Once Again, Another Hundred Years

The Heavenly Dao existed. It was a fact.

Chen Yan was an Ascension Realm cultivator, and by now he had gained a certain understanding of the Way of Karma. He knew this very well.

The so-called Heavenly Dao had no connection whatsoever to any living being in this world. It was like a more exalted version of the Heaven and Earth Laws, the "will" of the River of Time, or perhaps of the countless threads of karma.

At least, as far as Chen Yan knew, no cultivator had ever managed to rise above the Heavenly Dao.

For the Heavenly Dao was the fundamental rule that everything in the world's workings had to obey.

Eight thousand years ago, Su Hongzhen, the greatest Sword Immortal on Chenping Continent, had died because he had "defied" the Heavenly Dao. He had tried to go against the heavens, and suffered the punishment that was his due.

Not only had he died; even the Dao Foundation he left behind had been corrupted by the Heavenly Dao. In the end, it had spawned the "Great Demon's Egg"—a calamity that nearly severed the Immortal Path and left Chenping Continent drenched in blood.

It was as if the Heavenly Dao were mocking Falling Star Sword Immortal for overestimating himself.

As for Su Hongzhen's death, when the Outer Court Calamity struck Empty Mountain Sect, its Supreme Cardinal Elder, Li Haoran, had said that the reason the greatest Sword Immortal on Chenping Continent had chosen to challenge the heavens with his own body was to find a way forward for all the people of Chenping Continent.

What that way forward was, even Li Haoran did not know.

But Chen Yan could roughly infer how events had unfolded.

He had left the "Calamity Cause"—that stretch of karma spanning more than sixty thousand