The young Sacred Body fled in grand fashion beneath the sunlight.
After all, a fully accomplished king chasing him with bloodshot eyes carried far too much authority.
"Emperor's Son, do you need me to intervene?"
A soft voice sounded beside the youth's ear, unheard by anyone else.
"No need."
The youth remained composed. "From my parents' handwritten notes, I learned that once the struggle on the Emperor Road reaches its latter half, Dao Protectors are of no use."
"At any moment, those ahead might turn back to snuff you out, or you might encounter an Ancient Road Guardian who plays favorites for selfish reasons. Or descendants of Dark Supremes might emerge from the Life Forbidden Zones, peerlessly powerful after years of cultivation, to sever the Emperor Road of this age's prodigies and prevent an emperor from arising to interfere with the Supremes' feeding..."
"When people look at the Chaotic Ancient Great Emperor alone, they think his life was so bitter and miserable because his own abilities were lacking."
"But in truth, of all those who became emperors throughout the ages, which one was inferior?"
"Much less an outstanding figure who transformed through a demonic embryo, defied heaven amid ruin and annihilation, and lived anew... even many who attained the Dao could not accomplish that."
"To be fair, the Chaotic Ancient Great Emperor certainly lacked neither talent nor brilliance. He should have swept aside everyone of his generation... so why did he suffer one crushing defeat after another at the hands of the so-called Seven Heroes of Chaotic Heaven?"
"Seven outstanding figures appeared in succession in a single era, each capable of driving that age's Great Emperor to despair through defeat on the Emperor Road? How could that be possible? That era wasn't some inconceivable golden age."
"It was only because the Seven Heroes of Chaotic Heaven had countless threads of connection to the Life Forbidden Zones."
"Our human emperors have Emperor's Sons, and the Supremes of the forbidden zones naturally have descendants too... but unlike Emperor's Sons such as us who remain in the outside world, those descendants of the Supremes also know of the sins their ancestors and fathers committed: dark turmoil, feeding on all living beings..."
"And so they entered the forbidden zones."
"Whenever a great age arrives, some of them emerge, in greater or smaller numbers, to join the struggle on the Emperor Road."
"The Chaotic Ancient Great Emperor's generation suffered the most, enduring the greatest misery, for precisely this reason... their suffering even far exceeded that of their predecessors."
"After all... there was the Void Emperor."
The youth sighed. "This human Great Emperor, who attained the Dao after my mother, was truly extraordinary. He was a true saint!"
This was not "saint" in the sense of a cultivation rank, but sainthood in spirit and character.
And the Void Emperor deserved that word, "saint." He fought all his life, taking up the mantle of the last Great Accomplishment Sacred Body to wage bloody war against the forbidden zones. Even with Immortal Medicine, he lived only one lifetime, and he killed at least four Forbidden Zone Supremes who had intended to unleash dark turmoil!
Such a willingness to stake his life moved even the Forbidden Zone Supremes.
-Brother, did you really have to fight that hard?
Those who attained the Dao throughout history ruled as emperors in different eras. Unable to meet at their peaks, none would concede superiority to another.
But when it came to the Void Emperor's spirit of fighting with his life on the line, even the Supremes of the forbidden zones had to admit they fell far short.
It would be best... if someone like that never appeared again.
"The Void Emperor protected the mortal world's peace for a lifetime, shaking even the forbidden zones."
"To prevent someone like him from appearing again, severing the prodigies' Emperor Road is a good option."
"The forbidden zones may lack other things, but they have plenty of descendants of imperial figures... the Supremes slumber and disdain to act personally to wipe out prodigies, but sending out a few descendants is no problem."
"For ordinary prodigies, Emperor's Sons are simply too far beyond their level."
"The misery of the Chaotic Ancient Great Emperor's life was inextricably tied to this."
"And in this era, I fear the same scene will inevitably play out again. Every manner of ox-headed demon and serpent spirit will crawl out..."
"When that time comes, the Jade Pool won't be able to protect me. Being hunted will be the norm..."
The youth glanced back. A fully accomplished king of the way of slaying swept across the horizon. Suddenly, he manifested beyond the Heavenly Domain, projecting an image that crossed hundreds of millions of miles of sky and sent killing power crashing down!
Boom!
The Three-Pointed, Double-Edged Blade unleashed its divine might, cleaving that projection apart in a single stroke. Without looking back, the youth slipped past it, leaving the king roaring in fury.
"Unless a Killing Saint appears, there's no need for you to intervene... this is the road I chose, and I'll walk it myself!"
"Hum!"
Light blazed brilliantly. In a daze, Feng Jiu heard the rushing of the long river of time. The inheritance of bloodlines rose and fell with heaven and earth beneath time's relentless washing.
Through myriad tribulations of reincarnation, passing from one "life" to the next, Feng Jiu used an external origin to strike at his own life origin in every "life," seeking insight and experience.
He fell again and again, but his gains were considerable. His origin remained that of a mortal body, yet it gradually grew complex and profound as he advanced steadily in the realm of creation.
The eruption of the human body's origin under external erosion and oppression, the final flare of life on the brink of death... Feng Jiu engraved all of it upon his heart, ultimately integrating it into himself when reincarnation began anew.
In terms of cultivation, this manifested as one "door" after another opening within Feng Jiu's Five Great Secret Realms. They had originally been hidden in imperceptible space and time, until a flicker of resonance, a spark of inspiration, became the crucial key.
Advancing bit by bit, he pushed open the hidden doors and incorporated them into his Dao Fruit. In a haze, with no sense of how many years had passed, he walked a rugged little path, only to part the clouds and reveal the sun, uncovering a broad, radiant road.
He advanced triumphantly through the realm of creation while also crossing the threshold into the realm of reincarnation.
The mysteries of the Houtu Reincarnation Scripture flowed through his heart. This great Dao of reincarnation from another world formed a wondrous coupling with this world's Reincarnation Supreme Treasure. The two collided, intertwined, and even sublimated.
"Dust to dust, earth to earth, souls to Houtu..."
Feng Jiu seemed to grasp something.
In the many legends of the Primordial World, Houtu was a divine being of boundless mercy and compassion. Seeing that the souls of the dead had nowhere to return, she established reincarnation, and thus rebirth came to be.
In such reincarnation, everything from this life was buried, along with all its karmic ties. Only a soul returned to Houtu, ultimately finding new life within reincarnation.
A bowl of Meng Po Soup washed away the memories of this life, granting a fresh beginning.
In the eyes of this divine Houtu, all living beings beneath heaven, all races, were no different. Those acquired racial identities were merely clothes to a soul.
Only the soul was real. All flesh and blood acquired afterward were merely external vessels, formed from the "dust and earth" of heaven and earth, interwoven with the laws of the great Dao.
When death arrived, dust naturally returned to dust and earth to earth. Everything beyond the soul returned to the great Dao of heaven and earth.
This process was the passing of life... yet from another perspective, was it not also the beginning of another new life?
For that "dust and earth" of heaven and earth, those acquired external things stripped from oneself, went on to create other lives, becoming the material that formed bodies for other souls born from reincarnation.
In their souls, all living beings have boundaries
, each unique.
But in the body, every particle of flesh and blood in my present life's body, traced back to its source, might connect to who knows how many of the dead throughout all history...
Everyone has their own six paths of reincarnation...
Feng Jiu suddenly rose and threw a punch, setting heaven and earth rotating and the great Dao shifting. This was his own Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist!