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

The Mystic Platform could bypass all miraculous restrictions beneath Great Emperor-level array formations in this world, creating a temporary spatial passage isolated from heaven and earth.

Once activated, it led directly to a former secret site of the Heavenly Mystic Ancient Clan tens of millions of miles away.

It could muddle the heavenly secrets, conceal one's aura, and make tracking exceedingly difficult.

During that period in his previous life, the other party had sometimes crossed over here without a sound. As the master of this Drill Tower, if he did not deliberately investigate, even he would remain in the dark.

If this Mystic Platform were combined with the Quasi-Emperor Array Diagram here and activated together, its miraculous effects would rise to an even greater level.

It would be enough to help him ignore the Profound Firmament Nine Truths Soul-Slaying Formation outside and its special seal upon souls before certain beings arrived.

"After the Archaic Era ended, were you and your clansmen also buried in the conflicts and turmoil before the Ancient Era...?"

His thoughts drifted. Tan Lin's remnant soul paused atop the stone platform, and a rare trace of sorrow flashed through his deep eyes.

When he had awakened more than half a year ago.

Under that [All-Cause Vision], he had actually already guessed that the beauty from the Archaic Era, Ancient Emperor's Daughter Tian Ling, had passed away.

Because the Causal Line between them had already vanished.

When a person died, their lamp went out, and causality naturally faded.

The cruelty of the cultivation world was revealed once again.

Even a mighty Primordial Emperor Clan, after its Ancient Emperor had dissolved into the Dao for endless years, could not escape the cleansing of calamity and was submerged within the river of time and space.

And without the All-Causes Soul Pearl, he would have long since died completely as well.

Rustle...

The painting on the wall behind him seemed to sense something. It moved without wind, then slowly settled again.

"Are they leaving the restricted zone? It is time to go... The bait has been swallowed. It is time to let the anglers move about a little."

Without dwelling too long on the sorrow of an old friend's passing, Tan Lin kept his gaze fixed on the changes in those several Causal Lines that had suddenly brightened.

The next instant.

Whoosh!

The Deep Crimson Light Point in his palm flickered faintly.

The effect of [Inverted All-Causes Vision] was pushed to its limit, completely concealing every trace of causality he had left in this place.

Then, he activated the Mystic Platform.

Buzz!

Very soon, the stone platform bloomed with faint light, and an invisible ripple spread through space. Tan Lin's remnant soul vanished from where he stood.

Whoosh...

Almost at the exact instant he left, two terrifying divine senses forcibly penetrated the Drill Tower from outside.

The two divine senses coordinated seamlessly, interweaving like a net cast across heaven and earth. They overlooked no location within the tower, inspecting all ten layers of the tower's world within a few breaths.

In the end, they discovered this underground palace!

At the array eye outside, the gray-robed Daoist lightly shook the jade bottle in his hand, completely merging the mother and child arrays of the Profound Firmament Nine Truths Soul-Slaying Formation.

With him personally controlling it, the miraculous power displayed by the great formation now completely surpassed even its previous peak.

"He disappeared? There is only a painting in that underground palace..."

The gray-robed Daoist furrowed his brows tightly.

"That fluctuation just now was beyond doubt. How did he break free under the great formation's restraints? Since he could leave, why had he not left earlier? Why depart only at the very instant before we left the restricted zone? His timing was far too precise..."

"Hehe, playing tricks..."

Beside him, the Undying Daoist wore a cold expression, and golden light seemed to flicker in his eyes.

"Perhaps he merely evaded our investigation and is still here?"

His divine sense swept out again. Combined with a certain immortal eye technique, the Undying Daoist searched once more. Finally, his patience ran out, and he slowly said:

"Flatten this tower directly. Since we cannot drag him out, let the hundreds of millions of living beings in this tower be buried with him. That can be considered worthy of his former identity as a Dao Attainer..."

Chapter 21: Rampant!!!

Buried with him...

The moment the Undying Daoist spoke, Gong Xuan, the master of Human Emperor Hall who stood beside him like a servant, suddenly tensed inwardly.

"What are you afraid of?"

As though he had keenly caught Gong Xuan's emotional fluctuation, the Undying Daoist glanced sideways at him, then lightly patted his shoulder with a large hand.

"Do not worry. You have been fairly obedient these years and still have a little value..."

"Y-yes... Thank you for Your Majesty's regard..."

Gong Xuan barely forced out a smile. Before him, he did not even dare breathe too loudly.

Of these two, the former was merely a Supreme Being's Dao body, while this one was the Faith Body of that Heavenly Emperor. There was a difference between them.

At the very least, standing before the Undying Daoist truly frightened him to the extreme.

Clang...

At this moment, the gray-robed Daoist set down the mother array, his brows knitting even tighter.

Even with the aid of the formation, he had found nothing.

"Are we truly going to massacre this place? We have yet to grasp the great secret on him. If we truly kill him, would that not be like drawing water with a bamboo basket and ending up empty-handed?"

He glanced at the Undying Daoist and asked.

"Oh? Then what does Fellow Daoist think we should do now?"

The Undying Daoist smiled without warmth, completely unconcerned.

In truth, the great secret on that "Human Emperor" was no longer so urgently needed by his true body.

After bathing in emperor blood and Great Emperor blood time and again, continuously undergoing nirvana, the tangible improvement in cultivation, Dao attainment, and combat power was not false. This proved that the "Immortal Ascension Road" his true body had embarked upon was viable.

Under such circumstances, even if he obtained the Human Emperor's so-called great secret, it would merely satisfy his curiosity and add flowers to brocade.

If he had not feared that his repeated bathing in emperor blood during the Archaic Era would be exposed, why would he have hunted the Human Emperor and shared his origin and flesh with those mangy cats and dogs from the restricted zones?

"Is Fellow Daoist's true body here? With your true body's abilities, if he were to act, he would surely capture him with ease this time..."

Meeting the Undying Daoist's gaze, the gray-robed Daoist smiled as well, taking the opportunity to probe him.

In this universe, even Supreme Beings were not omnipotent. The world was so vast that finding someone deliberately hiding away was like searching for a needle in the sea.

Ever since the Archaic Era ended, he had actually remained very interested in the whereabouts of the Undying Heavenly Emperor.

As for the other party already being dead?

At any rate, he did not believe it.

"Hehe, Fellow Daoist jests. Time is like a blade. Even beings as strong as you and I can only endure it helplessly, can we not? Naturally, my true body also cut himself with a stroke and slumbers within rare treasures of heaven and earth such as Immortal Source. That is precisely why we must act outside on his behalf..."

The Undying Daoist answered with an unchanged expression.

Hearing this, the gray-robed Daoist was half-convinced and half-skeptical. He then slowly said:

"Is that so? Then today's matter seems to be..."

Boom...

Suddenly, a heaven-shaking disturbance erupted somewhere in the northern part of the Central Region and transmitted through the air.

Though it had become extremely faint by the time it reached the Southern Region, so faint that ordinary people could not sense even the slightest trace of it, the expressions of the two men who had been "chatting merrily" both turned grave.

Because they both knew perfectly well where the source of that disturbance was.

The restricted zone... Undying Mountain!

Immediately afterward, an earth-shaking furious rebuke fell like a massive boulder upon the already restless "lake surface" of Big Dipper.

"Rampant!!!"

The furious rebuke shook the nine heavens, spreading out from Undying Mountain, sweeping across Big Dipper, then rolling toward the skies beyond.

Countless living beings trembled beneath that voice, living each day in terror.

"Hmm? The Stone Emperor?"

Hearing it, the Undying Daoist raised his brows slightly. He was initially somewhat astonished, then narrowed his eyes.

"That man truly has nerve. We had only just left the restricted zone, yet he did the opposite and went to Undying Mountain? He even drew upon those Dao traces. He is deliberately trying to provoke us..."

Before he finished speaking, he did not even spare this place a glance. His figure swayed, and with one step, he directly tore through the void and headed toward Undying Mountain.

It had been one thing when they did not know where the other party was.

Now that the other party was loitering at the entrance of Undying Mountain, he naturally would not let him go.

And judging from the speed of his reaction, he did not seem to be truly indifferent to the Human Emperor's great secret.

At the core of the array eye.

When Gong Xuan looked toward where the gray-robed Daoist had been, that place was already empty as well. Yet the words he had left behind still rang in Gong Xuan's ears.

"Do not lift the formation's seal yet. We cannot rule out that this is a diversion meant to let him escape the great formation's restraints..."

Time turned back more than a dozen breaths.

Tan Lin's remnant soul repeatedly leapt through the "passage" via the Mystic Platform.

In the blink of an eye, he crossed the boundary barrier between the Southern Region of Eastern Wasteland and the Central Region, appearing within a mysterious valley near the current territory of the Demon Race Fengyou Tribe.

After arriving here, his remnant soul swiftly swept out of the valley and activated the All-Causes Soul Pearl again two or three hundred thousand miles away.

The crimson light point in his palm was consumed more rapidly.

Buzz...

[All Causes Barrier] activated!

Considering what he was about to do, he added a layer of barrier atop the original state of [Inverted All-Causes Vision].

The crimson mist around him grew denser and denser, so dense that even he himself could no longer see his remnant soul.

But this time, he did not intend to act with only this wisp of remnant soul and incomplete Primordial Spirit.

He wanted to try and see whether, with his current incomplete Great Saint-level Primordial Spirit and without any origin, he could reconstruct a body barely capable of carrying him.

With that thought, he did not hesitate in the slightest.

Boom!

The next instant.

He no longer had any reservations. A wisp of his will connected to the Dao traces from his previous life, temporarily drawing down a portion of their great power to empower his incomplete Primordial Spirit.

Whoosh!

In an instant, threads of Dao laws, divine laws, and natural laws manifested between heaven and earth here. Under the influence of that great power, vast amounts of life essence were devoured from all directions.

Within the crimson mist, a mass of fleshly membrane condensed out of thin air amid the immense essence, swelling larger and larger as it writhed.

Half an instant later, that membrane had grown hands and feet, followed by a head...

When a layer of skin covered that bloody, mangled shell, the spiritual energy and vital essence throughout the entire Central Region dropped several levels compared to the moment before.

"What happened?!"

"Has heaven and earth undergone a great change? Why has the spiritual energy suddenly become so thin?"

"Pfft..."

"This is bad, the ancestor has suffered a qi deviation..."

The Demon Race tribes scattered throughout the Central Region all erupted into an uproar. Given their status and level, they could not investigate the true source of this change.

And not to mention them—even the gray-robed Daoist and the Undying Daoist, currently in the Southern Region and separated by an entire region, could not immediately sense or lock onto Tan Lin despite his risky connection to the Dao traces, due to the concealment and interference of the [All Causes Barrier].

After all, they were not Supreme Beings, much less the Heavenly Emperor himself.