God’s appearance froze the big akasha ghost in place. The ancient spear in the former’s hand had felled the heavens and was an ultimate treasure of the chaos that was on par with Worldcarver. If God wanted to kill the big akasha ghost, it wouldn’t be able to escape this time, no matter what it tried.
However, God ignored the ghost and stabbed his spear at the Dao Tree.
“AHHHHHH!!” A bleak wail rang out from the tree as the four-headed, eight-armed origin divine charged out from its trunk and attempted to escape the premises.
God swiftly followed up with a second thrust and stabbed the bronze spear into the origin divine, sounding the final death knell for the lingering obsession of a wrongdoer from a primitive era.
Boom.
The origin divine went rigid, then disintegrated in an explosive burst. The last traces of the first divine spirit of the world finally dispersed upon the wind, altering the mammoth body of the Dao Tree. It shed the look of the origin divine and reverted to the appearance of a tree.
Deep-rooted fear flashed across the laughing and crying face as both God and Pangu turned around to face the big akasha ghost.
“So you two used the power of space and time to travel to this era and avoid pursuit from my tribe!” No emotion could be read from the ambiguous face, as if it’d accepted its impending fate.
There were two creators present; one of them was even its bane and would counter it fatally. The big akasha ghost harbored no desire to resist its doom. All it wanted now was to be set free and returned to the chaos.
“Flame Emperor, we leave the world of immortals in your hands. While the two of us have manifested with the aid of your combat arts, our true forms are suppressing a terrifying existence. We won’t be able to maintain the status quo for long, so you must grow stronger as soon as possible. Else, another cataclysm will descend upon this realm,” Pangu said seriously to Lu Yun.
“You two aren’t dead?” Lu Yun’s eyes lit up.
He’d never seen the two great personages before, but their traces were everywhere to be found from the great wilderness to the current world of immortals. Lu Yun had seen both of their corpses with his own eyes, but the great god seemed to be telling him now that they were still alive.
“We did die… but were reborn due to the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak using his power over reincarnation,” responded God.
“Tianqi?” Lu Yun smiled despite himself. “So that child didn’t let me down, after all.”
The big akasha ghost, Dao Tree, Pangu, and God looked around awkwardly to hear Lu Yun call the terrifying master of human hell and Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak “that child”. Tianqi’s cultivation had risen by leaps and bounds after Lu Yun’s departure from the great wilderness. He’d even replaced the Yellow Emperor at one point to become the strongest expert among the human race and the protagonist of the world!
The hell of human dao had been born after Lu Yun’s departure and the system of reincarnation established. Back then, Tianqi had utilized the new system to free himself from the body of the Mount Tai mountain ghost and transform himself into a human being.
“Ah, yes,” Lu Yun suddenly asked. “If the two honorable great gods have been born, what about Hongjun? Has he truly perished?”
He’d also taken a strand of Hongjun’s soul force, but it’d rooted in one of the Hell Flowers—an indication that the owner had died. However, Lu Yun didn’t believe this outcome, that the distinguished and otherworldly Hongjun really had departed from the world.
“Hongjun?” God started, then said, “He wasn’t a creature of our realm. He had to die if he wanted to become part of this world. He had to scatter upon the wind and extinguish his true spirit before recollecting it and being reborn through reincarnation.”
“Alright, we shall be on our way now. Keep a careful eye on God’s body that you placed in the celestial master tomb. Don’t let anything have a chance to possess it,” Pangu suddenly interjected.
The akasha ghost’s eyes brightened briefly before returning to normal.
Pangu and God faded away at the same time, taking Lu Yun’s projections with them. However, Worldcarver and the spear now known as Heavenfall drifted down into Lu Yun’s hands. He could feel the terrible strength pulsing inside of them the second they landed in his grasp.
Lu Yun slowly lifted his head and looked at the big akasha ghost and Dao Tree. The other akasha ghosts and human traitors that had surrounded this area all scattered the moment that Pangu and God left.
“We’re leaving!” The big akasha ghost and Dao Tree made a run for it as well. The tree shot into the sky as a hazy gray shadow, trying to flee from the world of immortals entirely.
How would Lu Yun allow it the chance to do so?
Whirling into motion, Worldcarver trailed a current of chaos energy behind it and crashed down upon the Dao Tree.
Craaaaack.
The axe chopped solidly into the demonic tree that’d been rooted in the immortal dao for a hundred million years. Time froze for the briefest of moments; when it resumed, the Dao Tree flew apart into dust with an explosive roar.
There was no time to dwell on this incredible accomplishment. Qing Yu immediately sent the Scroll of Shepherding Immortals forward as a long chain to wrap around the big akasha ghost, slowing it down for a split second.
Lu Yun spun around with residual momentum from his first strike and stabbed the spear into the big akasha ghost.
It shrieked one final piercing scream before the dreadful might of a treasure from the chaos reduced it to nonexistent particles.
……
Incomprehension descended over the immortals of the multiverse. They didn’t know the history of the great wilderness and were unaware of the significance of God and Pangu. Likewise, they had no idea what this Flame Emperor of the human race represented.
All they knew was that the Dao Tree had been destroyed.
It had been a demonic tree that countless immortals both yearned for and were petrified of. They longed for the dao fruits on its branches and shrank from the endless long-haired creatures around it. Everyone risked their lives without hesitation to pluck dao fruits, and even more of them had been devoured by the tree.
There were an unlimited number of residents in the world of immortals even after the great war a hundred thousand years ago. The world boasted of at least a hundred million immortals, but fewer than ten thousand dao immortals.
All of them had instantaneously lost their goal in cultivation with the destruction of the Dao Tree. Was peerless immortal now the final pursuit of immortality?
Those who were dao immortals were even more lost. Whether they were aether dao, arcane dao, crippled or flawless origin dao… all could clearly feel their dao fruits begin to fall to pieces within their body. Even their strength was beginning to subside.
……
“With heaven and earth as dao, and the cosmos as fruit!” Lu Yun’s voice rang throughout the world. “I do hereby sacrifice mine body to make whole the immortal dao!” [1]
Booooom.
Bronze radiance blasted from Mount Xuanhuang and soared into the atmosphere, past the nine heavens and through the World Gates. Xing Chen’s body began to disassemble in the light.
The organs of the world melted away, the nine connate spirit roots disintegrated, and the ultimate treasures of the five elements also began to melt into the Cosmic Sea, Cosmic Eyes, and Cosmic Skycarver.
A tiny speck of chaos formed in the illumination of Mount Xuanhuang. Lu Yun’s great dao soared into the sky to combine with that point of foundation.
KABOOM!!
The tiny speck exploded with a soundless roar, sprinkling across space as a true night sky and swiftly expanding in all directions to envelop the world of immortals!
Lu Yun could clearly sense in this moment that his replica had broken through to truly reach the creator realm and created a real cosmos!
“The dao immortal realm is whole, the path of immortality clear. Dao Flower, manifest!” Qing Yu sang a profound note into the void, summoning the Dao Flower into being.
The immortal dao residing in Mount Xuanhuang entered the flower and traveled through the cosmos as the Dao Flower bloomed, reaching the entire world, galaxy, and multiverse! In this moment, all immortals glimpsed the immortal dao and the new dao immortal realm within.
With the cosmos as dao fruit!
……
Two pillars of dreamlike luster shrouded Lu Yun and Qing Yu.
“Little Yu, will you be my dao partner?”
“I will.”
They smiled at each other.
1. The characters for Xing Chen’s name also mean cosmos, so this is a bit of wordplay. I made the mistake the first time of thinking he meant his actual replica.
