The youth had delicate features and stood apart from the world, with an air of one about to shed his mortal form and ascend as an immortal.
But those who knew him understood that appearances could deceive. Cut him open, and he would most likely be black inside.
"A small piece of Immortal Gold for one of the Nine Secrets. That's quite a bargain."
The youth murmured softly. His golden blood energy rippled outward, casting its radiance across heaven and earth and lighting up the mountains and rivers, ensuring that anyone with an interest could not possibly miss him and would have to attack this taunting Sacred Body.
Yet within that seemingly golden blood energy, deeper mysteries appeared to lurk, unfathomable as an abyss, dreadful as a prison. He was certainly far more than an ordinary Sacred Body.
But all of this was concealed by a tower-shaped mark, as though an unsurpassed figure had once intervened, merging with the Dao in truth and achieving an inconceivable affinity with the Great Dao of heaven and earth, bestowing protection that hid every trace of his wonders.
"Immortal Gold can be found often enough, but the Nine Secrets are rarely seen..."
"Especially this secret that touches upon time."
The youth's thoughts seemed to return to the distant past, to the era of his birth, when two unsurpassed figures had brought him into being together.
Sadly, he had been sealed away at a very young age... He had emerged briefly, only to experience separation in life and death.
A lifelong, bitter regret!
His father had passed away early, and his mother had consequently lost much of her desire for longevity and immortal ascension. In the end, she had sorrowfully passed away in meditation beside his father, and they had been buried together.
Only a child remained, sealed alone within Immortal Source, smuggling himself through the years as he awaited the era when the Road to Immortality would open, to contend for a chance to shed his mortal form and ascend!
That was how it should have been.
But...
"The Underworld..."
The youth's gaze deepened, carrying murderous intent as he returned from his distant memories to the present.
His emergence had been an accident.
All because his parents' grave... had stirred!
Although the measures his mother had left behind had activated on their own within moments and purified everything.
He had nevertheless been awakened, and ultimately chose to emerge of his own accord and enter the world.
After all, how many children could accept their own father being denied peace even after death?
"Someone is severing the Sacred Body's path..."
After he emerged, the deity within an Emperor Artifact awakened, spoke with him, and revealed the source of those terrifying changes.
"In the past, nine great Sacred Bodies fought across the starry skies, blocking certain Ancient Supremes from devouring all under heaven. As one fell, another arose. They drew far too much attention."
"And so, after several Great Accomplishment Sacred Bodies, Supremes... and even an immortal artifact intervened, placing a curse upon this constitution and bringing ominous afflictions in its twilight years. Even your mother, a Dao achiever who commanded the heavenly heart, was powerless to reverse it. In the end, she tearfully ended your father's life..."
"Only after his death did he find peace, and the power of the curse within him was purified..."
"But now I sense that the curse has grown stronger, merging with the Great Dao of heaven and earth on a deeper level... If this continues, it will no longer be merely an imposed curse. Instead, the laws of the universe will be rearranged to target this constitution and sever the Sacred Body's path!"
"This process will take no more than a few tens of thousands of years to complete... By then, even a First-Generation Sacred Physique, without a powerful protector or the cleansing of divine medicine, will likely be unable to comprehend the Great Dao of heaven and earth, finding it difficult to enter the Four Extremes Secret Realm in an entire lifetime..."
A glimmer like tears seemed to flow across the Emperor Tower. The deity within sighed softly. It was powerful, yet in these circumstances, it was so helpless that it could do nothing.
To influence the entire fabric of heaven and earth's myriad Daos so profoundly, delivering a fatal blow to a constitution and cutting off its path forward, there had to be supreme figures who had achieved the Dao among those responsible!
Only Dao achievers, who had once merged with the Heavenly Heart Imprint and suppressed the myriad Daos with their own Dao, who had truly experienced all the Daos of heaven and earth changing beneath their will, their Dao reigning alone over an entire era, could accomplish such a thing!
In fact, even one or two imperial Supremes would not suffice. There had to be at least several, along with an artifact that vaguely stood above the extreme Dao!
After all, even former Dao achievers had merely ruled over a single era. Once their time had passed, heaven and earth abandoned their Dao, no longer remaining suppressed, and instead awaited the enthronement of a new emperor.
A retired emperor?
Some old emperor past his prime?
Worth a damn!
Let an immortal artifact do the talking!
Only immortals, enduring through endless years, could inscribe the laws suppressing the Sacred Body upon heaven and earth for ages to come, eternally indestructible!
"Their methods are terrifying. This is merely the beginning, yet their influence is already far-reaching... Your father has passed away, but even his peace was disturbed as the source within his corpse began to stir."
"Fortunately, the measures your mother left behind suppressed it all. There is no longer any serious danger. You can continue sleeping and await the era when the Road to Immortality opens..."
As the Emperor Tower's deity spoke, it revealed the Divine Source Liquid stored within, intending to seal him away.
But the child refused.
"There's no need."
The child shook his head then. "Even if I emerge in the future, will things really be any better?"
"Since I've been stirred awake, I might as well walk through this era."
"The Underworld, is it?"
"When I achieve the Dao, I will storm that forbidden zone and settle every debt!"
"I wonder whether those Supreme beasts will have what it takes to escape my grasp..."
The child possessed an extraordinary confidence, as though the extreme Dao realm that the world gazed up at and yearned for was no remarkable achievement to him.
Indeed, if he achieved the Dao, he would surely sweep aside all opposition within that realm!
The facts proved that perhaps he truly had grounds for such confidence.
He seemed to have been born to cultivate the Dao, brought into being to meet calamity.
His parents had recognized this. Once, fearing he would lack tempering, they had deliberately severed part of his source and dissolved the cultivation he had possessed from birth, making him start from nothing.
How terrifying was that?
Once he emerged and stepped onto the path of cultivation, breaking through a realm every day would be no problem, if he wished!
Had he not deliberately slowed his pace in certain realms to consolidate his foundation, comprehend cultivation's subtle mysteries, and experience the wonders of the human body... he might already have severed the Dao and become a king by now, or even entered the realm of sages!
Even so, in just ten years, he had reached the end of the Second Heaven of the Immortal Platform. One more step forward, and he would be Severing the Dao.
Severing the Dao might not have been difficult for him, but it might also have been exceedingly hard.
For there were people and things he could not let go of, things he refused to sever, no matter what.
Immortal Three, Severing the Dao, cut off a cultivator's path. A person could also sever the Dao, turning the blade upon themselves, cutting away the attachments in their heart, cutting them all away, cutting them clean, carving out their own path... But he found such a choice hard to accept.
"Letting go of attachments to the past is one method of Severing the Dao, but I refuse to choose it."
"Then I can only take another path,
spending my life searching for a way to reverse time. Even if countless dangers and obstacles lie ahead, I will break through them all with my own strength..."
The youth lowered his eyes, his heart calm. Even when black snowflakes suddenly began drifting through heaven and earth, engulfing him, he remained just as tranquil.
Until the very next moment.
"Trample the Sacred Body's bones and restore Hell's glory!"
A roar resounded across the mountains and rivers, shattering the youth's conviction that he would tread through every danger and obstacle.
"???"
"Hell?"
He was bewildered.
Hadn't he... placed an order with the Heavenly Court, using himself as bait and hiring assassins to kill him?