Chapter 2232: The Personal Motives of the Heavenly Dao

Lu Yun spent the next three days inside the Celestial Realm Battlefront. He used the first two days exploring the various zones of danger and forbidden areas in the Jade Ruins portion. After gleaning numerous treasures from them, he spent the remaining day refining his gains.

After exploring the battlefront for endless years, cultivators had harvested much of its plunder. However, there were still a few heaven-defying treasures to be found in certain zones of danger and forbidden areas.

Lu Yun didn’t need those treasures, he just wanted some spirit herbs and ores.

Events within the Celestial Realm Battlefront immensely impacted the outside world. Wars that raged all throughout Jade Ruins Realm called for a truce during these three days. Anyone with the right to enter the battlefront surged into it.

After three days, nearly one hundred million cultivators stood in the Jade Ruins battlefront. Nearly every cultivator who could enter this world was present. It presented quite a magnificent feast for the senses when an entire world of cultivation’s worth of cultivators were gathered in one place.

“Does Sir Heaven really intend to bring the fight to Great Xia? He’s going to their battlefront to go against a marquis?” Countless cultivators conversed among themselves in the clearing before the heavenly book. A loud hubbub rose over the assembly.

“It’s not like you haven’t seen his strength for yourself. He easily killed hundreds of Great Xia cultivators with a flip of his hand—Great Xia cultivators! Any of them can be ranked in the top ten of the War Gods Ranking if they were in the Jade Ruins Realm!”

Only those who’d been present at Immortal Burial Valley spoke of Sir Heaven at first. Meanwhile, the heavenly book had recorded the events of three days past. Everyone who entered the Celestial Realm Battlefront could view them at their leisure.

It was the singular most sensational event in Jade Ruins battlefront history. Sir Heaven had declared his intentions in front of countless cultivators—there was no going back on his word!

Of course, Lu Yun didn’t intend to go back on his word either.

Rays of sword splendor shot through the air as he appeared in the center of the Jade Ruins battlefront on a flying sword. He was only a few kilometers from the heavenly book.

The one in this part of the battlefront was just a projection, as was the one in Great Xia. None of them were the true treasure and Lu Yun couldn’t be bothered to study what it was. It was either his master or senior brother’s work.

All cultivators were focused on the faint smear of green in midair. Lu Yun wore long green robes today and permitted his hair to flow freely in the breeze. He rather resembled his senior brother in certain aspects.

The young man swept a glance over the Jade Ruins cultivators. “Today, I will deliver a warning to Marquis Skyglory of Great Xia. Those who wish to watch the show can come with me. From today henceforth, whoever dares think of acting against Jade Ruins will have to pay the price in blood!”

His flying sword burst with radiance and carried him north.

The Celestial Realm Battlefront was a massive entity with each world’s battlefront enveloped by a projection of the heavenly book. The boundary of the book’s influence was the boundary of the world’s domain. The center of the Celestial Realm Battlefront was Great Xia. The battlefronts of other worlds circled around it like the stars feting the moon.

This universe was so endlessly vast that Great Xia was the core of only its own plane. There were more worlds like Great Xia than could be counted. Although each world of cultivation possessed nearly the same surface area of territory, Jade Ruins was so weak that some of its frontier had been occupied by other worlds of cultivation.

When Lu Yun shot in the direction of the Great Xia battlefront, the cultivators behind him hesitated. A few took to the air until roughly ten million followed the young man.

Ten million cultivators still raised an astounding presence that shook the world and shocked wherever they passed through.

The image of the heavenly book at the core of the Jade Ruins battlefront flickered, bursting with a ball of light that transported Lu Yun and the ten million cultivators to the edge of its territory.

Sunpoint Mountain!

It bordered the Jade Ruins and Dayuan battlefront, but since it fell within the purview of the Jade Ruins heavenly book’s projection, it belonged to Jade Ruins.

Occupying ten thousand kilometers across, the mountain was rich in resources, ores, and spirit veins. It’d been taken over by Dayuan and many cultivators were encamped on it, forbidding Jade Ruins cultivators from entering.

As expected, this was where Marquis Skyglory’s contingent waited for Lu Yun. With ten million cultivators behind the Lu young master, the massive entourage coalesced a massive influence around the young man.

Not only were cultivators within the Celestial Realm Battlefront keeping an eye on the proceedings, but so were all of the cultivators within Jade Ruins Realm paying close attention. Challenging a Great Xia marquis and actually drawing a response from such an august personage as a cultivator? This battle broke everyone’s understanding of how things were done. It was a furious roar from cultivators at the bottom toward Great Xia and all immortals in general!

Apart from Jade Ruins Realm, those of various other worlds of cultivation were aware of the matter and observed quietly. Just those from Jade Ruins alone numbered more than one hundred million. How overwhelming was gratitude from one hundred million gathered on one person?

Within Dark City, goodwill condensed into layers of halos around Lu Yun’s primary body. He looked incomparably august and dignified, like he was a god.

One incense stick of goodwill?

Not even Lu Yun knew how many sticks of incense he’d collected when the Seal of Multitude trembled and rang with a sonorous hum.

……

In an unknown place within the Celestial Realm Battlefront.

A person in white silently watched events unfold on Sunpoint Mountain. His were the generic features of life—neither man nor woman, neither young nor old. There were no emotions on his face; he was so detached that it seemed like he didn’t care about anything.

Everything of the world seemed to be encompassed by a single one of his thoughts.

The heavenly dao.

Sky stood next to the heavenly dao and worried, “With so much and such intense goodwill gathered on junior brother, his sealed memories will break free ahead of time.”

“Sky,” the heavenly dao answered him. His voice was completely average, but everything in existence would hear their own voice in his. “What happens when the heavenly dao develops its own motives?”

Sky blinked, a tiny ripple appearing in his eternally static emotional state. “The heavenly dao… its own motives?”

“Indeed,” the heavenly dao murmured. “The heavenly dao with its own motives. I never would’ve rejected him and would have taught him all the same if he appeared in front of me as he was. He would’ve become the heavenly dao of his world.”

Emotion traced his empty tone. “But if circumstances proceeded in such a manner, he would immediately leave and return home. In his eyes, our world has been destroyed and become a particle of dust in the nothing. No, we are not even dust. We are just a part of history.”

Sky shook, his expression finally changing.

“But I… I have my own thoughts and desires. I do not wish to be destroyed, I wish to continue protecting my world,” the heavenly dao continued. “So I added something in the mistress’ plans and made later generations think that I would not tolerate his presence if his memories were not sealed, that I would strike him down on the spot.

“I sealed his memories to have him temporarily relinquish his past and fully become part of this world. Once he formed karmic ties to this world, he would ultimately protect it.

“The mistress, Dao King, and God have died in the future. There is no sign of them in all of space and time. In this world's future, the vicious spirits do not evolve into ghost zombies because of their presence. Now that we have lost them, they will surely complete the evolution and the weakness that I left on the vicious spirits will be erased.

“When that comes, living spirits will be slaughtered and all life wither away. The heavens dao will be no more.

“The demise of the four divine beasts is just a sign. We will not even survive until the day that life marches on the heavens. We will scatter upon the wind before then.

“No, life no longer possesses that ability anymore. It will only be slowly destroyed with the heavenly dao.

“Those three dying in the future means a severing of their final ties to this world. Whatever happens to this world will not result in any change to the future.”

That was because the nothing was boundless without end, without concept and was completely objective. This world of immortal dao civilization had no direct ties to anything of future worlds. The only tie was that the mistress, Dao King, and God had brought the seeds of this world’s immortal dao to the future. But in that world, the master of immortal dao and its origins were Lu Yun and Qing Yu.

With the demise of the trio, the last tie between this world and the future world dissipated. Even if this world somehow survived, it would not affect the future world because Lu Yun had come.

The future was set in stone.

Lu Yun, however, was an unknown factor. He could save this world. But in his understanding, he felt nothing for this world that had already crumbled away. He would not stop devastation from taking place as he’d already experienced such an example before. When he traveled from the future to the great wilderness, not only did he not change the development of history, but he became part of it. No matter what he did, it all followed the progression of history.

That concept was thoroughly etched in his heart, so he would not interfere in anything after arriving in this world—it was meant to die.

Thus, the heavenly dao thought of a way to seal the young man’s memories and used the marks of three thousand lifetimes to facilitate him becoming part of this world. Only in that way would he form relationships and karmic ties to it.

Such had been the mistress’ thoughts as well.