On the Path to the Great Dao

Chen Shi and Yang Bi were not tailing Zhong Wuwang, they were following Fang Zhenxiu.

Zhong Wuwang’s cultivation was too high. If they tracked him directly, he would easily notice. Even a stray thought attached to him would be hard to hide. But Fang Zhenxiu was only a five-year-old boy, and Chen Shi and Yang Bi could freely tether their thoughts to him without fear.

Zhong Wuwang’s Blue Phoenix carriage had been smashed by Creation Little Five, and the Blue Phoenix itself had been roasted and eaten, so the master and disciple had no choice but to travel on foot.

It wasn’t long before a Venerated Lord of the Heaven's Listeners delivered a Tianlu carriage, pulled by a Tianlu, moving at great speed.

Chen Shi and Yang Bi trailed the Tianlu, seeing the carriage head straight for Nan Di Province. Nan Di Province lay at the far south of the Western Ox New Continent, a peninsula jutting into the Sea of Darkness, a place Chen Shi had visited while sealing gods.

Nan Di Province was tempestuous and a key border defense, garrisoned by border troops, vigilant against sea monsters invading from the ocean.

The locals were fierce; many were former border troops who resisted official orders. Killings of officials were not uncommon.

As they trailed the Tianlu carriage, Chen Shi and Yang Bi compared the Celestial Immortal Finger shamanic ritual markings they had each obtained. Each had grasped three or four tenths of the patterns; combined they still didn’t reach half, and much of the ritual markings overlapped.

Both continued studying on their own. Chen Shi, aided by the new talisman breakthroughs that Little Duan Immortal had helped decode, used those new symbols as a base and quickly grasped the inner workings of the shamanic ritual patterns. Yang Bi, though lacking that specific foundation, was extraordinarily clever, so it was only a matter of time before he comprehended them as well.

The Tianlu carriage kept heading south, and Chen Shi and Yang Bi exchanged surprised looks. “If we go further south, we’ll reach the coast.”

Strangely, the carriage did drive toward the shore, but when it reached the water it didn’t stop; instead it plunged into the sea.

Chen Shi and Yang Bi stood at the shoreline and watched. Once off land, the ocean swallowed the sunlight; they could only see the carriage keep sinking deeper into the Sea of Darkness.

Sea monsters noticed the carriage and let out chilling roars, as if calling their mates.

From a distance Chen Shi saw Zhong Wuwang step out of the carriage, stand on the axle, and use spells and divine techniques to slay the monsters that surged toward the Tianlu carriage.

Gradually the carriage vanished into the blackness, with occasional flashes of light from Zhong Wuwang’s spells piercing the Sea of Darkness.

The sea held countless monsters. Entering it would invite pursuit, and with the ocean’s pitch-black depths and disorienting currents, even if they could fend off the beasts they might lose their way and perish at sea.

The Western Ox New Continent was isolated in the ocean; many had tried to leave it, but none survived.

Chen Shi and Yang Bi hesitated. If they followed Zhong Wuwang into the sea, they risked meeting the same fate as those who had tried to leave the continent.

“If Er Niu dares to go, there must be a foothold in the sea. Let’s move!” Chen Shi went first and stepped into the water.

Yang Bi followed at once.

They followed the faint light of Zhong Wuwang’s spells through the Sea of Darkness. The moment they left land and stepped onto the sea, both felt a strange sensation, as if the laws of heaven and earth warped and grew chaotic.

The sensation wasn’t strong, but unmistakably present—an uneasy twist and muddling of the natural order.

The degree of distortion wasn’t huge, but enough to be troublesome.

“The great way’s rules are warped; something must be affecting the Sea of Darkness,” Yang Bi said. He reached out and traced the air; a long line formed, thousands of zhang long at both ends, emitting a faint glow.

“This line curves slightly, yet I clearly drew a straight line. That means the ‘straight’ rule of the great way has curvature here.”

He scanned the area and continued, “It seems minor, but if straight lines bend it affects many rules—heaven-earth laws, spatial principles—they’ll all be distorted. What force is twisting the great way here?”

Chen Shi crouched, scooped a handful of seawater, and said, “This Sea of Darkness used to be formed by primordial qi. How did the Primordial Sea turn into the Sea of Darkness?”

The water in his hand remained black, giving no sign of primordial qi’s form.

“We follow Zhong Wuwang,” Yang Bi’s voice came from ahead. “If we lose them, beware—you could get lost in the Sea of Darkness!”

Chen Shi picked up his pace. Following the flash from Zhong Wuwang’s spells, they pushed forward.

With Zhong Wuwang clearing a path ahead, monsters didn’t trouble them and their progress was steady.

But the warped laws of the Sea of Darkness caused issues. For instance, when they followed the spell’s light for about a thousand zhang, they’d drift roughly a zhang off course.

Within a thousand zhang that was manageable, but the farther they went, the bigger the deviation.

Chen Shi’s Heaven-Earth Variation, his inversion technique, experienced strange problems when cast here. The technique risked severe power loss.

Yang Bi’s Jade Emperor Nine Heavens Register had a similar issue. The Register attacked through musical spells—celestial tones containing the great way’s subtleties and immense power—but on the sea the music distorted.

If the music changed, the embedded Dao techniques could mutate or even lose potency.

“If people lived in this sea region, would they be affected and become warped?” Chen Shi wondered aloud. “Are those sea monsters beings whose nature was altered by this distortion? Perhaps they scramble ashore to escape the twisted laws.”

At that moment Yang Bi whispered, “There’s something ahead.”

Chen Shi focused forward. In the Sea of Darkness a towering behemoth rose above the water, massive and somber, pressing on them with an invisible weight.

Chen Shi moved his mind, the Tianluo Blood-Transforming Divine Blade fell into his hand, and the Blood Sea Hell manifested slowly behind him as he advanced.

Yang Bi took a step back, eyes fixed on the dark colossus, preparing for defense.

After a moment Chen Shi exhaled, lowered the blade, and smiled. “It’s just a mountain.”

Yang Bi relaxed and chuckled, “Gave me a fright.”

Beyond the mountain was a coastline.

They landed on the shore and, for the first time in that black sea, sunlight reached them and warmed their skin. They looked up and saw two suns hanging in the sky, both startling to behold.

“This place must be part of the Western Ox New Continent, so the Celestial True God’s gaze can still reach it!”

They climbed the mountain and entered a shattered, chaotic domain: land fragments of varying sizes, some plunged into the sea, some hanging in the air, scattered and disordered. On some fragments huge, magnificent buildings still stood.

Giant sea monsters had occupied some structures. Nearby a building was tightly coiled by a wet, slimy immense body—one such monster basked lazily in the sun.

Farther off, behind the latticed window of a pavilion, a room-sized eye suddenly opened, peeking at Chen Shi and Yang Bi.

The two walked across the sky, scanning the scene.

This place was prehistoric relics—ruins unlike normal human dwellings. The buildings were enormous and resplendent, and between many pavilions and towers remnants of immortal qi and radiant light still lingered.

Chen Shi flew forward to a strand of radiant light. It emitted faint immortal qi, pure and genuine.

“This doesn’t look like a small world self-claimed by Great Shang immortals,” Chen Shi said.

Yang Bi came up behind him. Chen Shi continued, “In the Great Shang era, immortals created shattered small worlds to avoid corruption. Many Great Shang immortals sealed fragmented realms, but none of those small worlds were this prosperous.”

Yang Bi carefully sensed the immortal qi in the radiance and grew thoughtful. “I once heard the thirteen ancestral masters speak of the True King era. They said many Great Shang immortals were discovered then, but when unearthed they quickly turned evil and became calamities.”

Chen Shi nodded lightly. “I’ve read about that too. Probably because those immortals were born in fractured realms and kept from full integration. Once extracted, they fuse with the external heavens and earth and inevitably corrupt, becoming disasters. But this place is not merely a shattered small world.”

He scanned the area and said gravely, “This radiance is formed by a great way rule—left by an immortal’s divine technique or treasure. I’ve seen similar light before.”

The True Martial Exorcising Sword, the sword used to slay Daoist Tianzhen, emitted similar radiance.

Touching such radiance would strip away half of a being’s flesh, killing them in gruesome fashion.

An immortal battle had been fought here.

They pressed forward. The surrounding halls and towers were grand despite their ruin; patterns on the buildings remained exquisitely beautiful.

Suddenly Chen Shi stopped in front of a largely collapsed Heavenly Aperture and examined it closely. The pillar reliefs depicted goddesses eating Dark Bird eggs and conceiving Great Shang ancestors. Other reliefs narrated generations of Shang kings struggling and honoring ancestors as they grew in power.

One relief showed a Shang king conquering the Heavenly Emperor and declaring himself emperor.

Chen Shi’s mind stirred. “This might be the Great Shang Celestial Court!”

He then noticed another relief showing the Great Shang Celestial Court defeated and driven from their homeland.

“We should hurry, or we’ll lose Zhong Wuwang!” Yang Bi’s voice called from ahead.

Chen Shi cast one more glance at that relief and hurried to catch up, but the scenes from the carvings lingered in his mind.

In the depiction of the Celestial Court’s defeat, three Daoists stood with dazzling halos behind their heads.

“Could they be the Three Purities?” he thought.

According to Great Shang legend, the Three Purities rose then, supported Haotian the Supreme Emperor to seize the Heavenly Emperor’s throne.

They saw more ruined structures and many shattered immortal treasures still radiating formidable power. On one fragment of land, a surviving immortal tree bore bright red fruit that exuded a tempting fragrance.

Two gigantic sea monsters battled beside that tree, smashing the heavens and earth over the fruit—clearly vying for it.

Yang Bi said, “With the great way warped here, the fruits on that immortal tree are probably no ordinary boon. Eating them could have unknown consequences.”

Chen Shi looked below and saw piles of beast bones as high as mountains—likely the remains of sea monsters that had eaten the fruit and been reduced to skeletons.

“If the great way is distorted, even immortal fruit can become deadly poison. What happened to the Primordial Sea?” he frowned.

They found a massive divine skeleton toppled under a building, face-down, its chest pierced and gaping.

Yang Bi said, “This divine skeleton should be a Great Shang ancestral god, killed here and turned to bone. The scorch marks on its bones are not the shamanic ritual markings of the Celestial Immortal Finger!”

They walked on.

“Wait!” Chen Shi called out.

Yang Bi halted.

Chen Shi inspected the wound in the Shang ancestor’s skeleton. The fracture surface was covered with many shamanic ritual markings, as if during the battle the ancestor had activated these patterns to ward off attacks, yet was still pierced and robbed of all vitality.

Chen Shi reached out and touched the broken bone. Many of the ritual marks on the fracture were shattered, which shocked him.

Shamanic ritual markings carried the apex wisdom of the Great Shang era—they were patterns of the great way, containing Dao’s mysteries.

Breaking those ritual markings meant the attacker could shatter the collective wisdom that formed the Shang people’s Dao!

He hurried to catch up to Yang Bi, who stood dazed ahead. Chen Shi arrived at his side and looked forward, stunned.

A vast Celestial Court floated in chaos above them, torn and suspended in the sky. Light from the Celestial True God’s eyes streamed down, illuminating the shattered fragments and ruined pavilions. Corpses of Great Shang ancestral gods lay scattered among the broken court.

Yang Bi murmured, “What in the world happened in that era?”

Chen Shi composed himself and spoke, “My wife said when the sun and moon were covered by flesh, the world suddenly turned evil. I think a powerful, evil force invaded and caused the Great Shang Celestial Court’s fall.”

Based on what he knew, he guessed aloud, “Ancestor gods don’t need to unify with the Dao, so they would be least affected. Great Shang immortals, however, would be hit hardest. Thus ancestor gods sought the evil source and fought it.”

He paused, then added, “Clearly they were defeated.”

Yang Bi nodded silently, feeling a sting of sorrow. “Such a mighty Celestial Court still fell. Chen True King, do we have any hope?”

Chen Shi smiled. “Yang Bi, when I ascend to immortalhood I will show you hope! When heaven and earth fuse with my way, the world will change!”

Yang Bi, stirred by his grand words, felt his heart surge, but then thought of Chen Shi’s sly, mischievous nature and hesitated.

They continued tracking Zhong Wuwang’s Tianlu carriage, moving deeper into the Great Shang Celestial Court. They sensed the carriage nearby and slowed their pace.

Here the Celestial Court was even more thoroughly broken, with fragments everywhere and almost no intact buildings.

“Haha, there it is!” Zhong Wuwang’s voice rang out, full of joy.

Chen Shi and Yang Bi exchanged looks.

Zhong Wuwang held a piece of dry bone in his hand and suddenly sensed something, shouting, “Who’s hiding there?”

He instantly unleashed profound energy, elevating his aura to the extreme. Two masked figures lunged at him in tandem, each using the Celestial Immortal Finger. Zhong Wuwang sneered, “Chen Shi, you actually followed!”

As his Celestial Immortal Finger manifested, the masked opponent across from him also deployed the Celestial Immortal Finger. At the moment their fingertip forces collided, the rear masked figure darted out and used the Celestial Immortal Finger too, striking the wrist of the bone-holding hand!

Zhong Wuwang’s mind thundered; his palm went limp and the second masked figure snatched the bone from him.

“Got it! Run!” the second masked figure shouted.

The two masked figures immediately leapt back.

Zhong Wuwang raged, summoned his Innate Dao Embryo and bellowed, “Chen Shi! Yang Bi! Since you’re here, why hide and dodge?”