Chapter 1520: A Single Tear
The Miluo Palace was shrouded in silence.
Qin Mu stood quietly, not speaking for a long time, and the master of the Miluo Palace did not continue either, seemingly waiting for him to recover from his shock.
"Ha ha ha ha!"
Suddenly, Qin Mu burst into laughter, the sound echoing back and forth within the Miluo Palace. After a long while, his laughter gradually subsided.
"Dao brother, do you think I will believe you?"
His expression turned serious, and he said solemnly, "Taiyi is not the true Taiyi? What evidence do you have? If he is not the true Taiyi, why would he risk coming to find you? Why would he leave behind the geographical map for me to follow and rescue him? Was he not afraid that I would come here, meet you, and you would expose his identity? If he is an ascender who has reached the shore, why would he obstruct other ascenders from landing? Why would he stubbornly guard the severed World Tree, why would he hold his ground there for billions of years?"
The voice of the Miluo Palace master came through, unhurried: "Do I have any reason to deceive you, Mu Tianzun? If I harbored ill intentions, why would I need to trick you? Taiyi has already been struck down by me into the Fourth Universe. Could you possibly be stronger than him?"
Qin Mu pressed his lips together, pursing his thin mouth, and said nothing.
Compared to Taiyi, he was indeed very weak. The Miluo Palace master truly had no need to deceive him.
If he had malicious intent, he could simply eliminate him directly!
"If you want evidence, then go to the outermost mining area of the World Tree to search. When an ascender uses the World Tree to sneak across, they leave behind a mine pit. Go to the outermost edge of the World Tree; there, the mine pit from his landing remains."
The Miluo Palace master spoke unhurriedly: "As for why he risked coming to see me, it was because the appearance of the Miluo Palace made him realize that his identity was in danger of being exposed. Therefore, he had to come here no matter what. His only goal was to make you dare not come."
Qin Mu was taken aback, then said, "But I came."
"An ascender of his caliber fell here. Anyone else would certainly not dare to come and investigate the truth. He left you the geographical map, telling you to follow it to rescue him. If it were someone else, they would definitely search everywhere, looking for the location marked on the map. But you are different."
The Miluo Palace master continued: "You are someone he could not see through. He thought you would not dare to come, but he never expected you to come anyway, traversing all kinds of dangers to reach me and expose his identity. He did not anticipate that your courage would be this great."
Qin Mu thought it over. From a logical standpoint, the Miluo Palace master's explanation was indeed possible.
He walked forward, trying to pierce through the immensely thick Hongmeng primal energy to approach the Miluo Palace master. He wanted to see the figure within the purple light.
But no matter how long he walked or how far he went, he could not get any closer to the silhouette in the purple radiance.
In terms of divine abilities, throughout the entire universe, including the Ten Heavenly Honored Ones, none could match the subtlety of his techniques. Yet he could not discern what kind of divine ability the Miluo Palace master was using.
"As for him blocking other ascenders from coming ashore, that is even simpler. He witnessed the great destruction of the universe and did not want this universe to repeat the same fate. The more ascenders there are, the faster the universe perishes. He not only wanted to stop ascenders from landing but also to prevent others from achieving ascension."
The Miluo Palace master said: "Your universe has existed for sixty-one billion years so far. In all that time, aside from him, there has been no other ascender. If he truly wanted to resist the invasion of prehistoric ascenders, why would he need to stubbornly guard the World Tree? He could simply cultivate a few ascenders to help him fend off the invasion. Did he do that?"
Qin Mu struggled to move forward, fell silent for a moment, then shook his head. "No."
He could not help but defend Taiyi again, saying, "Taiyi stands aloof from the world, transcendent and detached. He is an ascended existence. He does not interfere in worldly affairs. He merely observes the development of events and the rise and fall of dynasties from the perspective of a bystander..."
"Really?"
The Miluo Palace master inquired: "Has he truly never interfered in anything? Then how did the Creator race become extinct? How did you become the master of the World Tree? And how did the eye on your forehead come to see through chaos?"
Qin Mu fell silent once more.
From these perspectives, Taiyi had indeed interfered in worldly matters and was not so detached.
Taiyi had led the ancient gods of the primordial era to mistakenly believe that the Great Dao wanted to eliminate the Creator race, thus prompting the Heavenly Emperor Taichu to launch a war against them, leading to their annihilation.
That once-glorious race was reduced to a handful of survivors fleeing to the Great Void, barely clinging to existence.
Qin Mu had successfully nurtured the World Tree to life only because of a bucket of Dao Dew from Taiyi, who also lent him the Chaos Axe to chop down the tree.
And the vertical eye on his forehead came from Taiyi's eggshell and a drop of Dao Dew.
The Miluo Palace master said: "He did not allow the Five Tai of your universe to be born smoothly. If he had let Tai Chu, Tai Shi, Tai Su, and Tai Ji be born properly, none of the later troubles would have occurred. At the very least, you would have had five ascenders to protect your universe and prevent prehistoric ascenders from ever descending. Did he do that? No."
"Tai Chu was crippled, Tai Shi could not be born, Tai Su was refined into a treasure, and Tai Ji fled into hiding. The four innate Tai, who had the greatest hope of achieving ascension, none of them succeeded. Taiyi guarded the World Tree, but in truth, he was only guarding his own life."
He said leisurely: "Those who appear most selfless are often the most selfish."
Qin Mu suddenly burst into loud laughter.
The Miluo Palace master fell silent, waiting for his laughter to subside.
"I cannot refute you, but neither will I suspect Taiyi because of this! The one I should suspect most is you!"
Qin Mu continued to walk toward him tirelessly, his voice echoing through the Miluo Palace as he declared loudly: "Dao brother, you too appear to be a selfless person. By your own reasoning, you are also the most selfish!"
The Miluo Palace master was silent for a moment, then said: "That could be said as well. The universe is fair. When the appointed time comes, all life must die, ascenders included. Yet I want to survive and want to save others. This is indeed selfishness."
Qin Mu kept walking toward him, shaking his head. "That is not what I mean. I am talking about the ancestral court altar! The entire ancestral court is a massive blood sacrifice altar. Dare you say it has nothing to do with you? You have been trapped here all along, waiting for an opportunity—an opportunity to come ashore! That is why you set up the blood sacrifice altar!"
The Miluo Palace master fell silent again. After a moment, his voice came from within the thick purple light: "The ancestral court altar has nothing to do with me, but it does have something to do with the Miluo Palace. Over these sixteen epochs, I have witnessed the destruction of sixteen universes, the joys and sorrows of countless lives, the ambitions and obsessions of innumerable geniuses, all ultimately reduced to ashes in the great cataclysm. I no longer wish to come ashore, nor do I wish to ferry others across. But not everyone in the Miluo Palace shares my thoughts."
Qin Mu found it difficult to grasp the sentiment in his words and hard to discern the truth of his statements.
Logically, the Miluo Palace master had no reason to deceive him, but deep down, Qin Mu was unwilling to believe his words.
He did not want to believe that Taiyi had been deceiving him all along, using him all along.
"I still remember Taiyi telling me that when I abandoned my own path, he transformed into a tear at the corner of my eye," Qin Mu murmured.
This had deeply moved him, shaking his very soul.
"But tears are the cheapest thing."
The Miluo Palace master said: "If that can move you, then I can give you even more tears. How many tears do you want?"
Qin Mu stubbornly walked forward, saying in a deep voice: "Then let me see your tears!"
He took a step forward, and suddenly the thick purple light before him parted, and he finally arrived before the Miluo Palace master.
Before him stood a magnificent Dao Tree, lush and verdant like the World Tree, seemingly towering above the destruction of sixteen universes, untouched by the calamity of cosmic annihilation.
On that Dao Tree hung sixteen Dao Fruits, each radiating different Great Daos, with Dao sounds swirling and Dao light shimmering.
Standing before this Dao Tree, Qin Mu felt as tiny as an ant, utterly insignificant.
He strained to look beneath the Dao Tree and saw a majestic figure sitting at its base.
The figure sat with hands forming a seal, in a peculiar posture, as if he had never moved.
It was a skeleton.
A skeleton with nothing but bones.
The Miluo Palace master had no flesh, no physical body, no primordial spirit, no aura of the Great Dao—only a withered skeleton sitting in the palace.
"Mu Tianzun, the tears you asked for."
The majestic Dao Tree shook, and a drop of Dao Dew fell from a leaf, landing on the center of Qin Mu's forehead as he looked up.
"Is this single tear enough?"
The voice of the Miluo Palace master came from the Dao Fruits on the tree: "Or do you need more?"
Qin Mu's mouth hung slightly open, unable to describe the shock this scene brought to his soul.
He had always believed that the Miluo Palace master orchestrated everything—the invasion of prehistoric ascenders, the ancestral court altar, the Jade Capital trap!
But he had never imagined that the Miluo Palace master had long since died.
He had transformed into the Dao and vanished.
Only this withered skeleton and this Dao Tree remained.
Only his Dao was left.
Perhaps, when he realized he could never save the world, he had died.
Qin Mu closed his eyes, and the vertical eye on his forehead slowly shut as well.
All along, it had not been the Miluo Palace master speaking to him, but the Dao into which he had transformed.
An ascender could lie, but the Dao could not.
After a moment, he opened his eyes and turned to walk out of the hall.
"I don't believe it."
He murmured, "I absolutely refuse to believe it!"
His legs grew heavier, but he still walked out with strength: "I absolutely refuse to believe that Taiyi is a prehistoric ascender. This is just your one-sided story... Even if he is a prehistoric ascender, what does it matter? After all, he has protected this universe. He is a good person... He is like a World Tree, holding up the sky of this universe..."
He reached the entrance of the Miluo Palace, but suddenly his legs gave way, and he collapsed to the ground, his eyes vacant, murmuring: "He is the sky of this universe... I must go see him in person, ask him!"
He struggled to his feet, leaning on the palace door, trying to push it open.
Creak—
The door of the Miluo Palace slowly opened, revealing a crack.
"You are wrong."
The voice of the Miluo Palace master came from behind him: "The one holding up your universe was never Taiyi. Mu Tianzun, the ones holding up your universe were once the Heavenly Emperor, then Tai Chu, then the Ten Heavenly Honored Ones, Yun Tianzun, Yue Tianzun, Ling Tianzun, Emperor Chi, Emperor Ming, Emperor Shang, Emperor Kai, Yanfeng Emperor, Yanxiu Emperor, and Mu Tianzun—you yourselves!"
"No one has ever helped you hold up your sky!"
Qin Mu staggered out of the Miluo Palace, and the door behind him slammed shut with a boom.
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