Shrouding the Heavens: The Years as the Female Emperor's Strictest Master

Shrouding the Heavens: The Years as the Female Emperor's Strictest Master

Author: Chestnut Rice

Synopsis:

Lunar and Solar, which is stronger and which is weaker? When Yin and Yang harmonize, one is crowned Emperor under heaven!

All living beings reflect upon themselves, yet only I truly reincarnate.

An All-Causes Soul Pearl capable of letting someone undergo dissolution to reincarnate, fake their death to escape, and pierce through the mystery of the womb brought Tan Lin across time to the Primordial Era of Shrouding the Heavens.

When the Ancient Era arrived, a solitary and helpless little girl with a Mortal Body first heard a heaven-shaking piece of bad news. After fruitlessly begging cultivators of the Feathered Immortal Dynasty to let her see her older brother's remains, grief, hatred, and rage intertwined in her heart.

And on this very day, by a twist of fate, an illusory and transparent remnant soul awoke and emerged from a piece of bronze it clung to.

He looked at the little girl covered in mud and weeping uncontrollably before him, pausing for a moment, and then said faintly,

"Little girl, do you want to cultivate?"

Main Text

Chapter 1: The Human Emperor Falls, All Living Beings Grieve

Blood.

The blood of the Human Emperor dyed the starry skies beyond the high heavens red, yet in the blink of an eye, it seemed to be carved up and devoured clean by something.

Boundless Yin and Yang Qi drifted through the universe, along with the lingering, annihilating traces of a certain Dao-Proving Tribulation.

At this moment, the Great Dao wailed.

An Emperor had fallen, the human race grieved, darkness descended once more, the common people suffered, and heaven and earth were stained with blood.

The massive fluctuations caused by a portion of the Imperial Dao Laws swept through the entire Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, and the myriad realms of the heavens shook.

In the five major restricted zones of the late Primordial Era—the Ancient Mine of Primordial Beginning, Burial Heaven Island, the Immortal Mausoleum, the Divine Ruins, and the Reincarnation Sea—the divine senses and verbal fluctuations of various Supreme Beings also appeared:

"The Emperor has fallen? Which one is it?"

"This aura... Lunar, Solar? Weren't those two supposed to have passed away many years ago?

Hm... No, it seems I have slumbered far too long. I never expected that in this later age, someone capable of dual-cultivating those two ancient scriptures would actually appear?"

"..."

"Heh, Emperor? He is merely a Dao Attainer who has yet to make that ultimate leap and only masters a portion of the Imperial Dao Laws. That old fogey Xiaoyao seems to be all show as well; didn't an ambush fail?"

A Supreme Being sneered.

Yet former Ancient Emperors also held differing views:

"Lunar and Solar, which is stronger and which is weaker? When Yin and Yang harmonize, one is crowned Emperor under heaven!

This person dual-cultivated Lunar and Solar; although he did not thoroughly cultivate these two paths to their absolute extremes, it was close enough. Coupled with the fact that he laid down backup plans, if Xiaoyao did not sublimate, wanting to take this person down would naturally be a tough battle..."

That Supreme Being paused in his speech, narrowing his eyes as he said,

"Only, I didn't expect this person to actually provoke that fellow Undying into making a move as well? That's right, that final crimson radiance indeed had some tricks to it; I couldn't see through it for a moment? It seems this person harbors a great secret..."

In truth, the so-called harmonization of Yin and Yang actually referred to ultimately transforming one's own body into the Chaos Body through the two immortal scriptures of Lunar and Solar!

And the physical body's primordial aura displayed by the so-called "Human Emperor" just now clearly was not that kind of physique, meaning he naturally had not truly dual-cultivated to the extreme.

Within the restricted zones, Supreme Beings with discerning eyes could already see that his dual cultivation merely adopted a certain clever shortcut to forcibly allow the powers of Lunar and Solar to coexist.

Yet across these vast hundreds of thousands of years, who had ever reached that step?

As a person about to prove the Dao, he could already be considered the foremost existence standing on this path in the open within the current human race!

"What a pity..."

Someone sighed.

This was the terrifying aspect of a Dao-Proving Tribulation—it was not only the Heavenly Tribulation, but also this even more "horrific" Human Tribulation!

Rumble...

Outside the restricted zones, the Dark Turmoil of Supreme Beings devouring the living beings of the world like whales erupted.

Those two Supreme Beings, who had tacitly carved up that person about to prove the Dao alongside Undying Heavenly Emperor, had rarely ventured out into the world, so they naturally wanted to maximize their harvest.

Countless people wailed in despair.

"Human Emperor!!!"

Amidst the long, muddled stupor, separated by myriad ages, the wailing and mourning voices of the human race's living beings still seemed to echo beside his ears.

Tan Lin's last sliver of consciousness seemed to be forever frozen at that instant when he fell and was forced to utilize the undercharged All-Causes Soul Pearl to dissolve his cultivation and escape.

The shattered remnant soul fused with the All-Causes Soul Pearl, keeping this sliver of his soul from dissipating to this very day.

However, his consciousness fell into a loop within this endless time, stuck in the scene of his body and origin being pierced from behind by the Undying Heavenly Blade.

As his consciousness floated up and down, coupled with the agonizing pain of his true soul being torn apart, it prevented him from truly sleeping, yet he remained perpetually unable to wake himself.

Endless chaos, endless repetition.

I do not know how much time passed.

An expanse of boundless darkness and cold, where time and space seemed to completely lose their meaning.

Back then, I should not have been so greedy...

Suddenly, a wave of autonomous consciousness filled with remorse flashed ripples amidst the hazy blur.

Perhaps due to some factor that maintained Tan Lin's soul and consciousness until this moment, an unknowable change occurred.

Tan Lin's consciousness finally broke free from the chaotic and dazed loop.

Yet this trace of conscious fluctuation, utterly distinct from the past loops—a fluctuation so minute it was almost imperceptible—actually went from a tiny point deep within Tan Lin's residual soul to rippling outwards in circles, ultimately stirring up layer upon layer of turbulence.

A mysterious precious bead filled with countless crimson specks of light silently glowed and shone.

This bead was named the All-Causes Soul Pearl, possessing incredible and wondrous divine abilities such as military dissolution reincarnation, piercing through the mystery of the womb, protecting a wisp of the true soul from destruction, and accumulating the spiritual insight and innate wisdom of past lifetimes... and so forth.

It was thanks in no small part to this bead that he had managed to nearly attain the Dao and become an emperor in the harsh environment for the human race during the Primordial Era.

However, to urge this Soul Pearl into action required pulling and maintaining countless Causal Lines, thereby accumulating those crimson specks of light as "fuel."

Hum...

A point of clarity, accompanied by this current variable, firmly took hold deep within Tan Lin's residual soul.

Gradually, he began to be able to perceive his current state.

His residual soul was dim and weak.

At its core, aside from the main body of the Soul Pearl, three semi-crimson imprints shone brilliantly.

For some reason, he was currently unable to perceive anything of the outside world, and his consciousness could only curl up and revolve within the Soul Pearl.

This wisp of his residual soul drifted and swayed in eternal nothingness, like the flame of a candle on the verge of complete annihilation.

Memories that occasionally surfaced were like shattered glazed glass, illuminated by the candlelight of his soul, leaving only the most profound scenes to flicker from time to time.

Finally, his consciousness began to regain its capacity for thought.

He started to recall who he was, his past, and how he had fallen to this state.

The scenes flickered:

In his first lifetime after transmigrating, he carried the innate wisdom of another world and embarked on the path of cultivation early on.

He had cultivated with utter confidence in the Lunar Immortal Scripture, one of the two mother scriptures of the human race from the Primordial Era, yet limited by his aptitude and natural talent, he remained trapped before the threshold of a Saint throughout his entire life.

Because the natural acquisition of the fuel required by the precious bead was far too slow, he gathered numerous spiritual herbs during his remaining years to extend his lifespan to five thousand years. For the millennia leading up to the exhaustion of his lifespan, he rushed about everywhere.

Without courting death, he pulled and maintained the Causal Lines to the absolute limit of what he could influence with his Immortal Third Realm cultivation, ultimately managing to fill the Soul Pearl with crimson specks of light.

Benefiting from the All-Causes Soul Pearl, he activated it the moment his life reached its end. A wisp of his true soul remained undestroyed, piercing through the mystery of the womb to successfully dissolve his martial form and reincarnate.

Due to the heaven-defying functions of the Soul Pearl, the spirituality of his true soul and innate wisdom from past lives accumulated, manifesting as a further enhancement in innate aspects such as comprehension. Meanwhile, the crimson specks of light within the Soul Pearl were depleted accordingly and needed to be replenished anew.

In his second lifetime, relying on a trace of thin Solar Holy Body bloodline within his body, he re-cultivated the Solar Immortal Scripture. In the early stages, he advanced by leaps and bounds, undergoing transformation and purifying his bloodline several times, only to fall at the heavenly chasm of the Quasi-Emperor threshold.

During the remaining years when his cultivation could not progress further, even though his lifespan was much more generous than in his first lifetime, he still did his utmost to fully charge the All-Causes Soul Pearl in the shortest possible time to deal with any unexpected events that might occur at any moment.

Even so, it still cost him nearly three thousand years of time and energy...

In his third lifetime, his luck was not bad. He was born into an archaic aristocratic family that inherited the Human King Battle Body, becoming the contemporary Human King Body.

With the soul spirituality, innate wisdom, and cultivation experience accumulated across three lifetimes, he was ambitious in this lifetime. He co-cultivated both lunar and solar forces, cunningly forging the Yin-Yang Divine Millstone within the Human Body Secret Realm to constantly temper and transform the Human King Body...

After cultivating for nearly two thousand years, he finally arrived before the Quasi-Emperor threshold. It was also at this time that he realized his current physique had long since surpassed its origins, and perhaps the name Human King was no longer suited to him.

At two thousand and one hundred years of age, he broke through the Quasi-Emperor threshold, established the Human Emperor Hall in Central Plains of the Big Dipper Star Field, fought against all clans, and led the long-weakened human race to rise once more!

It was precisely this move that allowed him to truly experience the high speed and shortcut of pulling Causal Lines to fill the All-Causes Soul Pearl with crimson specks of light...

After all, in his previous two lives, he had always believed that establishing a faction was a tasteless endeavor. Moreover, in this Primordial Era, if the human race lacked sufficient strength, this so-called faction would only be reduced to a toy for foreign races to plunder, ravage, or amuse themselves with.

However, in this lifetime, everything was different!

He was the contemporary Human Emperor!

...

On this day, he led his subordinates and soldiers to sweep across a group of Primordial Emperor Clan cultivators who had come to Central Plains to hunt the human race for sport!

Among them, an Ancient Emperor's daughter from a certain clan who had awakened from a Divine Source to contend for the Dao-position of this era was suppressed by his peerless cultivation and captured on the spot.

...

Huh? Wait, who... who sent that captive to his bedchamber?!

Alas, these unruly subordinates who loved to act on their own initiative had truly ruined him!!

...

The taste of an Ancient Emperor's daughter... really is not bad...

...

Swish!

Light and shadow swirled within the memory fragments, and Tan Lin's consciousness fell into a brief daze, but he continued to recall:

Training troops, resisting foreign invasions, cultivating, the Ancient Emperor's daughter...

Cultivating, the Ancient Emperor's daughter...

...

The Ancient Emperor's daughter, the Ancient Emperor's daughter...

...

Finally, on this day, he realized something was wrong; he could no longer waste away like this!

After deep reflection on his pain, he decided to collect a ransom and release that Ancient Emperor's daughter, along with the Ancient Clan Quasi-Emperor who had come frequently to demand her, allowing them to return to their clan, even though the Causal Line between the two of them had already grown extremely deep...

...

By the age of three thousand, his cultivation had already reached the peak of the Quasi-Emperor realm. At his current level, regarding outside affairs, even though his subordinate forces stepped forward most of the time, the Causal Lines indirectly involved were thin and minute, yet they had the advantage of being massive in quantity.

And they did not require him to personally maintain them.

This allowed him to avoid spending too much time and energy on charging the Soul Pearl, and the time required was shortened by almost several times! This enabled him to further unlock some of the miraculous traits of the Soul Pearl...

...

When the crimson light specks filled the Soul Pearl, he did not want to wait any longer, and ultimately decided to take that step toward Dao-achievement on this day when he was three thousand six hundred years old!

It was also this day that caused regret and unwillingness to fill the depths of his soul to this very day.