After the Great Dao Died

Winter had passed, and spring had arrived. It was already April.

Yet a heavy snow suddenly fell. It came down thick and silent, blanketing the mountains, the woods, and the winding official road. The wilderness of Changhe Province was wrapped so tightly in white that not a single trace of any other color remained.

Xiao Zhushan and Chen Lingxi stood shoulder to shoulder in an old-growth forest.

There was no telling how old the trees in this forest were. Each one stood terrifyingly tall, their straight trunks rising from the earth to pierce the gray sky. Standing beneath them, a person couldn’t help but feel insignificant.

The dense branches already blotted out the sun, and now, weighed down by a thick layer of snow, they concealed the two men completely.

A long saber hung at Xiao Zhushan’s waist. A rugged, deadly aura seeped from his very bones.

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back beneath an ancient pine. Raising his eyes slightly, his gaze pierced through the snow-capped trunks and landed on a majestic mountain in the far distance.

The mountain was imposing, its peaks clustered tightly together. Amidst this vast expanse of white, it resembled a silent behemoth crouching in the distance, coldly looking down upon all living things.

That was Dragon Hall Mountain.

Tucked within it was an imperial temporary palace. Its red walls and green tiles were hidden among the jagged rocks and verdant ancient cypresses, serving as a resting place for nobles.And today, Great Li’s Crown Prince, Ying Chi, was departing from Dragon Hall Mountain. His massive entourage of carriages and guards was marching east, returning to the Eastern Palace.

Chen Lingxi and Xiao Zhushan were waiting here. They were waiting for the Crown Prince’s carriages to pass along the official road outside the forest, and they were also waiting for another helper Xiao Zhushan had invited—the Pingtian King, Zhang Mozhu!

Before long, a figure slowly emerged from the distant curtain of snow.

The man’s steps were incredibly steady. Every time his foot landed on the soft snow, it left only the shallowest of prints, as if his body carried no weight at all.

Only when he drew closer did his features become clear.

He was a towering man, half a head taller than the average person, with broad shoulders and a thick back. He wore a luxurious marten fur robe. The fur was dark and glossy, gleaming faintly against the snow.

He had walked all the way through the snow with his aura perfectly concealed. Had they not seen him with their own eyes, they would have taken him for an ordinary wealthy patriarch.

But the most extraordinary thing about this man was his eyes. They burned with a piercing light. With a mere shift of his gaze, he resembled a sharp blade hidden in its sheath—though undrawn, its sharp edge could already be felt.

The man walked straight up to them. His gaze first landed on Xiao Zhushan, and he gave a slight nod in greeting.

Xiao Zhushan cupped his fists in return.

Immediately after, Zhang Mozhu turned his eyes to Chen Lingxi, looking him up and down. A trace of undisguised displeasure flashed through those sharp eyes, and his brows furrowed.

”This is that outsider?” Zhang Mozhu’s voice was deep and resonant, beating against their ears like a heavy war drum.

He turned his head, asking Xiao Zhushan without any attempt to hide his disdain. Xiao Zhushan nodded, his expression open and calm.

Zhang Mozhu clasped his hands behind his back. Keeping his gaze fixed on Chen Lingxi, he scoffed. ”If not for Brother Xiao’s insistence, I would never have allied with this demonic outsider.”

Paying no mind to Xiao Zhushan’s or Chen Lingxi’s pride, he paused and looked toward the distant Dragon Hall Mountain. A touch of desolation and fierce indignation suddenly crept into his voice.

”But now the state is in peril. All sorts of demons and monsters are endlessly emerging, plunging the Imperial Court into chaos and slaughtering the common folk.

”If not for the collapse of the state and the suffering of the people, I would much rather be a wandering swordsman. Roaming the world with a blade, dedicated to slaughtering these monsters—that would be a satisfying life!”

”And those demonic outsiders are naturally among them.”

This Zhang Mozhu possessed a fiery temper; his words burned like roaring flames.

Listening from the side, Xiao Zhushan couldn’t help but smile and shake his head. ”There are indeed monsters in the palace practicing evil arts, using human lives as fuel for their cultivation. Take Crown Prince Ying Chi, for example. Such a monster deserves to die.

”But Brother Chen here is not that kind of person,” he added, pointing at Chen Lingxi. ”Though he also cultivates spells, he has never committed any heinous acts. He is a fellow Daoist walking the same path as us! King Pingtian, you worry too much.”

Hearing this, Zhang Mozhu scoffed again, clearly dissatisfied with Xiao Zhushan defending an outsider.

He opened his mouth to say something more, but his expression abruptly changed. As if sensing something, he whipped his head around, his sharp gaze piercing through the layers of snow-laden branches to look far beyond the forest.

Through the gaps in the snowy leaves, a long line of carriages could be seen winding down the distant official road. It was an enormous procession. Armored soldiers cleared the way at the front, their banners fluttering in the wind. In the center was a canopied carriage painted in gold and hung with tassels. Servants trailed behind in a massive column stretching for miles.

Even from such a distance, the overwhelming grandeur and unique pageantry of the imperial family struck them head-on, suppressing the quiet forest into solemn silence.

The Crown Prince’s procession had arrived.

Zhang Mozhu slowly retracted his gaze and looked at Xiao Zhushan.

The desolation and indignation in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a chilling thirst for murder.

Xiao Zhushan met Zhang Mozhu’s eyes without saying a word.

He simply took a slow breath. In the next moment, qi and blood began to flow deep within his pupils. It was crimson as blood, radiating a scorching heat.

This was the Profound Pupil, a technique that could only be used in the Entering Profound realm.

Under the Profound Pupil, the flow of qi and blood in all living things could not hide.

Xiao Zhushan could clearly see an incredibly pure and vigorous mass of qi and blood flowing inside that luxurious carriage in the distance. It was like a blazing ball of fire.

But what caught his attention even more was that another mysterious power lingered within that mass of qi and blood. Drifting in profound, unpredictable threads, it was spiritual qi!

He had plotted to assassinate the Crown Prince several times and was intimately familiar with his qi, blood, and spiritual qi. ”The Crown Prince is in that carriage!” Xiao Zhushan declared with absolute certainty, a cold smile finally appearing on his lips.

He patted the precious saber at his waist and turned to Chen Lingxi. ”Brother Chen, the King and I will strike together shortly. If we can kill the Crown Prince in a single blow, you won’t need to act. Just stay in the woods and cover our flanks.”

He paused, laying out the rest of the plan. ”If experts from the palace intercept us and the Crown Prince uses the chance to flee, I will naturally hold off those experts while King Pingtian personally hunts down Ying Chi.

”If the Crown Prince dies there, then all is well, and everyone goes home happy.

”But if he brings out that Divine Immortal Treasure Bottle, the King will block its power... At that point, Brother, we will need you. Use your mystical technique for concealing your aura to secretly track the Crown Prince down, find the perfect opening, and kill him!”

Chen Lingxi listened quietly. His face revealed little emotion as he simply nodded and gave a brief reply. ”Alright.”

Xiao Zhushan and Zhang Mozhu exchanged a glance. Their figures shifted, darting out as silently as two wisps of smoke before vanishing into the depths of the forest.

Chen Lingxi remained standing in place, not following them.

He slowly raised his head, a faint smile touching the corners of his lips.

His gaze was not fixed on the distant convoy, but cast toward a much higher place.

High above, into the ethereal firmament.

There, in the void beyond the reach of ordinary sight, two bright mirrors hung high. One was a blazing gold like the sun, and the other was a silvery white like the moon. They silently cast their cold radiance over this snow-covered world. This was precisely the Absolute Perception Divine Chamber!

A dozen breaths of time slipped away quietly in the silent forest, like sand running through one’s fingers.

Chen Lingxi stood beneath a dark pine with his hands behind his back, looking upward.

Suddenly, from the distant forest, two unimaginably terrifying auras erupted like volcanoes that had been suppressed for ten thousand years!

Their presence was so tyrannical, so domineering. In an instant, a terrifying spirit swept out like a hurricane, enveloping miles of the mountain forest.

The snow was shaken loose, falling in rustling cascades, and the ancient pines groaned under the unbearable pressure.

Immediately following, a figure leapt out from the woods...

It was Xiao Zhushan!

He had pushed his qi and blood to the absolute limit. This Entering Profound realm qi and blood surged like a roaring, mighty river, vast and endless. The sheer intensity of it felt as if it could tear the very world apart!

While he was still in midair, the precious saber at his waist left its sheath!

A blindingly violent saber light suddenly bloomed from the blade. The light was like snow, like silk, like the raging waves of an angry sea. It exploded outward, blotting out the sky and swallowing everything around it.

As he slashed down, it was as if a gale had risen from the flat earth. Before the saber aura even struck, the razor-sharp wind ripped the snow from the ground, exposing the frozen black soil beneath. It all happened so fast the eye couldn’t keep up.

Xiao Zhushan’s Entering Profound cultivation was fully unleashed. He was as tyrannical as a descended fiend, his saber light shooting in all directions, his spirit swallowing miles of the landscape.

And back in the forest, Zhang Mozhu also made his move.

He planted his feet on a boulder at the edge of the woods. His already massive frame seemed to expand even further.

This rebel king wielded no weapon. He simply took a deep breath, his chest swelling high, and formed his hands into a hollow embrace in front of him before thrusting them violently forward!

With that thrust, a terrifying spirit—even more brutal and barbaric than Xiao Zhushan’s saber aura—surged forward like a massive tornado, roaring toward the Crown Prince’s convoy!

Wherever that spirit passed, the earth cracked and the snow melted. Massive trees, thick enough to require a man’s arms to wrap around them, were ripped out by their roots. They spun in midair, hurled toward the carriages like straw in a gale!

The guards escorting the Crown Prince were elite soldiers handpicked from the Capital Garrison, numbering in the hundreds.

Every one of them wore gleaming armor and carried a long saber or a spear on their back. Their qi and blood were not weak; they were truly an army of tigers and wolves.

But before Xiao Zhushan and Zhang Mozhu, two mighty experts standing at the peak of the martial path, these elite soldiers were hopelessly fragile.

They didn’t even have time to react, let alone cry out in alarm. The overwhelming saber light swallowed them up, and the massive trees crashed down on them like an avalanche.

For a moment, screams filled the air as flesh and blood flew. The scene was like a merciless gale flattening a patch of weeds. And Xiao Zhushan’s most terrifying strike—a long saber light forged from a lifetime of cultivation—tore through the air. Like a thunderbolt ripping through the sky, it violently slashed into the most luxurious, gold-painted carriage.

”Crack!”

With a deafening fracture, the carriage—crafted by master artisans and tougher than solid rock—was easily cleaved in two by the saber light, as if it were made of tofu.

The fine horses pulling it let out a sorrowful whinny before the shockwave tore them to pieces, their blood instantly dyeing the snow red.

”Die!”

Xiao Zhushan scoffed coldly.

It was right then...

The situation abruptly changed!

No blood or flesh flew from the bisected carriage, nor was there any sign of the Crown Prince.

Instead, lying quietly inside the shattered cabin was a gleaming silver statue!

The statue was carved with lifelike precision. It was the size of a real person, its entire body flowing with iridescent light.

Densely packed runes were engraved on it. These complex, ancient runes were currently glowing faintly. It was these very runes that gave off an aura identical to Crown Prince Ying Chi’s, perfectly deceiving Xiao Zhushan’s Entering Profound realm’s Profound Pupil just moments ago!

”Just as I thought.” In the distant forest, the Method of Qi Observation mixed with True Intent flowed slowly in Chen Lingxi’s eyes.

A smile tugged at the corners of Chen Lingxi’s lips. ”Things are never quite that easy.”

He tilted his head up slightly, his gaze piercing the void and locking straight onto Dragon Hall Mountain.

Right now, under his Method of Qi Observation, he watched as the silver statue shattered. The runic aura lingering on it scattered like a flock of startled fireflies. It turned into a nearly imperceptible breeze that drifted leisurely back toward Dragon Hall Mountain.

The breeze was formless and intangible, but it couldn’t hide from Chen Lingxi’s eyes.

Following that aura, he saw a person’s presence slowly revealing itself on the summit of Dragon Hall Mountain.

Someone had stood up on the peak.

It was a young man wearing a bright yellow brocade robe and a purple-gold crown.

He stood on the summit of Dragon Hall Mountain with his hands clasped behind his back, coldly looking down at everything happening below from a vast distance.

A confident sneer hung on his handsome face, the look of someone who had everything under control.

It was the Crown Prince, Ying Chi. And down below, the battlefield shifted once more.

The Pingtian King, Zhang Mozhu—who had just been acting so fiercely righteous, condemning the Imperial Court’s incompetence and vowing to slay the demonic Crown Prince alongside Xiao Zhushan—suddenly let out a thunderous roar of manic laughter.

His massive body bounded out of the forest. The qi and blood surrounding him erupted into the sky like a signal fire, forming a terrifying tornado that linked heaven and earth.

He whipped around. Those eyes, which had previously been full of indignation, were now brimming with murderous intent.

With a world-shaking posture, he took that terrifying, mountain-uprooting power and hurled it directly at the man he had just been fighting alongside—Xiao Zhushan!

At the same time, six more powerful auras erupted into the sky from the distant mountains.

Six martial artists clad in tight-fitting martial attire leapt out from hidden corners.

Though their cultivation was far beneath Xiao Zhushan’s, they were still incredibly formidable martial artists.

Their figures flickered, instantly forming a bizarre battle formation. Within this formation, their qi and blood linked together and echoed one another. It became a cage, closing in from all sides and cutting off Xiao Zhushan’s retreat.

In the blink of an eye, what was supposed to be a carefully planned assassination of the Crown Prince had turned into a premeditated siege against Xiao Zhushan!

”Hahahaha!” Crown Prince Ying Chi’s maniacal laughter from atop Dragon Hall Mountain seemed to echo clearly in the ears of everyone present, despite the vast distance.

However... back in that quiet forest, Chen Lingxi still stood with his hands behind his back.

Under his True Intent of Qi Observation, not a single person on the battlefield, nor the slightest shift in aura, could escape his senses.

He could clearly see Xiao Zhushan, who was being besieged by Zhang Mozhu and several experts, seemingly driven into a dead end...

And on Xiao Zhushan’s lips hung a profound smile that was strikingly similar to Crown Prince Ying Chi’s.

The next instant, Xiao Zhushan, standing in the center of the battlefield, suddenly let out a long howl.

The howl pierced metal and shattered rock, shooting straight into the clouds.

He pushed out with his left hand, and an unimaginably astonishing spirit erupted from his body like a sleeping volcano finally detonating.

His upper garments couldn’t withstand the force and shattered inch by inch, exposing the knotted muscles beneath that looked as if they were cast from copper and iron.

”Zhang Mozhu!” Xiao Zhushan’s voice was like a massive bell, echoing endlessly through the valley. ”You call yourself a heavenly king, seizing several provinces and gathering outlaws in the mountains! I thought you were a real man who dared to oppose the Imperial Court! I never imagined the grand King Pingtian was nothing more than the Imperial Court’s vicious dog!”

He roared with laughter, his voice thick with disdain and contempt. ”If you had joined me in killing the Crown Prince today, all would have been well. But since you’ve shown your true colors, this is even better. I’ll just chop off your head and sacrifice it to my blade!”

Sensing the sudden, explosive surge in Xiao Zhushan’s aura, Zhang Mozhu, who was currently charging in, finally paled in shock.

”You... you actually hid your cultivation? You’ve already stepped into the Six Profound realm? Xiao Zhushan! So you were plotting against me too!”

Zhang Mozhu scoffed coldly. ”Even within the Entering Profound realm, you might be stronger than me, but I am not alone!”

His murderous intent flared as he joined the six qi and blood experts to surround and slaughter Xiao Zhushan!

Just as these three factions, each harboring their own dark motives, dissolved into a chaotic melee...

Crown Prince Ying Chi, up on Dragon Hall Mountain, watched the ruined battlefield below. He saw the panicked Zhang Mozhu and the surging Xiao Zhushan, yet not a trace of alarm crossed his face.

He suddenly threw his head back and burst into laughter. It was the mocking laughter of someone standing high above, in complete control of everything.

”Don’t be in such a rush. Don’t be in a rush...” The Crown Prince’s voice reached everyone’s ears as clearly as a frigid wind blowing from the underworld.

He slowly extended a hand and, across the vast expanse of space, gently pointed a single finger toward the chaotic battlefield!

With that point came an overwhelming momentum, as if the very winds and clouds of heaven and earth had changed course because of his finger!

”Whether it’s you, Zhang Mozhu, or you, Xiao Zhushan—neither of you will escape today. You will all die here!”

Crown Prince Ying Chi’s voice finally took on a vicious, murderous edge.

As his finger fell, the dull gray clouds in the sky suddenly began to churn violently. From within the roiling fog came a muffled sound, like the low growl of a giant beast.

Right after, the clouds were violently torn apart by an unseen force, and a massive heavenly boat slowly sailed out from the overcast sky.

The boat’s entire hull flowed with light and was covered in runes. A figure stood at the prow, dressed in magnificent robes. Looking down from above, they resembled a god observing the squabbles of mortal ants.

No, it wasn’t just one.

The clouds continued to churn, and right behind the first heavenly boat, two more sailed out in succession!

Three heavenly boats, arranged in a triangular formation, hovered silently in the sky.

Chen Lingxi’s expression changed!

The design and aura of these three heavenly boats were stunningly identical to the one Chen Lingxi had seized from Rong Chun.

Having quietly watched the events unfold, Chen Lingxi was finally moved the moment he saw these three vessels.

He took a deep breath, his brow furrowing slightly, as a guess involuntarily surfaced in his mind. ’These three heavenly boats are identical to mine.’

’Could it be that the people standing on those boats are also Imperial Consort Chun?’

’Is it really just like Rong Chun said before she died... she was nothing more than a clone?’ This realization truly shocked Chen Lingxi’s mind!

However, spiritual light flowed through his eyes as he pushed the Method of Qi Observation to its absolute limit. When the spiritual qi from the heavenly boats completely blew away the dense clouds, allowing him to finally see the figures standing on them, the doubt between his brows only deepened.

There was indeed a woman standing on each of the three heavenly boats.

Every one of them possessed extraordinary beauty—one coldly stunning, one elegantly poised, one seductively charming. Dressed in magnificent garments, their clothes fluttered in the wind like immortals, and they radiated powerful auras.

But... they were not Rong Chun.

The three women had entirely different faces; there wasn’t a single point of similarity between their features.

Their gazes were different as well. The woman on the lead boat had eyes as cold as ice, her gaze spilling over with killing intent. The woman on the left had a gentle aura, even wearing a faint smile, yet a heart-stopping murderous intent lurked deep within that smile. As for the woman on the right, she seemed rather languid, leaning lazily against the boat’s railing, as if completely indifferent to the slaughter below and too bothered to strike.

They were absolutely not the same person, much less the cold, noble Imperial Consort Chun.

And yet, their techniques were shockingly identical!

He watched as the three women raised their slender, pale hands at almost the exact same moment. Fingers slightly spread, they thrust their palms violently downward!

In an instant, the worldly spiritual essence within a radius of several hundred zhang was plundered, as if sucked dry by the gaping maws of three invisible whales!

That massive amount of absorbed spiritual essence frantically converged, compressed, and took shape within their palms. In the blink of an eye, they formed three colossal, sky-blotting hand seals! Spiritual light flowed over the seals, runes flashing as they exuded a terrifying power capable of destroying the heavens and ruining the earth.

The Heaven-Seizing Seal!

Like three inverted hills, the three Heaven-Seizing Seals came crashing down!

They smashed straight toward the melee—aiming directly at Zhang Mozhu, Xiao Zhushan, and the six martial artists in their battle formation!

This strike intended to annihilate everyone present, friend and foe alike!

’Who... is the true oriole here?’

Watching the increasingly chaotic and bizarre situation unfold, Chen Lingxi felt as though he had become an outside spectator.

Three factions, each with their own schemes, trading blows back and forth—and now, these mysterious women on the three heavenly boats had appeared.

Come to think of it, in Xiao Zhushan’s mind, Chen Lingxi was probably just a minor bargaining chip used to earn Zhang Mozhu’s trust, an entirely dispensable character meant only to perfect the details of the assassination.

’These various factions are truly scheming deeper and deeper.’

Chen Lingxi gave a faint shake of his head and smiled.

Today’s trap was truly tangled and complex. But right at that moment, he sensed a gaze piercing through the chaotic battlefield, through the layers of the forest and the drifting snow, to land squarely on him.

Chen Lingxi raised an eyebrow and looked up.

He saw that Crown Prince Ying Chi had somehow left his spot on the summit of Dragon Hall Mountain.

Spiritual light flashed around him as he stepped on the churning clouds, walking through the empty air. Step by step, he descended from the towering peak, riding the clouds like treading on flat ground.

Just as Chen Lingxi had suspected, the spirit radiating from him was now much stronger. It was obvious his cultivation had advanced once again.

He had already stepped into the Qi Circulation 7th Floor.

”Chen Lingxi!” Crown Prince Ying Chi’s voice rolled through the heavens and earth like muffled thunder.

Looking down from high above at the seemingly ordinary young man below, his eyes brimmed with icy killing intent and undisguised mockery. ”I didn’t come looking for you, yet you dared to come looking for me?”

With his hands clasped behind his back, he pushed his aura to its absolute limit. Spiritual qi churned around him like boiling water, and his overwhelming pressure seemed to manifest into a physical gale that howled toward Chen Lingxi.

He drew closer and closer, the vicious sneer on his handsome face turning even uglier. ”You believed Xiao Zhushan? You thought the two of you could kill me? How utterly laughable... Chen Lingxi, oh, Chen Lingxi, you deceived me time and time again, playing your little parlor tricks in front of me, and then you ran away with your tail between your legs like a rat. Did you ever think that today, you would finally fall into my—”

Before Crown Prince Ying Chi’s words could finish...

Before he could even finish the humiliating speech he had spent so long brewing, Chen Lingxi didn’t even bother to lift an eyelid.

He simply raised his right hand in a seemingly casual motion. His fingers spread slightly, and then he viciously slammed his palm down onto the arrogant Crown Prince Ying Chi as he strode through the air!

But the power contained within this palm was enough to distort the void!

In that instant, all the worldly spiritual essence within a two-hundred-zhang radius was forcefully, tyrannically plundered by Chen Lingxi!

As if seized by a massive, invisible, sky-blotting hand, that oceanic amount of spiritual essence frantically gathered and compressed within his palm.

A Heaven-Seizing Seal—even more massive, condensed, and terrifying than the ones unleashed by the women on the three heavenly boats just moments ago—instantly took shape!

Not only did spiritual light flow across this hand seal, but threads of golden lightning leaped and sparked off it, radiating an aura of destruction that made the soul tremble.

Chen Lingxi slapped his palm down, and the colossal hand seal crashed downward like the collapse of the heavenly firmament.

The smug, vicious sneer on Crown Prince Ying Chi’s face didn’t even have time to fully bloom before it was permanently frozen.

His protective spiritual light, his supposedly formidable Qi Circulation 7th Floor cultivation—before this absolute power, it was as flimsy as a sheet of paper, effortlessly crushed to pieces.

He didn’t even have the chance to scream. The terrifying palm seal struck him squarely, and like a swatted fly, he was instantly slapped to death in midair.

His luxurious princely robes, along with the better half of his body, were pulverized into fine dust by the horrific force of the palm, leaving not a single trace behind. Only a head remained!

Slapped to death with a single palm!

Xiao Zhushan and Zhang Mozhu abruptly whipped their heads around.

The three women on the heavenly boats did the same.

With a casual wave of his hand, Chen Lingxi summoned the falling Vast Void Pouch from the Crown Prince’s waist, along with his severed head, pulling them into his grasp and placing them in his Cosmos Bag.

Without even glancing at the bloody dust filling the sky, he calmly stepped onto his own Lustrous White Heavenly Boat.

The hull of the heavenly boat trembled slightly before turning into a streak of flowing light. It carried him straight toward the distant horizon, vanishing into the vast sea of clouds in the blink of an eye. All that was left behind was a ruined battlefield and a group of people still trapped in shock, confusion, and utter bewilderment.

”Idiot...” Aboard the heavenly boat, Chen Lingxi toyed with the Vast Void Pouch that had belonged to the Crown Prince. ”You had a lethal heavy treasure like the Purple True Treasure Vase. You could have just brought it out from a distance to kill me. Why bother getting so close just to show off in front of me?

”What an absolute idiot.”

But on second thought, his brow couldn’t help but furrow slightly. ’But... what sort of character is this Crown Prince, really? With how he just acted, it seems he was completely unaware of my battle record in the Ancestral Mountain. How could he dare to be so arrogant and get so close to me?’