The First Immortal of Destiny

Chapter 1089: Chapter 1085: Signs of the Outer Space Tribulation (2)

If one’s foundation is shallow and one only manages to attain Immortality through some Small Path with great difficulty, then even if one does not turn to flying ash in the midst of tribulation, one can only achieve the likes of Ghost Immortal or Human Immortal!

”Could it be that meddling in the matter of the Nine Heavens Empyrean Fairy’s Resurrection earlier caused the God Path to patch up the incomplete Immortal Path, letting me unwittingly earn a massive amount of achievement in heaven and earth?” Shen Mo pondered in secret.

The raising of the upper limit of the Immortal Path’s shackles was certainly pleasing, yet in Shen Mo’s heart there was still a strong premonition that his own future tribulations would be extremely vicious; besides the heavenly tribulation descended by the cosmic will being unprecedentedly fierce.

Even more troublesome was that his own enlightment tribulation seemed to have become entangled with the Immortal Realm’s cyclical great cataclysms.

The enlightment tribulation is a multiple killing tribulation formed when Heaven, Earth, and Man all simultaneously give rise to killing intent.

Just like when the Longevity Demon Lord crossed his Immortal Tribulation: clearly, after he had passed the heavenly tribulation, Shen Mo, Lingxiao Zi, and the others then turned into external tribulations to kill him.

When Shen Mo himself crosses tribulation in the future, setting aside the conventional heavenly tribulation, the external tribulations will also not be simple.

If it were merely tribulation of the intensity that the Longevity Demon Lord suffered—after the heavenly tribulation, five No Phase State Grandmasters came to besiege him—Shen Mo was confident he could easily pass it. At that time, let alone five Formless, even if fifty came, he might still be able to cut them down one by one.

But once the external tribulation and the Immortal Realm’s cyclical great calamity are entwined into a single whole, then when the tribulation descends, what is drawn in will very likely be one True Immortal after another, each possessing vast magical powers.

With intense unease, Shen Mo took out the jade divination chips, casting the ”Divination Treasure Mirror” and, at the cost of lifespan and fortune, began his calculations. If, before the enlightment tribulation descended, he could thoroughly strangle some sprouts of external tribulation, his assurance of successfully passing the enlightment tribulation would be much greater!

Over three days, Shen Mo cast hexagrams one after another, obtaining a series of vague, indistinct images: one pointed toward Lord Blue Venerable, one toward the Heavenly Demon, one toward Dreamland’s Dream True Master...

Shen Mo flicked his robe sleeve, stowing away all the divination chips. The spirit light on his body flickered slightly, and he vanished from within the room.

A moment later, his and Zhao Lingyin’s figures appeared together in the Outer Void of the Constellations of Horned Flood Dragon, facing from afar the towering ancient-tree Dharma Phase of Lord Blue Venerable.

Zhao Lingyin was already a middle-stage Divine Bridge cultivator. She was also wearing the Class VI Fairy Puppet refined by Qin Zhen from Mechanic Sect, capable of unleashing early-stage Formless Realm strength, so Shen Mo brought her along when he came to seek confirmation from the Yuan Monarch’s Dharma Body.

With the Stars Circulation Array suppressing and sealing, the Yuan Monarch’s Dharma Body’s perception of the Outer Realm had been completely cut off; like a giant tree on the verge of withering to death, it had not the slightest reaction to the arrival of Shen Mo and his wife!

Shen Mo did not waste words; he directly activated the Stars Circulation Array, hastening the big array’s speed of refining the Yuan Monarch’s Dharma Body.

Iron chains spreading out from the void, tightly coiling around the towering ancient tree, clanged wildly in unison. The prohibition runes upon them flashed with eerie radiance. Like vines rooted into the tree, they began to siphon and refine, at an astonishing speed, the primal Essence and Qi contained in the Yuan Monarch’s Dharma Body!

Under such terrifying refinement, the towering ancient tree withered at a speed as if the flow of time had been accelerated a hundredfold, a thousandfold.

Until half a month later, the entire big array suddenly trembled, as though it had encountered immense resistance. The Yuan Monarch’s Dharma Body within the void no longer continued to weaken; instead, it reversed abruptly and grew exuberant!

At the same time, a terrifying aura that made Shen Mo and Zhao Lingyin both feel their hearts quiver began to spread out.

The full Appearance of Lord Blue Venerable’s Dharma Phase Body also gradually revealed itself before the two of them: it was a dense forest formed from countless towering ancient trees, its vast expanse sufficient to cover the entire Constellations of Horned Flood Dragon.

Within the Universal Realm, there are quite a few spirit wood ancient trees whose trunks hang down innumerable branches extending outward, finally piercing into the soil to become roots, forming a vast forest... It appears to be a forest, but from beginning to end there is only a single spirit wood!

Lord Blue Venerable’s Dharma Phase was likewise so. The Dharma Body suppressed by the Stars Circulation Array appeared to be only one towering ancient tree, yet in truth this giant tree was merely a portion of her entire Dharma Phase; the vast forest composed of countless ancient trees was the complete Appearance of her Dharma Phase.

Not only the Dharma Phase—within the Universal Realm she also had hundreds of millions of Incarnations, all because her Dao was precisely ”Single Tree Becomes Forest”!

Just as the other towering ancient trees were about to manifest in the world, Shen Mo sensed the gaze of the cosmic will;

In the next instant, within the Dragon Heart Realm and the other eight worlds, nature’s spiritual energy, as well as all worldly things formed from the elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, instantly vanished by one percent—completely gone, eradicated even at their most fundamental, most microscopic level.

Afterward, this vanished world-origin transformed into a chaotic divine lightning beyond verbal description, blanketing the entire Constellations of Horned Flood Dragon and striking back each towering ancient tree.

Yet when the power of the chaotic divine lightning was spent, there were still another eight towering ancient trees that fully manifested.

Just like the original giant tree, the roots of every giant tree pierced into a world, mysterious aura rippling through Heaven and Earth, cloaking the perception of the cosmic will!

Meanwhile, within the Horned Flood Dragon Nine Realms, all cultivators with Green Wood Spirit Body or Wood Spirit Body had their Dao Body and soul undergo distortion.

Even Zhao Lingyin at Shen Mo’s side was no exception—or rather, the speed of the distortion of her Soul Body was far more violent than that of other Wood Spirit Bodies.

Shen Mo’s expression changed; he continued to drive the Stars Circulation Array, wanting to suppress all nine towering ancient trees, but he quickly discovered that the roots of the Yuan Monarch’s Dharma Body anchored in the Nine Realms were fighting him for control over the Stars Circulation Array.

”Heaven-damned old hag!”

Shen Mo cursed, then raised the Soul Refining Flag. An endless sea of blood surged out, and in an instant he used the Hundred Million Demon Souls General to arrange the God Slaying Array, severing inside from outside. At the same time, the immortal charm of the Thousand Laws Karma Lotus Robe on his body rippled, forbidding all supernatural powers.

Next, he swung the Taiyi Sword and slashed out the Fairyland sword style, forcibly cleaving open the internal space of the Fairy Puppet, turning into escaping light and diving into it.

By this time, Zhao Lingyin’s body had already begun to transform toward green wood; her crystal-clear skin turned rough like bark, and fine branches sprouted from her body, adorned with tender green leaves.

Shen Mo immediately pulled her into his embrace, his five senses and sense probing into her Soul Body, and discovered that her soul and Mana also displayed a tendency toward distortion.

He did not hesitate further and began circulating ”The Sutra of Cloudy and Rainy from Wushan”; his flesh body, soul, and even Mana fused entirely with Zhao Lingyin to share the burden of the distortion and Corrupt power, while simultaneously strenuously operating the Dragon Reversing Spell, immunity, and other cultivation method and Skill to suppress the distortion upon her Soul Body.

In the next thought, the Chaotic Yuan Dharma Phase condensed and enveloped the entire Fairy Puppet. At the very center of the puppet’s internal space were Shen Mo and Zhao Lingyin, entwined together; at first they were still faintly visible, but as cultivation methods and Skills operated one after another, the two figures were completely concealed beneath the fantastic scene of immortal light upon the Dharma Phase’s body.

”As expected of an old hag who has lived countless tens of thousands of years—you nearly had me fall for your poisonous scheme!”

Shen Mo’s Chaotic Yuan Dharma Phase cursed in fury; Pure Yang Fire shot from his eyes, burning so fiercely that even the void seemed to twist and collapse.

Yet this was only a portion of Lord Blue Venerable’s Dharma Phase. Although the nine towering ancient trees were flaming all over, aside from some curling and yellowing of the branches and leaves, they were not burned to ash.

All along, Shen Mo had felt considerable doubt in his heart.

Lord Blue Venerable was clearly among the Heavenly Immortals—why was her Dharma Body so feeble; why, after her Dharma Body was suppressed, did she make no further moves, instead obediently becoming nourishment for Zhao Lingyin and even the entire Horned Flood Dragon Nine Realms to grow stronger?

Back then, her Dharma Body had indeed been suppressed, but what was suppressed was only one ancient tree within the entire forest Dharma Phase. Moreover, she was fully capable of handling it as she did Human Immortal Incarnations, completely discarding and destroying that single ancient-tree Dharma Body—but she did not do so, perhaps long having foreseen that the Immortal Path was on the verge of change.

After the Resurrection of the Empyrean Fairy of Nine Heavens, the God Path became a part of the Immortal Path, rendering the Immortal Path ever more complete, and at the same time allowing old leftover evil such as Lord Blue Venerable to further permeate their own power into the universe.

The portion of Lord Blue Venerable’s Dharma Body that had been suppressed thus became the bait to lure Shen Mo and Zhao Lingyin; behind the bait was a great net, intending to catch them all in one sweep!