Chapter 571 495: Similar Flowers

WHOOSH...

The frigid wind howled on, and snowflakes swirled through the air.

「Thirty thousand years passed in the blink of an eye.」

Another person arrived at the edge of the snowfield.

THUD THUD THUD—

The deafening sound of footsteps echoed deep within this godforsaken snowfield. Snow, dirt, and rock were sent flying as, after thirty thousand years, the peak of the snow mountain was once again leveled.

But this time...

The newcomer was stronger, more forceful, and their ambition was greater.

They didn't just level the peak; they stomped the entire snow mountain flat, step by step.

They possessed the same high spirits.

And in the same manner, they used their own body as a pen to carve words—

"I shall crush a thousand mountains and level ten thousand peaks; beyond my mountain, none stands taller!"

WHOOSH...

The wind and snow grew even fiercer.

Gradually, everything was buried.

In the vast, desolate world, only the two figures remained, standing tall on the flattened summit.

"Fate is a miraculous thing, isn't it?"

The Slaughter Emperor retracted his gaze and looked at Wu Dao.

Then,

to Wu Dao's surprise,

the Slaughter Emperor performed a formal salute, bowing to him. After straightening up, he smiled faintly and said,

"I once said that if you could cross the Sea of Suffering, I would salute you when we next met. Today, we can consider this our official meeting, so I must naturally fulfill my promise."

A smile seemed to be perpetually fixed on his hard, martial face, a stark contrast to the deep, abyssal sea of blood in his pupils. Even when he appeared gentle and approachable, one could still feel an almost demonic, tyrannical ferocity.

However,

after hundreds of thousands of years,

'has that ferocity faded somewhat?'

"It seems some things and some people are fated to meet from the very beginning. Their karma becomes entangled, eventually blooming into similar flowers."

The Slaughter Emperor saw that Wu Dao was unmoved.

He couldn't help but shake his head and sigh.

His sigh was filled with the weary sentiment of one who has seen it all.

Fate.

It was indeed miraculous.

Two people with no connection whatsoever.

Separated by time and space, they shared nearly identical life paths. Guided by the unseen hand of fate and karma, they were destined to bloom into similar flowers.

As for the outcome after the flowers bloomed...

The Slaughter Emperor watched the 'youthful' Wu Dao who had carved the words and left, his gaze fixed on the two lines of powerful, indelible characters being slowly buried by the snow.

'His calligraphy is better than mine.'

'His ambition seems even more tyrannical, too.'

'But who can say for sure?'

"How strong is the Great Celestial Venerable?"

Wu Dao spoke, his gaze calm and steady. He showed no sentimentality about fate or karma, because he knew that he and the Slaughter Emperor were the same kind of person.

They believed in fate, but they refused to submit to it.

The Slaughter Emperor wasn't one to wallow in sentimentality.

Manifesting all these past coincidences and affecting such a detached air was most likely just his way of trying to provoke an interesting reaction from Wu Dao.

That was all.

"Hahaha! You're just as I expected."

The Slaughter Emperor let out a wild, bored laugh. His immense Demon Nature surged, and his tyrannical, untamable posture returned, completely devoid of the weary detachment he'd shown when lamenting the whims of fate.

'A sudden change of heart? Seeing through the vanity of it all?'

'An unknown light hidden behind the darkness?'

No!!

He was who he was.

The number one madman of the All Heavens, the Slaughter Emperor!

The one who sought Attainment Dao through slaughter.

The Demon who bathed several heavens in blood!

Even though he had failed when success was within his grasp and was reviled by the All Heavens,

his conviction had never wavered!

He would never admit he had done anything wrong.

Long years of struggling to survive in darkness had not bent his spine in the slightest!

"Strong. Incredibly, incredibly strong!"

Hong Lie's laughter stopped.

The Slaughter Emperor made no effort to hide the dread and hatred in his heart, saying coldly,

"Back then, I commanded the fate of the All Heavens. My Dao surpassed Primordial Chaos, an unprecedented achievement. I didn't just break the shackles and take One Step in the Near-Path Domain!

I took two!

Otherwise,

how could I have initiated a tribulation with the most extreme Killing Dao on my own? I swept through the All Heavens unopposed. Even the Near-Path Seekers of All Tribulations didn't dare to stand in my way!"

'Two steps into the Near Dao...'

Wu Dao gave the Slaughter Emperor a deep look.

He finally had a clear understanding of the heights this madman had reached back then!

The All Tribulations Provers.

Their Near Dao bodies that remained within the Dao,

represented their peak forms before transcendence. Without exception, all of them were at the special Primordial Thirty-fourth Heaven.

This Breaking Extreme Domain,

could be called the Initial Tribulation of the Great Dao's civilization.

By proving One Tribulation, one could achieve transcendence.

This was because the Great Dao did not permit beings from its own internal civilization who had reached One Tribulation to remain in Hongyuan.

But the Slaughter Emperor...

had unbelievably taken two steps within the Initial Tribulation.

Even the Near Dao bodies of Daoists were left in his dust.

The claim that he was unprecedented before his time was absolutely no exaggeration!

Logically speaking,

after the Slaughter Emperor had reached this stage,

given that the Great Dao did not allow Daoists to remain, he should have been absolutely invincible within the Dao, with no possible rivals.

But...

"Just one palm!"

The Slaughter Emperor's crimson, abyssal eyes were incomparably Sen Leng, and the dread in his voice was even more palpable.

"While I was suppressed by the Great Dao, He used just one palm to crush all my pride and strip me of everything I had!

At that moment,

I couldn't even detect any trace of Taoist Magic and Divine Techniques or a shred of His Dao Essence. It was just as the rumors in later ages described—as if the Great Dao itself had personally acted to execute a Demon."

'Becoming one with the Dao...'

Wu Dao's eyelids drooped slightly, his heart indifferent.

He hadn't expected that the authority over the Great Dao that the Great Celestial Venerable commanded during the Five Tribulations had already surpassed the Initial Tribulation, allowing him to suppress the two-step Slaughter Emperor with a single palm.

Furthermore,

he had achieved this while entangled with and suppressed by the Hongyuan Five Tribulations Dao.

Hundreds of thousands of years had passed.

Now, the Six Tribulations was approaching.

How much authority had He eroded during the Five Tribulations, and how much Power could He project into the current world?

It was all an unknown.

Even the most conservative estimate would be that He had surpassed his strike at the end of the Five Tribulations!

"But, heheh."

Amidst the wind and snow,

the Slaughter Emperor, with his wild red hair, looked up toward the distant Nine Heavens and said grimly, "It's still as I said before: His ambition is too great!

The Hongyuan of the Five Tribulations was so magnificent.

The Great Dao may be ruthless, but it is orderly!

Any action or existence that attempts to shake the foundations of the Great Dao will face an unimaginable backlash and suppression.

In this coming tribulation,

all of the inherent structures and rules,

will change due to the crisis in the Dao System. The fortune for attaining the Dao will be unprecedented, and it will last until He is completely suppressed and eliminated!"

The light in the Slaughter Emperor's eyes burned fiercely.

From the way he spoke,

it seemed the future Great Tribulation would be a brilliant Great Era of rising heroes, unlike any before!

Just how brilliant would it be?

As Wu Dao looked at the arrogant Slaughter Emperor who looked down on all existence, an answer began to form in his mind.

He had ridden the Buzhou Mountain's Magnetic Field all the way to this mysterious space, and on this Divine Thought Incarnation of the Slaughter Emperor—

was the Dao Essence of Buzhou Mountain!

'He really did it!'

Even if it was just a sliver, perhaps only the very beginning, it was enough to prove what the Slaughter Emperor had said: all the inherent rules within the Great Dao would change, and what was once impossible would become possible!

Those who were once invincible,

would no longer be invincible.

This meant...

that the number of those who Struggle for the Dao in this tribulation,

and the Dao-fortune of this tribulation,

would far exceed that of All Tribulations. Whoever reached the end and attained the Dao would also be unprecedented, to the point where they could contend with *that* one!

This was the Primordial Path's Dao System saving itself!

"The only uncertainty..."

The Slaughter Emperor reined in his posture, his crimson, abyssal eyes staring at the impassive Wu Dao. A moment later, he grinned and said,

"Heh, is probably the Mountain and Sea."

The uncertain factor,

was both the Mountain and Sea and Wu Dao.

The Mountain and Sea was creating its own Great Dao, while Wu Dao was a Dao-thief of mysterious origins.

The difference was,

one was a behemoth.

There was no possibility of cooperation with it.

The other's fangs were still growing.

There was a chance for a mutually beneficial partnership.

They could join forces to eliminate all competitors, and then gamble on who would have the last laugh.

From this point alone,

it was clear how intense the future competition for the Dao Fruit would be.

Even someone as confident and tyrannical as the Slaughter Emperor,

needed to cultivate allies to fight alongside him.

Even if,

that kind of alliance was not a stable one.

Wu Dao naturally understood the meaning behind the Slaughter Emperor's words, but some things were better left unsaid. Baring fangs and claws at each other would be too ugly, after all.

And it wasn't the right time for that yet.

"To come face me directly despite the risks, so eager to get the core of the Extreme Dao Bell... that doesn't fit your usual cautious style."

The Slaughter Emperor finally got to the point.

He reached out and gestured.

The flattened base of the snow mountain cracked open, and a large, black, unadorned bell fell into his hand.

DING DING DING—

The Extreme Dao Bell inside Wu Dao's body,

began to vibrate with extreme excitement, like a child returning home to its mother, desperate to rush into her embrace.

He couldn't suppress it.

So Wu Dao simply stopped trying.

With a single thought,

the Extreme Dao Bell flew out of his body.

Amidst the ringing, it quickly merged into the mother bell in the Slaughter Emperor's hand.

DONG—

The instant the three parts of the Extreme Dao Bell became one,

within Wu Dao's Magnetic Field perception,

a behemoth appeared that could crush the All Heavens and Myriad Realms. The black bell floated at the end of all things, humming and emitting a forbidden, ominous, scarlet light of Extreme Dao slaughter.

The deafening toll of the Great Dao's death knell rumbled and radiated through existence and non-existence, seeming to want to slaughter and bury all Daos and all things!

Everything in his sight,

was reduced to nothingness by the tolling of the bell!

Even...

the swampy Abyss where this space was located,

countless labyrinthine complexes beyond the second gear were all shaken into true nothingness.

Even the silent void Magnetic Field of Buzhou Mountain,

couldn't corrode the black bell in the slightest!

The scarlet Extreme Dao light formed a never-setting, crimson sun of destruction within the Abyss. The Slaughter Emperor held this sun in his palm, looking at Wu Dao mockingly.

Bathed in the bloody light,

Wu Dao was as insignificant as a speck of dust.

It was like an abyss, like the firmament, like the Dao yet not the Dao!

The Extreme Dao Bell in its peak state,

posed an essential threat to Wu Dao no weaker than the Book of Death once unleashed by the Dragon Hunting Tower.

This proved,

that the Extreme Dao Bell in its prime,

had reached at least One Step into the Near Dao!

It had touched the source of the Dao. Any further, and it would have achieved the Dao and transformed into a Dao Artifact.

At this very moment,

if the Slaughter Emperor, the master of the Extreme Dao Bell, made the slightest move, Wu Dao would have no chance. He would be instantly ground to dust.

But Wu Dao believed,

the Slaughter Emperor wouldn't do it.

Because there was no point. Other than turning on Wu Dao prematurely, he would gain no benefit from it.

"The Martial Ancestor could dissipate his Dao at any moment. I need trump cards, and I need time."

As the Slaughter Emperor's mocking gaze once again turned to one of boredom, Wu Dao calmly took the complete Extreme Dao Bell from his hand and stored it away.

At the same time,

Wu Dao stated his purpose:

"At the very least, I need a safe haven in the Great Tribulation, just like you."

If the Slaughter Emperor hadn't been plotting to take Buzhou Mountain,

he wouldn't have said this.

The temptation of the Burning Chaos Furnace was too great.

But now that the Slaughter Emperor was focused on scheming for Buzhou Mountain, he naturally wouldn't be interested in, nor have the energy for, a damaged Dao Artifact.

"The Martial Ancestor... He is remarkable."

Hearing the Martial Ancestor's name, the Slaughter Emperor's expression became slightly complicated. For the first time, his arrogant wildness was gone, replaced by a sigh of genuine admiration.

But the complex emotion was hidden in an instant.

"A safe haven, just like me."

Then,

he seemed to realize who Wu Dao's target was. The thought of some unpleasant memories made his expression turn somewhat savage.

Then he gave a thumbs-up in admiration and said,

"Heheh, you've got guts, kid. You're really playing with fire. The master behind that pack of bastards is no simple character. Back in the day, he almost cut my journey short."