Chapter 1816: Sudden Enlightenment

Chapter 1816: Yi Nian Dun Wu

For three full days, Ye Chen remained inside the stone hut, kneeling there motionless like a statue. Even as an exalted immortal, he could not bring back his parents from the past; he could only gaze at the urn of ashes and lose himself in memories.

"Why don't we go and persuade him?" Di Lao said, looking at the others.

"That is the root of his previous life, and the cause from that life. He needs time to resolve it," Tian Lao replied.

"Incredible!" All the Zhun Di sighed.

Only Donghuang Taixin stood there gracefully, her expression calm. As the guardian deity of Da Chu, she had seen too many lives marked by the imprint of reincarnation. The years had been long, and she had grown accustomed to it.

Tian Xuan Men was peaceful, and so was Shan Shi Cun in Bei Chu.

As time passed, another nine days slipped by quietly.

The Zhun Di watched for nine days, and Ye Chen knelt for nine days. Letting go of karma was easy, but he could not bear to part with his parents from his previous life, for once he stood up, that life would truly be in the past.

On the tenth night, he bowed three times before finally rising.

Bathed in moonlight, he stepped out of the stone hut and out of Shan Shi Cun, standing quietly at the edge of the village and gazing at his roots.

In a daze, he could still see an ordinary farmer and a simple farm woman waving to him.

They were his parents, smiling warmly, with a faint remnant of spirit bidding farewell to their child. They had waited until this moment.

Ye Chen smiled through his tears and raised his hand, delivering a palm strike.

The home and roots he knew turned to dust under that palm, but a massive tombstone rose from the ground, marking the land with the name of Shan Shi Cun.

The karma of his previous life was settled, with dust returning to dust and earth to earth.

Yet within his body, a brilliant divine light burst forth from his Tian Ling Gai, shooting straight into the sky and piercing a hole in the vast heavens. The entire starry sky trembled.

His cultivation, freed from karma, broke through its bottleneck.

The barrier from Quasi-Saint King to Saint King was trampled underfoot, and across the vast universe, lightning gathered to its extreme.

"This can lead to a breakthrough?" Di Lao exclaimed, his expression full of surprise.

"By letting go of karma and elevating his state of mind, it's another form of sudden enlightenment," Fu Xi, who was usually unreliable, said seriously this time. "Everything lies in a single thought."

"You're saying something profound for once, damn it."

"This sudden seriousness from you is making me uncomfortable. It's got me all twisted up, and I can't even find a reason to beat you anymore."

"You idiots, a bunch of old idiots—you couldn't beat me anyway."

"He's suppressing the Tian Jie," Dan Zun remarked casually while the others bantered. "It looks like he's planning to trick someone again."

The Zhun Di didn't disagree with that. The Tian Jie of a Holy Body was incredibly vast, comparable to a world-shaking divine weapon.

Ye Chen was a monster, and an unlucky one at that. Throughout his cultivation path, he had been struck by lightning time and again, and he never failed to drag others along for the ride.

Not to mention the myriad races of the Southern Domain or the eight ancient clans of Hong Huang—they had all been scorched by the Tian Jie, howling in agony.

On the Bei Chu lands, the gathered lightning slowly dissipated, and the surging dark clouds vanished into the invisible sky.

Ye Chen had suppressed the Tian Jie once more. It would serve as a deterrent; if Hong Huang caused trouble again, he wouldn't mind stirring up a grand spectacle. The divine punishment of a Holy Body was extraordinarily fierce.

After one last glance at Shan Shi Cun, he slowly turned away.

Under the stars, he walked farther and farther, his figure lonely and desolate, with tears still wet at the corners of his eyes.

This time, he didn't delay and activated a teleportation domain gate.

As dawn approached, he appeared once more, returning to Tian Xuan Men after a thousand years, filled with endless nostalgia.

In the bamboo grove, the Zhun Di were already waiting, having waited long enough for him to come and resolve their doubts.

"Esteemed seniors," Ye Chen bowed with his hands clasped.

"We're all so familiar now, no need for formalities," Bei Lin said with a smile. "We've been waiting for you. Find a spot to sit and steady yourself."

Ye Chen didn't stand on ceremony and found a small stool to sit on.

The Zhun Di sat in a circle, surrounding him in the center.

This setup made Ye Chen feel like a criminal, with this group of old fellows acting like judges ready to interrogate him.

"Is there reincarnation in the underworld?" Fu Xi asked immediately, deeply curious about the affairs of the underworld, though he couldn't calculate it himself.

"Yes," Ye Chen nodded affirmatively. "Just as the legends in the mortal world say: there are black and white impermanence, judges, the Ten Kings of Hell, Ghost Gate Pass, Yellow Springs Road, Wangchuan River, Naihe Bridge, Wangxiang Terrace, Three Lives Stone, Meng Po Soup, B-po Hua, and the eighteen levels of hell. In simpler terms, it's the cycle of rebirth."

"Is it that elaborate?" Fu Xi raised an eyebrow, and the Zhun Di looked equally surprised, finding it all quite novel just from hearing about it.

"So, does that mean all the spirits of the dead from the myriad heavens and domains can enter the underworld?" Tian Lao asked tentatively.

"The chances are almost zero," Ye Chen replied slowly. "According to the underworld's explanation, it's because there's a rift connecting the human world and the underworld. Reincarnation means sending the soul back through that rift. That's the cycle."

"You're really lucky," Di Lao sighed, giving Ye Chen a meaningful look. An almost zero probability, and yet you encountered it—what kind of fortune is that? It's like cheating!

"The intense turmoil earlier, which even affected the heavens, was it related to the underworld?" Tian Jiu Shen Jiang asked.

"It's not the underworld," Ye Chen shook his head lightly. "It's the spirit world."

"You went to the spirit world?" The Zhun Di were collectively stunned.

"I was reincarnated and ended up in the wrong place," Ye Chen explained slowly. "The spirit world harbored a massive number of heavenly demons, including the corpse of a heavenly demon emperor. The four alliances in the spirit world joined forces to destroy them, but at a heavy cost."

"There's such a thing?" The Zhun Di were all shocked, never expecting another emperor-level corpse to exist.

"Thankfully, it was discovered early. If the heavenly demons had connected to the heavenly demon domain, it would have been a world-ending catastrophe," Di Lao said with lingering fear.

"They really infiltrate everywhere," Tian Lao snorted coldly.

"Who knows how many heavenly demons are hiding in other realms," the emperors and divine generals all frowned.

The myriad heavens and domains seemed peaceful, but dangers lurked everywhere.

An open attack is easy to defend against, but hidden threats are the hardest to guard.

Given the nature of heavenly demons, they could strike at any moment.

"Compared to that, I'm more curious about who killed that emperor corpse," Tian Yuan said, clutching a divine pearl, huffing on it and polishing it with his sleeve until it shone.

At his words, the Zhun Di present all turned their gaze to Ye Chen.

An emperor corpse was still an emperor, a supreme existence that could crush a Zhun Di like an ant with a wave of its hand.

"This junior was fortunate enough to send it on its way," Ye Chen said flatly under their scrutiny.

He spoke casually, but the Zhun Di's expressions changed, staring at him as if he were a monster.

What kind of person is this? A professional emperor slayer?

Counting the previous two, he had now killed three great emperors.

Was this some kind of destined fate? The heavenly demons had invaded three times, and each time Ye Chen was there, playing the leading role.

The Zhun Di understood how difficult the battles in the spirit world must have been against such powerful heavenly demons—undoubtedly a sea of corpses and blood.

They also understood how fiercely Ye Chen must have fought to slay that heavenly demon emperor corpse, just like in the starry sky back then.

The brief silence was soon broken as the Zhun Di peppered him with questions, one after another, humbly seeking knowledge.

Ye Chen was patient, answering every question from his seniors openly and without reservation; there was no need to hide anything.

Naturally, he omitted certain matters, like the six paths of reincarnation, Zhao Yun, and his emotional tribulation with Chu Ling, keeping them buried deep in his heart.

As they talked, the direction of the questions shifted.

Some of the more improper Zhun Di kept asking odd and strange things, like how many wives Yan Luo had, if they were beautiful, if they had good figures, how many times a day, and how long each time.

Ye Chen ignored that kind of nonsense. He had come all this way, only to listen to their idle chatter? How shameless.

Sometime later, the group finally rose and dispersed.

Even with the mindset of Zhun Di, they couldn't help but sigh. Ye Chen was so young, yet his experiences were incredibly rich—he had been to the underworld and the spirit world, places even they hadn't visited.

As for his achievements, they were simply astonishing: slaying three great emperors—who in the heavens could compare? And ridiculously, he was still just a Saint King who hadn't undergone his Tian Jie.

Ye Chen's existence not only embarrassed the younger generations of the heavens but also made these veteran old-timers feel awkward.

"Go on! Chu Xuan is about to awaken," Donghuang Taixin said with a light smile, waving her hand to open a gate of light for Ye Chen.

"Thank you," Ye Chen said, overflowing with excitement, and stepped inside.