In the mountains, time loses its meaning, and the passing of seasons goes unnoticed.
Shi Hao journeyed further along the path of cultivation, forgetting the years, forgetting the cycles of cold and heat. Time flowed silently, and before he knew it, over a decade had passed.
His Dao deepened, his magic power grew more profound. With the slightest movement, he could step into the starry void. With each breath, he inhaled and exhaled the essence of the sun and moon, a vast expanse of white mist swirling around him.
One could see the countless stars shining brightly, their silver radiance converging toward him. The essence of this starry sea surged in and out of his mouth and nostrils—a sight both awe-inspiring and terrifying.
A decade had honed Shi Hao’s Dao, making it more stable. Many of his hidden flaws had been resolved.
Seated cross-legged in the starry void, he relaxed his body, and his Dharma form suddenly expanded—colossal, boundless, like a giant who had split the heavens and earth.
His immense form was staggering. Around him, the sun, moon, and stars orbited. When his hair cascaded down, it shimmered like a river of stars falling from the sky.
“After all, we are in the twilight of the Dharma. Otherwise, I might have reached the pinnacle of the Sovereign realm by now,” Shi Hao murmured, opening his eyes. Divine light blazed from his pupils, illuminating the frigid cosmos like twin bolts of lightning.
In truth, his cultivation speed was already astonishing, far beyond what ordinary people could imagine. If others knew, they would seethe with envy—this was the twilight of the Dharma, after all!
Yet, compared to his own past progress, it had indeed slowed. And this decline would continue until one day, his Dao would stagnate completely.
This was the suppression of heaven and earth—a backlash.
The only consolation was that the Blade of Heaven’s Will had not troubled him much in the lower realm. This prison-like world seemed to possess an innate restraint, one that was shockingly powerful.
The shackles of this cage sealed all paths of escape, but they also blocked the terrifying backlash of the twilight of the Dharma.
Compared to the Three Thousand Provinces, the lower realm’s twilight was still mild!
The cage was both a blessing and a curse.
Once a prison for cultivators, it had now become a shelter.
Yet, even this so-called cage would eventually be breached. The full onslaught of the twilight of the Dharma was not far away.
“Time to face the Immortal-Severing Curse again.”
Shi Hao rose and headed toward the domain of the Forbidden Lord.
Over the years, his cultivation had followed a strict routine. At regular intervals, he would enter the Void God Realm, engaging in life-and-death battles against the creatures of the cage.
Then, dragging his near-death spirit back, he would sit in seclusion, meditating and refining his insights.
Only after fully digesting his experiences would he return to the Forbidden Lord.
In the blink of an eye, another two or three decades passed. Cultivation knows no time, and Shi Hao immersed himself wholly in advancing his Dao, pushing ever forward.
By this year, if one were to count, Shi Hao had already lived a century. Yet, lost in enlightenment and battle, he had forgotten all else, remaining untouched by the passage of time.
There was no weariness in him, no sense of age. Like the ancient cultivators recorded in bone scriptures, his spirit remained pure and luminous, untainted by the years.
He was born for the Dao!
His speed was truly staggering, surpassing the imagination of ordinary cultivators.
In a mere century, he had climbed to the pinnacle of the Sovereign realm, standing at the zenith of the human path, fearless against any foe in the mortal world.
Yet, in recent decades, his progress had undeniably slowed, inching forward bit by bit. The twilight of the Dharma had shackled him tightly, the weight of heaven and earth pressing down relentlessly.
And the effects of the twilight were still unfolding. The world remained unstable, the upheavals unceasing, deepening further in recent years.
“Roar—!”
From within the golden palace, Shi Hao’s agonized roar echoed. Waves of blood qi seeped through the cracks of the doors, stirring the winds and clouds. Lightning crackled, thunder boomed.
A century of life—it seemed even the heavens had taken notice. The Blade of Heaven’s Will descended, slicing into the ancient golden palace within the forbidden domain.
Shi Hao fought the Immortal-Severing Curse while also resisting the Blade of Heaven’s Will.
This time, the ordeal lasted days. His bones were crushed, his body reforged. His Dao was tempered, a fraction of it dissolved away.
To others, this seemed like a waste of magic power, a severing of cultivation. But to Shi Hao, it was refinement—fire tempering true gold, leaving only the purest essence. The day his Dao could no longer be dissolved would be the day he achieved invincibility!
With a soft sigh, Shi Hao opened his eyes and stepped out of the ancient palace. His recent progress had been minimal. Having reached the peak of the human path, even the Immortal-Severing Curse could only whittle away the tiniest fragments of his Dao now.
As he departed, the golden palace dissolved into a rain of light, vanishing. Only desolation remained, along with barren, broken mountains.
This palace had been conjured by the Forbidden Lord—it was never meant to last.
Shi Hao stood there, gazing at the sky. It had taken him decades to reach the Sovereign realm, and then more decades to crawl to its peak. The world had indeed grown harsher.
Yet, he should be content.
After all, he was a Sovereign now, his Dao at the highest level of the human path. He could still resist the backlash and press forward.
But the infants born in recent decades were losing the foundation for cultivation. Establishing their foundations was difficult; the path of cultivation was slipping away from them.
“The spiritual energy of heaven and earth is drying up. The Great Dao grows distant. The cruelty of the twilight is finally revealing itself,” Shi Hao murmured.
Now, at the peak of the Sovereign realm, he had yet to visit the Forbidden Lord and request the construction of a teleportation array to the world beyond the dam.
The higher his cultivation, the more he felt his own inadequacies. Shi Hao was not satisfied.
Was the peak of the Sovereign realm truly the limit of the human path? Could he advance no further? He pondered deeply. Was the next step truly only the Immortal realm?
Yet, why did the Great Elder, before ascending to immortality, seem so different—transcending other Sovereigns, exuding an aura of invincibility even before becoming a true immortal?
This quality was absent in figures like Jin Tai Jun or even the Sovereigns of the foreign realm. Apart from the Great Elder Meng Tian Zheng, Shi Hao had only glimpsed traces of it in Wang Chang Sheng at his absolute peak.
“I must grow stronger!”
Shi Hao entered the shattered world provided by the Forbidden Lord—a battlefield of Sovereign rank, filled with prehistoric creatures, some unheard of, unseen before.
When he emerged once more, battered and exhausted, he returned to Stone Village to contemplate his path. He needed clarity, for he had reached the end of the road.
Over the decades, Stone Village had changed. Its population had grown, its houses sprawling wider.
Fortunately, the village had prepared. The Nine Dragons Coffin suppressed the land, and within the bronze coffin lay a world of lush vegetation and abundant spiritual energy.
The village’s newborns and some elders had been sent inside, either to establish their foundations or to live out their twilight years in peace—a sanctuary.
Though it was a coffin, an ill omen in appearance, it had truly preserved the future of Stone Village, ensuring they could still cultivate despite the twilight of the Dharma.
For those who had already embarked on the path of cultivation, the past decades had made them acutely aware of the era’s misfortune. Even when taken into the chaos, even when training within the bronze coffin, their progress had slowed unbearably.
Among them, a group of elites had reaped great rewards. The Western Tomb Realm had become their battleground, a place to temper themselves in blood and combat.
Now, they had broken through several layers of the underground worlds, reaching the burial grounds of Sovereigns. Beyond that, they could go no further.
Over the years, their cultivation had grown, but nothing like before. Yet, their foundations had been tempered to unimaginable solidity.
Mu Qing, Shi Zhong, Zhu Lin, and others had trained relentlessly, yet remained stuck at the mid-to-late stages of the Escape One realm, unable to touch the Sovereign realm, unable to find a way forward.
Even the Red Dragon was the same, stranded at the late stage of Escape One, unable to advance an inch.
The five-century curse—apart from Shi Hao, it seemed no one else could break it.
And in the twilight of the Dharma, the struggle was even more futile. They wondered if they would ever become Sovereigns in their lifetimes.
It was too difficult. Especially in recent years, their Dao had nearly stagnated, not a shred of progress made.
What now? The road had ended.
“Uncle Hao, our path seems severed. Even with continuous cultivation, we make no progress. It takes ages just to gain a sliver of Dao. This can’t go on.”
“Elder Brother, we want to grow stronger!”
A group approached Shi Hao, anxiety in their voices. They knew the trials they would face—the world would only grow crueler. With their current strength, how could they endure?
Shi Hao sat cross-legged at the village entrance, silently flipping through a jade scripture. It was a celestial scripture he had retrieved from the Immortal Ancient Ruins during the great war of the Three Thousand Provinces.
In that final land, there had been ancient coffins, each containing a celestial scripture.
Back then, he, the Ten Crowned King, Ning Chuan, the Banished Immortal, Shi Yi, and others had each obtained one.
In the past, Shi Hao had skimmed through it. But only in recent decades had he truly begun to study it carefully, practicing its methods and experiencing the wonders of the Immortal Ancient techniques.
Yet, even this scripture offered no solution for the twilight of the Dharma.
Zhu Lin, Mu Qing, and the others had also perused it. Shi Hao had passed down both the modern and ancient methods, letting them choose their own paths.
Then, he retrieved a jade box. But when opened, another layer of seals remained. Even with his current Sovereign-level cultivation, he could not breach it.
He suspected it contained another ancient scripture.
Back in the Immortal Ancient Ruins, apart from the coffins holding celestial scriptures, there had been an altar enshrining this jade box—unique, set apart.
With a soft sigh, Shi Hao stored the box away. He guessed it might contain a scripture of the Immortal King level!
“Elder Brother, we must seek change. Otherwise, we’ll be trapped in the lower realm. The twilight grows crueler by the day—far worse than decades ago,” Mu Qing said.
He was over a decade younger than Shi Hao, now at the late stage of Escape One. But his progress had halted.
“I wonder how those geniuses who entered the Immortal Realm are faring. Back then, they were at the peak of Escape One. Could they have broken through to Sovereign?” Zhu Lin mused, envious.
“Impossible. Even in the Immortal Realm, they couldn’t break the curse. Unless they were descendants of Immortal Kings, born with peerless bloodlines,” Shi Zhong retorted.
“I’ve been exploring a path, but it’s not yet mature. I dare not teach it to you. It seems I must hurry—we must seek change!” Shi Hao declared.
He felt the pressure. So many years had passed. The cultivation environment of the Immortal Realm was nothing like here. He had to rise swiftly.
Even if the world had changed, it could not be an excuse for stagnation. He had to break through, to shatter the shackles of the twilight.
Only through change could they prevail.
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