Chapter 293

After coming out of seclusion and meeting Bai Ze, Sun Wukong played happily in Flower Fruit Mountain for a few days.

He ran all over Flower Fruit Mountain, made a fuss with the monkey troop he hadn't seen for a long time, and went to visit the cave dwellings of various demon kings and demon generals in Flower Fruit Mountain, drinking and playing all day long, enjoying himself.

He also ran to find Bai Ze and was pulled by Bai Ze to play a game of chess.

Bai Ze played chess like a god; Sun Wukong saw he couldn't win, flipped the chessboard, said this thing didn't suit him, and fled.

Causing Bai Ze to shake his head and smile bitterly.

On this day, Sun Wukong came to Su Chen's cave dwelling.

"Little Brother, I have been in seclusion for these years, and I don't know how Old Niu and the others are doing. I have to go and see."

Su Chen looked at Sun Wukong, who couldn't stay idle, shook his head helplessly, and threw him a jade slip containing the current cave dwelling locations of the Bull Demon King and others.

"Big Brother Niu is now in Banana Cave on Cui Ping Mountain, Second Brother Jiao is in the West Sea..."

"Alright, alright, I'll see for myself."

Sun Wukong took the jade slip, turned a somersault cloud, turned into a golden light, and broke through the air.

Su Chen looked at the golden light and shook his head with a smile.

Now that Monkey Brother had come out of seclusion and Flower Fruit Mountain had Bai Ze holding the fort, he should also set off.

He prepared to follow Bai Ze's suggestion, go out for a walk, and enter the world to cultivate.

He came to Bai Ze's cave dwelling and entrusted the Demon Alliance to Bai Ze.

Bai Ze held the tea, listened, and only said two words.

"Rest assured."

Su Chen had no worries, rose into the air, and headed toward Southern Chanbuzhou.

Southern Chanbuzhou, vast territory, densely populated.

Su Chen lowered the cloud and walked among the markets and mountains as a mortal.

He walked through noisy towns, walked through desolate ancient roads, walked through ferry crossings where the great river flowed east, and walked through villages with curling smoke.

He had been cultivating for two hundred years, from a mortal step by step to a Tai Yi Jin Xian, and his physical body had undergone six transformations, and he could shake a Tai Yi Jin Xian with his physique alone.

The thirty-six forms of axe technique had long been perfected, but the final "combination into one" could never be crossed.

He had read the Pangu True Form Diagram a thousand times, and he had deep insights into the two innate Dao patterns on it, but he just couldn't understand the true meaning of "Opening the Sky" contained within.

So during this time, he no longer racked his brains every day to seek that true meaning of Opening the Sky, but let everything follow fate and drifted with the tide in the red dust.

On this day, Su Chen passed through a continuous mountain range, and his footsteps suddenly stopped.

The mountain shape in front of him was somewhat familiar.

He raised his head, his gaze crossed the overlapping mountains and landed on an isolated peak in the distance.

That isolated peak was not high, but the mountain shape was extremely unique; the left and right peaks were like crescent moons embracing, and the middle peak was straight like a sword; looking from afar, it was just like a crescent moon.

Su Chen was stunned; he had unknowingly arrived at the place where Lingtai Fangcun Mountain used to be.

The mountain was still that mountain, but the Slanting Moon Three-Star Cave was long gone.

Su Chen walked along the mountain road.

Finally, he arrived at a forest area halfway up the mountain.

His footsteps stopped.

This was where he used to chop wood back then.

After so many years, the stump of the ancient pine that he had chopped down with one axe back then was actually still there.

A new tree had grown on the stump, already as thick as a bowl.

Su Chen squatted down and pressed his palm on the stump.

The touch was rough, and the bark cracks were crisscrossed.

A long-lost memory surged up.

He remembered that rainy day.

He wore a coir raincoat, a bamboo hat, and raised that blunt axe.

At that time, he was just a mortal, without cultivation, without magic power, without any divine ability.

At that time, he was right here, using a mortal iron axe to chop out a path to the Immortal Dao.

In that axe, there were no exquisite changes of the thirty-six forms, no tempering of heaven and earth evil aura, and even less any Pangu True Form Diagram or innate Dao patterns.

All there was, was a pure Dao rhyme.

Su Chen closed his eyes.

His hand left the stump, and he slowly stood up.

He took out the Return to Ruins Divine Axe and held it in his palm.

This high-grade acquired spiritual treasure emitted a faint divine light, and the heaven and earth evil aura flowed on the axe blade like silk.

It was countless times better than the blunt mortal iron axe back then.

But Su Chen suddenly felt that it was too heavy.

Not heavy in weight.

It was that he had added too many things to this axe.

Thirty-six forms of axe technique, six physical body transformations, heaven and earth evil aura tempering, Pangu True Form Diagram, innate Dao patterns, and even the White Tiger clan's body refining method...

He had been doing addition all along.

But Pangu opening the sky was to chop out the clear and turbid qi from the chaos and open up the universe.

That axe was not because Pangu had mastered how many kinds of axe techniques or practiced how many kinds of divine abilities.

It was because he only had one thought in his heart—he wanted to chop open the chaos.

Su Chen remembered what the woodcutter had said.

"Chop along the grain, and it's naturally effortless. If you go against it, it will also go against you."

He remembered the parting words of Patriarch Puti back then.

"Your Dao lies in one. One axe, one thought, one elixir."

At this moment, Su Chen had some gains.

Thirty-six forms, combined into one; what is combined is not the moves, but the heart.

Back then, he could chop open the Immortal path with a mortal axe, not relying on any profound methods, but on that single-minded thought.

Now that his cultivation was higher and his methods were more numerous, he had instead buried that initial thought.

Su Chen took a deep breath and put down all the memories of the thirty-six forms, all the insights into the Pangu True Form Diagram, and all the methods of evil aura tempering in his mind.

He raised the Return to Ruins Divine Axe.

He didn't mobilize the true essence in his body, didn't draw the heaven and earth evil aura, and didn't even urge the terrifying power after the physical body transformation.

He just raised the axe and then chopped down.

Just like the most ordinary axe of a mortal woodcutter on that rainy day decades ago.

The axe fell, silent.

But between heaven and earth, it seemed as if something had been chopped open.

Not the air, not the earth, not the mountains, rocks, grass, and trees.

It was the chaos in Su Chen's heart.

In an instant, a profound artistic conception rose from the bottom of his heart.

The thirty-six forms of axe technique flowed rapidly in his mind, and each form began to dissolve, decompose, and reorganize.

They were no longer thirty-six independent moves, but thirty-six expressions of the same "intent".

Just like the thirty-six branches of a big tree, tracing back to the end, they were all connected to the same root.

At this moment, Su Chen understood what the true meaning of Opening the Sky was.

That Opening the Sky was both the "opening" of the beginning of heaven and earth, and the "opening" from nothing to something.

The aura around Su Chen began to change.

The Return to Ruins Divine Axe in his hand hummed incessantly.

Su Chen opened his eyes abruptly.

The Return to Ruins Divine Axe in his hand was still trembling; he looked down at his hands.

He had already touched the threshold of the "true meaning of Opening the Sky"; although he hadn't crossed it, it was not far away.

The thing he had sought but couldn't get all these years finally revealed a corner today.

He raised his head and looked at the stone wall covered with green vines on Lingtai Fangcun Mountain.

"Thank you, Master."

He said softly, put away the Return to Ruins Divine Axe, and sat cross-legged beside the stump.

He wanted to take advantage of the lingering rhyme of that artistic conception to completely digest what he had realized today.