Chapter 891: The Truth (I)

Translator: Transn Editor: Transn

Just as Zhou Bao was feeling helpless and was even considering giving up the fight, a huge pressure broke out inside the Treasure-snatching Rock.

Whoosh!

It was like a storm whipping up on a plain. Jade Emperor Sage hesitated a little under the pressure. How could Zhou Bao, even in his desperation, give up on a chance such as this? He fled. He did not use his Great Way of Heavens and Realms, but his own power. He gathered all his Dharma power and used the power from the pressure to break away from the grasp of Jade Emperor Sage.

"You were able to get out?" The emperor was somewhat surprised that Zhou Bao had escaped from his grasp. But Zhou Bao soon felt relieved. A weak pressure emanated from his body, neutralizing the pressure in the hollow that had risen so suddenly.

"Go on then, leave! There's nothing you can do here, anyway!" Jade Emperor Sage said in his high and mighty voice. The surrounding Earthly Immortals looked at each other in dismay. After experiencing the unique pressure, they had unanimously decided to make the right choice - to leave.

As much as Zhou Bao wanted to leave, he could not.

He found he could not even lift a finger, due to the pressure. But at the same time, he felt very comfortable; the pressure felt very familiar to him. It was as if it was his own pressure.

A strange, gentle force permeated through the pressure and into his body. It restored and cleansed his battle-scarred body. At that moment, Zhou Bao was alarmed to find that his luck was starting to explode wildly.

Yes, explode. Before, his luck was burning, but by now the golden-yellow luck spirit had been burnt up. It was now exploding, engulfing his body and he felt his strength increase limitlessly. His Dharma power started to surge with a hurricane-like force.

A destructive thought came from his spirit and in a moment, countless ancient thoughts and messages came gushing forth like water from a burst dam, filling his spirit. There were so many messages and they came so quickly that he could not absorb them all at once. The spirit was broken up by the onslaught of thoughts and his mind went totally blank. The next moment, his mind cleared but now, there was slightly more of a cold feeling. A feeling of scorn came through the depths of this cold feeling.

"Boy, what are you going to do?"

Using his own body strength, Zhou Bao felt as if he were waking up from a long sleep and he looked at the Jade Emperor Sage with total scorn. "You are very ambitious, but you don't have the strength to match it!"

"Taoist Cundi!" The emperor narrowed his eyes slightly and felt the earth-shattering pressure. He took a deep breath. Destroying the Celestial Immortal in the long river of time, you were very mighty. But don't forget that you currently have only an Earthly Immortal's Body. Even though it is at peak Earthly Immortal, you will never be able to overcome the gap to get to my level!"

"Then what are you going to do about this gap?" While he was speaking, Zhou Bao, or rather, Taoist Cundi, winked. He looked at the sage with great interest. "You have gotten to this realm purely through the Way of the Emperor, which is not easy. It's a miracle that you have not been hacked to death!"

"I'm not dead yet, but it's your turn to die! Now you're occupying Zhou Bao's body, you cannot stop me!" The sage laughed coldly and waved his hand. An axe with lightning entwined around it appeared in his hand and he hacked violently at Taoist Cundi.

"Stupid!" When Taoist Cundi saw the axe coming for him, he opened his mouth wide and swallowed it like a whale swallowing water. Everything changed color and the decaying spirit that filled the heavens and earth was swallowed up into his body. As the lightning axe came slicing through the air, the vast Qi of Decay created a gray wall around Taoist Cundi. The axe bounced off the wall, as if it was made of leather. The power capable of splitting open the heavens and earth dissipated through the gray and gloomy spirit, but did not harm Taoist Cundi at all.

But as Taoist Cundi absorbed everything, the world outside the Treasure-snatching Rock changed dramatically. The Deva's Five Decrepit Phenomena spirit started to gather and formed a million mile long, unbroken funnel in the Immortal Realm. This funnel served as the entrance to the Treasure-snatching Rock and the immeasurable Qi of Decay came pouring into it. It collected around Taoist Cundi, forming a dense, gray fog which gave him secure protection.

Outside the gray fog, Jade Emperor Sage's expression turned sinister. He never imagined that this could have happened. The axe, made up of condensed Thunder of Fate, could not be so easily overcome. It was able to chop down the World Tree with no difficulty. He even once inferred that this axe's power was under his own control. This Axe of Fate could simply hack him to death, hack a Celestial Immortal to death and even make him lose any chance of resurrection. That was how much power it had.

He did not count on the axe hacking Cundi to death, but only intended it to injure him severely. But his axe which he had so much confidence in, had disappointed him and even gave him cause for alarm. The Taoist Cundi Remains that he had imagined did not appear. On the contrary, the first thing Taoist Cundi did was to occupy Zhou Bao's body. Perhaps now, Zhou Bao's spirit had already been completely destroyed by this ancient Celestial Immortal.

It could not be this way, right?

Zhou Bao had such prosperous luck, that logically speaking, he should have been the one who had obtained the Cundi Remains to achieve Omnipotent Sage status. But when his luck was at peak combustion, he had killed him and seized his fate and the Cundi Remains; this raised his power by a level.

But now, it seemed like everything had been displaced. The Cundi Remains did not reveal itself and Zhou Bao's body was occupied by Cundi's spirit. But was Cundi not dead already? Why was its spirit so strong?

This went totally against his plans.

It now seemed as if he ended up as a part of someone else's plans and that someone else was a mystical, ancient Celestial Immortal. This was not good.

But Zhou Bao was even worse off.

His spirit had been completely inhibited and had started to become assimilated with that of Cundi. There was no way of fighting this process, the difference between their levels was too great.

What happened, how did it turn out this way?

Zhou Bao seemed to have no chance of fighting this enormous pressure. His spirit was forced back into the Sea of Consciousness and he then found that his Sea of Consciousness was churning and surging.

Originally it was he that controlled his Sea of Consciousness, but now he was completely inhabited by an immense spirit that far exceeded his imagination. His spirit was nothing in comparison, a droplet compared to an entire ocean.

But it was very clear that, right now, this immeasurable ocean wanted to completely assimilate him. In fact, this water droplet was succeeding.

He had cultivated his Primordial Spirits of Three Separations: the Primordial Poison Spirit, the Primordial Sword Spirit and the Primordial Fire Spirit.

His Primordial Poison Spirit had been completely refined and the Primordial Fire Spirit was made into the Furnace of Immortality's device spirit. But now, it was completely engulfed along with the extremely mysterious relationship between those spirits. All that was left was his Veneration Spirit and the Primordial Sword Spirit. In fact, his Sword Spirit had been engulfed as well, but it had received an inheritance from the Four Immortal-killing Swords and so was much more valiant than the other two primordial spirits. There remained a light inside that had not been extinguished.

Not bad, not bad! Well done for surviving up to now, boy! You are worthy to be called my biggest Separated Hun thought through all these eras! Nice!"

A huge spirit fluctuating like rolling thunder was produced in Zhou Bao's Sea of Consciousness.

Separated Hun thought!

Zhou Bao felt inspired and a message entered his consciousness from the immeasurable spirit.

It wasn't a long message, but it was absolutely shocking.

"It's unbelievable. The source of my spirit is only a tiny Separated Po thought belonging to this Taoist Cundi! Absolutely everything else is just a contingency for Taoist Cundi to regenerate and hide!"

Not just him, but also all of the device spirits in the Treasure-snatching Rock were created from the fragmented Separated Po thoughts from Taoist Cundi's death!

A thousand eras ago, Taoist Cundi planned for his downfall after meeting a strong enemy. His spirit would be dispersed and turned into countless scattered thoughts spread throughout the universe. It seemed this Taoist Cundi already had a premonition about his decline. At the moment of his death, he made the Treasure-snatching Rock absorb the greater part of himself. His corpse would also be secretly absorbed. A single, tiny one of these fragmented thoughts was the source of Zhou Bao's spirit. Inside the Treasure-snatching Rock, these fragmented thoughts slowly evolved into tiny points of individual consciousness, just like the Zhou Bao we saw now.

During these thousand long eras, the Treasure-snatching Rock released some of these independent consciousnesses and they traveled throughout the universe. Some of these completely disappeared and even more returned to the rock before their lives were terminated. Then, those consciousnesses that constituted the prime essence of Taoist Cundi would be absorbed by the rock and many of those were even Earthly Immortal entities.

It was a very long and mysterious process that took place over a thousand eras. Five eras ago, Cundi started to regain his essential consciousness and the first thing he did was to disperse the Seven Wonderful Techniques.