Chapter 1040: Chapter 1034: Trait: Punishment Official
Li Dalong sat cross-legged while Li Wei examined his traits.
If judged by the cultivation realm, Li Wei, as the ancestor, was far lower in realm than his descendant, Li Dalong.
This was simply because Li Dalong possessed two Dharma Treasures—the Heaven-Piercing Coffin and the Heaven-Imprisoning Lock—as well as Heaven-Piercing Coffin’s last master, Shenwu inheritance.
Outside Li Dalong’s cultivation area, wandering ghosts drifted about. The zombies and vicious spirits following him were innumerable.
They occupied a territory within Hell Layer II: The Rending Vows, waging war day and night.
Whenever Li Wei came to see Li Dalong, he mostly found him cultivating, turning a deaf ear to the battles fought by the vicious ghosts and zombies outside.
A century of cultivation in the Netherworld also came with many unknown experiences.
[Your descendant Li Dalong has forged an illustrious reputation in Hell Layer I: The Silence Maw by commanding zombies and vicious ghosts.
He slew the Ghost King of The Silence Maw, “Hellblade King.”
After years of refining King Hellblade King, he has been blessed by the Qi-Destiny of the Netherworld and acquired the trait: Punishment Official.]
[Holding the duty of punishing evil in Hell Layer I: The Silence Maw, his cultivation speed in the Netherworld increases by 30%.
He has received the Netherworld’s bestowed Void Refinement technique: Silence Maw Forbidden Technique.]
[Tracks the opponent’s soul and rips out their tongue, forbidding them from using techniques.
The effect depends on the Spiritual power of both parties; if the opponent’s Spiritual power is exceptionally strong, it can only reduce the intensity of their techniques.]
[Through the boundless Blood Sea and the Yin energy of the Netherworld, your descendant Li Dalong’s cultivation speed has increased.
The death aura within the Blood Sea and the Heaven-Piercing Coffin has been replenished.
Coupled with the delivery of the clan’s spiritual pills, his years of cultivation have allowed him to reach the peak of the Void Refinement realm.]
[Over the past century, by utilizing the techniques of Netherworld zombies and vicious ghosts to study the Void Refinement space, his strength has increased massively.]
Li Wei flew around, inspecting the Netherworld.
This place was pitch-black and boundlessly vast.
Over the years, it wasn’t that Li Wei hadn’t asked Li Dalong about the Netherworld. The so-called King Yama and other known names—none of them existed.
The Netherworld was left with only endless chaos. It was completely disorderly, without a Bridge of Helplessness, let alone Samsara.
The ghostly entities of the Netherworld possessed intelligence and cultivated within it.
Once they died in the Netherworld, their divine souls would dissipate into its atmosphere, only to be reborn within the Netherworld after being baptized by the passage of time.
The oldest Void Refinement realm Netherworld Official that Li Dalong had ever met was similarly ignorant about the Netherworld’s affairs.
He only knew how to scrape by, constantly on guard, fighting, and vying for territory.
These vicious ghosts, who had lived long enough, were not only daring enough to fight and kill, but they even dared to clash with powerful Netherworld Officials like them.
….
With the nine-tailed demon fox that Xu Cuihua had transformed into standing guard beside him, Li Dalong’s divine sense had already entered the Heaven-Piercing Coffin.
By now, he had long refined the Heaven-Piercing Coffin into his lifebound Dharma Treasure; the two were inseparable.
The sixth layer of the Heaven-Piercing Coffin contained the low-grade Dharma Treasure, the “Heaven-Imprisoning Lock,” and now, Li Dalong’s divine sense had entered the seventh layer.
Li Dalong’s divine soul stood on the ground of the seventh layer, staring straight at the illusion before him.
In the illusion, a man carrying a coffin on his back could be seen constantly waging war across the world.
He fought from the land to the underground, from the underground to the sea, and then from the sea up to the jade pavilions above the void.
As he slaughtered, the number of zombies inside the Heaven-Piercing Coffin grew ever larger.
“Is this Shenwu?”
Li Dalong stared blankly at the solitary and arrogant figure standing before countless zombies.
It was unknown how long ago this era was; the world back then did not have the current Azure Dynasty.
Shenwu’s unscrupulous corpse refinement had angered the immortal cultivators of the world, yet no one could suppress him.
Every time Shenwu emerged, his corpse-driving technique and strength would grow even more formidable, winning every battle.
But an illusion was ultimately just an illusion, lacking detailed intelligence. It only revealed that Shenwu did two things his entire life: refine corpses and wage war.
The final scene showed the sky filled with cultivators and immortal soldiers stepping on auspicious clouds, wielding Dharma Treasures as they charged toward Shenwu’s horde of corpses.
After achieving a complete victory in this battle…
Shenwu entered the Void Refinement space.
Countless zombies joined him in pressing their hands against a massive door. Pushing it open, they beheld a path paved entirely with corpses and bones.
“This is Shenwu’s Dao path: ‘I alone am supreme. Those who oppose me shall perish; only zombies submit to me.'”
Even though Li Dalong had spectated Shenwu’s Dao path hundreds of times, his face still showed shock, mingled with a bit more confusion.
“The Ancestor said Shenwu was shocked to death by the aftermath of a battle between two Emperors.
The twenty-four Emperor thrones in the world… could they truly be that powerful?
Even Mahayana realm cultivators couldn’t withstand the mere shockwaves before them?”
Muttering to himself, Li Dalong didn’t dwell on it.
What did it matter if he knew about ancient affairs? He still had to honestly seek his own Dao path.
Once he reached the Dao realm, he could escape the endless clamor of the Netherworld, go home, and properly farm his fields for a century.
“Speaking of which, I really miss the old geezers back in the Azure Cloud Prefecture. I wonder if they’re dead yet.”
Smiling, Li Dalong held his breath and concentrated.
He had cultivated in the Netherworld for hundreds of years.
A few years ago, after taking Yaoqing’s pills and reaching the peak of the Void Refinement realm, he could sense a door within the Void Refinement space.
That door stood before a desolate wasteland, and behind it were endless paths, each leading to a new world.
That path was blurry. Only by pushing open the door could one clearly see one’s own path.
But when Li Dalong’s divine soul once again walked up to that blood-colored door in the Void Refinement space, he couldn’t push it open even after exhausting all his tricks.
“This is the Dao path Shenwu walked. His path involved having the zombies push open the grand door alongside him.”
“But currently, the laws and Spiritual power within my divine soul are insufficient.”
After trying once more, Li Dalong looked at the blood-drop pattern engraved on the blood-colored door and frowned slightly.
On a door over a hundred meters tall and more than ten meters wide, that thumb-sized drop of blood amounted to nothing.
Taking a deep breath, Li Dalong came to a realization. “So this is the Dao Gate. Only by opening the Dao Gate can one glimpse the Dao.”
“The Dao Shenwu walked is right before my eyes.
As long as I use the Heaven-Piercing Coffin’s corpse-driving technique to refine enough zombies, I can use Shenwu’s method—borrowing their Spiritual power—to help me push open the Dao Gate with laws and Spiritual power, which will be enough to glimpse the Dao.”
“The people of the world seek opportunities, but it’s nothing more than seeking enough Spiritual power and laws to push open the Dao Gate.
No matter how strong an individual’s power is, they can never push open a hundred-meter-tall Dao Gate.
That’s why accumulation is needed, just like the ‘blood’ laws I’ve been engraving bit by bit on the Dao Gate over these past few decades.”
“But this is too difficult.
Absorbing Spiritual power and laws, then stacking them on the Dao Gate until one possesses the strength to push it open…
As time passes, the engraving method becomes more proficient, and in places that possess laws, engraving laws becomes even simpler.”
“Yet even so, the time spent honestly stacking laws on the Dao Gate probably exceeds the fifty-thousand-year lifespan of the Void Refinement realm.
Hence the existence of Body Integration opportunities—borrowing external power to acquire laws for one’s own use and completely open the Dao Gate.”
His thoughts reached this point.
Li Dalong looked up at the massive Dao Gate and let out a long breath.
“Could it be that I have to be like Shenwu, leading vicious ghosts and zombies out of the Netherworld to conquer the world just to open this Dao Gate?
Just how many zombies, and how strong must they be, to push open this Dao Gate?”
His divine soul sensed his zombies in Hell Layer II: The Rending Vows.
Among them, only Xuan Tianzi, who had followed him for many years, had reached the Void Refinement realm through a daring and fighting spirit over the long years.
Recalling the majestic scene when Shenwu opened the Dao Gate, the corner of Li Dalong’s mouth twitched.
“The number of Void Refinement cultivators publicly known across the major prefectures in the world doesn’t exceed two hundred.
Even if I slaughtered them all, it probably wouldn’t be enough to open the Dao Gate.”
“But if it’s the Body Integration realm…”
Li Dalong smiled bitterly and shook his head.
Inside the Heaven-Piercing Coffin, the corpse of the Zhao Clan’s ancestor was still lying there.
After hundreds of years of refinement, the Zhao Clan’s ancestors’ corpse could only be used as a puppet; it simply couldn’t provide him with Spiritual power and the power of laws like the other zombies.
Even Shenwu, back in the day, had spent thousands of years conquering the world, and most of that time was spent refining corpses.
Amidst his distress.
Seeing his ancestral tablet light up, Li Dalong raised his eyebrows slightly and entered the Ancestral Space.
Inside the space, the Ancestor and his descendants were all present.
They were discussing the militaristic actions of their descendant Li Jianshu, the junior and senior members of the clan gaining experience outside the dynasty, and the affairs of Deston Prefecture.
The children reported the various matters of Deston Prefecture.
“Bi Shihu has already been executed. Only Yun Hongcai remains of the Yun Clan. This person excels at stealing and must have a motive. I expect he will show himself before long.”
Li Xinnian spoke calmly and breezily, making Li Dalong nod in appreciation.
This child, Li Xinnian, was the most outstanding descendant of the clan in the past five hundred years. The elders of the clan all placed high hopes on him.
During his years as the clan head, Li Xinnian had managed the clan with perfect order. Even after arriving in Deston Prefecture, he was not afraid to fight the strong experts of the world.
“Your son went to ask Holy Monk Yidian for a bit of advice.”
Li Jianshu waited for Li Xinnian to finish before saying,
“The best way to find the Dusheng Nunnery is to take down all of their temples in the world in one fell swoop, seizing the incense offerings of the Demoness Dairou.
Right now, she must be at a critical juncture for a breakthrough. Driven to exasperation, she won’t be able to resist showing herself.”
“But we cannot be the ones to take it.” Li Kuangren’s expression was solemn.
“Kuanghua is still at the Dusheng Nunnery. Although the Ancestor is here, I don’t want to face this kind of risk.”
Hearing this, Li Wei also nodded slightly. He couldn’t be sure what methods the Demoness Dairou possessed.
Although he possessed the law of space, it didn’t mean he had the right to do whatever he pleased.
The methods of a Body Integration realm almighty were unpredictable; he had already witnessed some of them with the Nirvana Sage Elder.
The group discussed for a while. It wasn’t until everyone left to handle their affairs that Li Dalong returned to the Netherworld.
“The Body Integration realm…”
Li Dalong took a deep breath and sat down cross-legged again.
His divine soul entered the Void Refinement space and pressed his hand against the Dao Gate, his expression incredibly solemn.
Having served as an official in the dynasty for many years, he understood the importance of the Body Integration realm better than his clansmen.
Thus, once he came to a harsh environment like the Netherworld, he stayed for hundreds of years. Otherwise, who would like a godforsaken place like the Netherworld…
Hmm… this place was actually quite nice.
Immediately sensing everything within his body, everything inside the Heaven-Piercing Coffin, and the past years, Li Dalong muttered,
“What is my Dao path? What kind of law should I use to break open the Dao path? Could it be that I really have to be like Shenwu, recklessly slaughtering my way across the world?”
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