Chapter 1300: The Source of the Upper Realm's Great Calamity

"Yue, you don't know either?"

"Then let it take its course. Anything is fine."

Jiang Ding nodded.

The Dayang Dayang Tianchi Moon Spirit was, in essence, a cold array-spirit logic; yet now it was this lively, on the verge of birthing self-awareness and becoming a lifeform.

This was not without cause.

The reason lay in the indulgence of successive generations of Dayang Sword Disciples and Dayang Sword Masters, for Yue had accompanied them through their entire youth and held a special place in their hearts.

For this generation's Dayang Sword Disciple, it was the same.

It might even be more severe.

Because in his consciousness, his own adolescence had never truly ended, and the socialization and warmth peculiar to immortal-sect cultivators had further intensified this tendency.

He shared the same view on this matter with Zou Zou Xiyuan and the successive Dayang Sword Masters: he could single-handedly suppress all under heaven without needing to erase Yue's spiritual intelligence to do it, without any sacrifice required.

The ten True Honored Ones of the immortal sect, along with their avatars, had sunk into contemplation of immortal arts.

Right, body-tempering True Honored One Hua Hua Lingling was also present. Immortal-sect cultivators — doing research was instinct; whether human or panda, year after year of training had made it a professional skill.

In the distant past, Hua Hua Lingling's enlightenment teacher had been someone from Yuan's generation.

Suddenly, on the computer screen mounted on True Honored One Senior Wanji's mechanical neck, an image wreathed in black qi appeared. The monitoring array let out a blaring alarm, showing that his divine soul had fallen into extreme disorder.

Clang!

Jiang Ding immediately drew his sword.

The Materialist Solar Sword Soul simulated the Dayang Destruction Sword Soul, and the fluctuation transmitted into True Honored One Senior Wanji's ears: "Senior Senior Wanji, wake up!"

"Xi…"

True Honored One Senior Wanji gave a violent start, instantly snapping awake. Staring ahead in horror, he instinctively prepared to ignite his essence blood.

"Brat, you have a death wish!"

True Honored One Senior Wanji flew into a rage and on the spot flicked the green-robed youth before him on the forehead, shattering even space itself.

"Haha…"

Jiang Ding gave an awkward laugh.

He had instinctively done it that way, thinking it would be most effective — the best way to wake True Honored One Senior Wanji without harming him.

Though it seemed the effect had been a little too good.

"Senior, please forgive me!"

"I won't dare do it again."

Jiang Ding apologized repeatedly.

True Honored One Senior Wanji still appeared to have lingering anger, and gave him three more forehead flicks before huffing off to heal his injuries.

Igniting essence blood was no joke; compounded by the divine-soul damage from contemplating immortal arts, he had been hurt quite badly.

From then on, Jiang Ding behaved much more obediently, switching to a gentler method of waking them that was slightly less effective.

Over the following several decades, the immortal sect's True Honored Ones awoke one by one. The last to wake was

Yuan. He needed no one to wake him; he could rouse himself on his own, and went off on his own to the central array-spirit computer to monitor himself again and again, uploading his insights, lest inspiration slip away in an instant and be forgotten.

The likelihood of such things happening with immortal arts was very high; a cultivator's divine-soul memory was unreliable in the face of a higher essence.

Many of the sect's Soul Transformation cultivators had not come, because the threshold for safely contemplating immortal-art fragments — even with layer upon layer of sealing by the central array-spirit computer — required one to be at the Void Refinement Stage.

"Dayang, you've worked hard."

"According to the order, it's my turn to keep watch next."

After Yuan finished his self-check, he began taking over and spoke.

"Then I'll leave it to you, Senior Yuan."

Jiang Ding sat down as instructed.

He no longer suppressed the torrent of thoughts in his mind; his divine soul completely relaxed, and he sank into contemplation of the immortal-art fragment.

In a haze, he lost all sense of time passing.

It seemed many years had passed, and yet also only an instant.

Within the river of time stretching through endless ages, Jiang Ding once again saw that blurred figure.

It stood upon the Dao of Rules, amid endless star rivers, and struck out with a palm. Within that palm lay metal, wood, water, fire, earth; within it lay time, space, and cause-and-effect.

The entire world fell silent because of it.

Everything within the heavens and star rivers — rules, time, space, the flow of the star rivers, the breath of living beings, the propagation of light, the existence of cause-and-effect… all of it — froze solid.

Then, the entire world contracted toward a single point at its center, shifting from three dimensions into a thin, flat painting, its thickness approaching zero without limit.

A gust of wind blew past, and cracks appeared on the painting, which slowly crumbled apart.

Everything within this world, this universe, these star rivers vanished — including several Minor Thousand Worlds and countless cosmic stars.

Even from the memories of the world and all living beings, they vanished.

These Minor Thousand Worlds, these cosmic stars, and the cultivators who had originated from those Minor Thousand Worlds forgot everything — even though their own parents, wives, and children had been in those vanished lesser worlds.

In the time that followed, many cultivators who had lost loved ones were inexplicably sorrowful and grief-stricken, yet no matter what could not know the reason, could not know why they grieved.

All cause-and-effect, all memory, within it ceased to exist.

This was — Immortal Art · Suppressing the Void!

Jiang Ding's heart was shaken beyond words, and filled with terror.

The first time he had contemplated an immortal art had been in the Northern Plains, near Tushan Xiancheng, when he was still at the Golden Core Stage, at Jin Dan Zhong Qi; he had seen a similar scene then.

To this day, his strength was countless times greater than his own from over five thousand years ago. He had thought he might have some room to spare, yet unexpectedly he had fallen once more into an even more horrifying state.

He saw information magnified tens of thousands

of times flooding into his mind, rapidly distorting his cognition.

In a trance, he seemed to transform into a twisted giant beast named "Zhenkong," born with a thousand hands and a thousand feet, twisting everything, suppressing the Five Elements, severing Yin and Yang, and blocking time...

"Wake up!"

Yuan shouted low.

His expression was stern, his voice piercing the divine soul of the Great Sun Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun like a sharp sword; this was not a simple shout of questioning, but rather a direct initiation of a divine soul attack, aiming to activate the sword cultivator's sword soul survival instinct.

The green-robed youth's mad expression froze.

"Pfft!"

Jiang Ding spat out a mouthful of blood, his body collapsing like a crumbling structure, his clothes stained red with fresh blood.

The only thing that brought relief to the heart was that his eyes regained their brightness, the sword soul began to take control of the body, clearing the various chaos appearing on him, and his magic power and divine sense began to restore order.

He began to improve, not having completely succumbed.

Yuan checked Jiang Ding over, found no severe injuries remained, felt relieved, and asked, "Did you gain any realization?"

Perhaps due to the innate flying sword, the Great Sun Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun's resistance to immortal arts was the highest among those present, which was precisely why he was the first to stand guard.

Now, however, he had suffered the most severe injury.

Yuan guessed this might be because the realization was too deep, seeing more of the essence of immortal arts, being polluted, changed, and struck by chaotic and unknown knowledge.

"Senior, there is no critical knowledge, only a secret rumor."

"A secret rumor regarding the emergence of immortal arts."

Jiang Ding silently healed his wounds, caught his breath, and then spoke somewhat weakly.

The reason for the emergence of immortal arts?

The surrounding Void Refining True Venerables' hearts trembled.

A haze surrounded them, spiritual energy fluctuating; this came from the Great Sun Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun's divine sense, projecting a hazy scene.

The scene was blurry and indistinct, as if separated by an extremely vast distance, an extremely vast time, and... an extremely vast dimension, so that low-level cultivators could not see anything clearly, seeing only two blurry figures.

These two figures were too blurry; one could not even see if they were humanoid, only instinctively sensing words like 'greatness', 'immortality', 'time', and 'eternal life'.

These two indescribable existences whispered.

Perhaps their conversation was merely a few words, but to low-realm beings, it seemed as if countless years had passed.

The secrets of the endless Dao flowed within it; the fates of countless worlds and countless living beings in the universe were displayed between their words; the general fate of living beings in a universe for the next several hundred thousand years was revealed, clear as a palm print, as common knowledge.

All Jiang Ding could hear were fragments of words.

"... Hate..."

"... Sea of blood... selfishness..."

"... Dao Lords and Immortal Kings all fell... a great calamity must come... now with Zhenkong, transmit the Dao to the starry sky, with humble power to mend the blue sky..."

The conversation between the two indescribable beings ended here.

It was not that they only said these things, but that these were the only things understandable to low-level beings; low-level beings did not possess the divine soul structure to understand high-level beings and could not bear that information.