Chapter 508 – The Twin Calamities of Yin and Yang, Prologue to an Epic - Part 3

Chapter 508 – The Twin Calamities of Yin and Yang, Prologue to an Epic - Part 3

Rustle rustle rustle!

A choir of leaves shook in the wind, as if they were speaking in tree language.

The surreal exchange made Li Yuan break into a helpless smile.

Still, there was a real issue here. Sheng’er, the one in the Deathless Tomb, had only recently broken through to the second stage of the Heaven Soul Realm.

But this stage was unlike anything before it.

The second stage wasn’t just about cultivation. It required

maintenance.

To stay stable, one needed to regularly absorb Yang energy, especially from a third rank meat field.

The problem was the third rank meat field near Yan Yu’s temple could only sustain four second stage Heaven Soul cultivators at a time.

Just then, one Sheng’er suddenly leapt out of the snow with a grin. “Papa! Let me show you our Immortal Form!”

With a flutter of her branches, an enormous golden figure rose up behind her—a towering hundred-foot-tall maiden, her face indistinct but shimmering with divine light.

Then, one after another, the other three Tree’ers did the same.

There were four golden avatars, each a hundred feet tall, standing like living statues behind their tiny, twiggy forms.

The golden avatars raised their hands. And with a single shake, their palms unraveled into countless intertwining golden roots.

Then, with a clap, those roots surged forward like crashing waves. They charged across the valley with a thunderous roar, like ten thousand armored cavalry galloping at full speed. The tips of the roots, sharp as spears, tore through the air, piercing several kilometers ahead. The sheer momentum was breathtaking.

These four tides of golden root tendrils barreled back and forth across the canyon, echoing like rolling thunder.

And every so often, their proud little owners called out, “Papa! Are we amazing or what?”

“Incredible!” Li Yuan clapped his hands.

The four Tree’ers beamed, then obediently retracted their golden roots and dissolved the avatars.

One of them suddenly chirped, “Papa, what about

your

golden form? Show us, pleeeease!”

“Yeah!” another chimed in, eyes shining. “Is it cooler than ours?”

Li Yuan had no reason to hide anything from his daughters. He stepped into position, and behind him, a giant golden figure emerged, a thousand feet tall.

The golden giant sat cross-legged, hands resting on its knees. Its once-greedy, monstrous face now bore an unexpected light—tempered with clarity and compassion, as though a dark spirit had begun to remember something sacred.

The withered flame blazed around it, and the temperature of the entire valley soared, rising higher and higher.

Even though Li Yuan’s avatar remained seated, the four golden Tree’ers still had to look up just to meet its gaze.

They looked like tiny lucky charms nestled beneath a towering deity enshrined atop a mountain altar.

Li Yuan sat cross-legged beneath the tree, checking on his status.

His combat power had grown from 38k~626k to 38k~720k. Not a huge leap, but it wasn’t about raw numbers.

The real breakthrough...was restraint. His once-uncontrollable fury was finally being drawn inward,

contained

.

He slowly raised one hand.

In the air above, the ashen and ancient withered flame began to gather and compress into the shape of a blade. But the process was still unstable. The collapse faltered.

Li Yuan tried a few more times to grasp the forming blade.

Still not right.

He sighed and dismissed it.

From the side, the Tree’ers shouted, “Papa! Time to pack away your magic!”

He smiled and did as they asked, letting the power fade.

Then he watched as the four of them broke into a little tea party. They murmured, giggled, and traded snacks like children with too much power and too much free time.

Suddenly, one of the Tree’ers spoke up. “Papa, that old man in the Deathless Tomb is talking again!”

Li Yuan turned. “What did he say?”

“He said...the second stage of Heaven Soul realm is our current limit. If we want to step into the Earth Immortal Realm, we have to go to the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain.”

“Feeding wolves to drive away tigers. Classic move.” Li Yuan sneered.

“Right? I didn’t believe him either. I told him if he wouldn’t teach me properly, I’d rip the lid off his coffin!” The Tree’er nodded, her voice indignant. After a pause, she added, “Then he got all dramatic and said I was ungrateful, that I was betraying my master and ancestors. But I told him he was the one who begged

me

to learn in the first place! ...Then he shut up.”

Some time passed.

One of the Tree’ers turned into a little black crow and landed on Li Yuan’s shoulder.

“Papa,” she said. “He started talking again.”

“Oh?”

“He said...even without going to the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain, there’s another way to break through.” Her voice lowered, more serious now. “He said it’s not a method that works for most people, but it might just work for

me

.”

“He said...even a low rank meat field could be enough to push more versions of me into third rank. As long as the field undergoes fission, it’ll release a massive amount of energy. That energy can help many, many versions of me break through.

“And even if one day, all the meat fields are gone, I can just travel to the bonfires of the Nine Flames Tribe. There, I can absorb Yang energy nonstop. With that, I’ll be able to stay in the second stage of the Heaven Soul Realm forever.”

Li Yuan had only been half-listening until suddenly, his expression froze.

His pupils narrowed.

His daughter continued, unaware of the storm brewing in his silence.

“The old man also said... he can teach me the Heaven Soul Grand Formation. For others, this formation requires deep, seamless harmony of thought to even attempt. But for

me

, he said, it’s like it was born for me. He told me if I learn it, there’ll be no one on this land who can defeat me.

“And when there are more of me...I can stretch the formation across the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain too. Connect all the versions of me through the grand array...

“Papa, what do you think? Should I learn it?”

By now, Li Yuan’s pupils had shrunk to pinpricks. He could feel it in the air, like thunderheads gathering on a windless plain, the silence before a cataclysm.

No, this wasn’t a storm. It was an oncoming calamity.

And he finally saw the shape of it.

To sabotage the Grand Union of Yin and Yang, the Western Extremes would stop at nothing.

They had already lured in Naran, hoping he would reduce the ghost domains to ash.

And now...they had set their sights on Sheng’er, his daughter.

They wanted her to devour every meat field under heaven.

And when those were gone, when the land was drained and barren, she would have no choice but to return to the bonfires of the Nine Flames Tribe, just like the Ice Folk before her.

There, they would make her into something more terrifying than any guardian the Deathless Tomb had ever known.

And the truth was...if Sheng’er

really

did form a battle formation with countless versions of herself...Li Yuan knew even he wouldn’t be able to stop her.

That old ghost in the Deathless Tomb hadn’t been lying.

If this path unfolded, Sheng’er would be invincible, at least on this land.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Karbol, Western Extremes.

Snow fell in quiet spirals. Cold winds stirred fine black sand across the tundra.

A towering figure stood in the storm. It resembled a monstrous snow bear, with four arms and four legs, thick-skulled and iron-browed, carved from sheer force and savagery.

Then, slowly, the extra limbs faded. Only two arms and two legs remained.

“Granny,” Naran rumbled, “I’ve consolidated my cultivation. I’m solidly in the first stage of the Earth Soul Realm. What do I have to do to reach the next stage?”

The hunched old woman with white hair spoke in a rasp that cut through the wind.

“Did the Wolfmother not already tell you?

March onto the Central Plains!

The ghost domains there, they’re your nourishment. Destroy them. Seize their power. Let it seep into your bones, and you will reach the second stage of the Earth Soul Realm.”

She paused. Her voice grew more guttural, more excited—twisting from restraint to frenzy, from whisper to scream, like a prophet in a fevered trance.

“Grey Body! Black Body!! Azure Body!!! You’ll become the mightiest being on this continent! You’ll be the hero of everyone born of the Nine Flames! Your life will blaze in glory! You will hang in the sky like the Sun, the Sun King! A legend carved into myth, a name no history can ignore!”

She raised her shriveled arms, bark-like skin trembling, and in her sunken eyes burned a fire of unrestrained madness and belief.

But Naran didn’t look moved. He simply lifted his massive golden axe, eyes closed, standing in silence for a long while.

At last, a faint, conflicted smile curved his lips.

“I should get going...” he said quietly.

He rose and walked off into the snow. Then suddenly, he threw his head back and howled.

It was a deep, thunderous cry that echoed through the icy world, like a lonely wolf king, crying toward the endless sky.