Chapter 1014: The Thirty-Third Layers Of The Outer Heavens

The reconstruction of Heaven had begun with Doushuai Palace. The revival plan for the heroic spirits within the Cemetery of the Ancestors had also started here, marked by the refining of the Sanqing Dahua Pill.

Little Aunt had played a vital and irreplaceable role in this process. From the outside, Doushuai Palace did not appear much different from how it used to be. But once one entered, the difference was clear.

It was bustling with activity. Many people were hard at work. It felt as though this was now the true heart of Heaven. Little Aunt guided Li Xiaofei to the highest level of Doushuai Palace.

From there, one could overlook all of Heaven. White clouds drifted lazily in the sky, surrounding elegant towers and buildings. It was a scene full of vitality and renewal.

Little Aunt handed him a pill. It was an extraordinary immortal pill, distinct from the Sanqing Dahua Pill.

"You’ll need this," she said.

Li Xiaofei nodded.

Little Aunt then added, "City Leader Tan has returned."

Li Xiaofei replied, "Little Ying mentioned it. But I heard he came back and then left again?"

Little Aunt smiled faintly. "This time is different from before. He remembers the way now. He can return whenever he wants to. He won’t be lost in the vastness of space again."

Li Xiaofei said, "It’s a pity I didn’t get to see him."

There had been a few key figures who shaped his journey through the martial path. Principal Chen Fei was one of them, but City Leader Tan was another. Later, Li Xiaofei had even ended up winning the heart of his daughter.

𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

City Leader Tan’s charisma had left a deep impression on him and served as a major source of inspiration. He could be considered one of Li Xiaofei’s earliest life mentors. Unfortunately, his experiences had been rather bizarre and filled with hardship. But in the end, City Leader Tan was still alive after weathering countless storms.

"You’ll see him soon enough," Little Aunt said. "City Leader Tan accidentally made a major discovery while comprehending the laws of space. It’s a contribution of immense value to all of humanity."

"What did he discover?" Li Xiaofei asked, curiosity piqued.

Little Aunt replied, "He found a path leading to the Ultimate Land."

"The Ultimate Land?" Li Xiaofei’s interest surged at once.

She nodded and said, "Yes. The place everyone has longed to find but was never able to. City Leader Tan stumbled upon it by sheer chance. Not only did he discover it, but he also returned with a map of the route."

Li Xiaofei was about to ask more, but Little Aunt gently interrupted, "Go. Focus on raising your cultivation."

Li Xiaofei nodded and refrained from pressing further. In truth, it wasn’t just him; everyone had begun to sense it. There was a strange rhythm in the air, something pressing closer and closer with terrifying urgency.

It was the feeling of an approaching battle of destiny. Like seabirds that could sense a coming storm, they were all, consciously or not, seeking shelter before it arrived.

Little Aunt led Li Xiaofei to the highest point in all of Heaven; the Thirty-Third Layer of the Outer Heavens. This was the place closest to primordial chaos. Legend said that this was where the purest essence of qi gathered in the ancient days when Pangu split the heavens from the earth.

"Of course, that’s just a legend, not actual history," Little Aunt said. "This place has nothing to do with the Great God Pangu. It merely resembles the pinnacle of purity. Still, it’s an excellent place to comprehend the Dao. Secluding yourself here will help you break through."

So Li Xiaofei settled down there. The heavenly waves surged endlessly, and clouds roiled like tides. There was only a boundless sea of clouds as far as the eye could see. Aside from the rising and setting of the sun, there were no other signs of time’s passage.

Li Xiaofei sat cross-legged, eyes open and mind adrift. He did not circulate his Immortal Force, nor did he attempt to attune himself to the heavens. He simply sat there. When he grew tired of sitting, he lay down.

He lay among the clouds, thinking of nothing at all, as if he only wished for a moment of true rest, until the clouds completely enveloped him. In that moment, he seemed to become one with the sky, the cloud, and the heavens themselves—just a tiny speck, vanishing into the whole.

After a long while, streams of light tore through the void, glimmering like phoenix wings and dragon scales, scattering in all directions before vanishing into the endless distance.

"Will he succeed?" Tan Qingying sat atop Doushuai Palace, her hands cupping her cheeks as a trace of worry flickered in her eyes.

How many prodigies had the human race produced throughout the ages? Yet how many had truly stepped into the quasi-Emperor realm?

Every one of them had endured countless perils, survived near death, and spent thousands if not tens of thousands of years before finally grasping the fruit of emperorship. Li Xiaofei’s rise had been, after all, quite recent. Time was the hardest river for any martial cultivator to cross.

Her aunt spoke gently, "The heroic spirits in the Cemetery of the Ancestors have slumbered for centuries, returning the fate of emperorship to the world. Thus, the imperial fruit has become more distinct. Li Xiaofei is the one destined to pluck this final fruit of the Tree King. The reason he could rise so swiftly to the Great Luo Golden Immortal Realm in such a short time is because a position in the Great Dao had been left vacant. But now that the ancestors have begun to awaken, his window of opportunity is closing. He must succeed."

Tan Qingying said nothing. The hearts of great figures were always complicated. Every moment was part of a grand design. Even the ancestral slumber hid far too many layers. It was all tied to the fate and destiny of the human emperors. Who could have foreseen such a thing? Now, she could only hope her dear Brother Xiaofei would succeed in becoming a quasi-Emperor. At the very least, he could protect himself.

Time flowed on. Days passed. Then months. Then years. For martial cultivators, measuring time in years for a single seclusion was entirely normal. And for however long Li Xiaofei remained in seclusion within the Thirty-Third Layer of the Outer Heavens, Tan Qingying sat quietly upon the tiles of Doushuai Palace, never moving from her spot.

During this time, strange miracles began occurring on the Star Battlefield and in the Ancestor Court galaxy. Divine weapons descended from the heavens, appearing in humanity’s most desperate moments to protect their warriors.

It was as if there were a pair of eyes watching the suffering world from above the sky. When the faithful began to pray, it responded. At the very heart of the Star Battlefield, the human race launched its final counterattack.

The Reapers began to fall back. Within the Ancestor Court galaxy, the human resistance continued to grow in size and momentum. The Reaper King-ranked clans struggled to keep up, their elite guards and Ancestor Court forces scrambling across the stars to stamp out fires. It was then that many Reapers began to reflect.

In regions where humanity held overwhelming numbers, their so-called superiority didn’t seem quite so absolute after all. What puzzled the Reaper aristocracy most was that no matter how dire the war became, no matter how grim the tides of battle turned, the Ancestor of Wisdom and the Ancestor of Strength, the rulers of the Ancestor Court, never once showed themselves.

Though countless orders continued to pour out from the Ancestor Court, the fact that the Reapers' highest spiritual and military leaders, the Ancestor of Wisdom and the Ancestor of Strength, had never appeared in person was beginning to seem deeply unsettling.

Yet the Reapers’ greatest crisis did not even come from the human race. It came from the Evolution Temple. For the first time in history, signs had begun to emerge that the Void Beasts of the Void Realm were about to break free.

It was an omen of disaster. The Void Beasts were the natural nemeses of the Reapers. Every time the Reapers had clashed with the Void Beasts across millenia, it had ended in catastrophe.

If the Void Beasts truly broke out from the Void Realm, neither humanity nor the Reapers would escape annihilation. Both would face extinction. And beyond the Void Beasts... There were still Oblivions.

If the Void Beasts could break through the boundaries of their realm, then without a doubt, the Oblivions would follow in their wake, bringing with them complete and utter devastation.

The entire Reaper race was thrown into shock. Some even proposed forming an alliance with the human race to resist the Void Beasts together. But the idea was swiftly rejected by the high-ranking elites of the top King-ranked clans.

Instead, a historically unprecedented consensus was rapidly reached within the Reapers' internal ranks.

"Destroy the humans quickly. Then fight the Void Beasts." These eight words became the prevailing directive across the Reaper world. A new wave of warfare, more frenzied, more brutal than ever before, erupted across the stars.