Origins

Within the Chaos Dragon Nest, Immortal Essence filled the air as Heavenly Venerables of two generations sat facing each other.

Both still seemed rather embarrassed by the bizarre scene earlier. After all, a Heavenly Venerable nearly dying upon his emergence was truly absurd.

And so, for a long while, neither spoke first.

After a lengthy silence, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao finally could not hold back any longer. He sighed.

"Fellow Daoist Wuliang, you are far too courteous. I should be thanking you. You truly saved my life."

He paused, then continued.

"Without your help, I fear that several hundred thousand years from now, no matter how many arrangements I had made, I would still have become a heap of dry bones. There would be no Lingbao left in the world, only one more broken man upon the Immortal Road."

Seeing Heavenly Venerable Lingbao insist on thanking him, He Mu finally shook off the earlier awkwardness. No longer needing to worry about wounding Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's pride, he followed up on his words.

"Fellow Daoist, I have also visited the place formed from your Immortal Platform. The arrangements there were truly extraordinary. How did you end up in such a plight?"

At He Mu's question, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's expression twisted, seeming to carry a trace of anger before turning to gloom and pain.

After his expression shifted several times, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao finally spoke.

"Since you are curious, Fellow Daoist, I do not mind recounting these old affairs. I only hope you will not laugh at me."

Then, through Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's own account, a secret history that even Longevity Heavenly Venerable had never unearthed gradually unfolded, revealing to He Mu a secret buried for thirty thousand years.

Long ago, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao had slain the Spiritually Awakened Immortal Corpse that was wreaking havoc, but had paid a tremendous price himself.

During that battle, his origin had been damaged, leaving him with an extremely severe great dao wound.

Yet to prevent the Immortal Corpse from continuing to plague the universe, he had forced his wounded body to endure, separating the corpse's remaining origin power and suppressing it in several different locations.

During this process, a strand of black qi rooted in the Immortal Corpse's marrow had drawn Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's attention.

Throughout the sealing process, he had also attempted to extract the black qi from the Immortal Corpse's marrow. But it seemed fused with the corpse's flesh and bones, drawing on its imperishable nature. Even Heavenly Venerable Lingbao had been unable to separate them completely.

By then, his injuries had simply been too severe for him to hold on any longer.

Thus, in the end, his aims had been twofold: first, to live another lifetime and thereby set foot upon the Immortal Road; second, to restore himself and rid his origin of its dao wound.

After laying down a supreme grand formation, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao had chosen to dissolve his body completely and fall into slumber. He had not investigated the black qi's origins further, merely sealing it together with the Immortal Corpse.

At the same time, he had stationed the Four Immortal-Slaying Swords to guard his Sea of Bitterness and several direct disciples to protect his Immortal Platform, believing he had prepared for every contingency.

After all, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao had been immensely proud then. He had reigned as a Venerable for three full lifetimes, almost attaining immortality amid the mortal world. His disciples and followers were consequently countless; ten thousand immortals were said to pay him homage, and he called himself the Heavenly Venerable Cult Master.

Yet he had never imagined that one of his own direct disciples would later betray him, becoming the root of the calamity that had reduced him to his present state.

What followed had unfolded like the plot of a mortal storybook.

A thousand years after Heavenly Venerable Lingbao had dissolved his body, while he lay in his deepest slumber, that disciple of his, born with the bone of treachery at the back of his skull, had been beguiled by the black qi while inspecting the sealed grounds.

He had contacted a Forbidden Zone Supreme and, catching the other disciples off guard, quietly sabotaged the Immortal Platform Grand Formation's operation.

Then, wielding a forbidden artifact left by the black qi, that once "good disciple" had joined forces with the being from the Forbidden Zone and brazenly attacked Heavenly Venerable Lingbao.

In that assault, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's former disciples and followers had suffered devastating casualties, paying a tremendous price.

Unfortunately for them, the disciple who had already reached the Quasi-Venerable level, the sealed black qi, and the being from the Forbidden Zone had all overestimated themselves-and underestimated Heavenly Venerable Lingbao.

Even abruptly awakened, with his dao wounds still entirely unhealed, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao had remained invincible throughout the universe.

He had erupted with ferocious power, dragging his injured, ailing body through the fight to sweep away every source of upheaval. Then he had sent his surviving disciples into the Chaos Minor World and sealed them there, shielding them from any future reckoning by the Forbidden Zones.

Afterward, he had concealed the locations of the two secret realms, his Immortal Platform and Sea of Bitterness, completely obscuring the workings of heaven.

Finally, he had entered chaos and found the Chaos Dragon Nest he had discovered by chance during his first lifetime. With the last of his strength, he had inscribed formation patterns and sealed himself, then banished the entire Chaos Dragon Nest into the depths of chaos, beyond discovery.

Sadly, his arrangements had ultimately been too hasty. Although his deficient origin allowed him to be sealed within immortal source, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao had still barely managed to cling to life.

Had He Mu not found him today, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's circumstances would truly have been perilous beyond measure. Just as he had said, he would have passed away for good several hundred thousand years later.

After recounting everything, even with his temperament, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao could not help sighing deeply.

"The affairs of the world are fraught with misfortune, and fate is ever fickle. Who could have imagined that I, a Heavenly Venerable, would suffer such a reversal? And who could have imagined that a trace of origin immortal light I left behind unwittingly would become the straw that saved my life? Truly, every sip and every morsel is governed by karmic ties. Even in the unseen, there is a destined order."

Seeing this, He Mu offered Lingbao some comfort.

"Having survived such a great calamity, Fellow Daoist, you are surely due blessings in the days to come. Perhaps your path will be smooth from now on, with immortality already in sight."

Hearing this, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao merely smiled and replied to He Mu.

"Then may your auspicious words come true, Fellow Daoist."

Noticing that Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's origin remained depleted and that he had yet to truly regain his former condition, He Mu left behind some essence of the White Tiger Divine Medicine, then took his leave.

Now, He Mu was in no hurry to ask for clues about the black qi. He knew that the day Heavenly Venerable Lingbao restored his Dao Fruit would be the day the reckoning began.

And he would not have to wait much longer for that day.

That concludes the second update.

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