Chapter 1855 — That Dao Ancestor Breaks the Heaven-Piercing Well

The qi of chaos vanished, and what met everyone's eyes was a lamp of ancient simplicity, no more than the plainest oil lamp: a small bowl beneath, a little clear oil within the bowl, and a wick laid across its rim.

The lamp was not lit, and there did not seem to be much oil in it either.

The gazes of Huadu and the other five Hall Masters flickered, and all at once they charged together at that oil lamp; and in the very instant they rushed out, Lan Yutian had already snatched the lamp into his hands.

Hall Master Huadu hastily halted his steps, but he saw that the other four Hall Masters were still lunging at Lan Yutian, and in a panic he cried out in a stern voice: "Do not go! Retreat at once!"

His figure drew back, yet those four Hall Masters no longer had time to retreat.

They saw that when Lan Yutian held the oil lamp up in his palm, the lamp had already kindled itself; its light shone with a strange purple hue, and in but a brief moment that purple radiance lit the whole treasure hall.

By now Hall Master Huadu had fallen back to the doorway of the treasure hall, and caught in that purple light, he suddenly felt that everything of his was illuminated through and through by that radiance, as though each and every one of his Dao arts and divine powers had been seen clear to the very dregs!

Startled at heart, he fled the hall with all speed.

In that startling glimpse, he had felt the shape of the lamp flame to be exceedingly odd, like a purple evil eye possessed of dozens of layered pupils!

He called it an evil eye because those purple pupils stood upright, like the vertical eye upon Shen Mu's brow; yet pupil upon pupil, together with the heart of the flame, made forty-one layers in all, and the pupils were purple in hue, while the flame at the center was naught but chaos.

Once the lamplight fell upon one, it was as if that purple-pupiled evil eye had seen through every Dao art and divine power, leaving not the slightest secret to speak of.

In the instant Hall Master Huadu left the hall, the four Hall Masters within suddenly gave voice to a single wretched cry, and then there was no sound at all.

Hall Master Huadu's heart was wrung as though by a knife, yet he dared not linger even a moment; with a long howl he fled far away.

And there in the hall, Lan Yutian held up the oil lamp with dulled eyes, staring blankly at the flame.

What had happened just now was truly bizarre: the oil lamp had lit, the flame like a purple-pupiled evil eye, and that eye had even turned a full circle within the light, its gaze falling upon the four Hall Masters one after another.

The four Hall Masters were struck by that evil eye in the lamplight almost in the same instant, and the Great Dao of those four Hall Masters swiftly turned to green smoke; even their dao trees and dao fruits, even their treasure halls, all turned to green smoke!

Those four Hall Masters had only time for a single wretched cry before they evaporated clean away before his very eyes!

"Bizarre! Truly bizarre!"

Lan Yutian cried out, and nearly flung the lamp from his hands.

While the lamplight shone, he could see, across the flame, everything of those four Hall Masters: their divine powers and Dao arts, their dao trees, dao fruits, and dao halls, all of it broken down into the most minute runes, as though decomposed into the smallest of particles.

But what he had not expected was that when the evil eye within the lamplight shone, it would be so terrifying.

"This lamp of my brother's — when the Master of Miluo Palace preached here, he stole his Dao charm and turned it into lamp oil; stole the exquisite subtleties he expounded in his preaching and turned them into a wick; and turned his Dao of Chaos into an evil eye."

Lan Yutian examined the lamp oil closely, and saw that with the four Hall Masters slain by the evil eye, the oil had been consumed in small part as well; his heart went cold. "When the Master of Miluo Palace preaches, be it an accomplished Daoist of Miluo Palace, a Hall Master, or a Young Master, their divine powers and their Dao arts cannot surpass those of the Master of Miluo Palace; therefore once the lamplight falls upon them, they have no secret left to keep. But the oil is limited, and this lamp cannot burn for long. I must deal with the other six exotic treasures before the oil is spent! Only..."

He flew from the hall and made straight for the Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron.

"Only — can this lamp stand against those six exotic treasures?"

The oil lamp was an exotic treasure, but the Heaven-Piercing Well, the Drifting Smoke Purple Mists, the Great Prison, the Mirror of Returning Light, and the rest were likewise exotic treasures refined by the Young Masters of Miluo Palace. Whether the oil lamp could deal with these six exotic treasures, Lan Yutian had not the confidence to say.

By the time Lan Yutian entered the Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron, he saw Xu Shenghua leading the accomplished Daoists of Jingping to hold off the great army of Miluo Palace's accomplished Daoists; and around those six exotic treasures, slaughter likewise raged on every side.

The might of those six exotic treasures had already wholly suppressed the power of the Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron, so that it could bring forth not a shred of its might. Nor was that all: the Hall Masters and accomplished Daoists of Miluo Palace had gathered about the six treasures, and their power spread out in every direction, hacking Kaihuang, Shen Fengqing, and the others until they were gashed and battered.

The eldest Young Master Taishang's Heaven-Piercing Well was the most formidable of all: it not only pierced the Primordial Cauldron through and punched a great hole in the whole Ancestral Court, but hung high at the center, straight above and straight below, like an enormous tornado churning wind and cloud, making the breach in the Ancestral Court ever wider!

The whole might of the Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron, spanning ten million li, was absorbed entire by that well!

This well was a treasure that ran through the Kalpa of Destruction; seen from without it seemed to have no substance at all, and one could not tell of what it was made, yet its power was truly too strong.

Kaihuang and the others fought their way to the well's edge, battling and weaving back and forth there, meeting the accomplished Daoists and Hall Masters of Miluo Palace.

Among the Jingping accomplished Daoists at his side, one now and again was struck into the well, giving out earth-shaking screams as they fell into it, plunging down into the Kalpa of Destruction of past universes!

Kaihuang too was in dire peril, liable at any moment to be struck into the well.

On the other side, the second Young Master's Drifting Smoke Purple Mists ran rampant through the sky; several Hall Masters of Miluo Palace stood upon the Drifting Smoke Purple Mists, coming and going like the wind. Those Drifting Smoke Purple Mists were a treasure formed from the second Young Master Wuji's thirty-sixth level of the Heavenly Dao realm, and now and again they burst forth the wind of heat-death of Guixu; gust after gust of that wind blew past, eroding the sky and earth of the Ancestral Court and ruining the might of the Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron. Xing'an led the Jingping accomplished Daoists in charging into the drifting smoke, and nearly all those at his side died within it; Xing'an himself had his flesh body destroyed again and again.

The might of the Great Prison, the Mirror of Returning Light, and the other exotic treasures was likewise fearsome in the extreme, so that even Hall-Master-level beings of Jingping could not hold out against it, to say nothing of the accomplished Daoists.

The mountains and rivers of the Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron were shattered; the foremost weighty treasure forged over three and a half billion years might be destroyed at any moment beneath the assaults of the six exotic treasures!