Free Web NovelChapter 201: Chapter 181: Heaven and Earth Cage
The few worlds that held a grudge against the Divine Wilderness.
They were merely fanning the flames, turning the Divine Wilderness’s tribulations into their own good fortune.
During every tribulation.
They could gather the karmic luck of the Divine Wilderness, which had been diminished by the Celestial Dao, and concentrate it in one place, transforming it into all sorts of Creation. They would wait for the tribulation to arrive before truly entering the Divine Wilderness to reap its harvest, era after era.
This wasn’t to say that they could act without restraint during the tribulations.
How terrifying was the suppressive backlash from the Great Dao?
Even a figure as unimaginable to Wu Dao as the Slaughter Emperor had fallen in defeat, so what chance did his vanquished foes have?
Nine Tribulations in thirty thousand years.
With each tribulation, the Great Dao continuously lowered this world’s Cultivation ceiling.
During the Ninth Tribulation one thousand years ago, the Divine Wilderness’s limit was a level above Dao Embryo.
There were quite a few people alive today who had experienced that tribulation.
Naturally, detailed information about that tribulation was available, just as it was for the Eighth Tribulation three thousand years prior.
The glimmer of hope within the tribulation—a hope that wasn’t truly a hope at all.
The Cultivators of the Divine Wilderness World had discovered it long ago.
When a tribulation arrived, the beings from beyond the Divine Wilderness who came to collect their debts and unleash calamity would also have their power suppressed to some extent by the Great Dao, preventing them from being overwhelmingly stronger than the locals.
But...
Was this really a glimmer of hope?
If it truly was...
why had the Divine Wilderness been utterly defeated in all Nine Tribulations?
Why had generation after generation of peerless heroes, demonic prodigies, and Celestial Prides all perished in the tribulations without a single survivor?
Thirty thousand years!
It was impossible to imagine how many astonishingly talented figures, individuals who could look down upon an entire era, had been born in the Divine Wilderness.
But they were still defeated!
Now, during the Tenth Tribulation, on what grounds could the figures born at the very end of the End of the Dharma possibly compare to those from the golden ages?
And don’t even mention that ’adversity forges True Dragons’.
In the same world, anyone with half a brain could figure out whether a harsh environment or a brilliant golden age would produce more True Dragons.
And so, when he had spoken with Prince Nanyang in Xuzhou Prefecture, Wu Dao had clearly felt the thread of irrepressible pessimism in his words.
This proved that he didn’t really have much confidence either. He was most likely just doing his best and leaving the rest to the Celestial Mandate.
Was it because Prince Nanyang wasn’t strong?
Did he have a poor temperament?
It was neither.
Number one on the Southern Border’s martial rankings, a Celestial Treasure Master!
From an obscure minor prince to the dominant lord he was today, ruling over a vast territory and poised to swallow the world.
His strength and his temperament were both unquestionably at the apex of the current generation.
And yet, he was still pessimistic...
One could only imagine just how despairing the future Great Tribulation would be.
The only chance—the only sliver of a chance—was to borrow the world’s karmic luck and ascend beyond the Dao Embryo realm before the Great Tribulation descended!
The three Cultivation paths in this world all ultimately boiled down to the Unity of Heaven and Man, a process where a person attunes themselves to the Great Dao, their body a microcosm imitating the macrocosm of the universe.
Therefore, the further one progressed in Cultivation, the more the Cultivators of this world focused on their individual karmic luck’s share of the whole—or in other words, their influence over the luck of the Great Dao and all living beings.
Karmic luck was a key.
A key to continuously unlocking the Essence of the Great Dao.
If that weren’t the case, the Slaughter Emperor wouldn’t have inhumanely butchered countless living beings across several worlds thirty thousand years ago.
Was it for fun?
No!
He did it to increase his own Dao luck!
It could be understood as a kind of ritual: making a sacrifice to the Great Dao to receive a gift of karmic luck in return.
Different Daos had different rituals.
The Slaughter Emperor walked the Path of Slaughter, so his ritual for attaining his Dao was naturally the epitome of viciousness.
The current kings of the four lands, including Prince Nanyang, were continuing their assault on Dali despite the heavenly calamities for the same reason: to obtain the karmic luck of the Human Emperor that came with unifying the world.
The Great Divine Technique that Prince Nanyang cultivated was called "World Peace."
In other words, the Peace Dao!
If he wanted to increase the karmic luck of this Great Divine Technique, to undergo a metamorphosis by Breaking the Cocoon and shatter the shackles of the Dao Embryo, the position of Human Emperor was an unavoidable step.
But Wu Dao estimated that the realm above Dao Embryo was likely not that simple.
Seven hundred years ago, the Demon Suppression Emperor unified the Great Li World. The karmic luck of a Human Emperor was immeasurably vast, but he still got stuck at the Dao Embryo Nine Transformations and had to fake his own death to pursue another path.
With such a failure as a precedent, it seemed far too unrealistic for Prince Nanyang and the others to succeed by relying on the Human Emperor’s karmic luck seven hundred years later, in a time when the world was even harsher and the luck of the Human Dao had waned.
Therefore, Wu Dao guessed, ’Prince Nanyang and the other Three Kings must have other, secret "rituals" for their breakthrough underway.’
Furthermore, ’This ritual is probably related to the abilities granted by their Celestial Treasures.’
Prince Nanyang had previously revealed that the current kings of the various lands, including the one in the Central Plains Imperial Court, were all Celestial Treasure Masters!
Wu Dao had already seen just how heaven-defying these illogical artifacts were, thanks to that bastard, the Saint King.
If a normal Cultivator’s path to power was like felling mountains and clearing forests, widening their road one step at a time, then the path of a Celestial Treasure Master was a wide, open highway. As long as they kept replenishing their ’Energy’ and completing the rituals, they could advance without hindrance.
Wu Dao hadn’t asked what the ’ritual’ for Prince Nanyang’s Celestial Treasure was, just as Prince Nanyang hadn’t asked about his secrets.
However, during their conversation, Prince Nanyang had revealed a bit of information to clear up Wu Dao’s confusion.
The Celestial Treasure he possessed was named ’Zhi Gui’.
It allowed him to see information about helpful patrons, valuable treasures, and auspicious events, as well as glimpses of a vague future.
’This information... did, to some extent, explain Prince Nanyang’s inexplicable goodwill toward me. As for whether it’s true, there’s no way to know.’
Aside from all that, there was one other thing from his conversation with Prince Nanyang that Wu Dao found somewhat concerning.
Before their talk ended, Prince Nanyang had offered him a piece of advice: "When the future Great Tribulation arrives, no matter what happens, patience is paramount. Do not act on impulse."
’Those words were a bit baffling.’
