All Are Calamities of Immortality

"Xia He, I need your help with my cultivation!"

Inside an exquisite, elegant villa, Lin Xian and Xia He were alone together. Without the slightest politeness, he got straight to the point.

Lu Liang was dumbfounded outside. Was this senior really that desperate?

"Men." A trace of disdain appeared in Liu Yanyan's bright eyes. No matter how old they were, they were all the same.

Three seconds later, the seductive and enchanting Xia He walked out of the room with a resentful expression. Her vermilion lips trembled slightly, bewitchingly beautiful and radiant, enough to stir one's soul and make one want to taste her sweetness.

Not only Lu Liang, but even Liu Yanyan was dazed by the sight. She subconsciously murmured, "That fast?"

Three seconds, and it was already over.

"He's in seclusion." Xia He replied irritably. He was the first man utterly unmoved by her Bone-Scraping Blade. Even that little bull-nosed Taoist from Mount Longhu had fallen at her feet. How could there be someone like him?

Xia He's eyes rolled as she came up with her most malicious speculation. Could it be that, after living for so long, that thing had already decayed?

"In seclusion?!"

Liu Yanyan's eyes immediately lit up. "Sister Xia He, let's use this chance to run!"

"Run?"

Xia He glanced at this girl, innocent to the point of stupidity, then sneered and turned away. With this level of intelligence, she had joined Quanxing? She probably would not even know if someone sold her off.

"What do you mean?" Liu Yanyan froze in place.

Lu Liang pushed up his glasses, rose with a laptop in his arms, and said calmly, "Take a guess. Why does this senior live near the Company's base?"

Liu Yanyan's face instantly turned pale. Looking out the window, she saw drones occasionally flying past with a humming buzz.

This was no remote wilderness. It was also one of the Company's bases.

Even the most arrogant Quanxing fiends would not dare barge in here to rescue anyone.

Causing trouble and courting death were two entirely different things.

Inside, a faint flush surfaced on Lin Xian's fair face beneath his black robes. He resisted the lust left behind by Xia He's Bone-Scraping Blade, silently reciting, There are no women in my heart, so drawing my blade comes naturally. Women will slow down my path to immortality. The first step to becoming immortal is to cut them down...

He was testing Qi-State Origin-Flow's ability—whether the qi infant within his body could turn Xia He's innate ability into the purest primordial qi as well.

If the universe of Shrouding the Heavens was an age of declining Dharma, then this world was practically on the verge of becoming a spiritless age. Cultivation was incomparably difficult; whether life essence or the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, both were pitifully thin.

If Qi-State Origin-Flow could truly break down all forms of spells, including innate abilities and divine powers, and convert them all into primordial qi—

Then this technique would become the fundamental art that allowed him to travel through countless worlds.

A thousand techniques, endless Great Daos, all transformed by a single breath; the Dao returned to the beginning.

"Could the Eight Extraordinary Skills from an ordinary world truly be this heaven-defying?"

Lin Xian observed in silence. Within his Wheel Sea secret realm, an infant nearly identical to him sat cross-legged. Its eyes were neither fully closed nor open as it floated atop the Sea of Bitterness. The Wheel of Life behind it emitted a faint glow, hanging there like a flawless bright moon, or like the pure halo behind an immortal or Buddha.

The pink qi belonging to Xia He gradually invaded, clouding the mind and immersing it in lust. Yet the infant ignored it all.

Carry the spirit and embrace the One—can they remain undivided? Concentrate qi until it is soft—can it be like an infant?

Give life and nurture it; give birth without possessing, act without relying on merit, raise without ruling. This is called profound virtue.

People were born without good or evil. Only after becoming stained by the dust of the mortal world did the innate primordial spirit become eroded by acquired ways, giving rise to the seven emotions and six desires. This was a form of Dao contamination.

Only by severing the Dao to see the self, abandoning all acquired distracting thoughts, could one witness the innate true self.

To reach the mysterious realm of preserving the origin, embracing the One, and Supreme Forgetfulness, every school and sect had created various methods: observing the Eight Precepts, severing the Three Corpses, cutting the Red Dragon, breaking the White Tiger, subduing the Heart Ape, and taming the Will Horse.

But those methods required climbing step by step. They were far inferior to Qi-State Origin-Flow, which touched upon the essence of life from the moment of its creation and directly pointed toward the source of the world.

Only the nascent soul was free of desire and want. It allowed all things to grow and reproduce, brought forth all things, nurtured all things without claiming them, and stood above all things without ruling them.

That was the mindset of Heaven itself. I am the azure heavens, treating all things as straw dogs—neither invading nor possessing.

The nascent soul ruled the Wheel Sea, unmoving as such. No matter how Xia He's pink innate ability rampaged, it could never escape a single domain. It could only sink into the Sea of Bitterness, where that dead, dark expanse eroded it and assimilated it into a part of this body's inner heaven and earth.

The Wheel Sea secret realm contained both the Wheel of Life and the endless Sea of Bitterness. The Wheel of Life was a kind of power that supported the existence of life. The endless Sea of Bitterness was likewise a kind of power, extinguishing all vitality, grinding away every foreign substance, and devouring all energy.

Having digested the innate ability, the endless Sea of Bitterness stirred up waves, seeking to engulf the Wheel of Life. The Wheel of Life bloomed with radiance and rose another zhang. The Sea of Bitterness continued expanding, continuing to churn up storms.

Thus, when the devil rose one foot, the Dao rose one yard; when the Dao rose one yard, the devil rose one foot.

Life continued without end, like taiji.

The facts proved that Qi-State Origin-Flow truly deserved its title as the ultimate of techniques. It could indeed dismantle all sorts of spells and divine powers, dissolving every trace of the pink energy Xia He had planted within him.

Though the energy had dissipated, the pure lust remained.

It was like getting worked up while watching adult videos. After being doused with a basin of cold water, one gradually sobered up. The desire faded, but the adult video that had triggered it was not turned off and continued affecting the viewer at every moment.

However, without energy to amplify its influence, this ordinary lust was something even normal people could handle.

"Seven emotions and six desires, three corpses and six worms."

"Untainted by dust, I am the nascent soul."

"Could the Eight Extraordinary Skills really be techniques created by humans?"

Within the quiet chamber, the black-haired youth spoke softly and opened his eyes. They were distinct black and white, without the slightest impurity—eyes as clear and innocent as an infant's, free of desire and want, gentle to the extreme.

At first, Lin Xian had thought Qi-State Origin-Flow was a technique like the Northern Dark Divine Art or Star-Sucking Great Technique. But after studying it more deeply, he increasingly felt that Qi-State Origin-Flow was abnormal.

Qi-State Origin-Flow's upper limit was simply too high. One could even say that it had almost no upper limit at all.

This was absolutely not a technique humans could create.

Rather than saying Zhang Huaiyi had created Qi-State Origin-Flow, it would be more accurate to say that the heavens had used Zhang Huaiyi's hands to reveal Qi-State Origin-Flow to the world.

This was an immortal art that touched the origin of life and involved the deepest reaches of the world!

It was one piece of the puzzle behind the mystery of immortality.

"This is a calamity of immortality..."

A strange expression could not help appearing on Lin Xian's face as he thought of another world.

The calamities of immortality in the great universe of Shrouding the Heavens had all been caused by human-path supremes seeking immortality.

The Eight Extraordinary Skills were the same—another kind of calamity of immortality.

No wonder some called them arts that brought chaos. For ordinary people to wield a calamity of immortality was not courting death—it was bringing chaos.

Such techniques were meant only for immortals, or those who stood merely one step away from becoming immortal.

If one's virtue did not match one's position, disaster would surely follow.