Chapter 2553 - A White Jade Pillar Holding Up the Heavens, a Beam Supporting the Sea

Who got to determine what was and wasn’t righteous?

The silver-robed man pointed to himself. “I can weigh right and wrong with the scales of my Dao Heart.”

He spoke as if this were perfectly obvious.

By now, Su Yi had already drawn close. He just laughed in response. “I’ve only heard of ‘wandering warriors violating prohibitions by force.’ I can tell you have no scruples whatsoever."

“In that case, do you believe that I’m a good man?” the silver-robed man asked solemnly.

Su Yi asked right back, “And what about you? Do you think I’m a good man or a villain?”

The question seemed simple, but it was enough to roughly determine the silver-robed man’s code of conduct!

The silver-robed man’s eyes flashed. “I cannot yet determine whether you’re good or evil.”

He paused, then laughed, “But at the very least, I can say one thing for certain. If you oppose a good man like me, you’re a villain. If you choose to be my friend, you’re a good person, too.”

Su Yi laughed dryly. “I’m in no mood to talk nonsense with you.”

What was “right and wrong”? What was “good and evil”? Everyone pursuing the Grand Dao had their own principles. There was no standard that everyone followed.

That was why the path of cultivation was so tumultuous and chaotic, and why its bloodshed and strife never ceased.

The silver-robed man called himself a good person, and he meted out justice to temper his cultivation base. However, his perceptions of good and evil were his and his alone.

“This isn’t nonsense.” The silver-robed man solemnly pointed to the dome of heaven. “One day, I’ll bring order to the world, and my Dao will become the new Will of the Heavens. I’ll set standards and ironclad rules of conduct that everyone beneath the heavens must follow!”

“You?” Su Yi looked the silver-robed man over.

“That’s right,” said the silver-robed man with a smile. “In these unprecedented dark, turbulent times, I shall be the white jade pillar that supports the heavens and the golden beam holding up the seas!”

Arrogant! Incomparably arrogant!

Yet the silver-robed man made it sound perfectly natural and obvious, as if he were born capable of achieving this.

Even Su Yi couldn’t help but feel stunned. He stuck up his thumb and said flatly, “You’ve got ambition.”

Then, he turned and shot toward the pit.

“Wait,” said the silver-robed man. “Want to travel together?”

“No.” Su Yi directly refused. “But if you want to fight, I wouldn’t mind taking this opportunity to play with you.”

The silver-robed man laughed and waved the offer away. “Forget it, then. I mete out justice on behalf of the heavens. How could I possibly fight and kill without good reason?”

Su Yi turned and gazed intently at him for a moment, but in the end, he left without a word.

Boom!

When he shot through the five-colored light barrier hovering over the pit, it was as if he’d passed through the barrier between worlds. Boundless, terrifying power of the Laws rumbled and boomed with enough force to eradicate anyone beneath the Undying Realm.

But this naturally couldn’t affect Su Yi.

After passing through the five-colored lights, he shot deeper and deeper into the darkness of the pit. In the blink of an eye, he’d vanished.

The silver-robed man watched, all the while toying with his bamboo flute. He murmured, “The kid seems to have noticed something about me...”

“But then, that doesn’t matter. All of this has only just barely gotten started.”

He laughed, then took a step forward and silently vanished into thin air.

......

The depths of the pit.

The deeper Su Yi went, the darker it got. The darkness seemed to have devoured every last thread of light.

It was only with his divine sense that Su Yi could examine the scenery around him. However, he didn’t sense anything worthy of his attention.

Thus far, it seemed there was nothing in the pit at all.

“I’ve already descended nine hundred thousand feet, but I still haven’t reached the bottom?” Su Yi was a bit surprised.

And a bit on guard, too, because as he descended deeper into the pit, an invisible power started to suppress his divine sense. By now, even when Su Yi circulated the full extent of his soul power, he could only sense the surrounding ten thousand feet!

The journey passed in silence. An unknown amount of time passed before he finally arrived in the mysterious world at the bottom of the pit.

There’d been no danger along the way, but the silence and oppressive atmosphere were nonetheless incomparably unsettling.

Su Yi sensed an impending crisis; he felt as if he’d sunk into the mud. The more he struggled, the more trapped he became.

He suddenly realized what was happening.

That origin power is like a dense current. It isn’t dangerous, but it swept me all the way to the bottom of the pit!

Su Yi immediately gave up the struggle and let the swamp-like origin power carry him away.

An unknown amount of time later...

Boom!

A thunderous explosion went off in Su Yi’s sea of consciousness, shaking his soul.

Then, he heard a mysterious, ethereal voice full of solemn piety and reverence, like the people of ancient times praying and carrying out a sacrifice.

Before Su Yi could try to interpret it, the voice gave way to the rumbling of thunder, to the sounds of combat, and to the roaring of fiends...

Su Yi could almost picture a vision of destruction unfolding like a scroll painting.

Within the painting, chaos parted, purity and filth split and divided into ten thousand worlds. Countless source energies of the Grand Dao arose, shooting through the void and transforming into the Laws of the natural order that sustained all of creation.

Fiends arose from the primordial chaos, waging war over the heavens and roaring as if frenzied. Divine blood poured down like a waterfall. It was all just that primeval, barbaric, and bloody.

Countless living beings struggled to survive amidst the passing of the ages.

Cultivators worked together to fight the fiends for dominance.

Powerful, legendary figures rose to the pinnacle of the world, holding aloft Undying divine flames and breaking the fetters of the epochs to proceed to the River of Destiny.

The rulers of each age fought their way into the nine heavens, attempting to replace the Will of Heaven in their respective epochs.

...

The visions of this “scroll painting” seemed to describe the passage of time, starting with the first parting of primordial chaos.

Each image was full of astonishing secrets and mysteries.

Unfortunately, each image passed in a flash, like fleeting lights and shadows. They seemed so real, but there was no way to examine them more closely.

Even so, Su Yi managed to glean insight into a few of its mysteries!

The “painting” really did depict the earliest days of the God Domain’s history.

When the primordial chaos first parted and heaven and earth first took shape, it was the fiends born of chaos who presided over all worlds!

The chaos of the God Domain was like the source of all power. It gave rise to all Daos and to all living beings!

When the world had life and the Grand Dao, bloody conflict, upheaval, and a struggle for dominance followed!

Chaos is like an egg. Epoch civilizations break through its shell and emerge...

Su Yi thought to himself,

That’s how the God Domain and everything in it was created.

This is what they mean when they say, ‘The Dao gave rise to one, one gave rise to two, and three gave rise to all things.’

This is how the infinite gave rise to the Supreme Ultimate, and the Supreme Ultimate gave rise to Yin and Yang.

Su Yi suddenly understood.

What I saw earlier might well have been the process of an Epoch Spark growing into a new epoch civilization!

He carried an Epoch Spark, and he knew that one day, as his cultivation grew, it would sprout, transform, and grow. Ultimately, it would become a new epoch civilization.

But thus far, he’d only been able to speculate about the details. Now, however, Su Yi had seen the entire process in this fleeting visions of an ancient, primordial world!

Although he’d only caught a brief glimpse, it was enough to confirm years of speculation!

The ‘Battle for Order’ is perhaps really just a struggle for authority over the present epoch!

Thought Su Yi.

As he pondered, he shook, like a wandering boat swept suddenly onto the shore. The swamp-like power of the Grand Dao enveloping him dissipated.

Don’t tell me I’ve already reached the hidden realm?

Just as Su Yi was about to get up, he heard someone talking.

“What do we do with these guys?”

“The Ancient Fiend said that those beneath the Five-Tribulation level can serve as offerings. Those above that level, we can bring to the Shattered Heart Battlefield. Anyone who makes it out alive is worthy of serving us.”

Seems to me it’d be better to just kill them all. Let’s strip them of their Undying Laws and devour their flesh. It’s been a long, long time since I last ate my fill.”

“Those are the Ancient Fiend’s orders. Don’t try anything funny!”

“Very well. As he commands.”

...The voices quickly died down.

Su Yi’s eyes were shut, but a wisp of his divine sense shot forth to investigate.

Before long, he’d grasped his situation.

This was the bank of a coursing river, with ancient, primeval mountains in the distance. Unearthly, blood-red stars hung beneath the dome of heaven, flickering in and out of view and casting wisps of blood-red mist.

Su Yi, meanwhile, had floated on the shore of the river. There was an ancient altar built here. It was crudely constructed out of pitch-black materials.

A divine fire blazed atop it, its light dispelling the surrounding darkness.

A group of strange beings stood beside the altar, like a spearman with a snake’s head, and a winged, three-headed creature covered in blood-red scales.

One of them had long red hair, and looked almost human, save for the unearthly vertical silver eye on his forehead and two extra arms.

These were not animals or beasts turned yao cultivators. They were obviously something else entirely!

Su Yi recognized them at a glance, as their visages were transcribed in some of the God Domain’s ancient tomes and stone carvings.

These strangely-shaped beings were fiends born of primordial chaos!