Chapter 1002: The Answer (2)

Yet all under heaven had underestimated Yunluo Immortal Venerable.

Or rather, the world’s understanding of the two characters “Immortal Venerable” had never been deep enough.

“Very strong.”

On a certain green mountain, even Li An put down the crocodile he was roasting, raised his eyes to the nine heavens above, and sighed softly.

“Are you going to leave?”

Shangguan Xiaoxiao asked.

“Of course not.”

Li An smiled faintly and said, “I’ve spent a lifetime hiding east and fleeing west. This time there really is nowhere to hide, no land to escape to, so let it be whatever it will be!”

Calmly, he tore off a crocodile leg, took a bite, oil filling his mouth. He couldn’t help but sigh, “Once I bitterly sought longevity, but only now do I realize that eternal, lonely life perhaps truly cannot compare to these mere hundred years.”

It was no pretense, but words spoken from the heart.

These hundred-some years, with his disguise shed and nothing left to fear, precisely because of that, what he had felt… surpassed everything from before.

“Let’s go home.”

After the two finished eating, they ultimately grew tired of the scenery, then set out on the road back, returning to the small town they had managed for many years. In the small courtyard, the peach tree was as ever, the koi in the pond still leaping. Thanks to the Array Li An had laid down, it had never fallen into desolation.

And just after they went home, yet another terrifying heavenly radiance shone down upon the world!

This time, the space of all the heavens and myriad realms boiled; all living beings were bathed in its light, and everyone felt as if they were being inspected and searched by some unknown power.

Beneath ten-thousand-fathom seas, the giant whales hiding on the ocean floor were trembling; within the extreme northern glaciers, the ice worms deep in the Profound Ice were shuddering. Even in those so?called pure lands opened up by many Celestial Palace Sacred Lands on the desolate edge of the cosmos, all the beings that had gone into hiding felt this lethal oppression!

This was… a search of Creation itself!

Such a search of Creation, sweeping through All Heavens, was no different from looking for a needle in a haystack.

Yunluo Immortal Venerable was currently searching for all the scattered origins in this world and was about to take the final step.

On this day, within the Thirty-Three Heavens, some lights indeed flared to life.

Yunluo Immortal Venerable, using boundless Mana to perform this “fishing a needle from the sea” technique, had truly succeeded.

At this moment.

In a place where fields of rapeseed flowers were in full bloom, a woman dressed like a village girl was suddenly shrouded in a beam of light. She instantly froze, unable to move, as a portion of Longevity White Mist within her Dantian was ceaselessly drawn out.

Gu Xuening.

After parting from Li An that year, she came to this place, living in seclusion, waiting. Yet today she still had not escaped Yunluo Immortal Venerable’s search.

She did not resist, for she had long since realized that the Longevity White Mist could not be kept. When the Longevity White Mist was plundered clean by that power, she weakly collapsed to the ground, and her once-bright, beautiful face rapidly grew old.

With the Longevity White Mist extracted and her cultivation lost, it was as if she had reached the end of her life.

“Xue Lang…”

She called out softly, her voice trembling.

…

Not only Gu Xuening; in many places across the world, hidden Longevity White Mist was forcibly taken.

Through the surging tides of time, quite a few people had been fated to obtain it.

But in the end, just like Gu Xuening, they had merely made wedding clothes for another!

“Yunluo Immortal Venerable has gathered everything…”

“Is he going to sacrifice the world?”

“It’s over…”

The fluctuations from the search of Creation subsided, but what followed was an even greater panic.

In truth, Yunluo Immortal Venerable did not keep the world waiting long!

After gathering the Longevity White Mist, it was but three brief mortal years!

On this day, from the vast firmament above, beams of light suddenly erupted forth, transforming into enormous illusory chains that shot toward every domain of heaven and earth!

The Eleventh Heaven.

“No!”

“What is that?”

Innumerable living beings were shaken. As those enormous chains charged in, the power of heaven and earth of the Eleventh Heaven erupted of its own accord, attempting to resist. But these chains were the manifestation of the Immortal Venerable, his Mana at the absolute peak. Even the Dao Principles of the Immortal Realm could not contend; in the end, the chains pierced through the entirety of the Eleventh Heaven. The Heavenly Dao itself struggled, yet could not break free!

The Heavenly Dao was locked; Creation was imprisoned!

Not only the Eleventh Heaven—at this moment the entire Deceit Realm, the Eighth Heaven, the Seventh Heaven… and even the countless lower realms beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens were all bound by the same enormous chains.

“No!”

“Is he going to sacrifice the world!”

“Even Creation has been shackled!”

Many Daluo Golden Immortals were aghast, desperately trying to struggle free, but it was all in vain. Even their Daluo Worlds could not escape this fate. Those Great Dao chains were far too terrifying, far too domineering, utterly irresistible.

They strained to look toward the end of the chains, only to see that at the source of those chains… there was actually a Great Dao sea of fire!

Above the sea of fire, a man stood calmly and immovably; with a wave of his hand the chains swept across the sky, as his palm fell the flames surged up, and before him, an ocean formed from gathered Longevity White Mist!

Yunluo Immortal Venerable!

In a mere hundred years or so, he had already fully reforged the once-lost Yunluo Immortal Seal; his cultivation stood at its peak, he controlled all the Longevity White Mist, and was about to begin the world?sacrificing rite!

Using Heaven and Earth as the furnace, the years as the fire, burning all living beings as fuel, to forge undying longevity!

The flames upon those enormous chains spread out, passing into every span of life?bearing earth between Heaven and Earth; within the years, among the living beings, no one could escape.

The true end?times had arrived; the Heaven and Earth Dao was collapsing, Creation was being ignited, triggering a great annihilation of the entire universe.

Rumble!

A lower realm directly exploded, and tens of billions of living beings perished then and there; life turned into fuel, making the flames before Yunluo Immortal Venerable burn all the fiercer.

Bang!

One famous mountain after another split apart; whether it was the immortal veins hidden within them, or the spiritual energy, all poured forth in this moment. Rivers on the land reversed their course, vast stretches of ocean together with all the living beings within them directly evaporated; the sun and moon at this moment were cracking open, great masses of Celestial Fire fell from the sky, meteorites ceaselessly plummeted, bombarding the world, and city after city exploded!

This was total destruction, a calamity against which there was no resisting.

A sacrifice of the world!

“No…”

“Save me!”

“My child…”

The earth quaked violently; the Great Dao’s qi?machine was completely thrown into chaos. Many cultivators had nothing to rely on and could only flee across the land like mortals, panic?stricken; their screams and cries echoed through the universe.

And at this moment.

In the Spirit Realm, the Emperor Origin Realm, at the place where the Great Li Dynasty had once stood, in a small city to the north.

There was likewise great chaos. Countless cultivators were fleeing, trying to find within Heaven and Earth that path of survival which did not in fact exist, while many others simply stayed where they were to wait for death.

A span of several hundred years was enough time for many people to properly prepare for dying.

Inside a small courtyard.

An Array was continuously shining, strenuously stabilizing the situation within the courtyard. Outside, in the streets and alleys, wretched cries were already ceaselessly drifting in.

The butcher at the east end of the street, his daughter had already died; he was clutching his daughter’s corpse and wailing. His pork had always been honest in measure, never short by even a tael, and he would never use sick pigs.

The kindly old granny next door would often bring food she had made herself to Li An and the others, but now, before she could run out, she was killed by a falling roof beam; the house then collapsed, burying her beneath it as though sealing her in a tomb.

On the main street, a group of children were running when the ground suddenly split open beneath them and they all fell in. Panic and cries erupted all around…

Scenes of human tragedy, one after another.

Li An and Shangguan Xiaoxiao, however, were still drinking tea beneath the peach tree.

“Are you afraid it will hurt me?”

Shangguan Xiaoxiao drank the tea; she had already sensed the drug in it, yet she tasted it as sweet as nectar and still drank it all down.

“Yes. Falling asleep and then it’s over; it’s better than dying like they are.”

Li An looked at Shangguan Xiaoxiao, then suddenly reached out, gently stroked her face, and said, “The world is about to be destroyed. After this, we’ll never again see the living beings under Heaven. Won’t that be a pity?”

“What’s there to pity? We’re going to die too… What’s frightening is if we’re still alive and everything else is gone; that would truly be something to regret.”

She gave this reply, and the medicine’s power had already risen, but she saw that Li An was still perfectly clear?headed, and she subconsciously reached out, saying, “Li Gou, you…”

“Sleep well. Be good.”

Li An gently embraced her, letting her fall unconscious in his arms.

He held her like that for a long time, and only then did he carry her back to the room and lay her on the bed. He pulled the quilt up over her and lightly kissed her forehead, saying, “I won’t let you wait too long.”

He truly did not wait long. In the next instant, a terrifying Daluo radiance had already descended here from the horizon, turning into a bridge, and upon that bridge a middle?aged man in wide robes and great sleeves was walking over, a treasure cauldron floating in his hand!

“Ye Cauldron, Palace Master of the Treasure Cauldron Palace, has come specifically to ask Li Supreme to go to his death, to save all living beings!”

He stood above the small city, gazing at Li An from afar!

After Ye Cauldron, Daluo radiance appeared one after another—

“Gong Yunxi of the Biluo Palace has come specifically to ask Fellow Daoist to go to his death, to relieve the suffering of all living beings hanging upside down!”

“Ye Tiancan of the Celestial Pearl Palace dares to ask Li Supreme to give up this remnant life, to save the myriad spirits!”

“All of Star Hanging Palace is willing to support Fellow Daoist’s soul!”

Yunxi, Ye Tiancan, Biyao Fairy… and some Daluo Golden Immortals whom Li An did not know, but whose names he had heard—all of them had come.

They completely surrounded this little courtyard.

Within the courtyard, Li An calmly walked out from the room. He closed the door behind him, as though shutting a door within his heart.

He looked up and smiled faintly; the answer he had waited for so long had finally arrived.