Indestructible and "Immortal"!
Fu Yuan's Bloodline Tower shook, its illusory, chaos-colored tenth floor trembling incessantly. Something unknown was happening.
"The power of my bloodline triggered the formation!" Fu Yuan murmured. Blood-red veins began to stir across the black platform, flowing slowly as the dark flame at the center of the black lotus began to burn, a serpent of fire swaying within it.
"Immortal!"
The single word drifted between heaven and earth, ethereal and barely perceptible. Only the living beings on the platforms could hear it.
At another fifth trial, atop the Lone Lamp Pavilion.
"Over the long years, immortal bloodlines have been washed clean." Wisps of the Qi of creation flowed around Luo Feng's nine-story Bloodline Pagoda. His eyes were deep. "Can they no longer awaken the Immortal Evolution Fire and enter the Netherworld Road?"
He cut his right hand and let his blood drip into the lamp. The bewitching black Divine Fire flicked its tongues, but it could not activate the formation.
An ineffable sorrow tinged his voice. The Immortal Ancient Era had been buried, the immortals had departed, and the Immortal Source was gone. Cycle after cycle of reincarnation had washed his immortal blood clean, and the Immortal Source that remained had been exhausted over the long years.
"Immortal!"
The word rang out. Shaken by the familiar utterance, Luo Feng stood frozen. It was all too familiar, as if it had crossed the long river of time to drift through the present age.
"Someone's bloodline is close to an immortal's?"
"How is that possible? Heaven and earth have long since changed beyond recognition. No one can break through the barrier of their bloodline!"
Luo Feng's expression changed drastically. It was too incredible.
"Has the bloodline of a True Immortal or Immortal King awakened in this age?" Shock and doubt flickered across Luo Feng's face. His gaze grew deep, as though he wanted to see through the ages and trace the source.
"What a bizarre formation. So ancient, so very ancient!" murmured a peerless youth in white, double pupils in his eyes. As his eyes opened and closed, creation unfolded and chaos spread.
He was a double-pupiled cultivator. The black lotus and the black Divine Fire had nowhere to hide; with a blink, he had seen through it all.
"It needs some special medium. What could it be?" The double-pupiled cultivator tested things one by one. His nine-colored Bloodline Pagoda surged, revealing a bloodline unquestionably at the peak of the ninth grade.
He was immensely powerful, an emperor's son with unparalleled methods.
"Immortal!" he murmured, imitating the word whose meaning he did not know, but he could not get it right. It lacked a certain resonance.
He was not alone. One peerless prodigy after another, seated cross-legged on a black platform refining Divine Fire, was startled awake by the word. They opened their eyes, but could find no trace of it.
"It's craving my blood," Fu Yuan murmured. The black lotus was drawing him toward it, its craving spreading through the air.
At the lotus's center, the swaying black Divine Fire flicked its tongues.
He cut his right hand, and pale golden blood dripped down. As the drops landed in the lotus's center, the dim blood-red veins fully activated. The black Divine Fire surged, and wisps of gold appeared on the lotus lamp.
Tiny golden points began to flicker. The stairs below all vanished in an instant, and every living being was transported out; only those on the black platforms remained.
Pale golden blood continued to drip down. The lotus lamp slowly turned gold, and the black Divine Fire blazed, surging into a mass of flame.
A quarter of an hour passed. Fu Yuan's face began to turn deathly pale, his blood and spirit bodies grew unstable, and his Bloodline Tower began to dissipate.
The loss of blood took a far greater toll than the loss of soul power. Living beings in the Profound Understanding Realm had yet to transcend mortal flesh, but once they saw through life and death and stepped into Nirvana, their blood would flow like an unceasing stream.
If they could ignite Divine Fire, then so long as the fire did not go out, their lives would not end. Cultivators at the peak of the Divine Fire Realm had already gained pseudo-immortal bodies. Their vitality was boundless, their blood Qi as vast as an ocean, capable of illuminating heaven and earth and driving away the darkness.
"This can't go on," Fu Yuan muttered. His presence grew ever more terrifying as he activated the Myriad Tribulations Indestructible Physique, and an anomalous phenomenon began to appear.
With Fu Yuan's body at its center, heaven and earth became a sea of chaos. Heaven-shaking roars rang out, bearing a distinctive resonance of the Dao, extraordinary and ancient, as though the first living beings were roaring across space and time.
The Myriad Tribulations Indestructible Physique, a physique surpassing that of his father, the Indestructible Heavenly Venerable, manifested its might at that moment. A vision of chaos splitting open to create the heavens appeared.
There was now something ineffably special about Fu Yuan, something transcendent and otherworldly. His eyes had turned entirely golden, and his blood and spirit bodies solidified, almost transforming from illusions into reality. All three Fu Yuans roared at once, and three colors of light formed a colossal pillar that shot into the clouds.
The chaos color on the tenth floor of the Bloodline Pagoda surged ever more fiercely. The instant the Myriad Tribulations Indestructible Physique erupted, the black platform began to shake violently, the blood-red veins flowed swiftly, and the formation that had slumbered for several eras fully awakened.
The black Divine Fire surged out of the golden lotus lamp and scattered in every direction. The blood-red veins converged into a profound pattern.
Fu Yuan's golden eyes opened and closed, and his gaze froze. The blood-red veins and the scattered black Divine Fire had formed a character, black and red interwoven, revealing endless mystery.
What a character it was! It pointed straight to the great Dao and questioned his innermost heart. Fu Yuan felt himself become a drop of water in a boundless sea, a gull flying beneath the eternal blue sky, utterly insignificant.
The character was very familiar. Fu Yuan kept feeling that he had seen it somewhere before. He racked his brains and searched his memories, until he finally remembered.
His original self had once entered the center of Indestructible Mountain, where three characters of exquisite craftsmanship had been carved: Indestructible Mountain.
The two characters for "indestructible," joined together, formed the character traced by the blood-red furrows.
"Indestructible?" Fu Yuan muttered. Now that his memory had been awakened, the character seemed ever more familiar. It was a strange script, yet it matched unexpectedly well.
Luo Feng had not refined the Divine Fire. This incomplete Spirit-Tempering Fire was of no use to him. He had undergone many reincarnations, and in one life, he had broken through the limits in six realms and left his name in ancient history.
Yet he was not satisfied. He believed he had not reached true perfection, that he had not yet come to the end of his path.
At every fifth trial, the black platforms atop the Lone Lamp Pavilions were dissolving, revealing illusory patterns of black and red.
"Immortal!" Luo Feng was no longer composed. His expression changed drastically; even after an eternity, he could never forget it.
This had been written by the Carefree Immortal Lord himself, returning to simplicity and to the origin of the great Dao. Even in that age of ultimate splendor, when ten thousand immortals shared the world, it had represented the strongest.
"It is absolutely not a True Immortal or Immortal King, but the bloodline of a true Immortal Lord or Immortal Venerable." Luo Feng was horrified. For figures who spanned heaven and earth and remained undefeated through the ages to produce offspring was exceedingly difficult.
Even in the most resplendent Carefree Immortal Era, there had been only one or two. But what sort of age was this? The Immortal Source was gone, the great Dao had weakened, and yet the bloodline of an Immortal Lord or Immortal Venerable had appeared.
What beings they were, able to create life and worlds, and live forever.
How terrifying their bloodlines were! Even the most powerful emperor's son could not compare to them.
"When immortal blood surges, the immortal road appears; one word opens the way to the netherworld, and at the road's end lies Carefree!" Memories welled up in Luo Feng's heart as he softly recited the words, the past rising before him one scene at a time.
He remembered the Chaotic Ancient Era, when he had once called a drunkard his brother. That man had been a peerless genius with a thin trace of immortal blood. Had he been born in the Immortal Ancient Era, he might well have become an Immortal Lord or Immortal Venerable.
After reaching the peak of the Venerable realm, Luo Feng had cut down his own cultivation realm and, relying on the protection of his immortal blood, slipped into the long river of time and entered reincarnation once more.
When he awoke again, a million years had passed. The drunkard had long since become an emperor, then failed and retreated into a forbidden zone. It would be hard for them to meet again.