Chapter 1: Heavenly Tyrant Body
The edge of the ancient ruins, Smoke Glow Ridge.
It was only eight hundred miles away from Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven, a distance that cultivators could cover in half a day.
Of course, this referred to low-level Sea of Bitterness Realm cultivators. Cultivators at this stage could not yet fly and had to rely on mounts or run on their own feet.
In endless years past, this place, including the area where Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven stood, was part of the Primordial Ruins. The three-thousand-mile Smoke Glow Ridge was shrouded in mist year-round, bathed in clouds and rosy mists, vast and ethereal, boundless and endless.
Smoke Glow Ridge!
It was an area belonging to the outer fringes of the Primordial Ruins, where ancient trees pierced the sky. Many exceeded twelve zhang in height, and each one required three people to embrace.
In this mist-shrouded forest, all kinds of rare birds and exotic beasts lived, including many special variants with powerful bloodlines.
The spiritual Qi of heaven and earth was abundant here, producing all kinds of rare herbs. The disciples of Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven loved venturing inside to seek opportunities.
Whether hunting savage beasts and exotic variants, gathering spiritual herbs and medicines, or trying one's luck, there were also old cave dwelling ruins left behind by predecessors who had passed away within.
The ancient, densely wooded Primordial Ruins had no pure land, including this Smoke Glow Ridge. Many savage beasts and fierce birds dwelled inside. Countless bloody events had occurred here, with deaths among both cultivators and savage beasts or fierce birds.
Rumble—
Clanging sounds suddenly echoed from all directions. Those were the cries of birds, much too high-pitched and piercing, enough to crack gold and stone, causing the surrounding mountain rocks to vibrate, plants to rustle, and chaotic leaves to scatter.
Savage beasts were also running across the ground, sweeping over overwhelmingly like a tsunami, vast and surging, knocking down a large swath of ancient trees, accompanied by billowing smoke, dust, and fire.
Then, blinding divine lights surged from all directions, infinite, dense, numbering in the thousands and tens of thousands. Endless divine brilliance engulfed the ten directions, turning into a golden radiance. Accompanied by deafening crackling sounds, like a golden shower of light, it engulfed this forest.
For a moment, blinding blood light soared into the sky. In an instant, the ancient trees of Smoke Glow Ridge were reduced to ashes, with flames soaring into the sky, red as blood, or consisting of evaporated blood mist that appeared desolate and brilliantly tragic under the sunlight.
Such a terrifying commotion startled the cultivators within dozens of li in every direction. Everyone looked in this direction with extreme panic and horror, speechless for a long time.
Here, in the sky, angry, piercing cries were endless, clanging like fierce collisions of metal, piercing the sky and shattering stone. Hearing them made people's eardrums ache, causing a radius of ten li to hum and buzz.
At this moment, all the cultivators saw and recognized what it was. One by one, their expressions changed drastically, and they felt a chill throughout their bodies.
In the distance, streaks of golden lightning rapidly traversed the sky, tearing through the heavens. They were intensely blazing, outshining even the Supreme Yang.
Those were the most terrifying variants within these ruins, Lightning Birds. Even Life Spring Realm cultivators in the Wheel of the Sea Secret Realm had to run for their lives if they encountered a solitary Lightning Bird, let alone a flock of them.
The cultivation realms of this world.
The Wheel of the Sea Secret Realm could be divided into four realms: Sea of Bitterness, Life Spring, Divine Bridge, and Other Shore.
The Dao Palace Secret Realm could be divided into these divine treasures: Heart Divine Treasure, Liver Divine Treasure, Kidney Divine Treasure, Spleen Divine Treasure, and Lung Divine Treasure. The order of cultivation for these divine treasures could be chosen freely.
As for the cultivators of this region, the Wheel of the Sea Secret Realm was a lifelong pursuit, while the Dao Palace Secret Realm represented unreachable, towering figures to them.
Even the strongest figures among the six Cave-Heaven Paradises of the Yan Kingdom were estimated to be merely cultivators in the Other Shore Realm of the Wheel of the Sea Secret Realm.
This place was close to Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven, which also belonged to one of the six Cave-Heaven Paradises.
The ancient forest where Smoke Glow Ridge was located had suffered the ravages of the Lightning Birds.
On the ground were the corpses of many savage beasts that had suffered collateral damage, including a five-meter-long Striped Saber-Toothed Tiger.
There was a Silver-Scaled Flying Python as thick as a water bucket and fully ten meters long.
There was also a Mammoth Elephant with deer antlers, measuring thirteen meters in length and over ten meters in shoulder height. Now, however, it emitted the aroma of roasted meat, its entire body charred black, having died long ago.
Even after half an hour passed here, still no one dared to approach. The main reason was that the Lightning Birds had flown back and forth around this area, making a fuss and shrieking for a long time before only just leaving.
Upon leaving, the Lightning Birds swooped down with the speed of lightning, snatched away some prey, and left while swearing.
On a hillside, in a ravine billowing with black smoke that should have originally been a hundred-li bamboo forest, the bamboo had now been split into flaming wooden stumps. A figure charred black as coal moved slightly, and upon their body, a fist-sized black lotus radiating purplish-black dim light could be faintly seen slowly rotating...
Cough, cough...
Jiang Ming woke up and couldn't help coughing up a mouthful of blood, spitting out a piece of charred flesh from his mouth, upon which faint golden lightning was still circulating. When it hit the ground, it actually made a sizzling sound.
Oh man, I'm dead. I'm totally dead this time, totally dead. Pity that I'm only twenty-four, a bachelor, with parents having only me as a son, and a younger sister only ten years old.
Ah, my head hurts so much. What happened? Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven..., the Li Family..., my name is Jiang Ming, my wife is Smoke Glow Fairy Gu Lingzhi, and my daughter is Jiang Tingting...
No, this is somewhat similar to the plot of the novel Shrouding the Heavens that I read half a year ago.
However, why the hell is there also the plot of Chinese Paladin 1? Nü Yuan, the Demon-Locking Tower, becoming a demon.
Jiang Ming instinctively grabbed his head, feeling a splitting headache as a flood of information rushed into his mind. This was information concerning three worlds, gradually merging.
It took a full three breaths for Jiang Ming to slowly recover and perfectly integrate his memories. As it turned out, he had transmigrated twice; in Chinese Paladin 1, until finding release, his memories had not awakened either. Instead, he had transmigrated once again to the Shrouding the Heavens world, and now, facing death once more, his memories had truly awakened.
He had been in the Shrouding the Heavens world for twenty-one years already, and his daughter was already three years old.
At age thirteen, with his extraordinary talent, an executive elder of Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven discovered his cultivation potential, and he joined Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven. During his cultivation in Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven, he met his wife, Lingzhi, who was known as Smoke Glow Fairy. She was very popular in Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven, and many young elites fancied her.
As it turned out, however, Smoke Glow Fairy formed a Dao-companion bond with him. The two of them envied no immortals, only mandarin ducks, and gave birth to a precious daughter whom they named Jiang Tingting, with the meaning of hoping that when their daughter grew up, she would be as beautiful and moving as Smoke Glow Fairy, standing tall and graceful.
Tingting was three years old.
He and his wife had long discovered that Tingting possessed a special constitution, and they planned to help her undergo Foundation Establishment when she turned five, constantly gathering spiritual herbs in secret.
This trip to the Primordial Ruins was because they discovered there was a Three Yin Cold Lotus here, and they intended to harvest it.
As a result, the moment they entered the herb-gathering location, they encountered a beast tide, giving them no time at all to harvest the herbs before ending up like this.
Why!
Jiang Ming instinctively looked beneath him. Lightning Bird's lightning came crashing down, dense and countless. He and his wife were both cultivators in the Sea of Bitterness Realm, entirely unable to block it. In that moment of crisis, Jiang Ming used his magic tool, the Green Wood Sword, to dig out a large pit, shoved Smoke Glow Fairy into it, and threw himself over the mouth of the cave to shield her from the Lightning Bird's onslaught.
The Lightning Bird's attacks seemed to have locked onto their location. Not only that, there were other savage beasts too—an Earth Flood Dragon Worm attacked them, only to be jointly and desperately slain by Jiang Ming and his wife, who had been on the verge of breaking through to the Life Spring Realm.
Pity that in the final moment, this place was shrouded in lightning. The earth was split right through; rocks, vegetation, and bamboo poles as thick as a chemical plant's smokestack were all blasted to charred ash.
Logically speaking, he and Smoke Glow Fairy should have long been blasted into flying ash and annihilation, left without even a corpse.
How could he still be alive, while the dirt pit beneath him had long been blasted away, the ground sinking by three zhang?
This entire earthen slope had been blasted into a stretch of ravines.
Heavenly Calamity Lone Star System initializing... Congratulations to the host for bringing about the death of your sole romantic confidante, obtaining a four-star reward: bloodline and physique, Heavenly Tyrant Body, which has been automatically fused.
Right at that moment, deep within the Sea of Consciousness, an emotionless mechanical voice rang out.
I...
Jiang Ming was stunned for a moment, feeling a warm current seem to be born from deep within his Sea of Bitterness, spreading outward. Just half a second, then he understood what this was—transmigrator welfare, a system.
Yet, this was simply too despicable.
His romantic confidante, the mother of his child, his only wife had died, and this bitch of a system actually said congratulations.
It even slandered him for bringing about the death of his romantic confidante.
System, I fuck—ten thousand characters omitted here.
What a monstrous debt of karma!
He had gloriously sacrificed himself in his previous life, so how did he end up stuck with such an unreliable, despicable system?
Jiang Ming still knew this place was no place to linger. He secretly wiped away a tear, picked up the half-section of charred magic sword in the ravine, and while cursing the system a hundred times over in his heart, and then a hundred times again—
The Lightning Bird had blasted the hillside into a ravine, and the mother of his child had been blasted until not even scraps were left.
After all, those Lightning Birds—even if a Life Spring cultivator encountered a single one alone, they would need to flee for their lives, let alone a whole flock.
If not for this Green Wood Sword having been given by his master, a Life Spring cultivator, it probably would have been blasted to ash long ago.
It was mainly because he had refined this magic sword and the two still shared a trace of connection that he managed to find it.
His first lifetime was as a bachelor.
His romantic confidante in the second lifetime was a fox demon—she was a good girl, what a pity, along with their daughter Jiang Wan'er.
His romantic confidante in the third lifetime, Smoke Glow Fairy Lingzhi, had also been killed by his own hand.
That dog-like Heavenly Calamity Lone Star System, fuck.
Jiang Ming truly hurt so much, a pain piercing his heart, a pain cutting to his bone marrow. He truly hated so much—hating the heavens, hating the earth, hating the system scoundrel.
While Jiang Ming ran for his life to leave this region, consumed by regret and helplessness, a purplish-black halo swirled between his brows as a black lotus the size of a grain of rice slowly rotated.
At the same time, deep within his soul, roiling demonic Qi surged, dark as ink, containing endless emotions of anger, berserk fury, unwillingness, destruction, and resentment, glowing with a gloomy dark light and emitting terrifying fluctuations that could destroy the heavens and the earth.
That demonic Qi emitted a soul-capturing dark light, incomparably bright, as if endless gloomy underworld demonic flames were burning, the demonic flames soaring to the heavens and boundless.
After cursing the system for a while, Jiang Ming continued to sort through the memories of his three lifetimes.
Earthling memories were not important for now; he would think about them later.
Chinese Paladin 1 memories could also be put aside for now; the more he thought about them, the angrier he felt, feeling that if he kept thinking, he would surely turn into a demon.
The focus was the memories of his life in Shrouding the Heavens.
His home was in Clearwind Town, a mere two hundred-odd li away from his sect, Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven.
He was exceptionally well-regarded in Smoke Glow Grotto-Heaven. Owing to truly fine talent, in such a small place, he could be considered half an immortal seed.
Meanwhile, Jiang Ming naturally thought of the cause of his death—if he had read the book more carefully in his previous life, he would have known. He was killed by that seventh young master of the Li Family, that scoundrel who entered the sect at the same time as him.
New book premiere on [Qidian Chinese Network]; passing readers, flip through and take a look. Stocking up on chapters right now requires flipping to the last page to catch up on reading.
Has written [Perfect World: Martial Soul], [Heavens' Beginning: My Son Ye Fan Has the Bearing of an Immortal Emperor], [Perfect World: I Loaded the Calabash Brothers Panel].
Has also written [Shrouding the Heavens Saiyan].
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