Shrouding the Heavens: The Years I Was the Empress's Strictest Master

'He had just passed the Dao-Proving Tribulation and had yet to make the final leap, merging with the Heart of Heaven. It was also his weakest moment when Xiaoyao Heavenly Venerable reappeared, intending to possess him!'

'Fortunately, he had long been wary of the Human Tribulation after the Dao-Proving Tribulation and had made preparations, so he was not caught off guard. Perhaps, in Xiaoyao Heavenly Venerable's eyes, he was not the prey most to his liking, so from beginning to end, Xiaoyao Heavenly Venerable had not gone all out and undergone Ultimate Sublimation,'

During the stalemate, he had been unwilling to dismantle himself and feign death to begin another Lifetime. After weighing his options, he ultimately expended only some Crimson Light Points as fuel, using the Soul Pearl's mysterious power to frighten Xiaoyao Heavenly Venerable away...'

'Yet he had never expected that after the wolves left, tigers and leopards would come. The Undying Heavenly Emperor launched a sinister attack and pierced the very source of his body with a single slash...'

'With no other choice, he could only activate the Soul Pearl once more, dismantle himself, reincarnate, and feign death to escape. His body, blood essence, origin, Dao Fruit, and fragments of his Primordial Spirit were all divided up by the Undying Heavenly Emperor and the others.'

'But because the Soul Pearl's energy had already been depleted before this, being able to help him dismantle himself and escape was already an immense stroke of fortune,'

The Crimson Light Points were nearly exhausted. Though he could still reincarnate, the entire subsequent process, such as unraveling the mystery of the womb, could no longer be completed...'

'Moreover, the process of dismantling himself had been fraught with twists and turns. The Soul Pearl lacked energy and could only offer limited protection to his true soul, leaving only a wisp of his residual true self, carrying the pearl and crucial memories, to escape.

The rest of his true soul, together with the Primordial Spirit of that Lifetime, had either been shattered on the spot by the Undying Heavenly Emperor's methods and vanished without a trace, or fallen into his hands...

With his true soul incomplete, reincarnation brought even more unforeseen variables. Unable to unravel the mystery of the womb, he would no longer be himself. Thus, with his final thought, he activated the Soul Pearl and halted the reincarnation.'

In the void's cold emptiness, Tan Lin, who had already recalled most of his past, fell silent.

At its root, he had ended up in such a state because he had been too greedy and not decisive enough at critical moments.

But when he had been only a hair's breadth away from attaining the Dao, who could give up so easily?

The Shrouding the Heavens of his "previous life" had only been a novel, but the world he now inhabited was real!

Anything could happen at any time.

Logically speaking, although the Undying Heavenly Emperor had embarked on a path toward immortality by bathing in the origins and blood essences of Ancient Emperors, constantly transforming and undergoing nirvana, he had not yet become a true Emperor when he was attacked.

For the Undying Heavenly Emperor, ambushing him was not particularly worthwhile. It could even expose his intentions and turn him into a target for everyone!

That had also been one of the reasons he had chosen to continue proving his Dao at the time.

Yet the truth was that this undead bird had indeed made his move!

Then there were only two possibilities.

One was that when he used the All-Causes Soul Pearl's mysterious power to drive Xiaoyao Heavenly Venerable away, he had leaked a trace of the Soul Pearl's secret, which Xiaoyao Heavenly Venerable had noticed.

Or perhaps, during the growth of his three Lifetimes of "Reincarnation," he had inadvertently revealed something unusual at some point and was ultimately marked by him...

"Perhaps when I encountered that old bastard Xiaoyao, I should have dismantled myself decisively at once... But I was only one step away from attaining the Dao. How could I possibly have accepted dismantling myself like that?!

A thousand gold cannot buy hindsight..."

To one about to attain the Dao, the final leap was no less coveted than immortality was to Heavenly Venerables and Ancient Emperors.

"Difficult... How difficult the Primordial Era was..."

Tan Lin's residual soul sighed deeply. Only those who had truly undergone the Dao-Proving Tribulation, without anyone of the same level by their side to watch over and aid them, could understand just how difficult it had been for the Lunar Holy Emperor and Solar Holy Emperor back then!

As his thoughts churned, he slowly calmed himself.

Fortunately, unlike other cultivators, all his crucial memories were contained within the Soul Pearl rather than his sea of consciousness or Primordial Spirit.

Otherwise, if the Undying Heavenly Emperor, Xiaoyao Heavenly Venerable, and the others had glimpsed more of his great secrets amid the shattering of his sea of consciousness, Primordial Spirit, and true soul, then even if he had reincarnated, he likely would not have lived to see the day of his birth...

His regret gradually faded, settling into calm.

After three Lifetimes as a human, enduring long years of tempering, Tan Lin's Dao heart was not weak.

The loneliness of spending endless ages alone in the void, unable to sense the outside world, would have driven him mad from suffocation if this had happened when he had first crossed over.

Facing his current situation calmly was the proper course.

As for the past?

When the time was right, there would naturally be a reckoning.

Having settled his thoughts for now, he began directing his awareness and energy toward studying his current circumstances.

And the first thing to examine was naturally the All-Causes Soul Pearl, which had preserved this wisp of his residual soul!

His intuition told him that the root cause of why his residual soul had awakened while he still could not sense the outside environment was most likely this precious pearl.

"The Causal Points are full... These points seem to be a deeper color now..."

Tan Lin carefully observed the differences in the Soul Pearl compared to before he had lost consciousness, his brows knitting slightly.

"After my death, could it be that the Human Emperor Hall was not suppressed and destroyed by those enemies, and is still continuously generating vast amounts of Causal Points?"

When a person died, their karmic ties naturally vanished.

Based on his previous experiences of dismantling himself and reincarnating, after doing so, the Causal Lines from his past lives would turn from bright to dim. Though they would still produce Crimson Light Points, their efficiency was less than a tenth of what it had been while he was alive...

But he had also guessed that if, in his new Lifetime, he shone a lantern in an outhouse and announced his identity to the entire universe, those dim karmic lines would probably light up again.

"So how long have I been asleep?"

Tan Lin fell into contemplation.

But in the next instant, his residual soul's expression changed slightly!

Whoosh!

Within the All-Causes Soul Pearl, the Crimson Light Points suddenly seemed to come alive, like fireflies flickering with strange crimson light.

Buzz...

Then the Soul Pearl trembled softly. The densely packed points of light gathered toward its core, merging one by one and continuously condensing, and then...

Boom!!!

Crimson filled Tan Lin's entire consciousness.

Light and shadow shifted.

When the crimson shrouding Tan Lin's senses faded, the sounds of the outside world came flooding in.

Rustle... rustle...

Rumble, rumble...

"Move aside!!"

"Hurry! Hurry..."

"Get out of the way..."

"People from the Feathered Immortal Dynasty are here..."

The long-forgotten sound of wind stirring vegetation, dust floating in the air, carriage wheels rolling over bluestone slabs, and the panicked cries of ordinary people around him.

The Feathered Immortal Dynasty?

Could this already be the Ancient Era?

Why was he attached to a ring?

Wait... bronze material. It could not be such a coincidence, could it?

This girl was...

The outside light and shadows shifted.

The sense of being in another world left Tan Lin still adjusting for the moment.

Of course, he was splitting his attention, using part of it to observe the changes in the All-Causes Soul Pearl.

The Soul Pearl was the supreme treasure upon which he relied to survive in this world. Nothing could happen to it!

He would need it for his subsequent reincarnation and rebirth.

As for relying on himself to live another life?

Sorry, setting aside whether he even had the ability or opportunity.

His Primordial Spirit and part of his true soul from his previous life had scattered. His Dao Fruit and cultivation had long since been dismantled, while his blood essence and origin had been completely divided among others. They had probably finished refining them by now.

If this wisp of residual soul left the Soul Pearl, it might dissipate between heaven and earth the very next moment.

Wait... where were his Causal Points?

In the void, Tan Lin stared at the All-Causes Soul Pearl, now empty of Crimson Light Points, his residual soul frowning deeply.

No, it was not entirely empty.

More precisely, there was still one point of light flickering within the Soul Pearl.

But compared to the previously dense abundance, this single point of light was negligible in Tan Lin's eyes.

What caught his attention, however, was that while the Soul Pearl's barrier and Causal Points had previously been light crimson, they were now a nearly somber deep crimson!

"This is..."

After studying it for a moment, Tan Lin's thoughts suddenly stirred.

Whoosh...

The next moment.

That Deep Crimson Light Point actually drifted out from the Soul Pearl, ignoring its barrier, and landed in the palm of his transparent residual soul.

Then.

Splash!

He seemed to have triggered the Soul Pearl's altered ability—[All-Cause Vision]!

In Tan Lin's "eyes," his field of vision rose higher and higher...

At last, his residual soul became a center from which countless dim Causal Lines extended, carrying traces of crimson luster.

An intangible crimson mist swirled around his residual soul, and one end of every line seemed faintly connected to the All-Causes Soul Pearl.

To him, these lines were akin to anchors, allowing him to determine his current location.

Combined with his observations of the outside environment, he inferred that he was probably in the Southern Region of Eastern Wasteland on Big Dipper.

As his thoughts turned, Tan Lin did not withdraw from the state of [All-Cause Vision].

At that moment, an incomparably illusory deep crimson dial was clearly visible on the Soul Pearl's surface, emitting a faint, gentle glow that warmed his residual soul.

Its current mark was—One.

The entire dial had a total of three hundred and sixty-five notches, with the remaining three hundred and sixty-four still unlit.

Swish...

Tan Lin shifted his gaze slightly and looked outward along those Causal Lines.

Several thick, dim lines among them drew his attention the most.

One of them extended westward, with branches from all directions connected to it.

Through his senses, Tan Lin knew that this line most likely pointed to the Human Emperor Hall he had established in his previous life. Located in the Central Plains, it had actually remained standing for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years after his death?

Even now, it was indirectly providing him with heavily diminished Causal Points.

However, the tangled and dim nature of this Causal Line sounded a warning in Tan Lin's mind.

"Sure enough, though the Human Emperor Hall's lineage still remains, something has likely changed..."

As his thoughts rose and fell, Tan Lin looked toward the other ends of the remaining thickest Causal Lines.

These lines exuded deep malice. They were black lines of evil causality: one connected to the Sea of Reincarnation in a forbidden zone, one led beyond the domain, and two others extended into other forbidden zones.

It was worth noting that whether they were tangled Causal Lines or black lines of evil causality, as long as they could be maintained, they could generate Causal Points.

However, those Causal Points were exceedingly dim and tangled. To become usable Crimson Points, they needed time to settle and diminish; roughly five points could merge into one Light Crimson Point.

As for the current Deep Crimson Point, he had no idea how many it required for the moment.

"What a pity. If the Soul Pearl had possessed this ability in my previous life, seeking fortune and avoiding disaster would have been effortless. I would not have fallen to such a state..."

"The urgent matter is to find a way to repair this residual soul, then reincarnate. Of course, during that time, I need to accumulate more Causal Points..."

In the void, Tan Lin slowly withdrew from the state of [All-Cause Vision].

He had already discovered that activating [All-Cause Vision] consumed Crimson Light Points.

In just this short while, the glow of the Deep Crimson Light Point had dimmed by an imperceptible trace, though that was only slow relative to the level of this Deep Crimson Causal Point.