Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1134: Great Daos are Like Clear Skies

Virtually no one could see the dao fight occurring in the valley. The members of the Li Clan who were present had their life forces covered by a shadow, so everything around them was pitch black.

It was the same with time and space. They became an isolated instance of space-time, and could be no more seen than a blind person could see color.

However, far in the distance, there was something watching the battle. In the fields of the Dao Immortal Sect, Poison Monarch was observing an empty space right in front of him. Previously, there had been two poisonous plants there. One had turned into light and disappeared, while the other… withered into ashes.

Obviously, Poison Monarch wasn’t just looking at the representation of the events playing out. His gaze penetrated space-time, allowing him to see what was happening in the valley. A meaningful smile had played out on his face.

“Gaining enlightenment of my legacy was enough to connect to me via karma,” he said softly. “But now you’re going to kill my apprentice? In that case… the moment the legacy is complete, the karma will truly materialize. After that, I can use that karma to take away your dao and never return it. The Immortal Paragon said we couldn’t seek information. But the karma I will reap was sown before that.”

***

Poison Monarch’s voice wasn’t audible in the valley. But Li Mengtu’s battle spirit was burning brightly. It became a sea of fire that engulfed the surroundings. As a result, he became like a shooting star flying out of the sky. He was a fierce beam of light that headed directly toward the shadowy outline that he could just barely ‘see.’

He moved faster and faster! As the fire burned, it consumed, not just his fleshly body, but also his cultivation base and life force. The only thing it left behind were his dreams…. They became what drove him. His obsessions.

Li Mengtu had not lived a life that could be considered one of radiance and light. But he was upright and honest, especially when it came to dao fights. He respected the concept of the dao. Therefore, he would not allow his own dao heart to be tainted. Nor would he bow his head.

From the time he was young, he worked hard at cultivation. He strove to reach great heights. He strove to look down on everything. He strove to reach the most paramount of all things, which was canon. He wanted his clan to recognize him. He wanted his Master to recognize him. He wanted the whole world to recognize him….

His bloodline didn’t come from a Fifth Star Ring cultivator. But that didn’t reduce his desire to search for the dao. And he was not inferior in any way to any of the other Shining Stars from the Fifth Star Ring. He was the one who ensured his clan rose to prominence. He could rise to the highest heights, and enter the place that everyone yearned for constantly. The Immortal Capital!

He knew that, as of this moment, his actions would be considered laughable to most. But he didn’t care. He had never feared death. What he had feared… was falling short of his dao. The true measure of one’s life wasn’t its length.

Therefore, he rushed right toward the flame. Even though he knew the flame would burn him, that was his choice. To fight.

The struggle for this legacy was connected to his very life force. He knew that the moment Xu Qing arrived, the ending had been foreordained.

Right now… it would be an honor to die for his dao. It would honor the sweat and blood he had shed to get to this point. It would honor the obsession that had driven him for most of his life. It would honor the aspirations of his clan. And it would honor all the other people who had perished at his hands in other dao fights.

He charged forth!

It was like a flower blooming in the dome of heaven. But sadly… dreams often end up as nothing more than a sigh in the heart. His magical techniques, his divine abilities, and everything else in his power… were all incapable of doing anything to that shadowy figure.

Xu Qing stood there, seemingly beyond the heavens, in a different aspect of space-time. No matter what attacks Li Mengtu launched, they didn’t touch him. His death curse caused wild colors to flash in heaven and earth, and caused the entire area to fill with an astonishing aura of death. Demonic monsters seemed to rise up everywhere, as if a ghost city had risen from the depths of the Yellow Springs. Howls of anguish echoed everywhere. But then… it was all meaningless.

None of it touched his enemy. It couldn’t affect his enemy’s karma. Li Mengtu was like a person in the middle of nowhere, alone, screaming at nothing.

His authority of lightning made noise. The sea of lightning spread. But it was pointless. His binding revelation didn’t give him the slightest information about his enemy. It was as if they existed in different worlds. He called on the immortal flood, causing the aurora to drop down. But what came down was really just a representation. An illusion.

That ability would be very effective if used by someone with canon. But to someone without canon, it was as unrealistic as flowers in a mirror or the moon in the water.

He tried using Flowers in Mirrors on Xu Qing. He tried unsealing the god in the spell formation within him. But the god’s hand grasped onto nothing. In the past, it had been terrifying with its magenta skin and writhing tentacles. But it was a severed hand, and it only had godly authority, not godhood. It was no longer ferocious. The mutagen and the chanting were no longer so gruish. Only bitterness remained.

Li Mengtu went all out. He burned everything, even his life force. But he couldn’t do a thing to Xu Qing. He couldn’t make any contact with that blurry figure. This was how the dao worked.

A person in a painting could jump up and down, get mad, and launch any number of attacks. But it wouldn’t do anything to someone outside the painting. In the end… great daos were like clear skies that could never be surpassed. He could only launch furious attacks over and over, in a meaningless cycle. He wanted to break out of the painting. But… he had no way to do so.

In the end, all he could do was walk back to where he had started, turn to the blurry outline in the valley, and stare bitterly.

Finally… Li Mengtu closed his eyes. When he opened them, the bitterness was gone. Taking a deep breath, he struggled to calm down.

“I apologize,” he said, “I lost my head.”

“It’s fine,” Xu Qing said calmly. From beginning to end, he had not launched a single attack. He knew that in many ways, canon was the qualification that Li Mengtu lacked. Without it, he could never leave the painting.

After a moment of silence, Li Mengtu said, “The dao fight is over. In the different levels I’ve climbed through in this life, I’ve had dao fights with all sorts of opponents. Every time I won a victory, I would ask my opponent if they had any final desires. And I would always try to fulfill them. You don’t have to do that. But I’d still like to state two desires.”

Not waiting for a response from Xu Qing, Li Mengtu just continued speaking. “The first relates to Daoist Qingyang from the Qingyang Dynasty. For years, their clan has been at odds with my Li Clan, and they nearly wiped us out of existence once. For quite some time now, I’ve been trying to find Qingyang criminals and do away with them. Sadly… Daoist Qingyang got away this time. If at all possible, I hope you can kill him.”

Li Mengtu sat down, took out a jug of alcohol, and drank deeply. “My second desire is to go to a certain place. It’s a pocket realm.

“Legend has it that there should be twelve Immortal Lords in the Fifth Star Ring, not the current number of eleven. Supposedly, back when cultivators first took over the Fifth Star Ring, the highest-ranking Immortal Lord turned traitor for unknown reasons.

“That Immortal Lord was named Aurora, and was thus referred to as Immortal Lord Aurora. Supposedly, the Fifth Star Ring’s aurora is connected to him somehow. After he rebelled, the Immortal Paragon personally killed him. When his spirit fell to the ground, his canon became the aurora.

“The spot where his spirit landed came to be called the Fallen Immortal Moors, here in the western planetary system. The moors are full of random spirit lakes that spit out secret keys all over the west. When a total of forty-nine of the secret keys have been sent out, the moors open up the way to the immortal palace.

“All cultivators in the Fifth Star Ring think of the immortal palace as a place of good fortune and destined opportunity. It only opens every few decades, and the next opportunity is coming soon.

“Each of the forty-nine secret keys is designed to allow two people to use them. I had hoped to go in to seek good fortune, but now it seems that won’t be happening. I just hope that you can do so, and do even better than I would have. That way, I will be of some aid in you achieving your dao, and will not have died meaninglessly.”

With that, Li Mengtu opened his left hand, within which was a small jade fish. He put it down in front of him.

“This is the secret key I got.” Li Mengtu took a deep breath and looked at the blurry outline. “I wish you success in achieving your dao, Fellow Daoist!”

His left hand then turned into a claw. Reaching up to his forehead, he dug down into the bone, piercing into his soul and life force to grab the half of the legacy flower he had acquired…. He plucked it out. Upon pulling it out, his forehead had a gaping hole out of which gushed his blood and life force.

“Take it!” He threw the legacy flower out so that it hovered in front of Xu Qing. Finally, Li Mengtu waited there cross-legged, his head bowed as he waited to die.

Xu Qing looked at the legacy flower for a time, then reached up, not to take it, but to place his hand on his own forehead. He pulled softly, and the flower petals disappeared from his forehead and appeared on his palm. With the use of the space-time canon of the eighth extreme, he peeled the legacy flower away from himself without causing any harm. Then he waved his hand, sending it toward the flower Li Mengtu had tossed up into the air.

The moment they made contact with each other, they merged as one. Twelve flowers formed a perfect circle, completing the legacy. He flicked the flower, and it became a beam of light that shot back to Li Mengtu and sank into his forehead.

Li Mengtu shivered from head to toe, and the life force that had been vanishing instantly returned. His eyes snapped open and he looked incredulously at Xu Qing.

“You—”

“That dao won’t benefit me,” Xu Qing interrupted. “And it was already your karma. Since you know how significant canon is, you should just take it. As for the people you want dead, kill them yourself.”

Xu Qing then turned and left.

Li Mengtu sat there in the valley, watching Xu Qing depart. Suddenly, he reached up to his chest, pushed his hand down, and then extracted some of his life force essence. He threw it up into the sky.

“Xu Qing, my life is yours to use freely!”

Xu Qing caught the life force essence, and without pausing for a moment, continued on his way with a wave at Li Mengtu.

Li Mengtu remained behind, thinking about what had just played out.

“This is the grace of a great dao,” he murmured.

***

Back in the Dao Immortal Sect, Poison Monarch watched it all play out, and his face turned grim. He exhaled, and all the plants around him quietly crumbled into ashes that turned into fierce wind. As the tempest raged around him, Poison Monarch closed his eyes. A short time later, the tempest died out. Poison Monarch stood there quietly, looking off into the distance, his eyes narrowed.

Is this a case of generosity? Or is it derision…? Either way, this makes it impossible for me to take his dao. And actually, the opposite occurred… he took what I set up and used it to achieve his own dao! Interesting. Very interesting.

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