Dominator Emperor

”Let’s go.” Li Qiye smiled and led Qiu Rong Wanxue forward.

Li Qiye walked with a start-and-stop pace. He didn’t seem to be comprehending a cultivation technique, but rather searching for something. Qiu Rong Wanxue asked, ”Young Master, what are you looking for?” Li Qiye pointed to the kingdom above the celestial vault. ”We need to enter the Celestial Realm,” he said. ”But first, we have to find a place that is truly alive to get up there.”

”Can’t we just fly up?” A thought struck Qiu Rong Wanxue. She looked up at the celestial vault, extremely curious about what could possibly be there.

”Then why don’t you try flying?” Li Qiye laughed.

Qiu Rong Wanxue trusted him implicitly. Without another word, she leaped into the air. However, once she reached a certain altitude, BANG! It was as if a giant hand from Above the Nine Heavens had slapped down, suppressing her and sending her crashing heavily to the ground. The fall left her dizzy and seeing stars.

”Are you alright?” Li Qiye walked over, smiling.

Qiu Rong Wanxue scrambled to her feet and glared at him angrily. ”You tricked me on purpose! You knew there was a suppressing force Above the Nine Heavens, yet you still told me to fly up!”

”That’s not suppression.” Li Qiye shook his head with a smile. ”These two places are not in the same realm. You can never know what this place is, so there’s no way for you to understand.”

Seeing Li Qiye still grinning cheekily, Qiu Rong Wanxue couldn’t help but shoot him an annoyed glare.

The two continued forward, climbing over mountain ranges and wading through rivers. They traveled a great distance, but still hadn’t found the place Li Qiye was looking for.

They didn’t know how long they had walked before they finally arrived at a unique location. Unlike the other places, there were no mountains and rivers formed from Great Dao Laws, no grass, trees, insects, or fish. There was only a stretch of dim, scorched earth, completely devoid of life.

Even though the previous lands were also fundamentally without life, they at least had the appearance of soaring eagles, leaping fish, and blooming flowers. But this place before them had absolutely nothing. It was deathly silent.

”This place—” Li Qiye was immediately captivated. He quickened his pace and walked into the scorched earth. Before long, he crouched down to inspect it closely, as if something incredibly fascinating had captured his full attention.

Qiu Rong Wanxue followed and took a look. However, there was nothing on the ground except for some ants. She couldn’t even tell if these ants were real or manifested from a Daoist Technique.

Qiu Rong Wanxue counted them carefully. There were ten ants in total, moving in a large circle, endlessly walking the same path.

No, that wasn’t right. After watching for a moment, she noticed that one ant had suddenly vanished, leaving only nine. But when she went to count them again, the missing ant reappeared from nowhere, bringing the total back to ten.

Wrong again. Just when Qiu Rong Wanxue thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, she saw there was only one ant left. She had no idea how the other nine had disappeared.

’How is this possible—’ Qiu Rong Wanxue was stunned for a moment. Then there were nine ants again. Then another one appeared, and it was back to ten ants walking in a circle.

Qiu Rong Wanxue was completely bewildered, unsure if her eyes were deceiving her or if she was hallucinating. She couldn’t help but focus her concentration, trying to see just how many ants there really were. Suddenly, the world spun, and millions upon millions of ants appeared before her, circling endlessly. The sight made her vision go black.

Just as Qiu Rong Wanxue was about to fall unconscious, a cool stream of energy poured into her body like a baptism of clarity. She shuddered and instantly regained her senses. It was Li Qiye, who had pulled her back from the brink.

”Don’t look. Your Dao Heart hasn’t been tempered to that level yet. You can’t watch this,” Li Qiye said gravely.

In truth, there were probably few people in the world who could watch these ants. Unless one was an Immortal Emperor, or someone like Li Qiye who had undergone countless trials, their Dao Heart would surely be shaken!

”Wh-what is this?” Qiu Rong Wanxue was astounded, completely unable to figure out how many ants there were.

Li Qiye said, ”This is not something you can comprehend.” He saw the confusion in her heart and added with a smile, ”The number of ants isn’t important. What’s important is the origin and the final destruction. One is the beginning, nine is the extreme, and ten signifies perfection!”

Qiu Rong Wanxue seemed to understand, yet not at all; his words left her in a fog. Li Qiye wasn’t surprised. He said to her, ”Why don’t you walk around somewhere else? See if you can comprehend anything, or if you can find the place I’m looking for. If you run into any danger, contact me with your heart immediately.”

After speaking, he crouched down and resumed watching the ants on the ground, completely captivated and engrossed in comprehending them.

Seeing this, Qiu Rong Wanxue didn’t disturb him any further and headed off in another direction.

Li Qiye forgot everything else, his eyes fixed only on the circling ants. To others, they might just be a few ants walking in circles. But in Li Qiye’s eyes, it was different. It touched upon the origin, the final destruction...

He didn’t know how long he watched, but he finally saw a clue. His expression shaken, he murmured to himself, ”Incredible. No wonder ’he’ ended up like that. So he really did comprehend something. No wonder he was not tolerated by the Thief Old Heaven. Incredible! It’s a pity this is incomplete. If he had fully comprehended it, he would have truly been the number one person in all of history!”

For those who couldn’t understand, it was just a few ants endlessly circling, nothing surprising. But for those who could, the evolution displayed by these ants was absolutely extraordinary, something that would leave one utterly shocked. It contained the evolving mysteries of the True Dao of Heaven and Earth. Though they were merely a few ants, they involved the origin and the final destruction, life and death, yin and yang... even all things in the world and every living being.

Even an Immortal Emperor would be shocked to see such an evolution. Unfortunately, the evolving principles were incomplete; one could even say it was just a prototype.

Even as a prototype, it was already evolving toward the ultimate mystical meaning of the True Dao of Heaven and Earth—the creation of life!

On a grander scale, it was Chuang Shi. However, the evolution of these few ants was merely the beginning. But as Li Qiye continued his deductions, he became absolutely certain that the direction of this evolution was correct.

This meant that the being from all those years ago had indeed walked a very, very long way down this path. After countless deductions and countless attempts, he had finally captured the mysteries of the True Dao of Heaven and Earth. He had reached a different understanding, a different evolution of the True Dao of Heaven and Earth, and thus pioneered a new Great Dao.

Unfortunately, what he created was merely a beginning, an outline, far from complete. At the time, for various reasons, his heaven-defying act was not tolerated by the Azure Heaven, and it even forced him into a desperate situation.

Li Qiye was immersed in this evolution, in these deductions. Countless Daoist technique talismans surfaced in the depths of his Sea of Consciousness. These were all once-erased memories of his past deductions, his past attempts, which were finally being recovered.

The former Yin Ya Li Qiye was different from those sealed Old Undyings. Those Old Undyings hiding in Time Blood Stones had sealed themselves away. Although they hadn’t died, they hadn’t truly lived through the long ages either.

But he, the Yin Ya, was different. He had always lived in the mortal world, active throughout the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, possessing unparalleled knowledge and accumulating insights no one could match.

Throughout the endlessly long eons, as the Yin Ya, he had lived a spectacular life and done countless things. But ultimately, everything revolved around three key concepts: Wudi, Eternal Life, and Chuang Shi!

Over the long eons, the Yin Ya cultivated one invincible being after another. This was his own practice, a form of accumulation, an exploration of Wudi.

Later, he gradually delved into Eternal Life and immortality. This was a topic full of temptation for everyone throughout the ages.

Whether it was the Supreme Beings of the Wilderness Era or the Immortal Emperors of the Age of Emperors, all had explored this path. No matter who they were, they all wanted eternal life and immortality.

Although under very special circumstances he, as the Yin Ya, was immortal, Li Qiye knew that his immortality was dependent on a certain item in the Immortal Demon Cave. As long as his physical body was preserved there, he would be immortal.

But this kind of immortality was ultimately in the hands of others. So, over the long eons, after accumulating enough knowledge on the path of Wudi, Li Qiye had also tried to explore eternal life and immortality.

In fact, Li Qiye had gone very far down this road, but it was more or less a dead end. After all, throughout the eons, no one had ever been heard of achieving true eternal life and immortality. Unless, that is, they relied on some peerless item, like one of the legendary Nine Great Heavenly Treasures.

Because the path to eternal life and immortality was a dead end, Li Qiye later tried to approach it from a different angle. If one could not achieve eternal life, then what about creating life like the True Dao of Heaven and Earth? Or even Chuang Shi?

Li Qiye had also made many attempts on the path of creating life. Creation from nothingness was a method that should belong only to the Azure Heaven. In reality, however, many Immortal Emperors throughout the eons had also made attempts, but none had ever succeeded.

On this path, Li Qiye had also traveled far, but in the end, he still did not succeed. Just as he had said, no one could glimpse the full picture of the True Dao of Heaven and Earth!

Now, seeing the Great Dao evolving from these few ants, Li Qiye was profoundly shaken. As someone who had made countless attempts in this area, after repeated rounds of evolution and deduction, he could be completely certain that the person from all those years ago had found the right direction. Unfortunately, he had only just begun. Time was not on his side.

Li Qiye became engrossed with these inconspicuous ants, seeking to understand the evolution of this path. If this path could truly be made complete and whole, it would be too terrifying. At that point, what would an Immortal Emperor matter? What would the Azure Heaven matter!

Lost in this evolution, Li Qiye became like a petrified statue. However, his desperate deductions were plunging him into a crisis.

Li Qiye himself was completely unaware, but these frantic deductions were severely draining his Blood Qi, and even his Power of Life.