Start from a baby to become a Taoist

Chapter 488 Ancient

Chapter 496

However, the disaster did not stop.

Without the "command" of the "throat of disorder," the altered laws did not return to normal. Instead, like a pack of mad dogs without their master, they began to destroy the world in an even more chaotic and unpredictable way!

The waters of the East Sea no longer flowed backwards, but transformed into countless cold blades, slicing through the void. The Western Divine Mountain no longer soared into the heavens, but began to melt, turning into scalding, destructive metallic magma that engulfed the earth.

This world is like a patient who has been infected with a virus and then cut off from the mother body. Although the virus is no longer continuously injected, it has already spread within the body, begun to multiply wildly, and is heading towards complete collapse.

Daosheng, through self-harm, gained a brief respite, but now he faces an even more hopeless mess.

He crashed to the ground, creating a huge, human-shaped crater. He lay at the bottom of the crater, only his left eye remaining, staring blankly at the gray, chaotic sky.

He failed.

A complete failure.

He overestimated himself and underestimated the true "disorder." He thought he was the player, but he didn't realize that from the very beginning, he was the most important piece.

Eight thousand years of effort, all in vain. Protection turned into destruction. Creation brought about its end.

An unprecedented sense of weakness and defeat overwhelmed him like a tidal wave. His consciousness began to blur. Perhaps, to simply fade away with the world and disappear into nothingness would be a kind of liberation…

Just as his consciousness was about to sink into eternal darkness.

A faint yet incredibly familiar warm feeling suddenly touched his soul.

That aura did not belong to any law of this world; it was more ancient and more primordial.

That was... the scent of "the torch".

It was the will that inspired his birth!
"child……"

A vague thought, spanning endless time and space, gently resonated deep within his soul.

"you are wrong."

Dao Sheng's remaining consciousness stirred slightly.

"I was wrong?"

“You’re wrong because when you see a shadow, you don’t think about how to coexist with it, but how to illuminate it and make it part of the light.”

"Your mistake is that you tried to use your 'order' to define, bind, and control the inherently formless and intangible 'chaos.' You incorporated it into your system, but you also gave it a 'form' that can attack you."

"You think you've severed it, but what you've severed is only the 'effect' it manifested through you. Its 'cause' was already planted throughout the entire world the moment you accepted it."

The will of the torch is without blame, only a calm explanation, as if pointing out the true direction to a lost child.

"What...do you want me to do?" Daosheng asked in his soul with his last bit of strength.

"Forget your 'order,' and forget your understanding of 'chaos.'"

"Feel it, listen to it. This world is crying. It doesn't need a lofty 'god' to define everything for it. What it needs is a companion who can understand all its 'possibilities'..."

"possibility?"

Yes. Life is a possibility, and so is death. Order is a possibility, and so is chaos. Perfection is a possibility, and so is imperfection...

The will of "the torch" gradually dissipated, leaving only a final sentence that, like the morning bell and evening drum, continued to echo in Daosheng's soul.

"Only when you stop trying to 'be' everything can you truly... 'embrace' everything."

"To embrace...everything..."

Daosheng muttered to himself, a glimmer of understanding flashing in his only remaining left eye.

He seemed to... understand something.

His path has always been one where "I" define the world. I define light, I define darkness, I define order, I define chaos. Everything must be incorporated into "my" way. How domineering, how...selfish this is.

But the torch points to another path.

A path... where the "world" defines "me".

Just then, a soft, affectionate neighing sound roused him from his reverie.

He turned his head with difficulty and looked out with his only remaining left eye.

At the edge of the deep pit, a small beast cautiously poked its head out, looking at him.

It was a small deer radiating a soft white light. Its antlers were like those carved from crystal, with a verdant vine twining around them, seemingly formed from the very essence of life. Its eyes were as clear as the newborn heaven and earth, without a trace of impurity.

Daosheng recognized it.

This is one of the first creatures that were enlightened in the valley when he was born from the colorful stone, as the rain of light fell from the sky. It carries his most primal and pure "Taoist" energy, without any acquired "order" or any trace of "chaos".

It represents the original "Tao".

At this moment, the entire world was rejecting him and was his enemy. Only this little beast sensed the most intimate aura deep within his being, and following its senses, it crossed thousands of mountains and rivers, passed through the chaotic realm of laws, and came to his side.

In the deep pit, Daosheng lay quietly, like a god statue in the process of weathering.

The little deer named "Chu Ling" did not flee despite the overwhelming torrent of laws that threatened to overturn all realms. It merely retreated to a relatively safe distance, its clear, glassy eyes reflecting the terrifying energy vortex, filled with extreme worry and sorrow. It could sense that the familiar, primal energy that had given it life was heading towards its "end" in a way it could not comprehend.

At the center of the vortex, Daosheng had given up all thought and all resistance.

His soul, like a small boat, was thrown into a raging sea composed of the birth and death of billions of worlds.

In an instant, he experienced the extreme sharpness of the Law of Metal; in the next instant, this sharpness was dissolved by the boundless inclusiveness of the Law of Water, transforming into a hybrid "corrosion" power that left mottled marks on his Dao bones. In an instant, he felt the vibrant vitality of the Law of Wood; in the next instant, this vitality was extinguished by the ultimate annihilation of the Law of Death, evolving into a state of "decay" between life and death, shrouding his very soul in a layer of decay.

Light and darkness chased each other within his body, no longer clearly distinct, but devouring one another, transforming into a gray "chaos" that swallowed all concepts.

Time lost its meaning here. One moment he was the eight-thousand-year-old Son of the Dao, overlooking the changing of eras; the next he seemed to have returned to the origin from which he was born from the strange stone, innocent and pure. Then, he was thrown into the future, billions of years in the future, and saw the world turn into dust, drifting in the cold universe.

The past, present, and future timelines were forcibly twisted together by the power left behind by the "Throat of Chaos," transforming into a merciless file that relentlessly polished away at his mark of existence.

This is a form of torture more horrific than death.

Death, at least, has the concept of "death" that can be defined. But what he is experiencing now is the collapse of "meaning" itself.

Everything he had built over eight thousand years, everything he knew, and everything he had upheld was dismantled and melted away in this chaotic furnace, becoming the most primitive, chaotic, and attributeless "raw materials."

That "Dao Sheng" is being erased from its very roots!
"Hahahaha... Die! In this paradox of self-denial, vanish into nothingness!"

The will of the "Throat of Chaos" echoed in the void beyond the Dao Source Realm, filled with pleasure and cruelty. It admired its masterpiece, admiring how this child of perfect order, which had once rendered it helpless, was gradually heading towards self-destruction in its carefully laid trap.

However, it did not notice that in the deepest part of that chaotic energy vortex, in the core of Dao Sheng's soul, which had been completely released and allowed to be ravaged, a wisp of gray air current, so faint as to be almost imperceptible, was quietly gathering.

That was neither order nor chaos.

That was... the scent of "the torch".

It is the embodiment of the Taoist saying, "Only when you stop trying to 'be' everything can you truly... 'embrace' everything."

This wisp of energy was like a stabilizing anchor in a raging sea. It neither fought against the storm nor tried to calm the waves; it simply existed there quietly, providing a final "anchor" for Dao Sheng's soon-to-disappear "self-awareness."

With this anchor point, Daosheng's consciousness was not completely lost in the endless chaos.

He is no longer the "Daoist," he is merely an "observer."

He observed the conflict between gold and water, and memorized the true meaning of "rust".

He observed the intertwining of life and death and came to understand the essence of "decay".

He observed the gnawing of light and darkness and discerned the form of "chaos".

He was like the most devout and focused student, learning the most forbidden and insane knowledge in the world. The "order" he had established over the past eight thousand years had given him unparalleled "comprehension" and "inductive reasoning." And now, he was using this ability to understand and summarize this endless "chaos."

He didn't define them, he just recognized them and acknowledged their existence.

Gradually, the chaotic torrent of laws surging into his body seemed to sense this change.

They were no longer ferocious, destructive invaders, but rather seemed to have found a stage to "showcase" themselves. Within Daosheng's body, they fully expressed their "possibilities," while Daosheng's soul silently categorized and recorded all of this.

His body became a "chaotic" library.

His spirit became the "librarian" of this library.

I don’t know how much time has passed.

It may be a fleeting moment, or it may take hundreds or thousands of years.

When the last ray of distorted light of law merged into Dao Sheng's body, the energy vortex that swept across the heavens and earth finally calmed down.

Within the deep pit, Dao Sheng's body remained broken and covered with spiderweb-like cracks. But from those cracks, the golden divine light no longer overflowed; instead, there was a profound darkness, as if it contained the birth and death of countless stars.

His presence had completely vanished.

It wasn't the annihilation of death, but another kind of... return to simplicity. He seemed to have completely merged with this shattered world, you in me and me in you, no longer detectable by any divine thought alone.

"it's over?"

In the void, the will of the "Throat of Chaos" carried a hint of doubt. It could neither sense Dao Sheng's presence nor the chaotic origin it had left behind. Everything seemed to be completely shrouded by an enormous curtain.

The few ancient bystanders fell into an even deeper silence.

"He... succeeded?" A hint of disbelief lingered in "Touch of the Void's" mind.

“No… it can’t be called a success.” The voice of the “Source of All Things” was more solemn than ever before. “He did not ‘defeat’ chaos, nor did he ‘restore’ order. He merely… became a new ‘vessel.’ A monster that… can simultaneously bear ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ without favoring either side.”

Within the "Eye of Annihilation," the eternal indifference has now transformed into a profound, eerie light.

"Did the Fire of the Spirit win the gamble?" For the first time, its thoughts were tinged with doubt. "It wanted to create an ultimate existence that transcends 'being' and 'non-being' to cope with the arrival of the 'Great Annihilation.' But what is this before it... is it the 'fruit of the Fire of the Spirit,' or the 'new king' of 'disorder'?"

At that very moment, another strange change occurred within the deep pit!

The little "first spirit" deer that had been guarding it let out a joyful soft cry. It felt that familiar and comforting presence had returned!
It took a step and carefully walked to Daosheng's side, lowered its head, and gently touched his body again with its antlers.

This time, it was no longer it that was supplying life force to Daosheng.

Rather, it was Dao Sheng's body that actively drew a trace of the purest, undefined origin of "life" from it!

Om-!
This source of "life" is like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, instantly stirring up huge waves in Dao Sheng's lifeless body!

Starting from this point of "birth", the billions of chaotic laws within his body, which had been recorded, summarized, and "understood", seemed to have found a "fulcrum" and began to rearrange and recombine in a mysterious and unpredictable way!

They are no longer in conflict or destroying each other.

Instead, under a higher level of "rules," a strange "symbiosis" was achieved!
Click, click...

Dao Sheng's tattered Dao body began to crackle like popping beans. Instead of healing, the terrifying cracks widened even further!

Pieces of bones bearing the old "order" and pieces of flesh and blood engraved with glorious divine light peeled off his body, fell into the dust, turned into specks of golden light, and completely dissipated!

(End of this chapter)