Chapter 237: The Tianming Platform

When the monk-guest saw Li Heng tear through the Void, he initially felt nothing. Tearing through the Void, after all, was something he could do too; it wasn't worth making a fuss over, as if it were some feat nobody else could perform.

That was until his memories came rushing back.

Recalling the fact that when he first arrived here, he had found the Void to be incredibly stable and completely impossible for him to shake even a fraction, he fell into a deep silence, a suspicion popping into his mind.

Is Li Jushi a human or a monster?

To be able to tear through such stable Void?!

"An interesting place. Behind this stable Void, there is actually such violent Void Turbulence."

Li Heng stood with his hands behind his back, able to see the incredibly violent Void Turbulence raging within the Void he had torn open, scraping into the Present World along the fissure he had created.

"This should be the aftermath of the destruction of the Dongtian Fudi."

"I didn't expect it to have continued for so long."

The monk-guest said suddenly, his expression complex.

"Oh!? Master, what have you recalled again?"

Li Heng raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to look at him.

"I have indeed recalled a little."

"Back then, the organization was conducting the Tianming Ritual inside the Dongtian Fudi, and then the Dongtian Fudi suddenly shattered. Fortunately, I had only just entered the Dongtian Fudi and was still on the outskirts, so I escaped with my life."

The monk-guest said with a sigh.

It was fortunate he had been slacking off back then; if he had been more diligent and entered the Dongtian Fudi earlier to participate in the Tianming Ritual, he would be dead now, with not even his ashes left.

"Tianming Ritual?"

"It is the Tianming Ritual, the ritual our organization used to communicate with Tianming, conducted once every fifty years. Originally, I also thought the ritual was purely for communicating with Tianming and obtaining information."

"But looking at it now, perhaps it also had the function of altering Tianming?"

Li Heng looked thoughtful upon hearing this.

"I think I have roughly recalled the reason for my memory loss."

"When I first came here, I gained nothing except for that crystal stone. So, holding the attitude of treating a dead horse like a live one, I used a past communication secret technique to see if anyone else was still alive."

"And then my memory developed a gap."

"Clearly, the memory loss is related to this action of mine."

The monk-guest said slowly.

"Communication secret technique? Had you not tried it before?"

"I had indeed tried it before, with no response. But at that time, I felt that this was one of the former entrances to the Dongtian Fudi, and being close to that Dongtian Fudi gave me a geographical advantage."

"That is why I decided to try one more time."

"The result was that this time, I lost my memory again."

The monk-guest said, feeling depressed.

"You lost your memory after using a communication secret technique here?"

Li Heng rubbed his chin with his fingers.

"Is there a possibility that you did indeed make contact, and that the person you contacted used some method to make you lose your memory, wanting you not to return here? As for the sense that called you here, it should not be from the same source as this person."

"Otherwise, the behavior would not be so contradictory."

The monk-guest was startled upon hearing this.

"Is Jushi saying that others are still alive?"

"That is not necessarily certain; it depends on how you define it. After all, there are many versions of the definition of being alive, and different people have different ways of saying it," Li Heng said.

When people die, they turn into Weird.

From this perspective, Weird are dead.

But Weird can move; some powerful Weird can even speak and possess intelligence. From this perspective, Weird are alive.

The monk-guest immediately fell into deep thought.

At this moment, Li Heng suddenly spoke, interrupting his train of thought.

"You are saying that this was originally the entrance to the Dongtian Fudi where the Tianming Organization was located, right?"

The monk-guest was stunned and nodded quickly.

"This is indeed one of the entrances; we used to travel to that Dongtian Fudi through here. However, that entrance has now been sealed, and it should be impossible to enter..."

The monk-guest had originally wanted to say that Li Heng could not enter.

But as soon as he thought of Li Heng raising his hand to tear the Void just now, he immediately swallowed those words back. Just kidding, if he could tear such hard Void with a wave of his hand, how could he possibly be unable to enter?

"Then where is the location of this entrance?"

Li Heng continued.

He truly wanted to break through cleverness with force, relying on hard power to directly smash open that sealed passage entrance. He wanted to see exactly what had happened inside the Tianming Organization.

In any case, he had Source Power on him.

Even if there really were some Great Terror, he could remain safe and sound.

"Front left, at a distance of one hundred and twenty steps."

The monk-guest replied.

Li Heng nodded, the Taiyuan Scripture within his body running frantically, his Qi and Blood surging like the sea, Three Flowers Gather at the Crown, Five Qi Facing the Origin, all sorts of buffs added, and finally, he unleashed the Martial Sutra Supernatural Ability: Heavenly Human Fist.

He struck toward the position the monk-guest had mentioned.

In fact, perhaps he did not need him to specify the exact location.

Because under Li Heng's punch, the Void within a radius of one mile cracked, and especially the Void to the front left, where a long, narrow gap appeared, through which one could see the Void Turbulence within.

The monk-guest was already numb.

Innate Level—with this kind of strength, can he still be considered human?

Under Li Heng's punch, the originally incredibly stable Void became fragile, and in the direction the monk-Daoist mentioned, a vortex-like spatial passage suddenly emerged, from which wisps of Inauspiciousness leaked out.

The monk-Daoist only saw it, and without even getting close, his body began to tremble, his inner spiritual sense warning him frantically: leave quickly, leave quickly! It seemed that endless Great Terror was hidden within.

Li Heng saw the monk-Daoist's strange behavior and frowned.

Is this really necessary?

Although this aura is indeed somewhat fierce, it is just that.

Li Heng was clearly speaking from a position of comfort.

"Master, I intend to go in and take a look, what do you think?" Li Heng said aloud. If the monk-Daoist had even lost his ability to fight, then he could only go in alone.

He also could not guarantee that he could protect others one hundred percent.

Upon hearing this, the monk-Daoist forced himself to calm down.

"Enter! Why wouldn't I enter."

"I must find out how the Tianming Organization was destroyed, even if I die, I must know! Li Jushi, if we really encounter any Great Terror inside, you do not need to worry about me."

The monk-Daoist said with a firm expression.

The moment his memories returned, he had already made a resolution to die.

Li Heng nodded, not continuing to dissuade the monk-Daoist.

"Then let's go, let's go in."

Li Heng stepped into the spatial passage, and the monk-Daoist followed closely behind, although their moods were completely different. One carried the mindset of sightseeing and solving a mystery, while the other carried only a resolution to die.

"Boring Tianming Ritual, having to rush back every time. Sigh, I just established my reputation as the Iron-Mouthed Half-Immortal, who can directly judge Life and Death. The time wasted going back and forth, what are my old customers supposed to do?"

"That's enough, you old Daoist. You think it's boring because you are an Outer Member; if you were the one presiding over the ritual, able to directly feel the Tianming Light, you'd be scared to death with excitement."

On the plaza outside the Cave Heaven.

A child of about eight years old was criticizing an old Daoist beside him; the two chatted as they left the plaza, heading toward the highest point of this Cave Heaven, the Tianming Platform.

And Li Heng and the monk-Daoist stood on the plaza.

Clearly seeing and hearing the two depart.

Li Heng's expression was still calm, but the monk-Daoist was already stunned.

"Impossible, impossible! Clearly the Cave Heaven had already shattered, why is it still intact now?"

He was incredibly frantic, his expression bewildered, looking all around.

Yet every place he saw.

Matched the Tianming Cave Heaven in his memories.

Even every wisp of spiritual energy and every ray of brilliance in the Cave Heaven felt incredibly familiar to him. It seemed as if the Tianming Cave Heaven had not been destroyed and remained as it was.

"Master, stay calm."

Li Heng tapped his finger on the monk-Daoist's forehead.

A stream of cold air passed directly through the monk-Daoist's crown, acting upon his sea of consciousness and providing a powerful calming effect; the monk-Daoist, whose inner demons had suddenly surged and who was incredibly frantic, immediately calmed down.

The monk-Daoist looked at everything before him, silent for a long time.

Suddenly, he pointed at the two people walking ahead, moving further and further away from them, their figures gradually fading and disappearing, and spoke: "Li Jushi, those two people were clearly dead. When I first entered the Cave Heaven back then, I saw them being swept away by the violent Void Turbulence."

Li Heng nodded, not feeling that the monk-Daoist's words were absurd.

Even though in his perception.

Those two people just now were clearly living human beings.

"Let's go, I want to see all the Tianming Rituals."

"Didn't you also never participate in this ritual? Now the opportunity has come, it can allow you to make up for your regrets, can't it."

Li Heng said with a smile.

Tianming Ritual...

For some reason, the monk-Daoist felt these four words were very ironic.

The organization closest to Tianming was instead destroyed by Tianming.

"Let's go, Li Jushi, I can just happen to lead the way for you, treat you well as a guest, and also fulfill the duties of a host for the Tianming Organization, so it won't be said that our organization lacks manners."

The monk-Daoist said with a smile and walked ahead first.

"Li Jushi, that place just now was named the Ascension Field, and the stairs we are walking on now are named the Nine-Fold Heaven Ladder. Walking up the Nine-Fold Heaven Ladder will lead to Tianming Mountain, and on Tianming Mountain is the Tianming Platform."

As Li Heng proceeded, the monk-Daoist explained incessantly.

"Li Jushi, look."

"That place is named the Nine-Twist Returning Dragon Ridge; don't look at it as a mountain, it is actually a dragon, a mountain dragon, one of the Guardian Beasts of Tianming, though this dragon basically spends its time sleeping."

"And there, it is named the Golden Light Cloud Sea."

"It is as high as the nine heavens and is the place where techniques are stored. Each heaven has different levels of techniques. So if you want to obtain high-level techniques, you must rely on your strength to fly up."

As the monk-Daoist spoke, he was somewhat high-spirited, but his voice grew weaker at the end, becoming somewhat low, and finally, he fell silent.

Li Heng did not speak, nor did he find the monk-Daoist annoying.

One must let a grieving person vent a little.

However, in the end, Li Heng still had to speak up to remind him.

"Master, the Tianming Platform you mentioned should be here."

Li Heng stepped onto the final flight of stairs.

Looking out.

An incredibly vast platform, and at the end of the platform, in the sky beyond the platform, a Light Orb like the Great Sun bloomed with immeasurable light, drifting slowly...