Chapter 861 - 334: Haotian
What kind of world lies beyond the Celestial Gate?
Even though he had made every preparation, when he truly crossed the Celestial Gate, some tension and a trace of anticipation inevitably surfaced in Fan Wubing’s heart.
The Heavenly Dao.
This existence that the world revered as supreme and unmatched was about to reveal its truth, its essence.
Fan Wubing first felt as if he had entered a huge white bubble. There was no sound, no color, no concrete things. He could not even sense his own body, cultivation, or soul; only his will was circling back and forth inside this enormous bubble.
"No time, no space, no qi, no Dao... is this what it feels like?"
It was like that feeling when a dream is about to end but not quite yet, hovering between reality and illusion.
This sense of detachment made Fan Wubing uneasy. It was like a person who couldn’t swim falling into water: his feet couldn’t touch the ground, his hands couldn’t grasp any support, and no matter how much he struggled, he would be swallowed up by the water.
He quickly calmed down and did not continue sinking into that "drowning terror."
The Celestial Demon will spread out in all directions.
It pushed the world beyond the Celestial Gate continuously toward the side of "reality."
The nine Demon Daos,
Blood, Slaughter, Greed, Rage, Seduction, Flesh, Beast, Decay, Nether.
The Celestial Demon will, which gathered the nine paths of resistance, was a symbol of destruction and subversion in the Mortal World, yet in this illusory world, it became the representative of creation and bestowal.
First, there was time. Fan Wubing could feel the flow of time, changing continuously, instant by instant. His will gradually grew more active within this changing time.
Then, there was space. Everything around him was no longer as if wrapped within a white bubble, but possessed all that space should have: dimensions, measures, coordinates of position.
From the moment time and space were established, the void completely dissipated.
This was a process from nothingness to existence, the starting point of "the One giving birth to all things" in the thought of the Daoist School.
Once space existed, Fan Wubing immediately shifted from a conceptual nothingness into a tangible existence. He had clearly become the first life in this world woven by the Celestial Demon will.
He felt the pulsation of his body, the flow of his blood. Every tiny change was so real, so lovable.
He manipulated time and space, allowing this world beyond the Celestial Gate to evolve rapidly on an incomparably grand scale.
That phrase "cang seas turning into mulberry fields," used to describe vast spans of time, here was occurring on the scale of "fleeting instants and minutiae."
A broad and open Great Way was paved out before him.
The Celestial Demon will told him that the Heavenly Dao he sought lay ahead.
Thus, he lifted his legs and strode forward.
The Celestial Demon will could turn intangible, ethereal will into actual existence. This was what Jiang Sha had called, for the Heavenly Dao, the greatest killing weapon.
Throughout the ages, there had been no shortage of those who challenged the Heavenly Dao.
Why had they all failed?
Because the Heavenly Dao was not a concrete existence at all; they could not even directly face the Heavenly Dao, nor treat it as an enemy to be campaigned against.
Jiang Sha had spent nearly ten thousand years before he found this path that could, in the truest sense, confront the Heavenly Dao face-to-face.
For the world, for himself, and also for her, Fan Wubing would, no matter what, hand in the best possible answer sheet.
He kept moving forward; wherever he walked, the road extended to there.
Until his eyes were filled by a gigantic white stone gate.
Above the stone gate hung a plaque with a blue background and gilded in gold, adorned with patterns of golden dragons, on which were written—
"Southern Celestial Gate."
This was something Fan Wubing could not be more familiar with.
Since that was the case, the place beyond the Southern Celestial Gate would be the Celestial Court.
According to what he knew, the Celestial Court had been established by the Daoist School after the war between Heaven and Man, in order to restore order to the world as quickly as possible. The immortals in the Celestial Court all used titles taken from real figures of ancient times, people who had become immortals and gods one step ahead, before the concept of "cultivation" had fully taken shape and the status of the Cultivation Realm had been established.
Among them, the leader was the "Emperor Haotian," also known as the Jade Emperor.
Then came The Three Pristine Ones: the three Celestial Venerables of Origin, Spiritual Treasure, and Morality.
Below them were in total one hundred and eight True Gods who had obtained the "Great Mandate."
These were the core figures who formed the Celestial Court.
However, these immortals who had existed in the distant ancient era had long since ascended.
Seeing the Celestial Court here, Fan Wubing could not help but think, "Could this place actually be the Immortal Realm after ascension?"
After pondering it carefully, he felt it was not.
As for what the so-called "ascension" really was in principle, he no longer believed it was as simple as cultivating to Mahayana, then crossing a tribulation to ascend to the Immortal Realm. The secret within might only be known once he met the Heavenly Dao.
Fan Wubing approached the Southern Celestial Gate.
Just as he stepped onto the stairs that led up to the Southern Celestial Gate, four colossal figures suddenly appeared in the air.
Judging from their appearances, from left to right they were respectively the King of Holding Country, the King of Growth, the King of Celestial Eyes, and the King of Many Hears.
"The Four Heavenly Kings... why is this exactly the same as the Celestial Court I know?"
In the heavenly myths he had known in his previous life, these four deities guarded the first gate of the Celestial Court.
Thinking about it carefully, the two worlds did indeed share many common points.
He had long since stopped treating this world as a game world. No matter how he thought about it, that was unrealistic. Surely a game produced by a batch of programmers, artists, and writers couldn’t possibly hide a world this vast and real.
Reaching this point, if he still thought that way, it would be a bit like deceiving himself.
"If I truly am the special one, then it can only be said that the world I lived in in my previous life really does have some connection with this world."