Chapter 1382 — Pilgrimage to Black Mountain
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Tian Gong, Tu Bo, and Shen Mu looked around them; the sights each beheld and the Dao sounds each heard were wholly different.
What Tian Gong beheld was the Heavenly Dao at a deeper level, a higher realm he himself had never grasped; what he heard was the voice of the Heavenly Dao, understood more profoundly than by him, a Tian Gong born of the Heavenly Dao. What Tu Bo beheld was the Great Way of Youdu, no less awe-inspiring than what Tian Gong saw, and the sound he heard was so sublime it stirred in one an uncontrollable urge to sing upon hearing the Way.
What Shen Mu saw and heard differed from them once more: he beheld and heard a vast chaos, hazy and indistinct, incomprehensible, and yet he sensed within it a mystery beyond unraveling. Each of the three felt something of his own; Tian Gong and Tu Bo were seldom stirred, yet now they were stirred as never before, and even their timeless, unmoving Dao hearts could scarce suppress it.
Shen Mu, long accustomed to Tai Yi, was not stirred at all. Onward and upward they walked, until at last they came before the gateway of the great hall.
They looked within and saw wreaths of radiant light drifting like the tentacles of a jellyfish, unfurling gently like cloud vapor, holy beyond words. The hall no longer seemed a hall, but rather the place of origin of all the Great Ways; even Shen Mu, stepping inside, felt as though he had come here for the first time.
This hall was one he had built, his own palace; though Shen Mu had not visited it often, he knew the hall was by no means as it appeared now.
"A mountain need not be high, nor water deep; now that my palace holds Tai Yi, a truly holy being, it too has become set apart, transcendent and refined," he thought to himself.
The honor lay not in the hall, but in the one within it.
Tian Gong and Tu Bo were all the more astonished; Shen Mu's cultivation was still low, and what he saw was neither as deep nor as far as what they saw—the visions before their eyes were far more terrifying! In Shen Mu's eyes, the old man Tai Yi, encircled by ten thousand Ways, was like a withered tree holding within it a thread of vitality; but in the eyes of Tian Gong and Tu Bo, it was nothing short of momentous.
They seemed to see the origin of the universe, the genesis of the Great Way—an existence seated at the summit of the Great Way, eternally imprinted upon this universe's past, present, and future!
Tian Gong and Tu Bo stepped forward and bowed in salute, saying with the utmost reverence, "Fellow Daoist. " "No need for such courtesy between fellow Daoists," said the old man Tai Yi with a slight nod.
"I already know why you two have come.
" Even the minds of Tian Gong and Tu Bo, calm as ancient wells, could not help but ripple; Tu Bo said, "When the Great Way told us to purge the Creator from the Ancestral Court, was it you, Fellow Daoist? " Tai Yi nodded.
Tian Gong and Tu Bo exchanged a glance; Tian Gong said, "Heaven above has the virtue of cherishing life—why did you seek to remove the Creator, Fellow Daoist? " "I did not seek to remove the Creator, but asked you to purge the Creator from hence," said Tai Yi.
"My wish was a good one, but on the path of purging the Creator, you each gave birth to ambition and desire, until at last you sought to wipe the Creator out utterly. That was not what I wished to see.
" Tian Gong and Tu Bo each fell silent.
Self-interest.
Indeed, in the course of rooting out the Creator, they had given rise to all manner of selfish motives: some became ambition, some became a craving for power, some evolved into desire for things beyond themselves.
Thus the Ancient Gods began to enslave the Demigods and the races born after Heaven; thus the Ancient Gods began to feed upon the Demigods and the creatures born after Heaven, reveling in their sacrifices. Thus the Ancient Gods ruled the heavens and all realms, exalted on high, having lost their original true hearts.