Chapter 386

Xuan Tian Continent, New Luoyang Imperial City.

Inside the study, the smoke of dragon saliva incense curled upward.

Xuan Tian Empress Luo Bingyao sat upright behind a wide sandalwood desk, holding a vermilion imperial brush, reviewing the mountain‑high stack of jade slip memorials.

After the dark turmoil subsided, she reshaped Zhongzhou's order with an iron fist, and this land, scarred by catastrophe, finally welcomed long‑absent vitality.

Her own cultivation, too, surged forward under the Gu Family's pouring resources, reaching the peak of the eighteenth‑level Sovereign, just a step away from the legendary Emperor realm.

However, Luo Bingyao knew very well where the source of all this prosperity and power lay.

She set down the imperial brush, raised a hand to rub her brow, and gazed through the carved window toward the Heavenly Dome in the far east.

That was the direction of the Primeval Immortal Realm, and also where that Gu young master resided.

"Emperor realm…"

Luo Bingyao murmured softly, her fingertips rubbing the edge of the desk.

She needed no gradual, painstaking cultivation; whenever she wished, she could go to the Gu Family's Divine Isle to obtain an opportunity and instantly become an immortal. But she did not. She wished to enter that realm with the most perfect bearing and the most solid foundation, to prove to him that she, Luo Bingyao, was worthy to be his sharpest sword.

The anomaly descended in that very breath.

Without any warning, the clear sky outside the study was suddenly replaced by an endless expanse of chaos.

Luo Bingyao's qi and blood stagnated; the uncontainable aura of the eighteenth‑level Sovereign peak erupted, instantly reducing the sandalwood desk to powder. She sprang to her feet, her phoenix eyes wide open.

Immediately, the voice that had once been etched deep in her soul, countless times pulling her from despair, resonated calmly and solemnly in the seas of consciousness of every being in the Xuan Tian Continent.

"Xuan Tian Continent, from today onward you shall follow me in ascension, enter my divine realm, and enjoy eternal immortality."

"Will you, all of you, be willing?"

Luo Bingyao's heart skipped a beat.

Ascension? Ascension of the whole realm?!

Any cultivator hearing such words that defy common sense of the cultivation world would surely deem them absurd. But Luo Bingyao did not.

She did not even consider what consequences it might bring, nor weigh the future of the Xuan Tian Continent. At the instant she heard that voice, her lofty empress bearing vanished.

Luo Bingyao hurried out of the study and came before the white jade steps.

She grabbed and tore off the nine‑pendant imperial crown that symbolized the highest imperial authority of the Xuan Tian Continent, letting it roll to the ground, then crossed her hands, spreading the wide hem of her phoenix robe across the cold jade.

She dropped to her knees, knocked her forehead hard against the back of her hand, and, expending all her true essence, offered utter submission to the white‑clad figure walking from the golden divine bridge toward the Heavenly Dome.

"Xuan Tian Luo Bingyao, I willingly obey the divine lord's edict! All beings of this realm are the divine lord's people; I would die ten thousand times without regret!"

The empress's declaration became the hammer that crushed the last trace of heavenly dao resistance in this world.

As Luo Bingyao and Li Chengqian and other top powerhouses submitted one after another, the faith of all peoples in the Xuan Tian Continent reached absolute unity at that moment.

Gu Yuan stood in the void, his palm cradling the damaged Primeval Human Emperor Seal.

The bronze great seal radiated brilliant golden light, resonating with the kowtowing voices of the countless billions of beings below.

"Approved."

One word fell, and the spoken word became law.

The original world barrier of the Xuan Tian Continent receded like melting spring snow.

Gu Yuan's inner world fully opened; the hundred‑thousand‑li divine realm prototype, suppressed by primordial maternal qi and upheld by the World Tree, directly engulfed the entire Xuan Tian Continent.

Space intertwined, heaven and earth inverted.

To the beings of the Xuan Tian Continent, they only felt a flash before their eyes; when they could see clearly again, the Heavenly Dome had changed its appearance.

It was no longer the former deficient, low heavenly dao canopy.

In its place hung a phantom of the World Tree high above the nine heavens, exuding a primordial aura, together with a brilliant blazing sun forged from the Human Emperor Seal.

Even more terrifying was the spiritual qi.

No, it could no longer be called spiritual qi. It was the divine realm's vital energy, formed within Gu Yuan's inner world by the World Tree‑refined chaos origin mixed with immortal substance!

"My realm…"

East of the imperial city, Li Chengqian, who had just broken through to the tenth level, stood frozen on the spot.

He discovered that the shackles within his body had loosened again; the realm that originally required years of refinement was instantly filled by that divine realm's vital energy with a single breath.

Eleventh level! Twelfth level!

Not only him. The countless billions of beings of the Xuan Tian Continent, whether mortal or cultivator, at this moment experienced an eruptive surge.

Chronic ailments that had plagued the elderly for a lifetime healed instantly; ordinary people gained a hundred years of lifespan out of thin air; low‑level cultivators bottlenecked broke through one after another, and the flashing lights of breakthrough above the Heavenly Dome resembled a grand meteor shower, one wave after another.

And before the white jade steps of the imperial palace, Luo Bingyao slowly straightened herself.

Within her body, the supreme dao fruit, under the scouring of the divine realm's vital energy, emitted a clear cracking sound.

A terrifying pressure, surpassing the supreme and unique to the Emperor realm, erupted explosively from her frail form.

Nineteenth level, Emperor!

She underwent no tribulation, for within this divine realm, Gu Yuan was the sole heavenly tribulation, the sole rule; he permits you to break through, and you can instantly become a buddha.

"Thank you, divine lord, for your grace."

Luo Bingyao lifted her head, her eyes brimming with fervent awe.

In the highest reaches of the void, Gu Yuan closed his eyes, carefully sensing the earth‑shaking changes in his inner world.

The incorporation of the Xuan Tian Continent completed the most vital component of his divine realm—sentient life.

These external lives, after bathing in the divine realm's vital energy and being imprinted by the Primeval Human Emperor Seal, had been completely transformed into the first generation of native inhabitants of this inner world.

Each of their breaths, each cultivation session, turned their faith and karma into the purest nourishment, which, along the World Tree's roots, fed back into Gu Yuan's immortal longevity body.

The integration of the Xuan Tian Continent was not a mere devouring and stacking.

It was like a long‑lost puzzle piece, tightly fitted into the map of the divine realm's prototype.

Gu Yuan's soul and spirit were tightly bound to this world that had just returned to its place.

He could clearly see that, in the New Luoyang Imperial City, a newborn infant, after being bathed in the divine realm's vital energy, had a wail unusually loud, its innate foundation remarkably robust, far surpassing that of its parents.

He could hear that in a certain small sect in the Eastern Wasteland, an old cultivator who had been stuck at a bottleneck for hundreds of years, upon sensing the new heaven-and-earth law, let out a long cry to the sky; the shackles that had troubled him half his life shattered with a boom, and old tears streamed down his face.

These vivid life trajectories infused the Human Dao law with the most genuine human flavor.

His divine kingdom finally gained a soul.

This is the Human Dao.

The Three Thousand Great Daos.

But these three thousand... are all Immortal Dao.

In the legends, heaven, earth, and man; the three Dao were first established.

The Heavenly Dao is like a tree; the Three Thousand Great Daos are all Immortal Dao, hanging high above, distant and supreme—thus a law of eternal proof.

The Earthly Dao is like a spring; the Yellow Springs cycle, heavy and silent—thus the principle of all things returning to the abyss, and the doctrine of reincarnated immortals.

In the legends, those who die at the level of True Immortal or above all have three chances to regain their memories, attain sudden enlightenment about their past lives, and the opportunity to return to the Immortal position.

And the Human Dao... has long shown weakness.

But today, the Human Dao reigns as Emperor!

The myriad joys, sorrows, loves, and hatreds of countless beings converge into a torrent mighty enough to shake heaven and earth, transforming into the eternal divine radiance upon the Human Emperor Seal.

Bathed in that divine radiance, the Three Thousand Immortal Daos all hum in unison, as if paying the most ancient reverence to a newly born Emperor.

The Immortal Dao seeks transcendence, while the Human Dao seeks dominion.

If it were expanded to be as vast as the Primeval Immortal Realm...

Gu Yuan can say that the Human Dao... is not necessarily weaker than the Immortal Dao.