Everyone stared at the scene before them, dumbfounded, feeling as though they were dreaming.
"Everyone, this is it."
Meeting the crowd's astonished gazes, Zhang Feng pointed toward the Heaven-Reaching Road before them, looking somewhat pleased with himself. "This road leads straight out of the Mist Forest, and it's absolutely safe. After all, most of the things that weren't safe have already been killed."
Gulp!
The chubby elder swallowed.
Then he hurriedly rubbed his eyes with his pudgy hands and looked again.
But what he saw was still the same scene as before.
A Heaven-Reaching Road, a hundred meters wide and possessed of a brutal kind of beauty, stretched into view.
Here and there, flecks of golden flesh and blood still clung to the towering trees snapped cleanly in half along the roadside. They were what remained of the innate demon beasts that had perished.
"This road..."
As an innate expert, Old Lady Xu was even more shaken than the others. Overcome with excitement, she could barely get her words out. "After all this time, such a powerful aura still lingers along this road. There's even... even a trace of the Great Dao's resonance!"
"The Great Dao's resonance?"
Seeing that the others were confused, Old Lady Xu continued to exclaim in wonder. "The so-called resonance of the Great Dao is what happens after one comprehends the Great Dao and draws its power into oneself. Every movement then carries the aura of the Great Dao, and its might is terrifying beyond compare."
"To comprehend the Great Dao's resonance, one must at least touch upon the level of a Golden Core Heavenly Monarch. The senior who carved this road is unfathomably powerful!"
"Unfathomably powerful!"
Old Lady Xu shook her head again and again, marveling.
What a pity. If she had been lucky enough to witness this decades earlier, perhaps she might have had a chance to advance further.
Now, she had reached the end of her strength, with little time left to live.
"What a pity. What a terrible pity!"
The lowest threshold for sensing the Great Dao's resonance was the innate level. Thus, aside from Old Lady Xu, no one else present felt a thing.
"Hmm? Junior Sister Meng?"
Liu Yanran didn't really understand, but after hearing the words of Jingyun Sect's innate elder, she was awestruck nonetheless.
She glanced around, hoping to see the others' reactions. Then her gaze suddenly stopped. At some point, Meng Tangtang had closed her eyes and stood there, dazed.
A dense power of ice and fire coiled around her.
Threads of the power of heaven and earth stirred around her, continually reshaping her constitution.
Her cultivation, too, surged rapidly from the peak of the Seventh Grade Realm, breaking through the threshold of the Eighth Grade Realm in the blink of an eye.
And her rapid progress showed no sign of slowing.
"Don't make a sound!"
Old Lady Xu's eyes lit up. With her wealth of experience, she immediately realized that Meng Tangtang was observing the Great Dao's resonance and had entered the state of enlightenment countless people dreamed of.
Though only those who had reached the innate level could comprehend the Great Dao's resonance, Meng Tangtang was different. She had an innate constitution: the Ice-Fire Dual Essence Body.
In a sense, she was a natural-born innate expert. All she lacked was the cultivation to fill that potential.
In that respect, she was somewhat like Lin Cheng.
Lin Cheng, however, was even more monstrous. Neither Meng Tangtang's cultivation speed nor her upper limit could compare to his.
Everyone lowered their breathing.
They were afraid of disturbing Meng Tangtang as she broke through.
A state of enlightenment like this could not be sought; it could only be chanced upon. Countless people went their whole lives without experiencing it once.
To encounter it was to encounter a great opportunity. As long as one seized it, one was sure to leap over the dragon's gate and set foot on the path to becoming a powerful expert.
Old Lady Xu's expression turned solemn. The power of heaven and earth slowly spread from her, enveloping the area as she shielded Meng Tangtang from even the slightest disturbance.
The others held their breath as well.
The state of enlightenment was extremely fragile and could easily be interrupted.
If Meng Tangtang's breakthrough went wrong because of one of them, that person would become the sworn enemy of the entire Jingyun Sect. Even the foreign races would come second!
Soon,
about the time it took to drink half a cup of tea passed, and Meng Tangtang's enlightenment neared its end.
Under the crowd's anxious, fervent gazes, her cultivation aura finally settled at the middle stage of the Ninth Grade Realm.
One moment of enlightenment, and she had leaped two grades.
The crowd's eyes turned red with envy.
As Meng Tangtang's awareness returned to her surroundings, she recalled how she had entered that state of enlightenment: her mind had drawn inward as she sensed the Great Dao's resonance lingering there.
Because of her enlightenment, her perception had increased several times over.
As a result, she had caught a familiar trace of aura. With the help of the power of heaven and earth, she had vaguely "seen" a few scenes.
A mysterious figure had seized Elder Zhang Feng and charged through a trail of slaughter, heading straight toward Beast Taming Mountain.
Though she couldn't see his expression, she could clearly sense the anxiety and worry in his heart.
She had also seen the mysterious figure face off against several Foundation Establishment demon beasts.
Alone against several beings of the same level, he hadn't backed down an inch.
He had no time to waste. He had something more important to do, and he couldn't afford to delay.
For that, he was willing to risk death.
She had even happened to discover that just a short while ago—perhaps only moments earlier—
the mysterious figure had appeared once more, tirelessly clearing the demon beasts along the way, one by one, with painstaking care.
And this road was precisely the route they had taken.
After doing all that, the mysterious figure had charged alone into the depths of the Mist Forbidden Land.
He had fought a battle against five Foundation Establishment demon beasts, and his aura had weakened.
That mysterious expert had been injured.
In the scenes she had seen, he had always been incomparably powerful, sweeping everything aside as he went. At most, he had shown signs of fatigue.
This was the first time he had been injured.
Why had he done all that?
What did he stand to gain?
And that faint, familiar trace of aura...
At that moment, Meng Tangtang's delicate body suddenly trembled. As her eyes slowly opened, tears streamed down her face.
Silently, she bit her lip, refusing to let herself cry aloud.
She already knew who that person was.
"Master..." Meng Tangtang murmured almost inaudibly.
She had seen it. Her master had been injured.
She had seen that towering figure, as deep as an abyss, emerge bent over from the depths of the forbidden land. He had vomited blood again and again along the way, seemingly unaware of anyone else.
He had dropped onto the ground without a shred of dignity.
Only after a long while had he gotten back to his feet, straightened his clothes, and calmly walked away.
From beginning to end, he hadn't come to say a word to her.
He had only silently cleared away the obstacles along the road.
At that moment, the grievance she had felt at Beast Taming Mountain when she heard her master hadn't come to save her vanished without a trace.
At that moment, she finally understood why she had been able to comprehend the Great Dao's resonance lingering there so easily.
She also understood why they hadn't encountered the slightest danger along the way.
After all, even someone with an innate constitution couldn't casually comprehend the Great Dao's resonance at her lowly level of the Seventh Grade Realm.
Someone must have helped her in secret.
And never once had he made a show of it.
As for why they had encountered no danger, it was because her master had cut it down for her in advance. He hadn't told her because he wanted to train her.
Such painstaking care was enough to move anyone.
A master's kindness was as vast as the sea; for one day a master, for life a father.
Lin Cheng hadn't thought so much about it. He had simply felt he ought to look after his disciple, without believing there was anything extraordinary about doing so.
But at that moment, Meng Tangtang's heart was breaking.
Amid the crowd's bewildered stares, she wept bitterly, murmuring something over and over.
Those who drew closer could hear her.
"Master's hurt... he's hurt... Master was hurt because of me. He's badly injured... This is the first time he's ever been hurt..."
Meng Tangtang looked up at the endless Heaven-Reaching Road before her.
She seemed to see that silent figure again, tirelessly clearing the demon beasts from the Mist Forbidden Land.
Why had he done it?
Unable to hold back any longer, Meng Tangtang burst into sobs beneath the crowd's worried, bewildered gazes.
She hated it!
She hated herself!
Why had she been so inconsiderate? If she hadn't acted recklessly, how could she have burdened her master with all that trouble?
She could tell from the fact that her master spent every day in the cold, lonely Library Pavilion that he wasn't someone who liked trouble.
Yet for an inept disciple like her, he had broken his own principles time and time again.
Master, I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused you!
Before you continue