The purest Extreme Yin Power, so pure that it could contain nothing else, began transforming toward that point of Lesser Yin. Anchored by a drop of Living Blood and a wisp of Primordial Spirit, it nurtured life anew.
Thus, after the moonless night came the new moon.
Within that absolute darkness, a glimmer of moonlight representing life quietly lit up.
A crescent moon, a first-quarter moon, a gibbous moon—the shifting phases of the moon represented the continuous growth of life.
When the final full moon arrived, signifying the cycle of life and death, the enormous moonwheel condensed once more into a figure.
He was tall and imposing, his long black hair cascading like a waterfall. With swordlike brows and starry eyes, a long blade hung at his waist. He was none other than the one countless humans revered as the Taiyin Human Emperor.
Though he had died hundreds of thousands of years ago, he had now returned at the height of his strength!
Moonlike radiance blossomed forth. Taiyin turned toward Fang Zheng's blocky figure behind him and let out a hearty laugh.
Then, the Taiyin Moon Blade at his waist left its sheath.
Though only a fragment of its tip remained, Taiyin had reforged it through the wondrous transformation of living out his fourth life. The blade's divine spirit had also been completely reborn.
Just like the rising sun and setting moon, from life to death, and from death to life.
As the Taiyin Rebirth Method operated, Taiyin underwent the cycle from life to death. Relying only on a shattered remnant of resentment, he had lingered within the special environment of the Immortal Ascension Road's Law Mighty Pass for hundreds of thousands of years without being completely worn away. Then, through an external miracle, he condensed his Primordial Spirit once more.
After surviving this calamity, Taiyin gained an entirely new understanding of his Dao. His comprehension of the Great Dao had now surpassed even his former peak. Given time to settle and refine it, he would surely achieve another breakthrough.
As the Taiyin Moon Blade swept out, Taiyin Power flowing from life to death transformed into absolute stillness, carving a pitch-black trajectory.
That trajectory was formless and shadowless. Yang was substance, Yin was void—it was the ultimate expression of Taiyin Power. It directly cut away space itself, utterly erasing the path through space that should have existed, nearly skipping the most fundamental process of time and reaching the point where a strike landed the instant it was unleashed.
This slash made no sound, yet it severed the bodies of tens of thousands of God-Demon Phantoms, cutting apart the Law Chains that formed them. Those beings, which should have been able to regenerate countless times even after being reduced to dust, fell dead on the spot, blood flowing everywhere.
Though these God-Demon Phantoms were merely condensed from laws, their raw power surpassed the Quasi-Emperor Ninth Heaven and vaguely reached the combat strength of the Supreme Being realm.
One had to know that although the Quasi-Emperor Ninth Heaven and a Supreme Being who had attained the Dao were separated by only a single line, that line was an absolute, impassable chasm.
Every Supreme Being was a genius among geniuses, a miracle among miracles.
When low-realm cultivators could kill enemies beyond their realm, they were said to possess the potential to break taboos.
Breaking through one minor realm counted as one prohibition, while breaking through eight counted as Eight Prohibitions. That was already nearly the limit of what humans could achieve.
The higher one's realm, the greater the gap in combat power between each minor realm, and the harder it became to kill across realms.
Only geniuses among geniuses, monsters among monsters, those with the potential to attain the Dao, could occasionally break the absolute taboo and wield power to an unimaginable degree.
Without any increase in power itself, combat strength soared madly. This was the so-called Divine Prohibition.
Every Supreme Being could maintain the Divine Prohibition at all times. Even if one had died tens of thousands of years ago, a lingering trace of killing intent, so long as it retained reason, could use the Divine Prohibition's unimaginable control of power to easily slaughter Quasi-Emperor Ninth Heaven cultivators who could not maintain the Divine Prohibition.
Though these God-Demon Phantoms possessed power surpassing the Quasi-Emperor Ninth Heaven, as constructs of laws, their use of power was comparatively hollow and rigid. They could only reach the level of Eight Prohibitions.
But between Eight Prohibitions and the Divine Prohibition lay an absolute chasm!
With one casual slash from Taiyin, tens of thousands among the millions of gods and demons were directly erased.
Even those mindless God-Demon Phantoms, merely imprints left behind by former powerhouses, were driven back in terror by that horrifying strike. They waited for an opportunity and did not dare attack rashly.
Having driven back millions of gods and demons with one slash, Taiyin looked at Fang Zheng and laughed heartily. "Daoist friend, I have been reborn. Once I shatter this half of the Immortal Ascension Road and carve out a path back to my homeland—"
"Then, in my native land, you and I shall drink together and speak freely!"
Then he brought down another slash.
Endless motes of light filled heaven and earth. They were the mournful cries of the Immortal Domain laws upon the Immortal Ascension Road.
This vast Mighty Pass was like a heap of beach sand smashed apart by a child.
A million God-Demon Phantoms were slaughtered like chickens and dogs beneath Taiyin's blade.
Boundless light spread and then faded. Amid the changing lunar phases, darkness swallowed the entire Law Mighty Pass, leaving behind only endless nothingness and a very few remaining things.
Within the void once concealed by the Mighty Pass lay half a corpse with graying hair.
There was no doubt that it was the remains left by a Supreme Being-level figure. After too many long years, nearly all of its essence had already drained away.
Yet the corpse's face was identical to Taiyin's, only somewhat older.
A strange expression appeared on Taiyin's face. Raising his hand, he turned it to ashes. "I truly never expected to see half of my own corpse. It feels rather strange."
Within a small patch of spacetime before the former gates of the Law Mighty Pass, several hundred Void Blocks remained, continuously spewing chains of Dao laws, each carrying power equal to a Supreme Being's strike.
There were also several square blocks of Bedrock suspended in the void, enduring the scouring of countless chains of Dao laws.
Taiyin raised an eyebrow and gave a light slash, only to find that the bizarre blocks remained completely unscathed even against an attack capable of cutting space and time. They were firmly anchored within spacetime.
Remembering how the Block Person had placed blocks several days ago, Taiyin pondered the relationship between these blocks and his Block Person Daoist friend.
After thinking for a moment, Taiyin swept his blade sideways once more. Yet rather than continue attacking the unscathed Bedrock and the Void Blocks spewing chains of Dao laws, he cut through spacetime itself, slicing away that entire section of space and gathering it into his palm alongside the blocks that continuously produced old blood and provided him with some replenishment.
Once he had finished tidying up, Taiyin gazed into this void, sensing the difference between the laws of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands and the Immortal Domain, observing the workings of heaven and earth's Great Dao.
He could faintly sense that beyond this void lay an ocean formed of shattered worlds with different rules, as well as an Immortal Domain aura extremely close to that of the Immortal Ascension Road.
Taiyin could sense that the Immortal Realm Fragment was moving within that ocean. In a few years, ten at most, it would come extremely close to the Realm Barrier of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands.
If he waited in this void left behind after the Immortal Ascension Road's collapse for several years, perhaps he could witness the Immortal Domain drawing near and gain a chance to enter the Immortal Realm.
However, recalling the intelligence he had obtained when he charged into the Immortal Ascension Road—through the temporal remnants etched into the Law Phantoms within the Law Mighty Pass and deep inside the Immortal Ascension Road—Taiyin shook his head. "It is merely false hope."
After living out his third life, Taiyin had deduced that the Immortal Ascension Road would not appear in the Big Dipper Star Domain for hundreds of thousands more years.
And if he did not wish to sever his Dao Fruit and slumber like those Supremes within the forbidden zones, he would likely never see the Immortal Ascension Road open during this life.
Thus, after living out his third life, when his power had reached its peak, he chose to forcefully break through the Immortal Ascension Road at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
Back then, he had neither hurried nor grown impatient. He advanced slowly, comprehending as he went, and obtained a great deal of information from the Law Phantoms.
The so-called Immortal Ascension Road was not a passage extending one-sidedly from the Immortal Domain to the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands.
Rather, it was a Cross-Realm Passage created in ancient times by Immortal King-level powerhouses and jointly sustained by the Realm Barriers of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands and the Immortal Domain.
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