Chapter 1831 — That Youth Three Thousand Years Later

In barely three thousand years, the ancestral court had already changed beyond all recognition; even Granny Zhu, Li Zheng, and the others, who had seen it after it was sealed, now felt utterly alien. After they had left, some great upheaval had plainly happened here again.

The Jade Capital of the ancestral court had turned bright and resplendent.

From a distance, that incomparably gorgeous city sat amid clouds of chaos, and faint trails of chaos aura could be seen seeping out of it, shrouding the Jade Capital in mist and fog. Within the city stood Dao trees one after another, tall, majestic, and densely leafy.

And then there was the Cosmic Bell of the ancestral court's World Tree, so inconceivably vast that no one knew who had forged it or who made it ring.

Around the World Tree, the Chaos Rivers no longer appeared only at night—they now emerged even in daylight, like sixteen moats protecting the Boundless Elder.

Within those sixteen Chaos Rivers, the World Tree's colossal roots coiled and interlaced, plunging into the rivers and piercing age after age of the universe, terrifying to behold. Around the World Tree, Dao trees great and small stood in ranks, and countless prehistoric Dao-achievers had plucked the Dao fruits from their own trees and transplanted them onto the World Tree, making it extraordinarily garish and beautiful.

But the greatest change was none of these: it was the lie of the mountains and rivers along the four walls of the ancestral court. That change in topography was not eye-catching, yet it was the largest of all.

In the past, Shen Mu had laid down the ancestral court's seal by altering its mountains and rivers, using that topography as the basis for the Dao patterns and Dao chains that formed the seal. Now the mountains and rivers had become orderly, shaping themselves into patterns like relief designs carved on the walls of a great tripod.

Only, in complexity, the four walls of this tripod that was the ancestral court were countless times more complex than an ordinary tripod.

Such a change showed that the ancestral court increasingly resembled an incomparably vast treasure. Zhu Santong was a man of vast knowledge and experience, but even he was stunned.

"Seventh Young Master has made a bold move!

What exactly is the old gentleman trying to do?

" Compared with Lord Chaos, Zhu Santong still had to call himself a junior.

Lord Chaos of Miluo Palace had become famous very early.

By the time Zhu Santong attained the Dao, Lord Chaos had long since been renowned throughout the world, and because he ranked seventh in Miluo Palace, he was called the Seventh Young Master.

For Zhu Santong to address him as an old gentleman was not unreasonable. What felt even stranger was that the sky had become like an ocean.

A Chaos Sea hung upside down over the ancestral court; above that sea hung inverted lotuses, colossal beyond measure, with three or four lotus leaves floating on the water.

The Chaos Sea was suspended from the heavens, and from time to time dazzlingly brilliant streams of light burst forth from it, blindingly bright; when they reached the air above the lotuses, they curved through the sky and fell into the blooms. Inside each lotus was a lotus platform with seed-pod pores at its center, and from those pores shot streams of chaos aura that reflected the light.

The sight made everyone's eyes go wide. "Lord Shang and the Dark Heavenly Venerable never said anything about the ancestral court changing like this," Emperor Yiyue murmured, staring blankly.

"Those two are the sort you could beat with eight clubs and not get a single fart out of.

You can't rely on them.

" Granny Zhu had also stared until her eyes went round and said it offhandedly.

Zhu Santong looked up and saw six layers of lotus petals around the lotus platform—the sixfold Dao grade of the Guixu Way. Among those present, he had the keenest eyes and the most experience, and could discern some clues.

In the Guixu Way, one birth and death of the universe was one Dao grade, and the supreme achiever of the Guixu Way was Lord Wuji of Miluo Palace, whose lotus platform had sixteen Dao grades.

Though she had not been born in the first epoch of the universe, she had explored both the Annihilation Kalpa and the Genesis Kalpa of that first epoch, and so had been able to cultivate this path.

Shen Mu's cultivation of the sixfold Dao grade was most likely due to drawing on the power of the great Annihilation Kalpa. "But he still needs a means like that of the Heaven-Opening Host before he can comprehend the mysteries of the Genesis Kalpa.

" Zhu Santong thought: "He is not one of the Heaven-Opening Host, but he most likely has a similar means. And yet the Heaven-Opening Host have already become monsters.

I wonder whether the Seventh Young Master can hold fast to his Dao heart.

.

. " Then he suddenly shook his head and thought: "The Seventh Young Master was always a monster to begin with!

" Shen Fengqing led the way toward the Cosmic Bell, saying, "Be careful.

Those prehistoric masters who crawled out of the past are all formidable, with mighty divine powers and Dao arts mostly unfamiliar to you. If you die before even taking the field, you'll disgrace Jingping. " Heavenly Duke had the highest cultivation among them and was the only Dao-achiever; he opened the road together with Shen Fengqing.

As they came down from the tripod wall, they saw traces of great Dao battles everywhere in the ancestral court and were secretly alarmed.

These traces were mostly residual divine power left by top-tier Heavenly Venerables and Dao-achievers. Dao chains had taken all manner of forms—mountains, rivers, trees, divine beasts, sacred relics.

There were also broken Dao weapons, weapons of Dao-achievers, thrust into the earth like mountain ranges. These fragments were probably the Dao weapons of prehistoric Dao-achievers, destroyed in the war.

Silent Craftsman tried to go pick some up, but Li Zheng hastily tugged him back and whispered, "Don't shame Shen'er.

These are things people threw away.

We're Shen'er's elders, not ragpickers. " Silent Craftsman turned a deaf ear, picked up some fragments, and came back overjoyed.

Further ahead, ruined Dao trees lay stuck in the ground every which way, and Silent Craftsman hurried over to gather them.

Blind Elder could not resist going up as well, and Butcher dashed over, saying, "There's fine material here—forge me a good blade! " In the end, even Li Zheng could not hold back; he ran over to scavenge and called, "Silent Craftsman, that sword.

.

. " When they had cleaned out that battlefield, everyone had gained something.

Even Zhu Santong had snatched a few treasures and felt his heart hammering: "This is far faster than looting Dao-achievers in my previous life. " He had once been a bandit among Dao-achievers, skilled at changing form and harming men, and had plundered many of his peers, until at last, because he had tried to snatch other Dao-achievers' life-saving treasures during the Annihilation Kalpa, he was suppressed by Lord Taishang.

Lord Taishang, like the master of Miluo Palace, rarely killed, and so had let him live until now.

The group went on, passed another ruined battlefield that was also strewn with treasures, and could not resist looting that one too.

They advanced in fits and starts, encountering more than a dozen battlefields, until their packs were stuffed full and they could loot no more, so they gave up.

Suddenly, a golden ship flew up from ahead and stopped before them.

They knew Shen Mu had sent the golden ship to fetch them and boarded one after another, only to see treasures piled up like mountains and covering every deck.

Compared with those, the treasures they had gathered were indeed discarded scraps!