"Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Art!" Xi Yue's eyes blazed as she studied the scripture in her hands.
This was an ancient heavenly art.
What was a heavenly art?
It was not a divine ability or a Precious Art, but a great method for commanding divine abilities and Precious Arts, layering and fusing them. Every such method was exceedingly rare, nearly impossible to find in all the world.
The Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Art was an unsurpassed method worthy of being called world-shaking. Throughout the ages, scriptures, great methods, and other legacies had endured, but texts that deserved the name of world-shaking methods were all too rare. Now she possessed an invincible foundation!
With this method, she could sweep through every opponent. Even those ancient traditions of the Immortal Domain with their formidable origins might not be able to halt her advance.
Xi Yue clutched the Six Paths of Reincarnation scripture and eagerly began studying it.
In an instant, chanting arose, like a true Buddha intoning sutras, or gods reciting scriptures, drawing her into its spell.
At that moment, she emptied her mind, lowered every defense, and immersed herself completely.
In a daze, she seemed to sink into endless reincarnation, witnessing birth, aging, sickness, and death, and every facet of human life, all changing without cease. This was the reincarnation of the mortal world.
When she looked back again, all the heavens fell silent, the cosmos shattered, and chaos surged. Then a strand of primordial light erupted. Clear energy rose, turbid energy sank, heaven and earth were opened, and the cosmos was reshaped. This was the reincarnation of eras.
Xi Yue sank deep into it. By the end, even an ant, a pool of clear water, and a speck of dust were all undergoing reincarnation.
This was the Six Paths of Reincarnation: all things changed, life and death cycled, the Great Dao never ceased, and the years left no mark upon the body.
At that moment, she seemed to have traversed countless ages of time and space, arriving from the upper reaches of the river of years.
Emperorfall, Nether Ancient, Immortal Ancient, Chaotic Ancient... Scenes of eras rising and falling passed before her eyes. Vast seas turned to dust, emperors' bones sank beneath the sands, and she witnessed every rise and fall of the human world, every descent of the great ages.
She also seemed to stand above the river of years, gazing toward later ages, where chaos lay veiled in haze and an instant became eternity.
Rumble!
The river of time fractured. The years were severed, fragments of time scattered in all directions, and the ages seemed to freeze at that very moment.
"Who... am I?" Xi Yue asked. She walked through a stretch of chaos, unable to see through the mist or remember her past. Like flowers in a mirror and the moon on water, everything was illusory; she was as blank as a pristine sheet of paper.
She raised her hand, a faint glimmer curling around her fingertips. Confusion filled her eyes, as though she had lost her primordial spirit and only the flesh of a walking corpse remained.
"Am I a soul reborn with an era? A shadow beyond reincarnation? Or... someone returned from the end of time?" she asked herself softly.
"Ah..." A faint, lingering sigh sounded from the void. It came from no direction, with neither beginning nor end, as though it had crossed countless ages of time and space from the end of an era to echo through this world.
"Countless ages have hurried past, and the years have flowed on. At last, you have come."
The voice was gentle and weathered, carrying endless melancholy and waiting.
Xi Yue stood rooted to the spot, her heart utterly blank, yet inexplicably aching. She did not know who she was, nor who the other person was, yet this feeling arose all the same.
Within the chaos, droplets of light gathered, finally condensing into the figure of a woman, impossibly ethereal. In that hazy moment, the woman seemed to turn her head and gaze toward this lifetime.
But the figure dissipated before Xi Yue could make out her face, vanishing in an instant as though she had never existed.
In the distance, a point of light rapidly swelled. At first, it was only the faint glow of a firefly; a moment later, it resembled a newborn sun. Finally, it landed in Xi Yue's hand.
"One tier... of a pagoda?" Xi Yue tilted her head. It felt familiar, yet she could not remember it.
Just then, dazzling golden light suddenly erupted deep within her sea of consciousness. Little Pagoda flew out, runes weaving across the sky as he resonated with the pagoda tier in her hand.
With a thunderous crash, the two merged. Divine light shone in myriad rays, auspicious colors streamed in thousands of ribbons, and an ancient, weathered presence washed over her. At the same time, a vast, boundless aura surged forth, awakening with a roar.
Xi Yue looked at Little Pagoda, who had grown larger before her, and gently touched his body with her fingertips. In an instant, the haze in her sea of consciousness dispersed, and those sealed memories began returning.
In the next instant, fierce winds raged, chaos shattered, and blood-red lightning danced wildly. Everything hurtled toward destruction, descending into nothingness.
In the outside world, Xi Yue abruptly opened her eyes and spat out a large mouthful of blood. Stabbing pains still pulsed through her sea of consciousness.
"That was too close. I nearly lost myself in there."
Had Little Pagoda not resonated with her at the final moment, she could scarcely have escaped.
After this experience, she vaguely suspected something.
"Forget it. I'm only a weak cultivator in the Cave Heaven Realm. That figure... what could such an unparalleled person possibly have to do with me?" Xi Yue smiled with a hint of self-mockery.
Fortunately, she had gained a great deal.
Her hand seals changed at a frantic pace as she formed the opening gesture of the Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Art. She seemed to become a manifestation of the Great Dao itself. Six black holes appeared, as though poised to devour everything.
Then she tried activating her own reincarnation divine ability. Comparing the two, she really did discover a few differences.
Her reincarnation divine ability was connected to her own being. No runes manifested, nor did any laws of the Dao appear. It was like an invisible reincarnation-in other words, her body itself became reincarnation.
The Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Art, however, lay in comprehending reincarnation, commanding reincarnation, and creating reincarnation.
It was an art, a method, a Great Dao that could be cultivated and realized.
These were two paths that resembled one another yet ran in opposite directions, each with its own ultimate heights, each supreme in its own way.
The Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Art sought outward, following the domineering path of controlling all things and suppressing everything.
Her reincarnation divine ability, by contrast, was fundamentally a return inward: she herself was reincarnation, impervious to all arts.
Of course, as things stood, her reincarnation art could not compare with this world-shaking heavenly art. The gap was immense. But it would continue to improve as her strength grew, and its potential was limitless.
"Mm, Little Pagoda has grown bigger again." Xi Yue examined her sea of consciousness once more. Little Pagoda, once utterly dim, now shimmered with a faint, firefly-like glow.
Moreover, his body had regained six tiers. The remaining three were phantoms woven from patterned lines, completing his form.
"Let's try commanding Precious Arts at the same time." Xi Yue formed the opening gesture, using the Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Art to activate the taotie and nine-headed serpent Precious Arts.
She did not dare incorporate the Kun Peng Precious Technique right away, fearing it would be too powerful for her slight frame to withstand.
With a thunderous rumble, six black holes appeared in her palm, roaring as they connected to one another and formed a ring.
The interiors of the black holes were ethereal and indistinct. Primordial light flickered within, and chaotic energy surged. They were actually recreating the opening of heaven and earth.
Rumble!
Dark light flashed, and heaven and earth shook violently. She unleashed a strike that fused the Precious Arts. Several distant mountains collapsed in an instant, billowing dust sweeping across the world like crashing waves.
Besides that
, the space there seemed to have vanished. The void had been pierced through and reduced to nothingness, becoming a wondrous sight in later ages.
"Not bad." Xi Yue smiled and clapped her hands, revealing pearly white teeth, translucent and gleaming, with a pure, innocent beauty.
Putting away the scripture containing the Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Art for the moment, she examined the other beast hides.
These all contained Precious Arts collected by the Supreme Hall, including those of the hou clan and the luan clan, both of which counted among the powerful races.
"It's hard to imagine that such a glorious tradition could have fallen so low."
Now, the Supreme Hall had only a dilapidated cultivation ground left, its former glory gone.
One could imagine how overwhelmingly powerful the Supreme Hall had been in its heyday, possessing the Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Art, the Grass Character Sword Art, and the Transcendence Chapter of the Original True Explanation. How terrifying it must have been!