Chapter 1858 — The Contest of Dao Conviction
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
"Heh, Old Seven.
. .
"
The ancient memories awakened, and Third Young Master Ling Xiao finally remembered himself, remembered what had befallen him when Shen Mu cast him into the Tribulation of Creation of the Seventeenth Epoch.
He fell into that Tribulation of Creation, and countless versions of him rushed at once toward the Foul Ground that the Tribulation of Destruction had not yet annihilated.
Only there was there a thread of life! But just as countless versions of him raced toward the Foul Ground, the Tribulation of Creation erupted as well, and its power was beyond all imagining: in countless spaces, countless future selves of his, as though undergoing the opening of heaven and earth of a universe, abruptly burst apart, transformed into the Five Primes, into expanding space, body slain and dao dissolved! Countless future selves of his exhausted every means to resist the Tribulation of Creation, driving the divine powers and dao arts of Miluo Palace to their utmost, yet even the strength of a Young Master was of no use whatsoever before this unimaginable catastrophe.
Only then did he understand the gulf between himself and the master of Miluo Palace, and Taishang, and Wuji, and even Shen Mu. That gulf was not a gulf in cultivation, but a gulf in dao attainment, in comprehension of the Dao.
How many futures the Tribulation of Creation had severed from him, he did not know!
He even suspected that his coming billions of years, even tens of billions of years, had all been annihilated by the Tribulation of Creation!
That was horrifying beyond measure.
In that Tribulation of Creation, he had only had time to flee into the Foul Ground with his head.
"Ninety-five billion years have passed since the Tribulation of Creation.
The wounds I took in it should be healed by now.
" The head of Third Young Master Ling Xiao recovered its memory, and at once flesh and blood began to grow. Before this he had been nothing but a head, drifting through the Foul Ground, muddled and dim, acting on instinct alone, not knowing how to restore his body.
Not until Shen Mu, sealed within the pagoda formed from Taichu's flesh and blood, flew into the Foul Ground did Ling Xiao's head obtain a trace of flesh and blood. And the strangest thing in all of this was that the flesh-and-blood pagoda was formed from Taichu's flesh and blood, yet the one who at that time controlled Taichu's body was none other than Third Young Master Ling Xiao.
Moreover, the divine power stored within that flesh-and-blood pagoda was another great divine power that Ling Xiao had created, aimed at the weaknesses of Shen Mu's arts and divine powers: Miluo Dao-Transmutation! In the end, Ling Xiao's skull in the Foul Ground obtained a trace of flesh and blood from the flesh-and-blood pagoda, and only thus was he able to live again!
The circularity of it all was well worth pondering. Young Master Ling Xiao strove with all his might to restore his body; this body was in truth the flesh and blood of the ancient god, the Heavenly Emperor Taichu, joined to his own skull.
But in the Tribulation of Creation, all the spirituality within his skull had been erased by the tribulation, and so he could only use Taichu's flesh and blood to restore his body. Fortunately, Taichu's body was exceedingly powerful; though Taichu himself had been unable to cultivate his body to its utmost, Young Master Ling Xiao could.
"It seems now that the Tribulation of Creation erased only ninety-five billion years of my future.
" Young Master Ling Xiao's head grew swiftly, and a neck sprouted beneath it.
He sensed his dao spear, the spear that pierced his skull, which must have been damaged by the Tribulation of Creation when it fell with him into the Foul Ground, its power greatly diminished. "The future beyond ninety-five billion years was not destroyed by the Tribulation of Creation. I am reborn at this moment; in the Seventeenth Epoch to come, I still have boundless time.