Ziwei Star's Pride: Ming Venerable!

Before Li Ming transmigrated, he had many questions about the Age of Mythology when reading the original text of Shrouding the Heavens.

Only after transmigrating did he figure out many issues that the original text had not explained clearly.

It turned out that in this era, ordinary Enlightened ones were generally called Supremes, while the nine people in the original text who possessed the strength of Heavenly Emperors or Quasi-Heavenly Emperors were known as the Nine Heavenly Venerables.

It was not, as some readers believed, that Enlightened ones were called Heavenly Venerables.

Moreover, the Supremes of this era were somewhat easily confused with the Dark Supremes of later generations who had cut themselves down with a single slash.

After Dark Supremes underwent Extreme Sublimation, they could recover their original peak combat strength. Though it would not last long, it had caused many people to misunderstand.

To put it simply, ordinary Enlightened ones were called Supremes in this era.

Enlightened ones who possessed the strength of Heavenly Emperors or Quasi-Heavenly Emperors were called Heavenly Venerables and ranked among the Nine Heavenly Venerables.

The Quasi-Emperors of later generations were called Quasi-Venerables in this era.

The realm from Saint to Saint King was called Ancestral King, though some also called them Saints.

However, the title for the Great Saint realm had never changed. They were still called Great Saints.

It turned out that before the Age of Mythology and after the Chaotic Ancient Era, there had been another long era: the Primordial Ancient Era.

That also explained why so many Dark Supremes remained from the Age of Mythology.

Before transmigrating, many readers had believed that there might not have been any Dark Turmoil in that era.

But in truth, many Supremes had also emerged during the Primordial Ancient Era—that was, ordinary Enlightened ones.

They had all been waiting for the opening of the Road to Immortality described in the original text, when Emperor Zun intended to lead his entire sect in ascension during the Age of Mythology.

That was why they had sealed themselves away and waited until that era.

Dark Turmoils were unavoidable during that time.

Zhang Bairen had remained sealed from the era of the Desolate Heavenly Emperor all the way to Ye Fan's era. That alone proved that people had known long ago that they could seal themselves with Divine Source and Immortal Source.

There were even secret techniques similar to cutting oneself down with a single slash. Those Dark Supremes had all researched similar methods and sealed themselves away.

As for the so-called Tribulation Heavenly Venerable, many Enlightened ones had actually existed before him.

That was because the Five Secret Realms Cultivation Method had not been created by the Tribulation Heavenly Venerable, but by the Desolate Heavenly Emperor.

Before the Desolate Heavenly Emperor severed eternity with a single sword strike, he had already passed the Five Secret Realms Cultivation Method on to everyone. It had long since spread far and wide.

In any case, many of the questions Li Ming had before transmigrating had found their answers in this era.

Li Ming had started as an utterly ordinary mortal body and made his way to where he was now. He had shaken the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, was already over ten thousand years old, yet had never returned to Ziwei Star.

He had thought of going back before, but all sorts of matters had delayed him.

Especially that cultivation and enlightenment session within the Bronze Immortal Hall—it had consumed so much time that even Li Ming had not expected it.

He had not expected to become immersed so easily while comprehending the Immortal Dao Runes.

Fortunately, Li Ming still had an abundant lifespan.

He had consumed many treasures that extended his lifespan, as well as treasures that improved his longevity and constitution, aside from Immortal Medicine.

He had used a great many things, such as Dragon Marrow, Ten-Thousand-Year Medicine Kings, Primordial Life Stones, Immortal Source from the Immortal Domain, and the origin blood essence of Supremes.

He treated Ten-Thousand-Year Medicine Kings like carrots, Primordial Life Stones and Immortal Source from the Immortal Domain like biscuits, and countless origins like candy beans. Perhaps only Li Ming could afford such extravagance.

This had allowed his lifespan in his First Lifetime to far exceed that of an ordinary Supreme.

His blood and vitality were still at their peak, even growing slightly stronger.

By his estimation, living for over twenty thousand years in his First Lifetime should be very easy.

He could even try challenging Ye Fan's twenty-six thousand years.

When the time came, he could either attempt to transform into a true Chaotic Body or simply eat those ten Flat Peaches. Living beyond twenty-six thousand years should not be a problem then.

In any case, Li Ming truly had ample time.

He could calmly cultivate and comprehend the Dao while researching ways to live another Lifetime.

Now that he had more or less finished dealing with matters here, it was time to return home in glory and take a look.

Taking demon as his title, he was known as the Demon Venerable.

This title caused an uproar among the Human Race of Ziwei Star.

Ziwei Star had finally produced a Human Race Supreme. Naturally, they were unwilling to have people call him the Demon Venerable.

Even though Li Ming called himself the Demon Venerable, the people of Ziwei Star still did not recognize that title.

On Ziwei Star, Li Ming was called Ming Venerable, or Ziwei Heavenly Venerable.

Among all the heavens, earth, and myriad beings of Ziwei Star, no one dared address Li Ming as the Demon Venerable.

Li Ming came from Ziwei Star and had attained Enlightenment as a Chaotic Body.

They could not distinguish between a Flawless Chaotic Body and a postnatal Incomplete Chaotic Body. In any case, in their eyes, Li Ming was a Chaotic Body.

Just after attaining Enlightenment, he had forcefully killed Carefree Heavenly Venerable, one of the Eight Heavenly Venerables.

This was undoubtedly a divine battle that shocked eternity and shook the entire Nine Heavens and Ten Lands.

The legendary Chaotic Body had attained Enlightenment as a Supreme, killed Carefree Heavenly Venerable, and slain numerous Dark Supremes. It forcefully declared just how heaven-defying and powerful the Chaotic Body was.

The deaths of numerous Dark Supremes calmed those Dark Supremes who had wanted to seize the Chaotic Body origin of the Demon Venerable, forcing them back into hiding.

In their eyes, a Chaotic Body attaining Enlightenment as a Supreme was simply too heaven-defying. Its strength was unimaginably great.

The Dark Supremes had repeatedly observed Li Ming's battles against Dark Supremes.

Even when those Dark Supremes underwent Extreme Sublimation and besieged the Demon Venerable together, they could do nothing to him.

Especially in the most recent battle, even the Life Forbidden Zones had been forcefully destroyed.

Wang Bo, the Chaotic Body who had once flashed briefly like an epiphyllum, had shone with incomparable brilliance even without attaining Enlightenment as a Supreme.

With the cultivation of the eighth level of Quasi-Emperor, he had forcibly dragged a Heavenly Venerable to death, deeply shocking everyone.

And after the Demon Venerable attained Enlightenment as a Supreme, he once again showed everyone just how inconceivable the special constitution known as the Chaotic Body was.

Li Ming's blood and vitality were now incomparably vigorous. He was at his peak, and no one could match his edge.

Even when he compared those lurking Dark Supremes to insects, no one dared challenge his authority.

Because they all knew that confronting Li Ming head-on at this time was simply courting death.

"The Demon Venerable is truly arrogant, provoking all the Dark Restricted Areas like this. I wonder whether he can withstand the backlash of such heaven-shaking karma," a Dark Supreme said coldly.

"Indeed. So what if he is a Chaotic Body? Time is merciless. One day, he will grow old beneath its passage, his blood and vitality will wither, and he will die after merging with the Dao!"

"Hehe, when that time comes, he will either cut himself down with a single slash or die after merging with the Dao. All his achievements will become empty..."

"Let him be arrogant for these two Lifetimes for now!"

"He will surely pay the price for his arrogance and tyranny today!"

"When he enters his later years, it will be time for us to settle our karma with him!"

"I truly want to devour the origin of the legendary Chaotic Body."

"Hehehe, when he reaches old age, we will seize his Chaos Origin together."

No one took the initiative to respond to Li Ming's words, and no Dark Supreme dared take the initiative to provoke him.

They had already decided to seek trouble with Li Ming when he reached his later years.

No matter how arrogant the title Demon Venerable sounded, once he entered old age, he could only choose to die after merging with the Dao or cut himself down with a single slash and become a restricted area.

Which of these Dark Supremes had not once been an Enlightened one who ruled the world? Back then, they too had been brimming with confidence, invincible in their path, convinced that they would one day become immortals.

They had exhausted their lives and explored every possible method, only to discover in the end that becoming immortal was nothing but a fantasy.

One simply could not become immortal in such an environment.

Nor could one break through again beyond the realm of Supreme.

Only when the Road to Immortality opened would they have a chance at Mortal-World Ascension.

Therefore, for the opening of this Road to Immortality, they had chosen to cut themselves down with a single slash through various methods, quietly waiting for its arrival.

The time until the Road to Immortality opened was no longer far away. Perhaps it would take several tens of thousands of years, perhaps over a hundred thousand years.

They were also waiting to see Li Ming's bedraggled appearance when he entered his later years.

Ever since Li Ming attained Enlightenment as a Supreme, his own unique Great Dao had suppressed the entire Nine Heavens and Ten Lands. It was impossible for anyone to attain Enlightenment as a Supreme in this era.

Even Alternative Enlightenment was impossible.

Anyone who tried to challenge it would suffer severe wounds from the Great Dao, perhaps even turning to ash in an instant.

A Chaotic Body fused with the Heavenly Heart Imprint and harmonized with the myriad Daos of heaven and earth was simply too terrifying.

Even though he was not yet a complete and flawless Chaotic Body, he could still draw close to the myriad Daos of heaven and earth.

Especially after fusing with the Heavenly Heart Imprint, he could comprehend the myriad Daos of heaven and earth, laying a solid foundation for transforming into a perfect Chaotic Body.

Standing atop the Bronze Immortal Hall and facing the Chaos Sea above the Cosmic Frontier Wasteland, Li Ming discovered that after this great battle, a vast amount of Faith Power had gathered from the unseen.

The Bronze Mirror within his body remained ancient and weathered, rising and falling within Li Ming's Immortal Platform Secret Realm.

This ancient Bronze Mirror seemed as though it had existed since the creation of heaven and earth. Its archaic aura was utterly incredible.

It gave people an irresistible urge to kneel and worship.

Even though Li Ming had attained Enlightenment as a Supreme, he was still shaken by the aura of this Bronze Mirror.

Even now, Li Ming could not see through the Bronze Mirror. It was like a mass of chaos—indescribable, inexplicable, and impossible to comprehend.

The Faith Power pouring in from the unseen, along with other mysterious forces that could neither be described nor explained, were all absorbed by the Bronze Mirror.

"I wonder what exactly this Bronze Mirror is."

Feeling the Bronze Mirror's aura, Li Ming spoke with some emotion.

This world of Shrouding the Heavens was no ordinary world.

As Li Ming's cheat, it could easily break through the endless nested cycles of the three Heavenly Emperors. That was truly unbelievable.

It could break the closed loop of the red-haired monster. Just thinking about its origins was terrifying.

For him to rise from a weak and insignificant mortal body all the way to this point, as though blessed by fate, surely had something to do with this Bronze Mirror.

After all, the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art was simply too heaven-defying. It was not easy for an ordinary person to deduce it.

Yet Li Ming had truly deduced it and even mastered it.

With the Bronze Mirror concealing him, countless people had wanted to kill him but could not find any trace of him.

Only when he attained Enlightenment as a Supreme did people discover that this Chaotic Body had grown to such a terrifying extent.

Whether innate or postnatal, the Chaotic Body was a constitution whose Chaos Origin countless Dark Supremes desired.

Especially in this era, after the incident involving the Chaotic Body Wang Bo, many people had become obsessed with Chaotic Bodies.

Some even believed that one had to become a Chaotic Body or devour Chaos Origin in order to achieve Mortal-World Ascension.

Many Dark Supremes had also studied how to evolve into Chaotic Bodies, but unfortunately, they had all failed.

With so many Dark Supremes coveting him, Li Ming had nevertheless attained Enlightenment as a Supreme without incident.

The instant he attained Enlightenment as a Supreme, he possessed combat strength at the Heavenly Emperor level.

Everyone also knew that the Heavenly Emperor level was not a division of cultivation realms, but a division of strength.

There was far too great a difference in strength between an ordinary Great Emperor and a Heavenly Emperor.

An ordinary Supreme had only around ten thousand years, or a little over ten thousand years, of lifespan in one Lifetime.

Even if they used Immortal Medicine to live a Second Lifetime, their strength would only increase slightly.

But if they could live a Third Lifetime through their own abilities, their strength would undergo a fundamental transformation.

They would leap from ordinary Supremes to a level far surpassing ordinary Supremes, becoming the Heavenly Venerables spoken of by people.

Although one of the Nine Heavenly Venerables in the original text, Carefree Heavenly Venerable, had been killed by Ye Fan before he attained Enlightenment as a Great Emperor, damaging the prestige of the Nine Heavenly Venerables—

How many people possessed the strength of Ye Fan, Heavenly Emperor Ye?

At the very least, everyone recognized that the Undying Heavenly Emperor and Emperor Zun possessed Heavenly Emperor-level strength, though neither was as powerful as Ye Fan.

Since ancient times, there had been very few people with Heavenly Emperor-level combat strength.

Those who possessed Heavenly Emperor-level combat strength in their First Lifetime were even rarer.

Calling them as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns would not be an exaggeration.

Li Ming possessing Heavenly Emperor-level combat strength in his First Lifetime was indeed something to be proud of.

Though it was not worth mentioning before the Dark Strangeness beyond this world, at least for now, he had gained the ability to protect himself within this world.

Emperor Zun should still be undergoing transformation. Perhaps he would suddenly appear at any moment.

That fellow Netherworld Venerable should also be transforming within the Underworld. In the future, he would become the first person people spoke of who attained Enlightenment as a Supreme again from a corpse.

As for the Undying Heavenly Emperor, Li Ming did not know whether he had been born yet. In any case, he had not yet accidentally fallen into this world through a crack in the Immortal Domain.

Based on the descriptions in the original text, Li Ming roughly deduced the current timeline.

He deduced the plot of Shrouding the Heavens during the Age of Mythology.

Judging from this point in time, Li Ming had indeed transmigrated into the world of Shrouding the Heavens rather early.

However, he had read the original text, so he naturally knew many methods of transformation. He knew which methods could succeed and could deduce them with a clear goal in mind.

It was like already knowing the correct answer. Deducing the process became much easier.

The greatest misconception of many Dark Supremes in this era was that they did not know which path was correct.

Many paths to longevity had only been sampled superficially. In the end, because their lifespans were insufficient, they were forced to cut themselves down with a single slash and become restricted areas.

In the current era, a long time still remained before the Solar Saint Emperor and Lunar Saint Emperor of Ziwei Star were born.

The endings of both the Solar Saint Emperor and the Lunar Saint Emperor in the original text had not been good.

The Solar Saint Emperor's origin and corpse had been completely devoured by the Undying Heavenly Emperor.

In later generations, Supremes of the Underworld had slaughtered many talented descendants of the Solar Saint Emperor in order to refine a Chaotic Body. The remaining nobodies were nearly wiped out by the Golden Crow Tribe.

The descendants of the Lunar Saint Emperor suffered an even more miserable fate. The Duanmu Family wiped them out entirely, then occupied their nest and inherited the Lunar Divine Sect.

The fates of the Solar Saint Emperor and Lunar Saint Emperor had truly been somewhat tragic.

They had indeed never mistreated the Human Race, yet when their descendants encountered hardship, hardly anyone had been willing to step forward and help them.

People even acted as though they feared being dragged into trouble.

Now that the Solar Saint Emperor and Lunar Saint Emperor had not yet been born, perhaps Li Ming could establish rules on Ziwei Star. There might still be a chance to remedy things in the future.

At the very least, he felt that he could not allow the descendants of these two Saint Emperors to suffer persecution from the Undying Heavenly Emperor, the Underworld, and other forces.

For their lineages and bloodlines to be cut off in the end would be far too miserable.

Although people elsewhere called Li Ming the Demon Venerable, on Ziwei Star, people were absolutely proud that Li Ming had been born there.

His words still carried weight.

Endless Faith Power surged in. Li Ming sensed it briefly and immediately felt it resonate with several Great Daos among the myriad laws of heaven and earth.

"I never expected Faith Power to be so profoundly mysterious."

"No wonder Amitabha Buddha the Great of later generations was able to attain the Dao and become an Emperor. His study of Faith Power had reached the pinnacle of perfection."

Even the Bronze Mirror was greatly interested in this kind of Faith Power.

Faith Power could also be called the beliefs of all living beings.

It was an exceedingly mysterious and unique power.

Li Ming remembered that when he had read the trilogy, there had been mention of a mysterious cultivation method from when the Desolate Heavenly Emperor was still young.

It was the Sacrificial Spirit Method.

This was clearly cultivation through Faith Power, and it could be cultivated to an extraordinarily profound level.

Even that fellow, the Immortal Monk King, had seemingly used Faith Power to cultivate to the realm of an Immortal King.

As for Liu Shen, she had used the Ancestral Sacrificial Spirit Method to undergo Nirvana and be reborn, cultivating all the way to the realms of Quasi-Immortal Emperor and Immortal Emperor.

Of course, it had not been solely the Sacrificial Spirit Method; she had also used the Liu Shen Method.

This showed just how inconceivable the uses of Faith Power truly were.

In the era of Shrouding the Heavens, the Undying Heavenly Emperor had first used Faith Power to forge the Undying Daoist, such a powerful Supreme.

He had even severed their connection, granting the Undying Daoist an independent personality and life.

Later came Amitabha Buddha the Great, who used Faith Power to attain the Dao and become an Emperor.

Although it came with all manner of restrictions and would invisibly forge karmic ties with heaven, earth, and all living beings, the mysterious power of Faith Power was indeed mesmerizing.

Li Ming could fuse with the myriad laws of heaven and earth, and his research into Faith Power was also exceedingly profound.

At the very least, before the Undying Heavenly Emperor and Amitabha Buddha the Great appeared, no one in this world had understood Faith Power more thoroughly than he did.

However, the more he understood, the more wary he became of Faith Power.

Thus, part of this Faith Power gathered within the Bronze Mirror, while another part was guided into the Heavenly Demonic Saber.

In any case, after gaining a slight insight into it, he had never used Faith Power again.

Li Ming's Heavenly Demonic Saber had now been forged with so many precious materials that it used twenty or thirty times more than the materials used by other Dark Supremes. Though it was called a saber, it was unquestionably an extraordinary heavy weapon.

It had fused eight types of Immortal Gold, along with the bones, origins, and essence blood of numerous Heavenly Venerables, and had long since evolved to an unimaginable level.

Especially after many Immortal Dao Runes from the Bronze Immortal Hall had been imprinted upon it, it became even more mysterious and powerful.

Because of the Bronze Mirror, Li Ming had excavated many tombs from the very beginning and obtained numerous treasures.

He had even acquired Immortal Gold-grade materials early on, forging a Dao-attaining weapon unique to himself.

Li Ming devoured origins, while the Heavenly Demonic Saber devoured bones.

Li Ming was not the only one evolving chaos; the Heavenly Demonic Saber was doing the same.

As a result, the Heavenly Demonic Saber had long been able to emit chaotic aura and refine chaotic energy.

Calling it the Heavenly Demonic Saber was fine; perhaps it could also be called the Chaos Saber.

It was simply that this chaos was not that chaos.

After refining numerous Immortal Gold materials, as well as the bones, origins, and essence blood of Heavenly Venerables, the Heavenly Demonic Saber grew increasingly mysterious and powerful.