Chapter 622: The Origin of Power

Inside the Cloud-Top Palace.

The woman in the immortal dress watched with suspicion and uncertainty.

She had not expected things to turn out this way.

She had clearly viewed Chen Yan as her great enemy when Lu Jianxia was passing the trials.

She had clearly seen Lu Jianxia make a vow that she would definitely kill Chen Yan.

What was it that caused Lu Jianxia to change?

She did not know.

She did not understand, and then with a wave of her hand, Chen Yan's figure appeared inside the Cloud-Top Palace, his head hanging low.

"Chen Yan." The woman in the immortal dress spoke:

"Life is just like this."

Her heart felt somewhat complicated; she felt as if she had played the villain.

By now, she also understood that she seemed to have done something wrong.

But she was the Master of Martial Dao, and her original intention was for Chen Yan's sake, so naturally, she could not apologize.

Most importantly, she still had to preach the Dao to Chen Yan.

Chen Yan had endured endless pressure from his battle with Chi Xue.

Facing her preaching, Chen Yan would certainly be even more cautious.

"Chen Yan?"

The woman in the immortal dress continued to ask, her brows furrowing; Chen Yan was actually ignoring her.

She sighed inwardly, preparing to ask again.

The next moment.

"Since I have already arrived at this place, what are you still waiting for?" A low shout suddenly rang out.

The woman in the immortal dress was startled; Chen Yan was saying these words again—who exactly was he talking to?

No.

The woman in the immortal dress stood up abruptly, a look of shock and anger appearing in her eyes:

"What exactly do you know?"

Suddenly.

Clatter!

The sound of chains roaring rang out.

The eyes of the woman in the immortal dress trembled, and she wanted to strike.

The next instant.

A wave of inexplicably powerful force suddenly appeared, suppressing her to the ground.

"Damn it, what... is going on with you?"

The woman in the immortal dress shrieked, an inexplicable fear appearing in her eyes.

She looked at Chen Yan, only to see that Chen Yan was ignoring her entirely, instead standing on a chain and being carried toward the back of the palace by the chains.

"Chen Yan, you..."

The gaze of the woman in the immortal dress shrank, and the next instant she shouted in a low voice:

"Who exactly are you!"

Her spirit was shaking; why would that existence invite Chen Yan in such a manner?

Why did it seem as if Chen Yan had known from the very beginning that that existence was here?

At this moment, even she was utterly bewildered.

The next instant.

Chen Yan appeared inside a dim room.

With a *snap*.

Inside the room, light appeared.

An old man wearing white robes was sitting cross-legged on the floor, revealing a strange smile at Chen Yan.

"Do not worry too much, that youngster is not dead."

Inside the room.

Chen Yan had more or less guessed the way in which Lu Jianxia had extinguished her own consciousness.

Life has many ways of existing.

Just like Chen Yan, if his consciousness died in this place, it did not mean that Chen Yan would truly die.

His Will Divine Body had always been another life for Chen Yan.

As for Lu Jianxia.

The other party was the third Will Martial Artist in the world to enter the second realm of the Will Dao.

She had also already condensed her own Will Divine Body.

It was just that Lu Jianxia would certainly be severely injured.

After all, she was not the Master of Will, and her understanding of the Will Dao was far from as profound as Chen Yan's.

Lu Jianxia wanted Chen Yan to find her and repair her Will Divine Body.

In this way, Lu Jianxia would be able to be resurrected once more.

The Purple Universe World-Fixing Mirror set the rules.

But little did it know, Chen Yan was also a creator of rules.

Chen Yan's expression was complex as he looked at the old man before him:

"Greetings, fellow Daoist."

Chen Yan still felt a sense of lament in his heart.

He had originally thought that the one here would be Xue Qi, but he had not expected it to be the Master of Horizontal Refining.

Regarding this person, he truly could not bring himself to approve.

"Seeing me, you seem very unhappy?"

A trace of coldness inadvertently leaked from the old man, and that aura of looking down upon the world spilled out unconsciously.

Chen Yan did not speak.

The old man merely let out a cold snort, and the next moment, a glimmer of sharpness appeared in his eyes.

"You cannot blame me; I am but a wisp of a remnant soul and cannot interfere with the rules of the Purple Universe World-Fixing Mirror.

If I were to interfere, the Purple Universe World-Fixing Mirror would tremble, and everyone within this place might die."

He revealed a powerful self-confidence unintentionally.

Even if it were only a wisp of a remnant soul, it would still possess powerful lethality.

"I sensed what happened between you and that wisp of my remnant soul within the College Entrance Examination Secret Realm.

Very good, you are very good."

The old man stood up and said indifferently:

"I kindly lectured on the Dao for you, the Ten Thousand Phases Island also saved you once, and now I have pulled you here.

You are actually unwilling to even say the word 'Senior'?"

Chen Yan took a deep breath:

"Senior."

Regarding this person, Chen Yan truly felt conflicted.

He had harmed his own son, the Master of Blood Qi.

He had caused the successive rulers of the Great Xia to suffer from the Imperial Calamity.

And these two people—one was Chen Yan's comrade-in-arms, and the other was Chen Yan's mentor.

Yet, the other party had also founded the Great Xia and brought a new birth to the human race.

"Hmph." The old man let out a cold snort and spoke to himself:

"Do you know why my granddaughter and I are in this place?"

Chen Yan did not speak, but the old man continued to talk to himself:

"In the past, I had already annihilated her and made her become a Province Bright of a province.

But she was clever; she preserved a wisp of her divine soul and fled out of the Great Xia, and I split off this wisp of a remnant soul to pursue her.

I did not expect this wisp of a remnant soul to be tricked by her into the Purple Universe World-Fixing Mirror, where it was suppressed for ten thousand years."

He recounted with extreme calmness the process of how he had annihilated his own granddaughter and was later backstabbed by her.

To the other party, even a Master of Martial Dao was nothing more than a Province Bright that could be utilized.

"You should hate her; if she had not fled, the Great Xia would not be in such danger today.

Perhaps it could have remained stable for another thousand years or more."

The old man sighed:

"I had originally thought that my true self would sense that I had been suppressed and would come to annihilate her.

But my true self did not come."

At this moment, even he revealed a look of complexity.

Even he himself was clear that it was he who had intentionally left his granddaughter a path to survive.

At the same time, he had also caused the Great Xia to encounter a powerful upheaval a thousand years earlier.

The old man chuckled:

"Therefore, in my view, if you had truly killed that youngster named Lu Jianxia, it would have been a rather good choice.

Once a person has a weakness, they are no longer complete."

Chen Yan glanced at the old man:

"That is not my weakness."

"If it is not a weakness, then what is it?" The old man sneered.

"Senior harmed the Master of Blood Qi; have you ever felt remorse?" Chen Yan asked.

The white-haired old man was startled, narrowed his eyes, and looked coldly at Chen Yan.

Immediately, he shook his head:

"If an ordinary person dared to speak to me like this, they would have already perished."

Yet at this moment, he sighed:

"Actually, I am filled with remorse at every moment."

He slowly shook his head.

"Different remnant souls have different feelings; perhaps it is because this remnant soul of mine has been imprisoned in this place for too long.

I have long since lost the decisiveness of those years."

Chen Yan also noticed that this Master of Horizontal Refining was somewhat different from the one he had met in the College Entrance Examination Secret Realm.

That one was self-opinionated and incomparably overbearing; he would never reflect like this one did.

"This junior believes that the evil of man is always greater than the evil of the world," Chen Yan said:

"If I cannot even preserve the last shred of kindness born of being human, then in the end, I might be the one who destroys the world."

Chen Yan's voice was calm:

"This junior accepts all challenges from the outside world and from within myself, and likewise accepts the challenges posed by the malice of others."

As his voice fell, the white-haired old man stood where he was, looking at Chen Yan for a long time.

His gaze was complex, then turned icy, and he did not speak for a long time.

He sat cross-legged and looked at Chen Yan:

"Do you know what the eighth realm above the Creation Realm is?"

Chen Yan shook his head, knowing that the name of the eighth rank required bearing some immense pressure.

The vast majority of those in the Creation Realm also do not know the name of the eighth rank.

Unable to pry, unable to understand, filled with awe.

The white-haired old man, however, looked at Chen Yan and said calmly:

"Calamity Light."

As his voice fell, Chen Yan's pupils shrank.

In a trance, a series of illusions suddenly appeared deep within Chen Yan's mind.

The universe was vast, countless stars were brilliant, and immense darkness and strange existences lingered in the corners of the universe.

The endless grandeur almost swallowed the Chen Yan of this moment.

This was the illusion produced in Chen Yan's mind after the old man spoke the two words "Calamity Light."

That magnificent and miraculous cosmic illusion almost completely engulfed Chen Yan's existence.

The next moment.

Boom!

Deep in the endless universe, an intensely brilliant, indescribable ray of light erupted.

Boom—!

Under the erosion of this light.

All the stars shattered like glass, and the galaxies twisted into black holes.

Space cracked, the light annihilated, and the vast universe instantly fell into deathly silence and nothingness.

Everything vanished.

Even Chen Yan was deathly pale at this moment.

Only in the next instant did he recover.

He felt as if he had personally experienced that scene of cosmic destruction.

He felt as if he, like billions of specks of dust, had his very existence completely destroyed by that great destruction.

In the face of the universe, all living beings are mere insects.

It destroys, and you will also be destroyed.

You are destroyed, and it never cares.

All of this was just because he heard those two words.

If Chen Yan was like this, then ordinary people in the Creation Realm hearing these two words would likely die instantly.

Seeing Chen Yan emerge from the illusion, the white-haired old man nodded:

"You are a Master of Martial Dao, after all; it would be stranger if you couldn't withstand the karma of these two words."

He sized up Chen Yan and continued:

"Sense where your physical body is."

Chen Yan nodded, sensing his own physical body inside the forging room.

After ascending to the Creation Realm, Chen Yan's own strength had greatly increased, but he had never felt the wonders unique to the Creation Realm.

At this moment, as Chen Yan sensed it carefully, a trace of surprise appeared in his eyes.

Chen Yan's True Dragon Dharma Form and True Essence Dharma Form could still be condensed, but they could be dispersed by Chen Yan at any time.

The old man said calmly:

"The so-called Creation Realm is the creation of one's own universe; the self is like a universe, and when power vibrates, the universe vibrates.

The origin space is the universe, and the True Dragon and True Essence Dharma Forms condense into galaxies."

His voice resonated as he revealed the secrets belonging to the Creation Realm.

"One's own universe has a total of seven layers; layer upon layer of one's own universe overlaps until, in the end, one's own universe becomes increasingly real.

Seven layers of one's own universe is the human record; when I pioneered the path of Hard Tempering, I only excavated to the fifth layer of the universe.

Ten thousand years later, Lu Xunyang excavated the seventh layer of his own universe."

A look of gratification appeared in the old man's eyes:

"And then, that is the main point.

That is the eighth realm of Martial Dao, the Calamity Light Realm!"

His expression became serious as he said:

"Calamity Light: one's own universe is destroyed; if life is born after destruction, then it is the eighth rank.

If death follows destruction, then the body dies and the Dao vanishes."

Chen Yan's expression tightened slightly.

The seventh realm of Martial Dao, the Creation Realm, and the eighth realm, the Calamity Light Realm, are actually one complete path.

The physical body gives birth to one's own universe, and layer upon layer of one's own universe overlaps, evolving into the final, powerful self-universe, which is the peak of the Creation Realm.

And to ascend to the eighth rank, one's own universe must be destroyed, and a new universe must be born after that destruction.

This forms a cosmic cycle.

"Only when one's own universe is born and destroyed, cycling endlessly, can one be considered in the Tribulation Light Realm."

"The Tribulation Light Realm possesses the aura of birth and destruction; this is also why the Creation Realm cannot defeat the Eighth Rank."

The white-haired old man smiled and said:

"The Tribulation Light Realm was pioneered through the path of Thought Power, and the paths of Blood Qi and Horizontal Refining have also followed suit."

"This is because the paths of Blood Qi and Horizontal Refining were born too abruptly; the human race was facing a great crisis at the time, so we could only follow the methods of the path of Thought Power."

Chen Yan listened earnestly.

For the Master of Horizontal Refining to tell him these things, they must be incredibly important.

This person is the Master of Horizontal Refining; his research into Horizontal Refining and the Martial Dao is likely far beyond anyone else in the world.

No matter how profound the preaching of the Master of Elements is, it is far inferior to this person.

Because the path of Elements is merely an auxiliary to the Martial Dao.

But Horizontal Refining, Blood Qi, and even the path of Will created by Chen Yan, are all paths of the physical Martial Dao.

"Therefore, the Creation Realm is about continuously birthing one's own universe, until the peak of the Creation Realm, where one's own universe is destroyed, and one ascends to the Eighth Rank."

"Most of those in the Creation Realm in this world cannot enter the Eighth Rank precisely because when their own universe is destroyed, it is highly likely to cause their own death."

The old man spoke calmly:

"But this method of ascension, in my view today, is too insipid."

Chen Yan was slightly stunned and said: "Please enlighten me, Senior."

The old man snorted coldly:

"The Eighth Rank Tribulation Light Realm is when one's own universe is destroyed and then reborn, birthing the aura of birth and destruction within the body, becoming incomparably powerful."

"Thereby, one's own universe cycles through birth and destruction, endlessly."

"So why not, from the moment the first layer of one's own universe is born, directly destroy it and cause the first layer of the universe to be reborn?"

"At this time, you have already obtained a trace of the aura of birth and destruction, and your own universe will be extremely powerful."

"After the second layer of your own universe is reborn, it merges with the first layer, and then is destroyed again."

"Because you have already birthed a trace of the aura of birth and destruction within your body, the second destruction of your own universe will be smoother and will also be more powerful."

The old man's eyes gleamed:

"In this way, when you are in the Creation Realm, you will already possess the aura of birth and destruction that only the Eighth Rank Tribulation Light Realm can have."

"In my view, the Creation Realm is not necessarily unable to fight the Eighth Rank!"

Chen Yan's expression also trembled.

He keenly sensed that a great opportunity seemed about to descend.

The Creation Realm is about creating layer upon layer of one's own universe, overlapping them, and merging them into one.

Then, at the peak of the Creation Realm, one destroys their own universe, survives the tribulation, and obtains the aura of birth and destruction.

And the aura of birth and destruction is unique to the Eighth Rank, which also leads to the Creation Realm being unable to defeat the Eighth Rank.

But what the old man said.

Was that when Chen Yan birthed the first layer of his own universe, he should begin to let his own universe be destroyed and reborn.

Then, Chen Yan would possess the aura of birth and destruction that the Eighth Rank would have while still in the Creation Realm.

Moreover, as Chen Yan birthed each new layer of his own universe, the new layer would be superimposed onto the old one.

His own universe would be destroyed again, reborn, and again birth the aura of birth and destruction.

If Chen Yan ultimately birthed a total of seven layers of his own universe, Chen Yan would also have destroyed his own universe seven times.

Likewise, Chen Yan would have obtained the aura of birth and destruction seven times.

Then the Chen Yan who ascended to the Eighth Rank would be far more powerful than an ordinary Eighth Rank.

"Of course, there are many people in the Martial Dao over the past ten thousand years who have thought like me, but they are not the Master of Horizontal Refining and do not understand the true essence of the Martial Dao."

"But I can."

The old man looked at Chen Yan with a faint smile:

"Do you want to learn?"

Chen Yan looked at the old man and nodded:

"I ask for your instruction, Senior."

"You don't even learn the Heavenly Dipper Body Guard, yet you want to learn this?" the old man teased.

"In my view, the Heavenly Dipper Body Guard is not the best physical technique; what is suitable for myself is the best," Chen Yan said.

"You are quite flexible," the old man sighed lightly:

"The method I mentioned is only my own research; it requires you to blaze a new path."

Chen Yan nodded.

Little did he know.

After this day, the world would give birth to the first Creation Realm practitioner capable of suppressing the Eighth Rank.

This was the origin of power.