Across the entire planet, giant trees withered, dinosaurs perished, and the sky was shrouded in smoke and mist, obscuring the sun and plunging the world into darkness. Only a handful of creatures managed to survive.
Meng Qi gazed beyond the heavens, seeing nearby star systems flickering like candles in the wind, teetering on the brink of collapse. Further away, endless chaos devoured everything, reducing it to nothingness, leaving behind only faint, illusory remnants, like a painted backdrop.
A cataclysm of this magnitude could only affect but not destroy Earth and its surrounding star systems. The title “Ark of Salvation” was indeed well-deserved.
But this was not the focus of Meng Qi’s observation. A vertical eye suddenly split open on his forehead, containing an ancient glazed lamp that illuminated every minute detail, leaving nothing hidden. He sought the secret—or the source of power—that allowed the “Ark of Salvation” to withstand the end of an epoch, hoping to discern which Other Shore existence was behind it. After attaining the Other Shore, achieving the Great Completion of the Formless and the Unity of the Dao, his “Bodhi Wisdom Eye” had naturally formed.
The sun dimmed, flickering like a firefly. Earth swayed like a boat battered by towering waves, enveloped by an intangible, nameless force of unknown origin and destination.
“Interesting…” Meng Qi murmured to Gu Xiaosang.
Even with his current Other Shore realm and power, he couldn’t accurately determine the source of the Ark of Salvation’s strength?
Gu Xiaosang showed no surprise, smiling faintly. “If this place weren’t peculiar, why would the Devil Buddha hide his hope of breaking free from the seal here?”
Meng Qi smiled slightly. “Then let us trace back to the end of the previous epoch and see when Earth became the Ark of Salvation.”
Within the Real World, constrained by the karmic chains of severing the Golden Emperor and the vows inherited from the Medicine King Buddha, though his strength was now roughly equivalent to an ancient being who had just touched the embryonic form of the Dao Fruit, his realm’s progress was slow. His ability to trace back the past was still stuck at the beginning of the last epoch of the Primordial Era, unable to venture into the earlier epochs, let alone the time of creation—the very beginning. However, since Earth was the Ark of Salvation, the River of Time here faintly connected with the past, making the task of retrospection half as laborious but twice as fruitful.
“I sense my husband already has a judgment in mind,” Gu Xiaosang said with a faint dimpled smile.
Meng Qi glanced at her and returned the smile. “Haven’t you also formed a conjecture?”
Rippling light filled the heavens and earth as the illusory River of Time manifested once more. Meng Qi surged upstream, breaking through the flow of time. As he guided Gu Xiaosang in comprehending the mysteries of retrospection, he ventured deeper into the annals of history.
After experiencing several mass extinctions—surviving the ends of multiple epochs—Meng Qi suddenly paused, sensing something. He looked around to find a world buried under endless snow, a frozen planet where extreme cold had extinguished all life and warmth.
Yet, an inexplicable force descended from the infinite heights, preserving traces of life within the ice, dormant and waiting. Once the epoch renewed and the cold receded, they would awaken, heralding a new explosion of species.
This time, the power protecting the Ark of Salvation was no longer intangible and nameless, without origin or destination!
Meng Qi gazed into the infinite heights, where auspicious clouds formed a sea, radiant lights shimmered, and auspicious auras gathered. With Gu Xiaosang in tow, he took a step forward, arriving nearby. A pristine halo emerged behind his head, cool as the moon, flawless and encompassing all possibilities and all things.
From the sea of auspicious clouds, a figure emerged, clad in the attire of the Primordial Era, his face adorned with ancient and barbaric tattoos. His aura was nearly on par with a mighty Creation realm expert.
“Who goes there?” the ancient deity roared.
But before his voice faded, he sensed Meng Qi’s subtle presence and beheld the flawless, all-encompassing halo. His tone softened abruptly as he clasped his hands in salute. “Which Heavenly Venerable graces us with his presence?”
After a pause, he hesitantly added, “Could it be the Primordial Heavenly Venerable of the Jade Void Palace?”
The aura of formless chaos, the sensation of the primordial beginning—it was nearly identical, albeit slightly less mature!
Meng Qi smiled faintly and replied candidly, “This Heavenly Venerable attained the Dao through the Jade Void Palace, achieving enlightenment in the future. Tracing back time to this point, may I ask which fellow Daoist resides here?”
As the “gatekeeper” of the Ark of Salvation, this ancient deity should have been aware of the Other Shore’s unconventional logic.
Hearing Meng Qi’s words and glancing at Gu Xiaosang—who was clearly not of the Other Shore—the ancient deity from the Primordial Era suddenly understood. Smiling, he said, “So that’s how it is. No wonder I had never seen the Heavenly Venerable before, only sensing a resemblance to the Primordial Heavenly Venerable of the Jade Void Palace.”
He then sighed. “Enlightenment in the ‘future’—that ‘future’ must now be the present node. I must currently exist within history. Yet, despite the Heavenly Venerable’s near-omnipresence and omnipotence, you do not recognize me, which means I did not survive until your time. The path to immortality is but a fleeting dream…”
Deities of similar realms could be mad, ruthless, or cold, but never ignorant. They grasped things almost instantly.
Meng Qi was about to offer comfort, mentioning the possibility of reincarnation in later epochs and that death might not be absolute, but the tattooed ancient deity continued, “Since immortality eludes me, my name is unworthy of the Heavenly Venerable’s ears. As for this place, it is the abode of the Dao Sovereign—the Violet Palace beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens!”
The Dao Sovereign’s abode? The Violet Palace? Meng Qi showed little surprise, as if he had already anticipated this.
Those capable of concealing the source of power from his sight were few. Even if the Primordial One reappeared, the Numinous Treasure manifested, or the Virtuous One acted, multiple layers of concealment would be needed to evade his detection. Thus, the answer was obvious—Earth was the Ark of Salvation of one of the two Dao Fruit holders!
But the Devil Buddha had been suppressed by the Buddha. Hiding his “other selves” in the Buddha’s Ark of Salvation would be tantamount to walking into a trap.
Therefore, the truth was clear: this was once the Dao Sovereign’s Ark of Salvation!
No wonder He believed that hiding his “other self”—himself—on Earth could evade the Buddha and the other Other Shore existences!
No wonder Earth’s legends of the Investiture of the Gods included an extra figure—the Patriarch Hongjun—and an additional location, the Violet Palace, diverging from the true history. This was likely the Dao Sovereign’s imprint influencing the world, albeit distorted, leading mortals to conflate it with Hongjun.
No wonder Earth had already endured several epochal extinctions upon retrospection!
No wonder the Golden Emperor had to adhere to basic rules when spreading her faith here!
No wonder Earth had numerous sects but rarely displayed supernatural powers!
With this, many things seemed to fall into place. The former Thunder God, now the Devil Buddha, must have had a deep connection with the Dao Sovereign! He might even be an ancient figure who “smuggled” himself from the previous epoch into the current one using the Primordial Thunder Pond. Perhaps he was even another product of the Dao Sovereign’s “subtraction for emptiness,” a relatively normal one—like Tang Sanzang was to the Buddha and the Supreme True Buddha!
Thus, the Celestial Emperor had claimed he couldn’t fathom the Thunder God’s hidden depths. Thus, the Thunder God, despite his weakness, could control the Dao Sovereign’s other “subtraction for emptiness” product—the Heavenly Dao Monster. Thus, he knew so many secrets and earned the trust of the Eastern Emperor, the Celestial Emperor, and the Devil Lord. Thus, atop the A-nan Pure Land’s peak, he spoke of a terrifying enemy, sensing great peril—because the Final Calamity sought to destroy all products of the Dao Sovereign and the Buddha’s “subtraction for emptiness,” allowing them to transcend completely. Thus, his ascension to the Other Shore was remarkably smooth, encountering little resistance…
The Devil Buddha’s true identity was now glaringly obvious!
Yet Meng Qi still had more questions. If this judgment were true, how could one explain the Thunder God and A-nan’s repeated betrayals? They had gained almost nothing from them, and their actions—weakening other Other Shore factions and countering their own crises—were contradictory.
As for why the Primordial Heavenly Venerable knew the secret and location of A-nan’s hidden “other self,” that remained an even greater mystery!
More importantly, after Meng Qi’s independence, Earth’s secrets would inevitably be exposed to the Other Shore existences. It wouldn’t be hard to deduce that this was the Dao Sovereign’s Ark of Salvation. Why, then, did the Celestial Emperor insist that the Thunder God had other secrets?
Did his personal experiences lead him to doubt whether the Thunder God was truly a product of the Dao Sovereign’s “subtraction for emptiness”?
At this moment, Gu Xiaosang sent a message: “This concubine recalls that the exchange list of the Lord of Six Paths Reincarnation did not include a complete version of the Seven Strokes of Interception.”
In other words, the Devil Buddha A-nan had never mastered all Seven Strokes of Interception. For an Other Shore existence of his caliber, collecting the complete set would have been trivial—there was no need to withhold it.
Meng Qi nodded slightly and addressed the ancient deity: “Might this humble Daoist seek an audience with the Dao Sovereign?”
Was the imprint left behind now occupied by the Heavenly Dao Monster, or by the Devil Buddha A-nan?
The ancient deity bowed. “This humble one shall first inquire on the Dao Sovereign’s behalf.”
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