Star Gate

Chapter 1877: A Split in Strength (I)

The Skyward master had stayed away from the four regions, as had the master of calamity.

If Li Hao’s memory served correctly, then Daoist Flamefire had mentioned that the Skyward master had once invited many people, those such as the master of life and death, as well as yin and yang. He hailed all of those as masters of dao!

Master of dao... Even the Human King, now an eighth rank and wielder of yin and yang, was likely not a master of dao in the Skyward master’s eye. That title might be reserved for ninth ranks, at least back in the day.

These days, any master of a dao universe was considered a master of dao.

If extending Li Hao’s line of logic, then that meant there were far more than two ninth ranks back in the day. Perhaps there’d been quite a few, such as dao masters of the five elements, light, dark, and all others could’ve existed.

They were the apex heavyweights of the chaos. Each of them had walked a path of cultivation to its ultimate end.

While the chaos had existed for countless eons, ninth ranks were also nearly undying. How could all of them be gone?

Li Hao’s one thousand bodies walked forward and began combining as one again. When a complete Li Hao materialized, thunder and lightning sizzled over his body. A tribulation bolt immediately rushed through the air for his head, but more than half of it dispersed when it landed on the young man.

The rest of the energy was redirected into the world of destruction. It didn’t harm him in the slightest.

The sight made the Thunder master take a sharp breath. He dashed over and stared and Li Hao. “Are you... immune to chaos tribulations now?”

“Not quite,” smiled the young man. “At least, seventh rank tribulations won’t really touch me anymore. I can nullify a portion of eighth rank tribulations by means of dismantling part of it from the inside.

“So long as one’s fast enough, I can dismantle eighth rank tribulations into seventh rank, then turn them into sixth rank...”

Tribulation strength wasn’t directed by a master at the helm. They were born out of nature. For Li Hao, dismantling them wasn’t difficult after witnessing them up close today.

Granted, a master of calamity would easily deliver a blow of 9300 daos combined. Li Hao wouldn’t be able to dismantle it how he tried.

He would only be smashed into smithereens!

Techniques such as these were useless in the face of absolute power. But for the moment, such definitive dominance was yet to appear.

The Thunder master was rather envious of Li Hao’s accomplishment and wanted to meld into the thunder pillars for a try. But upon further thought... forget it. freeweɓnøvel.com

He might be the master of Thunder World, but he was skilled at only the dao of thunder and lightning. He wasn’t like Li Hao, a purveyor of all daos. The Thunder master also lacked sufficient comprehension when it came to combinations of dao. Although he was an eighth rank and had delved deeply into dao domains, his accomplishments in this field were less than Li Hao’s when it came down to it.

He knew too little of the world.

At the very least, he’d never observed any ninth rank’s dao. Even a seventh rank’s dao wasn’t that common to him, much less ninth rank. He’d come in contact with very few seventh ranks, which further led to a lack of deep understanding.

It was chaos beasts that he had the most experience with, but what kind of dao would they command?

They only knew brute force!

Thunder and lightning continuously crashed down from above as Li Hao swiftly reassembled himself. His strength didn’t show a marked improvement this time, it seemed that he’d simply taken a look around the region.

However, the gains were actually invaluable to the young man.

Not only had he witnessed the uniqueness of the dao of calamity, he’d even glimpsed the proper direction to ninth rank and verified many of his speculations.

Whether it was a myriad daos coming together as one or tracing them to their origin, there was an order to them in the end.

Indeed, order.

Cultivation was the process of marching from lack of order to order. Li Hao’s understanding about this became more clear. the strength that existed within the chaos was unordered. Cultivators were to organize this miasma. The more they organized, the more powerful they became. If they could arrange all of the daos within the chaos, that would make them the most premier existences!

That was what the War Sovereign had accomplished.

Other than lacking energy, his cultivation level and dao had truly reached ninth rank!

Granted, he would have to devour an untold number of worlds and kill innumerable people to really reach ninth rank. Perhaps the War Sovereign had felt that he shouldn’t live in such a manner and decided to let himself collapse instead.

If that was the case... then that was a bit of a pity.

If the master of time truly wished to become a ninth rank dao master, he might have to devour an untold amount of energy. There was ample chaos strength for his use, but it would take many, many years to organize all of the daos within that strength.

“It’s just easier to devour energy...” Li Hao murmured.

When he first set foot into the chaos, he’d felt that absorbing external energy was a shameful act. Cultivators should not conduct themselves in such a way.

But after all this time... he now felt differently.

If he didn’t take in energy from other sources and solely relied on himself, it would take him thousands, if not tens of thousands of years to reach his current heights.

That was a minimum.

Devouring the strength of other worlds could vastly save time. No wonder everyone focused on attacking others. However, that didn’t mean that this course of action was correct.

Such was the greater environment of the entire chaos. It was eat or be eaten. Big fish ate little fish, little fish ate shrimp. Someone else would do what one was unwilling to do. If one wanted to operate differently, it first remained to be seen if they had an opportunity to be this way.

Order!

The concept sharpened in Li Hao’s mind. The chaos lacked so much order. He’d thought this way before and felt so even more strongly today. The dao of a ninth rank was indeed to organize the chaos.

The young man sank into deep thought.

These ninth ranks should’ve realized the same, that the chaos itself was disorganized. The entire chaos was a jumbled mess of great daos. Dao universes were built on the basis of order and the start of instilling order into things.

This kind of order became integral to the self at ninth rank. Someone who truly reached ninth rank would begin to understand that of the chaos, what truly enabled one to grow strong was order!

Where had all of these ninth ranks gone?

Li Hao was starting to wonder if... they’d gone to build order?

If that was the case, then they were striving toward something. If that wasn’t the case and they were just hiding somewhere to focus on their own conflict, then that would be disappointing. If a ninth rank was still pursuing fame and fortune at their levels, then that was attending to the trifles while neglecting the essentials.

Walking the path of cultivation to ninth rank was reaching an ultimate peak.

Li Hao set aside these thoughts as soon as they formed in his mind. It wasn’t his place to consider these matters yet. Compared to the ninth ranks, no, he couldn’t even measure up to the eighth ranks. Even true premier seventh ranks outstripped him.

His most pressing task at the moment was to continue to perfect his external dao. That referenced his world domains. One thousand was a sufficient base for him to officially advance toward establishing order. However, they were far from enough!

If he truly wished to become a peerless heavyweight, he needed at least 9,300 daos. The master of calamity possessed that much. While not every single one may be as strong as transforming into a world, wouldn’t Li Hao need at least eight thousand worlds to be on par with that one?

That would be so difficult to achieve!

And this was with his own worlds as dao. Otherwise, he would need the same number of dao rules to match such a heavyweight. They would be on completely different planes if the gap was too great.

The Skyward master must be even stronger!

He might be a heavyweight of 9,999 daos! Perhaps there was only one dao keeping him from the true limit of dao. As for whether time was comprised of ten thousand daos or the same as spatial dao, that remained to be seen.

Li Hao was unable to determine the specifics. He then frowned, having formed some theories, but didn’t dare to verify them.

The chaos currently lacked order and was thus disorganized. Cultivators ultimately sought to build order. Could the disordered strength of the chaos give birth to true powerhouses? Would there be inherent conflict between this disordered existence and rules of order?

If the chaos was still mostly disordered, then did that mean it occupied the upper hand?

Strange notions flurried in Li Hao’s mind. Was it possible?

Who knew?

But there was such a possibility.

The Ash Emperor of New Martial had been born to collect waste—which was a type of disorder. It was just that the cat’s personality was a bit unique. Its love for naps concealed the core nature of disorder.

Otherwise, this type of existence should have become the overlord of New Martial. That role wouldn’t have fallen to the Heavenly Emperor.

“What are you thinking of?” Void flew back, huffing and puffing with complaints. “The unrest you started throughout Thunder Region was nearly the end of us.”

“My bad!” Li Hao laughed.

“It’s not a big deal.” Void smiled as well. “Did you gain anything from it?” freёwebnoѵel.com

“Yep, some small gains.” Li Hao reached through the air to grasp the Firmament Sword, then slashed a passageway through the region. Jaws dropped at the sight.

“You...”

“This is just digesting the power of calamity!” Li Hao didn’t think much of this feat. He looked thoughtfully at the outer perimeter. “Some eighth ranks with grand ambitions in mind might pursue their own dao domain or system at that cultivation level. They might even start from seventh rank!

“A dao universe is good, but it becomes a restraint at a peak level. Therefore, the Skyward master voluntarily relinquished his dao universe. It doesn’t make a difference to him.

“Senior Fog Mountain and Thunder master’s daos are a bit lacking. I’m not saying that one strong dao isn’t good, but that dabbling in some other daos is required as well. Otherwise, you’ll easily reach eighth rank and have almost no hope of reaching ninth!”

Whether it was Fog Mountain or the Thunder master, both men were shaken by this declaration. Eighth rank is easy and no hope of ninth rank?

It was strange for such words to be voiced by a sixth rank, but Li Hao could not be viewed through an ordinary lens. He’d seen time, calamity, and space with his own eyes. One could say that the amount of ninth rank daos he’d seen eclipsed all of the current powerhouses in the chaos.