socalfunplaces Chapter 4 The Post-Ancient Era
Chapter 4 The Post-Ancient Era
"We've already reached the post-primordial era?"
Yu Dao deduced the current time point through the information from those remaining spiritual imprints.
The Post-Ancient Era is a unique one. The last rays of the Ancient Era have faded, and the once glorious physiques have lost their luster amidst the dramatic changes in the laws of heaven and earth. The Ancient Sacred Body has become a useless body, the Innate Dao Embryo is nowhere to be found, and even the royal families that inherited their lineage from the Primordial Era have fallen into slumber. The primordial energy of heaven and earth is diminishing at a visible rate, as if some invisible force is draining the vitality from this universe.
The only emperor of the post-ancient era, the Azure Emperor, a lotus in the eternal blue sky, ruled the starry sky for tens of thousands of years before disappearing a thousand years ago.
The universe's vital energy was depleted and suppressed by the Great Dao Laws of the Azure Emperor. The remaining Saint-level and above cultivators were all left behind during the Azure Emperor's reign. Most of the cultivators of the past thousand years have only experienced a tragic fate.
This situation will only intensify until it reaches a freezing point. Ancient stars like the Big Dipper Burial Emperor Star, where the Azure Emperor attained enlightenment, will become so desolate that even a Dao-slaying king will be hard to find in the future. The world will be in extreme decline.
But Yu Dao, who witnessed the original work, knew that all this sorrow was giving birth to an unprecedented golden age!
He remembered every detail in the original story: thousands of years later, the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin would descend from the sky, bringing a group of young people from Earth down to the Big Dipper, thus ushering in a magnificent era!
"It seems that the history of the Myriad Realms Sea has not changed from the original story. The Desolate Heavenly Emperor eventually reached the End of the Road, defeated the Corpse Immortal Emperor who had fallen into darkness, and severed the Myriad Realms Sea with a single sword, creating a temporary perfect world..."
Yu Dao sighed softly, his voice echoing in the empty hall, carrying a sense of vicissitude that had traversed countless years.
The Desolate Heavenly Emperor he spoke of, that peerless being who rose step by step from the lower realms, stormed into the Immortal Realm, and quelled the dark turmoil, is now nowhere to be found. The threat from the other side of the Boundary Sea has been temporarily contained, the dark power of the Corpse Immortal Emperor has been suppressed, and the myriad realms have ushered in a long but fragile peace. But that peace was upheld by the Desolate Heavenly Emperor alone.
He dreamt for countless years, and in one sleep he slept through three eras: mythology, antiquity, and the primitive era.
The mythological era belonged to the ancient Celestial Venerables. Each of the nine Celestial Venerables created nine secrets, each representing the pinnacle of a particular field. Their brilliance illuminated an entire epoch, leaving behind countless legends for posterity to admire. In the Primordial Era, myriad races stood side by side, vying for supremacy. Ancient emperors ruled the galaxy with unparalleled power; the Divine Silkworm, the Qilin, the True Dragon… those glorious names still resonate in the Big Dipper Starfield. In the Desolate Era, the Great Emperors of Humanity rose to power. Void, Hengyu, Ruthless Man, Wushi… one after another, these exceptionally talented beings attained the Dao and became emperors, propelling humanity's glory to unprecedented heights.
But now, those eras have all become history.
"The environment of this world is far worse than that of the Immortal Realm."
Yu Dao shook his head, his gaze passing through the broken dome of the main hall to the hazy sky. The Nine Heavens and Ten Earths had been cleaved apart by the will of Heaven, and compared to the vast immortal realm nurtured by the surging longevity substances of the immortal kings, it was truly a world apart.
What is the Immortal Realm? It is the abode of true immortals, a world overflowing with longevity substances to the point of being almost tangible. There, an ordinary spiritual herb can grow for hundreds of thousands of years without decaying, and an ordinary bird can absorb the essence of the sun and moon and gain sentience. Immortal Kings and other beings govern their respective regions, their Dao principles merging with heaven and earth, thus enveloping the entire Immortal Realm under the protection of the Great Dao.
And what about this land?
"Especially in this post-ancient era, even the primordial energy of heaven and earth is thin. I'm afraid that many places in the universe have already entered the end of the Dharma era. Let alone becoming an immortal, even embarking on the path of cultivation is quite difficult."
Feeling the weight of time and the constant erosion of his power, Yu Dao sighed softly. He could clearly sense that the Great Dao Laws of this world were becoming obscure, thin, and intangible in an irreversible way. It was as if an invisible hand was erasing the once clear traces of the Dao, making it impossible for future generations to ever glimpse that supreme realm again.
In the final years of the Chaotic Era, as a promising candidate for immortality from the Heavenly Court, he also ventured to the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths to hone his skills. Although the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths had been severely damaged by the will of Heaven, and the substances for longevity had been almost entirely lost, the remnants of the previous era still remained. Among the mountains and rivers, one could occasionally find divine medicines left over from the ancient immortals; in ancient caves, fragments of immortal scriptures could still be found. Although the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was not as abundant as in the Immortal Realm, it was still sufficient to support a cultivator's journey to an extremely high realm.
It's completely different from what it is today.
"However, it is precisely in such extreme environments that true powerhouses are cultivated."
At this point, a hint of amazement flashed in Yu Dao's eyes. This was not an exaggeration, but a heartfelt sentiment.
Whether in the ancient Immortal Era or the Chaotic Era, the cultivation periods of those supreme beings and true immortals were all measured in hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. They had ample time to comprehend the Great Dao, sufficient resources to accumulate realm power, and enough lifespan to await opportunities. In such an environment, as long as one's aptitude wasn't too poor and one didn't perish prematurely, there was always hope of reaching an extremely high level.
However, in this universe in the Dharma-ending Age, every tens of thousands of years someone attains enlightenment, merges with the Heavenly Heart, and becomes comparable to the supreme being of the Chaotic Ancient Era.
This is simply unbelievable.
A lifespan of tens of thousands of years wouldn't even be enough for a long period of seclusion in the Immortal Ancient Era, yet the cultivators of this world must complete in such a short time what others take hundreds of thousands or even millions of years to achieve. With the primordial energy of heaven and earth scarce, they absorb the essence of the sun and moon with their physical bodies; with the laws of the Great Dao obscuring, they use their lives to comprehend the universe; lacking sufficient resources, they sustain themselves through battle, breaking through their limits in life-or-death struggles.
Such talent, honed in such harsh conditions, would make becoming an immortal quite easy if placed in the superior environment of the ancient world; in fact, the best among them might even be able to reach a higher realm.
In the original work, besides the Three Heavenly Emperors, there were also the God Emperor who had undergone ten transformations that shocked the ages, and the Tribulation-Crossing Heavenly Venerable Cao Yusheng, who all reached realms unimaginable to cultivators of the Immortal Ancient and Chaotic Ancient eras. Their talent may not have far surpassed that of the Immortal King seedlings of the Immortal Ancient era, but their will, their resilience, and the potential they unleashed in desperate situations were far beyond what those cultivators who grew up in privileged environments could compare to.
"Each being who was destined to go far in the realm of immortality could only live for a short period of twenty or thirty thousand years in this world. They didn't even know if there were immortals in the world. In the end, they either met a tragic end or went mad. How tragic..."
Yu Dao's voice carried an indescribable, complex emotion.
He once stood at the pinnacle of humanity in the Immortal Realm, witnessed the splendor of true immortals, and personally perused the notes of immortal kings. He knew that the path of immortality was real, that immortality was not an illusion, and that in that supreme realm, an even more vast world awaited exploration.
But the cultivators in this world didn't know that.
They were born and raised here, and spent their lives searching for an elusive answer: Do immortals exist?
Those emperors who attained enlightenment were all exceptionally talented and unparalleled figures of their time. They swept across the heavens and earth, suppressing all enemies and ruling the starry sky with their supreme power. But when they stood at the end of their cultivation path, gazing up at the tightly closed gates of the immortal realm, what despair must have filled their hearts?
Yu Dao's gaze swept across billions of miles, revealing the seven forbidden zones of life in the Eastern Wilderness: Immortal Mausoleum, Divine Ruins, Burial Sky Island, and Undying Mountain...
Every restricted area carries a dark and unknown history.
Yu Dao's divine sense was incredibly sharp; the perception emanating from his supreme-level divine sense allowed him to clearly sense the lurking auras deep within those forbidden zones—
Some slumbered, almost without fluctuation, as if they had been dead for countless years, yet brewing terrifying power in their slumber; some exuded a bloody aura like mountains of corpses and seas of blood, as if they had just devoured billions of living beings, their savagery and madness almost solidifying into reality; there were even cold and terrifying beings, faintly watching the mountain where he was, their eyes filled with scrutiny, greed, and madness, insane and bloodthirsty.
"Looks like someone's already keeping an eye on me?"
Yu Dao chuckled softly, not taking it to heart.
He knew, of course, where those gazes came from. On the day Hun Tianling descended from the sky, all the top experts in the entire Big Dipper Starfield sensed that aura. Those ancient supreme beings lurking deep within the forbidden zones were no exception. They might not know what was on Hun Tianling, but that aura, which did not belong to this star system, was enough to pique their interest.
However, at this point in time, they dare not make any rash moves.
In his eyes, these Dark Sovereigns who had severed their own lives were nothing more than a group of pathetic wretches.
A faint sneer appeared on Yu Dao's lips.
They were once supreme beings who had attained the Dao and become emperors, shining brightly and revered by all. But for that elusive opportunity to become immortals, they chose to sever their own lives, shedding their imperial glory and hiding in forbidden zones, clinging to life through secret methods. They slumbered for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years, waiting only for the moment when the path to immortality would open.
What they didn't know was that the path to immortality was a complete scam.
Or rather, that wasn't the way out prepared for a self-mutilated supreme being.
The Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, a powerful ancient realm that once gave birth to dozens of Immortal Kings, was incredibly glorious. Yet, in just one era, not even a trace of immortals remains, clearly having been deliberately erased.
This is by no means a natural evolution, but rather a deliberate act.
He could understand some of the Desolate Emperor's intentions.
That supreme being who fought his way up from the lower realms had experienced too much darkness and betrayal, and witnessed the greed and madness of humanity.
Those who can still attain enlightenment in such an environment, even if they perish, will have the opportunity to be reborn through reflection. But those whose hearts are clouded and who have embraced darkness, even in a golden age of immortality, even if they become quasi-immortal emperors, what difference is there between them and the Four Dark Emperors?
He withdrew his gaze, no longer focusing on the forbidden zone of life, and began to introspect.
"With the spiritual veins dried up and the foundation of the Dao damaged, although he can barely maintain his position in the extreme Dao realm, there is no hope of advancing to a higher realm."
"My life essence was completely depleted in that battle. In this world of declining Dharma, my lifespan has been greatly reduced once again. Although the Scripture Hall is an important place of the Heavenly Court, and there are still some immortal substances preserved in this ruin by the immortal restrictions, it can only barely delay aging. At most, it can allow me to live for another two or three thousand years."
Yu Dao spoke calmly, assessing his own condition.
In this state, he can already be considered half-crippled.
But Yu Dao's eyes gleamed with a fierce light.
"However, for me, this calamity may also be an opportunity!"