I Have the Martial Arts Heavenly Eye in the Storm Riders

Boom!!

The moment the shell closed with the body, the entire island seemed to sink slightly under some ancient weight.

Jiang Chen stood to the side, quietly watching this scene.

A huge old tortoise lay on the beach, its body almost taking up half of the island.

But in the next instant, the huge turtle's body began to shrink rapidly.

The mountain-like tortoise shell kept getting smaller.

Its limbs, as thick as ancient trees, gradually retracted.

In just a few breaths, the giant old tortoise transformed back into the thin, short old man it had been before.

This time, however, he had a small tortoise shell on his back.

The tortoise shell fits perfectly against my back.

The old man hunched his neck, carried his shell on his back, squinted his small round eyes, slowly patted his chest, and shook his shoulders.

"That feels good."

"It's still more reassuring to have a shell."

Jiang Chen looked at him with an increasingly strange expression.

Now, he truly is Master Roshi.

Master Roshi stretched his shoulders a few times while carrying his shell, and he seemed much more at ease.

He sat back down on the sand, placed his hands on his knees, and squinted at the distant sea.

The lazy expression from before was still on his face.

But when he looked up at Jiang Chen again and remembered what he had just promised, a trace of something from a long, long time ago appeared in his cloudy little round eyes.

"You just asked why the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths were blocked."

Master Roshi spoke slowly.

"Then we need to first talk about what this world was like before."

Jiang Chen did not interrupt.

Master Roshi raised a withered finger, pointed to the isolated island beneath his feet, and then to the vast ocean in the distance.

"This little bit of land now was not even a grain of sand in the primordial world back then."

Jiang Chen's gaze narrowed slightly.

"The primordial era?"

Master Roshi glanced at him.

"good."

"The original name of this world was 'Primordial Era'."

As those two words were spoken, even the sea breeze seemed to slow down.

Master Roshi spoke very slowly.

It's as if I haven't seriously recalled these things for many years, so much so that every time I utter a sentence, I have to dig it out little by little from the depths of time.

"The primordial world back then was so vast that you can't even imagine it now."

"The sky is not the same sky it is today."

"The land is not the same land it is today."

"The primordial land stretches across the starry sky, where all races rise together, and immortals, Buddhas, demons, and monsters coexist."

"Above is the Heavenly Court, which governs all the stars and constellations."

"Below lies the underworld, which governs reincarnation and life and death."

"The earth is vast and boundless, and there are gods in mountains, rivers, lakes and seas. Even a mountain or a river may be sleeping with an ancient existence that is capable of earth-shattering changes."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Chen finally spoke.

"Where is the saint?"

Master Roshi shrank his neck.

When he mentioned those two words, a hint of reverence was clearly visible on his face.

"have."

"The sage is immortal and dwells at the ends of heaven and earth."

"With a single word from them, they can rewrite the laws of heaven and earth."

"And above the sages, there is that being who truly accords with the Dao."

Jiang Chen slowly uttered a name.

"Grandmaster Hongjun?"

Master Roshi suddenly turned his head to look at him.

For the first time, a look of near horror appeared in those small, round eyes.

"You really do know a lot."

Jiang Chen didn't explain, he simply said calmly:

"I know some of the legends."

"But legends and the truth are not necessarily the same."

Master Roshi stared at him for a moment before letting out two hums.

That's true.

"If even one out of ten sentences passed down to posterity is not wrong, then we should consider it a blessing from heaven."

Jiang Chen asked:

"Why did such a powerful primordial world become like this?"

Master Roshi fell silent.

This time, he remained silent for a long time.

Long afterward, the waves crashed against the rocks in the distance before receding back into the sea.

After a long while, he said in a low voice:

"Because something came from outer space."

Jiang Chen's eyes flickered slightly.

"People from outer space?"

"It wasn't just one person."

Master Roshi shook his head.

"They're not even the same race."

"They are a race."

"They come from beyond the primordial wilderness, from even further beyond the nine heavens and ten earths."

"They do not cultivate immortality, do not enter Buddhism, do not respect the Heavenly Court, do not fear the Underworld, and do not recognize the Primordial Heavenly Dao."

"They call themselves—gods."

When the word came out of Master Roshi's mouth, there was not a trace of solemnity about it.

Instead, it exudes an indescribable chill.

Jiang Chen frowned slightly.

"The Protoss?"

"You can call it that."

Master Roshi:

"But they are not a unified whole internally either."

"Some are born as large as stars, some have wings of light on their backs, and some are formless and intangible, residing only in the thoughts of all living beings."

"Some take the world as their nest, some feed on the beliefs of all living beings, and some simply devour the laws of heaven and earth to strengthen themselves."

"They fight among themselves, but they have unusually joined forces in invading the prehistoric world."

Jiang Chen's gaze darkened slightly upon hearing this.

Why did they invade the primordial world?

Master Roshi twitched the corner of his mouth.

"What else could it be?"

"The primordial world is too vast."

"The spiritual energy is too abundant."

"The Way of Heaven is too complete."

"Saints, immortals, Buddhas, all races, reincarnation, the Heavenly Court, the mortal realm... in their eyes, all of these are supreme resources that can be divided, refined, and devoured."

Jiang Chen remained silent.

Master Roshi continued:

"About ten thousand years ago."

"The primordial sky curtain was torn open from the outside by them."

"When the first gods arrived, no one knew what that meant."

"The Heavenly Court dispatched troops to suppress it."

"The underworld blocks reincarnation."

"Buddhism, Taoism, demons, humans, and the remnants of the witch clan—all those still capable of fighting—were drawn into it."

"But that was no ordinary battle."

At this point, Master Roshi's lazy expression completely disappeared.

He seemed to see again that world engulfed in blood and fire.

That's the end of the world.

"The stars of Heaven fell one by one."

"The Yellow Springs of the Underworld have been interrupted."

"The Wheel of Reincarnation shattered, and countless souls wailed between heaven and earth."

"The Buddha's golden body shattered, and the Taoist immortal mountain sank."

"The primordial land was shattered into pieces, and many landmasses that were once larger than the entire Divine Continent were reduced to ashes in the blink of an eye."

Jiang Chen's gaze sharpened slightly.

"The sage didn't intervene?"

Master Roshi gave a wry smile.

"How could there not be?"

"The sage has made his move."

"Grandmaster Hongjun has also made a move."

Jiang Chen felt a slight tremor in his heart.

Master Roshi's voice grew even deeper.

"But there are too many gods from outer space."

"They are neither saints nor celestial beings."

"They are a whole galaxy of gods from beyond the heavens."

"Even the most primitive can win in certain areas."

"Capable of wiping out an entire clan."

"Capable of destroying a god."

"We can even drive them back time and time again."

"But even if some die, there will be another batch."

"One divine kingdom was shattered, and another divine kingdom is pressing down."

"That wasn't a duel to see who was stronger."

"That was a hunt that exhausted the entire primordial world."

Jiang Chen suddenly asked:

"They lost in the end?"

Master Roshi did not answer immediately.

He looked down at the sand, and after a long while, he nodded slightly.

"We lost."

These two words are light, yet they seem to weigh down an entire era.

"In the end, the Primordial Era was defeated."

"The saints have fallen, and the saints have disappeared."

"Ancestor Hongjun disappeared together with the Primordial Heavenly Dao in the final battle."

"I don't know what exactly happened in the end of that battle."

"All I remember is that after that day, the heavens of the primordial world shattered."

Jiang Chen's voice deepened.

"The Nine Heavens and Ten Earths lockdown, that's when it started?"

Master Roshi nodded.

"almost."

"After the extraterrestrial gods won, they did not completely destroy the primordial world."

"They want to refine it."

"Refine the Heavenly Dao".

"Refine the cycle of reincarnation."

"Refine mountains, rivers, and stars."

"Refine everything that can still be used as provisions."

"Thus, the primordial chaos that originally stretched across the starry sky was gradually compressed, extracted, and smelted by them."

Master Roshi looked up at this small world, his eyes filled with an indescribable mix of mockery and sorrow.

"In the end, it became the world you see now."

"A small, remaining world."

"But this remnant of the world was not left behind naturally."

Jiang Chen's gaze shifted slightly.

"What do you mean?"

Master Roshi:

"After the primordial entity was refined, the gods from beyond the heavens each took what they wanted."

"But in the remaining nine heavens and ten earths, there are still some things they were unable to completely consume."

"So one of the gods stayed behind."

"It personally sealed off the remaining Nine Heavens and Ten Earths."

"And it was from that moment that a new Heavenly Dao emerged."

Jiang Chen's expression finally changed.

"A new Heavenly Way?"

Master Roshi nodded.

"The original primordial Heavenly Dao was shattered in the final battle."

"The Heavenly Dao that governs this world today is not the ancient Heaven of the Primordial Era."

"Instead, it was a new set of rules for heaven and earth established by that god after sealing off this realm."

"From then on, the immortal energy ceased."

"The path to immortality has collapsed."

"The Heavenly Court is gone, and the Underworld no longer exists."

"Sages do not appear, and gods are nowhere to be found."

"True immortals can no longer be cultivated in the mortal realm."

"The only option is to cultivate martial arts."

Jiang Chen remained silent for a moment.

Many previously scattered doubts finally came together in this instant.

No wonder there is still a Heavenly Way in this world.

No wonder martial arts have been able to gradually rise to a level almost like that of gods and demons.

Yet the true immortals and Buddhas never returned.

It turns out that neither immortals nor Buddhas ever existed.

Rather, the path to immortality had already been deliberately cut off.

Master Roshi grinned, revealing a somewhat awkward smile.

"Later generations only thought that the legend was a legend."

"But little did they know that those legends were once true."

"They were unaware that the world beneath their feet was no longer the complete primordial wilderness."

"It is a sealed-off, ruined world."

"The god that sealed it off, preventing the remnants inside from getting out."

"And we won't let any external variables in."

At this point, Master Roshi suddenly looked at Jiang Chen.

"That's why I said you couldn't possibly be from outer space."

"If the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths blockade remains in place, people from outside cannot get in."

"If the blockade has already been broken..."

His voice suddenly lowered.

Jiang Chen finished speaking for him.

"Those extraterrestrial gods should have returned long ago."

Master Roshi did not deny it.

The sea breeze blew between the two of them.

At this moment, although the sunlight on the island was still blazing, there was an inexplicable chill in the air.