Before the Tushita Palace, the Golden Horn Boy and the Silver Horn Boy were already waiting there. Seeing Meng Qi descend directly, they couldn’t help but show surprise. As a figure of the Other Shore, even if he could be omnipresent, he should still maintain an aloof demeanor, arriving in a Nine-Dragon Agarwood Chariot. Why act as casually as before?
They dared not dwell on it, bowing with complex expressions:
“The Great Elder invites the Heavenly Venerable inside.”
Not long ago, they had addressed each other as fellow disciples, but now he was a Heavenly Venerable. No matter how polite they were, they couldn’t afford the slightest disrespect.
Meng Qi nodded slightly. “Thank you, both Senior Brothers.”
“Yes, Heavenly Venerable.” The Golden Horn Boy and the Silver Horn Boy turned and led Meng Qi inside, passing through layers of halls until they reached a quiet chamber housing an alchemy furnace. The flames at its base appeared ordinary, yet emitted no heat whatsoever.
An elderly Daoist with white hair and a long beard sat cross-legged before the furnace, his eyes half-open and half-closed, his head occasionally nodding slightly as if drowsing.
At the sight of the Heavenly Venerable of Virtue, Meng Qi suddenly sensed something subtle—compared to their last meeting, the Heavenly Venerable’s presence had weakened further. This was both an effect of the approaching end of the epoch and a sign of nearing a state of transcendent perfection!
Just then, the Heavenly Venerable of Virtue slowly spoke: “What is non-action?”
“Non-action is not inaction. It is to follow the will of Heaven, to emulate nature, to align with the Dao. This is non-action. Those who practice non-action are blessed by the Dao, aligned with the great momentum, and thus meet no obstacles.”
The Golden Horn Boy and the Silver Horn Boy by the door were utterly baffled, unable to comprehend why the Great Elder had brought up the topic of “non-action.” What did this have to do with the purpose of Su Meng, the Heavenly Venerable and leader of the Jade Void Palace?
Shouldn’t they be discussing the recent struggle of the Other Shore?
At that moment, they saw Meng Qi clap his hands and laugh. “With these words from my Senior Uncle, this junior can rest assured.”
He cupped his hands in salute, turned, and walked out of the alchemy chamber, leaving the Golden Horn and Silver Horn Boys staring at each other in bewilderment.
Outside the Tushita Palace, white clouds cascaded like waterfalls, and spiritual springs bubbled gently. Meng Qi, in high spirits, admired the rare flowers and plants that could only be seen in ancient and primordial times.
Previously, for the sake of Xiao Sang, he had allied with Amitabha Buddha, secretly collaborated with the Green Emperor, and assisted Maitreya. In the eyes of the Heavenly Venerable of Virtue, these matters were trivial, so he had made no arrangements or moves, only stepping in at the end to confront Amitabha Buddha. But after Meng Qi devoured the “Medicine King Buddha” and used the great divine ability “Three Purities in One” to manifest the “True Calm Tathagata,” he effectively inherited the fruit of one of the Three Purities embodied by the Heavenly Venerable of Virtue, aiding him in completing a crucial act of “emptying through subtraction.” Once “Heavenly Venerable Su Meng” and “True Lord Qingyuan” were both manifested as weak Other Shore figures, Meng Qi would simultaneously be both the Primordial Heavenly Venerable and the Heavenly Venerable of Virtue.
In other words, throughout the entire affair, the Heavenly Venerable of Virtue had done nothing—not even hinted at anything—merely blocking Amitabha Buddha at the end, yet he reaped the greatest benefit, pulling ahead of Amitabha Buddha by a step. During this process, all the Other Shore figures were entangled in Maitreya’s enlightenment, leaving no room for interference. Hence, his words: “Non-action is not inaction. It is to follow the will of Heaven, to emulate nature, to align with the Dao. This is non-action. Those who practice non-action are blessed by the Dao, aligned with the great momentum, and thus meet no obstacles.”
Compared to him, the Golden Emperor, whose manipulations and schemes left others in despair and chilled to the bone, seemed petty and small-minded.
“Truly worthy of being the most ancient of the current Other Shore figures,” Meng Qi couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.
With the Primordial Heavenly Venerable and the Numinous Treasure Heavenly Venerable absent and Amitabha Buddha left a step behind, the Heavenly Venerable of Virtue was indeed the most ancient of the Other Shore.
He stepped into the chaos, gazing down at the lower realms. In his eyes appeared the illusory river of time, flowing from its origin to its destination, and he looked upon the moment when the Celestial Court fell.
In that segment of history, his figure still remained.
234,766 years ago, on the second day of the second month, at half past noon, atop the Jade Emperor Mountain, Meng Qi stood in deep-colored Daoist robes, wearing the ancient crown of the Jade Void, his hands clasped behind his back as he quietly watched the heavens shatter in the infinite heights, stars falling like rain. A blazing fireball plummeted down, yet all its destructive force and shockwaves dissipated harmlessly around him, as if nothing had happened.
The fireball hurtled downward—a towering palace wrapped in layers of profound flames, within which stood a distorted, indistinct figure of an emperor, seemingly filling the past, present, and future.
As the fireball was about to crash near Jade Emperor Mountain, threatening to annihilate the land into dust and nothingness, the corpse-like figure of the emperor raised an ancient seal. It resembled a miniature of the Nine Heavens, a condensation of the myriad realms, the embodiment of the Dao, the root of order.
Silently, ripples surged like a vast ocean engulfing the sky, enveloping the emperor’s figure, the ancient seal, and the towering palace. The shimmering waves resembled flickering flames, burning and refining something.
The fireball struck the ground as if it were nothing, drilling into a certain spot on Jade Emperor Mountain without causing destruction, though it altered part of the terrain.
Meng Qi, hands still behind his back, looked down from above, seeing through all obstructions to the drifting blade of time within the remnants of the palace. Then he sensed several overwhelmingly powerful wills sweep over the area before withdrawing.
These were traces left by the Other Shore figures who had destroyed the Celestial Court. They had found no issue with the Celestial Emperor refining the Blade of Time from his own dharma body, dao fruit, the core of the Celestial Court, and the Heavenly Dao Seal.
Precisely because of this, none of them allowed the others to take the Blade of Time, jointly watching over it for eternity to prevent any changes, “waiting” for the Celestial Emperor’s return.
Moreover, the Blade of Time had reached the Other Shore level the moment it was forged, with all past events becoming imprints, making it impossible to interrupt the refining process.
Just then, the Blade of Time floating in the ruins of the palace suddenly changed. Light surged and condensed, first taking the form of Fu Huang, then rapidly shifting into the towering figure of the emperor just seen. His form was ethereal, as if spanning the myriad realms and the past and future, his face indistinct yet exuding majesty.
The returned Celestial Emperor had appeared!
“I never imagined you would dare to appear directly, Fellow Daoist,” Meng Qi said without surprise, smiling calmly.
The Celestial Emperor’s voice was grand beyond measure as he replied evenly, “Times have changed. Without the lure of the dao fruit, why would the Ancients join forces again? In other circumstances, what have I to fear?”
Even if he couldn’t win, he could escape with his life!
“Truly, seeing is believing. Fellow Daoist, you live up to your reputation as the supreme ruler who dominated an era,” Meng Qi nodded with a smile. “For what purpose have you come to see me?”
“I merely wish to remind you: the Thunder God of the past, now the Devil Buddha, is far from simple. Even I cannot fully fathom his depths. Though you have surpassed him now, you must never underestimate him,” the Celestial Emperor said slowly.
Seeing his deep wariness of the Devil Buddha, Meng Qi nodded. “How could I be careless about such a dire threat? As for the fall of the Celestial Court, is there anything else you wish to say, Fellow Daoist?”
“What you should know, you likely already do. The World Tree was about to bear fruit, aiding transcendence. I concealed this, using it to elevate myself, only for the Thunder God to expose it, drawing the Ancients’ united attack,” the Celestial Emperor suddenly laughed, a mix of mockery and desolation in his voice. “And after they ‘killed’ me, faced with the fruit of the World Tree, they simply said, ‘We seek not external aids,’ and left.”
It was as if someone, cornered by robbers in their own home, resisted desperately only to be slain, and in their dying moments heard the robbers rummaging through their belongings before muttering, “We killed the wrong person…”
What bitterness! What irony!
“Fellow Daoist, the reason you could evade their gaze and survive in secret until now must have been inspired by the Wheel of Samsara Seal, no?” Meng Qi didn’t engage with the Celestial Emperor’s lament, instead posing his own question.
He had previously been puzzled, but the scene of the Celestial Emperor’s appearance had clarified much.
“Indeed. After Hou Tu transformed into the Wheel of Samsara Seal, it came into my possession. I noticed its spirituality differed from that of other Other Shore divine weapons, bearing Hou Tu’s unique traits,” the Celestial Emperor admitted, having successfully returned. “Through long study, I devised a method to fuse my innate spiritual light, illusory dao fruit, and the weapon’s spirituality into one, with a single chance to separate them again.”
“So all along, the Blade of Time was the Celestial Emperor, and the Celestial Emperor was the Blade of Time—hence why the Other Shore figures were deceived, and why Fu Huang’s body was necessary,” Meng Qi murmured almost imperceptibly. “Such fusion couldn’t be rushed. It seems you had already begun merging the Heavenly Dao Seal’s spirituality with your own, completing it during the forging at the critical moment.”
Without Fu Huang’s body, the Devil Master would likely have perished, but the returned Celestial Emperor would have been weakened for a long time, given Han Guang’s mere Creation-level strength.
“These are trivial details. Other preparations were mere misdirection,” the Celestial Emperor said indifferently. “The struggle for the dao fruit is brutally cruel. Do not assume that severing your own path guarantees escape. My experience stands as proof.”
As he spoke, his figure flickered, dissolving into ripples of light.
Meng Qi stood at the edge of Jade Emperor Mountain, sighing softly. Cultivators who had come to investigate the fireball’s descent watched as his form grew increasingly illusory, as if vanishing from the world entirely—a sensation akin to the overwhelming wills that had swept the area earlier.
“Another great figure of this epoch hiding in the shadows?” they murmured to each other, stunned.
Once calm returned, they recorded the day’s events in their texts, passing them down to future generations.
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