Shrouding the Heavens: The Years I Spent 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, the world crowns an Emperor!
All beings mirror themselves, only my true self reincarnates.
An All-Causes Soul Pearl capable of letting someone undergo Disintegration Reincarnation, fake their death to escape, and pierce the mystery within the womb allowed Tan Lin to transmigrate into the Primordial Era of Shrouding the Heavens.
When the Ancient Era arrived, a helpless little girl with a Mortal Body first heard a shocking and devastating piece of news. After her desperate pleas for the cultivators of the Feathered Immortal Dynasty to examine her older brother's bones went unanswered, grief, hatred, and fury intertwined in her heart.
Also on this day, by a twist of fate, an illusory and transparent remnant soul awoke and emerged from a piece of copper it was attached to.
He looked at the little girl covered in mud and crying uncontrollably before him, pausing for a moment, then murmured:
"Little girl, do you want to cultivate?"
Main Text
Chapter 1: The Human Emperor Falls, All Living Beings Grieve (6.4K)
Blood.
The blood of the "Human Emperor" dyed the starry sky beyond the high heavens red, but in a flash, it seemed to be completely carved up and devoured by something.
The mighty Yin and Yang Qi drifted across the universe, lingering alongside remnants of the annihilation intent from the Dao-Proving Tribulation.
At this moment, the Great Dao wailed.
The Emperor fell, the Human Race grieved, darkness descended once more, the common people suffered bitterly, 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, shaking Myriad Heavens and Ten Thousand Domains.
Within the five major Restricted Areas of the late Primordial Era—the Ancient Mine of Primordial Beginning, Burial Heaven Island, Immortal Mausoleum, Divine Ruins, and Reincarnation Sea—divine senses and verbal fluctuations of various Supreme Beings also appeared:
"An Emperor has fallen? Which one has fallen?"
"This aura... Lunar, Solar? Weren't those two long gone for many years?
Hoh... No, it seems I have slumbered far too long. I didn't expect this later era to produce someone capable of cultivating both of these great scriptures?"
"..."
"Heh, an Emperor? He was merely a 'Dao Attainer' who had yet to make the Ultimate Leap and only grasped a portion of the Imperial Dao Laws. That old fellow Xiaoyao also seems to be all show and no substance, failing in a sneak attack?"
Some Supreme Beings sneered.
Yet former Ancient Emperors held different views:
"Lunar and Solar, which is stronger and which is better? When Yin and Yang harmonize, the world crowns an Emperor!
Though this person cultivated both Lunar and Solar, and failed to truly train these two paths to their absolute peaks, he was not far off. Coupled with prearranged preparations, 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:
"I just didn't expect that this person actually provoked that fellow 'Undying' to make a move? Right, that final crimson radiance certainly had some tricks to it; I couldn't see through it for a moment? It seems this person harbored a great secret..."
Actually, the so-called Yin and Yang harmonization referred to utilizing the two immortal scriptures of Lunar and Solar to ultimately make oneself evolve into a Chaos Body!
Yet the Physique Origin aura displayed by the so-called "Human Emperor" just now was clearly not this kind of physique, and naturally, he had not truly cultivated both to their peaks.
Within the Restricted Areas, sharp-eyed Supreme Beings could already tell that his dual cultivation merely adopted a certain clever shortcut to forcefully make the powers of Lunar and Solar coexist!
Yet across these vast hundreds of thousands of years, who had ever reached that step?
As a Dao-Attainment Imminent, this person could already be considered the one leading the pack most openly on this path within the present Human Race!
"What a pity..."
Someone sighed.
This was the terrifying aspect of the Dao-Proving Tribulation—it was not merely the Heavenly Tribulation, but even more "terrifying" Human Tribulations!
Rumble...
Outside the Restricted Areas, the Dark Turmoil broke out as Supreme Beings swallowed the living beings of the world like whales.
Those two Supreme Beings, who had shared that Dao-Attainment Imminent with the Undying Heavenly Emperor in a tacit understanding, had rarely emerged into the world and naturally wanted to maximize their harvest.
Countless people wailed in despair.
"Human Emperor!!!"
Amidst the long, muddled darkness, separated by ten thousand ages, the sound of the Human Race's masses grieving and mourning still seemed to echo by his ear.
Tan Lin's last sliver of consciousness seemed forever frozen at the very moment he fell and was forced to employ the undercharged All-Causes Soul Pearl to disintegrate and escape.
The shattered remnant soul merged with the All-Causes Soul Pearl, keeping this sliver of his soul from dissipating to this day.
Yet his consciousness, throughout that endless time, fell into a vision of being impaled through the body and origin from behind by the Undying Heavenly Blade, entering a nearly endless loop.
Amid his floating, sinking consciousness, coupled with the excruciating pain of his true soul being torn apart, he was unable to truly "sleep" and consistently failed to wake up of his own accord.
Endless chaos, endless repetition.
Unknown how much time had passed.
A expanse of vast darkness and chill, where time and space seemed to completely lose all meaning.
Back then, I shouldn't have been so greedy...
Suddenly, a wave of autonomous intent filled with remorse rippled forth in the haziness.
Perhaps due to some factor that had sustained Tan Lin's soul consciousness until this moment, an unknowable change occurred at this very instant.
Tan Lin's intent finally broke free from the dazed, repetitive loop.
As for this shred of intent fluctuation, so utterly distinct from the cyclical past and so minute as to be practically imperceptible, it actually began as a tiny point deep within Tan Lin's remnant soul, rippled outward in concentric circles, and ultimately stirred up rolling waves.
A mysterious bead filled with countless crimson dots shone and glowed formlessly.
This bead was named the All-Causes Soul Pearl, possessing such incredible divine marvels as Disintegration Reincarnation, seeing through the mystery of the womb, protecting a wisp of the true soul from destruction, and superimposing past-life spirituality and past-life wisdom... among others.
He had nearly attained the Dao and become an emperor in the difficult environment for the Human Race during the Archaic Era, and this bead was merit of the highest order.
However, wanting to rouse this Soul Pearl required pulling and maintaining countless causal lines to accumulate those crimson dots as "fuel."
Hum...
A spark of lucidity, accompanying this variable at the present moment, firmly took hold deep within Tan Lin's remnant soul.
Gradually, he began to be able to sense his current state.
His remnant soul was dim and weak.
At its core, aside from the Soul Pearl itself, there were three and a half crimson imprints shining brilliantly.
For some reason, he was currently unable to perceive anything of the outside world, and his consciousness could only curl up and spin around inside the Soul Pearl.
This wisp of his remnant soul floated and swayed in the eternal nothingness, like a candle flame on the verge of being completely extinguished.
Memories that surfaced intermittently were like shattered colored glaze; illuminated by the candle-like soul flame, only the most profound scenes flickered from time to time.
Finally, his consciousness began to recover its capacity for thought.
He began to recall who he was, his past, and how he had come to this pass.
The scenes flickered:
In his first lifetime after traversing over, he carried his cross-world past-life wisdom and embarked on the path of cultivation early on.
He had cultivated the "Lunar Immortal Scripture"—one of the two mother scriptures of the Human Race in the Archaic Era—with absolute confidence, yet constrained by his aptitude and natural talent, he remained trapped before the threshold of sainthood for the entirety of his life.
Because the natural acquisition of the fuel required by the bead was far too slow, for the remainder of his life he gathered numerous spiritual herbs to prolong his lifespan to five thousand years, spending the millennia leading up to the exhaustion of his lifespan running about everywhere.
Without courting death, he did his utmost to pull and maintain the causal lines that he could affect at his Immortal Third Realm level of cultivation, ultimately managing to fill the Soul Pearl with crimson dots.
Benefiting from the All-Causes Soul Pearl, he activated it at the moment his life came to an end, keeping a wisp of his true soul intact, seeing through the mystery of the womb, and successfully undergoing disintegration to be reincarnated.
Due to the heaven-defying functions of the Soul Pearl, his past-life true soul spirituality and past-life wisdom were superimposed, manifesting as a renewed enhancement in innate aspects such as comprehension, while the crimson dots within the Soul Pearl were simultaneously exhausted and required replenishment.
In his second lifetime, relying on the faint bloodline of the Solar Physique within his body, he switched to cultivating the "Solar Immortal Scripture." Making rapid and triumphant progress in the early stages and undergoing bloodline transformation and purification several times, he nonetheless fell before the heavenly chasm of the Quasi-Emperor threshold.
During the remainder of his life when his cultivation made no further progress, even though his lifespan was much more generous than in his first lifetime, to cope with accidents that might occur at any moment he still did his utmost to finish charging the All-Causes Soul Pearl in the shortest possible time.
Even so, it still cost him nearly three thousand years of time and effort...
In his third lifetime, his luck was not bad. He was born into an Archaic prestigious family with the inheritance of the Human King Battle Body, becoming the contemporary Human King Body.
With the true soul spirituality, past-life wisdom, and cultivation experience of three superimposed lifetimes, he was ambitious in this lifetime, dually cultivating the lunar and the solar, cleverly forging a Yin-Yang Divine Millstone within the Human Body Secret Realm to constantly temper and transform the Human King Body...
Cultivating for nearly two thousand years, he finally arrived before the Quasi-Emperor threshold, and it was also at this time that he realized this physique of his had long since surpassed its origins, perhaps the name of the Human King no longer suited him.
At two thousand 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 the myriad clans, and led the long-weakened Human Race to rise once more!
It was precisely this measure that made him truly experience the high speed and shortcut of pulling causal lines and filling the All-Causes Soul Pearl with crimson dots...
After all, in his previous two lifetimes, he had always believed that establishing a force was a tasteless burden. Moreover, in this Archaic Era, if the Human Race lacked sufficient strength, this so-called force would merely end up reduced to a toy for foreign races to plunder, ravage, or take amusement in.
However, in this lifetime, everything was different!
He was the contemporary Human Emperor!
*...*
On this day, he led his subordinate soldiers and generals to sweep across a group of Primordial Emperor Clan cultivators who had come to Central Plains taking the hunting of the Human Race as sport!
Among them, an Ancient Emperor daughter of a certain clan who had awakened from a Divine Source to contend for the Dao Attainment Position of this era was suppressed by his peerless cultivation and captured on the spot.
*...*
Huh? Wait, who... who was it that sent that captive to his bedchamber?!
Alas, these unruly subordinates who loved to act on their own initiative had truly harmed him bitterly!!
*...*
The taste of the Ancient Emperor's daughter... truly is magnificent...
*...*
Swish!
Light and shadow swirled within the memory fragments, Tan Lin's consciousness dazed for a moment, but he still continued to recall:
Training troops, resisting alien 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 his time like this!
Having suffered through that pain and resolved to do better, he decided to collect a ransom and release that Ancient Emperor's daughter along with the Ancient Race Quasi-Emperor who had come frequently to demand her, even though the causal lines between the two of them had already grown extremely deep...
*...*
At the age of three thousand, his cultivation had already reached the Quasi-Emperor Peak. At his current realm, as for outside matters, even though most of the time his subordinate factions came forward and the indirectly entangled causal lines were thin and small, they won out in sheer volume.
And they did not require him personally to 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 nearly several fold! This allowed him to further develop some of the miraculous properties of the Soul Pearl...
*...*
When the crimson dots of light filled the Soul Pearl, he did not want to wait any longer, and finally decided on this day at the age of three thousand six hundred to take that step toward Dao Attainment!
It was also this day that caused regret and unwillingness to fill the depths of his soul to this very day.
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