Though his hair was white with age and his life force withered, he still stood tall and straight, alone atop the mountain peak, gazing into the distance. How could he resign himself to this fate?
Those years, those people—all had drifted far away. The voices and smiles of the past, the joys and sorrows, flickered in his dimming eyes.
“I miss you all,” Shi Hao murmured.
Stone Village, the Fire Mulberry Forest, the Borderlands…
Dawn after dawn, dusk after dusk—time had slipped away.
The once-young Stone was now old. Though his name had once shaken the world, one day, it would be buried by time, forgotten in the fading memories of men.
Standing here now, it was hard to imagine that the holy terror of yesteryears had become a white-haired elder, sighing beneath the crimson sunset, lamenting the twilight of his years.
His obsession ran too deep to simply let go. He had inexplicably arrived in this world, as if severing the karmic ties of his past life. Yet, even on the brink of dissolution, he could not meet a single familiar face.
The Era of Fallen Immortals stretched endlessly, the great epochs boundless—but what did any of it have to do with him? Shi Hao was like a solitary ghost, drifting beyond the mortal world, silent and watchful.
His time had come. Cracks spread across the wheel of life within his body, the marks of time, as his life force teetered on collapse.
“Sever!”
With a soft command, a flash of light surged forth, slashing toward his own essence, seeking to obliterate the decay, to cleave away the fractures.
Like a diseased tree ravaged by insects, struck by lightning, its trunk splitting apart in the storm, yet its roots remained, waiting for rebirth.
He had planted himself as a seed, his most refined essence hidden within the Dao Seed, his cultivation and spirit both nestled within.
Chaos energy roiled across the divine mountain as Shi Hao’s life force drained away. He collapsed, and from the heavens descended a boundless storm of lightning, countless bolts crashing down.
This was disastrous—as his end approached, he had unwittingly drawn down a heavenly tribulation.
After a long while, his supposedly indestructible body, tempered for thirty thousand years by the Unbreakable Scripture, lay in ruins, riddled with wounds.
Yet, amidst the decay, a faint vitality stirred.
Just as the tribulation lightning, though a force of destruction, concealed a sliver of life, nurturing a pool of tribulation elixir.
Shi Hao hovered between life and death, and in that moment, he seemed to see the past—Willow God struck down by the endless immortal lightning of the Ninth Heaven.
Then, his consciousness blurred. When silence finally fell, the entire mountain range had been reduced to dust, transformed into a scorched abyss.
At the bottom of the abyss lay the remnants of shattered stars and charred corpses, motionless in the stillness.
Years later, a wisp of vitality emerged from the blackened husk, like a lightning-struck tree harboring a spark of life, waiting to ignite a miracle.
Over the next half-year, that vitality grew denser, until finally, a burst of flame erupted. The charred remains crackled and stirred, reviving.
In the end, shattered bones and cracked blackened skin sloughed away.
Shi Hao was reborn, restored to youth, his blood and spirit surging to their peak!
He had lived a second life, severed the decay. A Dao Seed bloomed within him, its essence flowing back into his flesh, unlocking countless gates within his body.
This life had opened even more gates than the last.
This was the manifestation of the Self-Seed path—his Dao Fruit had advanced further!
After thirty thousand years, he had cultivated an invincible body in the Mortal Dao Realm, surpassing his previous potential, his advantages greater than ever.
“I can’t wait any longer. I must defy the suppression of the heavens and attempt to ascend as an Immortal!” Shi Hao whispered.
This was a complex era. The scars of the Fallen Immortals lingered, the cosmos veiled by the laws of True Immortals, the remnants of Immortal Kings looming over all, barring the path for later beings.
For Shi Hao, this was a wretched age!
Yet, if he succeeded under such conditions, his achievement would be unimaginable.
In this life, Shi Hao had ventured out only once, spending centuries in search of an elixir of immortality.
Then, he cast aside all distractions, focusing solely on ascension. He wanted to return, to master supreme divine abilities, to wield world-shaking power, to go where he was meant to go.
Had the Great Reckoning begun in the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths of old?
Faces flashed through his mind. He feared losing them forever, feared never seeing them again in this life.
This life, he held immense advantages—his body was peerless, his cultivation had reached the pinnacle of the Mortal Dao, stronger than ever before. This was his foundation.
“I shall become a Battle Immortal!” Shi Hao declared, his voice low.
In this era, suppressed by the rules and imprints of the Immortal Dao, ascending was impossible. To forge this path was to defy the world itself.
Time flowed like water, never to return.
Shi Hao charged forward again and again, relentless, reckless, striving to become a Battle Immortal!
This was fatal—too unyielding, too prone to breaking.
In this life, Shi Hao exhausted himself, spending his days in relentless pursuit, battered and scarred, never whole. Had his foundation not been terrifyingly solid, he would have perished long ago.
Even so, his unyielding methods inflicted terrible damage. Over time, his lifespan dwindled.
And yet, this life had lasted only ten thousand years!
Compared to his previous lifespan, he should have been far from his end.
Decades later, Shi Hao could endure no more. Though his body radiated immense power, his life force was spent. This life was ending.
He retrieved an herb and swallowed it—an elixir of immortality he had plucked.
In this life, he had journeyed only once, spending centuries to find this herb.
Having spent thirty to forty thousand years in this world, he naturally knew where great opportunities lay, where elixirs might be hidden.
This was a relic of the Era of Fallen Immortals, a remnant of the great war, now in his hands.
That night, divine light pierced the heavens, countless rays enveloping the wilderness. Shi Hao revived, surging from decay back to vigor, reclaiming his youth.
Yet, in this age of declining laws, the once-immortal elixir had degraded, its potency no greater than that of divine herbs of old.
It could not make him an Immortal—only grant him another life.
Shi Hao’s third life began. Now, he had lived forty thousand years.
His sole focus: ascension!
He wanted to return, to rise, to become a Battle Immortal in this mortal world!
But the path was too arduous. Even Shi Hao, who had become a Supreme Being in less than five hundred years and was regarded as an Emperor of the Mortal Dao by True Immortals in just over a millennium, was now trapped.
He could not take that final step. Ascension eluded him!
In this third life, Shi Hao lived thirty thousand years. Though he possessed an immortal herb, it was now useless to him.
The elixir had granted him another life, but that was all. From then on, all beings developed resistance—only one such chance existed.
In desperation, Shi Hao began to replace his blood, refining his bones and marrow. All his precious blood spilled forth, turning into flames.
This was an evolution—not a natural metamorphosis, but a forced one. Every drop of blood ignited, his very flesh burning in the fires of the Great Dao.
A True Phoenix cried out, its voice shaking the heavens.
He had mastered the True Phoenix Treasure Art, its supreme legacy of rebirth. After forty thousand years of study, he now staked his life on it—this was his only chance.
Bathed in flames, as his old blood drained away, a fierce cry of an immortal bird resounded, accompanied by a thunderous Dao resonance. Shi Hao’s body trembled violently—new blood was reborn in his marrow and flesh!
He had succeeded. His fourth life had begun.
This life, his lifespan was vast—fifty-six thousand years!
Added to his previous lives, by the end of this fourth life, Shi Hao would have lived over one hundred twenty-six thousand years.
In this fourth life, across fifty thousand years, Shi Hao not only trained relentlessly, striving for the Battle Immortal fruit, but also studied countless formations.
The Era of Fallen Immortals had just ended, leaving behind ruins and lost legacies. Shi Hao scoured the world for formation treasures.
By the end, after fifty thousand years of study, he had become a peerless grandmaster of formations.
Before his fourth life ended, Shi Hao laid down an earth-shaking grand formation, linking nine divine lands across vast distances, connecting them despite being millions of miles apart.
He constructed a supreme formation, burying himself at its core, drawing upon the essence of the nine divine lands.
Like a divine egg, he was nurtured and baptized. Though not encompassing the entire world, this was still a heaven-defying feat.
Thus, Shi Hao lived his fifth life, shedding his skin like a divine embryo, expelling old bones from his flesh and regrowing anew.
He plumbed the mysteries of heaven and earth, using formations to gather primal essence, nurturing the spark of rebirth.
Then came the sixth life, the seventh…
Shi Hao exhausted every means to survive, reviving from one twilight after another. It was arduous, but he succeeded.
With each life, his lifespan grew dramatically, giving him hope, a direction.
Ascension was hard, the heavens sealed. Even Shi Hao, mighty as he was, could not truly defy the heavens.
Yet, living life after life was perhaps the greatest defiance—more terrifying than true ascension!
In the past, who had achieved this? In an entire epoch, those who lived a second life were as rare as phoenix feathers. A third life was the stuff of legend, unverifiable.
Shi Hao had lived seven lives—unprecedented in history.
A being this powerful, in an era permitting ascension, would have long since become an Immortal. There would have been no need for such desperate struggle.
At forty thousand years old, Shi Hao finally lived his eighth life, his blood and vitality surging, his yang energy overwhelming, returning to the prime of youth, standing at the pinnacle of his existence.
“I don’t need the heavens’ recognition. If I continue like this, will I be weaker than an Immortal?” Shi Hao roared at the sky.
Eight lifetimes of accumulation had elevated his Dao to unimaginable heights. In the Mortal Dao Realm, he was unmatched—perhaps already transcending it.
Even a True Immortal before him would not deter him from battle.
Already at the peak of the Mortal Dao, eight lifetimes of accumulation defied comprehension. His Dao was still advancing—this surpassed all expectations.
To describe him as a Supreme Being was insufficient.
Even calling him an Emperor, as True Immortals might, fell short.
Especially in this eighth life, his lifespan was astonishingly long. By the ninth thousandth year, he remained in his prime, showing no signs of age. By then, he had weathered four hundred ninety thousand years across eight lives.
Moreover, in this eighth life, his divine senses grew sharper, allowing him to perceive startling truths.
More than once, he had glimpsed the River of Time, watching its ebbs and flows.
He had even seen countless mighty figures gazing across its currents—some peering into the past, others overlooking eternity.
“It’s him!” One day, he saw a blood-soaked Heavenly Horned Ant staring back at him from within the river.
Shi Hao was stunned. That was the father of the little Heavenly Horned Ant, one of the Ten Ferocious.
He remembered—when they had first opened the underground palace beneath the Celestial Deity Academy, the residual imprint of the ant’s father had spoken of seeing Shi Hao billions of years in the past.
Now, Shi Hao sighed softly, understanding at last.
In his eighth life, Shi Hao reached the highest peak he could stand upon, capable of sweeping the world.
Now, he believed he could even slay an Immortal in defiance of the heavens. This was not mere confidence—it was unfathomable power!
“I want to return… to my own era,” Shi Hao murmured.
He had found his path. He did not need the heavens’ recognition. By defying the world, living life after life, he would become an Immortal in time!
He worried—had the Great Reckoning begun? Had those he knew perished in the river of time?
Different epochs, different worlds, entangled with time itself—who could say how it all connected?
“The Heavens Transmutation…”
Shi Hao activated it once more, refining this supreme art. His arrival here was tied to it, to that stone chamber. Over the years, he had pondered it often.
“Hmm?”
Suddenly, he sensed something amiss.
“Is the sky changing? Can I return?”
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