Emperor’s Domination

“For as long as one could remember, even Immortal Emperors with the Heaven’s Will, someone who reigned over the universe, could not control the True Dao of Heaven and Earth and could at best only grasp a very small part of it.” Li Qiye added.

“That… is impossible!” Qiurong Wanxue was amazed by this revelation.

Immortal Emperors were invincible in everyone’s eyes since they were capable of shouldering the Heaven’s Will. However, Li Qiye was saying that even the emperors themselves could not grasp the true dao. No one would believe such a claim.

“There are many things that are impossible in this world.” Li Qiye continued with a smile: “But this is the truth. Wanting to control the real heavenly grand dao is impossible.”

“Why?” Qiurong Wanxue curiously asked.

Li Qiye stared at the distant horizon and spoke: “The reason is very simple — life. Even an Immortal Emperor could not suddenly create life. For example, if there is no seed, then there will be no root, let alone a single leaf. Even an invincible emperor cannot create a tree out of thin air.

“If there is a seed, then emperors have ways to let it become a towering tree overnight. If there was a branch, then an emperor could let it take root in the soil to grow into a tree. With a leaf, they could use the most heaven-defying methods so that it would take root and eventually grow into a tree as well.” Li Qiye paused for a moment before continuing: “However, if there is nothing, then an emperor cannot create a heaven-piercing tree because they can’t create life out of nowhere. They require a starting point in order to do anything. Creating life is the old villainous heaven’s business; to be a bit more exact, it is a matter left to the True Dao of Heaven and Earth, understand?”

Qiurong Wanxue was sent into a daze. Hearing Li Qiye’s exposition shocked her completely. It had opened a new door for her; she was able to see a new grand dao that had never been touched before. At this moment, she was entering a new palace of the grand dao.

Before, she was only lingering around its gate. She was a Royal Noble and cultivated quite a powerful dao law, resulting in a strong foundation, but that was mere mimicry.

It was like someone had already built a house and she simply moved in and decorated it a bit. But now, she knew how to build her own house one brick at a time!

Li Qiye looked at her expression and smiled: “You are correct, this is about creating a grand dao that belongs to you and you alone. Even if you cultivate an Immortal Emperor’s technique, it would only be a dao that belonged to someone before you — it is not yours. If this was the case, then how could you even talk about creating a country or accepting divine bestowments in the future? Without your own dao, how would the Heaven’s Will accept you? How could you shoulder the Heaven’s Will?”

Qiurong Wanxue took a deep breath. Creating one’s own grand dao was a territory that only Virtuous Paragons entered. Right now, she was only a Royal Noble and was very far away from such a level. Nevertheless, she still greatly benefited from Li Qiye’s words.

Li Qiye led her to a different location. She noticed a very strange scene in the sky. One would not be able to see it without closely examining the sky; with a careful look, they would find that it was actually a kingdom.

Up in the far reaches of the sky where there were immortal lights coming and going along with divine flames, there seemed to be a faint palace and some ancient pavilions. It was as if there was an extremely vast kingdom in that area, almost completely like another world. The palace was big enough to contain three thousand worlds.

This was a kingdom that loomed over the nine heavens in an extremely secretive recess of the clouds in the sky; this made it seem as if it was a fantastical illusion.

“What is that?” Qiurong Wanxue pointed at this kingdom in the sky and curiously asked.

Li Qiye looked at the kingdom and lightly replied: “You can call it the Kingdom of Heaven, but don’t ask for more details.”

“Kingdom of Heaven?” Qiurong Wanxue couldn’t help but murmur repeatedly. She suddenly had another urge and asked: “Has Young Noble been here before?”

“No.” Li Qiye shook his head and elaborated: “This is my first time as it is not easy to come here. Under normal circumstances, this place would not allow for outsiders to intrude. However, it is a bit different right now. Had it not been for some matters, I wouldn’t have come here.”

Qiurong Wanxue didn’t know of the matters that Li Qiye was referring to, but she felt that it had something to do with the Ancestral Flow Master.

Li Qiye stopped at many places as if he was looking and trying to understand something through meditation.

“What is Young Noble trying to comprehend?” Qiurong Wanxue curiously asked after seeing Li Qiye’s behavior.

Li Qiye answered: “Merit laws and chapters. However, it is not to the extent of comprehension, I am only looking. These things are too complicated to understand from just a glance.”

“Merit laws and chapters?” Qiurong Wanxue repeated in surprise. She looked around; although this place was derived from the heavenly grand dao, she didn’t see any merit laws at all.

Li Qiye smiled and led her to a high peak so that they could overlook the entire scenery with a panoramic view.

Li Qiye then pointed to direct her gaze: “Look at this piece of heaven and earth. The straight mountain right below your feet is a sword technique. The dense forest ahead is a Longevity Law. The rolling river before you is a heaven-sweeping technique. The broken mountain over there is an incomplete heavenly-knocking technique…”

Qiurong Wanxue carefully looked again, but she didn’t notice the profundities. However, after receiving more guidance from Li Qiye, she faintly felt something. For example, the high peak below her seemingly contained a resonating sword energy.

“My talents are too low so I cannot comprehend the mysticisms of these things.” Qiurong Wanxue said in shame.

Li Qiye responded with a smile: “You can’t be blamed, the profoundness of this place is far beyond your imagination. I myself would need to spend a lot of time in order to learn everything.”

“How come Young Noble isn’t learning all the merit laws at this place?” Qiurong Wanxue asked. It took a lot of work to come to this place — a land filled with merit laws. Anyone would covet these laws that came in myriad forms, but not Li Qiye.

“The merit laws here are not suitable for me.” Li Qiye shook his head and added: “These are merit laws that belong to your ghost race, so I am not fit to cultivate them.

“Moreover, it is meaningless for me to learn them. The person who left behind these merit laws was extremely heaven-defying. The same mountain, from a different perspective, could be a mountain range or peak. Each person would see different things and come to a different conclusion. This place only contains the general structure of the grand dao and merit laws, so people would have different results. Sometimes, the difference would be like the heaven and earth…” Li Qiye paused for a moment here.

“If you want to learn everything from its true origin, then you have to be at the same level as that person, or you have to have heaven-frightening knowledge with supreme aptitudes and meticulous analytical abilities, leaving no stone unturned until the very root. Of course, to reverse the flow all the way back to the origin of every merit law here would require a very long time.” Li Qiye continued on: “Even if you could learn a few merit laws, it would still be very difficult to teach them to someone else. Everyone has different interpretations of the dao where even the slightest difference could lead to a monstrous gap. However, if you manage to learn a few of them, then it would still be very beneficial since this is the origin of the ghost race.”

“The origin of my ghost race?!” Qiurong Wanxue exclaimed in shock.

Li Qiye nodded and said: “You can put it that way. At the very least, the source of your ghost race’s enlightenment is here. The outcome would be astonishing if others were to know that this land was the supreme dao land of the ghost race!”

Qiurong Wanxue was frozen with shock. If this place was the origin of the ghost race’s cultivation, then the merit laws here were the primal arts of ghost cultivators.

“Just where… is this place?” Qiurong Wanxue took a deep breath after a long time and asked Li Qiye in disbelief.

He then replied: “An abandoned land. Someone threw the heavenly grand dao here, so this place became a land of refuse.”

Qiurong Wanxue’s eyes were wide open as she exclaimed: “An abandoned land of refuse? Im-Impossible! Is this not the origin of our ghost race’s cultivation?”

“That is indeed true for you. A very long time ago, many cultivation arts of the ghost race came from this place. To be more precise, they were purposely spread by that person. But to him, this was only a wasteland that contained garbage.”

“Why… why did he throw away these powerful merit laws?” Qiurong Wanxue looked at this wondrous land that contained myriad merit laws. People would go crazy from happiness if they were able to learn these arts.

Li Qiye looked at the distance and softly said: “Because he failed, so he discarded all of his failures here. For example, the mountain below us is a sword technique, but it is also gold. The forest over there is a Longevity Law, but it is also wood. The river ahead is a heaven-sweeping law, but it is also water. They are the five elements, do you get it now? He tried to use the theory of the five elements existing in harmony to defy the heavens!”

“Defy the heavens?” Qiurong Wanxue couldn’t help but repeat.

“The creation of life.” Li Qiye looked at her and said: “But he was not successful. It is apparent just by looking at this place. He had tried numerous times, but all of it was for naught!”

“Creating life?” Qiurong Wanxue was taken aback. Earlier, Li Qiye was saying that the creation of life was a thing that was only meant for the high heavens, but now someone actually tried to go against the heavens!