Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 1272: The Heavenly Dao Labyrinth
The battle in space continued, numerous intricate Immortal Arts lighting up the sky like fireworks.
But Yu Cheng, the attacker in this battle, seemed to have no attention to spare for it. His eyes remained closed while the Dao Runes on the Fourface Crown of Omniscience flashed, indicating that it was being pushed to the limit.
Rather than commanding the battle, he was putting all of his focus into the Crown of Omniscience. One could only say that the Immortal Emperor was currently taking part in some other, unseen, battle.
In a place the eyes couldn’t see, his Divine Will was quietly working away.
Alas, even if he tried to hide it, it was pointless to do so against those who already knew the answer.
As Nine Disaster used a demonic art to block an attack from Godhead Universal, he coldly smirked. “The Heavenly Dao Labyrinth was laid down by the Heavenly Dao, as a barrier on the path to the Unknowable Land.”
“What is the Unknowable Land?” Wang Yao asked.
“You know it’s the Unknowable Land, but you’re still asking that question?”
“Even if you don’t tell me, I can still take a guess. That place must be where one can surpass the Heavenly Dao, right?”
Nine Disaster glanced at him and asked, “Was it Tang Jie who told you?”
Wang Yao chuckled. “What about it? In the current situation, you’ll have a hard time beating Yu Cheng without my adoptive father’s help. If you can’t win, you can’t go in!”
To his surprise, Nine Disaster coldly laughed and said, “You think I attacked the Gigantes Domain for ten thousand years to go in there and surpass the Heavenly Dao?”
Wang Yao was taken aback. “Is that not the case?”
Nine Disaster suddenly turned solemn, his body exuding majesty. “Of course not. As this old monk has long said, I am carrying out the will of the heavens! This place is the origin of disaster for the Great Stellar Chiliocosm. If someone were to open and enter it, the cosmos would undergo a great calamity! All I have done is to stop this from happening! I will… destroy this place!”
Wang Yao was stunned.
A Demon Sovereign was speaking of upholding the will of the heavens? It turned his world-view upside-down.
But Nine Disaster had such a sincere and solemn expression that even though he was oozing demonic energy, he appeared like a god sacrificing himself by descending into hell!
This dissonance left Wang Yao feeling unsettled.
But Tang Jie seemed to finally understand something. “Is that how it is? This must be the reason you became a demon.”
“Shut up!” Nine Disaster gazed at Tang Jie, his gaze piercing through the vast distance to meet Tang Jie’s eyes as he rumbled, “Tang Jie, don’t try and get in my good graces. This old monk knows what you’re thinking. Like Yu Cheng, you simply want to extract some value from the secret of Gigantes!”
Tang Jie shook his head. “You’re wrong. Before this, I had no idea what the secret of the Gigantes Domain was, so why would I want to extract any value from it? Yu Cheng wants to get into that place and get an opportunity to surpass the Heavenly Dao, the Three Sages Ancestor wants to stop him, and you want to destroy that place so that possibility is forever lost, but what I want… is my body.”
He turned his gaze to Yu Cheng and muttered, “Yu Cheng must return what he has stolen from me.”
Nine Disaster was slightly surprised. He knew that Yu Cheng had come back through reincarnation and possession, but he was surprised by Tang Jie’s stance. “You know that there’s an existence that lets you surpass the Heavenly Dao there, but you’re not interested? Do you not want to know what it is that lets you surpass the Heavenly Dao?”
Tang Jie indifferently replied, “I am interested, but purely out of curiosity’s sake, not because I want it. This is because… I have my own Dao.”
Nine Disaster immediately recalled Tang Jie’s Heavenly Dao Realm.
He realized that Tang Jie was correct.
He had his own Dao.
As he had his own Dao, this existence that could let him surpass the Heavenly Dao wasn’t necessarily what he was seeking.
Of course, this didn’t mean he believed Tang Jie. Just because he wasn’t seeking it didn’t mean he would give up on it if it was useful to him. Nobody actually knew what the secret within the Gigantes Domain was, but if Tang Jie were to find out that he could use it, he might seize it for himself.
Even so, at least Tang Jie didn’t have as much motivation as the Immortal Emperor to usurp the Heavenly Dao.
This was enough, as it meant that he could temporarily trust Tang Jie. He didn’t have many options. Just like how Tang Jie was choosing to help the demons because they were weaker than the Immortal Emperor’s side, from Nine Disaster’s perspective, it was clearly better to defeat Yu Cheng and then deal with Tang Jie rather than the other way around.
Tang Jie saw his expression and smiled. “Made up your mind? Then can you notify the Gigantes King now?”
“I already did, and he’s already on it,” Nine Disaster casually replied.
Boom!
The Gigantes Domain began to quake.
Everyone looked down and saw that the Cavespace Mountains, the last refuge of the Gigantes, was erupting with pulses of spiritual energy.
A massive vortex of energy emerged, devouring all existences in the vicinity. Most of the combatants were battling out in space and managed to avoid this calamity, so they were able to witness everything in a vast distance around the vortex being sucked in and obliterated. As the vortex expanded, more than half of the Gigantes Domain was devoured in the blink of an eye.
Tang Jie’s World Devourer was like a child’s trick compared to this vortex.
As for the Gigantes hidden in the Cavespace Mountains, they had naturally been utterly annihilated. Only the Gigantes King alone survived, standing in the center of the vortex. This wasn’t because he was so strong that he could resist the vortex, but because the terrifying power of the vortex completely avoided him.
In a flash, most of the Gigantes Domain had disappeared. This was a massive world several dozen times larger than the Rosecloud Domain, but now it was gone. The aftershocks reached beyond the domain, throwing the Astral Winds into a frenzy and forcing the combatants to retreat tens of thousands of kilometers, with the weak dying on the spot. Even the Rosecloud Domain was affected, being kicked like a ball to a million kilometers away. Because of this, the Astral Wind region of the Gigantes Domain ceased to exist.
But the Gigantes Domain did not completely disappear. Something new was taking form where land had once been.
It was a fantastical space, brimming with flashing Dao Runes, exuding a mysterious and sacred aura. Those proficient in the Great Dao found that those Dao Runes did not belong to a single Dao, but every single one of the Daos, major and minor, changing every second. In that space, one could see countless worlds being born and disappearing, stars going in and out of existence. All the Great Daos were in operation, and there were even signs of life…
It was like a new world had appeared, replacing the original Gigantes Domain, but it had a strange spatial attribute that meant that it could only be seen, not touched. No matter what kind of storm of spell arts blew past, it would be neutralized by the Dao Runes. The moment it had appeared, several thousand kinds of Divine Connections had been aimed at it, some of them unintentional and others seeking to test it, but all of them had proved useless.
But in that mysterious space, a will let out a bellow of fury:
“Gigantes King, have you gone mad?”
Yu Cheng!
It was Yu Cheng’s will.
To be more precise, his Divine Will had entered that mysterious space.
This was undoubtedly the Heavenly Dao Labyrinth Nine Disaster had spoken of.
But no one had expected the Heavenly Dao Labyrinth to be so wondrous and fantastical. Of course, if it had just been an ordinary maze, Tang Jie would have wondered what the Heavenly Dao was thinking.
The Gigantes King was standing within the Heavenly Dao Labyrinth.
To be more precise, he was standing simultaneously in the Heavenly Dao Labyrinth and in the Gigantes Domain, like a man standing in the river, half in the water and half above the surface. Thus, his body seemed unreal and phantom-like.
Looking up at the court, the Gigantes King sorrowfully said, “Have I gone mad? Perhaps. From the day we Gigantes angered the Heavenly Dao, we were doomed to this Fate. To have survived this long can be considered stolen time from the heavens. Now that the moment of destiny has come and our extinction is inevitable, at least we can choose how we die.”
“Bastard! What good does ruining my plan do you? If you let me get in there and find that opportunity to surpass the Heavenly Dao, I could cancel the punishment on your Gigantes race and restore to you a glorious future!”
Disdain appeared in the Gigantes King’s eyes. “No, you can’t do it.”
“Nonsense! Li Jiuyang was able to do it, so why can’t I!!!” Yu Cheng roared.
He was on the verge of madness!
‘Li Jiuyang’?
Tang Jie was stunned.
So it really was like that?
When Li Jiuyang had been thrown into the Primordial Fog Demon Jail, he had somehow gotten stronger, fought his way out of the Primordial Fog Domain, and returned to the positive plane as the peerless Martial Lord who had even shattered the Court of Myriad Domains.
The cause of it all was right here!
Li Jiuyang had entered that land past the Heavenly Dao Labyrinth.
And then when he returned to the Gigantes Domain, he left those words on the stone wall.
All this was because that was the place sealed by the Heavenly Dao Labyrinth.
But…
“But he still couldn’t beat the Heavenly Dao,” Tang Jie muttered.
“That’s because it’s only an opportunity,” Xu Miaoran chimed in. “An opportunity that could let him surpass the Heavenly Dao, but not a guarantee that he would have the power to do so.”
“Perhaps if he had had more time, he could have done,” Yiyi said.
“Alas, he didn’t. What happened to his wife meant that he couldn’t stay in hiding,” the Vermillion Bird sighed.
“This is Fate,” Yun Tianlan sighed.
“But Fate is under the Heavenly Dao,” Huang Wuji casually said.
Everyone’s eyes lit up. “Could it be…”
Tang Jie shook his head. “Can’t be sure, can’t say, must not say.”
Everyone shut up.
The will of the heavens was difficult to fathom, and Fate was unpredictable. Sometimes, it was best to keep one’s thoughts to oneself.
Of course, they didn’t need to afford Yu Cheng the same level of respect as the Heavenly Dao.
Tang Jie said, “The Gigantes King’s actions mean that Yu Cheng will have to deal with him. Let’s see what Yu Cheng still has to show. I sense that his move this time will be very unusual, perhaps very troublesome.”
Everyone laughed. “Domain Lord is already so wise, and you have your avatar’s will lurking in Yu Cheng’s body. I’m sure that whatever scheme he has, he wouldn’t be able to hide it from you.”
“There’s no guarantee of that. There is one method that I can’t do anything about.”
“What?” everyone asked in unison.
“Fate!”
