An illusion appeared.
Lu Li didn't notice it.
At that moment, within the illusion, he had already passed Foundation Establishment. Riding high on a spring breeze, he encountered one fortuitous opportunity after another and advanced to the Golden Core Realm, making a name for himself in the Demon Sect.
Then the truth came out: he had deceived Ghost Demon True Person and the Scripture Protection Elder.
Boom!
One palm strike killed him!
He was dead.
As Lu Li's consciousness was about to sink into death,
"Lu Li, wake up!"
A sudden, clear shout rang out from the horizon, jolting Lu Li awake.
It was Lady Red Furnace's voice!
Lu Li snapped awake.
But before he could open his eyes, the scene around him suddenly changed. Countless vengeful ghosts, asuras, and yakshas crawled out of hell and pounced at him.
Leading the charge were the very people who had died beneath his palm.
"Give me back my life..."
The resentful spirits and evil ghosts let out shrill cries as they swarmed over him, ready to tear him apart and devour him alive!
In that instant, Lu Li seemed to plunge into Avici Hell, where evil ghosts devoured his flesh and blood, condemning him to never be reborn!
"Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva..."
Having learned from experience, Lu Li paid them no heed. He simply shut his eyes and silently recited the Heart Sutra, guarding his mind.
At once, golden light radiated from his body, driving away the evil ghosts.
That illusion faded.
But the next illusion followed hard on its heels.
The scene before Lu Li abruptly changed. It was as if he had fallen into a den of beauties.
Amidst melodious songs and graceful dances, these bewitchingly beautiful women, wrapped in gauzy veils that revealed and concealed in equal measure, drifted toward him, inviting him to join them in the clouds and rain of Wushan.
He took a closer look.
They were all people he knew: Sister Ohashi, Sister Hoshimiya, Sister Aishi... More than a hundred women had gathered, every last one of them.
Lu Li took a billion looks.
Then he suppressed the temptation in his heart.
Suddenly, the illusion around him changed again.
Lu Li sat upon the dragon throne, commanding all the armies beneath heaven. His might shook the four corners of the world, and every kingdom came to pay homage.
The illusions shifted in a hundred different ways.
Lu Li continued to silently recite the Heart Sutra, keeping his mind guarded.
His body began to shine with a sacred golden light.
Inside him, the Kunpeng Heaven-Swallowing Demon Art began to circulate on its own, greedily drawing in the dense spiritual energy around him.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
One Mid-Grade Spirit Stone after another shattered, crumbling into dust.
The pure spiritual energy they released swirled through the cultivation chamber, coalescing into a gigantic vortex.
At its center, a tiny blood-red fish gulped down the spiritual energy.
Its body rapidly grew larger!
At the same time, the entire Star Gazing Tower trembled faintly. Its light blazed as every formation activated, frantically drawing spiritual energy from the earth's ley lines.
In the space of a few blinks, a vast vortex of spiritual energy, like a tornado, enveloped the entire Star Gazing Tower.
The wind howled with such force that it swept away flowers and leaves and churned the clouds and rosy mists.
Witnessing this astonishing sight, Lady Red Furnace was secretly alarmed.
This was only a breakthrough into Foundation Establishment. How could it cause such a commotion?
As she wondered, the Spirit-Devouring Fish suddenly darted forward and plunged into Lu Li's body.
A vast, boundless tide of spiritual energy immediately surged through him, raging through his limbs and organs like a flash flood.
Lu Li's body swelled as if it were being inflated.
The crucial step had arrived!
As long as he compressed the spiritual energy and condensed it into liquid magical power, he could lay the foundation of the Great Dao and enter the innate realm!
But at that very moment, Lu Li's brow was furrowed, his eyes tightly shut.
His expression was pained.
"Hmm? What's going on? Could it be..."
Lady Red Furnace's brows knitted together, and her expression changed.
When someone broke through to Foundation Establishment, the immense spiritual energy of heaven and earth flooded into their body, awakening not only their life potential but also their memories.
Everyone, every book, every flower, bird, fish, and insect they had encountered in the first half of their life—all that information would come back to them in an instant.
Even someone they had glimpsed in passing on the street would be remembered at that moment.
Ordinary cultivators established their foundations in their twenties or thirties. They had seen and experienced little in the first half of their lives, so this stage posed no difficulty at all.
But Lu Li looked to be in agony!
His temples throbbed, and his head seemed ready to explode!
Lady Red Furnace watched him, astonished and uncertain.
Lu Li was clearly not even eighteen. How many books could he have read? How many people could he have seen? How could he have such a vast, overwhelming store of memories?
"Mm!"
Suddenly, Lu Li's brow furrowed and he gave a muffled groan.
Red appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Blood poured out.
But he didn't notice at all.
If this continued, his body would burst from the relentless torrent of spiritual energy before his head even had the chance to explode!
Lady Red Furnace's expression turned solemn. She was about to intervene and forcefully stop his breakthrough.
Even if interrupting it set Lu Li's cultivation back and damaged his foundation, that was still better than having his body explode and dying!
Just then, a sudden change occurred.
A bead of blood suddenly emerged from the spot between Lu Li's brows.
Like a bubble rising from underwater, it floated into the air.
As it rose, the bead of blood squirmed, shifting and stretching until it finally became a blood-red character, hovering steadily in midair.
It looked like this:
North.
This was a script Lady Red Furnace had never seen before.
Next, bead after bead of blood floated out, turning into blood-red characters that lined up vertically in midair.
An astonishing aura began to spread through the air.
Vast as the stars in the heavens!
Lady Red Furnace's pupils contracted. Shaken, she murmured, "This... is an unparalleled art?"
The blood beads began to emerge faster.
Like a string of pearls, bead after bead streamed out from between Lu Li's brows and floated into the air, forming blood-red characters one by one.
A boundless, majestic aura enveloped the four corners of the world, vast as the universe and suppressing all things.
Soon, the blood beads stopped emerging.
The unparalleled art was now fully displayed before Lady Red Furnace.
It contained eight hundred and three characters!
Just as Lady Red Furnace began trying to comprehend it, the Spirit-Devouring Fish suddenly flicked its tail and darted over. One after another, it swallowed the blood-red characters whole.
Like a greedy snake, it devoured the entire art in just a few moments.
In an instant, every character Lady Red Furnace had forcibly memorized vanished from her mind. She could no longer recall any of them.
She had missed a fortuitous opportunity!
Her heart filled with regret and sorrow.
Just then, the Spirit-Devouring Fish that had swallowed the art blazed with blood-red light. It transformed into the shape of a whale, tiny as a silkworm, and opened its mouth to inhale.
Whoosh.
All the spiritual energy within three li was swallowed by that tiny Spirit-Devouring Fish.
Then the Spirit-Devouring Fish swam leisurely into Lu Li's forehead.
Lu Li's body immediately shrank as if the air had been let out of it.
The magical power in his body began to solidify and compress.
A faint aura of innate Foundation Establishment spread through the air.
The instant the unparalleled art took shape,
Central Province, Dao Alliance, Flying Heaven Temple.
Flying Heaven Temple was one of the three great temples beneath heaven, occupying Flying Immortal Mountain, one of the Dao Alliance's Nine Immortal Mountains.
At the highest peak of Flying Immortal Mountain stood a small Yellow Mud Temple.
The temple was humble, but inside it enshrined Dao Venerable Taiqing, honored by the nine thousand Daoist sects.
On the altar stood only a few simple offerings of spiritual fruit.
A Red-Nosed Old Daoist, drunk and red-faced, lay fast asleep on a cool bed, snoring like thunder.
The two young Daoist attendants guarding the temple entrance exchanged helpless glances.
Just then,
The Dao Ancestor's statue silently... cracked!
A hair-thin fissure appeared, unmistakably visible right in the middle of the statue's forehead.
Thinking their eyes had deceived them, the two young attendants rubbed them and looked again. Their faces changed instantly. They rushed into the temple, shook the sleeping old Daoist awake, and cried:
"Something's wrong! Abbot, wake up!"
"Wake up! Something terrible's happened!"
But the old Daoist waved a hand, rolled over, and muttered, "What is it? Is that bunch of Bald Monsters planning to attack the Demon Sect? I'm not going! Flying Heaven Temple isn't going! They can fight or not, just don't disturb my cultivation and ascension!"
Then he started snoring again.
No matter how much the two young attendants shook him, they couldn't wake him.
With no other choice, they got up, planning to find the vice abbot.
But the moment they stepped outside—
Boom!
A deafening explosion rang out.
The two young attendants turned at the sound and saw, to their horror... the Dao Ancestor's statue had exploded!
"Holy—!"
The sleeping old Daoist suddenly sprang upright like a hawk taking flight. His eyes bulged, and he stared in disbelief at the shards of jade scattered across the ground. "What happened? The Dao Ancestor exploded? Could the Great Dao have been extinguished?"
As he spoke, his right hand rapidly formed hand seals, leaving afterimages.
He was divining the secrets of heaven.
Three breaths later,
The old Daoist's entire body shook violently. His face took on a look of utter disbelief, and he cried, "You can't be serious! The Dao Ancestor has reincarnated, and in the Demon Sect? What kind of abortifacient did the Dao Ancestor take to end up reincarnating in the Demon Sect? Damn it! Someone, come with me to see the Dao Alliance Leader! Pass down the order: gather our forces and prepare to attack Ten Thousand Demon Mountain alongside those bald monks. We'll wipe out the Demon Sect and rescue the Dao Ancestor's reincarnation!"
With that, he casually struck out with a palm. The air shattered with a boom, and he vanished into the void.
The same scene unfolded across the Nine Great Daoist Sects.
At that moment, at Star Gazing Tower on Ghost Peak Mountain,
Inside the cultivation chamber,
Lu Li slowly opened his eyes.
Two passages appeared clearly in his mind, shimmering with supreme golden light.
The first began: "In the Northern Darkness, there is a fish whose name is Kun..."
The second began with its opening line:
"The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name."
It was the Dao De Jing!
Before you continue