Upon stepping through the luminous barrier, Ling Feng and his companions found themselves amidst a sea of clouds, the landscape below stretching out in perfect clarity.
In the distance, mountain peaks rose and fell like the undulating spine of a dragon—some majestic and towering, others lush and serene. Wisps of elemental qi of the world gathered like mist around their summits, lending the scene an ethereal, almost immortal air.
"I wonder what lies beyond these clouds..."
Exchanging glances, the group couldn't help but feel a stirring of anticipation. The Ancient Tower Grove housed the Three Thousand Great Daos. Comprehending even one would be a heaven-defying opportunity.
With this thought, they quickened their pace, vanishing into the mist.
The next moment, Ling Feng's vision blurred. When it cleared, he stood in a dense forest surrounded by towering ancient trees and colossal ancient towers that pierced the clouds.
Li Bufan and the others were nowhere in sight. Evidently, the luminous barrier's teleportation was random. In this vast grove, reuniting would require deliberate effort.
Shrugging, Ling Feng turned his attention to the towering ancient structures.
According to Fang Wentong, gains here depended entirely on "opportunity". When fate willed it, success would come naturally.
Ling Feng decided to wander freely, letting chance guide him. With his comprehension, grasping at least one Great Dao shouldn't be impossible, right?
Yet after hours of exploration, every ancient tower he encountered left him baffled. The inscriptions on their stone monuments were incomprehensible—attempting to memorize them proved futile, as the symbols faded from his mind almost instantly.
Even channeling his Heavenly Dao Divine Inscription yielded no results. The writings vanished from memory as if never seen.
"The Great Dao truly is beyond mortal grasp..."
He sighed wryly. No wonder so few had succeeded here. This place cared not for talent or intellect—only opportunity.
"Perhaps I've been approaching this wrong."
Changing direction, he pressed onward until sunset, still empty-handed.
No ancient tower resonated with him.
Meanwhile, the other three had already found their matches, seated before chosen monuments in deep contemplation. Ling Feng alone remained lost.
The truth was simple: his bloodline was the issue.
It wasn't that Ling Feng lacked talent or fortune—it was because his veins carried the Blood of the Emperor, making him nothing less than the child of the Heavenly Dao!
Before him, even the Three Thousand Great Daos were mere lesser Daos, unworthy of his notice.
After all, how could the so-called Great Daos resonate with him when even their power submitted to his bloodline's supremacy?
As the last rays of sunlight faded, Ling Feng arrived at the grove's heart—a place no other had reached in centuries.
There, he found a peculiar stone monument, surrounded by four divine beast statues positioned like guardians.
The moment he laid eyes on it, his blood surged. Heat flared behind his forehead, where his vertical eye lay dormant.
"What is this place?"
His veins burned as if something primal stirred within. Unbeknownst to him, this reaction traced back to the Chaotic Seed he'd obtained in the Ancient Cave of Time.
That power, sealed away by the mysterious expert Kong to prevent uncontrolled Chaotic Rebirth, was now reacting to the sinister energy seeping from the monument.
Just as his vertical eye threatened to open, the four statues erupted with radiant light—purple, white, azure, and gold—shrouding the stone monument in a luminous cage.
The pressure lifted instantly. Ling Feng collapsed, gasping.
His palms bled where his nails had dug into them. Gritting his teeth, he sat cross-legged and cycled his Sacred Mystical-Heaven Art, slowly quelling the restless malevolent qi.
Wiping sweat from his brow, he stared at the monument in disbelief. Just what kind of abomination is sealed here? Even my Blood of the Emperor is boiling... I almost lost control and awakened Asura's Eye again.
The thought chilled him. Had he lost control here, with only Li Bufan and the others nearby...
A flash of purple light summoned the Despicable Donkey, whose eyes bulged the moment they landed on the statues.
"Heavens! A Four Divine Seal! And not just one—four layers! One divine beast seal could suppress a demonic scourge, but four? Whatever's under there must be a super-duper-ultra-mega apocalyptic nightmare! Kid, we need to leave. Now!"
"What do you mean?" Ling Feng demanded.
"Ugh, must I spell it out?" Despicable Donkey rolled his eyes. "Those 'statues' aren't carvings—they're real divine beasts who sacrificed themselves to seal whatever's beneath. My guess? A Devil from Beyond, minimum Ancestral Realm!"
"An... Ancestral Realm Devil?"
Before Ling Feng could process this, the monument's surface rippled. A vortex of darkness yawned open, its pull terrifyingly absolute—
And then, it swallowed him whole.