Chapter 21

As time passed, many new Postnatal Great Daos emerged in the Western Land, such as the Killing Buddhist Path, Blood Demon Path, and White Bone Tiger Path.

It was as though an invisible pair of hands was manipulating everything from behind the scenes.

Although wars erupted one after another, a delicate balance was maintained.

The more intense the fighting became, the stronger the Demonic Dao, Buddhist Path, and White Tiger Divine Path grew amid the flames of war.

The clever had already seen through it: the three great powers were sweeping away the other forces in the Western Land and paving the way for themselves.

Their voices rang throughout the entire Western Land:

"Join under the banner of Demon Ancestor Rahu, release your true selves, and attain great freedom!"

"Enter Mount Sumeru, enjoy bliss, and defend the Pure Land!"

"Those who resist the White Tiger Divine Race will surely die!"

Under the onslaught of the great war, the divine beings and saints of the Western Land had only one path left: joining one of the three great powers.

Amid the surging flames of war and mountains of corpses, the Western Land was divided among the three great powers.

A thousand Yuan Hui later, when no other force could challenge the three great powers, they finally began to act.

The first to strike was First Demon God Jidu Venerable God, under Demon Ancestor Rahu. His power had almost reached Rahu's realm.

The moment he took action, he led the armies of the Demonic Dao in sweeping across Mount Sumeru and more than half the territory of the White Tiger Divine Race, even causing two Grand Unity Venerable Gods to fall directly.

This event became the turning point in the war among the three sides.

The Grand Unity Venerable Gods of Mount Sumeru and the White Tiger Divine Race entered the battle under the leadership of Blissful Ancestor Buddha and Cang Tian White Tiger Emperor Shitian. Yet the entire Western Land was utterly reduced to Death Land amid the flames of war.

Once the Grand Unity Venerable Gods took action, every sacred mountain and blessed land suffered the fate of destruction.

Although no specific number could be estimated, it was known that nearly half of the life in the Western Land had disappeared in a short period.

The brutality of the war caused rivers of blood to flow across the Western Land, while white bones covered the wilderness.

More cruelly, even the remains in some vast realms were completely erased.

Yet to Grand Unity Venerable Gods like Rahu, all of this was merely an insignificant matter.

However, there was one person who could not bear to see what was happening before him.

He questioned, "Is this the Primordial Wilderness?"

He felt disgusted. "If seeking the Dao means this, I would rather abandon this path."

Tai Ming's figure flickered in and out of existence within a hazy, illusory place. An unprecedentedly chilling killing intent radiated from him.

Whether because his conscience remained or because of some saintly compassion, Tai Ming was furious beyond measure. This was the most genuine fury of someone who had risen all the way from the stage of an ant.

He resolved to resist and let those Grand Unity Venerable Gods witness the resistance of an ant.

Tai Ming's mysterious seal had now become the key.

Ever since he had left Mount Sumeru, the seal had remained by his side.

After regaining his freedom, he had been about to travel wherever he pleased when he discovered that the fortune of his Ghost Dao had suddenly stirred. Deep within his heart, he also felt a sudden premonition.

This was a sign that his fortune was surging and that his Natal Opportunity was resonating with the Great Dao.

In the Primordial World, opportunities were extremely wondrous. They did not concern themselves with cultivation realm, identity, or status, but valued the compatibility between fortune and the Great Dao.

When cultivators sought opportunities, opportunities would also take the initiative to choose their masters.

In particular, the emergence of a Natal Opportunity was often accompanied by an eruption of fortune.

Thus, the treasures born from it were both powerful and perfectly suited to their owners.

Even the top-level Innate Divine Beings of the Primordial Wilderness yearned intensely to obtain a Natal Opportunity.

This was even more true for Tai Ming.

After exploring the Primordial World for so many years, he still did not possess a decent spiritual treasure.

All of this suggested that the mysterious seal might be his Natal Opportunity.

The reason Tai Ming looked down on those inferior spiritual treasures was that he pursued supreme treasures.

It was like Daoist You Quan, whom he had encountered many years ago. Daoist You Quan possessed the Innate Spiritual Treasure You Quan Banner.

If Tai Ming wanted it, he could indeed seize it by force, but he had not wavered, because he felt that the treasure's grade was too low—it was merely a low-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure.

If he encountered a top-grade or supreme Innate Spiritual Treasure, Tai Ming would strive to obtain it even at a tremendous cost.

In the Primordial World, spiritual treasures had clearly defined grades.

The highest grade was the Innate Supreme Treasure. Such treasures contained fifty to fifty-five Innate Dao Restrictions and possessed a complete Innate Great Dao Origin.

Their wielders could use them to comprehend the Dao all the way to becoming a Dao Master of the Great Dao.

Next came the top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures, whose power rivaled that of mid- to high-level Grand Unity Venerable Gods.

Below those were top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures and ordinary Innate Spiritual Treasures, whose power gradually declined.

As for spiritual treasures containing incomplete Innate Great Daos, their power could only reach levels below the Grand Unity realm.

Even the lowest-grade low-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures possessed power below the level of an Immortal Venerable God.

Every spiritual treasure possessed its own unique power and wisdom. Some powerful treasures even possessed spiritual intelligence of their own, enough to rival ordinary Innate Divine Beings.

This was vastly different from the legends Tai Ming had known before.

Whenever he thought of the legends concerning spiritual treasures in the Primordial World, he found them extremely interesting.

That was because obtaining a top-grade or supreme Innate Spiritual Treasure in the Primordial World was not easy. They were incredibly rare and possessed immense power.

Some people did not even have the opportunity to refine a spiritual treasure, much less use one.

Thus, Tai Ming believed that spiritual treasures were difficult to find, while even more difficult to find were spiritual treasures that perfectly matched one's own Great Dao.

As for Tai Ming, he had no interest in a low-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure like the You Quan Banner, because the enhancement it provided was inferior to the magical power and spiritual insight he possessed himself.

In reality, the key issue was that the Innate Great Dao nurtured within the You Quan Banner was compatible with Tai Ming's Ghost Dao, with a greater emphasis on the Netherworld Earthly Dao.

Therefore, he did not think highly of treasures of this kind.

In the Primordial World, the Venerable Gods preferred to use spiritual treasures they had refined themselves, because such treasures not only matched them perfectly but were also easy to obtain.

Some Venerable Gods even extravagantly used Innate Spiritual Treasures as firewood to refine even more powerful spiritual treasures.

In the Primordial Wilderness, as long as one invested enough resources, Innate Spiritual Treasures were not impossible to forge.

Otherwise, not every Grand Unity Venerable God would possess the great fortune and immense opportunity to obtain a Dao-proving spiritual treasure custom-made by the world.

Those who succeeded in proving the Dao were seeds chosen by the Primordial World.

Yet reality was full of absurdity. As the Postnatal Great Daos of the Primordial Wilderness flourished, some Innate Divine Beings without compatible spiritual treasures exhausted themselves pursuing them, while those top-level divine beings born with Innate Companion Treasures pursued their own Great Daos and squandered them freely.

Tai Ming was deeply envious of this, because his own circumstances were far from comfortable.

Thus, when he sensed that his Natal Opportunity might be emerging, Tai Ming followed the guidance with the joy of liberation and came gladly in pursuit.

He arrived at a mysterious mountain range carrying a faint aura of netherworld darkness. A streak of dim light flashed, and Tai Ming, dressed in a dark violet Daoist robe, appeared there.

He sighed at how difficult opportunities were to find. Even with an aura to guide him, he had spent considerable effort reaching this place. He hoped this opportunity would not disappoint him.

During this period, he had avoided many Dao Fields belonging to Innate Divine Beings along the way, relying on his Innate Primordial Chaos Qi Ghost Body to bypass them.

At this critical juncture, Tai Ming did not want to cause trouble, so he used the characteristics of primordial chaos to conceal his existence.

At that moment, a familiar voice sounded in his heart. It was the voice of the Heart of the Earthly Path.

The Heart of the Earthly Path was astonished by Tai Ming's changes. His Ghost Dao had actually reached the stage of surging fortune in such a short time, to the point that even it could not see through him completely.

After awakening, Tai Ming felt an intense chill, as though someone had discovered his trail.

When it realized that this might be that brat Tai Ming, it was even more shocked.

The fortune of Heaven and Earth was also a manifestation of strength.

The Heart of the Earthly Path had personally witnessed Tai Ming's growth from the time he was weak.

Establishing a Dao and becoming an Innate Divine Being of the Primordial Wilderness represented the recognition of the Primordial World.

Generally speaking, Innate Divine Beings often possessed great fortune and immense opportunities, with opportunities automatically drawing toward their aura.

Looking back, when Tai Ming had followed Yue Jianshi, he had been able to pick up spiritual treasures even while walking.

When top-level Innate Divine Beings emerged, they already possessed cultivation realms others could not hope to reach, along with Dao Fields, blessed lands, and even Innate Companion Treasures.

Yet not every living being could raise a Postnatal Great Dao to the stage of surging fortune in such a short period, as Tai Ming had.

After all, the perfection and advancement of a Dao could not be achieved through shortcuts. One could only comprehend it steadily.

Compared with the true favored children of Heaven, Tai Ming's cultivation realm, foundation, and strength were not top-notch. Yet he had achieved surging fortune first, which showed that his Ghost Dao had undergone earth-shaking transformation in a short time.

Even the Heart of the Earthly Path could not have imagined this.

The Heart of the Earthly Path sighed, "It was thanks to the surging fortune of your Ghost Dao that I was able to awaken from my silence."

Tai Ming remained calm. He responded to the Heart of the Earthly Path while teasing it about suddenly appearing.

He was no longer the Tai Ming who relied on the Heart of the Earthly Path for everything, nor was he filled with awe toward it.

The Heart of the Earthly Path paid no mind to Tai Ming's teasing and reminded him, "What do you know, brat? If Rahu discovers my existence, neither of us will have any chance of escape."

Next, Tai Ming learned more about Demon Ancestor Rahu's past from the Heart of the Earthly Path, gaining a deeper impression of him.

It turned out that Rahu had not always been as steady as he was now.

As a reincarnation of a Chaos Demon God, Rahu had initially held a superior attitude when facing the living beings of the Primordial Wilderness, including the Innate Divine Beings. He had been the foremost among them.

At that time, to distinguish themselves from the native Innate Divine Beings of the Primordial Wilderness, they had called themselves Innate Demon Gods, emphasizing their origin as Chaos Demon Gods.

However, they had encountered Shen Ni and the Ancient Three Sovereigns and had been beaten into wholehearted submission.

Rahu had a stubborn temperament, like a thick-headed hothead, and held firmly to the principles of the Demonic Dao: acting as one pleased, being bound by nothing, and respecting the strong.

Whenever a renowned figure appeared, he would challenge them, whether it was Shen Ni or Cang Li Shi.

Even Yue Jianshi and Jiu Tou Shi, who came later, had been challenged by Rahu.

After a series of challenges, the arrogance born from Rahu's status as a reincarnated Chaos Demon God was gradually worn away, giving rise to the Demon Lord Rahu of today.

Tai Ming thought of Beast Emperor of Reincarnation, who had shared the same origins as Rahu yet could not let go of the past and was ultimately cast aside by the era.

Every Supreme Being who had survived from the Ancient Primordial Wilderness to the present had endured their own hardships.

The more one knew, the more one could sense one's own insignificance and shortcomings—but the more one could also sense the charm of the Primordial Wilderness.

Tai Ming was an ascender. He understood the impermanence of the world. Compared with powerful existences such as the Ancient Three Sovereigns, Pangu Shi, the Five Directions Divine Race, and the Five Emperors and Five Elders, he was like a speck of dust.

Yet strength was what mattered. Even without opportunities or spiritual treasures, as long as one possessed sufficient strength, one would eventually obtain everything.

After communicating with the Heart of the Earthly Path, they noticed that the opportunity-bearing land before them was unusual.

Tai Ming sensed that this was a mysterious grand array. Otherwise, given the strength of the Heart of the Earthly Path, it should have detected the anomaly long ago.

The road ahead would depend on Tai Ming's fortune and his sensitivity to opportunities.

When he stepped into this mysterious region, Tai Ming instantly sensed the changes in Heaven and Earth.

Yin winds howled. Chaotic, dark power shattered every concept. Space and time descended into chaos, while the formless and featureless became impossible to distinguish between reality and illusion.

This was the Primordial Chaos Netherworld Reversion Great Array. The Innate objects nurtured within it were certainly extraordinary.

The so-called Innate Grand Arrays were things naturally evolved by Heaven and Earth. They gathered the spiritual workings of Heaven and Earth and the creation of the cosmos, emerging within the Primordial Wilderness and often manifesting as various forms of the Innate Great Dao.

Many great opportunities were hidden within them, such as Innate Spiritual Treasures, Innate Spiritual Roots, and Innate Divine Objects. They might even give birth to Innate Divine Beings.

However, these grand arrays were often concealed and did not reveal themselves. Even Grand Unity Venerable Gods found them difficult to detect. It was precisely for this reason that the Primordial Chaos Netherworld Reversion Great Array had survived to the present day.