Enlightenment: Attaining the Dao at Age 8

Li Chang’an struck first, transforming into a blurry afterimage and lunging at the Sun Emperor. The Sun Emperor’s speed was also incredibly fast. With a wave of his hand, a mountain peak near the approaching Li Chang’an violently exploded. A sky full of shattered rock blasted toward Li Chang’an like a barrage of cannonballs.

At the same time, visible rings of an incense-like aura began to emerge from the Sun Emperor’s body. This aura washed over everything like a tide. All the beings from the Celestial Realm touched by the Power of Incense became frenzied, as if on steroids, and began to charge forward recklessly.

As the two clashed, the once cold and quiet Celestial Realm was filled with earth-shattering war cries.

Li Chang’an and the Sun Emperor were locked in a deadly battle.

It had to be said, the Sun Emperor was worthy of his title. In terms of physical strength alone, he could actually compete with Li Chang’an. Coupled with his pure Power of Incense, which he wielded with divine proficiency, Li Chang’an found himself unable to gain the upper hand for a time.

Although the two followed different Cultivation Systems, in terms of pure energy levels, they were considered to be in roughly the same Realm.

This was the first time Li Chang’an had encountered an enemy of the same Realm who could truly contend with him. Caught up in the thrill of the fight, he unleashed all sorts of killing moves that he had rarely used in the past.

In the sky, the Soul Fire dyed half the clouds red, evaporating any mist that tried to approach. The Celestial Realm expeditionary force and the other True Gods of the Celestial Realm had no choice but to move the battlefield, staying as far away as possible from the crimson clouds high above.

The Divine Hand activated. Li Chang’an’s fist, wreathed in Soul Fire, slammed into the Sun Emperor’s chest. The flames on his fist ignited the Sun Emperor’s body like maggots clinging to bone. However, the Sun Emperor’s reaction was just as swift. A massive amount of pure Power of Incense appeared, forcefully extinguishing the Soul Fire that could have incinerated anything.

Of course, despite this, he was still injured.

Although the injury wasn’t serious, it was enough to enrage him. He demanded in shock and fury, ”How could a monster like you appear in the Mortal Realm? Impossible! What is your origin!?”

Clearly, before Li Chang’an had managed to injure him, he had never taken him seriously.

After all, he was quite familiar with the Mortal Realm of this world.

No matter how powerful Li Chang’an was, it should have been impossible for him to be stronger than the Emperor.

After all, the Heaven and Earth Energy in this world was finite. The Celestial Realm and the Incense and Candle Divine Dao had already claimed eighty percent of it, with the remaining twenty percent being used to sustain the operations of the entire Celestial Realm.

Under such circumstances, without joining the Incense and Candle Divine Dao, there shouldn’t be enough Energy to grow. No matter how miraculous one’s cultivation path was, it should be impossible to grow without limit when faced with a lack of Heaven and Earth Energy.

But the unexpected had happened.

And in such a short period of cultivation, no less.

He couldn’t imagine how Li Chang’an had managed it.

Li Chang’an, of course, had no interest in explaining any of this, nor any desire to speak. He just wanted to finish off his opponent as quickly as possible and then destroy this small world nestled in the clouds.

’That way, my main mission in this world will be complete, and I’ll surely receive a favorable evaluation upon returning to the Main World.’

Seeing that he wasn’t talking, the Sun Emperor also fell silent.

The frequency and intensity of their exchanges skyrocketed in a short period.

Li Chang’an had cultivated a vast number of Martial Arts Techniques and possessed countless methods of attack. The reason he hadn’t used them in the past was because his opponents were either too strong or too weak.

Against opponents who were too strong, Li Chang’an could only avoid a direct confrontation.

And against opponents of the same Realm, or even one Realm higher, they seemed far too weak to Li Chang’an. He could crush them with his physical body or Soul Fire alone, with no need for complex techniques.

This battle could be considered one of the rare occasions where Li Chang’an was evenly matched, fighting an opponent who could withstand his full power.

At the beginning, the Sun Emperor had been utterly dismissive of Li Chang’an.

This stemmed not only from his understanding of this world but also from his long life and his Cultivation, which was enough to dominate an entire region.

But after fighting Li Chang’an, the Sun Emperor’s opinion of him had completely changed. This man was clearly no pushover. He had somehow broken free of the rules that should have bound him to this world, managing to elevate himself to a level nearly equal to his own, all without the Emperor’s knowledge.

After a full hour of combat, the Sun Emperor’s view of Li Chang’an had shifted to one of shock and anger.

Li Chang’an’s strength far exceeded his expectations. When he had previously heard the Nine Nether True Monarch say that Li Chang’an’s power was comparable to an Emperor or even a Celestial Monarch, he hadn’t said anything, but inwardly he hadn’t taken it seriously at all. He had even thought that the Nine Nether True Monarch was simply weak and had poor judgment.

’Looks like the Nine Nether True Monarch wasn’t lying after all.’

’He can actually fight me on equal footing, and even slightly overpower me...’

’Honestly, if I wasn’t seeing and experiencing this for myself, I never would have dreamed that a stronger opponent could exist in the Mortal Realm.’

As time passed, second by second, the battle gradually grew white-hot.

The Celestial Realm expeditionary force following Li Chang’an was suffering heavy losses. If not for the sight of Li Chang’an suppressing the Sun Emperor, and the departure of several other True Gods who left the battlefield to assist in the sky, they would have been wiped out long ago.

But even though they weren’t wiped out, they had still lost over a third of their members.

Of the remaining two-thirds of their fighting force, more than half had sustained injuries of varying degrees.

And yet, despite all this, not a single one of them retreated in fear.

It wasn’t that they were particularly courageous.

It was because in the sky not far away, Li Chang’an was like a god of war standing astride the Mortal Realm, his slaughter dyeing half the heavens a dazzling crimson.

Those few True Gods had joined the fray to try and reverse the Sun Emperor’s decline.

But Li Chang’an was so strong he was practically inhuman. He withstood the attacks of several True Gods and still managed to slap the Sun Emperor out of the sky and down to the ground, making the entire Celestial Realm tremble.

In the eyes of the Martial Dao practitioners of the Celestial Realm expeditionary force, such a feat was no different from the descent of a Celestial God. Except, in this case, the so-called Celestial God was the one getting beaten.

And the one doing the beating was the master who had taught them their path of cultivation...

Whenever they had a moment amid the fighting, everyone’s gaze was fixed on the battlefield in the sky.

Their leader, Taiyue, wiped away the blood gushing from his forehead, unsure if it was his own or if it had been splattered on him while killing an enemy.

But that didn’t matter. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the battlefield in the sky. Amid that apocalyptic scene, a few figures were still launching a frenzied counterattack.

Yet no matter how desperately they struggled, their opponent, Li Chang’an, remained silent. He unleashed a barrage of indiscriminate Techniques as if they cost him nothing. Soon, the four True Gods who had rushed to help were either dead or had fled, their courage completely shattered.

This was a battle between the supreme.

Even though the Sun Emperor was the main target of Li Chang’an’s attacks, the first to break and flee were the group of True Gods who had come to help.

Taiyue’s pupils contracted sharply.

He subconsciously compared the Li Chang’an of this moment to the Man Yu of the past. In his mind’s eye, their figures in the sky gradually merged into one, as if they had never been separate.

He felt as if he had come to an understanding and couldn’t help but murmur, ”Is that it? Is this the Martial Dao? I see, I see...”

In the past, Man Yu had always told him that practicing the Martial Dao could make one incredibly powerful, even powerful enough to slay the True Gods of the Celestial Realm. Though he had nodded in belief at the time, in his heart, he always had his doubts.

’Can the Martial Dao truly compare to the Incense and Candle Divine Dao?’

He didn’t know. Especially when his revered and admired teacher was slapped to death by a True God from the Celestial Realm, his doubt and confusion about the Martial Dao had reached their peak.

Li Chang’an’s later appearance had answered some of his questions and shown him a glimmer of hope, but it still hadn’t felt real to him.

It wasn’t until this moment, witnessing Li Chang’an not only hold his ground but also steadily fight back while under siege by four True Gods and one Emperor, that he finally and truly understood his own path.

...