At the moment the Azure Bull turned into ashes, Ming Zhong broke down crying, completely disregarding his composure. When he first found Jiang Li and the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal, he simply wanted to talk, hoping that as fellow intelligent beings, they might offer some technological assistance. Who would have thought that this man and seal were so unbelievably powerful?
They had only met that morning, yet by evening, they had already dealt with several Union Stage spirit beasts—and even a suspected immortal beast that was the source of those creatures. Everything had happened too swiftly, too dreamlike. Ming Zhong felt as though it were all unreal.
He slapped himself twice, hard. The sting of pain told him it wasn’t a dream. It was real!
For the sake of resisting the spirit beasts, humanity had given up emotions and devoted themselves solely to advancing technology. Yet despite countless years passing, their territory had only grown smaller and smaller. Humans were on the brink of despair, though none spoke it aloud; everyone understood in silence.
But now… humanity finally saw a ray of hope!
“A Qing is gone. Where is Master's whereabouts?”
Ming Zhong was excited, but the Dao Ancestor was still missing. The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal was silent and heavy-hearted. Jiang Li handed Dao Ancestor’s storage ring to the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal.
Since it had no hands, it awkwardly balanced the ring atop its head and continued moving forward. The place where A Qing perished was already at the continent’s edge. After traveling less than a thousand kilometers further, the three reached a high cliff—beyond it, there was no more road.
This was the very end of the continent. To go farther meant breaking free of its gravity and entering the boundless void of the universe. The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal still refused to give up.
Without hesitation, it leapt straight into the bottomless chasm. Jiang Li, grabbing Ming Zhong, jumped in right after. Ming Zhong’s mind went blank.
He felt as though he were diving deep under a vast sea, the crushing pressure making it impossible to breathe. After what seemed like an eternity, his body suddenly felt light, as if he had broken through the surface.
When Ming Zhong finally stood on solid ground again, he found himself on the reverse side of the continent—a land where no human had ever set foot. The air pressure here was unbelievably strong, enough to compress hundreds of tons of steel into thin sheets only a few millimeters thick.
With humanity’s current technology, they had no material strong enough to withstand such pressure. If not for Jiang Li protecting him, Ming Zhong would have been flattened the moment he jumped off the cliff.
“So dark...”
Ming Zhong stepped onto the continent’s underside and saw pure darkness—he couldn’t even see his own fingers. Luckily, Jiang Li was beside him, and his calm voice brought comfort: “Don’t worry. You’re just blind.”
“Oh, that’s good. For a moment, I thought this side of the continent didn’t have a sun.”
Ming Zhong sighed in relief.
“You actually believed that?”
Even the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal, despite being in low spirits, couldn’t help commenting. Jiang Li flicked out a single crimson feather, which glowed with a warm light, illuminating dozens of miles around them. Both the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal and Jiang Li could rely on their Divine Sense to perceive their surroundings, so they didn’t need light.
Jiang Li did this purely for Ming Zhong’s sake. The one-piece suit Ming Zhong wore had built-in lighting too. When he turned it on, his entire body glowed faintly blue.
However, his clumsy gait made him look ghostly and unsteady. It was… unsettling. Jiang Li couldn’t bear to look at it anymore, so he brought out the Golden Crow Feather and told Ming Zhong to turn off the lights of his suit immediately.
Only then did Ming Zhong finally see what the reverse side of the continent looked like: barren, bare rock stretching endlessly in every direction. Not even a single blade of grass grew there. Jiang Li and the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal spread out their Divine Sense, scanning the entire backside of the continent, searching for any trace of the Dao Ancestor.
But aside from stone—there was nothing. They returned from the reverse side, but neither of them entered any human settlement afterward. Soon after, the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal headed once again toward the Spirit Beast Territory—but there, too, it found nothing.
At last, it sat atop a towering mountain, staring blankly at the starry sky. Jiang Li and Ming Zhong stayed by its side. Here, the temperature plunged dozens of degrees below zero.
Violent winds and blizzards howled year-round, the cold biting into the bone. Yet the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal just sat there, letting the snow bury it completely. Both Jiang Li and the seal knew—the Dao Ancestor’s mount had been corrupted by the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons, and his storage ring containing immortal energy reserves was missing.
His circumstances, undoubtedly, were dire. They wanted to help, but they couldn’t even find a shadow of him. Suddenly, Jiang Li seemed to recall something.
He leapt skyward, breaking through the gravitational pull, flying to a nearby planet. There, looking down toward the continent, he fell silent. He connected through spiritual communication with Bai Hongtu.
In the projection beside him appeared Bai Hongtu and Immortal Elder Changcun. When their eyes fell upon the entire continent, tears began streaming down their faces. The next day, Jiang Li escorted Ming Zhong back to the Human Domain, then returned once again to the Spirit Beast Territory.
There, he slaughtered all Spirit Transformation and Union Stage beasts before digging out the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal that had been buried beneath the snow.
“Let’s head back. The Dao Ancestor isn’t here.”
“You’re lying!”
“We’ve searched everywhere, yet found nothing of him. Perhaps he only left his mount and storage ring here and went elsewhere to fight the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons—he couldn’t spare the time to care for A Qing.”
“But I can sense Master’s karmic link here! Only if he himself is present would such karmic resonance appear!”
Jiang Li shook his head.
“Your power of karma has malfunctioned again and again. This time’s no different. You’ve sensed it wrong.”
“I don’t believe you!”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal’s body turned, its front facing Jiang Li like a glare filled with fury.
“I get it now—you just think looking for Master is troublesome. You want to trick me into going back to the Nine Provinces!”
“Calm down for a moment. Think about what I said—doesn’t it make sense? It’s not that I don’t want to help, but Dao Ancestor truly isn’t in this world. Staying here is pointless since you don’t even know where he went. If Dao Ancestor defeats the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons, he will certainly return to the Nine Provinces someday. You might as well come back with me first.”
“You’re lying! You’re trying to drag me back to use me as the formation core for some grand array!”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal was clearly unstable. Its mind was not yet mature, and its emotions swung wildly without reason.
“Right! You’re the one with a problem! I can’t see A Qing’s karma because it was altered by the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons! And I can’t see your karma either—you must have been altered by them too! Maybe… maybe you are an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon yourself!”
The seal trembled, its voice growing sharper as it convinced itself of the idea.
“Nonsense!”
Jiang Li’s anger flared. He reached out to seize the seal—after all, being called an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon was no small insult, just like being denounced a traitor during turbulent times of the past.
“In the Nine Provinces, I dared not unleash my full strength! But in this world—I have no restraints!”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal wasn’t afraid of Jiang Li. Its seal-body erupted into dazzling white light, like a second sun, radiating endless vitality.
“I will make this continent awaken its own spiritual consciousness!”
How vast was this continent exactly? Jiang Li hadn’t known upon arrival, but after traveling back and forth across it these past days, he discovered it was as large as two provinces of the Nine Provinces World—perhaps the size of dozens of planets put together! If such a continent truly gained sentient awareness, what earth-shaking phenomenon would it bring?
The ground rumbled violently. The first unprecedented earthquake tore through the land. Mountains thousands of meters tall collapsed in an instant, crushing countless spirit beasts beneath.
The ocean floor split open, and water gushed out from the cracks, separating into countless torrents, turning seas into rivers. Floods spread and wreaked havoc; spirit beasts fled in all directions. Suddenly, the whole sky went dark.
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal looked up—and saw that what was blocking the sky… was an eyelash. An eyelash so enormous that it covered all within its sight. It extended its Divine Sense to the absolute limit, and finally, it saw clearly what was above.
Its body began trembling uncontrollably. It was… the Dao Ancestor’s face.
(End of Chapter) Thanks to the readers Yue Bai Feng Qing Yu Duo Shi, White Wolf Jeroque, Tree-Cutting Rabbit, One Leaf Knowing Autumn, Lalala Little Slickhead, and Chopping Vegetables Until Full for their monthly votes.