Chapter 194: Boundless Heaven and Earth, a Terrifying Hypothesis!

"Congratulations, fellow Daoist— the Great Dao awaits!"

"Seeing you successfully break through, Jingxin Daoren shuddered and immediately offered his congratulations."

"Meanwhile, you were partly adapting to the various sublimations of the Heavenly Immortal realm, and partly nodding inwardly: 'Good, no sneak attack— it seems you've sincerely joined…'"

"This breakthrough had him guarding the Dao; in fact, it was you testing him."

"After all, he's a man who cultivates by eating people; although he says he's willing to sacrifice his life to atone, who knows if he's sincere?"

"So you used this to test him: if he harbored ill intent, you'd unleash primordial force to overturn heaven and earth, instantly kill that troublesome True Immortal, then reset to the time you first met him, sparing no effort to kill him and never give him a chance to join."

"You have always repaid grudges and acted decisively in slaughter."

"But he showed no abnormality; instead, he truly watched you break through to Heavenly Immortal… Thus, you finally came to trust him completely."

"Jingxin Daoren had no idea he had just walked past the Ghost Gate Pass…"

"……"

"After attaining Heavenly Immortal, you again joined him in slaughtering cultivators from various states."

"A Heavenly Immortal and a True Immortal, lowering themselves to actively slaughter cultivators below the immortal level— that's practically disastrous!"

"One country could be flattened in half a day, its cultivators wiped out and its court replaced— you've become highly efficient through practice."

"Thus, five hundred years later……"

"As you slaughtered one country after another, killing countless cultivators and changing countless courts…… a doubt gradually arose: where does the slaughter end?"

"In your childhood vision, you would rectify the Primordial Wilderness, slay all cultivators under heaven, exterminate the Primordial Wilderness' Dao, and even storm the Immortal Realm!"

"But the world in your eyes kept 'expanding': as a child, your knowledge came from a mountain village, and you thought the Primordial Wilderness was at most a few hundred or thousand villages in size."

"Only after you became an immortal and traversed the whole country did you realize your naivety: a single prefecture already had tens or hundreds of thousands of villages, and the entire nation had hundreds of prefectures!"

"Thus you formed a rough idea of the Primordial Wilderness' size: it ought to be a few hundred or thousand times the size of your own country."

"But now, over five hundred years have passed, and the number of countries you've swept through has already exceeded a thousand— even counting in tens of thousands!"

"That's tens of thousands of countries, yet you still haven't seen the edge of the Primordial Wilderness— all you find are endless righteous and demonic cultivators, and an endless stream of corrupt officials!"

"Your heroic fervor has already been worn down considerably by this seemingly endless slaughter……"

"Finally, one day you couldn't take it anymore!"

""Jingxin Daoren, just how vast is the Primordial Wilderness still?""

"Faced with your bewildered question, Jingxin Daoren was equally at a loss: 'I don't know…'"

"Having followed you on your killing spree, his worldview suffered a huge shock; despite his lineage's ancient heritage, he still doesn't know how vast the Primordial Wilderness is, and the further he goes, the more bewildered he becomes."

"Nevertheless, being formally trained, he may not know the exact size, but he has a way to estimate it."

"All you saw was him slightly measuring the coordinates of the celestial bodies, calculating the distance traveled so far, summarizing the stellar variations observed everywhere, and then beginning his calculations……"

"Pop!"

"Jingxin Daoren suddenly went limp and sat down on the ground, bitterly saying to you."

""Fellow Daoist… let's not talk about the Primordial Wilderness— we haven't even left the Western Wilderness……""

""The land we've covered in these five hundred plus years is less than one-billionth of the Western Wilderness……""

"You: ……"

"You were dumbfounded then, your spirit seemingly drained away!"

"You couldn't possibly imagine what that number meant, since you're only over five hundred years old—not one of those ancient beings whose age is measured in yuan, so your experience is still shallow……"

"But even those old-timers couldn't possibly have witnessed such a vast expanse of heaven and earth, could they?"

"To be honest, faced with such an outrageous figure, you felt a chill down to your bones, like a mortal confronting an endless ocean— feeling isolated, weak, as if you could capsize at any moment……"

"The vastness of heaven and earth far exceeds your imagination!"

"Then you recalled the childhood myth you'd heard: the Golden Heaven Emperor and Emperor Jiang battled in the Eastern Wilderness, setting its lands ablaze…… the Sun Star Lord ceded the Central Province to the Wu Clan…… the Golden Heaven Emperor was enfeoffed by the Dragon Clan, seizing the East Sea…… the Equal Heavenly Court's million‑strong army besieged the Thirty‑Three Heavens……"

"You couldn't help but doubt those ancient myths: given how vast the Primordial Wilderness is, how could those people back then have managed to set the whole Primordial Wilderness ablaze in one go?"

"You yourself are now a Heavenly Immortal, just a step away from Profound Immortal, yet you find running exhausting and even despairing— back then those armies must have run their legs off……"

"The more you thought about it, the stranger it seemed, but you didn't delve deeper into this side issue; instead you solemnly told Jingxin Daoren, 'Fellow Daoist, I think we may have underestimated the Primordial Wilderness……'"

"Jingxin Daoren heartily agreed: 'Indeed, if we keep running like this, even the grandest ambitions will be worn away completely!'"

"This is basically a pit!"

"After careful thought, he then proposed his own countermeasure."

""I think we'd be better off making a trip to the Immortal Realm, scouting its reality there; if feasible, we could establish a faction in the Immortal Realm, use its limitless spiritual energy to cultivate countless True Immortals, then dispatch them across the Primordial Wilderness to carry out extermination missions— how does that sound?""

"After years of training, the originally reluctant Jingxin Daoren had long since changed his mind; realizing the two of them were floundering in a bottomless pit, he decisively abandoned this labor‑intensive clumsy method and resolved to adopt a far more efficient approach!"

"Coincidentally, the Immortal Realm is a place of limitless spiritual energy; you can completely grow strong there, then head to the Primordial Wilderness to wipe out those cultivators who have turned to heresy……"

"But you frowned upon hearing that: 'Do you really think the Immortal Realm is the ideal utopia you imagine?'"

"Jingxin Daoren blinked: 'Isn't it?'"

"Everyone in the cultivation world knows the legend: the Immortal Realm possesses limitless spiritual energy and abundant resources, where immortals dwell at ease and carefree, utterly unlike the Primordial Wilderness fallen into the Age of Dharma Decline……"

"You shook your head and said in a low voice: 'Upon reflection, that's not right— spiritual energy is exhausted everywhere in the Primordial Wilderness, cultivation there relies on eating people, so how could the Immortal Realm possibly be untouched by the Age of Dharma Decline?'"

"You added: 'Furthermore, if the Immortal Realm's spiritual energy is inexhaustible, why don't the compassionate immortals bring some of it down to the human realm?'"

"Jingxin Daoren thought it over and still refused to believe your speculation: 'Immortals aren't all benevolent; in ancient times there were plenty of wicked ones, like the Sun Star Lord and his ilk……'"

""Perhaps they're just ruthless, unwilling to share spiritual energy with the Primordial Wilderness……""

""Ruthless?""

"You curled your lip: 'No matter how ruthless, they'd be harsh toward outsiders— surely they wouldn't be cruel to their own blessed lands?'"

""An immortal forefather, both emotionally and logically, ought to send sufficient spiritual energy to his own blessed land to ensure his descendants can cultivate without hindrance, rather than let them continue eating people to become immortals!""

"You said earnestly: 'However, having traversed so many countries and overthrown countless blessed lands, we've never seen a blessed land that doesn't eat people— this shows the forefathers never returned.'"

"Even after you've wiped out so many Dao lineages, you've never seen an immortal forefather from any of them come looking for you to seek revenge— does that make sense?"

"Jingxin Daoren, you are well-informed and knowledgeable, but have you ever seen or heard of an immortal from the Immortal Realm returning?"

This question of yours completely stunned him; as he thought more, he broke into a cold sweat: "It seems, perhaps, maybe… really, I've never heard of an immortal descending to the mortal world…"

All rumors about the Immortal Realm in the mortal world are, in essence, fabricated by mortal cultivators themselves, to project their longing for a better world; no immortal has ever been able to verify these rumors!

"Then why don't immortals come back? Is it because they don't want to?"

You continue your reasoning: Surely it can't be that the Thirty-Three Heavens allow entry but not exit, right?

"Furthermore, even if it allows entry but not exit, facing the countless immortals that have poured in since time immemorial, wouldn't the population explosion be enormous? With so many immortals cultivating there, would the Immortal Realm really not suffer a shortage of spiritual energy?"

"Spiritual energy can only be created from nothing by sages; now the Six Sages and the Dao Ancestor have vanished without a trace—could they not be seated within the Immortal Realm, producing spiritual energy? If they can generate spiritual energy from nothing in the Immortal Realm, why can't they continue the Dao properly in the Primordial Wasteland?"

One after another of your reasonings made him feel more and more that they made sense, and he couldn't help but question the state of the Immortal Realm: Daoist friend, what do you think the current state of the Immortal Realm is?

After some thought, you spoke solemnly: "Let's assume the worst-case scenario!"

"If everything is a deception, the Immortal Realm has no infinite resources, yet incoming immortals keep pouring in, then its resources must inevitably fall into shortage, even entering an age of Dharma decline like the Primordial Wasteland."

"In the age of Dharma decline, Primordial Wasteland cultivators choose to eat mortals to cultivate immortality; then the high-level immortals of the Immortal Realm would naturally eat…"

Ah?!

Thinking of this terrifying possibility, Jingxin Daoren was instantly stunned, then his whole body trembled: although he wanted to deny this absurd guess, reason told him it was the most likely outcome—high-level immortals would eat… low-level immortals!

"Moreover, Daoist friend, don't you find the beautiful legends of the Immortal Realm rather familiar?"

You said languidly: "The rumors among cultivators that the Immortal Realm has infinite spiritual energy, infinite resources, immortals living long and carefree, all things beautiful… isn't this exactly the same as the rhetoric used by the Orthodox Paradises to deceive mortals…"

Jingxin Daoren felt a chill in his heart!

Afterward, he began to feel fortunate that he had not chosen to go to the Immortal Realm back then, otherwise he would likely have already become fodder for the high-level immortals.

"If we think of the worst-case scenario, the current Dao of immortality has become a triangular ladder: the bottom layer is mortals, the middle layer cultivators, the top layer immortals."

"Cultivators eat mortals to become immortals, then upon going to the Immortal Realm they are themselves eaten by higher-level immortals… this is extremely likely to be a trap!"

……

(End of chapter)