The Most Heartless

Chapter 7: The Most Ruthless

Cultivation knows no years.

By now, the Great Tribulation of Dragon-Han had passed, and the Tribulation of Witch and Monster had yet to begin.

The Dao Ancestor Hongjun had already attained sainthood.

Just as Shen Gui was preparing to make some moves, Hongjun's first sermon had already commenced.

On that day, countless great cultivators left their caves one after another, heading into the chaos beyond the Thirty-three Heavens.

This was the first sermon of a saint since the creation of the world—no one could afford to ignore it.

Even those who styled themselves as Pangu's True Lineage, the Three Pure Ones, and the proud Di Jun and Tai Yi, all left their caves and journeyed into the chaos beyond the Thirty-three Heavens to seek the Purple Cloud Palace that Hongjun had spoken of—let alone the rest.

Throughout the entire Primordial Wilderness, aside from great powers like the Phoenix Ancestor, who was bound to suppress the Immortal Volcano and could not leave, every cultivator above the Great Luo realm departed the Primordial Wilderness.

As for those below Great Luo, they simply could not survive in the chaos; no matter how unwilling they were, there was nothing to be done.

The chaos was vast and boundless, and the Purple Cloud Palace drifted without a fixed abode.

Thus, whether one could reach the Purple Cloud Palace depended entirely on their own fortune.

In plain terms, if Hongjun wanted you to enter the Purple Cloud Palace, you would find it with ease; if Hongjun did not want you to enter, no amount of effort would avail you.

Of the billions of seekers in the Primordial Wilderness, only three thousand ultimately reached the Purple Cloud Palace.

The rest either returned to the Primordial Wilderness in despair or simply perished outright in the boundless chaos.

The vast, trackless chaos had never been a place of kindness.

Though in theory, Great Luo cultivators could survive in the chaos, that was all it amounted to.

Certain perilous regions within the chaos could have felled even the Chaos Demon Gods of old—how much more so these seekers, whose cultivation was at most the peak of Great Luo?

Those who knew when to yield returned to the Primordial Wilderness; those who stubbornly clung to their delusions could only remain forever in the chaos.

And the Three Thousand Guests of Purple Cloud who finally reached the Purple Cloud Palace were the victors among countless seekers.

For one reason or another, they were favored by Hongjun or the Heavenly Dao, and so they arrived at the Purple Cloud Palace.

They would be granted the privilege of hearing Hongjun's sermon, then return to the Primordial Wilderness to continue their legends, while those great powers who perished in the chaos became but specks of dust in the vast river of time.

Such has always been the path of seeking the Dao.