On the Path to the Great Dao
Chapter 396: The Real Sun and Moon
Self-rescue?.
A heavy shock hit Chen Shi’s heart as he looked toward the people of the Celestial Court. Faced with a disaster possibly more terrifying than a Calamity, the first idea they had was not to flee, not to stockpile food, not to hide in the underworld, and not to beg others for help.
The first thought they had, astonishingly, was to save themselves!
“If the True God is ill, then we treat the True God’s illness. If the True God has fallen asleep, then we wake him up.”
Wu Qingyu smiled, “In short, we need to go up there and see where the problem lies!”
They prepared quickly. Several Works Department cultivators crawled into the Shuji’s legs and mechanisms to make adjustments, and in the furnace chamber workers fed coal into the furnace to stoke it. The original Shuji transmitted spirit energy with mechanical Golden Cores, but Chen Tang, Situ Wen, and others imitated a Divine Embryo to transmit spirit energy.
A Divine Embryo is equivalent to a Primordial Spirit, extremely difficult to replicate, yet they managed to research and reproduce it.
One by one, mechanical Divine Embryos flew in and out of the furnace, endlessly absorbing the furnace’s spirit energy. When they reached the sword furnaces, they treated that energy as mana to drive the sword furnaces, causing them to operate and spew sword light, providing enormous thrust.
Situ Wen personally sat in the Shuji to conduct the first flight attempt.
As the eight sword furnaces gradually lit up, the treasure machine shook and slowly lifted off.
The spurting sword energy cut the ground, forming eight deep chasms.
When the mechanical Divine Embryos and the furnace were activated to their limits, the sword light from the furnaces stretched longer and longer, and the Shuji’s speed increased!
Situ Wen ordered a stop; the workers in the furnace chamber ceased tossing in refined coal, and the mechanical Divine Embryos’ rotation slowed. The treasure machine descended slowly amid the thunderous roar of sword energy.
The treasure machine was the size of a village, quite large; sending such a colossal object beyond the heavens was no small matter.
Situ Wen had prepared several Taotie boxes and qian-kun pouches, also packed with refined coal. Once ready, Chen Shi, Chen Tang, and the others boarded the treasure machine. With the Works Department bustling, the Shuji vibrated and rose, gaining speed as it sped straight toward the firmament!
Inside the Shuji’s cabins, Works Department cultivators followed the mechanical Divine Embryos in flight, monitoring their operation and not daring to slacken. Others inspected every component of the Shuji to avoid loosening, falling off, or being shattered by vibration.
When such problems appeared, they would intervene immediately to keep the Shuji functioning.
On Qianyang Mountain, the great snake Xuan Shan looked up, seeing many pavilions and towers spewing sword-energy torrents miles long, rising higher and higher.
Xuan Shan unconsciously lost himself.
“No cultivator can fly out beyond the heavens.” he muttered.
He had never seen any cultivator reach beyond the heavens.
The Shuji climbed higher; its hull had already been red-hot, and it soon reached about sixty li above the ground.
“Cultivators, even those in the Great Ascension Realm, cannot sustain flight at sixty li above the ground.”
In the top pavilion of the Shuji, Chen Tang watched the protective talisman patterns floating outside the machine that resisted the high-altitude heat, and said, “Most cultivators stop here. If they try to continue, they encounter an invisible resistance that presses them down. They can’t fly higher.”
Chen Shi’s mind stirred, “Fifth Uncle hid supplies up there, placing them at sixty li. Many people can’t reach that height.”
Chen Tang said, “Even a Great Ascension cultivator with a physical body cannot fly past sixty li. If one abandons the body and roams with the Primordial Spirit, one still cannot reach beyond the heavens. As for why, I don’t know—I’ve never tried.”
Li Tianqing was also in this pavilion. Learned and knowledgeable, he said, “My Li Family records mention this. In the Li family’s Astronomical Record it states the invisible resistance is actually suppression from the True God’s divine might. Primordial Spirits can’t fly higher because during daylight the sunlight forms a Solar Essence layer dozens of li thick. A Primordial Spirit that reaches it will be ignited by the Solar Essence and burned to ash. An ancestor of the Li once, relying on Great Ascension cultivation, sent his Primordial Spirit a hundred li up, and in an instant it was refined into ash.”
Chen Shi asked, “What if we go at night?”
Li Tianqing replied, “At night, moonlight at around eighty li forms invisible sword energy. A Primordial Spirit that flies there often gets decapitated without seeing anything. That sword energy is the True God’s gaze manifested—Great Ascension Primordial Spirits cannot withstand even a single invisible sword strike, let alone the endless sword energies out there. Once, a drunken Daoist from Tai Hua Qing Palace danced beneath the moon, and impulsively tried to drink with the True God. His Primordial Spirit flew toward the heavens with wine and had its head sliced off by a single sword.”
Yu Lingzi was stunned, “Tai Hua Qing Palace really had such a reckless Daoist?”
Although he was a Qingyang Palace disciple, he had never heard of this.
Patriarch Qiongyang said, “Our Qingyang Palace does have connoisseurs of fine liquor; maybe someone truly would do something that absurd.”
As they spoke, the Shuji had already reached a hundred li high and entered the Solar Essence layer.
Chen Shi looked up to see ever more talisman patterns shimmer on the Shuji’s exterior; they were increasingly complex, like over two thousand deities guarding the machine’s perimeter!
He felt a pulse of recognition: “The Grand Cosmic Sacrificial Rite?”
Chen Tang said, “What your canopy depicts is the Grand Cosmic Sacrificial Rite. I copied it. Your mother traced it with Huo Dog’s blood a few times.”
Suddenly the Shuji trembled violently; Chen Shi’s face changed: “Besides Solar Essence, there’s Nine-Sun Divine Thunder?”
A rolling thunder erupted outside—the explosive sound of Nine-Sun Divine Thunder assaulting Primordial Spirits!
Everyone turned pale. Those with lower cultivation could hardly hold on.
Among all thunders, Nine-Sun Divine Thunder was most fierce and domineering. Often one heard thunder without seeing lightning, and before one could react the Primordial Spirit was shattered by the sound!
The two thousand four hundred talismans circling the Shuji flickered in the thunder, the Grand Cosmic Sacrificial Rite talismans on the Shuji each painted with the blood of Black Pot’s mother, that strongest Huo Dog, containing astonishing divine power—like deities arrayed to guard the treasure.
Yet these talismans seemed to be holding on by a thread, on the verge of collapse!
Chen Shi shouted, and his Dao Field surged out, enveloping the Shuji, his power blessing the two thousand four hundred talismans as he cried, “Father, lend me your strength!”
No sooner had he spoken than the two thousand four hundred talismans, under his Dao Field, formed a grand parasol pattern; each talisman transformed into a deity, standing beneath the parasol, as though a pantheon large and small had assembled into a great Celestial Court!
This transformation was not copied by Chen Tang; it came from Chen Shi’s own insight.
However, Chen Shi’s cultivation was relatively low. Even with Dao Field support, he could not hold out long under the Solar Essence and Nine-Sun Divine Thunder.
Seeing this, Chen Tang immediately invoked his sword. The Xuanwei Sword slid from its sheath with a hum, and the Void Great Cosmos unfolded from the sword, merging with Chen Shi’s Dao Field.
Although he did not understand all variations of the Grand Cosmic Sacrificial Rite or how its arrays worked, as long as he bolstered Chen Shi’s Dao Field to keep it intact, the rest could be left to Chen Shi to handle.
Some Works Department craftsmen could not withstand the thunder’s roar and fainted, causing the Shuji’s balance to tilt. Situ Wen, Li Tianqing, Yu Lingzi, and others ran down corridors to replace the unconscious, continuing to maintain the machine.
Li Tianqing dashed to the furnace room and found several fire workers collapsed; he hurriedly fed refined coal into the furnace.
Outside, thunder rolled, shaking him unsteadily.
Yu Lingzi rushed to a sword furnace where it was humming violently. Mechanical Divine Embryos flew to it continually, pouring their spirit energy into the furnace, making it shake violently and nearly topple.
He roared and summoned his Primordial Spirit to brace the furnace.
Suddenly the thunder lessened; it was Patriarch Qiongyang using the Thunderous Great Vigor Mantra to combat the Nine-Sun Divine Thunder, attempting to reduce the strikes the Shuji suffered.
The Shuji’s flight stance finally steadied; the sword furnace sprayed sword light miles long, driving the gigantic treasure higher and higher.
The Shuji bore the massive parasol of the Great Cosmos; beneath it two thousand four hundred deities formed a Celestial Court as it charged into outer space, the True God beyond the heavens and its bright, scorching eye drawing closer.
Patriarch Qiongyang made a muffled groan, blood appeared at the corner of her mouth, and she grew increasingly strained. At that moment, pressure around them abruptly lightened and the thunderous noise vanished, replaced by a sensation of weightlessness.
Everyone inside the Shuji floated, feeling the air vanish and involuntarily holding their breath.
Chen Shi steadied himself and grabbed Black Pot’s tail so it would not drift out the window.
There was air within the Void Great Cosmos of Patriarch Qiongyang and Chen Tang, so it would not immediately run out. People pushed open windows and peered out: the Shuji, made of dozens of houses, was flying in boundless outer space; ahead, the True God’s eye grew brighter and hotter, and the True God’s face began to take shape.
Chen Shi looked down and saw the fifty provinces of the Western Ox New Continent reduced to the size of washbasins, floating in the endless Sea of Darkness.
His heart jolted. He lifted his head to the True God’s face and saw limitless darkness reflected on one side.
That was not the Sea of Darkness; it was an unfathomable blackness where not even stars could be seen.
No stars at all!
Following the Primordial Star Chart, Chen Shi could sense the positions of the heavenly bodies, clearly detecting the arrangement of the cosmic stars.
But he could not see any starlight!
“This is wrong, wrong! The nearest star marked on the Primordial Star Chart is the moon; I should be able to sense the moon! The moon is… over here!”
Chen Shi followed his sense and saw a huge, icy, cold planet drifting silently behind the True God’s head.
He saw the real moon, which gave off no light and was dim and gloomy.
Its surface was covered with dark-red growths, like flesh, writhing as if alive.
He even faintly saw threadlike tentacles undulating on the moon’s surface, reaching toward the True God as if to touch something burning, then recoiling in alarm.
The moon seemed alive.
At that moment Chen Tang’s voice came: “Little Ten, can you sense the sun? I used the Primordial Star Chart to sense the sun, but what I see—whatever it is—definitely is not the sun…”
Chen Shi drew his gaze back and followed Chen Tang’s dazed look to a gigantic, dark sphere.
It lay extremely far away, seeming ensnared in a web. Dark-red netlike strands crisscrossed the void, some plunging into that dark sphere, seemingly siphoning off its fire.
“What strange place did the Three Treasures Eunuch and Ming soldiers find back then?” he murmured.
The Shuji continued to fly upward, tiny in the vast dark cosmos.
Suddenly Patriarch Qiongyang cried out in alarm: “Such dense Demonic Energy! Everyone be careful—don’t let the demonic energy affect you!”
It was as if the Shuji had broken through a certain invisible protection; outer-space demonic energy poured in and instantly began affecting everyone!
The outer-space demonic energy was so thick it exceeded the Western Ox New Continent’s by a hundredfold. Within breaths, Black Pot by Chen Shi began to mutate: tufts of flesh sprouted like hair, bones cracked and snapped!
Shouts of alarm rang throughout the Shuji.
Chen Shi gathered himself and immediately activated his Dao Field. A moon and a sun circulated around the Shuji.
Through yin-yang purgation he refined the invading demonic energy, but with so many people and the demonic energy so heavy, at his cultivation he could not protect everyone completely!
“Return!”
Chen Tang strove to suppress the demonic surge within himself and shouted, “All men, obey orders! Return to port immediately! Master of the Situ gate, alter direction and head back at once!”
The Shuji hesitated and then turned in outer space, heading toward the Western Ox New Continent.
Chen Shi poured everything into yin-yang purgation; the sun and moon circled the Shuji endlessly, yin-yang qi continuously purging the people’s bodies, yet more demonic energy kept surging in.
The Shuji lurched. Suddenly one sword furnace exploded with a bang; the machine tilted and began to fall toward the Western Ox New Continent.
Chen Tang darted to where the furnace had exploded. Although that sword furnace had been destroyed, he was a master of the Xuanwei Sword Scripture and could substitute for a furnace.
He arrived, activated the Xuanwei Sword Scripture, and finally steadied the Shuji.
Chen Shi continued to force the yin-yang purgation. At that moment, a wooden boat about four or five zhang long drifted into his vision.
The boat came silently from afar, as if it had floated in space for ages; it was rotten and dilapidated, the hull riddled with holes.
A humanoid creature was chained to the mast by shackles.
It, too, seemed affected by the demonic energy, its blood and flesh fluttering like tentacles.
The creature must have sensed the living breath; abruptly its bloody-flesh tentacles surged outward, reaching to seize the Shuji.
At this moment Chen Shi’s Dao Field’s sun and moon swept over, purging much of the demonic energy from those flesh-tentacles, forcing them to shrink back.
Yin and yang circulated relentlessly, their light illuminating the wooden boat. The humanoid aboard contracted, its flesh drawing in, and its true form emerged: a Daoist bound to the mast, wearing clothing from the pre-Qin era.
“Thank you,” the Daoist called from afar.
Chen Shi was slightly surprised: “He is from the Divine Continent!”
The pre-Qin Daoist’s wooden boat was also falling toward the Western Ox New Continent, though increasingly distant from their Shuji.
The Shuji plunged again into Nine-Sun Divine Thunder and the Solar Essence layer, shaking violently as it fell.
Crack—
The grand parasol formed by the Grand Cosmic Sacrificial Rite shattered; a deity-shaped illusion constructed from talismans burned away in lightning and flame, followed by more talismans igniting and breaking!
With a whoosh, a roof of one Shuji house was ripped off and shredded in thunderfire!
The Grand Cosmic Sacrificial Rite and the Shuji disintegrated continuously, their descent accelerating!
The Shuji smashed through the thunderfire layer, struck as if on a water surface, was thrown up, and then fell again with reduced speed; but another impact caused it to instantly break apart into fragments!
One sword furnace after another was destroyed in the breakup; sword lights whistled and shot in all directions. It looked as if everyone would be finished beneath those flying sword rays when Chen Tang drew the Xuanwei Sword and gathered every bit of sword light into it.
He had forged his Void Great Cosmos into the Xuanwei Sword—invulnerable and capable of containing all sword energy.
At the same time Patriarch Qiongyang acted, lifting everyone up and carrying them through the scattered Shuji debris toward Qianyang Mountain.
Shuji fragments scraped violently against the air, igniting into streaks of fire and trailing thick smoke toward Qianyang Mountain; long before reaching the mountain they had already burned out.
Chen Shi kept forcing the water-fire purgation to refine the demonic energy that had invaded everyone’s bodies, and casually glanced again to see that the wooden boat had entered the Western Ox New Continent from another direction, drifting off to somewhere unknown.