The massive rift in the sky tore across the entire battlefield of the Floating Glass Immortal Province. Anyone within could simply look up and see it clearly.
This included not only Jiang Yungqing and Shen Meinan, who had tried to block Chen Kuang but were forced back by the pressure of the Grand Dao of Time, but also Ming Yan, Tang Qiusheng, Xiuzhu, and their companions, who had previously retreated to the battlefield's edge.
Not long ago, disturbed by Wen Yao's summoning of the Ancestral God Canliao, they had decided to withdraw even further, eventually arriving at a small mortal town near the border of the Immortal Province.
But once they arrived, they found they could go no further, falling into a "ghost-wall" formation.
No matter how far they walked beyond the town, the road would always stretch ahead, endlessly repeating. They felt as if they were moving forward, but in reality, they remained in place.
This was the rule of the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation, each battlefield was its own spatial domain. Places not marked by the battlefield's imprint would not be recorded, and thus, no one could leave its bounds.
This mortal town was one of the populous settlements responsible for supporting the forty thousand disciples of the Mysterious Divine Path Sect within the Floating Glass Immortal Province.
Now that the battlefield had spread to it, most residents had already fled in advance, and many of the houses were damaged or burning.
The streets were barren and desolate.
Tang Qiusheng and his group had originally intended to find a quiet spot and set up a barrier formation to hide themselves.
But to their surprise, shortly after stepping onto a certain street, they saw something unexpected.
An old Taoist in a disheveled robe, sitting backwards atop a blue deer, had stopped in the middle of the street, swaying as if aimlessly loitering.
Tang Qiusheng froze for a moment, then immediately became vigilant, gripping the jade flute at his side.
In times like these, any strange figure could be foe or danger.
Especially this old Taoist, he had no discernible cultivation at all.
Ming Yan blinked and murmured, "That... that seems to be the Heavenly Sage Dao Sovereign?"
Xiuzhu's eyes widened: "Are you serious? Why would he be here?"
Tang Qiusheng was just as shocked. "Fellow Daoist Ming Yan, are you sure?"
Ming Yan nodded seriously. "I once had the honor of meeting the Heavenly Sage Dao Sovereign. His appearance is unforgettable."
She pointed to the old Taoist. "And that blue deer, it's his mount. Its name is 'Useless.'"
Tang Qiusheng and Xiuzhu were speechless.
Who names their mount "Useless"?
But then again, this did seem exactly like something that "the Deer-Releasing Taoist", that notoriously eccentric cultivator of inaction, would do...
While Tang Qiusheng hesitated, the old Taoist looked up and waved cheerfully at them:
"Ah, little friends! Come help this old man with a small matter!"
Ming Yan stepped forward without hesitation. Tang Qiusheng and Xiuzhu followed, albeit cautiously.
Upon approaching, they saw that the blue deer hadn't stopped because the old Taoist ordered it to, but because some street vendor, likely fleeing in haste, had dropped a long skewer of candied hawthorn beside the road.
The blue deer was stretching its neck, using its tongue to drag the skewer toward itself, chewing it whole, bamboo stick and all, with great relish.
The old Taoist patted the deer's neck and sighed:
"Would you little friends kindly help? Please lift this skewer and coax this wretched beast forward a few steps."
He slapped the blue deer's rump and scolded:
"Just a bit of mortal junk food, and you can't even walk anymore. No wonder you've been by my side all these years and still haven't cultivated anything worthwhile!"
Tang Qiusheng gave a respectful cupped-fist salute, then stepped forward to lift the skewer.
"Um... like this?"
The old Taoist brightened. "Yes, yes! That's it!"
He grinned at Tang Qiusheng. "Now, could you take a few more steps and lure this beast to the side a bit? It'll help me cast my technique more easily."
Tang Qiusheng glanced at the spot the old man indicated, only about ten zhang away.
After a moment of silence, he couldn't help asking:
"Senior... why not get off and carry the skewer over yourself?"
The old Taoist chuckled:
"Ah, how troublesome that would be! I was waiting here precisely for someone to pass by. And lo, didn't you just arrive?"
Tang Qiusheng: "..."
So basically, he was too lazy to get off the deer and just waited for someone to help feed it?
It was a task that required only two steps... and who knows how long he had waited?
Was he saving effort, or creating more trouble?
This whimsical behavior... really did resemble the infamous Heavenly Sage Dao Sovereign.
Meanwhile, the world was descending into chaos, and the Mysterious Divine Path Sect was facing imminent disaster.
And this man, their Sect Master, was out here... taking a stroll?
There were no words for it.
Tang Qiusheng led the blue deer to the edge of town and stopped.
He said: "Senior, there's no way forward here..."
The old Taoist laughed: "Oh, there is. You can walk through."
Tang Qiusheng was taken aback and furrowed his brows.
This was a Saint, even if only a memory replayed within the battlefield. Surely he could sense the abnormalities.
How could he not realize that this was the edge of the battlefield?
He was still pondering this when the entire world suddenly trembled violently.
The three of them turned their heads and saw the colossal rift across the sky.
Xiuzhu stammered, "Wh-what is that?!"
Hssss!
Tang Qiusheng sucked in a breath.
That pale hand of Celestial Vastness Realm, had been shattered in an instant!
They were too far away to know what had happened in detail.
Tang Qiusheng's skin crawled. Who in the world had such strength, to defeat a Celestial Vastness Realm being?
Even Saints had no such power. The list of possible candidates was extremely short.
Wen Yao had likely gone after the other elite disciples in the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation.
They were all supposed to be "heaven's chosen," weren't they? Surely the gap couldn't be that large?
This was insane!
Was it Shen Xingzhu? Yan Hui? Or Jiang Yungqing?
Even the most peerless prodigies... he couldn't imagine any of them going head-to-head with a Celestial Vastness Realm!
This was no longer mere talent, it was monstrous!
Tang Qiusheng's thoughts were a chaotic buzz.
The old Taoist suddenly spoke:
"That... is a complete manifestation of the Grand Dao of Time. A truly rare sight. Since the end of the ancient era, it's almost impossible for a full Dao to manifest so completely."
Tang Qiusheng snapped back to awareness, sensing that this might be a secret only Saints would know.
From what he understood, the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation, and many other such realms, were only able to exist due to traces of the Grand Dao of Time.
If such a Dao was manifesting now... did that mean the seals of the secret realm were breaking?
The fortune of a mystic realm was valuable, but not more than one's life.
Now that even Canliao had emerged and divine beings were clashing, it was clear, the wise move was to run.
He cupped his hands and asked quickly:
"Senior, when you say we can leave, do you mean we can actually exit this mystic realm?"
The old Taoist replied, "Yes, and no."
Tang Qiusheng was startled. "What do you mean?"
The old Taoist narrowed his eyes, staring lazily at the rift in the sky:
"You all can leave. But I too... would like to go for a walk."
"I've been trapped in here for nearly two thousand years. These old bones are about to rot..."
Tang Qiusheng paled in shock.
The Heavenly Sage Dao Sovereign within the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation,
Not only was he aware that he was a fragment of memory, replayed within a mystic realm...
He even wanted to escape the secret realm!
The old Taoist glanced at him. Perhaps it had been ages since someone held a conversation with him.
He suddenly continued:
"Little friend, do you know why Saints enter this mystic realm at all? What they truly seek?"
His gentle tone really did have the air of a Dao Sovereign...
But this wasn't the real one.
If he truly left this mystic realm and encountered the true Heavenly Sage Dao Sovereign, what would happen?
Tang Qiusheng was uneasy, but still answered honestly:
"Junior does not know."
The old Taoist sighed:
"They seek the traces... of Canliao's existence."
Of course.
Since the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation dated back to the ancient era, it naturally held the echoes of battles from the Celestial Vastness Realm.
The Saints hoped to glean insights from those traces, insights that might help them step into the realm of Canliao.
Tang Qiusheng speculated:
"But... this mystic realm doesn't contain actual battlefields of the Celestial Vastness Realm?"
The old Daoist jerked his chin, motioning toward the sky, and continued,
"See that? The Celestial Vastness Realm is right there."
He smiled faintly. "To put it plainly, there's nothing particularly fearsome about 'Canliao'. What a Saint can command is a Domain of the Dao, which means they borrow the Dao from this heaven and earth, carve out a space of their own, and can only wield it within that bounded domain."
"'Canliao', lofty, desolate, unknowable."
"The Celestial Vastness Realm... is for those who scale the heights to pluck the stars. They don't just borrow the Dao, they seize it outright from the heavens and earth, taking it for themselves, making it wholly their own."
"But now, even if someone manages to see that truth... no one can pluck those stars that hang within arm's reach of the firmament."
The old Daoist spoke in a low voice, but to Tang Qiusheng, it rang like thunder in his ears:
"The path of the Dao in this world, ever since the end of the War to Hunt the Heavens, has been completely severed!"
"And so, he no longer fixates on scaling to the heights, but instead wants to seize everything before him... and hold it in his grasp."
Then the old Daoist changed his tone:
"But he was too impatient. That impatience clouded his vision, and made him a mere chess piece on someone else's board."
"I've sat atop that Star-Observing Platform for far too long. There are many things I can't see clearly. So today... I must go see for myself what that old bastard saw that made him throw everything else away!"
As the last word fell..
In the distance, the rift in the sky rapidly spread, spanning the entire battlefield and reaching its edge.
At the same time, it reached the exit of the small town, right where the four of them stood.
"Crack!"
In that instant, the entire town collapsed, plunging into boundless darkness.
It turned out that the Dao of Time had destabilized the entirety of the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation. The layer that Mu Zhao had once stabilized using his Domain now crumbled completely.
Everyone was shocked.
But just as they began falling, Tang Qiusheng saw the blue deer, carrying the old Daoist on its back, leap into the air in pursuit of the flying candied hawthorn skewer. The moment it jumped, it landed directly into one of the scenes unfolding within the blood river coursing through the rift.
The old Daoist laughed uproariously,
"Good, good, good! The most useful among the useful! To exert power where there is none! Let the fruit ripen on its own, don't ask how to plant the seed!"
The blue deer's hooves sank into the blood river, and just as it began to disintegrate, Tang Qiusheng finally saw the image within the river clearly.
It was the back of a young man.
He wore white robes, holding a glass lotus lantern in one hand. The nine-petaled lotus bloomed all at once.
On his back was an ancient zither, and at his waist hung a longsword. He was facing the boundless streaming starlit cosmos, walking step by step across the void, heading into the primordial vastness of the universe.
As if to pluck the stars from the heights!
Tang Qiusheng was struck with a profound sense of shock.
That somewhat familiar back didn't match any of the known prodigies, it was someone he had never even heard of before.
And yet, it was Chen Ruogu, the very one Jiang Yunqing had inexplicably shown such interest in!
He didn't have time to ponder it further, as he immediately plunged into the next level of the battlefield.
...
After being swept into the long river of the Dao of Time, Chen Kuang was hurled straight toward the sword scabbard at the center.
The closer he got to that scabbard, the more vivid and tangible the Killing Sword in his mind became, so much so it nearly took form, as if it could fly off at any moment and return to the scabbard.
The Killing Sword he had manifested pulsed with a surging aura of slaughter.
But something was faster than him, the blood-colored "river water" rushing in all around.
Within that river water were countless overlapping scenes from across time and space. Wave after wave, layer upon layer, all came crashing toward Chen Kuang.
In that moment, he seemed to be thrust into countless timelines.
In a brief moment of daze, he glimpsed a familiar figure tuning a zither.
He had never met the person before, and yet, Chen Kuang was certain, that man was Xi Mengquan!
In his hands, was Dragon Gum!
The next instant, Chen Kuang's eyes went wide.
The surroundings Xi Mengquan was in appeared to be a shabby thatched hut, and his appearance, was all wrong. He looked like a boy of about twelve or thirteen.
Before Chen Kuang could react, the blood-colored river water surged and swallowed him whole.
As he struggled, he suddenly looked down and saw, Wen Yao, who by all accounts should have died after detonating his double pupils, had wisps of white mist escaping from his body, coalescing rapidly, trying to flee into the next layer.
Outwardly he'd shouted "I'm dying! You won't live either!" But in reality, the bastard had never intended to die!
That "white mist" was his soul!
Chen Kuang sneered coldly in his heart:
"So many tricks to escape death... But today, you die here!"
Whoosh, !
He raised the manifested Killing Sword and hurled it directly at the fleeing "white mist"!
The Soul Sword only existed in the Bardo Realm, completely unbound by the physical world. And now that Chen Kuang had opened his Sea of Consciousness, in the blink of an eye, it had crossed thousands of miles.
Then it split into countless strands,
And slashed toward the white mist!
"Ssshhh!"
The white mist was instantly extinguished! Completely erased!
Chen Kuang's vision was then swallowed by the blood river, plunging into pitch blackness. It felt like the entire world flipped upside down.
Suddenly, he felt solid ground beneath his feet.
He opened his eyes at once, and found himself standing inside a rundown thatched hut.
Chen Kuang froze.
"You... Who are you? Where the hell did you come from?!"
In front of him stood the young zither player, wearing a face full of confusion and wariness.
I'd like to know where I came from too!
What the hell is this place...
Chen Kuang steadied his mind, took a deep breath, and looked at the ancient zither in the boy's hands... no, right now, it was still new. Clearly, it had just recently been crafted.
His expression turned strange, and he blurted out:
"Xi Mengquan?"
The boy zitherist froze. "How do you know my name?!"
...
Mount Tai, Martial Saint Pavilion.
Mu Zhao stood atop the pavilion, eyes half-closed in meditation.
Everything he had laid out was now in place. All that remained was the result. From here on, all he needed was to wait patiently...
Unfortunately, what Mu Zhao was about to receive, was not the result he hoped for.
"Crack!"
A crisp snap.
Mu Zhao's eyes flew open, bloodshot with rage!
At the top level of the Martial Saint Pavilion, two nameplates lay on display.
One had already shattered long ago, it belonged to Li Hongling.
But the other..
Wen Yao's nameplate...
Had just fractured!