Since the many Ancient Great Saints co-founded the Heaven in the primordial era, the throne of the Great Celestial Emperor had been taken over by an unknown number of almighty experts. But, no matter who was the Great Celestial Emperor, the Heaven remained the same. Shrouded in purple mists and golden light throughout the year, it was majestic, resplendent, and magnificent. Cranes and dragons were always wheeling in the sky, and countless Gold Immortals and dignitaries were flying back and forth on clouds everywhere. It was an exceptional scene that was indescribable in the language of mortals.
What lay beyond the thirty-three suns-and-moons lit Great Halls of the Heaven was what were commonly known as the Nine Heavens. If truth be told, they were actually the interstitial worlds of nine Ancient Great Saints. But now, they had become nine blessed heavenly realms after countless years of expansion and development.
The Nine Heavens were divided into Center Heaven, Distortion Heaven, Following Heaven, Change Heaven, Purity Heaven, Diminishing Heaven, Sinking Heaven, and Completion Heaven[1]. Only almighty experts were allowed to build their own cave abodes in the Nine Heavens. Normally, immortals from the Heaven were not allowed to enter the Nine Heavens, and those who lived in the Nine Heavens rarely came out of there as well.
The Nine Heavens corresponded to precisely the nine tiers of Primordial Immortals. A ninth-tier Primordial Immortal, who had just stepped into the realm of Primordial Immortals, naturally lived in the Center Heaven, the lowest level of the Nine Heavens. When he or she became an eighth-tier Primordial Immortal, he would be able to move one level up to the Distortion Heaven. Based on this, it wasn't tough to tell that those almighty experts who had stepped into the realm of first-tier Primordial Immortals and possessed the power to create and destroy everything were residing in the Completion Heaven, the highest level of the Nine Heavens.
The Nine Heavens were vast worlds, and they contained many mysteries that ordinary people could not understand unless they lived there.
Today, somewhere in the Center Heaven floated dozens of great mountains amidst a vast sea of purple clouds, dotted with numerous palaces and pavilions, all magnificently and luxuriously built. The building materials were extremely precious treasures, all of which were so valuable that common Heaven Immortals and lower-tier Gold Immortals would fight over them with their lives. But here, there were only the most common building materials.
At least a hundred palaces stood across the mountains, a stream of purple air rising into the sky above each of them. This meant that there was a Gold Immortal in every palace. Innumerable medicinal gardens and flower nurseries could be found between these palaces and pavilions; the gardeners, servants, and others who worked within all possessed the cultivation base of Heaven Immortal realm.
A green mountain was suspended thousands of miles above these mountains. It was no more than a hundred miles high, and its bottom was about three to four hundred miles in circumference. It looked like a delicate brush-holder carved by an expert craftsman. Just looking at it from a distance could make people feel an infinite admiration.
Some finely built wooden and bamboo huts decorated the mountain, well-spaced from each other. However, at the top of the mountain loomed a tall jade platform that stood 3,600 feet tall, and about a thousand feet in circumference. It looked like a massive writing brush poking into the sky.
On top of the platform was an ancient-looking palace. Nearly a thousand beautiful female immortals were waiting in lines in the square outside the palace, all dressed gorgeously. But, they looked as though they were carved out of jade stone, as none of them moved, spoke, or even breathed. Everyone was holding their breaths, daring not to show any weariness or carelessness.
The interior of the palace was extremely spacious, stretching almost a hundred miles in circumference. On the ceiling of the great hall was a star map, where the sun, moon, and stars were orbiting in accordance with the real ones out there. Below, on the floor was a scene with mountains and rivers hiding in it. Everything in the hall made it look magical and grand.
A cloud dais was placed at the far end of the hall, on top of which sat a middle-aged man clad in a blue robe. At the moment, he was staring blankly at the desk in front of him with a mirthless smile, which made him look rather strange. A set of writing brushes, a few pieces of paper, and an ink stick were placed on the desk made of white jade. The paper on top was painted with calligraphy, the ink still being wet. The calligraphy had a touch of ambition and heaviness, with a faint purple mist exuding out of it.
Strangely enough, an inkstone was missing from the four precious articles of the scholar that were placed on the desk. A few drops of ink were left on the desk, rolling lightly across the smooth, unmarked surface as if they were alive.
"How interesting!" The middle-aged man smiled, then conveniently placed the writing brush on the holder. With a gentle wave of his hand, the desk was gone. Sitting cross-legged on the cloud dais with his back comfortably leaning against the soft cushion, he lifted his head to look at Patriarch Yuan Hua, who was kneeling in the center of the hall. "I've not seen you for so many years... How did you suddenly cultivate the technique of Fiend League?"
Patriarch Yuan Hua stared dumbly at the middle-aged man, the blood-red gleam in his eyes flickering. Suddenly he struggled to his feet and kowtowed to the man. "This Junior offers greetings, Mighty Senior! This Junior is suffering pain. Please help this Junior!"
The man laughed. He turned to some thirty immortals standing in the hall, all clad in Daoist robes, and said, "Look at him... Didn't I tell you that I've found you a junior brother in some outer heavenly realm? Initially, it was said that I would take him as my disciple when he reached the realm of Gold Immortals... What he cultivated in those days was a serious cultivation technique of Dao League. But after so many years, he actually deviated into the Fiend League!"
Shaking his head and sighing, the man said, "Not only have you deviated into the Fiend Dao, you were also severely beaten by someone? Tsk, that wound between your legs looks somewhat bizarre! It has wounded both your fleshly body and your soul! That's a really weird technique!"
Patriarch Yuan Hua burst into a flood of tears as he kept kowtowing and begging, "Please help this Junior! A few shameless juniors had plotted a scheme against this Junior!"
The middle-aged man curled his upper lip in a show of skepticism and said, "Juniors? Not necessarily! When I rescued you, someone actually followed the trace of my hand and stole my favorite purple inkstone..."
With a self-mocking wry smile, the man said in a low voice, "Well, it's not appropriate for me, Lord Le, to pursue this matter further. As a mighty Primordial Immortal, I've actually let some juniors from the lower realm steal my thing in front of me. If this gets out, I'll never have the face to see others again!"
An old man slowly stepped out of the ranks. "Master, why don't you let us handle this?" He bowed and said.
Lord Le waved his hand and said indifferently, "Let you handle this? With the chaotic situation out there, are you really so eager to attract some troubles? Someone is planning a big game of chess... With only me, you and your fellow disciples, we only number slightly over a hundred men. We are not strong enough to get involved in that. It's always better to be just onlookers, and only take our share of the loots once the dust is settled. If we get involved, it could be a catastrophe!"
The muscles on his face twitched a few times before he said with a dark face and an even darker voice, "You haven't experienced it, so you don't know... In every catastrophe in the past, many almighty Primordial Immortals had fallen, and many Great Emperors of the Heaven had their entire clans wiped out! It is a horror that none of you can ever imagine."
With a sigh, Lord Le looked up at the ceiling and muttered, "Your Ancestral-Master, my Master, was one of the most famous men in Sinking Heaven, and one of the five Celestial Emperors of Five Directions who held the four immortal armies of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. But, in the last catastrophe, even though the five Celestial Emperors and the Great Celestial Emperor had joined forces, they all died in the end."
While frowning, he shook his head and said, "I had 1,897 fellow disciples at that time, all of whom were famous Gold Immortals. My eldest and second Senior Brothers also had the same cultivation base as me at present. And yet, when the catastrophe arrived, it only took a thousand years for not only my Master, but all my fellow disciples to die!"
He took a deep breath. "I think I'd better let Yuan Hua help me get my purple inkstone back!"
Without waiting for his disciples to speak, Lord Le pointed a finger at Patriarch Yuan Hua. Immediately, the blood-red flag that wrapped the latter flew up into the air and landed in his hand. As he gently stroked the flag with his hand, Lord Le's expression suddenly changed. "What a ferocious innate spirit item! But too bad... Who the hell damaged it like this? What a pity!"
Staring at Patriarch Yuan Hua, Lord Le cried out in a deep voice, "Yuan Hua, or should I call you Lord Blood Ocean... Well, since Yuan Hua's soul has merged with Lord Blood Ocean's remaining soul, both of you are actually one person now. I'm too lazy to be bothered by such a small detail. Whether you are Yuan Hua, Lord Blood Ocean, or the ancient celestial fiend Lixue Zi, you are my disciple now!"
Patriarch Yuan Hua was struck with wild joy. He quickly scrambled forward, repeatedly kowtowing as he said, "This disciple offers greetings, Master! Please help this disciple!"
Lord Le squinted up at the ceiling, lost in thought. At last, he nodded slowly and said with a smile, "I may help you... but, you're on your own most of the time! I can tell that although this flag has been seriously damaged, it can be restored to its original condition by providing enough blood essence."
Patriarch Yuan Hua kept bobbing his head as he said, "Master has a remarkable ability to judge. It's exactly as you said!"
Lord Le burst into laughter, then waved his hand and sent the flag back to Patriarch Yuan Hua. Then, he said, "There's just a chance for you to fix this flag. The war has left Pangu Continent with corpses all over the place. It's a harbinger of something big coming up, and a lot of people are fishing in the troubled waters now! You only need to go there and do whatever you like. If there is an opportunity, you will naturally get the benefits!"
Patriarch Yuan Hua was stunned. "What about... What about Wu Qi?" he asked while trembling.
While frowning, Lord Le performed divination with his fingers; however, his expression suddenly changed after a quarter of an hour.
"Eh?"
Lord Le exclaimed, "Given my cultivation base, why can't I figure out the fate of this guy? Even though some almighty experts have worked together to distract the Heaven Secrets, it's only for... If you're right, that Wu Qi was just a little Nascent Soul cultivator a few years ago, so it's certainly not because of him that those almighty experts distracted the Heaven Secrets... But, why can't I figure out his fate with divination?"
With his fingers drumming on his lap, Lord Le smiled and said, "Interesting... Could he already be targeted by others?"
Waving his hand, Lord Le said in a deep voice, "Yuan Hua, as you merely possess the cultivation base of a Heaven Immortal, I actually made an exception to take you as my disciple. When you get to Pangu Continent, you just do whatever you want. We'll figure something out later about that Wu Qi!"
He laughed strangely, then looking thoughtfully at the ever-changing maps of mountains and rivers on the floor as he said, "I'm certain he'll visit Pangu Continent too. Maybe, you'll meet him soon!"
After that, he waved and threw out a dozen or so Gold Immortal items, all gleaming with a pale golden-purple light.
Lord Le told Patriarch Yuan Hua to refine all the Gold Immortal items, then tore open the void with a wave of his hand and sent the latter straight to Pangu Continent.