"Fuxi..."
"Nuwa..."
The Eighteenth Prince of the Tianshui Imperial Dynasty slowly awakened from his coma.
"The day I attain the Dao once more will be the day of reckoning."
"Hm?"
"Where is this?"
The instant the Eighteenth Prince awakened.
The Innate Water Eye churned.
Wisps of Innate Spiritual Energy transformed into spirit snakes that slithered around the formation.
Runes flashed one after another, forming pale-blue chains that tightly bound the deity at the center.
"Should this humble Daoist address you as Your Highness the Eighteenth Prince, or call you His Majesty Tianshui?"
Zhou Yuan looked at Dao Lord Tianshui, who occupied the Eighteenth Prince's body, and smiled faintly.
Back when Dao Lord Tianshui's divine consciousness phantom had lodged itself within an Innate Spiritual Treasure, manifested within the Eighteenth Prince's primordial spirit, and helped him kill the previous Wei River God Lord.
Zhou Yuan had already become wary and suspicious.
"But I never expected you to be so ruthless, Your Majesty Tianshui."
"The Eighteenth Prince was your own son."
Dao Lord Tianshui glanced at Zhou Yuan. In an instant, the Eighteenth Prince's memories flooded his mind, and his expression settled into calmness.
"As the bloodline of my Dao body, Little Eighteen died for a worthy cause."
Since beginning his cultivation, he had lived through who knew how many eras.
He had witnessed who knew how many lives and deaths.
He did not care in the slightest about Zhou Yuan's words.
Instead, he stared at Zhou Yuan in wonder.
"Not bad, not bad."
"I never expected this dignified Dao Lord to be schemed against by a junior like you."
"But I am curious. Just how did you disrupt the heavenly secrets and evade my reckoning?"
Dao Lord Tianshui was genuinely curious.
The Eighteenth Prince was not merely his son, but also a contingency he had left behind.
He had long since cast a bloodline secret art upon the Eighteenth Prince.
With such intertwined karma, he, as a Dao Lord, should naturally have been able to see through the truth of it at a glance.
Yet in truth, Zhou Yuan had deceived him.
Even while battling those two from Phoenix Perch Mountain high in the heavens, he had still believed that the Eighteenth Prince had taken control of the Wei River.
Zhou Yuan smiled freely.
"Your Majesty, do not waste your time trying to stall."
"Your Profound Nether Weak Water Bead cannot be of any use now."
Dao Lord Tianshui's expression stiffened as he turned his head slightly.
Not far away, the Profound Nether Weak Water Bead emitted a faint blue glow, shrouded in three thousand streams of Weak Water.
Yet it was suppressed by an innate primordial embryo.
Though the primordial embryo was damaged, its status far surpassed that of the Profound Nether Weak Water Bead.
Hovering above the bead, it actually radiated an imposing weight capable of suppressing all heavens.
"Junior, I possess countless treasures and innumerable Dao scriptures."
"As long as you help me return to the Tianshui Imperial Dynasty, I promise that I will study the Great Dao alongside you and attain the rank of Innate Dao Lord together with you."
Seeing Zhou Yuan merely smile without speaking.
Dao Lord Tianshui cursed viciously again.
"I am an Innate Dao Lord, one who has attained the Water Origin Venerable Position."
"How could you possibly know all my methods?"
"If I escape today, I will one day slaughter every living being throughout the Wei River."
"I will dye the surging Wei River red with the Blood of Ten Thousand Spirits."
"And you, Wei River Water Lord, will have your marrow drawn out and your primordial spirit refined into divine fire, where you will be tortured day after day."
Dao Lord Tianshui watched Zhou Yuan's calm face as he cursed wildly, his words utterly venomous.
Only after a long while did Zhou Yuan sigh and slowly speak.
"I made every possible arrangement."
"I thought a Dao Lord would possess some extraordinary ability."
"Looks like I overestimated you."
Zhou Yuan looked at the nearly crazed Dao Lord Tianshui, pity flashing through his eyes.
He had simply been too cautious.
He had thought Dao Lord Tianshui still had some hidden contingency.
"That creature was already exceptionally fortunate to have survived Fuxi and Nuwa."
"Presumably, he has exhausted every method at his disposal and is now at the end of his rope."
Otherwise, with this Dao Lord's pride, he would never have allowed himself to become so undignified.
"If you seek a swift death to escape."
"Then abandon that thought."
The cursing Dao Lord Tianshui seemed as if his spellcasting had been interrupted, falling silent where he stood.
He gave Zhou Yuan a deep look, and a ripple finally stirred in his formerly calm heart.
"Wei River Water Lord..."
"I will remember you."
Though he could not make the Wei River Water Lord act personally and leave behind karma for his other Dao bodies to sense.
Nor could he use the power of that karma to cast secret arts and lay schemes.
The Profound Nether Weak Water Bead was still here.
Even if this Dao body perished, his other Dao bodies scattered abroad would one day find the Wei River.
"When that time comes, the Wei River will be the foundation of my resurgence."
"And that innate primordial embryo capable of suppressing the Profound Nether Weak Water Bead will also become mine."
Having thought this through.
Dao Lord Tianshui suppressed the regret in his heart.
Even if there were occasional setbacks.
They were merely minor storms and frost.
He gave Zhou Yuan a deep look and smiled strangely.
"Junior, you won this round."
"But a new game has only just begun."
"Ha ha ha, ha ha ha..."
Under Zhou Yuan's gaze.
Dao Lord Tianshui's form gradually turned into motes of light.
In but an instant.
The imprisoned Dao Lord Tianshui within the formation was reduced to a single undying true spirit.
Clearly, even with the formation binding him.
This ancient existence still had a way to control this Dao body.
"But this humble Daoist did not want your Dao body."
"I wanted this strand of your undying true spirit."
Zhou Yuan stood with his hands behind his back as he watched the scene before him, his gaze deep and cold.
Innate Dao Lords plucked the Dao Fruit, mysterious and unfathomable.
They possessed countless divine abilities and secret arts.
Even Zhou Yuan found it difficult to guess just how many contingencies he possessed.
"If you had remained within the Dao body, I would still have been unable to touch you."
After all, the Eighteenth Prince was a cultivator of the True One Realm, and the cave-heaven opened within his body had long since transformed into reality.
Who knew what killing trump cards might still be hidden within?
"But now, you have abandoned your Dao body yourself, leaving behind only a damaged strand of true spirit that wishes to perish."
"At this moment, whether you live or die is no longer up to you."
The moment Zhou Yuan finished speaking.
That strand of true spirit in the void, which radiated an undying Water Origin aura, instantly flickered with bright and dim light. An aura of silence and extinction, as though heaven and earth were returning to the void, rose from it.
Clearly, Dao Lord Tianshui was accelerating the Dao dissolution of his own true spirit.
But in the next moment.
The void suddenly shook.
Great sound was silent; the Great Dao was formless.
An ancient Dao book slowly emerged within the Water Palace.
Three thousand illusory Great Daos surfaced upon it, seeming ready to suppress all time and space.
At that moment, all things of matter and fantasy ceased to flow.
And Dao Lord Tianshui's strand of undying true spirit was also suppressed and sealed.
No trace of time or space could be left upon it.
"The Myriad Dao Book is an Innate Supreme Treasure, possessing the ability to suppress and seal by nature."
"Though over the years I have only comprehended and refined eighteen Innate Restrictions within it, I can barely wield a trace of its power."
"And clearly, that is enough."
Zhou Yuan gazed at Dao Lord Tianshui's suppressed true spirit and sighed softly.
He had originally kept the Eighteenth Prince alive out of fear that killing him outright would draw the killing intent of this Dao Lord.
But clearly, the gains from this move far exceeded his expectations.
"Heavenly secrets and fortune, all forms of karma."
"To refuse what Heaven bestows is to invite misfortune."
Now that Dao Lord Tianshui's true spirit was in his hands, Dao Lord Tianshui's hidden legacy was his for the taking.
Zhou Yuan raised a hand and grasped Dao Lord Tianshui's strand of true spirit.
Black-and-white mystic light flickered within his eyes.
Strands of profound heavenly secrets appeared around him.
Above his head, the black-and-white Heavenly Machine Chessboard swirled with Innate Undying Spirit Light. Its chess pieces crisscrossed as they evolved all kinds of heavenly secrets.
"Heaven and earth without bounds, heaven and earth lend me your law, pursue the soul and claim the life."
Zhou Yuan formed hand seals and chanted an incantation.
The black-and-white mystic light transformed into spirit snakes that flew in eight directions.
Seeing this, Zhou Yuan calculated on his fingers, understanding flashing through his eyes.
"Using a true spirit to calculate heavenly secrets really does yield twice the result with half the effort."
"But this Dao Lord Tianshui truly is an old fox."
"He actually left nine Dao bodies outside."
Apart from the Dao body of the Eighteenth Prince, which Zhou Yuan had trapped.
He still had eight Dao bodies left as contingencies.
"However, divine abilities cannot overcome fate."
"Since Ancestor Hongjun attained the Dao of Primordial Unity, the rise of the Mystical Sect in this era has become an immutable certainty."
"These ancient gods and devils do not understand the mandate of Heaven. They dream of restoring the old system of the Primordial Heavenly Court, so tribulation will naturally befall them."
If their strength had been formidable enough to sway Heaven's will, that would have been another matter.
But clearly, after the Dragon-Han Crimson Bright Tribulation, the Primordial Divine Race's strength was far inferior to what it had once been.
"Thus, it is hardly strange that Dao Lord Tianshui fell into my hands."
A sharp glint flashed in Zhou Yuan's eyes.
Since he had joined the Phoenix Perch Mountain Dao Lineage, he naturally bore the mark of the demon race in this era.
Furthermore, with the Wei River's expanding power, it had become a force not to be underestimated among the various demon lineages.
"I have karmic entanglements with Dao Lord Tianshui, and I also bear the fortune of the demon race."
"Naturally, I am one of those chosen to wipe him out completely."
Since ancient times, Heaven's will had been difficult to fathom.
If Zhou Yuan had not seized this opportunity.
Other righteous figures would naturally have acted to kill the remnants of Tianshui.
Before you continue