Tongtian removed her gaze from the Blood Sea after Zhunti left with the shura in tow. Twenty-four pearls floated above her palms. With a flip of her hand, the Twenty-Four Sea Calming Pearls disappeared.
She closed her eyes and leaned back against the Throne of Heaven. After the creation of the empyrean race, the Thirty-Three Heaven's Karmic Luck also increased a bit, making it easier to comprehend the Law of Time. Although she sliced off her past and future to form Shitian and Tonggu, she had trouble cutting off her present, as if she had stumbled into a dead end.
Tongtian had expected that her present would be the easiest to sever, but she had been wrong. To sever her present was to kill her present self, but how could she accomplish this without dying?
In the end, it had been the result of her inadequate comprehension of the Law of Time. The longer it took her to comprehend the Law of Time and merge it with the Law of Space to enter the Primordial Origin Realm, the less chance she had to survive the Immeasurable Tribulation.
Saints of Heavens were Golden Immortals of the Primordial Origin, but that wasn't quite correct. When a cultivator entered the Primordial Origin Realm, their three flowers would merge and produce a Dao Fruit representing the law they comprehended and acted as their foundation.
However, Saints did not form a Dao Fruit when they entered the Primordial Origin Realm but a Heavenly Light. It was this Heavenly Light that allowed Saints to command the power of heaven and earth, but at the same time, it restricted them. The Saints' foundation no longer relied on themselves but on the world.
In other words, a Saint cannot grow stronger than the Way of Heaven allows. All things originate from one and are born at three, prosper at five. Seven is extreme, and nine is perfection. In other words, once nine was reached, it has reached the limit determined by the Way of Heaven and can only deteriorate from there.
This was why there could only be eight Saints of Heaven. The Way of Heaven will not allow the ninth Saint of Heaven to be born. Nor will it allow the Saints to cultivate beyond the Ninth Heavenly Layer. Nine Saints at the Ninth Heavenly Layer represented perfection and would allow them to reach equal status with the Way of Heaven should they band together. It was also why the Great Desolation would face nine tribulations.
If Tongtian didn't reach the Primordial Origin Realm, she wouldn't survive the Immeasurable Tribulation if the Great Desolation failed. Once the Great Desolation was destroyed, all Saints would perish with it. But she didn't just want to survive the end of the Great Desolation but transcend the Immeasurable Tribulation.
Once the Great Desolation survived the Immeasurable Tribulation, the world would become eternal since it would no longer suffer any more tribulations. Then, that meant that all things would not incarnate back into Pangu, and the cycle would be broken.
Tongtian sighed. She was among the eight most powerful cultivators of the Great Desolation, yet she still felt so small in the face of the Immeasurable Tribulation. She wondered how the Immeasurable Tribulation compared to Father God's strength. Would it be weaker, equal, or perhaps even stronger?
'Forget it,' Tongtian thought. She had many matters to attend to, such as re-establishing the Heavenly Court and tracing her origin by following the karmic ties on Shitian.
Tongtian vanished from the Throne of Heaven and appeared in the Empyrean Eden, the name she had bequeathed to the location where the empyrean flowers blossomed and fruits matured.
The black empyrean fruit was still in the process of maturing. Aside from that, a new generation of fruits had blossomed.
Tongtian waved her hand, and six more maturing fruits shifted near the black empyrean fruit. Together, all seven fruits possessed different colors: black, red, white, green, yellow, gold, and silver-blue. Respectively, they exuded auras of water, fire, metal, wood, earth, yang, and yin.
She raised her hand, and the space above her head shattered to reveal the Starry Sky.
Changxi frowned and looked up from within Coldmoon Palace and into the Starry Sky, where a giant milky white hand appeared. Just the hand's mere presence caused the stars to tremble and almost stray from their path.
After the Titan-Demon Tribulation and the collapse of Buzhou Mountain, the stars above the Great Desolation became unstable. As a result, their position constantly shifted with time, eventually reaching the same position once every cycle.
The lone lunar goddess watched as the hand pinched the Supreme Yang Star and extracted a part of its quintessence. Next, the hand reached toward the Supreme Yin Star.
Changxi reactively urged the Supreme Yin Star to resist the hand, but she stamped down that instinct. The hand belonged to Supreme Purity Tongtian, a Saint of Heaven. The only thing she would accomplish by resisting was annoying someone far beyond her power. Instead, she even cooperated and made it easier for the hand to extract a portion of the Supreme Yin Star's quintessence.
She sighed in relief when the hand left afterward. Although she didn't receive anything in return, neither did anything detrimental happen. True, the Supreme Yin Star's quintessence had been extracted, but it was minuscule and would recover with time.
Was Changxi upset? Of course she was. But she also knew that she couldn't do anything about it. Questioning or seeking answers from a Saint would only bring discomfort and humiliation to herself, perhaps even death.
Changxi watched as the giant hand extracted the quintessence of the Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn Stars before finally fading away. She sighed in relief and continued cultivating, hoping to sever another Corpse.
Tongtian looked at her palms and saw seven glittering lights. With a flip of her hand, the seven stellar quintessence flew into the empyrean fruits correlating to their element.
The empyrean fruits that absorbed the quintessence started to exude an exquisite light. Their skins took on a crystal-like quality to them, making them resemble fruit-shaped gems. Compared to that, their increased size seemed almost inconsequential, but they were still large enough to fit a grown man.
Tongtian waited for the first one to be born, but upon seeing none of them falling off, she pinched her hands and calculated the reason. She frowned upon discovering the reason. Her brows twitched. Because of their increased potential, it would take them longer to fully mature.
She sighed and returned to Eminence Heaven Palace. Her eyes pierced through the layers of Thirty-Three Heaven. Since she had yet to re-establish the Heavenly Court, the first generations of empyreans lived carefree days.
Although they were born with knowledge, they weren't born with any cultivation methods, so their strength had not improved much, if at all, since their birth. Instead of imparting them the immortal cultivation method, Tongtian wanted to create a new cultivation method solely for members of the Heavenly Court.
Members of the Heavenly Court would earn Karmic Merit for managing and promoting growth in the Great Desolation. Absorbing it to become a merit immortal or imbuing them into a spiritual artifact was too wasteful in Tongtian's eyes. Why not treat it as another resource and use it to cultivate?
However, that was easier said than done. If done incorrectly, then the cultivator would just become a merit immortal. There was also another disadvantage, and that was that Karmic Merit was difficult to earn, and only members of the Heavenly Court could reliably earn them.
In other words, it was a super exclusive cultivation method.
Heavenly Court members would refine Karmic Merit to increase their cultivation. To earn more merit, they would have to perform their duties, forming a positive cycle.
Even before re-establishing the Heavenly Court, Tongtian felt that she already did much more than the previous Heavenly Court founded by Di Jun. In her eyes, Di Jun established the Heavenly Court to promote his influence and power, not for the greater good of the world. No wonder the Way of Heaven wanted them to disappear.
Tens of thousands of years later, Tongtian paused for a moment and glanced toward the East Sea. 'Was something related to me born?'
A cyan-robed man in his middle twenties appeared out of Tongtian's body. He was Lingbao, the Heavenly Venerable of Numinous Treasures and her Saint Corpse. After appearing, Lingbao didn't spare any words. He tore a hole in space and flew in.
Lingbao reappeared in the East Sea and saw a giant island. Golden strands of essence swirled around the island like carps swimming in a circle. He planned to enter but discovered that a defensive array prevented his entry. At his level, only other Saints could block him.
Not long later, a man in a red-robed appeared. He smiled, "Should I call you fellow Daoist Tongtian or Daoist Lingbao? Or maybe you would prefer Heavenly Lord of Numinous Treasures?"
"Fellow Daoist Redcloud," Lingbao greeted Redcloud Ancestor with a smile. "Lingbao is fine. Tongtian is Main Body's name, not mine."
Redcloud Ancestor laughed. "I didn't expect that in these eons, I would meet you again before Daoist Tongtian and right after I found Jin'ao Island."
A metaphorical explosion occurred after hearing Jin'ao Island come from Redcloud Ancestor's mouth. Simultaneously, a sense of loss arose in his and Tongtian's heart, like something that originally belonged to theirs was no longer theirs.
Still, Lingbao forced a perfect smile. "So that's the reason. Daoist Redcloud must have recently refined the array, and I sensed the island's fluctuations."
"Daoist Lingbao is correct," Redcloud Ancestor admitted. "It's a wondrous island, not inferior to Penglei or Fangzhang Immortal Island at all. I found it after killing two dragons that didn't know the heights of heaven and refined them into a pair of scissors. If I didn't have Firesource Grotto, I would have made this the location of my Interception Sect. How about it, does Daoist Lingbao want the island?"
Redcloud Ancestor's proposal moved Lingbao. He took a deep look at the Saint before him. Although Lingbao didn't know what treasures were on Jin'ao Island, since Redcloud Ancestor described it as equal to Fangzhang Immortal Island, its value must be very high. Who would think that they had too many treasures?
Lingbao could only think of two reasons why Redcloud Ancestor would offer him Jin'ao Island. First, it was to repay the debt of saving his life, and two, because he treated Lingbao, or rather, Tongtian as a true friend. After almost dying to keep the Grandmist Violet Qi, Redcloud Ancestor's conduct changed. He no longer liked to make friends and kept to himself except for Zhen Yuanzi and Tongtian.
No matter how much the Lingbao wanted Jin'ao Island, he still rejected it in the end. What would he use it for? Redcloud Ancestor was the leader of the Interception Sect, not him. "Fellow Daoist Redcloud should keep it. Even if you don't need it, what about your disciples?"
Redcloud Ancestor's heart moved. He accepted thousands of outer disciples and four inner disciples, but he didn't have much treasure to give them. His four inner disciples only had acquired spiritual artifacts. How embarrassing was that?
"I've made a fool of myself in front of Daoist Lingbao," Redcloud Ancestor said. "I was just about to visit Zhen Yuanzi. How about coming with me? I heard that the newest batch of Ginseng Fruits had already matured."
"Then I can only oblige," Lingbao said as he followed Redcloud Ancestor toward Wuzhuang Temple on Longevity Mountain.
In the chaos outside of the Great Desolation, Shitian traversed through it, following the line of karma attached to her. She had waited until her strength had reached the peak of the Quasi-Saint Realm before leaving. Unless Tongtian broke through into the Primordial Origin Realm, her strength would no longer improve.
Although she possessed the power of a Peak Quasi-Saint, she was ultimately not a Golden Immortal of the Primordial Origin, and the chaotic energy would corrode her body. Hence, Tongtian had given her the Twelfth-Ranked White Lotus of Purification. Not only could it protect her against the chaotic energy, but it also converted the energy into qi and replenished her reserves.
Chaos did not know time, and Shitian could only barely sense the passage of time thanks to her faint connection to Tongtian, who was still in the Great Desolation.
Finally, she saw a world, but it wasn't like the Great Desolation. Or rather, it wasn't a world at all but a fragment of a world. Still, the karma line attached to her led her to this fragmented world, and she entered without much resistance.
Immediately, she noticed something wrong. The time flow of the fragmented world was extremely slow. If the Great Desolation moved as fast as a man's walk, then this fragmented world was moving at a snail's pace. In addition, although the memories she received from Tongtian were incomplete, the world definitely wasn't in a state of apocalypse like the world fragment in front of her.
Rather than a planet, the world only consisted of parts of a continent, and the rest seemed to have fractured into oblivion to parts unknown. It was a wonder that it still had a dimensional boundary to keep the chaotic energy from destroying it. Though, if this situation continued, it wouldn't last long either.
Most of the land had turned into a wasteland, and only little green patches were left. Whatever was left of the ocean had almost all disappeared, and the largest body of water could only be considered a large lake. Not only that, but ferocious monsters roamed the land, forcing humanity to be sequestered on the little livable land in what could only be called fortress cities.
Shitian followed the line of karma attached to her and invisibly descended into one of the many shacks inside a fortress city. There, a man was kneeling and praying to a totem.
"Supreme Grandmaster of Heaven, please bequeath to me a fraction of your divine might so that I can return safely from tomorrow scavenging."
Tongtian removed her gaze from the Blood Sea after Zhunti left with the shura in tow. Twenty-four pearls floated above her palms. With a flip of her hand, the Twenty-Four Sea Calming Pearls disappeared.
She closed her eyes and leaned back against the Throne of Heaven. After the creation of the empyrean race, the Thirty-Three Heaven's Karmic Luck also increased a bit, making it easier to comprehend the Law of Time. Although she sliced off her past and future to form Shitian and Tonggu, she had trouble cutting off her present, as if she had stumbled into a dead end.
Tongtian had expected that her present would be the easiest to sever, but she had been wrong. To sever her present was to kill her present self, but how could she accomplish this without dying?
In the end, it had been the result of her inadequate comprehension of the Law of Time. The longer it took her to comprehend the Law of Time and merge it with the Law of Space to enter the Primordial Origin Realm, the less chance she had to survive the Immeasurable Tribulation.
Saints of Heavens were Golden Immortals of the Primordial Origin, but that wasn't quite correct. When a cultivator entered the Primordial Origin Realm, their three flowers would merge and produce a Dao Fruit representing the law they comprehended and acted as their foundation.
However, Saints did not form a Dao Fruit when they entered the Primordial Origin Realm but a Heavenly Light. It was this Heavenly Light that allowed Saints to command the power of heaven and earth, but at the same time, it restricted them. The Saints' foundation no longer relied on themselves but on the world.
In other words, a Saint cannot grow stronger than the Way of Heaven allows. All things originate from one and are born at three, prosper at five. Seven is extreme, and nine is perfection. In other words, once nine was reached, it has reached the limit determined by the Way of Heaven and can only deteriorate from there.
This was why there could only be eight Saints of Heaven. The Way of Heaven will not allow the ninth Saint of Heaven to be born. Nor will it allow the Saints to cultivate beyond the Ninth Heavenly Layer. Nine Saints at the Ninth Heavenly Layer represented perfection and would allow them to reach equal status with the Way of Heaven should they band together. It was also why the Great Desolation would face nine tribulations.
If Tongtian didn't reach the Primordial Origin Realm, she wouldn't survive the Immeasurable Tribulation if the Great Desolation failed. Once the Great Desolation was destroyed, all Saints would perish with it. But she didn't just want to survive the end of the Great Desolation but transcend the Immeasurable Tribulation.
Once the Great Desolation survived the Immeasurable Tribulation, the world would become eternal since it would no longer suffer any more tribulations. Then, that meant that all things would not incarnate back into Pangu, and the cycle would be broken.
Tongtian sighed. She was among the eight most powerful cultivators of the Great Desolation, yet she still felt so small in the face of the Immeasurable Tribulation. She wondered how the Immeasurable Tribulation compared to Father God's strength. Would it be weaker, equal, or perhaps even stronger?
'Forget it,' Tongtian thought. She had many matters to attend to, such as re-establishing the Heavenly Court and tracing her origin by following the karmic ties on Shitian.
Tongtian vanished from the Throne of Heaven and appeared in the Empyrean Eden, the name she had bequeathed to the location where the empyrean flowers blossomed and fruits matured.
The black empyrean fruit was still in the process of maturing. Aside from that, a new generation of fruits had blossomed.
Tongtian waved her hand, and six more maturing fruits shifted near the black empyrean fruit. Together, all seven fruits possessed different colors: black, red, white, green, yellow, gold, and silver-blue. Respectively, they exuded auras of water, fire, metal, wood, earth, yang, and yin.
She raised her hand, and the space above her head shattered to reveal the Starry Sky.
Changxi frowned and looked up from within Coldmoon Palace and into the Starry Sky, where a giant milky white hand appeared. Just the hand's mere presence caused the stars to tremble and almost stray from their path.
After the Titan-Demon Tribulation and the collapse of Buzhou Mountain, the stars above the Great Desolation became unstable. As a result, their position constantly shifted with time, eventually reaching the same position once every cycle.
The lone lunar goddess watched as the hand pinched the Supreme Yang Star and extracted a part of its quintessence. Next, the hand reached toward the Supreme Yin Star.
Changxi reactively urged the Supreme Yin Star to resist the hand, but she stamped down that instinct. The hand belonged to Supreme Purity Tongtian, a Saint of Heaven. The only thing she would accomplish by resisting was annoying someone far beyond her power. Instead, she even cooperated and made it easier for the hand to extract a portion of the Supreme Yin Star's quintessence.
She sighed in relief when the hand left afterward. Although she didn't receive anything in return, neither did anything detrimental happen. True, the Supreme Yin Star's quintessence had been extracted, but it was minuscule and would recover with time.
Was Changxi upset? Of course she was. But she also knew that she couldn't do anything about it. Questioning or seeking answers from a Saint would only bring discomfort and humiliation to herself, perhaps even death.
Changxi watched as the giant hand extracted the quintessence of the Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn Stars before finally fading away. She sighed in relief and continued cultivating, hoping to sever another Corpse.
Tongtian looked at her palms and saw seven glittering lights. With a flip of her hand, the seven stellar quintessence flew into the empyrean fruits correlating to their element.
The empyrean fruits that absorbed the quintessence started to exude an exquisite light. Their skins took on a crystal-like quality to them, making them resemble fruit-shaped gems. Compared to that, their increased size seemed almost inconsequential, but they were still large enough to fit a grown man.
Tongtian waited for the first one to be born, but upon seeing none of them falling off, she pinched her hands and calculated the reason. She frowned upon discovering the reason. Her brows twitched. Because of their increased potential, it would take them longer to fully mature.
She sighed and returned to Eminence Heaven Palace. Her eyes pierced through the layers of Thirty-Three Heaven. Since she had yet to re-establish the Heavenly Court, the first generations of empyreans lived carefree days.
Although they were born with knowledge, they weren't born with any cultivation methods, so their strength had not improved much, if at all, since their birth. Instead of imparting them the immortal cultivation method, Tongtian wanted to create a new cultivation method solely for members of the Heavenly Court.
Members of the Heavenly Court would earn Karmic Merit for managing and promoting growth in the Great Desolation. Absorbing it to become a merit immortal or imbuing them into a spiritual artifact was too wasteful in Tongtian's eyes. Why not treat it as another resource and use it to cultivate?
However, that was easier said than done. If done incorrectly, then the cultivator would just become a merit immortal. There was also another disadvantage, and that was that Karmic Merit was difficult to earn, and only members of the Heavenly Court could reliably earn them.
In other words, it was a super exclusive cultivation method.
Heavenly Court members would refine Karmic Merit to increase their cultivation. To earn more merit, they would have to perform their duties, forming a positive cycle.
Even before re-establishing the Heavenly Court, Tongtian felt that she already did much more than the previous Heavenly Court founded by Di Jun. In her eyes, Di Jun established the Heavenly Court to promote his influence and power, not for the greater good of the world. No wonder the Way of Heaven wanted them to disappear.
Tens of thousands of years later, Tongtian paused for a moment and glanced toward the East Sea. 'Was something related to me born?'
A cyan-robed man in his middle twenties appeared out of Tongtian's body. He was Lingbao, the Heavenly Venerable of Numinous Treasures and her Saint Corpse. After appearing, Lingbao didn't spare any words. He tore a hole in space and flew in.
Lingbao reappeared in the East Sea and saw a giant island. Golden strands of essence swirled around the island like carps swimming in a circle. He planned to enter but discovered that a defensive array prevented his entry. At his level, only other Saints could block him.
Not long later, a man in a red-robed appeared. He smiled, "Should I call you fellow Daoist Tongtian or Daoist Lingbao? Or maybe you would prefer Heavenly Lord of Numinous Treasures?"
"Fellow Daoist Redcloud," Lingbao greeted Redcloud Ancestor with a smile. "Lingbao is fine. Tongtian is Main Body's name, not mine."
Redcloud Ancestor laughed. "I didn't expect that in these eons, I would meet you again before Daoist Tongtian and right after I found Jin'ao Island."
A metaphorical explosion occurred after hearing Jin'ao Island come from Redcloud Ancestor's mouth. Simultaneously, a sense of loss arose in his and Tongtian's heart, like something that originally belonged to theirs was no longer theirs.
Still, Lingbao forced a perfect smile. "So that's the reason. Daoist Redcloud must have recently refined the array, and I sensed the island's fluctuations."
"Daoist Lingbao is correct," Redcloud Ancestor admitted. "It's a wondrous island, not inferior to Penglei or Fangzhang Immortal Island at all. I found it after killing two dragons that didn't know the heights of heaven and refined them into a pair of scissors. If I didn't have Firesource Grotto, I would have made this the location of my Interception Sect. How about it, does Daoist Lingbao want the island?"
Redcloud Ancestor's proposal moved Lingbao. He took a deep look at the Saint before him. Although Lingbao didn't know what treasures were on Jin'ao Island, since Redcloud Ancestor described it as equal to Fangzhang Immortal Island, its value must be very high. Who would think that they had too many treasures?
Lingbao could only think of two reasons why Redcloud Ancestor would offer him Jin'ao Island. First, it was to repay the debt of saving his life, and two, because he treated Lingbao, or rather, Tongtian as a true friend. After almost dying to keep the Grandmist Violet Qi, Redcloud Ancestor's conduct changed. He no longer liked to make friends and kept to himself except for Zhen Yuanzi and Tongtian.
No matter how much the Lingbao wanted Jin'ao Island, he still rejected it in the end. What would he use it for? Redcloud Ancestor was the leader of the Interception Sect, not him. "Fellow Daoist Redcloud should keep it. Even if you don't need it, what about your disciples?"
Redcloud Ancestor's heart moved. He accepted thousands of outer disciples and four inner disciples, but he didn't have much treasure to give them. His four inner disciples only had acquired spiritual artifacts. How embarrassing was that?
"I've made a fool of myself in front of Daoist Lingbao," Redcloud Ancestor said. "I was just about to visit Zhen Yuanzi. How about coming with me? I heard that the newest batch of Ginseng Fruits had already matured."
"Then I can only oblige," Lingbao said as he followed Redcloud Ancestor toward Wuzhuang Temple on Longevity Mountain.
In the chaos outside of the Great Desolation, Shitian traversed through it, following the line of karma attached to her. She had waited until her strength had reached the peak of the Quasi-Saint Realm before leaving. Unless Tongtian broke through into the Primordial Origin Realm, her strength would no longer improve.
Although she possessed the power of a Peak Quasi-Saint, she was ultimately not a Golden Immortal of the Primordial Origin, and the chaotic energy would corrode her body. Hence, Tongtian had given her the Twelfth-Ranked White Lotus of Purification. Not only could it protect her against the chaotic energy, but it also converted the energy into qi and replenished her reserves.
Chaos did not know time, and Shitian could only barely sense the passage of time thanks to her faint connection to Tongtian, who was still in the Great Desolation.
Finally, she saw a world, but it wasn't like the Great Desolation. Or rather, it wasn't a world at all but a fragment of a world. Still, the karma line attached to her led her to this fragmented world, and she entered without much resistance.
Immediately, she noticed something wrong. The time flow of the fragmented world was extremely slow. If the Great Desolation moved as fast as a man's walk, then this fragmented world was moving at a snail's pace. In addition, although the memories she received from Tongtian were incomplete, the world definitely wasn't in a state of apocalypse like the world fragment in front of her.
Rather than a planet, the world only consisted of parts of a continent, and the rest seemed to have fractured into oblivion to parts unknown. It was a wonder that it still had a dimensional boundary to keep the chaotic energy from destroying it. Though, if this situation continued, it wouldn't last long either.
Most of the land had turned into a wasteland, and only little green patches were left. Whatever was left of the ocean had almost all disappeared, and the largest body of water could only be considered a large lake. Not only that, but ferocious monsters roamed the land, forcing humanity to be sequestered on the little livable land in what could only be called fortress cities.
Shitian followed the line of karma attached to her and invisibly descended into one of the many shacks inside a fortress city. There, a man was kneeling and praying to a totem.
"Supreme Grandmaster of Heaven, please bequeath to me a fraction of your divine might so that I can return safely from tomorrow scavenging."
