Chapter 963

“You could be a Dao Lord?” Chi Fenruo laughed.

He rose to his feet, pacing beside the Daoist of Divine Passage, a mysterious expression creeping across his grotesque face: “You wish to become a Dao Lord? Do you know how much time and planning the Alliance spent to plant a single Dao Seed in this world?”

“To select those six talents, the Kun Dun Great Lord even personally intervened, reincarnated once, used the Wheel of Rebirth True Talisman to undertake a rebirth mission, endured twenty-eight great tortures of the previous dynasty, and sacrificed his cultivation of this life to become a cursed ghost!”

“I too shed my body of one life, sank into the Three Forks River mouth as a floating corpse…”

“To forge that single Dao Seed, Kun Dun Great Lord reincarnated three times. His first reincarnation entered the Red Yang Sect of this world, intending to seize the position of the Manifested Ming Zun—but the Ming Zun of this life was none other than one of the Three Primordial Creators, and the Manifested Ming Zun was merely a vessel prepared for His true spirit’s descent.”

“The Great Lord, in his attempt to seize the Manifested Ming Zun, offended the Constellations, and the Lotus Dao foundation painstakingly built by that dynasty was shattered by the Cauldron Mother of the Constellations, severing his Dao path.”

“Later, he was forced to come with She Ti Ge to Zhigu, burying a broken Buddhist-Daoist Dharma Body: the Abhidharma Kosa Golden Body.”

“This Dharma Body was born from the Buddhist doctrine that tolerates heterodox teachings—it was inherently impure, half-adopted, half-rejected. Kun Dun Great Lord used this Dharma Body to absorb the blessings of all sentient beings, transforming them into seed coins, harvesting beings as medicine.”

“Though the Cauldron Mother shattered the Dao path Kun Dun Great Lord originally intended to plant, he thereby glimpsed a hidden secret of this world—the ‘Jiazi Secret.’”

“Thus, he used the Golden Body to harvest—blessings of all sentient beings, imperial virtue, ghostly and divine merit, personal virtue, and moral cultivation—as five medicines, practiced corpse liberation to enter the Golden Buddha, then rotated the Five Yin, refined the Five Elements into medicine, and after two lifetimes, finally attained the Immortal Sage Realm.”

“The Immortality here is different.”

“The Immortal Sage Realm is mixed with illusion and reality—it resembles the Primordial Spirit, yet is not the Primordial Spirit. It is a false Primordial Spirit.”

“But to ascend, one must craft the Ascension Ritual, using humans to sow the Dao—equivalent to nurturing a Dao Seed.”

“A false Yang Spirit nurtures a true Dao Seed—what do you think of that?”

Chi Fenruo sneered: “As soon as Kun Dun attained Dao, he realized: normal cultivation merely turns one into food for the Constellations! This universe is no ordinary place for cultivation—it is merely a fish pond tended by the Constellations.”

“They have created an illusory Primordial Spirit realm for the Immortal Sage. But to truly attain the Primordial Spirit, to engrave oneself into the Taiyi Dao Fruit, one must undergo the Ascension Ritual. The Ascension Ritual is alchemy: refining all the illusory elements gathered from this world into truth, condensing a single genuine, unshakable Dao Seed. Yet the final step of becoming a Primordial Spirit is to deliver that Dao Seed—and the false Primordial Spirit—into the mouths of those Constellations!”

Chi Fenruo said calmly: “Thus, cultivation in this world is a dead end.”

“The Primordial Spirit is the ‘human’ recognized by the Supreme Dao Ancestor. So the Constellations, using false Yang Spirits as Primordial Spirits, prompt them to cultivate Dao Seeds early—only to turn themselves into someone else’s Dao Seed!”

“In this world, to truly attain Dao is exceedingly difficult. One must first cultivate a false Dao Seed, sacrifice it through the Ascension Ritual to step into the Primordial Spirit realm, then fall into the True Realm, endure countless destruction calamities, refine the hidden true Dao Seed, and only then attain sudden enlightenment as the ‘Mysterious Lord,’ escaping this world from the lowest depths of the True Realm’s destruction.”

“Fortunately, we Lunhuizhe have already attained the Primordial Spirit—we need not undergo the Ascension step.”

“Thus, we need only gather seven Immortal Sages, swallow their Dao paths, piece them together into one Dao Seed, then feign the Ascension Ritual, fall into the boundless destruction of the True Realm, endure calamities to strip away all illusions within the Dao Seed, and at the final moment, use the Great Power of the Lord of Rebirth to escape this world, break free from the Constellations, and after countless toils, erase the last trace of illusion from the Dao Seed, to finally obtain such a Dao Seed.”

“These seven Immortal Sages of this world are the great medicines painstakingly planted by our Alliance—some were the old bodies of Kun Dun, She Ti Ge, and myself.”

“The Cursed Ghost, the Open-Bellied Buddha, and the Sunken River Corpse—all were our former bodies, the Dao path we stole from this world by condensing countless illusions.”

“Others were carefully selected, vessels for other Dao paths: the footman’s Dao path, half a man’s body, one step one cultivation; the Great Golden Man, carved from a fragment of the True Wu Dao path, fused with the broken remains of the Golden Buddha, gathering the vows left by Kun Dun’s first life to forge a great medicine; the pot of oily bones, infused with the essence of southern sea black magic—he himself was a meticulously crafted Gu Man Tong.”

“Lastly, the Tai Sui flesh you stole was forged from eighteen thousand fetal bodies into a Blood Tai Sui.”

“We stole a high-tier Blood Cup Ritual from Camelot, transformed the Old Dun River into a ritual ground, used the corrupt elements saturating the Mist Capital to transform aborted fetuses thrown into the river into ghosts, and under the pursuit of the Holy Church and Camelot authorities, completed the Killing Ritual to cultivate this half-finished blood embryo.”

“To make it real, to refine the Dao paths contained within, our Alliance plotted the annihilation of a small world, using great destruction to forge great truth!”

“But these are merely seven great medicines—mere vessels for illusions and Dao resonance! The true substance capable of forging a Dao Seed—you would never comprehend in a lifetime…”

Chi Fenruo whispered softly into the Daoist of Divine Passage’s ear: “You don’t seriously believe the stolen Blood Tai Sui is the key, that merely possessing it—”

“—is merely an offering…”

A flash of sharp light suddenly pierced the Daoist of Divine Passage’s cloudy eyes: “No wonder the True Immortal did not find it strange that I stole the magical artifact. So in the True Immortal’s calculations, those seven Immortal Sages were merely offerings to activate the Ascension Ritual.”

“And to alter the Ascension Ritual into the Abyss Ritual, interrupt the ascent, and carry the Dao Seed into the abyss of destruction—this requires the realm of a Primordial Spirit True Immortal.”

The Daoist of Divine Passage bowed respectfully, neither groveling nor fawning: “But the True Immortal telling me all this cannot be out of pity for my humble quest for Dao. There must be something you need me for…”

Chi Fenruo smiled: “The situation has changed.”

“To be honest, our Alliance has sent countless Lunhuizhe through this cycle, and we’ve long since mapped out this era—it’s merely a flawed, incomplete Dao Seed that has caused the world’s corruption, plunging the entire epoch into a loop within the True Realm.”

“The Dao Seed is built upon the Three Outer Sea Immortal Medicines and the Four Central Land Immortal Medicines, drawing upon the accumulated power of the seven Immortal Sages, and finally activating the Ascension Ritual.”

“Zhigu is indeed where we planted our hidden cards, but it is merely the convergence point for the ‘Immortal Medicines’ transported north and south, and the Three Immortal Medicines brought by the Westerners—where they passed through the Three Forks River mouth, provoking battles between orthodox and heretical sects!”

“The nine strange cases, the Three Gods battling Four Demons—or rather, the Three Gods intercepting Four Medicines—and the chaotic struggles among the sects? Merely appetizers!”

“What truly merits attention is the seven Immortal Sages entering the capital. In this world, they are indistinguishable from Primordial Spirits—real yet illusory. When seven Primordial Spirits clash, that will be a spectacle worth seeing. But the Dao Seed forged by their Ascension Ritual happened to collide with the Western True Spirit Alchemy ritual for forging pseudo-gods. Two Dao Seeds achieved completion simultaneously, triggering a collision of Dao paths, spiraling into chaos, becoming a demon god, and annihilating the entire world!”

“Our Alliance’s plan was to slowly unravel the plot, then, at the moment of the Dao Seed’s collapse, use the Dao Seed we cultivated to devour those two formed Dao paths, completing our own Dao Seed further.”

“But…”

Chi Fenruo chuckled, his tone devoid of concern: “This cycle’s repeated plot has been disturbed. Someone seems to have sensed our hidden arrangements here, and has acted to devour two of our great medicines.”

“The Xuan Zhen Sect.”

He sighed: “After suffering a setback in the Red Yang Sect, we had no intention of disturbing the Constellations’ tentacles in this world—after all… those might be Dao Lords capable of achieving Dao Fruit.”

“But perhaps some Lunhuizhe have infiltrated the Xuan Zhen Sect?”

“Or perhaps the Constellations, while endlessly cycling through this time, discovered something, and used Lunhuizhe to begin dismantling our arrangements?”

“The two battles yesterday prove they no longer intend to give our Alliance time!”

“The Constellations, using the Xuan Zhen Sect Master as a pawn, are altering and digesting the nascent Dao Seed we planted in this world. If the collision of the Eastern and Western Dao Seeds now gains a third Dao Seed as a mediator, the Constellations may, in this cycle, forge a flawless Dao Seed and swallow all our accumulated efforts.”

“Thus, our Alliance must respond.”

Chi Fenruo turned, gazing meaningfully at the Daoist of Divine Passage: “But I have no intention of becoming a pawn. The Constellations cannot act directly—but they are Dao Lords! They have countless ways to deal with a mere Primordial Spirit True Immortal like me! To enter the game is worse than stepping back to watch the game. At the critical moment, I must find a way to invoke the Great Power of the Lord of Rebirth. To fight Dao Lords, we have only one ally: the Lord of Rebirth!”

“Therefore, I need a pawn—a person capable of entering the game.”

“So the True Immortal has chosen me?” The Daoist of Divine Passage smiled: “Then what is my reward?”

Chi Fenruo said calmly: “That Dao Seed.”

The Daoist of Divine Passage shook his head: “The True Immortal won’t give me that Dao Seed, will he?”

“I merely give you an opportunity—an opportunity to defy heaven and alter fate,” Chi Fenruo said. “The Xuan Zhen Sect Master’s arrangement to forge the Five Organs proves he has glimpsed part of our plan—but he knows far too little. This Ascension Ritual indeed incorporates elements of complete True Spirit Alchemy and the Central Land’s Great Creation Dao: assembling a human from the organs of seven Immortal Sage corpses.”

“But becoming human is only the beginning. The true secret lies hidden in the sins of those six corpses.”

“They all committed grave sins!”

“Seven corpses of sinners, assembled into one perfect human—sinless—then slaughtered upon the altar. That is the true Ascension Ritual. Just as the fundamental Dao of this world lies in ‘Great Medicine,’ ‘Spirit,’ ‘Secret,’ and ‘Truth.’”

“Great Medicine and Spirit can be accumulated within a person.”

“Secret and Truth are the keys to activating the ritual…”

“As the Trinity Scripture says: the Lamp Father demanded a sacrifice from the Prophet; the Prophet brought his sinless son to the mountain peak. The Lamp Father sent an angel, who seized the blade just as the Prophet stabbed his son’s heart.”

“This is the key hiding Secret and Truth: sacrifice a sinless being to open the path of Ascension!”

Chi Fenruo said: “Thus, the Xuan Zhen Sect Master’s theft of those six corpses is irrelevant! The key is how to assemble them into a human, how to make that human born sinless, and how to kill it for sacrifice!”

“I can tell you all this…”

The Daoist of Divine Passage, watching Chi Fenruo’s casual expression, knew the truth revealed to him was only a fragment—but he still agreed: “Very well. I am willing to gamble on this.”

“Oh? You’re not afraid I’ll use you?”

“I have never feared being used…” the Daoist of Divine Passage said firmly. “I only fear having no value to be used at all!”

On Wanghai Tower, Qian Chen continued writing talismans with his brush.

Suddenly, the brush tip hesitated; a drop of ink pooled, ruining the subtle spiritual resonance—the talisman became worthless paper.

He tore it off idly and cast it into the night sky…

“Dingding is stirring up Original Sin, the Mirror is watching from the sidelines, the Yin-Yang Fan is mocking me with its Yinyangguaiqi , and what are those Constellations doing?” Qian Chen frowned slightly, but the next moment resumed his swift brushwork, casting aside the odd sensation rising in his heart: “Who cares? If they provoke me, I’ll flip their whole table.”