Chapter 1428: The Passing of Ages in Frescoes
Time passed, and soon Meng Hao began to tremble. His eyes grew clear, and he backed up a few steps, panting, waves of shock pounding his heart as he looked at the images on the frescoes.

“Allheaven....” he murmured. Countless questions bubbled up in his heart, but after some thought, his eyes glittered as he left the stone chamber and proceeded along down the tunnel.

Even as he shot through the tunnel, on the bridge connecting to the first land mass up above, several figures were speeding along. With Meng Hao present, that final 30,000-meter stretch would not have taken long for the cultivators of the Vast Expanse School to pass, and would have been quite safe.

But with Meng Hao gone, the group finally experienced the true danger of passing through that region. After only traveling 15,000 meters, they had already experienced several casualties.

Even the 9-Essences Paragons had experienced losses; all of their clones had been destroyed, and all of them were in bad condition. In the final 15,000-meter journey, everyone drew fully on their most powerful abilities and trump cards to stay alive.

With all of that, they managed to reach the very end, although by that time, three more people had perished.

Even that was only because the Sect Leader and the other two peak 9-Essences cultivators had gone all out. Otherwise, there would have been even more casualties. In the end, all three peak 9-Essences cultivators ended up ashen-faced from the effort expended.

Although no words were exchanged, fury rose in the hearts of many. The stark difference between Meng Hao’s presence, and the lack thereof, caused many in the group, including the Sect Leader, to feel increasing rage toward the two other peak 9-Essences experts, as well as the Sixth and Eighth Paragons.

When they finally stepped off of the bridge and onto the land mass, everyone wore grim expressions.

After a moment of silence, the Sect Leader glanced around, then snorted coldly and looked icily at the other peak 9-Essences experts, and the Sixth and Eighth Paragons. “We walk different paths. I won’t be traveling with the four of you.”

“Very well, there’s no harm in it,” said the young man in the golden robe, smiling. “Our mutual goal is the Transcendence Dais, which is located in that direction. However, there is other good fortune to be had in this place besides the Transcendence Dais.

“Since that’s the case, we can split up here and meet back up again at the Transcendence Dais.” With that, he waved his sleeve, sending a jade slip flying out to both the Sixth and Eighth Paragons. Then, he turned and left.

Sha Jiudong shook his head and headed off in a different direction.

The Sixth and Eighth Paragons looked at the jade slips, then left with their subordinates.

Meanwhile, back in the tunnel deep below the surface of the land mass, Meng Hao was speeding along. A few days later, he arrived at a second stone chamber.

As soon as he entered, he looked around and found that this place also had frescoes on the walls.

The frescoes depicted numerous starry skies, each of which was filled with one Realm after another.... There were countless heavenly bodies, countless worlds, countless forms of life.

The living beings were born and died in a ceaseless cycle of reincarnation. It was almost as if time were passing in some unique way within these frescoes. There were no written words to explain what was happening, but Meng Hao could tell that what was being depicted was the passage of endless time.

The figure known as Allheaven gradually began to glow with light. The light grew more and more intense, until eventually, his entire person was a shining beacon. Then, unexpectedly... he began to fade away.

The first to disappear were his legs, then his body, and then his head. Soon, the only part of him remaining behind to prop up the boundless starry sky was his right hand. Everything else was gone.

Eventually, his palm and thumb vanished, leaving behind only four fingers outside of the starry sky. Gradually, all the light was absorbed into those fingers, and they... didn't fade away, but rather, gave birth to life force. Four unique auras began to stream out of them, indescribable auras that actually seemed more powerful than the figure itself when it was whole!

When Meng Hao saw what was happening, waves of shock battered at his heart.

“How could this be happening....?” he murmured.

“This... this....” Despite Meng Hao’s level of willpower, he was panting. Of those four fingers, the second had an aura that he realized was familiar.... One was a God-like aura. After a moment of confirmation, he was certain that this aura was the same as that of the statue on the Immortal God Continent.

Furthermore, the third finger of the statue radiated the same sensation as the wild and barbaric Devil Realm Continent. A Devil-like aura!

And then there was the first finger. Its aura was like an Immortal’s, and yet was not. It was rife with death, with the same aura as that in the necropolis of Patriarch Vast Expanse! It contained the same fluctuations as those in the Ghost City!

And the final finger... had a Demonic aura, which was exactly the same as Meng Hao's!

“Ghost, God, Devil, Demon!!” he thought, his mind reeling as he returned from the vision he had experienced when looking at the world in the frescoe. He began to pant as he looked at the images once again, and yet couldn’t enter that special state he had just been in.

His face was pale white as he stood there for a long period of time, regaining his composure. Finally, he looked up, and his eyes were shining.

“That figure was Allheaven. Perhaps he is not a living being, but... some unique entity. Because of him, the starry sky exists, the heavenly bodies exist, all life exists.... Allheaven, Allheaven....

“Clearly, there was a moment in which he died, and yet that was not something that lasted for all eternity. In the end, everything about him became four fingers, which are the Ghost, God, Devil and Demon. But what about the Immortal...?

“Where is the Immortal...?” After a long moment of silence, Meng Hao flickered into motion, flashing down the tunnel, burning with the desire to lay eyes on the third set of frescoes.

A few days later, he was still speeding through the ancient tunnel. It almost felt as if he were passing through years of time until finally, there up ahead... was the third stone chamber.

His pupils constricted, and his heart began to beat faster and faster. Almost as soon as he burst into the third stone chamber, he looked around for the frescoes.

As expected, there was a third set of frescoes!

As soon as he laid eyes on them, his mind spun, and he sank into the world depicted therein.

This time, the world within the frescoes depicted a place Meng Hao had seen before. It was a city, in the very middle of which were nine land masses.... This fresco depicted... the necropolis of Patriarch Vast Expanse.

However, this was before it had become a Ghost City, back when it was still a thriving place of the living. There were countless buildings and structures, as well as innumerable cultivators. It was a bustling and flourishing place, clearly in its golden age.

He saw a young man who looked very much like the statue of Patriarch Vast Expanse’s clone that he had seen. Perhaps this young man... was Patriarch Vast Expanse himself!

He was sitting cross-legged in the air as countless lightning bolts struck down. Apparently, he was in the middle of facing tribulation. Down below in the city, countless cultivators were looking on, faces filled with anticipation.

Powerful fluctuations emanated off of the young man, and when Meng Hao sensed them, he was visibly shaken. Those fluctuations exceeded the 9-Essences level, and were half a step into Transcendence. Even more shocking was that this young man’s aura... contained Immortal qi!

Absolutely pure Immortal qi!

He was attempting to Transcend, to pass this tribulation as an Immortal!

Meng Hao was panting as he looked at the city and the young man. It was then that he realized that the starry sky of the Vast Expanse that was depicted in this fresco had no mist in it. Instead, it was filled with countless bolts of Tribulation Lightning, seemingly endless amounts that crashed down toward the young man.

As of this moment, Heaven and Earth, the starry sky, and the entire fresco seemed to flashing with blinding lightning. Apparently it was completely unwilling to let this person Transcend as the Immortal!

As the destructive Tribulation Lightning descended toward the young man to wipe him out, the young man rose to his feet and extended his hand as if to blot out the Heavens.

In that moment, a beam of light fell from above, ripping the starry sky apart. A finger descended, a finger that Meng Hao recognized as... one of the four fingers he had seen in the second set of frescoes!

That finger overtook the starry sky, and its descent caused everyone in the city, regardless of the level of their cultivation bases... to begin to tremble violently. Then, they were destroyed in body and soul, completely eradicated! The only ones who survived were the young man and a handful of other people!

One finger exterminated all of the life in that huge city.

One finger took a thriving world and transformed it into a place of death and corpses.

One finger caused a Realm that was bursting with life force to, in the blink of an eye, be filled with nothing but an aura of death!

The next thing that Meng Hao saw was that young man hovering there amidst the boundless aura of death, letting out a cry filled with the most profound anguish.

Then, the fresco changed. Unexpectedly, the corpses... all began to move again. However, their faces were twisted with bizarre smiles, as if they weren’t themselves any more. Then, they began to fly up into the air toward the young man, as if to kill him.

The young man’s bitter laughter began to transform into wretched wailing.

The vision ended there. It took Meng Hao a long moment to recover. When he did, he took a deep breath, and proceeded along. He wanted to see the fourth set of frescoes. He had the intense premonition that whatever was depicted on them would be... something profoundly shocking and mysterious.

Whatever secrets were locked therein might even have something to do with him!

He thought back to the destruction of the Mountain and Sea Realm, to the Demonic qi which had appeared on him, and how it had been said that the Immortal God Continent and the Devil Realm Continent didn't want the Immortal to appear in the Mountain and Sea Realm.

“Similar. Very similar. The only difference is that Patriarch Vast Expanse tried to Transcend as the Immortal, whereas in the Mountain and Sea Realm, the Immortal actually appeared....

“Was it really the Immortal God and Devil Realm Continents who wanted to destroy the Mountains and Seas, or was it... someone else!?!?

“Why is there no text description, and why is it only possible to view the images in the fresco once...?

“What is being guarded against?

“Allheaven destroyed that world....” As Meng Hao flew along toward the fourth stone chamber, his mind spun with countless ideas and thoughts. At the same time, his face grew more and more grim.

By now, he was getting the feeling that the destruction of the Mountain and Sea Realm... might not have been such a simple affair. Apparently... there was some profound secret at play!

And Meng Hao was uncovering a bit of that secret from these wall frescoes!









Chapter 1429: A Deep Look at the Vast Expanse!

Meng Hao’s face was grim. He quietly shot through the tunnel at top speed. If there were some entity capable of seeing everything beneath the surface of that first land mass, they would see that within the long tunnel, there were four stone chambers.

Meng Hao was currently heading upward through the tunnel toward the surface of the lands.

At the same time, he was rapidly approaching the fourth stone chamber, which was also the final chamber.

Meng Hao’s eyes were bloodshot, and he moved at incredible speed. Countless thoughts and idea’s ran through his head, and they grew increasingly disorderly. He was getting even more  anxious.

Several days later, the fourth stone chamber appeared up ahead of him. He slowed down, coming to a stop just outside the chamber. He stood there quietly for a long moment, taking the time to calm his mind and heart. Then, he stepped into the chamber, eyes glittering.

He simply had to see what the frescoes in this fourth chamber depicted.

As soon as he stepped into the chamber and looked at the frescoes, his vision swam. When things became clear, he was looking at pitch blackness.

Everything was completely and utterly black, without even a glimmer of light. It didn’t feel like an infinite blackness that stretched out endlessly. Rather, it was like an obstacle, blocking the way ahead, almost like... the end of the starry sky.

Within that black world, he saw four pillars that seemed to prop up the world. Emanating out from the pillars to spread out in all directions were shocking fluctuations.

When he saw those four pillars, he suddenly realized something, and began to pant. He spun, and was shocked to find that behind him was... an enormous maelstrom.

The maelstrom was so gargantuan that at first glance it looked like a huge sphere. However, if you looked closely, you would see that the maelstrom was actually made up of endless clouds and mist.

As he looked at the spherical maelstrom, he even noticed some places which looked familiar.

“I'm outside... the Vast Expanse....” he murmured.

Suddenly, a desire rose up within him. He focused on one particular area of the maelstrom, and suddenly, his vision zoomed in, passing through layers upon layers of mist before coming to rest on an area within the Vast Expanse that was rife with an aura of death.

A vortex could be seen there, spinning slowly . As Meng Hao looked at it, he saw... an area that was tattered and torn, filled with corpses, ruin, wreckage, and ash.

“The Mountain and Sea Realm....” he thought, heart stabbing with pain. That was the former location of the Mountain and Sea Realm. But that was nothing more than the past.

After a long moment passed, Meng Hao looked away. Following the tuggings of his heart, his gaze passed in another direction, to a location where a powerful sealing magic was located. A monkey sat cross-legged outside of it, completely oblivious to Meng Hao’s gaze.

Beneath the monkey were... numerous land masses, thirty-three in total. They were the 33 Heavens, like thirty-three walls, beneath which was a vortex. Inside the vortex was a green coffin, upon which rested a butterfly, whose wings floated gently up and down.

The instant he laid eyes on the butterfly, his heart thumped. He could just barely make out his father and mother there, nestled in each other's arms. His vision zoomed in again, and next he saw a world.

There were many familiar faces in that world. His sister, Sun Hai, and Fatty....

On one particular mountain, he saw a thin woman who was Xu Qing.

He wanted to see more, but inwardly, exhaustion was taking root. His vision swam, and then zoomed back out, as if he were being expelled from the starry sky of the Vast Expanse.

In the last moments before his vision completely faded away, he suddenly looked over at the Vast Expanse School. There, outside of Planet Vast Expanse, was an area where the starry sky was damaged and in ruins. There was no Vast Expanse mist there, only a rift. After looking into that rift, he saw nine land masses that formed into a necropolis!

He was unable to see himself in the stone chamber in the first land mass, but he was able to see a scattered group of people. There was the Sect Leader, the golden-robed young man, the sand-wreathed figure, the Sixth and Eighth Paragons, and all the others....

He could see that in the very center of the first land mass, where the Sect Leader was located, was an altar which emanated a unique aura that resembled Transcendence!

Meng Hao was left reeling as his consciousness and sight returned to their original location.

He took a deep breath as he looked at the spherical maelstrom again. Then, mind spinning, he turned once more to look at the four astonishing pillars.

He knew exactly what those four pillars were. He had seen them in the vision from the second set of frescoes. They were the four fingers left behind by Allheaven after his death!

In the vision from the third set of frescoes, he had seen one of those fingers destroy a thriving world and kill all of the lives within it.

“So I am outside the Vast Expanse, and this spherical maelstrom is the Vast Expanse, within which I exist.” Panting, Meng Hao suddenly thought about something he knew which apparently conflicted with what he was seeing.

“The Vast Expanse School is a branch of the Vast Expanse Society, which exists on the outside. The Ninth Paragon even came from there. But if I am outside the Vast Expanse right now, then where is the Vast Expanse Society...?

“Perhaps I'm in a different time...? But then why would I be able to see the Mountain and Sea Butterfly, and everything else in the Vast Expanse?” Meng Hao frowned. He wanted to get closer to the four pillars, to study them, but when he tried to move, everything turned blurry. When things got clear again, he wasn’t near the four pillars, but back in the fourth stone chamber.

In that moment, the bronze lamp inside of him quieted down. The sense of being called to faded away, as if what had been reaching out to the bronze lamp was none other than this fourth set of frescoes.

Now that he had laid eyes on it, the bronze lamp became calm once again.

“If you really are Patriarch Vast Expanse, then the message you wished to pass on to me by leaving these frescoes... has been received.” After a moment, Meng Hao clasped hands and bowed deeply.

Now that he had experienced the visions within the frescoes, he was filled with a deep skepticism regarding the Immortal Gods, the Devil Realm, the Vast Expanse, and the destruction of the Mountain and Sea Realm.

There was also a name he would not be forgetting. Allheaven!

And there was that saying, Allheaven fears the Immortal!

Meng Hao took a deep breath and rose to his feet. After closing his eyes, he calmed himself, then took the skepticism, the doubts and the misgivings, and tucked them away deep inside his heart. When he opened his eyes, they seemed just like they had before he had experienced the visions. With that, he left the chamber.

Proceeding along, he soon reached the end of the tunnel, where a staircase led up to ground level. As he emerged, he looked around to find ruins stretching out around him in all directions.

He was on the outer edge of the first land mass, an area filled with broken buildings and ruined structures. Everything was quiet, except for a whispering breeze which occasionally picked up the dust and carried it off into the distance.

Before experiencing the visions, Meng Hao’s third eye had enabled him to see the Ghost City. But now, after having seen it when it was was flourishing and alive, looking around at what remained of it caused him to sigh. Subconsciously, he looked up into the sky.

“That finger descended from above. One finger... wiped out all life here.” As Meng Hao stood there quietly, he realized how insignificant he was, and at the same time, was as focused and determined as ever.

After another moment passed, Meng Hao turned, transforming into a beam of light that shot at high speed across the surface of the land mass. This location was no longer unfamiliar to him; after seeing this world in his vision, he had come to know it well. In fact, after looking at the ruins and the mountains around him, he quickly determined his exact location.

“The Sect Leader and the others are at the altar in the center of the land mass. Apparently... that is their target destination.

“The aura of Transcendence....” As he flew along, his eyes glittered coldly, and he turned to look toward the east.

“I remember that the Sixth Paragon was in that area. He shouldn't be very far off.” Snorting coldly, he changed directions to head toward the location of the Sixth Paragon.

Meng Hao's personality wasn’t the type that thrived on hatred and revenge. However, the Sixth Paragon had provoked him three times, and the last time had been with killing intent.

Therefore, Meng Hao would kill him, along with the Eighth Paragon and... the golden-robed young man!

It was a decision he made without the slightest hesitation or misgiving. After experiencing the visions he just had, he seemed calm on the inside, but was actually deeply anxious. That anxiety in turn unleashed a deep skepticism within him, something that stemmed from his guilt over the destruction of the Mountain and Sea Realm.

That skepticism and that anxiety filled him with the desire to kill!

At the moment, the Sixth Paragon was one of the targets on his list.

Meng Hao shot through the air like lightning, doing nothing to mask his aura. His cultivation base surged with power, becoming a raging tempest that formed into a face. It was a ferocious resemblance of his own by about seventy percent. However, this face had a horn protruding from its forehead, and appeared to be as cold as ice. It was brutal, and shockingly Demonic.

Off in the distance, the Sixth Paragon was traveling through the ruins with his sole surviving subordinate, an 8-Essences Paragon. He was heading toward the central altar, but was simultaneously searching for other good fortune. Suddenly, his face fell, and he looked up to see the shocking face that resembled Meng Hao’s speeding toward him, bursting with a murderous aura.

“Dammit, you’re not actually dead!!” His face fell as he sensed the killing intent coming from Meng Hao. His scalp tingled as he thought of the madness with which Meng Hao fought. Gasping, and without the slightest hesitation, he pulled out a jade slip to contact the golden-robed young man and the Eighth Paragon. Then he turned, leaving behind afterimages as he went all-out in an attempt to escape.

Even as the Sixth Paragon fled, Meng Hao's voice echoed out like thunder behind him, “You brought this upon yourself, old man!”

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These chapters have seen some proofreading, but no editing and TLC so the final published versions might differ slightly. Don’t forget about the memes! Check back on Wuxiaworld for those. Please remember, no spoilers on Patreon or Wuxiaworld, but feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts about the chapter!