Tongtian Heads to the East Sea

Lei Xiao carefully inspected the Innate Fire Spirit Pearl but found nothing unusual.

"Third Sister, I plan to enter seclusion here for a while and refine the Innate Fire Spirit Pearl." Lei Xiao slowly opened his eyes and looked at Bi Xiao.

"This place is unlikely to be disturbed, so I'll also enter seclusion to refine the Dragon-Phoenix Flute. I've already refined the first three innate restrictions of the Dragon-Phoenix Flute.

I have a feeling that as long as I refine two more innate restrictions, my cultivation will break through to the mid-stage Taiyi Golden Immortal," Bi Xiao said.

Innate restrictions were a form of vessel for the laws of the Great Dao. Refining an innate spiritual treasure was equivalent to comprehending the Dao, and could be considered a shortcut to cultivation.

It was no wonder the living beings of the Primordial World flocked to innate spiritual treasures.

Just as the two entered seclusion.

Chaos, Purple Firmament Palace.

This palace floated deep within Chaos, supported by nothing, neither sinking nor rising, as though it had existed here since the beginning of eternity. The entire palace was a deep violet, its surface flowing with unfathomable Dao rhythms. Even amid the raging chaos qi, it remained as steady as a rock.

Hongjun suddenly awoke from his state of Dao comprehension, his eyes—which seemed capable of seeing through the river of time spanning countless ages—snapping open.

A violet glint flashed through the depths of his pupils.

"The Eye of the Heavenly Dao... has appeared?"

Hongjun's voice was low and calm, but anyone familiar with him would have heard the undercurrents concealed beneath that calmness.

He calculated with his fingers, his brows furrowing slightly.

The heavenly secrets were chaotic. He could not see clearly.

This should not have been possible.

With his current cultivation, there was almost nothing in the Primordial World that could escape his divinations.

Yet at this moment, matters concerning the Eye of the Heavenly Dao seemed veiled by a thin gauze. He could clearly sense that something had happened, yet could not discern the details.

"Interesting."

Hongjun murmured and rose to his feet.

He was tall and lean, his violet Daoist robe fluttering without wind. The laws of the Great Dao faintly circulated behind him, while the ancient vicissitudes within his eyes were beyond measure by any passage of time.

"A variable has appeared."

Hongjun's gaze pierced through endless Chaos toward the Primordial World.

Northern Nether, Kunlun Mountain, Netherworld Blood Sea...

Hongjun's gaze swept across the abodes of the great powers of the Primordial World, yet none of them noticed in the slightest.

More than ten breaths later, Hongjun withdrew his gaze and gently shook his head.

"Since I cannot find it, so be it. After all, after the third sermon, I will merge with the Dao. At that time, I will hold dominion over the Heavenly Dao, and the authority of the Eye of the Heavenly Dao will naturally fall into my hands."

Hongjun sat back down upon the cold violet jade Dao platform and slowly closed his eyes.

The myriad laws of the Great Dao circulating around him withdrew into his body like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, and the Purple Firmament Palace once more sank into its eternal stillness and profundity.

Kunlun Mountain.

"I've been feeling restless whenever I enter seclusion lately."

Tongtian emerged from his cave abode and looked toward the East Sea.

According to his divinations, Tongtian discovered that every time he felt restless, his future disciple was facing a life-threatening danger.

Once or twice would have been one thing, but over these mere few hundred years, that feeling of unease had already appeared four times.

Has my disciple, who has yet to enter my sect, been cursed by heaven? Tongtian lamented inwardly.

These repeated life-and-death tribulations had kept his heart in his throat.

Tongtian stood with his hands behind his back atop Kunlun's sea of clouds. His azure Daoist robe fluttered wildly in the wind, and there was a rare gravity between his brows.

His nature had always been carefree and unruly, and he was fiercely protective of his own. Ever since he had vaguely sensed that he possessed a nominal disciple who had yet to enter his sect and whose fate was fraught with hardship, he had constantly worried over them.

Ordinary cultivators could peacefully comprehend the Dao their entire lives and might not encounter a single life-and-death tribulation in a thousand years. Yet this disciple whom he had never met had endured four deadly tribulations in mere centuries. Every one of them had been a narrow escape from death, pushing them to the brink of falling! Yet they had survived every time.

The sudden unease he had felt just now was far more intense than the previous three.

"Since they'll be my disciple sooner or later, why not just take them as a disciple in advance? If this keeps up, they'll be gone before I can accept them."

Tongtian hesitated no longer. With a thought, his figure shot abruptly into the sky.

In an instant, fierce winds swept across Kunlun's peak and the sea of clouds churned. Tongtian took a single step, and a dazzling nine-colored auspicious cloud formed beneath his feet, carrying him as he tore through space and sped directly toward the East Sea.

At the same time, the Sun Star.

The Sun Star hung at the highest point of the Primordial World's heavens. It had been formed from Pangu's left eye after he split open heaven and earth, the ancestor of all suns and the source of light for the heavens.

The entire star was enveloped by boundless Solar True Fire. Golden-white flames scorched the heavens and boiled the seas, their heat so intense that it warped space itself. Any living being below the Daluo Golden Immortal realm that approached would be reduced to ashes.

At the core of the Sun Star grew one of the Ten Great Innate Spiritual Roots, the Fusang Divine Tree.

The enormous Fusang Divine Tree was like a golden pillar supporting heaven and earth, innate Fire Dao rhythms flowing through its thick trunk. Yet deep within this spiritual root, which symbolized the ultimate light and vitality of the Primordial World, lay a hidden darkness unknown to others.

At the very core of the Fusang Tree, within the Fusang Divine Tree's origin space, a dark golden sphere of light wrapped in layer upon layer of flames lay quietly dormant.

"Damn Pangu... damn Heavenly Dao... and that most damned insect..."

A ripple of divine sense brimming with endless resentment and unwillingness quietly spread through the tree's core.

The owner of this divine sense was none other than the Fire Demon God.

After Pangu had killed him, the Fire Demon God had been left with only a remnant soul. In order to revive, he had begun laying plans from the moment heaven and earth first opened.

He split his remnant soul into two. One portion was hidden within the Fusang Divine Tree, using the tree as a body to refine the Sun Star and thereby gain an identity "acknowledged" by the heaven and earth of the Primordial World.

The other portion of his soul used the Innate Fire Spirit Pearl to recover and condense a Chaos Demon God body anew.

Who could have known that Lei Xiao would intrude by chance, communicate with the Eye of the Heavenly Dao, and directly use it to erase the portion of his soul hidden within the Innate Fire Spirit Pearl.

"Puh—"

Within the Fusang Divine Tree's origin space, the dark golden sphere of light suddenly convulsed violently. Accompanied by an incomparably shrill scream, the Fire Demon God actually spat out a great mouthful of origin essence blood!

This was not something he had done willingly, but the backlash from his connected souls!

At the instant that the fragment of his soul within the Innate Fire Spirit Pearl had been forcibly erased by the Eye of the Heavenly Dao, the extreme agony of having his soul torn apart and crushed was transmitted without reservation to his main body along the karmic thread hidden in the unseen.

"My origin... my true Chaos Demon God body!!!"

From this point onward, unless he encountered an enormous stroke of fortune, the Fire Demon God would almost certainly never again be able to condense a true Chaos Demon God body.

After all, after being killed by Pangu, only a tiny fragment of his Fire Dao origin had remained. He had used all of it to condense a Chaos Demon God body anew.

"No. Even the Eye of the Heavenly Dao cannot erase the Fire Dao origin. As long as I reclaim the Innate Fire Spirit Pearl, there is still hope."