Chapter 722 - Sailing the Void, Preaching in Cloud Capital - Part 2

A short while later.

Li Yuan was soaking in a wooden tub, then dressed in clean robes.

He sat beside Ah Ting in the main hall, sharing a simple meal with her.

When they finished, Ah Ting led him out of the estate.

As they reached the gate, the family’s younger daughter came running after them and called out, “Big Brother, come play with me again next time!”

Then, glancing at Ah Ting, she asked curiously, “Is that your daughter, Big Brother?”

Li Yuan didn’t bother explaining. Truth be told, he wasn’t even familiar with this family.

No, not unfamiliar, he didn’t know them at all.

He had never been here before.

He had only seen a cat once in a garden somewhere. Then he bathed and changed into fresh clothes.

But now the garden was gone. The cat was gone. The clothes, and everything that came with them was gone.

All that remained were those vague, lingering words, along with the haunting metaphors hidden within them, metaphors that hinted at terrifying truths about the world. It was as if something had been planted in the back of his mind, a new presence settling quietly into his subconscious.

And then, the two of them walked away.

“You’ve transcended,” Ah Ting said. “This world doesn’t like that. It wants you to leave. But the

will

of this world, the one that

should

reject you, it hasn’t been fully born yet.”

Li Yuan roughly understood. It was the old saying. Two tigers could not share one mountain.

The Heavenly Dao couldn’t tolerate his presence. But the Heavenly Dao...wasn’t even born yet?

This world couldn’t accept him, because the world was still pregnant with the Heavenly Dao.

“But I was born of this world,” Li Yuan said quietly.

There were still things here he couldn’t let go of, people, places, and memories. He couldn’t just walk away.

If anything, he was more willing to bear the burden of the Heavenly Dao himself, to take responsibility, do what he could to save the world.

“The Heavenly Dao is born from the world. You, though...you’re not. You’re an outsider. When a flower is blown far away by the wind, it no longer has any connection to the soil where it once bloomed.,” Ah Ting said. “You’re that flower. So how could you ever become the Heavenly Dao?”

She paused, frowning slightly.

“But it’s strange. The Heavenly Dao of this world should’ve been born long ago. If it had, someone like you wouldn’t exist. So why hasn’t it happened yet?”

Li Yuan said, “Hundreds of thousands of years ago, there was a great shattering, an apocalyptic event that tore through the Outer Region of this world. Maybe that has something to do with it...”

Ah Ting clapped her hands together. “That must be it!”

Li Yuan continued, “Master...why did that great shattering happen in the first place?”

Ah Ting replied, “How should I know? I can’t see the past.”

“Is the past even something that can be seen?” Li Yuan asked.

“The Heavenly Dao can,” she said. “It can even go back.”

Li Yuan blinked. “If the Heavenly Dao returned to the past and changed it...what would happen?”

Ah Ting shook her head. “No idea.”

And just like that, she turned and ran off again.

Li Yuan watched her go. All that remained in his vision was the figure of an ordinary little girl dashing off through the streets. He didn’t know her. For a brief moment he stood dazed, then gave his head a light tap.

Something had awakened in his mind, new thoughts, fresh memories. They hadn’t been there before.

It was as if some blurred and faceless being had whispered secrets into his ear, tucking them deep into his consciousness.

Ever since I stepped into second rank,

he thought,

strange things have been happening. But maybe...maybe that’s not a bad thing. At the very least, I’ve started to understand a lot more.

Li Yuan didn’t bother questioning why he was now in this unfamiliar city. Some strange force was gently nudging him back onto his path, a current quietly steering him toward his original trajectory, though a few memories remained hazy.

He stepped onto the small boat docked in the voidveil and gazed out at the strange space around him, an expanse constructed entirely of dense, interwoven threads of reality.

The

boat

was just a metaphor in Li Yuan’s mind. In truth, it was more like a spherical space, over five meters long, more than three meters wide.

And within this sphere, he could place things, as if it were a kind of storage dimension.

“Let’s call it a voidship,” he murmured.

Then he turned his gaze once again toward the surrounding voidveil.

That colorless, boundless world stretched endlessly around him. It was deep, oppressively so, and empty in a way that made the soul ache.

Above it, the stars seemed to pour across the surface of the voidveil like a river of light.

But he was no longer beneath that night sky.

He was

inside

it.

Still tethered to the world he came from, but in truth, already outside of it. And yet, this

escape

didn’t feel like rising up and out. It felt like sinking deeper

in

.

At that moment, Li Yuan felt as though he were simply a man sitting alone on a hillside, gazing up at the night sky. Only now, that night sky had

layers

. One was the familiar blackness. The other...had no color at all.

He stared for a long time. The voidveil had a strange pull, like it wanted to swallow his gaze.

The longer he looked, the more his eyes began to go numb. If someone had held a mirror up to his face, he would’ve seen it. His pupils were ever so slightly glassy, his expression drifting into vacant stillness.

But what did it mean to look vacant?

Vacancy wasn’t just a look in one’s eyes. It was also in the sky, in the stars, in this nameless void.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Far away in the heart of the Great Tang capital, deep within the palace, the aging Empress Dowager sat beneath the autumn wind, leaning on her cane.

Golden leaves drifted across the koi pond, while red-finned fish glided lazily beneath, their movement stirring the bright green strands of waterweed.

Not far off, ducks and geese in gray-brown plumage fluttered and splashed along the lake’s edge. Their wings stirred up ripples and noise, infusing the scene with a surprising sense of vitality.

“Your Majesty,” a palace maid urged gently, “the weather’s turning cold. You should return to the hall.”

Li Youning gazed at the landscape before her, motion and stillness entwined. Fallen leaves marked decay, while waterfowl frolicked in playful life. Death and birth, growth and decline...in the cycle of life and death, who could ever hope to remain untouched?

She rose slowly, hand trembling slightly as she took the maid’s offered arm.

“Let’s go back,” she said.

The maid supported her with careful steps.

Li Youning walked, but her mind was far from the present. In her thoughts, she was once again her younger self, sharp-eyed and full of spirit, regal in posture, never afraid of long nights or hard work, marching through this very corridor with imperial decrees in hand.

Back then, this corridor had been newly built.

Now, though her once-beautiful face had grown faint and lined with age, the walls had been painted anew.

Had she really ordered the repainting just to save money?

The old woman of today overlapped in memory with the poised and formidable matron of decades past. Both had walked this same path, just for different reasons.

Suddenly, Li Youning stopped. She planted her cane, pausing in place.

She looked back over her shoulder, as if something had tugged at her.

As if remembering something, one last time.

She didn’t have many regrets, not really.

In the annals of history...her name, Li Youning, would surely be etched in bold, resounding strokes.

But what she regretted most was that she would never see

him

again.

That ancestor.

That man.

That emperor.

That god.

In the quieter days of her twilight years, Li Youning no longer busied herself with state affairs. Instead, she buried herself in old histories, flipping through the yellowed pages, chasing after fragments, clues to his presence.

But there was so little.

So she summoned storytellers. Called for performers. She listened to plays and tales spun from his legends, reimagined again and again by those who had never truly known him.

She sighed gently, just about to continue her walk, when she noticed the palace maid beside her had suddenly gone rigid. Her whole posture screamed alarm, as if some fearsome beast had just appeared ahead.

Li Youning raised her head and saw the man standing before her.

Time stopped.

The maid opened her mouth, ready to demand,

Who are you, and how did you get into the inner palace?

But before she could speak, the Empress Dowager whispered, “You’ve come back.”

The maid, of course, was no fool. If she could serve at the Dowager’s side, she had long since learned to read between the lines. In a flash, she realized who this man must be.

The founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty. The Lord of Light, worshipped in sacred shrines. A figure so holy, so revered, that even to

think

his name was to invite awe.

The maid dropped to her knees at once, bowing deeply, her forehead to the floor. “Your Majesty, the Lord of Light. Your Majesty the Retired Emperor.”

Li Youning gently said, “Leave us.”

The maid rose, bowed again, and silently withdrew.

Li Yuan stepped forward and supported the Empress Dowager by the arm.

“Would you like to see what I truly look like?” he asked.

Her eyes were already red. Smiling through her tears, she replied, “I’ve seen it. The ancestral portrait passed down in the family, ink on silk. Even after a hundred years, it still feels alive.”

Li Yuan’s heart stirred. This was his true body now. All his past powers were fully accessible. With a thought, Mortal World Transformation turned him back into the youthful figure he had once been. A youth before the burdens of empire.

“Like this?” he asked.

Li Youning gazed at him, speechless. Her aged eyes, lined and dry as tree bark, overflowed with tears.

“Yes...yes...yes...” she whispered over and over.

Li Yuan helped her gently.

“Let’s go inside,” he said. “A lot has happened recently. The world has changed.”

Softly, she answered, “That world belongs to you now. Not to me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It might still change,” he said. “This new world, maybe it isn’t set in stone.”

He shifted back to his usual appearance, then helped Li Youning return to her chambers. They sat together at the bedside.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

A summons went out.

First came the Emperor.

Then the Grand Princess.

Li Dao and Li Chan arrived in haste. But when they stepped into the Empress Dowager’s chambers, they bowed deeply and reverently to the man before them.

The fear in their eyes outweighed any shred of familial closeness.

They were in the presence of divinity.

The Church of Light.

The image of the Lord of Light now loomed over all, a divine figure gazing down upon mortals beneath the light of their sacred sun.

And the leader of this faith now bore a new title, Pontiff.

He was one of the young men who had once followed Li Yuan north. A boy then, now a man who had never married, never fathered children. He had given everything, his life, his purpose, his soul, to the Lord of Light.

And now, upon hearing the news, the Pontiff walked barefoot, leading the faithful of the Church of Light down the great boulevard of Cloud Capital, step by solemn step toward the palace, and kneel before the one he had worshipped for a lifetime.

The imperial capital was in an uproar.

Whispers filled the streets, curious, reverent, tinged with awe, as eyes turned toward the palace.

In a darkened chamber, Li Ying, masked in silver shaped like a crescent moon, suddenly stood. With hands clasped behind his back, he rose and drifted forward, gliding through the air toward the heart of the capital.

This master of the Shadow Court was now known by a new title:, the Shadow Pontiff.

Where there was light, there must be shadow.

And so, where the Church of Light bloomed, the shadows followed.

Thanks to his flight, Li Ying was the first to arrive at the palace. Without waiting for permission or escort, he descended directly toward the inner court.

Thud!

He touched down in a courtyard, only to catch sight of the Emperor and Grand Princess kneeling before that man.

Li Ying dropped into a deep, formal bow.

Li Yuan glanced over and saw the 2,100~21,000 floating by Li Ying's side, a solid entry into the Greater Insight Realm.

But Li Yuan had long since passed that realm, so he spoke with gentle authority.

“Beyond Greater Insight lies the True Will. And above that, the Heavenly Will. In the True Will Realm, one carves open a small domain, an inner world where the wielder commands the forces within it. In the Heavenly Will Realm, one commands a great domain. It may not span the stars, but it is vast and mighty. Every movement carries the weight of the heavens.”

Li Ying blinked, stunned. He looked up toward the Lord of Light..

He remembered the statue in the Church of Light, painstakingly carved by countless masters over generations. Yet now, looking at the living figure before him, he realized something shocking.

The statue...lacked

divinity

.

A tremor ran through his heart. He had once harbored a flicker of resistance. But in this moment, that thought crumbled into nothing.

Then Li Yuan added calmly, “And beyond the Heavenly Will...is a realm like mine.”

Just then, a palace maid approached to announce that the Pontiff had arrived, leading the faithful in a procession, requesting an audience to worship the Lord of Light.

Li Yuan turned his head slightly toward the horizon. There, faint threads of black and red spiritual energy rose into the sky, like dying embers glowing one final time. Though weak and wispy, they still shimmered, tracing one last arc across the heavens.

A reflection of the world’s spiritual energy, flaring before its final fade.

Even if it returned again...it would never match the richness it once had, back in the previous age.

Li Yuan paused for a moment in thought. Then he rose.

With a flick of his sleeve, he soared upward, piercing through clouds and winds, wrapped in a radiant storm of celestial light.

With a single thought, he conjured a massive lotus, 36 wide petals unfurling beneath him like a throne of nature and will.

Cross-legged, he sat upon it, above the Cloud Capital.

Facing heaven and earth, he spoke, voice calm and clear.

“Come. Listen to my teachings.”

If Heaven and Earth required

fertilizer

, then he would make this world bloom, bursting with life, color, and power. Let every flower blossom. Let every person become a dragon. Let the world rise in strength and splendor.

He would teach not only the path of true insight and the heavenly seal, but even the ways of shadow blood, tuned to the returning spiritual energy.

He would make everything clear, so that all could cultivate, so that all could

know

how to cultivate.

Heaven and Man, helping one another, together weathering the storm ahead.

Of course, such change would stir chaos.

But if this world was to be reborn, it would also need

greater order

.

And that order...he would forge with his own hands.