Chapter 271 - 270: The Five Great Secret Realms of the Body
The Central Continent’s Grand Court held its collective breath, paralyzed by the sheer sight that had just unfolded. In the center of the pulverized, smoking crater, Lin Yuan’s Primordial Spirit stood flawless and sovereign, completely regenerated by the absolute contingencies of the Origin Soul Revival Pill.
His deep purple eyes, glowing with the pure, terrifying light of the Origin, looked up at the Five Emperors, delivering a silent, arrogant decree that the Heavens themselves had failed to erase him.
But the Heavens do not possess an ego that can be shamed. The Heavenly Mandate is cold, merciless, and absolute. It recognized that the defier had survived. It recognized that the execution was incomplete. And because the effect of the Origin Soul Revival Pill was now entirely exhausted, the target was finally, and truly vulnerable, as his primordial spirit didn’t possess the mark again.
The jagged, black fissures in the sky, which had only momentarily paused their expansion, violently tore open further. The demonic aura of the Hollow Beyond bled into the atmosphere, but it was instantly incinerated as the abyssal clouds directly above Sky Jade City underwent a second, infinitely more violent shift.
The sky did not turn back to black. It ignited into a blinding hue of liquid gold and corrupted crimson.
"It is not over!" Emperor Tianxu roared, his eyes widening in sheer horror. He gripped the arms of his throne so tightly. "The Heavens does not leave someone half-burned! That mark restored him, but it did not end the tribulation!"
"The Fire Retribution is gathering again!" Emperor Xiyan bellowed, drawing his massive warlord blade as the ambient temperature in the arena skyrocketed to catastrophic levels. "His physical vessel is gone! He is standing there as a bare Primordial Spirit! The Heavenly Furnace is going to strike his naked soul and end it quickly!"
Down in the crater, Lin Yuan’s expression hardened. He felt the terrifying heat locking onto his spatial coordinates. The Heavenly Fire immediately descended as a solid pillar of absolute eradication, wider and infinitely denser than the first wave.
Lin Yuan did not run. His hands blurred into a sequence of seals.
[Heaven and Earth Shift]
He drew upon the absolute totality of his Early-Stage Soul Transformation power, projecting a massive spatial mirror directly above his head. The mirror was thick, layered with the conceptual weight of his Merged Dao, designed to catch the descending Hellstorm and redirect it back into the sky.
The pillar of golden-crimson heavenly fire struck the spatial mirror.
For exactly one-tenth of a breath, the barrier held. The resulting shockwave shattered the remaining spectator terraces of the Grand Court, sending tens of thousands of cultivators tumbling backward.
Then, with the sound of an expanse shattering, the spatial mirror exploded.
The Heaven and Earth Shift could not redirect the concentrated wrath of the Heaven’s itself. The spell fractured into a billion useless shards of light, and the Fire Retribution crashed down directly upon Lin Yuan’s bare Primordial Spirit.
"NO!" Bai Qingyue screamed from behind him. The sheer, overwhelming despair in her voice cut through the roaring flames like a physical blade. She threw herself forward, her hands glowing with the desperate, pale grey light of her own lifespan, fully prepared to burn away her existence to form the forbidden Life Seals despite his previous command.
"Cousin, stop! He forbade it!" Bai Chen yelled, tackling her to the ground alongside Su Yin, pinning her arms as tears streamed down the young man’s dirt-streaked face. "You cannot throw everything away!"
"Let me go! He’s going to die!" Bai Qingyue sobbed violently, struggling against them with the fierce strength of her new cultivation.
"It is an execution," Lord Zhao Shenming whispered, dropping to his knees, his eyes reflecting the inferno. The Provincial Lord pounded his fist against the cracked floor. "A double execution. The Heavens are ensuring the anomaly is completely erased from the annals of time."
In the upper terraces, the Chu Patriarch, Chu Wuhai, let out a hysterical, blood-soaked laugh, clutching his chest. "Burn! Burn you arrogant rat! The Heavens do not tolerate false like you! Die and turn to ash!"
"He should just die already!" Emperor Dongyu shouted from his throne, his Azure Dragon aura flaring with desperate panic as the demonic miasma from the Hollow Beyond poured through the widening cracks in the sky. "The seal is fracturing under the stress of this continuous Fire Retribution! If the Heavenly Fire goes on any longer, the Nine Heavens Ward will shatter completely! The demonic invasion will begin! For the sake of the Nine Provinces, his soul must be eradicated!"
"He is enduring," Emperor Beiming rumbled, his voice thick with a terrifying mix of awe and dread. "A bare Primordial Spirit submerged in the Heavenly Furnace... the pain must be worse than a billion deaths. He is being unmade atom by conceptual atom."
Inside the inferno, Lin Yuan was experiencing an agony that defied the limits of conscious thought.
Without his Rank 10 Ancient Beast Body to act as an insulated vessel, the flames were searing directly into his soul. Every second felt like an eternity of being chewed apart by the teeth of a dying star. The fire threatened to permanently obliterate his consciousness, leaving his spirit bare open for absolute annihilation.
With my physical body gone, fight this will be difficult, Lin Yuan thought, his mind beginning to fray at the edges. If I fight the fire with Qi, it merely uses my power as fuel. If I try to shift the space, the Dao shatters it.
Standing in the center of the Heavenly Furnace, Lin Yuan realized that brute resistance was futile.
If resistance is futile, Lin Yuan’s thought through the haze of unimaginable torment, then I must cease resisting. I should understand the flame.
Lin Yuan forcibly calmed his mind. He stopped circulating his defensive Qi. He allowed the Heavenly Fire to wash over his bare soul, embracing the agonizing dissolution.
With his Against Heaven Understanding, he spread his Divine Sense directly into the core of the golden-crimson flames.
The backlash was instantaneous and catastrophic. To probe the inner workings of the Heavenly Dao’s wrath was an act of courting death. A massive wave of conceptual feedback slammed into his Primordial Spirit. Lin Yuan "coughed," a spray of pure soul essence erupting from his lips, further destabilizing his existence. His spirit fractured, hairline cracks appearing across his glowing form.
But he held his gaze. Through the searing agony, his Against Heaven Understanding pierced the veil of the Fire Retribution.
Interesting! So it originates like this!
The Great Dao gives one, Lin Yuan recalled the saying. One gives two. Two gives three... the Three Rebirths. Three gives all things. But how does it give all things?
His mind raced, analyzing the structure of the Heavenly Fire. The fire was not an isolated element, it was a byproduct of the Origin.
𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺
The Origin gives fire. But fire is born of the elements. By going further... three gives four. Four gives five. Why stop at five?
The revelation struck him with the force of a hammer. Heaven and Earth was built upon a profound, and undeniable structure. The number five was the foundational cornerstone of all mortal and divine architecture.
They were the Five Elements, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water; the Five Directions are East, South, Center, West, and North; the Five Seasons are Spring, Summer, Late Summer, Autumn, and Winter;
The Five Colors are Green/Blue, Red, Yellow, White, and Black; the Five Sacred Beasts are the Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Yellow Qilin, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise; the Five Tastes are Sour, Bitter, Sweet, Spicy/Pungent, and Salty; the Five Sounds are Gong, Shang, Jue, Zhi, and Yu; and the Five Yin-Yang Organs are the Liver, Heart, Spleen, Lungs, and Kidneys.
The power of five, Lin Yuan realized, a transcendent clarity washing away the agony of his burning soul. One turns Heaven and Earth to five. The Heavenly Fire is not just destruction. It is the Fire element in its absolute, purest Origin state. If they have burned away my physical vessel, I will not simply accept death. I will use my merged Dao, tapping into the Origin at the intersection of my Thunder, Rain, and Three Rebirth Daos, to turn the one into five! I will use their own blade to build a fire-resistant body!