Baby with Daoist Monarch System

In the end, his gaze fell upon that stone wall.

His fingertip lightly traced across those shallow sword marks.

Every single mark represented a bout of sweat, a moment of insight, a single yearning for strength!

Things remain, people have changed.

The yearning of those years was for the sake of being a Guardian.

Yet the strength of today carries too much upon it, and has destroyed too much.

He slowly closed his eyes and sat cross-legged upon that dust-covered meditation cushion.

Hum!

An invisible aura, with him at its center, slowly spread out.

It was not done deliberately, but was the Power within his body, vast as the starry sea of the Cosmos, naturally flowing as it soothed his Dao wounds.

The dust within the cave abode was swept up by this aura and instantly vanished without a trace; the entire cave abode became free of even a speck of dust, regaining a faint semblance of how it had once been.

Yet that silent flavor of ”years” hanging in the air grew even denser.

Xu Ran’s Heart Spirit sank into his body.

In the depths of his Purple Mansion, it was as if there existed an endless dark starry sky.

At the very center of that starry sky lay a ”Ruins” that ceaselessly collapsed and ceaselessly obliterated all things!

That was his Dao, his Origin of the Great Dao—Gui Xu!

At this moment, at the edge of this sea of Gui Xu, there was a thread of extremely fine, yet extremely stubborn gray airflow, endlessly battering against the boundary of Gui Xu.

This gray airflow released a nauseating, chaotic and frenzied intent of ”life”, utterly at odds with Gui Xu’s attribute of ”annihilation”, mutually repelling, mutually eroding!

Each collision would stir a faint ripple upon Xu Ran’s Origin of the Great Dao, bringing a bout of indescribable sharp pain.

This was Dao injury!

Were it someone else, even an ordinary Heaven-Stepping Realm Great Power, once tainted by the backlash of this thread of filthy will, their Dao Foundation would likely be corroded—at best their Cultivation would regress, at worst their Dao would vanish and they would perish!

But Xu Ran was different.

His Gui Xu Dao was in itself the end of all things, the Power that annihilates all creation!

”Refine!”

As Xu Ran’s mind moved, the sea of Gui Xu suddenly sped up its rotation!

Endless Power of Annihilation was like billions of black chains, in an instant winding around that thread of gray airflow!

Chi chi chi!

As though red-hot branding iron plunged into icy water!

A fierce yet silent confrontation erupted in the depths of his Origin!

The gray airflow twisted madly, changing into all manner of illusions, letting out voiceless howls and curses, attempting to pollute the purity of Gui Xu.

Yet the Power of Ruins was vast without boundary, cold and merciless!

No matter how the gray airflow changed, no matter how it struggled, it was ground down bit by bit by that endless Power of Annihilation, disassembled, until it completely dissolved into nothingness!

This process appeared simple, but in truth consumed no small amount of Xu Ran’s Heart Spirit.

Long after.

When the final wisp of gray airflow was completely devoured and annihilated by Gui Xu.

The Great Dao within Xu Ran’s body once more resumed its harmonious, smooth circulation.

That piercing pain born of Dao injury slowly faded away.

Yet the furrow between his brows did not completely unwind.

Through refining this thread of filthy will, he had glimpsed a fragment of disquieting information.

That so-called ”Source of Filth” was not an isolated existence.

Behind it seemed to be entangled a colossal system beyond imagination!

A Dark Realm whose Laws stand wholly opposed to the myriad Heavens and worlds that now exist?

”Land of Decay.”

An ancient and forbidden name flashed through Xu Ran’s mind.

It was something he had chanced upon during endless Reincarnation wars, from scattered fragments within some extremely ancient, long-annihilated civilization relics.

Legend said that when Chaos first parted, when the Cosmos was first born, there did not exist only ”life” and ”order”.

Born alongside them were also the opposing faces of ”death” and ”Chaos”!

That ”Land of Decay” was the final resting place for all negative, chaotic, twisted rules?

And the ”Source of Filth” was very likely nothing more than a single trace of insignificant Power seeping out from that ”Land of Decay”?

”Troublesome.”

Xu Ran opened his eyes, a shard of cold light flashing within them.

This encounter seemed to have resolved the crisis before them, yet it had instead pried open a single, more terrifying corner of the iceberg!

He could feel that with his intervention this time, with the complete annihilation of that filthy will, some ”gaze” within the unseen had already noticed him!

It was not from those ancient beings who feared him.

But from a far more distant, far darker unknown place!

”It seems that days of peace were always nothing but a luxury.”

Xu Ran rose to his feet, brushing off dust that did not exist.

He did not leave at once.

Instead, he walked deep into the cave abode, to stand before a stone wall that looked utterly ordinary.

Extending his hand, his fingertip pressed lightly upon the stone wall in a certain arcane pattern.

Hum.

Light flowed across the stone wall, and countless fine Runes surfaced.

These Runes were ancient and obscure, each one containing Power beyond imagination.

They moved like living things, slowly swimming and weaving, and in the end—crack!

The stone wall silently slid aside to both ends, revealing a deep, narrow passage that could admit but a single person!

Within the passage, pitch darkness reigned; there was not a hint of light, only a flavor of ”time” thicker even than outside the cave abode rushed forth to envelop him.

It was as though this passage did not connect to the mountain’s interior, but to another sealed ancient spacetime!

This was the true backhand he had left behind when he departed from the Kao Mountain Sect back then!

It was also, besides soothing his Dao wounds and revisiting old ground, another crucial purpose of his return this time!

He needed to retrieve some things.

Things that would grant him more trump cards in the storms to come!

Without the slightest hesitation, Xu Ran stepped into that deep passage.

His figure was swallowed in an instant by boundless darkness.

The stone wall slowly closed, once more returning to its former state, as though nothing had ever taken place.

Only the faint, cold and desolate aura belonging to Xu Ran lingering in the cave abode bore witness that he had once returned.

Kao Mountain Sect, main peak grand hall.

The atmosphere was still somewhat oppressive.

Though that terrifying crack had vanished and the baleful aura had dispersed, Xu Ran’s appearance and departure had both been too sudden, too mysterious.

Especially his final appearance of seemingly being wounded, and that sentence, ”wait for me”, which filled everyone’s hearts with confusion and unease.

”Sect Leader, Senior Brother Xu, what exactly...” An elder could not help but speak, his voice carrying a faint tremor.

The Sect Leader of the Kao Mountain Sect, an old man with hair and beard all white, also wore a solemn expression at this moment; he gave a bitter smile and shook his head. ”I cannot see through him.”

He had lived for several thousand years and fancied himself well-traveled and knowledgeable, yet the feeling Xu Ran gave him was as if facing a bottomless Abyss!

Just standing there, the invisible pressure he released was enough to make him, a dignified Sect Leader, feel his heart quake in terror, not even daring to breathe loudly.

”What exactly was within that crack?” another elder asked, still shaken. ”I felt it was a hundred times more terrifying than the Outer Heaven Evil Demons of legend!”

”I do not know.” The Sect Leader sighed. ”But what is certain is that Xu Ran—no, perhaps we ought to address him as Gui Xu Senior—blocked a calamity of extermination for our Kao Mountain Sect!”

At these words, all fell silent.

Indeed, no matter what Xu Ran had become, no matter what he had gone through, today, it was he who saved the entire Kao Mountain Sect!

This grace weighed heavy as Mount Tai!

Xu Qing* had been standing silently in the corner all this time, her gaze never leaving the direction in which Xu Ran had vanished—that unremarkable cave abode situated on the rear mountain.

Her heart, instead, was steadier than before.

Junior Brother had come back.

Though he seemed to have changed greatly, becoming cold, unfamiliar, and so powerful that she felt breathless.

Yet she could feel that beneath that cold exterior there was still a strand of something she knew.

Especially at the moment when he wiped away the blood at the corner of his lips and stopped her from stepping forward, she had caught, deep within his eyes, a fleeting emotion that did not wish for her to worry?

And that sentence—”wait for me”.

Simple, yet carrying a promise.

”Mm, I will wait for you.”

Xu Qinghan spoke silently within her heart, her gaze incomparably resolute.

No matter what you intend to do, no matter what you must face, I will be here, waiting for your return.

At the same time, an unprecedented yearning surged up from the depths of her heart!

Become strong!

She too must become strong!