Chapter 769: Beyond the Extreme Region
Chapter 769: Beyond the Extreme Region
In the extreme lands of the Western Regions, after Qin Feng entered the Second Rank, the seal on the eighth floor of the Listen To Rain Pavilion in his Divine Sea was lifted.
At that moment, a strong suction pulled Qin Feng’s consciousness and Xuan Yi into the Listen To Rain Pavilion.
As usual, the white mist on the eighth floor gradually dissipated, revealing a different scene.
Qin Feng carefully observed his surroundings, expecting to encounter terrifying sights.
But what he saw was completely different from what he had imagined.
Before him, various mountains floated in the air, surrounded by misty clouds. Countless Gods and Demons moved through the sky, enveloped by multicolored light, creating an atmosphere of celestial grandeur.
“This is not the mortal realm,” Qin Feng concluded as he realized the setting—this was the Immortal Realm!
But the question immediately followed: how could Xuan Yi, a mortal realm sage, possess memories of the Immortal Realm?
Moreover, the scene seemed peaceful and harmonious, unlike the broken and chaotic state that the City God had described.
This could only mean one thing: the depiction of the Immortal Realm in the scene was from a time before the invasion of those sinister beings!“Could my previous assumptions have been wrong? Perhaps the scenes shown in the Listen To Rain Pavilion are not actually Xuan Yi’s memories?” Qin Feng couldn’t help but wonder.
He glanced at Xuan Yi, whose ethereal figure stood silently observing everything without speaking.
Suddenly, the idyllic scene fast-forwarded like a movie, transitioning rapidly.
The sky darkened abruptly, and a massive blood-red eye appeared high above, gazing down upon the realm.
“It’s that large eye,” Qin Feng gasped.
The sky seemed to be ripped apart like a torn curtain, revealing an abyssal rift stretching across the sky.
Black, twisted lines resembling ghostly claws extended from the rift, followed by an onslaught of grotesque and terrifying monsters!
The Immortal Realm’s Gods and Demons faced the invaders in a desperate battle.
However, these sinister creatures possessed immortal powers and could absorb the laws of the Gods and Demons. Prolonged fighting inevitably favored the invaders.
And indeed, the Gods and Demons were devoured in great numbers, and fear began to spread like a plague.
As the situation grew dire, a figure bathed in golden light emerged, standing against the swarm of monsters. With a wave of its hand, massive mountains appeared out of thin air.
The figure led the Gods and Demons with immense strength, crushing the monsters and sealing them within the mountains.
Qin Feng immediately thought of what the City God had mentioned. The figure in golden light must have been the Heavenly Emperor, and the immense mountains must have been Kunlun Mountain!
Victory seemed to tilt in favor of the Immortal Realm. However, just then, a colossal giant appeared.
Its size was beyond words, as if the Immortal Realm itself could barely contain it.
Formed of flesh, with countless grotesque faces covering its skin.
Qin Feng recognized the giant monster. Although it was much larger than before, its eyes and the massive hands on either side were identical to the three entities he had encountered earlier.
“The giant hands and the eye must have separated from this creature, each with its own consciousness,” Qin Feng was alarmed.
As the giant waved its hand, the void began to collapse layer by layer.
It was a despair-inducing, insurmountable power.
Not even the Heavenly Emperor could harm it!
The battle naturally shifted into a one-sided massacre, with the Immortal Realm resembling a flickering candle in the wind.
The scene changed abruptly, showing the Heavenly Emperor arriving at a different location.
A towering mountain floated in the air, surrounded by harmonious chants and golden temples, where a gathering of deities and buddhas sat, reciting mantras and prayers.
The Heavenly Emperor ignored the deities and walked straight into a lush courtyard.
At the center of the courtyard stood a sacred tree emitting a divine Buddhist light.
Seated in front of the tree was an elder in a gray monk’s robe, meditating calmly on a mat.
Qin Feng wondered who this elder was.
“You have come,” the old monk spoke softly.
Qin Feng was shocked beyond measure. Although he had no knowledge of the old monk, he recognized the voice immediately—it was identical to the mouth of Buddha!
That foul mouth must have separated from this old monk!
“I have some questions for you,” the majestic voice of the Heavenly Emperor echoed.
But before the Heavenly Emperor could speak further, the old monk interrupted him: “The Netherworld has already been invaded by these creatures, and even the Ghost Lord is struggling to defend themselves and can’t help you.”
“The mind-reading abilities of the Buddhist sect,” the Heavenly Emperor murmured.
Then the old monk spoke to himself: “I don’t know where these beings originated from, nor why the Immortal Realm’s heavenly laws cannot restrain them.”
“Eliminating them is no simple task. Even with the combined power of the gods and buddhas of the Western Regions, you could only seal them away.”
“They transcend life and death, existing outside of yin and yang, outside of the five elements.”
“They seem less like living beings and more like an unconventional, indescribable kind of Dao.”
“Impossible!” The Heavenly Emperor’s tone grew agitated. “How could Dao’s manifest into such forms?”
“This is merely speculation, not the truth.”
“This is a calamity upon the three realms, nobody can avoid this. The Netherworld and Immortal Realm’s decline has already begun, and all hope lies in the Broken Realm.”
“Broken Realm?” The Heavenly Emperor questioned. “In a place where even the transcendence realm is rare, how can there be hope?”
“It is one of the many possible futures I glimpsed, the only path for the three realms, but it will require a long wait,” the old monk replied softly.
“But we don’t have that much time.”
The old monk did not respond directly. Instead, he clasped his hands together, chanting in a meditative voice.
The branches and leaves of the large tree in front suddenly shone with a bright green light. At the same time, high in the sky above, a gigantic golden swastika appeared.
Not long after, countless immortal Buddhas were floating in the air in a sitting posture, with their hands clasped together, and their bodies were covered with golden light.
At the peak of this radiance, these divine beings would vanish into thin air.
The Heavenly Emperor asked in astonishment, “What are you trying to do?”
“To achieve righteousness through sacrifice, to extend the Three Realms for another thousand years, and to wait for one of the many futures.” The old monk replied, and then looked up with a smile on his face
Upon seeing this, Qin Feng’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Is the old monk looking at me? No, it can’t be. Based on their conversation, this scene must have occurred before the arrival of Gods and Demons. How could he notice me?”
“But what does he mean by achieving righteousness through sacrifice? Could this be the reason for the disappearance of the Western Buddhas?”
“And where did these images come from?”
As Qin Feng pondered, the old monk floated up and chanted, “If I don’t enter hell, who will? These words are profound.”
As he finished speaking, a dazzling white light shone, and the surrounding scene faded away like flowing water, while Qin Feng’s consciousness returned to reality.
He opened his eyes and looked around. Though it seemed like a long time had passed in the Listen To Rain Pavilion, in reality, it had only been a few moments.
The battle in Su Tianyue’s illusionary realm was nearing its end. The Gods and Demons that had descended from the void passage were all slain, without exception.
His two wives left the domain and swiftly moved to his side with concern written all over their faces.
“Husband, are you okay?”
“I just recently advanced to the Second Stage, I’m in excellent shape. How could anything be wrong?” Qin Feng replied with a smile.
“But on your body…”
Hearing this, Qin Feng looked down curiously and, to his surprise, he found that he was enveloped in a faint glow, similar to the soft light of the moon.
At the same time, the Flame Lord, who was blocking Old Man Mu and Divine Guardian, saw this scene and inexplicably relaxed his furrowed brow.
He smiled slightly, and the sea of crimson flames under his feet completely subsided. At the same moment, the eternal flames in the volcano outside the Western Expanse were extinguished.
“I have finally waited for this moment.” As the Flame Lord spoke these words, his flesh and blood began to burn fiercely, turning to ashes inch by inch.
Such a large commotion naturally attracted everyone’s attention.
“What’s happening to him?” Sun Qi asked in surprise.
The City God nearby reacted with emotion, “So that’s what it was. The Flame Lord has been dead for a long time. What was guarding this place was just a remnant of his will.”
“The ancient scroll was what awakened his will and allowed him to release his final strength.”
In fact, the City God should have realized this earlier. As powerful as the Flame Lord was, how could he have been struck into the sea of flames by a giant hand without being able to retaliate?
The Flame Lord had long been at the end of his rope.
“Flame Lord, have you been following the Heavenly Emperor’s orders to guard this place?”
This stretch of time spanned thousands of years.
With the Flame Lord gone and the sea of crimson lotus fire no longer obstructing them, the group followed Old Man Mu and Divine Guardian towards the extremity.
From a distance, it looked like a sky-blackening waterfall, and up close, it was even more strikingly magnificent.
At the very bottom of the black curtain, the earth appeared like a mass of squirming tadpoles, writhing in a sinister manner.
“Sure enough, it’s the same abyss similar to the Eastern Domain,” Heaven Killing Asura frowned.
Upon hearing this, Qin Feng’s last shred of hope was dashed.
There were extremities in the Southern, Eastern, and Western Domains, each gradually eroding the land, so the Northern Domain could not be an exception.
What exactly were these extremities? What kind of world lay behind the black curtain? Qin Feng’s curiosity was piqued.
He thought back to the scenes he had just witnessed in the Listen To Rain Pavilion.
The disappearance of the Western Region Immortal Buddhas could perhaps be explained by the situation beyond this extremity.
Old Man Mu raised the black coffin, aiming to pierce through the black curtain, but an unexpected turn of events occurred.
As the black coffin entered the black curtain, it emerged from the side in the exact same manner!
“The Dao of twisted void,” Old Man Mu muttered gravely. “The Dao of the void are not my specialty. You won’t be able to stay here for long, so act quickly.”
Hearing this, Divine Guardian placed his right palm against the black curtain.
A surging torrent of energy swept across the area.
The vast black curtain, which seemed to stretch endlessly, churned like the surface of the sea.
Despite the intense commotion, there was still no opening in the black curtain.
But what was different from before was that the color of the black curtain gradually became transparent, revealing glimpses of what lay beyond.
The first sight to appear was a giant stone Buddha with his hands clasped together and a pious look on his face.
In the world behind the curtain, strange black lines were like poisonous snakes piled up in a snake cave, constantly swimming.
As everyone’s eyes moved, they discovered that there was not one stone Buddha, but countless ones.
Each stone Buddha assumed the same posture, with clasped hands, sitting cross-legged.
Qin Feng was taken aback. Were the poses of these statues not identical to the final movements of the Immortal Buddhas he had seen in the Listen To The Rain Pavilion?
What shocked him even more was the sight of the old monk under the massive bodhi tree, now turned into stone.
Before the old monk’s statue stood the fragmented body of a monstrous giant!
The head, limbs, torso, eyeballs, and spine
These parts had all turned to stone and remained still amid the moving, sinister black patterns!
“Achieve righteousness through sacrifice, and extend the Three Realms for another thousand years,” Qin Feng murmured to himself.
The Buddha’s mouth appeared on the face of Dragon Ancestor beside him, and then he exclaimed: “It’s that old guy, that old guy is really dead!”
“Now I don’t have to worry about him reclaiming me and forcing me into Silent Meditation anymore. Yes, no more worries.”
“Wait, if the old creature is dead, does that mean I might cease to exist too? Hard to say, yes, very hard to say.”
At this moment, everyone noticed the item in the hands of the old monk’s statue.
It was a small mountain.
Shen Li glanced over and asked, “Could that be the Mustard Seed Space the monsters are searching for, the one that can unlock the seal?”
The City God shook his head. “The Mustard Seed Space is a supreme treasure of the Buddhist realm, something I’ve never seen. But whether or not it’s the Mustard Seed Space doesn’t matter much to us.”
“As long as this black curtain blocks us, we can’t obtain it.”
“The real fear is that the monsters might return and find a way to enter it,” Sun Qi said, voicing everyone’s concern.
“Step back a bit,” the Divine Guardian suddenly spoke.
Then, his white hair started moving without wind, and his clothes billowed around him.
He was trying to unleash his stronger power to break through the black curtain!
But at that moment, the Heavenly Star Shift array outside the void passage emitted a strong white light.
Divine Guardian sighed, “Is it already time?”
With these words, he didn’t linger and swiftly moved into the white light array.
Just before he left, he gripped the void passage with his right hand.
Bang!
The void shattered, and the passage vanished in an instant.
Shen Li explained, “My teacher and Divine Guardian cannot leave the Imperial City for some reason. This time, the Divine Guardian presence here is due to my teacher setting up the Heavenly Star Shift array through the void passage.”
“But the Divine Guardian cannot leave the Imperial City for too long.”
Without Divine Guardian’s power, the black curtain’s color gradually darkened until it was no longer discernible.
Qin Feng stared at the Mustard Seed Space in the old monk’s statue’s hand, feeling worried.
With the Flame Lord’s disappearance, and the Western extremity no longer protected by the sea of fire.
What if those sinister beings rebuild the void passage to come and take the Mustard Seed Space?
Just when he was worried, the old monk’s statue seemed to slightly tilt its head and gaze at him.
Qin Feng rubbed his eyes and looked again, but there was no change from before.
“Am I imagining things because I’m too tired?”
But just then, Heaven Killing Asura seemed to notice something and said gravely, “The small mountain is gone.”
“How could that be?”
Everyone looked over, and sure enough, the statue’s palm was now empty!
And the scene behind the black curtain was once again completely obscured by darkness.