Chapter 1637: Impending Storms (I)

“If, and I mean if...” Li Hao said after a while. “If we engage exalted emperors and kill one of them, but there are more left, are you able to temporarily resurrect the one we killed? Can you command their final moment of brilliance?”

Lin Hongyu blinked at the question and sank into deep thought, saying after a moment, “I don’t know. I’m not sure yet how long this moment of brilliance can last. I’m also not sure what kind of requirements might exist to revive the dead and what limits might be imposed on them when they’re alive again...”

Li Hao contemplated her response. It was interesting that she could bring back a broken great dao for a split second. Great daos often represented the level of an exalted emperor. It also meant that Lin Hongyu could bring them back for a moment within a certain amount of time.

Granted, it was currently unknown whether or not whether this flash of brilliance would be useful, and whether or not the target would be conscious. Could they control the person?

Everything was unknown!

It would also be difficult to experiment with this. Where would they find an exalted emperor that they could kill and then try resurrecting? If it really was as Li Hao said and they could kill one exalted emperor in a group of attackers... who would be on guard from someone dead on their side?

If she brought back that person for an instant, it’d be best if they could listen to orders. If not, self-detonation would be quite devastating as well.

It might save their lives in a critical moment.

“Your method of death...” Li Hao was puzzled. He’d given it a try since he knew life and death as well. Lin Hongyu had developed her skills with his dao.

But when he experimented... he didn’t resurrect jack. The shattered dao didn’t even twitch. How strange!

Some other thoughts came into Li Hao’s mind; this dao method was certainly strange. It was both life and death, but he was a fourth rank and could not do what a second rank Lin Hongyu could accomplish.

His dao of life and death focused on his own resurrections—it didn’t have much of an effect on outsiders. Of course, it could provide vitality and utilize death qi. According to what Li Zhu had said, this was all that Li Hao’s life and death were good for.

His dao wasn’t good for anything more profound.

The young man waved off Lin Hongyu as she opened her mouth to say something. “A dao method comes down to one’s personal comprehension. I know life and death, it’s not that I don’t know it. Since I can’t do it, that means my comprehension is different from yours. There’s no need to explain it to me.”

It wasn’t like he was guaranteed to learn it if she did.

“We failed to dismantle this place and there’s only an empty shell left. I’ll feed it to Panther later,” Li Hao laughed.

“......” Lin Hongyu couldn’t help but laugh as well. Panther would eat it. This empty shell was a treasure to many exalted emperors all the same. What most exalted emperors devoured were empty shells and world origin.

As for the net of dao... only Li Hao found it useful. Exalted emperors were unable to trace the past and see the truth of the dao net. It would explode if they sought to deconstruct it—the dao net was almost useless for them.

What was treasure was an empty shell in Li Hao’s eyes. It seemed to him that Panther was only suited to eat trash. In reality, there were plenty of exalted emperors who wished to eat this kind of trash.

“We’ll go and dismantle a mid world now!” laughed Li Hao. “You’ve ascended after this experience. The deconstruction will definitely look different this time! This will also help perfect my minor worlds. Although it’ll be difficult for me to enter fifth rank right this very moment, I can at least make further headway on the path of a fourth rank.”

“Very well.” Lin Hongyu said nothing further. The two ignored the tattered minor world like it was nothing and quickly shifted focus to the mid world.

Li Hao once more called upon time to trace the past; he wasn’t concerned about accumulating chaos tribulations. He didn’t necessarily have to throw them at enemies or utilize the dao of hiding either. He’d been contemplating a certain idea lately—creating a world of destruction filled with chaos lightning!

It would center on the power of destruction, which meant that he could outright capture the thunder and lightning next time. They would become nourishment for his world. It was such a waste to just toss it at enemies!

He was yet to start crafting such a world. It was a relatively more troublesome concept that he’d tried once—it easily caused the world domain to spontaneously shatter. A world with destruction as the base and the mainstream dao... would naturally be destroyed as well.

As for how to stabilize destructive force... that was an immense hassle.

Li Hao needed to study how a chaos tribulation was formed and how it steadily brought force to bear. If it wasn’t for him being too preoccupied lately and chaos tribulations being a nuisance, he’d want to summon a couple of them for fun and observation. He might even wish to trace their origins.

Chaos tribulations targeted the power of time, yet Li Hao had never utilized time on them. Perhaps even greater trouble might develop if he did, or perhaps something very interesting would take place.

He’d even thought at one point that if the biggest issue with tracing the past was chaos tribulations, then what if he reversed time for the tribulations?

I can reverse time whenever the lightning bolt strikes... In the end, will I create a tribulation strong enough to annihilate the chaos, or will I reverse the tribulation so thoroughly that it disappears?

This kind of experiment was far too risky. There was a ninety-nine percent chance that he would cause his own death in the process.

It came down to a problem of the chicken or the egg. The most likely outcome was that he’d be unable to endure the strain and deplete his lifespan first.

......

The net of dao for a mid world was even more complete than that of a minor world. This minor world was not based off fire, but a more uncommon dao that Li Hao termed ‘elastic’.

It could extend and contract at will, and grow big or shrink. This was a rare dao rule and an almost quite a useless one. Those that lived in a world centered around this dao did not possess strong battle strength. It was very difficult for these kinds of worlds to find their footing in the chaos.

But to Li Hao, these kinds of dao methods were very interesting.

In his eyes, these dao rules were infinitely close to space. At the very least, the compression of space was similar to these dao rules. The technique of compression and extension could change the size of a world.

Taken to the extreme, perhaps one could infinitely minimize an enemy. Although... that would still be useless if nothing could be done about their strength.

It was a very interesting dao. Li Hao took some time to study it before focusing on dismantling the dao net with Lin Hongyu. It went more smoothly this time, thanks to prior experience. Not only that, but Li Hao infused some dao rules into some world domains to further perfect his minor worlds.

They had a wonderful time. Cultivation didn’t always need to be stark seclusion; education could be had through entertainment as well. These days, the young man understood more than ever that cultivation was a process of enjoyment and exploration.

Any dao method was very interesting when cultivated to an extremity, even those that looked useless!

......

For the moment, Li Hao had coalesced a dao rule that outsiders would find completely trash. He even created a minor world for it.

Above the river.

Li Hao, Lin Hongyu, and Number Two stooped over the river like children and peered curiously at the burgeoning world domain. The cat was drawn to it and asked with a mix of curiosity and confusion, “What is the point of creating a world domain for this one dao rule?”

There didn’t seem to be any use for it. It was a superfluous dao rule!

The cat had seen much of the chaos and knew much of existence, but to create such a world domain... was a completely futile endeavor under normal circumstances!

Lin Hongyu was very curious as well, but didn’t say anything. She simply enjoyed this rare, carefree moment of no worries. Although this dao didn’t seem useful for much, Li Hao was having the time of his life being a child. He was dismantling whatever he wished and creating with abandon. It was like children playing with sandcastles. As childish as that might be, it was very fun.

“You don’t understand, do ya?” Li Hao laughed. He wasn’t coalescing the elastic world domain, but another one that he was calling ‘attachment’.

This was one of the more unique dao rules that he’d discovered and it’d appeared in mid worlds before as well, but in a very weak capacity. It had quite a personality as it could attach itself to other great daos and even assimilate some of them, or be assimilated in turn.

It was a very strange dao rule—not that strong and almost completely ineffective. It couldn’t assimilate powerhouses and could only be assimilated in return. As for weaklings... one should just kill them and be done with the matter. There was no point in attaching oneself to a weakling’s dao.

This was why Number Two felt that Li Hao was wasting time and energy.

“I don’t understand?” repeated the confused cat. “Then you tell me, what is the meaning in creating such a world domain?”

It was completely meaningless!

“Of course there is meaning!” Li Hao laughed. “Attachment, or perhaps assimilation, or perhaps passive assimilation, is a unique dao that either subsumes others or is subsumed instead.

“If, and I mean if, the embryos of my myriad worlds really become a myriad of worlds, then it will be a miniature chaos. The matter or living beings born from this world can assimilate others or be assimilated in return!”

“......” There was still no point to that! Number Two looked on blankly.

“Senior, that means to say that if there is a resource-based world in this chaos, then everything within it can be absorbed and digested by others,” Li Hao further explained with a note of weariness.

“The attributes of dao, race, and cultivation methods won’t matter. It would be a world of resources that can satisfy all cultivation needs!

“For example, if living beings are born in this world, then the flesh and blood of these living beings are all treasure. They can be outright refined by cultivators and would be most suited for the cultivators, because they can perfectly attach to your great dao.”

The cat blinked, then took a deep breath. “Then don’t actually facilitate its formation as a world. Otherwise, based on those words, that domain will become a piece of meat in everyone’s eyes!”

This wasn’t attachment, this was the dao of rich pickings! Everyone would want a bite once they realized!

“This world was indeed born, but quickly fell to the attacks of another...” Li Hao chuckled. “There is a reason for all daos to exist! If powerhouses can be born from this dao, then it would be an extremely formidable dao.

“I said that this is called assimilation or passive assimilation. They’re the same. It’s a delicious feast in someone else’s eyes, but in the eyes of a heavyweight from this dao, other people are the rich feast. It goes both ways!

“If one becomes adept in this dao, the cultivator can eye up other people just as they are eyeing up him! In fact, they only have one target, but the cultivator has everyone in his sights...”

Number Two nodded its massive head, finding sense in these words. It was interested too now and took another look at the minor domain. It was only the size of a human head—a tiny world. Li Hao had only created it on a momentary impulse.