes flashing.

’This Qiu Yue has no grudges or enmity with me,’ he thought.

In normal times, he might have sat down with this man for a cup of tea to discuss the Dao, perhaps even asking him for some secrets of the Southern Heaven Region.

But not today.

On the path of the Great Dao, conflict was unavoidable.

To walk this path, to survive, to achieve immortality, he had to seize the Celestial Ranking Spiritual Energy, he had to step into the Twelfth Floor of Qi Circulation, and he had to carve out a path of survival for himself through the cracks of the descending experts from the Great Xuanzhuo Realm.

’Dao Struggle is probably just like this.’

Chen Lingxi didn’t waste half a word of nonsense. He immediately struck!

As he took a single step forward, the clouds beneath his feet exploded violently. The pale golden lightning spread out in all directions like an inverted waterfall.

The Heaven-Inviting Momentum erupted with a boom! The phantom of the Great Sage behind him stood tall enough to prop up heaven and earth. It fiercely opened its eyes, and an indescribably terrifying aura surged toward the Supreme Harmony Hall like a breached dam.

That aura pierced through the glazed tiles of the roof and the pillars in the hall, pressing straight down onto Qiu Yue.

”Hm?”

Sitting squarely on the dragon throne, Qiu Yue didn’t move an inch!

With a cold snort, the spiritual qi around him violently erupted. His black Daoist robe fluttered without wind, and the emerald pearl on his crown suddenly lit up with a blinding light.

He gently clenched his right hand in the air, and the jade piece he had been playing with for so long shattered into fine powder in his palm.

The jade powder didn’t scatter. Instead, it turned into an emerald light that shot into his glabella, tracing an extremely complex runic symbol across his forehead.

The moment the rune appeared, an incredibly heavy and imposing pressure rolled out from Qiu Yue, pressing down on the void and flattening the kneeling officials in the hall so completely they were unable to move.

Several civil ministers couldn’t withstand the pressure and fainted dead away!

Qiu Yue flew out of the palace, soared into the sky, and raised his hand!

Fingers pointed toward the heavens, he made a gripping motion at the empty air!

Under this grip, the weather over the entire Ning Country Capital abruptly changed.

The previously clear sky darkened in a matter of breaths. Heavy clouds blotted out the sun.

The cloud layers roiled, and the sea of clouds churned!

A fierce wind suddenly kicked up, containing extremely surging spiritual energy. Wherever it passed, sand flew, stones rolled, and trees snapped.

The gale tore through the void, arriving around Chen Lingxi’s body and buffeting him relentlessly, causing the spiritual qi in his body to grow increasingly sluggish!

Meanwhile, Qiu Yue’s eyes flickered as his gaze fell on Chen Lingxi.

”Let me guess...” Qiu Yue said. ”You’re attacking me all alone, yet I haven’t even constructed the Great Ferrying Array...”

”You must not be here to destroy my Southern Heaven Region’s Great Ferrying Array... You are the newly advanced 32nd on the Immortal Ranking, Chen Lingxi. A native of this land!

”You came for the Celestial Ranking Spiritual Energy!”

Qiu Yue’s divine sense surged as he raised his hand again!

The waters of the Ning River outside the city seemed to come alive at this very moment.

The river water swept upward, transforming into countless pillars of water that shot into the sky.

The water pillars coalesced in midair, turning into a sky-filling torrential rain that smashed toward Chen Lingxi.

Every single drop of rain contained extremely pure spiritual energy. They were as fast as flying arrows and as sharp as blades!

In just a brief moment, this cultivator from the Southern Heaven Region had unleashed two divine abilities.

The first was [Wind Summoning Method]!

The second was [Rain Summoning Method]!

Standing in the fierce gale, Chen Lingxi felt the spiritual qi around his body being blown to the point of near collapse.

When the raindrops struck Chen Lingxi, they actually rang out with the crisp sound of clashing metal!

Although the raindrops couldn’t break through his physical defense, every drop that landed made his vital blood tremble slightly. With thousands of drops falling simultaneously, it felt like thousands of heavy hammers striking at once, abruptly halting his forward momentum.

’What an impressive method,’ Chen Lingxi praised silently. ’Ranked twenty-third on the Celestial Ranking, this Qiu Yue is indeed not someone easy to deal with.’

’To seize the power of heaven and earth for his own use, turning the clouds, gales, and rivers within several hundred zhang into his own weapons with a mere wave of his hand.’

Though this wasn’t some world-shocking Great Divine Ability, when unleashed from this man’s hands, it naturally carried a profound mystery that turned the rotten into the magical.

He was like the sovereign of this world. The wind was his arm, the rain his swords and sabers, and the entirety of Ning Country had become his home turf.

’If I hadn’t refined the spiritual energy of the 32nd on the Immortal Ranking before coming here to find Qiu Yue, I’m afraid I would undoubtedly lose.’

Chen Lingxi’s thoughts raced. Within the crude Inner Divine Palace inside his body, the phantom of Great Sage Yaotian sitting cross-legged on the high platform suddenly opened its eyes.

Those eyes were as deep as the abyss, with the faint rotation of stars within them.

At that very moment, an even more majestic, even purer aura of a Great Sage erupted violently from his body.

”Break!”

Chen Lingxi’s aura reached its peak. The fierce wind and spiritual energy rampaging inside him were crushed inch by inch by the impact of this aura, dissipating into nothingness.

The sky-blotting torrential rain struck his body but could no longer shake him in the slightest.

He took a step forward. The Longevity Bridge that spanned the sky abruptly manifested beneath his feet. Pale golden lightning frantically circulated across the bridge, completely isolating the wild wind and torrential rain outside.

He stood at the head of the bridge, his aura as heavy and condensed as a mountain peak.

”Such a domineering physical cultivation method?”

Qiu Yue’s pupils shrank slightly!

Chen Lingxi raised his hand, fiercely activating the method of the Heaven-Seizing Seal.

The heaven and earth spiritual energy within a radius of several hundred zhang—including the rampaging winds, the pouring rain, and even the churning sea of clouds above Qiu Yue’s head—was forcefully snatched up by this divine ability, frantically condensing and compressing in his palm.

A massive hand seal, fully a dozen zhang wide, suddenly formed in the void.

He thrust his palm out.

The hand seal suppressed down right over Qiu Yue’s head.

Rumble!

By this point, Qiu Yue had long since stepped onto the clouds.

He looked up at the sky-blotting hand seal, his expression unchanging.

He brought his hands loosely together in front of him. As his ten fingers flew, he formed an incredibly profound hand seal. The dark gold cloud patterns on his black Daoist robe entirely lit up at this moment, resembling countless golden swimming dragons breaking free from the fabric to swim frantically around him.

He opened his mouth and spat out a single word, ”Suppress.”

The instant that word fell, the golden cloud patterns around him surged, coalescing above his head into a massive talisman measuring dozens of zhang across.

When Chen Lingxi’s palm slammed down onto the talisman, it actually produced an extremely dull, muffled thud, as if he had slapped a true mountain.

The talisman violently shuddered a few times before completely nullifying the might of the Heaven-Seizing Seal.

With a flip of his left hand, Chen Lingxi shot out the Thunder-Wielding Heavenly King Sword Light. Immediately after, the great hand seal of the Heaven-Seizing Seal condensed once more. This time, it was only the size of a millstone, but the power contained within it was far more concentrated and tyrannical than the previous dozen-zhang seal.

He slapped backhand, sending the millstone-sized hand seal smashing toward Qiu Yue like a falling meteor.

With a massive boom, this palm forcibly blasted a web of fine cracks into the talisman.

Qiu Yue’s expression shifted slightly. His body drifted backward several zhang as his hands formed another seal. The golden cloud patterns around him surged again, moving to repair the cracks on the talisman.

”A perfect opportunity!”

Chen Lingxi flipped his palm!

The amber flying dagger shot silently toward Qiu Yue.

The flying dagger tore through the air without making a sound, causing barely any disturbance.

And this Delayed Light Flying Dagger had always been invincible.

However...

When the flying dagger closed to within three zhang of Qiu Yue!

Qiu Yue instantly detected that imperceptible distortion of time.

His body blurred as he moved to dodge, but how could Chen Lingxi give him that chance?

Pressing his fingers together like a sword, the Twelve Chimes of the Heavenly Drum explosively erupted! At the same time, his body transformed into a plummeting star, blasting directly toward the path of Qiu Yue’s dodge.

Above, below, left, and right—every single direction around Qiu Yue was locked down by Chen Lingxi.

As his expression changed slightly, he had no choice but to push straight forward to knock the flying dagger away.

And so, the beam of light from the flying dagger landed directly on his body.

At this very moment, everything before Qiu Yue’s eyes slowed down.

”What rank of Spiritual Artifact is this?!”

Qiu Yue was incomparably shocked.

But Chen Lingxi had already closed in right before him. His right fist clenched tight, and the Great Sage aura of the Heaven-Inviting Momentum, wrapped in the rolling essence of the Flower of Golden Essence, flooded into his strike.

It smashed down onto Qiu Yue’s head.

In an incredibly brief instant, Qiu Yue had already broken free from that distorted sense of time.

Golden light exploded from his eyes, transforming into the phantom of a celestial being.

That celestial being stomped viciously toward Chen Lingxi.

Chen Lingxi also showed a look of shock as he sensed the terrifying aura radiating from the celestial phantom.

He had no choice but to thrust this terrifying Great Sage punch upward into the void, colliding with the celestial being’s stomp.

Rumble!

Terrifying energy rampaged in all directions. Chen Lingxi was sent flying backward, spitting a mouthful of fresh blood.

The celestial phantom had also dissipated.

In his haste, Qiu Yue was violently struck by Chen Lingxi’s Twelve Chimes of the Heavenly Drum Sword Light. As the sword qi swept out, the spiritual qi on Qiu Yue’s body flickered and scattered.

Of those many streaks of sword light, some pierced right through his body, some severed the arms of his avatar, and some even sliced across his neck.

With lingering shock and doubt in his eyes, he took one last, deep look at Chen Lingxi.

”Chen Lingxi... I hope you and I will meet again, so I can avenge the destruction of this avatar!”

Qiu Yue’s divine sense flickered, and then he completely faded into nothingness!

Right at this moment!

Up in the heavens, the Celestial Ranking underwent another change. A pillar of golden light, even more dazzling than before, descended from the sky and shot straight into Chen Lingxi’s body.

This surge of spiritual energy was incomparably thick. It felt completely saturated with all sorts of profundities, and there was even a mysterious divine ability recorded within it.

Chen Lingxi’s eyes were clear and bright...

’The profundity of the twenty-third place on the Celestial Ranking far exceeds my expectations.’

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath. ”With this spiritual energy, I will definitely be able to reach the Twelfth Floor of Qi Circulation!”

Just then, his brow suddenly furrowed.

With a flip of his palm, the Three Profounds Mirror dropped into his hand.

Chen Lingxi looked at the surface of the Three Profounds Mirror.

The blazing white dot on the mirror, which had originally been at the edge of the horizon, was now approaching his direction at terrifying speed.

”Bai Lingze,” he muttered.

Chen Lingxi raised an eyebrow. ”It seems this Bai Lingze is also using a secret divine ability to track my location. By fighting Qiu Yue, I’ve exposed my position to him.”

”However... he’s still too far away from me.”

A faint smile appeared on Chen Lingxi’s lips. Using the Method of Life Devouring, he fully consumed the last remnants of Qiu Yue’s spiritual energy.

Afterward, he pushed the Hidden Edge Method to its very limit. In an instant, his entire aura vanished like a clay ox plunging into the sea, leaving not a single trace behind.

His body blurred, and he fled far into the distance.

”I need to find a hidden spot and break through to the Twelfth Floor of Qi Circulation!”