After the Great Dao Died

Chen Lingxi flew on his cloud for a long time.

The outline of the Northern Sea was already visible in the distance.

These waters were far deeper and colder than the Southern Sea.

Standing atop the Azure Cloud, Chen Lingxi gazed down at the ink-black expanse of the ocean. Lightning flashed in his eyes, and he transformed into a pale golden rainbow, plunging straight into the bone-chilling seawater.

The water naturally parted around him, kept three feet away by the lightning swirling about his body.

He sank continuously, spreading his divine sense to sweep over the seabed terrain within a radius of hundreds of zhang.

Before long, the wide valley at the foot of the submarine volcano came into view.

Countless massive bones lay scattered haphazardly across the valley.

These bones were enormous. Each one was dozens of zhang long and several zhang thick, densely blanketing the entire basin.

Covered in dark green seaweed and dark brown silt, the bones exuded a heavy aura of deathly stillness.

Resting right in the center of those massive bones was the spine of a giant whale, measuring a full several hundred zhang in length.

The spine resembled a winding underwater mountain range, stretching from one end of the valley to the other.

A precious sword was thrust at an angle directly into the central vertebra of that spine.

Chen Lingxi’s pupils contracted slightly.

Inside the Absolute Perception Divine Chamber, he had witnessed with his own eyes the terrifying might of this giant whale skeleton when it awakened.

A single whip of that tail bone carried power no less than a strike from a Dao Foundation cultivator.

Had Chen Lingxi not reached the Dao Foundation realm himself, he absolutely wouldn’t have dared risk coming here.

But now... Chen Lingxi was vastly different from when he had used Absolute Perception. Facing this behemoth once again, he felt assured.

He took a deep breath. The Thunder Prison Profound Root inside his body trembled violently, and countless streaks of dazzling lightning erupted from it. The lightning surged and condensed wildly around him, transforming in an instant into a Thunder Prison Heaven Great Divine Ability spanning dozens of zhang!

The moment the thunder prison unfolded, the blazing lightning illuminated the gloomy seabed as bright as day.

The space he stood in had turned into his personal purgatory of lightning.

He stood right in the center of the thunder prison, lightning coiling around his body!

He clenched his right hand in the void. Under this grip, the churning sky of lightning gathered madly, forming a sword of thunder several zhang long.

With a flip of his left hand, he summoned the Six-Layered Return to Void Sword Pagoda.

The sword pagoda materialized and automatically hovered above his head.

The upturned eaves of the pagoda’s six layers lit up simultaneously, pouring down sword qi like silken threads.

Fully prepared, Chen Lingxi silently activated the Cloud Soaring Technique beneath his feet. Like a bolt of pale golden lightning, he shot straight toward the giant whale’s spine.

His speed reached its absolute peak, weaving through the dense expanse of bones like a streak of flowing light.

Sure enough, the giant whale skeleton sensed his approach.

The exact moment he closed within a hundred zhang of the spine, the several-hundred-zhang-long skeletal structure shuddered violently. The vertebrae shook intensely, releasing an earth-shattering sound of grinding bone.

The whale’s skull abruptly lifted. Two clusters of eerie, cold light flared to life inside its hollow eye sockets, locking onto Chen Lingxi like a pair of actual eyes.

A soundless roar exploded across the ocean floor.

The roar morphed into invisible sound waves, crashing viciously toward Chen Lingxi with terrifying force.

Chen Lingxi snorted coldly. The Return to Void Sword Pagoda above his head flared brightly.

From within the pagoda, the hundreds of sword beams he had refined into it vibrated simultaneously. An incomparably sharp surge of sword qi erupted outward!

Right at that moment, the giant whale’s tail bone lashed toward him like a colossal bone whip.

Water displaced violently wherever the tail bone passed. It came crashing down with the weight of a collapsing mountain—its power so condensed and tyrannical it could shatter peaks!

Yet Chen Lingxi neither dodged nor evaded.

From the Return to Void Sword Pagoda, the terrifying Return to Void Sword Qi struck out at the whale’s tail bone!

He intended to use the sword pagoda’s power to forcefully withstand this whip strike and seize the precious sword!

Pushing the Cloud Soaring Technique to its limits, his speed skyrocketed again. He rushed toward the sword embedded in the spine like true lightning.

Rumble...

The Return to Void Sword Qi collided with the whale’s tail bone, detonating deep on the seabed and rippling outward in countless shockwaves.

Meanwhile, Chen Lingxi’s left hand had already seized the hilt of the precious sword.

He instantly sensed an indescribably sharp aura.

At the same time, the Thunder Prison Profound Root in his body gave a mighty jolt, and the Weiji Thunder Radiance surged into the blade like a tidal wave.

Borrowing this power, Chen Lingxi gave a sudden yank!

He pulled the longsword free at once.

But right then, the power within the Return to Void Sword Pagoda shattered. The giant whale’s tail bone arrived less than three zhang behind him. The terrifying pressure wrapped around the bone whip caused Chen Lingxi’s thunder prison to flicker incessantly.

Lightning flared blindingly in Chen Lingxi’s eyes.

Clutching the sword hilt with his left hand, he balled his right hand into a fist. The phantom of the Great Sage Yaotian behind him mirrored the motion, and they punched out together!

The terrifying essence of the True Edict of Approaching the Dao mixed with the thunder prison’s Weiji Thunder Radiance, morphing into a golden fist aura as thick as a heavenly pillar that slammed viciously into the incoming bone whip!

Boom!!!

Chen Lingxi’s punch forcefully stalled the giant whale’s tail bone for a fraction of a second.

With no time to closely examine the sword, Chen Lingxi spurred the Cloud Soaring Technique again, blasting upward toward the ocean surface like a thunderbolt.

The giant whale skeleton roared madly behind him, lashing its tail repeatedly, but it could no longer catch up.

He breached the ocean surface, the lightning around his body slowly fading.

The precious sword hovered before him. Covered in dark green seaweed and brown silt, it looked entirely unremarkable.

Yet, the exceedingly pure and sharp sword light deep within the blade left Chen Lingxi thoroughly delighted.

”This precious sword is so sharp, I suspect it could even cleave through my Thunder Prison Heaven Great Divine Ability,” he said.

He gripped the sword and scrutinized it for a moment before storing it in his Vast Void Pouch.

”Time is of the essence,” he murmured. ”I saw more than just these two treasures inside the Immortal Pivot Illusion Realm. I might as well push on and gather the rest of them in one go. Let’s see if they can advance my essence-replenishing progress.”

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath and resumed his flight upon the cloud!

Three months slipped by quietly amidst Chen Lingxi’s nonstop travels.

Riding the Azure Cloud interwoven with pale golden lightning, he roamed all across the Weiji Grotto-Heaven, following the complete map of the grotto-heaven he had glimpsed through his Plundering Dragon Dao Platform.

He set foot in the cloudy ruins suspended high in the sky.

He plunged into the ten-thousand-zhang trenches at the bottom of the Southern Sea.

He even strolled through bustling markets, spending copious amounts of gold and silver to purchase treasures.

...

Thus, the three months slipped quietly away.

Over these three months of searching, excluding the Return to Void Sword Pagoda and that precious sword, he had collected a total of twelve treasures.

After he refined some of these twelve treasures with his Dao Origin, they displayed extraordinary power.

Others were sealed by layers of ancient restrictions. With his current Early Dao Foundation cultivation, he couldn’t comprehend or unlock them, leaving him no choice but to temporarily set them aside.

Among the numerous treasures, a few suited him best.

The first was called the [Spirit-Calming Shuttle].

This treasure was only about three inches long, tapered at both ends and slightly wider in the middle. It was carved entirely from an unknown, ink-black spiritual wood.

Exceptionally intricate soul-suppressing runes were carved into its surface. Once activated, it transformed into an intangible and formless soul-suppressing light that specifically countered divine sense attacks.

The second was called the [Profound Binding Decree].

Forged from an unknown material, this treasure was a golden decree.

The words [Heavenly Decree] were written on it in incredibly ancient script.

Upon activation, the decree would turn into a golden light, completely sealing off the void within a hundred zhang of the enemy.

Although it couldn’t trap a Dao Foundation cultivator for long, it was still considered a highly extraordinary treasure.

The third was a piece of [Startling Thunder Wood].

This piece of Startling Thunder Wood was only as thick as an arm and about three feet long. It was entirely charred black like coal, bearing a striking resemblance to the Thunder Prison Spirit Branch Chen Lingxi had refined in the past.

However, the lightning essence contained within this Startling Thunder Wood was far purer and more violent than that of the spirit branch.

Chen Lingxi tried using the Dragon-Stripping Dao-Transforming One Qi True Incantation to devour the lightning essence inside it. After absorbing less than ten percent, he felt the Weiji Thunder Radiance on his profound root become a bit more solid, its killing power faintly improving.

This delighted him greatly, and he regarded the wood as a prime resource for elevating his profound root in the future.

The fourth was a scroll called the [Cloud-Compiled Heavenly Scroll].

This treasure was the most peculiar. It was not a physical object, but a scroll formed entirely of condensed cloud mist.

There were no words on the scroll. Only when Chen Lingxi sent his divine sense into it would countless streams of cloud vapor condense on their own, forming lines of ancient Dao script.

Those Dao scripts were obscure and incomprehensible. With his current cultivation, he actually couldn’t recognize a single word.

Yet, the Dao rhythm faintly exuding from the swirling cloud vapor told him this treasure was absolutely extraordinary.

Aside from these few, the remaining seven treasures included the [Plain Moon Precious Pearl], which seemed capable of passively absorbing moonlight at night and converting it into pure spiritual energy; as well as the [Cold Jade Jue], [Returning Light Shield], [Profound Wind Turtle Spirit Pendant], and [Li-Fire Furnace], whose functions remained unknown.

There was also a [Tide-Summoning Horn] made from the horn of an unknown spiritual beast, an incredibly broken ancient sword called [Broken Frost], and an [Ancient Pill] of unknown grade sealed inside a crystal.

However, Chen Lingxi was unable to refine any of these latter items.

Storing these treasures one by one into his Vast Void Pouch, Chen Lingxi sat cross-legged on the peak of a desolate mountain and closed his eyes to regulate his breathing.

Despite three months of tireless running about, his eyes were full of pleasant surprise.

Of these twelve treasures, some could serve as cultivation resources, and some could be relied upon for combat. While others were temporarily unusable, their ancient Dao rhythm alone proved they were far from ordinary.

’If I really do seize that sliver of survival and head to the Great Xuanzhuo Realm, I could sell these treasures to use as starting funds,’ he thought.

This idea swirled in his mind for a moment before he pushed it down for now.

”Sigh, thinking about this now is far too early,” he murmured.

Reeling in his thoughts, he cast his mind into Vision Roaming.

Over the past three months, during breaks in his search for treasures, Chen Lingxi had never stopped using Vision Roaming on Emperor Daye.

Emperor Daye was stationed inside the Volcano Immortal Pivot deep within the Northern Sea. His every move remained under Chen Lingxi’s watchful gaze.

The Volcano Immortal Pivot looked exactly as before.

Thick smoke billowed, and magma churned. A deep, powerful heartbeat pounded like a giant drum in the deepest depths of the volcano, causing the entire mountain to tremble.

The source of the heartbeat was precisely Xiao Changlv’s avatar, sitting cross-legged right in the center of the magma.

Xiao Changlv remained bare-chested, his muscles bulging like coiled dragons. Countless streaks of golden blood qi circulated wildly beneath his bronze skin.

His eyes were tightly shut and his aura was heavy. He resembled a slumbering primordial behemoth, completely ignoring the scorching magma violently surging around him.

Emperor Daye, Ying Xian, sat cross-legged on a jutting rock ledge at the edge of the crater.

He still wore the guise of an old man, his white hair bound by a Purple-Gold Hairpin beneath his imperial crown, clad in his Dark Dragon Robe.

The grayish-white mist manifested by his Heavenly Decline Law Great Divine Ability had been completely retracted into his body, not leaking out in the slightest.

But what caught Chen Lingxi’s attention was that Emperor Daye wasn’t meditating with closed eyes; rather, he was tempering something.

A mirror hovered in the void before him.

The mirror was about the size of a palm and forged from dark gold. The back of the mirror was engraved with incredibly complex ancient runes.

Those runes slowly circulated across its back, and as they flowed, a heavy, ancient aura emanated from them.

Chen Lingxi was intimately familiar with that aura—it was the distinct primeval Dao rhythm of a Cauldron Vessel Fragment!

This mirror was a Cauldron Vessel.

Emperor Daye sat cross-legged before the mirror. The two clusters of golden flames slowly danced in his eyes, countless fine runes swirling faintly within the firelight. It was precisely the complete Cauldron Vessel, [Delusion-Weaving Golden Eyes].

He gazed at the ancient mirror with the Delusion-Weaving Golden Eyes, his Dao Origin flowing toward it like a trickling stream.

As the Dao Origin poured in, the dark golden runes on the ancient mirror lit up layer by layer. Amidst the circulation, an exceedingly profound spiritual spark was drawn out from the mirror. It materialized as an incredibly faint, minuscule golden thread that drifted down toward Xiao Changlv sitting in the depths of the volcano.

When the golden thread sank into Xiao Changlv’s body, the golden blood qi surrounding him abruptly flared brighter, and his heartbeat grew even deeper and more forceful.

Borrowing the perspective of Vision Roaming, Chen Lingxi observed everything.

Over the past three months, this had been Emperor Daye’s almost mandatory daily routine.

Using the Delusion-Weaving Golden Eyes as a catalyst and his own Dao Origin as fuel, he drove the ancient mirror Cauldron Vessel Fragment. Day and night without pause, he injected that profound spiritual spark into Xiao Changlv’s avatar, continuously tempering it.

Emperor Daye looked at the Cauldron Vessel Fragment with an extremely grave expression, as if gazing upon a supreme treasure that would decide life and death.

Yet, amid the gravity, a trace of ill-concealed hope faintly showed through.

Chen Lingxi knew that Emperor Daye had told him he still had his own methods.

Now it seemed his method likely lay in this Cauldron Vessel Fragment and the avatar of Xiao Changlv he was refining day and night.

Chen Lingxi watched Emperor Daye intently.

Emperor Daye suddenly stood up and flicked his finger.

At the exact moment of that flick, the Transmission Jade Slip that Emperor Daye had left behind began flashing with a gentle, bright light inside Chen Lingxi’s Vast Void Pouch.

Stunned for a moment, Chen Lingxi withdrew from the Vision Roaming Divine Ability and took out the Transmission Jade Slip.

Emperor Daye’s voice slowly drifted out from it.

”Chen Lingxi, come see me.”