Return to the Undying Mountain

A war that had nearly engulfed the entire universe finally drew to a temporary close, and a rare peace returned to the cosmos.

Across the many Life Source Lands, quite a few great clans and sacred grounds had suffered grievous losses. The worst afflicted had been exterminated to the last member, while even those relatively less affected had lost all their reserves and seen half their sects destroyed.

When Demon Shadow first began wreaking havoc, even many Great Sages and Quasi-Venerables had died. Many had been the patriarchs of great sects in the star domains he swept through, leaving the disciples of those once-preeminent traditions without even tears to shed.

It was easy to imagine that the star domains housing these great powers would inevitably fall into turmoil for some time to come. Everything would be reshuffled.

For a time, those star domains were all but draped in mourning white, grief filling ten thousand homes.

Of course, things were different for ordinary mortals.

Demon Shadow had been slain. In the eyes of mortal beings, the true god they worshipped had defeated a great demon bent on destroying the world, proving his supreme divine might with overwhelming, invincible power and sheltering ordinary people like themselves once again.

For a time, earth-shaking cheers rang out everywhere, almost setting the sea of stars trembling.

"May the Heaven Venerable endure forever and reign for a hundred thousand years!"

"The Immeasurable Heaven Venerable is invincible! May he destroy every evil demon and heretic!"

"All praise to the supreme Immeasurable Great Heaven Venerable!"

"Long live the Heaven Venerable, for ten thousand times ten thousand years..."

Everyone celebrated the end of the turmoil with wild abandon, rejoicing at their narrow escape, cheering for peace throughout the heavens, and counting themselves fortunate to have an incomparably powerful Heaven Venerable dwelling in their world.

And so, amid the mortal world, the myriad faces of living beings had always been the most endearing part of a great age. They asked for little and did nothing earth-shattering, yet their lives were always so vibrant, so compelling.

But after the joy passed, they still had to face the lives before them. The universe needed rebuilding after its great calamity, and the myriad races needed sufficient years to recuperate and lick the wounds the upheaval had left them.

The teeming masses had always been this world's most lamentable people.

In prosperity, the masses suffered; in ruin, the masses suffered still. Yet they were never absent, and always had their own share of splendor.

At the Cosmic Frontier, where Demon Shadow had been slain.

He Mu stood alone in the void, his white robes stained with blood. Yet the supreme aura around him had not diminished in the slightest. Myriad Daos circled his body, revealing a Dao intent that reached straight toward eternity and making his might as a Heaven Venerable all the more apparent.

At that moment, however, He Mu felt none of the joy of victory. Instead, both his expression and his heart held a measure of solemn concern.

During their earlier clash, he had already determined that what he had fought was not the black mist he had once encountered in Lingbao's surviving formation-or, at least, not the complete black mist.

Although the heavily armored Demon Shadow bore the essence of the black mist that had escaped back then, his divine abilities and methods, as well as the resonance of his Great Dao, differed considerably from those of that mist.

More importantly, there was something deeply wrong with Demon Shadow's primordial spirit. He seemed muddled, his mind damaged. Yet the black mist's mind had clearly been intact that day; indeed, it had been cunning, treacherous, and full of schemes.

If he had to describe it, Demon Shadow had felt more like someone infected and corrupted by that day's black mist, making it hard not to suspect that he had actually been under its control.

Recalling that final scene-the eerie aura wreathing the dark primordial spirit and the look of release on Demon Shadow's face as he died-He Mu became almost certain of his conjecture.

But that made matters troublesome. Events had developed into precisely the situation He Mu least wanted to see.

For one thing, the black mist was still lurking in the shadows, gathering strength and awaiting an opportunity. It could strike whenever an opening arose, making it impossible to guard against every attack.

For another, once He Mu entered his declining years, he would find it difficult to face the many powerful enemies at his full strength. A single misstep then could send the situation in the universe spiraling into disaster.

Most importantly, and most worrying to He Mu, eroding and corrupting powerful cultivators and remaking their primordial spirits into dark ones were methods of the Eerie Clan.

And Demon Shadow's demonic primordial spirit, entwined with darkness, eeriness, and ill omen, seemed to corroborate that terrifying conjecture.

If this truly involved the Eerie Clan, the nature of the matter would change completely.

They were the Desolate Heavenly Emperor's great enemies. If their hand lay behind this, did it mean they had already noticed the universe of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands? Long ago, the Desolate Heavenly Emperor had severed the ages with a single stroke, concealing this realm behind his sword. Did that sword stroke still hold, and could it continue to shelter this realm?

All of this filled He Mu with profound concern. After all, the survival of the entire universe hung in the balance. There could scarcely be a greater matter.

In the end, however, He Mu forcibly pressed those thoughts down into his heart.

He was merely a supreme Heaven Venerable now. Perhaps he could stand invincible within the universe of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, but he had not even attained immortality. In the Realm Sea, he amounted to nothing at all, much less in a war on the scale of the conflict between the eerie forces and the heavens.

Rather than keep fretting that the sky might fall, he would do better to focus on what lay before him and keep striving to improve his cultivation. Only by making himself unbreakable, attaining the Dao of a Red Dust Immortal, and even reaching the level at the end of the path would he earn the right to survive into the future and take part in a war of that magnitude.

Otherwise, a mere Heaven Venerable would probably not even qualify to serve as a common soldier.

With that thought, He Mu's gaze instantly cleared, and even his Dao heart grew firmer.

Walking the Great Dao alone had always meant steadfastly following the road beneath one's feet, resolute and unwavering, never retreating an inch, never regretting even ten thousand deaths. Only by moving ever forward could one have a chance to see the distant vistas.

As for outside enemies, what did it matter how strong they were? For the truly strong, it was simply a matter of standing firm and tall themselves.

Having understood this, He Mu first sent his Dao weapon, the Wuliang Dao Wheel, back to Ziwei, then issued a decree to the Wuliang Dao to reassure all living beings.

Then he stopped concerning himself with the many mundane affairs of the universe and chose instead to return to his cultivation sanctuary on the Undying Mountain within chaos.

He Mu had gained much more from this great battle and his clash with Demon Shadow. He intended to enter seclusion again and, with the aid of the Enlightenment Ancient Tea Tree, thoroughly integrate those gains, turning them into nourishment for his cultivation in the hope of advancing to Heavenly Emperor as soon as possible.

After returning to the Undying Mountain, He Mu sat cross-legged beneath the Enlightenment Tree, closed his eyes, and began cultivating.

For a time, the Undying Mountain sank into a deep, timeless stillness.

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