As the Bronze Dao Treasury opened completely, an irresistible ancient will instantly enveloped Chu Qing. This was not some restriction imposed on him, but the ultimate barrier every seeker who attempted to step onto the "Innate Great Dao" had to cross—the Heart-Questioning Illusion.
The surrounding void collapsed in an instant, and Chu Qing felt an unprecedented sense of stripping away. His supreme cultivation, which had attained perfect Daluo, seemed never to have existed under the power of this illusion. He lost the strength to move mountains and overturn seas, and he lost the Divine Sense that could cut across dimensions. All that remained was the most ordinary, most fragile mortal body, falling into an ancient city of Red Dust wreathed in smoke and human fire.
At this moment, he was only a poor scholar in coarse hemp clothes, making a living by carrying firewood all day. He had no transcendent means left, only that Dao heart which had endured through eternity and still beat on. In the Red Dust constructed by this illusion, he had to use a mortal body to walk once more the journey of the heart from weakness to strength beneath those surging calamities, using this fleshly mortal shell to verify why he cultivated immortality, and why he protected.
"Chu Qing, if you lost all your methods, if you did not even have the ability to protect others, then this long, long life of yours—is it truly for the Great Dao, or is it because you greedily cling to that bit of warmth in the Red Dust?"
Deep within the illusion, a vast, hollow voice rang out. It was not the clamor of a villain, but the Heavenly Dao's interrogation of a seeker's will. Immediately after, countless illusions came surging one after another. He saw a homeland