Start from a baby to become a Taoist

Chapter 549 What is that?
Chapter 557

The direction from which the crimson light rose seemed to be the center of this continent. Illuminated by that light, the outline of a colossal mountain, more magnificent than any of the surrounding peaks, resembling an emperor reigning supreme, appeared and disappeared in the distance!

"What is that?" Zhenshan exclaimed in surprise.

Xu Ran's pupils suddenly contracted.

Within that blood-red light, he sensed an aura that was both familiar and strange.

What is familiar is that within that power lies a domineering and incomparably destructive will, originating from the same source as the "Suppression and Kill" law.

What's unfamiliar is that this power is purer, more ancient, and... more violent than the "suppression and killing" law of the prison!
It was as if the power of the prison was merely a tributary branching off from the source of this power!
"Let's go! Go over and take a look!"

A glint of light flashed in Xu Ran's eyes.

Crisis is often accompanied by opportunity!

This violent energy, though dangerous, was like a spring in the desert for him, who desperately needed to replenish his strength!

More importantly, he had a hunch that this continent, this ancient battlefield, might be inextricably linked to the "Heavenly Principles" and the birth of the "Prison Suppressor"!
To defy the laws of nature, one must first understand them!

Without further hesitation, the three of them, despite their weakened state, sped off towards the direction from which the blood light had erupted.

……

The closer one gets to the central mountain, the more shocking the surrounding scenery becomes.

On the earth, enormous skeletons began to appear. Some resembled divine dragons, stretching for thousands of miles; others looked like demon gods, with three heads and six arms. Even as mere skeletons, they still exuded overwhelming ferocity.

weapon!

Countless broken weapons were stuck in the earth. Broken greatswords, shattered battle axes, spears that pierced the bones of gods and demons... Each one was once a powerful weapon that shook the land, but now it was abandoned here like scrap metal.

What kind of fierce battle took place here?

Finally, they crossed a mountain ridge, and the central mountain, radiating blood-red light, appeared completely before them.

That's not a mountain at all!

It was a... sword!

A broken sword of unimaginable size!
The sword tip plunged diagonally into the earth, its exposed blade towering thousands of feet high, reaching straight into the clouds. The soaring crimson light emanated from the broken sword itself.

Around the broken sword, several figures were gathered!
The figures were varied in form. There were humanoid creatures clad in heavy black armor, revealing only a pair of scarlet eyes; there were enormous monsters, like mountains of flesh, covered in tentacles and eyeballs; and there was even a giant stitched together from countless corpses, wielding a bone blade!
They all seemed to have been drawn here by the strange movement of the broken sword; they were… “scavengers” from the Boundary Sea!
At this moment, they are facing each other, their eyes filled with greed and vigilance.

"Hehehe... The 'Demonic Tide' of the 'Blade of Godslayer' only occurs once every ten thousand years, and today we've actually stumbled upon it!" The humanoid creature in heavy black armor let out a harsh laugh that sounded like metal scraping against metal. "Whoever can absorb this demonic energy will surely see their cultivation level soar!"

"Black Armor, enough nonsense! This kind of opportunity is for everyone who sees it! Anyone who dares to hoard it is an enemy of me, 'Ten Thousand Eyes'!" The mountain-like monster had tens of thousands of eyes on its body rotating at the same time, emitting a buzzing sound that made people's scalps tingle.

“Killing…eating…are…all…mine…” the stitched giant roared intermittently, filled with savage fury.

Clearly, a major battle is about to break out!
Xu Ran and his two companions quietly hid behind a boulder, concealing all their presence.

"The Blade of Godslayer? The Tide of Malevolent Aura?" Xu Ran murmured these two words to himself, his eyes gleaming.

He could sense that the broken sword was emitting the very energy he desperately needed—energy containing advanced laws! Although it was violent, with his Cycle of Reincarnation, he might be able to refine it!
"My lord, those guys... their auras are incredibly strong!" Cang Shi transmitted his voice, his tone grave. "Even the weakest of them are probably at least at the fifth level of the Dao Lord realm! We are now..."

Xu Ran nodded slightly, signaling him to calm down.

The mantis catches the cicada, and the oriole is behind.

Xu Ran was like the oriole waiting to pounce, but his condition was far too miserable. Compared to the three scavengers from the Boundary Sea whose auras were as deep as the Prison Sea, he was weaker than a level even compared to himself before entering the furnace core.

He concealed his aura to the extreme, and the broken Samsara Dao Domain transformed into a thin layer of gray light film, merging with the surrounding boundary sea mist, like a reef, without a ripple. Zhenshan and Cangshi were protected behind him, their breaths seemingly stopped.

"My lord, these three wanderers of the Boundary Sea possess unfathomable strength." Cang Shi's divine sense trembled slightly. "The black-armored humanoid's murderous aura was condensed and unyielding, likely a powerful cultivator specializing in the Great Dao of Slaughter, already at the sixth level of the Dao Lord realm. The ten-thousand-eyed mountain of flesh possessed a strange divine sense; every time its eyeballs moved, it resonated with the fragmented laws of this place, suggesting its realm was even higher. As for the stitched-together giant... seemingly foolish, its physical strength has probably surpassed the Dao Lord realm, reaching some inconceivable level!"

Cang Shi's judgment was almost identical to Xu Ran's perception. This was the cruelty of the Boundary Sea; those who could survive here were all ruthless characters who had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Any carelessness would result in the complete annihilation of one's soul and spirit, leaving no chance even to become drifting remains.

“It’s alright.” Xu Ran’s mind was unusually calm, without the slightest fear, only the calmness of a hunter. “The stronger they are, the more intense the battle will be. Our chance lies not in their carelessness, but in that broken sword itself.”

His gaze pierced through the layers of malevolent aura, locking onto the massive broken sword known as the "Godslayer Blade".

The crimson pillar of light that shot into the sky appeared to be a pure outpouring of energy, but in Xu Ran's eyes of the Cycle of Reincarnation, it presented a completely different scene. It was composed of countless indomitable battle spirits, undying killing intent, and a shattered yet still supreme principle above all heavens... the "Original Dao of War"!

This power is violent, chaotic, and filled with a desire to destroy everything. For ordinary cultivators, let alone absorbing it, simply getting close to it will cause their minds to be assimilated, turning them into madmen who only know how to kill.

But for Xu Ran, it's different!
He had just shattered the "alchemy furnace" of Heavenly Principle, and his soul and Dao foundation were now marked with the imprint of resistance against "order." He himself was an "anomaly" rejected by the order of Heavenly Principle. And the core essence of the power before him was precisely the opposite of the supreme "order" of Heavenly Principle... "reversal"!
As a fellow rebel against order, perhaps he could harness this power! More importantly, ordinary spiritual energy and fragments of Dao principles are insufficient to repair his shattered foundation. Only this energy, containing the supreme origin, could possibly rebuild his crumbling foundation!
This is both a life-or-death situation and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

"Get ready." Xu Ran transmitted his divine sense to the two of them. "When the tide of malevolent energy reaches its peak, the three of them will definitely fight fiercely for the purest 'source of malevolent energy.' That will be the time for us to act!"

Zhenshan and Cangshi exchanged a glance, both seeing the resolve in each other's eyes. Their lives were already bound to Xu Ran's; Xu Ran's will was their direction!
……

Time seemed to lose its meaning on this desolate ancient battlefield.

After an unknown amount of time, the blood-red light on that "Godslayer Blade" suddenly intensified a hundredfold!
Om-! ! !
A buzzing sound, seemingly capable of shattering the very soul, resounded throughout heaven and earth!

A blood-red shockwave, visible to the naked eye, spread out from the broken sword! Wherever the shockwave passed, space collapsed in large sections, revealing dark void cracks. The broken divine weapons stuck in the ground were reduced to dust like rotten wood under this impact!
The tide of malevolent energy... has erupted!

"Now!" The black-armored knight roared, his cloak suddenly bursting open, transforming into a black curtain that blotted out the sky, within which seemed to roar countless demons. He charged like a black lightning bolt, the first to reach the base of the broken sword! There, the most concentrated source of the malevolent energy lay!

"Don't even think about taking it all for yourself!" At the same time, the tens of thousands of eyes of the Mountain of Ten Thousand Eyes shot out ghastly green beams of light! These beams were not energy attacks, but an extremely vicious curse. They intertwined into a net that ignored spatial distance and directly enveloped the black-armored knight's soul!
"Mine...mine!" The stitched-together giant took heavy steps, each step causing the fragment of the continent to tremble violently. Its gigantic hand, composed of countless skeletal arms, suddenly snapped shut, pulling out a massive battle axe made of bones and resentment from the void, and slashed it down at the two of them!

Rumble!
The war broke out in an instant!
The black-armored knight's demonic arts of slaughter, the cursed divine thought of the ten-thousand-eyed flesh mountain, and the savage strength of the stitched giant—three completely different peak Dao Lord powers—collided fiercely.

In an instant, the sky collapsed and the earth cracked, and ghosts and gods howled!
That area was completely transformed into a chaotic sea of ​​laws. Shattered sword light, twisted curse runes, and pure destructive power intertwined, forming a forbidden zone for life. Any being below the Dao Lord level would be instantly torn to shreds if it approached.

The three fought with real intensity. They all understood that whoever could absorb the first and purest "source of evil energy" would gain an absolute advantage in the ensuing struggle, and might even have the opportunity to glimpse a higher realm!
Streaks of blood-red malevolent energy, like a school of startled fish, scattered and fled in all directions, jolted by the aftershocks of their battle.

As the three fought fiercely, they each unleashed their supernatural powers, frantically devouring the dissipated malevolent energy like whales sucking in water.

However, none of them noticed.

At the edge of that raging battlefield, a barely perceptible gray shadow, like a ghost clinging to the earth, moved at an incredible speed, skimming the ground and moving against the torrent of malevolent energy, towards the heart of the battle—the enormous broken sword… without disturbing the slightest energy fluctuation!

It was Xu Ran!

He didn't try to seize the scattered, relatively thin baleful energy. His goal, from the very beginning, had only one thing in mind—the source of the baleful energy, the very body of the God-Slaying Blade!

He was now using the Reincarnation Domain to its fullest extent. It was no longer a defensive shield, but a medium for "assimilation." Xu Ran merged his divine soul and will with the desolation, deathly silence, and indomitable fighting spirit of this ancient battlefield into one.

At this moment, he no longer seemed to be an outsider, but rather a remnant soul that had been asleep for countless eons and had just awakened on this land.

He fooled the raging evil energy, the chaotic laws, and even the three Dao Lord peak experts who were engaged in fierce battle!
As he drew closer to the broken sword, the terrifying pressure that threatened to tear his soul apart grew stronger. Xu Ran felt as if he were carrying the resentment of gods and demons from an entire era. With each step, his very soul trembled violently, and the cracks in his Dao foundation seemed to be widening.

But he didn't stop!

His eyes were as resolute as ancient iron!

Fortune favors the bold! Nothing ventured, nothing gained!
Finally, just before his soul was about to collapse, his fingertips gently touched the cold, rough blade of the broken sword, which was covered with countless knife marks and piercings!
Buzz—! ! ! !

The instant they made contact, Xu Ran's mind felt as if it had been struck by a million thunderbolts at once!

His consciousness was instantly pulled into an ancient and incomparably ancient memory fragment by an irresistible force!

It was a primordial chaos, darker and more void than the Boundary Sea.

There is no time, no space, no matter, only... "reason".

Absolute, cold, and supreme "reason".

It is expanding, it is evolving, it wants to define all "nothingness" as "somethingness", and bring all "chaos" into "order".

It was the prototype of "Heavenly Principles"!

However, in this primordial chaos, there is not only "reason".

And... "one".

That "one" is indescribable. It might be a ray of light, a sigh, or perhaps just a thought that refuses to be defined by "reason".

"Reason" establishes rules, while "One" pursues infinite possibilities.

"Reason" seeks to establish order, while "One" yearns for absolute freedom.

Contradictions are destined from the very beginning.

Finally, just as the iron hooves of the order of Heaven were about to trample over the entire primordial chaos and completely format it, that "one" launched a rebellion!
Xu Ran "saw" it.

He saw a colossal figure, beyond description, rise from the chaos. That figure had no fixed form; sometimes he was a colossus wielding a giant axe, sometimes an unparalleled immortal emperor commanding all paths, sometimes a mechanical god wielding infinite algorithms… He seemed to be the embodiment of all “disobedient” wills!

And in his hand, he held this very weapon... the Godslayer Blade!
(End of this chapter)