At this moment.
On the Primordial Wilderness.
Lei Jun couldn't help thinking.
"By rights, the Heavenly Dao and Human Dao stand as equals, with neither above the other."
"I am half a master of the Human Dao, so standing shoulder to shoulder with the Heavenly Dao might not be appropriate. It would throw the order of seniority into chaos."
"I should be above the Heavenly Dao. That would befit my status!"
It had to be said.
This idea was even more outrageous, and carried a hint of jest.
But Lei Jun was serious.
He was now only missing the final strand of Heavenly Dao Purple Qi.
Then he would achieve his goal!
The question was:
How could he obtain this Heavenly Dao Purple Qi?
In the past,
Lei Jun would only have been at a loss, with no clue where to start.
He could only take things one step at a time.
Searching for opportunities amid his schemes.
The key was,
the Heavenly Dao might see through him.
But things were different now.
There was a much simpler, more direct method.
He could go straight to its door!
At this moment.
The benefits of his increased cultivation
became apparent once more.
Lei Jun no longer had to rack his brains for ways to change the course of the Great Era, raise his Permission Right, and reach more places.
For one thing, his cultivation was sufficient.
For another...
Lei Jun himself was the "Great Era"!
Every move,
every word and deed,
every thought and idea
had far-reaching effects!
As a result,
places Lei Jun couldn't reach before were now within his grasp!
With a single thought,
the place where the Heavenly Dao resided entered Lei Jun's perception.
It was just a little indistinct.
Something seemed to be blocking it.
And there wasn't just one or two such things, but many extremely unusual worlds.
Then,
Lei Jun raised an eyebrow.
He was a little surprised.
"No wonder I could never find the Heavenly Dao's location before, no matter how hard I searched or sensed for it."
"So it isn't entirely within the Primordial Wilderness?"
"It's beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens!"
At this moment,
Lei Jun suddenly understood.
He finally saw the truth.
The Thirty-Three Heavens did not mean a single heaven.
It meant exactly what the name said:
there were thirty-three heavens.
But they weren't arranged one above another.
Instead, they were divided among the east, south, west, and north.
Eight heavens in each direction,
for a total of thirty-two.
Add one Middle Heaven,
and there were thirty-three altogether.
However,
although the Thirty-Three Heavens each existed separately, they were connected.
Their underlying principles were linked.
Their locations differed,
yet they were as one.
They were also like thirty-three Innate Great Arrays, each protecting the others.
Only when they revealed themselves did
Primordial Wilderness cultivators have a chance to discover them.
Otherwise,
with Di Jun's cultivation alone, it would have been absolutely impossible for him to take control of the Thirty-Three Heavens and establish the Heavenly Court in the Middle Heaven.
That was how the saying "high in the middle of the sky" came about.
It could be said that
if one's cultivation wasn't high enough,
they couldn't even discover them, let alone break through them.
Even with Lei Jun's former cultivation,
which was higher than a Sage's...
it would have been the same.
Because
these were special worlds and special arrays under the Heavenly Dao's direct control.
They were also the barriers protecting its Origin.
In other words,
to find the Heavenly Dao's Origin, he had to break through all thirty-three heavens!
That meant a full thirty-three Innate Great Arrays!
More importantly,
these arrays were also strengthened by the Heavenly Dao's power!
So,
the difficulty couldn't even be described as "harder than climbing to the heavens."
It was no less than Kaitian.
And not just a single heaven!
For a moment,
even Lei Jun couldn't help but marvel.
"This really is difficult."
"If my cultivation hadn't changed, even if I knew where the Heavenly Dao's Origin was,"
"I still couldn't have reached it."
"But unfortunately..."
"If I can find it, I can break through!"
The next instant,
Lei Jun's Dao Body shone brilliantly.
Boundless Profound Qi poured out of him.
Another small sapling sprouted rapidly at his feet.
Nourished by the Profound Qi,
it grew at astonishing speed.
Its height couldn't be described with ordinary measurements.
It would be better to say it pierced through countless worlds.
In the blink of an eye,
it pierced through boundless worlds.
This tree was none other than
Tongtian Jianmu!
Under Lei Jun's Profound Qi, Tongtian Jianmu passed through its long infancy in an instant.
Then, in the briefest moment,
it grew into a towering giant, reaching from earth to sky in its mature form!
It even reached its complete form...
one that connected Heaven and Earth!
Its roots
dug deep into the earth of the Nine Nether, reaching the place where the Earth Dao Source lay!
Its trunk
stretched across Heaven and Earth, like a passageway,
or a pillar.
It could help support Buzhou and hold up Heaven and Earth!
As for its crown...
guided by Lei Jun's magic power, it reached the edge of the Thirty-Three Heavens!
Lei Jun's power now
was beyond imagination.
He could cross time,
and make Tongtian Jianmu grow from a sapling into its complete form in an instant!
At this moment,
Jianmu had fully grown!
However,
this alone wasn't enough to break through the Thirty-Three Heavens.
When Jianmu touched their edge,
it seemed to meet an immense obstruction and could grow no farther.
A will
appeared nearby
at that very moment.
Not only that, but boundless thunderclouds gathered in an instant.
At this moment,
the Heavenly Dao manifested!
Lei Jun wasn't surprised in the slightest. He even let out a soft laugh.
His gaze fixed on the First Heaven.
Then,
he softly uttered a single word.
"Open!"
In an instant,
the sky split apart.
Boundless Profound Yellow Qi surged forth.
A realm of Heaven that had remained hidden for who knew how many eons
suddenly revealed itself!
In that instant,
the Primordial Wilderness trembled!
The Thirty-Three Heavens hadn't manifested during the Dragon-Han Calamity.
They had only appeared
after it ended.
However, ...
Before its appearance, the significance of the Thirty-Three Heavens had changed.
Previously,
they had protected the Origin of the Heavenly Dao with the Innate Great Array.
It had been that way since the Fierce Beast Tribulation.
After all, before that,
there had been beings in the Primordial Wilderness capable of threatening the Heavenly Dao.
In fact,
without the Thirty-Three Heavens, Shen Ni might well have accomplished the feat of "Defying Heaven."
But after the Dragon-Han Calamity,
there were no longer any beings in the Primordial Wilderness capable of threatening the Heavenly Dao.
It had also gained a "spokesperson."
That was Hongjun after he became a Sage.
Moreover,
this was more than just a spokesperson.
He was also a vessel through which its power manifested.
After all, whether through pressure or an incarnation, neither was as effective as a Sage.
After all, if the Heavenly Dao manifested its power directly, the destructive force would be too great.
With a spokesperson, it could act with greater precision.
Thus,
after Hongjun became a Sage,
the function of the Thirty-Three Heavens diminished considerably.
Its significance changed as well.
It directly evolved into thirty-three celestial realms!
A symbol of
the Heavenly Dao's supremacy!
Therefore,
it was entirely fair to say that as long as beings capable of threatening the Heavenly Dao still existed in the Primordial Wilderness,
the Thirty-Three Heavens could never have appeared.
Let alone be shattered by someone's sheer strength, as they were now! Boom!
A loud crash
rang out across the entire Primordial Wilderness in an instant!
At that moment,
every cultivator was startled.
Before they could recover,
another sound rang out, like something shattering.
Crack!
As soon as they sensed what had happened,
their souls trembled, and a chill crept into their hearts.
The word "horrified" wasn't enough to describe it!
Because what had shattered was no ordinary thing.
It was...
the sky!
In their perception,
the sky was covered in cracks, as if it were about to break apart!
In the next instant, that feeling became reality.
The sky really did shatter!
Then,
boundless Profound Yellow Qi and immeasurable clear qi poured out from the breach.
They formed an entire world!
Or rather... a heaven!
At that very moment,
under Lei Jun's immense power,
the First Heaven of the Thirty-Three Heavens had appeared ahead of its time!
For a moment,
countless cultivators looked up.
Even the Innate Three Clans, along with Hongjun, Luo Hou, and the others, couldn't help but stop fighting.
Their eyes filled with uncertainty.
Even alarm.
They looked up in bewilderment.
Before this, they had already been locked in battle.
Though Lei Jun seemed to have spent little time in the depths of Nine Nether,
in truth,
the time he had spent merging his three bodies
had been exceedingly long.
By the time he emerged from seclusion, many things had already happened in the Primordial Wilderness.
The most obvious of these
was the Tribulation Period.
It had advanced by a great deal!
One period of secluded cultivation
had taken him through more than half the Tribulation Period.
Now, the Tribulation Period was nearing its end.
One had to know
that before this, it had only just begun.
Moreover,
under the powerful "inertia" of Fate's grand current,
many beings had still failed to escape their original fates.
The Innate Three Clans, for instance.
Though their struggles—or rather, their respective schemes—had left them badly weakened,
their foundations were simply too deep.
Even weakened, the other clans had no chance to rise up, let alone replace them.
The only one with a chance
had already been defeated in the Qilin Clan's struggles.
The area around their ancestral land
was nearly devoid of clan members.
It was even in ruins.
A sorry sight.
So when the Tribulation Period reached its end, the Innate Three Clans still inevitably collided.
Their differences became irreconcilable.
In other words...
who would rule heaven and earth!
The Primordial Wilderness was vast,
but to Prove the Dao through fortune, they had to become its overlord.
Otherwise,
they would always be one step short.
That was the requirement the Three Clans Ancestors had grasped from the Dharma Gate of proving the Dao through fortune.
However,
there was only one Primordial Wilderness.
Or rather, the Innate Three Clans had never imagined that there might be a greater world beyond the heavens, or that there could be a Limitless Great Thousand beyond the Primordial Wilderness.
So,
their conflict was impossible to resolve.
Once the three clans had grown to the height of their power and occupied the Primordial Wilderness's "Sea, Land, and Sky,"
they had no choice but to encroach on the territories of the other two clans
in order to Prove the Dao.
And so, this great battle had begun.
From those at the peak of the Hunyuan Golden Immortal realm down to Golden Immortals and Taiyi cultivators,
everyone was mobilized.
They all took part in the battle.
Whenever one side seemed to gain the upper hand, the other two would briefly stop fighting each other and turn to attack the side with the clear advantage.
Throughout this process,
the baleful energy in the Primordial Wilderness grew increasingly dense.
Though it still couldn't compare to the Fierce Beast Tribulation, it had grown strong enough to affect cultivators' minds.
It made them even more violent and bloodthirsty,
causing the war between the three clans to grow ever more intense.
Only now,
when the sky changed,
did they finally stop fighting.
With reverent yet bewildered expressions,
they gazed up at the sky.
"Heavenly Dao above, what's happened? Why has the sky shattered!"
"Not only that, there's an entire world appearing up there!"
"Could it be... that we shattered the sky?"
"That can't be! If we really did it, how much Karma would we have to bear!"
"Besides, are we even capable of that?"
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