Start from a baby to become a Taoist

Chapter 574, Section 583: Ushering in an Era of Peace for Future Generations
Chapter 585

That "truth" cannot be faked.

What defeated them was not Xu Ran, but the ridiculous lie they had clung to for countless years.

Tu Feng stared blankly at the scene before him, feeling as if his understanding was being overturned and reshaped time and time again.

In the blink of an eye, it vanished into thin air.

No, this is even more shocking than being reduced to ashes.

This is... a psychological attack!
With the cruelest truth, they annihilated the "Dao" of these terrifying, immortal beings who had lived for nine eras!
In the end, all the tomb keepers disappeared.

Only one person remains.

Its body was covered in cracks, as if it might collapse at any moment. But the bronze lamp in its hand still burned stubbornly.

It slowly bowed its body, made of chaotic rock, toward Xu Ran, performing an ancient and complex ritual.

"Thank you... for the relief..."

His hoarse voice carried a hint of relief.

"We... have been guarding an empty grave for far too long..."

"Now, finally... I can... rest in peace..."

As soon as he finished speaking, the bronze lamp in his hand flickered and went out completely.

Its body also turned into dust and vanished without a trace.

There are no more obstacles in front of us.

All that remained was that absolutely "blank" area, shrouded in a dense, impenetrable fog of chaos.

That is the heart of the ancient ruins.

Xu Ran's eyes finally showed a genuine, intense fluctuation.

It was a complex emotion of feeling apprehensive about returning home.

There was anticipation, confusion, nostalgia, and a hint of... barely perceptible fear.

A shattered image uncontrollably surfaced in his mind.

It was a collapsing world; the sky was blood red, and the earth was wailing.

A blurry figure of a girl in a white dress stood at the edge of the world, smiling and waving at him.

Her lips seemed to be saying...

"Come back quickly..."

The picture stopped abruptly.

Xu Ran's breath hitched slightly.

He slowly raised his foot and stepped out toward that absolute emptiness, that "gap" that devoured all laws and causality.

"senior!"

Tu Feng instinctively exclaimed in surprise.

However, it's too late.

The moment Xu Ran stepped into that blank area, he vanished without a trace, like a drop of water falling into the ocean.

It caused no ripples whatsoever, as if he had never existed.

The Sky Boat floats silently in the chaotic mist.

On the boat, only Tu Feng remained, staring blankly at the empty "gap," unable to recover for a long time.

Time loses its meaning here.

Tu Feng didn't know how long he had been standing there; it could have been a moment, or it could have been a century. His soul was still trembling from the extreme contrast between the devastation and the return to silence, unable to calm down.

What kind of existence is that?
In the blink of an eye, the Dao hearts of thousands of immortal-level tomb guardians collapsed, causing them to spontaneously dissolve into Dao.

Words become law, reality is reshaped, and chaos is treated as a toy in the palm of one's hand.

Tu Feng prided himself on being a top expert in the Tianxuan Star Region, with his immortal name resounding throughout the ages. However, in front of Xu Ran, he felt as insignificant as a speck of dust on the roadside, not even qualified to look up to him.

“Senior…” he murmured to himself, his voice hoarse.

He wanted to turn around and steer the airship away, but his feet seemed to be nailed to the deck, unable to move.

If we leave, where can we go?

Having witnessed a glimpse of the "truth" of the universe, everything he had pursued in the past—power, strength, and immortality—seemed so laughable and pale. The three thousand great paths and myriad laws were nothing more than child's scribbles before that senior, easily wiped away with a single stroke.

His path has become chaotic.

Just as Tu Feng's mind was in turmoil, his Dao heart unstable, and he was about to fall into confusion, a faint thought, like a lighthouse in the chaos, gently illuminated his sea of ​​consciousness.

That thought, without sound or form, carried an undeniable calmness and majesty.

"Wait."

Only one word.

Yet it seemed to contain some kind of ancient, suppressing power, instantly calming Tu Feng's chaotic emotions and stabilizing his collapsing Dao heart.

Tu Feng shuddered, his eyes flashing with the gleam of someone who had survived a calamity.

It is the will left by our predecessors!

He was not abandoned!

The senior told him to wait here for his return!
In an instant, all the confusion, fear, and unease in Tu Feng's heart were dispelled. In their place was unparalleled excitement and...honor!
To be able to follow such an unfathomable being and witness his deeds is itself an unparalleled blessing that surpasses all opportunities in the heavens and earth!

Tu Feng bowed deeply to the "gap" with utmost respect, then sat down cross-legged, calming his mind and becoming like a statue, beginning a long and unknown wait.

……

the other side.

The moment Xu Ran stepped into that "blank" area, everything he was familiar with was stripped away in an instant.

Senses, soul, laws, the Great Dao...

All the concepts that constitute "existence" in his understanding are dissolved, decomposed, and reduced to the most primitive "nothingness" here.

Here, there is no up, down, four directions, no past, no future.

This place is the graveyard of time and space, the precipice of cause and effect.

Any immortal who steps into this place will instantly lose the "definition" of their own existence, and will then be assimilated by this "nothingness," completely returning to nothingness, leaving not even a trace.

However, Xu Ran was different.

His existence has long transcended the laws and causality of this universe.

When everything external is stripped away, his inner "truth" becomes even clearer.

His body transformed into countless shimmering points of light, each point resembling a universe in the process of creation and destruction. His consciousness, on the other hand, became a ceaselessly flowing river, connecting all the points of light and linking them into an incomprehensible, higher-dimensional whole.

He walks in this "nothingness," more like he is walking through the veins of his own body.

Gradually, some "impurities" appeared ahead.

Those were fragments of light and shadow, like shattered mirrors, scattered in every corner of "nothingness".

Xu Ran reached out and gently touched the largest fragment.

boom!
A desolate, grand, and tragic scene flooded his consciousness.

He beheld a boundless battlefield, where galaxies were reduced to dust and the universe to ruins. Towering figures, bathed in imperial blood, roared as they charged into an indescribable darkness. Their weapons were burning starfields; their armor was solidified laws.

"kill!"

"To usher in an era of peace for future generations!"

"Even if all eternity is lost, today we will fight to the bitter end!"

Each of those figures possessed power no less than, and perhaps even far surpassing, Tu Feng's. They were emperors of a certain era, rulers of a certain age, supreme beings who once suppressed an entire era and ruled over all ages!
Chapter 586

However, faced with that profound darkness, they were like moths drawn to a flame.

In the darkness, an indescribable giant claw reached out and gently grasped, and the figures of several emperors, along with their burning star fields, vanished like bubbles.

There were no screams, no struggles, only deathly silence.

That's the end of the video.

Xu Ran withdrew his finger, his eyes remaining calm and still.

This is... a remnant of an era that perished here. He continued forward, touching more fragments.

He witnessed a brilliant civilization being wiped out in the blink of an eye, leaving only a silent lament.

He saw a colossal ancestral dragon that spanned the universe being nailed to the depths of chaos by a finger that descended from the sky, its blood staining eternity.

He saw a peerless fairy who, in order to protect the world behind her, burned everything she had, turning into a dazzling firework that illuminated the darkness and exhausted her last bit of life.

Each scene, each event, is a "truth" that has passed, been forgotten, and long buried by the river of time.

These are the last obsessions left behind by the pioneers who attempted to break into the core of this ancient ruin but ultimately failed.

They may have sought transcendence, or they may have sought the ultimate secret, but in the end, they all became a speck of dust in this "nothingness".

Xu Ran walked and looked around, his expression remaining calm throughout.

These earth-shattering scenes, enough to shatter the Dao heart of any cultivator, did not stir the slightest ripple in him.

Because the “death” he had seen was billions of times greater than this.

He walked through the graveyards of universes, witnessing the birth and end of world after world.

Finally, he crossed the area filled with "wreckage".

The "nothingness" ahead begins to change.

A faint breeze, carrying an aura of decay and death, began to blow.

There were some sounds mixed in with the wind.

That was... the sound of crying.

A girl's sobs, suppressed and desperate, as if she had been weeping for countless eons.

Finally, a crack appeared in Xu Ran's unchanging gaze.

He quickened his pace.

The darkness ahead began to fade.

A shattered world appeared before his eyes.

The sky was a solidified blood color, with huge, bottomless cracks like hideous scars covering the entire firmament.

The earth was scorched, cracked, and devoid of any life. The long-dried-up rivers resembled the earth's tears.

The entire world was permeated with an intense, almost impenetrable aura called "the end."

This is the collapsed world in his memory.

In the very center of the world, in that most broken and central region, stands an enormous, yet long-dead, ancient tree.

That tree, its height unknown, its branches gnarled and twisted like a dragon, had long since lost all vitality, leaving only its charred trunk, silently telling of its former glory and present desolation.

There was a figure under the tree.

A girl wearing a white dress.

With her back to Xu Ran, her petite figure appeared so lonely and insignificant in this vast and desolate world.

The sobs that had been suppressed for countless epochs came from her.

Xu Ran's body, which had been in a state of light, reformed into a human form.

His breathing stopped.

His heart, an organ whose function he had long forgotten, suddenly beat violently and uncontrollably at that moment.

He walked step by step toward that figure.

Each step seemed to be stepping on a point in time, causing subtle, bizarre changes to the surrounding scenery.

The earth trembled, and the sky wailed.

It seemed that the entire desolate world was filled with fear, or rather... excitement, because of his approach.

Finally, he walked up behind the girl.

He slowly reached out, wanting to touch her shoulder.

However, just as his fingertips were about to touch the white dress...

The girl's crying stopped abruptly.

She slowly turned around.

What kind of face is that?

Pale, without a trace of blood.

Beautiful, yet carrying a deep-seated sorrow.

What's most unsettling is her eyes.

Those were empty, lifeless eyes, like two bottomless ancient wells, reflecting no light whatsoever.

There were no tear stains on her face.

Because her tears had long since dried up.

She is not a living person.

It was merely a shell, sustained by endless obsession, unwilling to decay...

"You...you're back..."

She spoke, her voice hoarse and dry, like two pieces of rusty metal rubbing against each other; every word carried endless weariness and vicissitudes.

Xu Ran's outstretched hand froze in mid-air.

His lips moved, but no sound came out.

A thousand words were stuck in his throat, but in the end, they only turned into a barely audible sigh.

"I'm back, Yao."

He called out her name.

The girl named "Yao" seemed to have a faint glimmer of light in her empty eyes.

She slowly raised her hand, which was also terribly pale, even somewhat translucent.

She seemed to want to stroke Xu Ran's cheek, just like she had done countless times before.

"You...have finally...become...very...very strong..."

Her voice was intermittent.

"So strong... that it can... help me... kill... 'it'..."

"It?" Xu Ran's brows furrowed slightly.

"It...it...destroyed...our...home..."

Yao's hand froze in mid-air and began to tremble violently.

Her body began to become unstable, and cracks appeared on her white dress and on her pale skin.

An aura far more terrifying, more desperate, and dark than this desolate world emanated wildly from her body!

That aura carried extreme pollution and ominousness!

Xu Ran's pupils suddenly contracted!

He got it!

Yao did not truly die.

Her soul, her will, was corrupted and eroded by something terrifying beyond imagination!
The reason she maintains this form and waits here is not because of any obsession.

Rather, it was because she used her last bit of clarity to seal that terrifying being, along with herself, inside this body!
She is both the cage and the prisoner!

She waited for him to return, not for a reunion.

It's because...he wants to die!
"Quickly...do it..."

On Yao's face, a smile more painful than crying appeared, and black, oil-like "blood" began to seep from her empty eyes.

"Before I... completely become... its... puppet..."

"kill me!"

(End of this chapter)