Chapter 1823: The Prehistoric Great Calamity
Qin Mu raised Qin Lingyun high and placed her on his shoulder. Qin Lingyun was pitifully thin, her skin covering bones with hardly any flesh. She sat uneasily on his shoulder, her small hands tightly gripping his hair.
She turned her head to look at Qin Mu's profile. The white hair at his temples stirred a familiar feeling within her—it was the face that had appeared in her blurry vision after she was born.
This face made her feel at ease.
In her memories, besides this face, there was another familiar one.
That was her mother.
Qin Mu looked at the figures within the fiery light. They were the Ascended who had pursued Qin Lingyun, the ones who had blocked their family of three on the Chaotic Long River back then, forcing him to let Qin Lingyun return to the Chaotic Long River of the First Epoch and enter the First Epoch universe, separating father and daughter from then on.
For Qin Lingyun, this separation lasted five years. For five years, she had no parents, became an orphan, and lived a lonely, helpless life.
For Qin Mu and Ling Yuxiu, however, it was a separation of three and a half billion years. This parting caused Ling Yuxiu to always hold some resentment toward Qin Mu. During those three and a half billion years, they never had a second child.
Qin Mu was fine, having only waited three and a half billion years, but Ling Yuxiu still had to continue waiting.
"Seventh Young Master!"
"Chaos!"
Harsh Dao voices came from the sea of fire, voices filled with shock, fear, excitement, and mockery.
"You've finally returned, choosing to become the Seventh Young Master, to become Chaos!" they laughed.
Qin Mu's expression was as calm as an ancient well. His palm clenched tightly into a fist, then he slowly raised his right hand.
"Gentlemen, do you still remember? On the Chaotic Long River, I once said I would put all of you into coffins."
His five fingers spread apart. "Today, I have come to fulfill that promise."
Boom!
In the fiery light, Dao Trees suddenly exploded one after another. The angry shouts of those prehistoric Ascended rang out as they fled in all directions. Their Dao Fruits hung high, and Dao light pierced through the Chaotic Fire Sea, but a massive reincarnation rose up, encompassing them all within its cycle!
Their Dao Trees were sliced neatly within the sea of fire, turning into planks of wood with strange runes flickering and changing on them.
Those were Chaotic runes: Yuan!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The planks made from the Dao Trees assembled within the Chaotic Fire Sea. The branches of the Dao Trees became wooden nails, hammering into the coffin boards.
One by one, the Ascended from various cosmic epochs were captured by those coffins, letting out miserable screams as they were dragged into their respective coffins. Huge coffin lids flew up, landing on the coffins, and wooden nails were driven down, sealing the lids tight.
Within the Chaotic Fire Sea, the Dao weapons of these Ascended melted one after another, turning into chains that shuttled through the sea of fire, piercing through and locking the coffins together.
"I am Chaos."
Qin Mu walked through the sea of fire with his daughter Qin Lingyun. Behind him, the group of coffins drifted, pulled by the chains. "When I returned to the past and arrived at the First Epoch, I was already invincible."
Thumping sounds came from within the coffins. It was the Ascended of various cosmic epochs struggling, trying to break the coffins and escape.
Their cultivation and strength were extremely formidable. The Ascended who dared to block Qin Mu and his wife on the road were no simple characters. Each of them had strength comparable to the Hall Masters of the Miluo Palace!
However, facing Qin Mu, who had become Young Master Chaos, they were still far too inferior.
"You don't need to struggle. I will create a space in this void that even the Destruction Calamity and Creation Calamity cannot destroy, to be used as a place to store filth."
Qin Mu raised his hand. A large area of the collapsing Ultimate Void suddenly stabilized. The coffins flew past Qin Mu and his daughter, heading toward that place.
"It's not that I want to protect you through the Destruction Calamity and Creation Calamity. In fact, this space merely reduces the power of the Creation Calamity by many times, delaying it for who knows how many years."
Qin Mu watched the group of coffins fly away, his voice turning into Dao sounds that steadily reached the ears of the Ascended inside the coffins.
"The Creation Calamity will always chase you, erasing your future again and again, letting you slowly watch your own death approach. The power of the Creation Calamity will cause you to grow together with the coffins, making it impossible for you to ever escape. It will kill you bit by bit."
"And this process will last for hundreds of billions of years!"
"You tore apart our father and daughter, prevented mother and daughter from meeting, and separated my wife and me. This is my punishment for you!"
...
The Destruction Calamity of the First Epoch of the universe arrived on schedule. The Master of the Miluo Palace used his immense divine power to turn his voice into sound, summoning all the Ascended and deities of the entire universe, bringing all living beings from all heavens to the Ancestral Court, boarding the World-Crossing Golden Ship to cross the great Destruction Calamity.
It was a magnificent sight. On the World-Crossing Golden Ship, golden halls emerged one after another. The interiors of these halls were like separate heavens, containing all the environments necessary for living beings to survive.
The First Epoch was an incredibly glorious era. The height of this universe's development was such that even the Yan Kang era could not compare. The golden ship built by the Master of the Miluo Palace, using all the wealth of this universe, was naturally extraordinary.
When the Destruction Calamity descended, the massive golden ship passed through the thick Chaotic Long River, resisting the winds of heat death and cold death as it broke through the river's surface and sailed on the Chaotic Long River. The Master of the Miluo Palace could not hide his excitement.
The golden ship was not destroyed in the Destruction Calamity!
His voice was hoarse as he let out a long laugh. Amidst the laughter, the Dao Trees of the Ascended on the World-Crossing Golden Ship turned to ashes, and their Dao Fruits dissipated. Only then did he notice that his Dao companions had long turned into skeletons when the golden ship passed through the Destruction Calamity.
The Master of the Miluo Palace was stunned. He stood at the bow of the ship, watching the skeletons of his companions shatter and collapse.
Suddenly, he let out a cry and rushed toward the halls on the golden ship.
The first hall was empty. Everything inside had been destroyed, turned into Chaotic Qi!
The second hall was empty!
The third hall was empty!
The Master of the Miluo Palace went mad, charging into hall after hall, rushing out of hall after hall. He screamed madly, but his cries contained no syllables, no Dao—only a series of hoarse howls.
He seemed to have suffered a severe Dao injury, charging into those golden halls over and over again, even though he had already entered some of them more than once.
"Dad, what is he doing?" In the Chaotic Long River, the little girl Qin Lingyun looked up and asked her father.
"He is searching for his Dao heart, searching for his ideals."
Qin Mu watched this scene from afar and lowered his head to say to Qin Lingyun, "His Dao heart has collapsed, his ideals have crumbled. He wants to find them again. Perhaps in the future, I too will be like him, searching for my ideals, searching for my Dao heart."
The Master of the Miluo Palace searched again and again, but the entire golden ship was left with only him. In the end, he sat down dejectedly, staring blankly at the Chaotic Long River.
The World-Crossing Golden Ship drifted along with the Chaotic Long River. The Destruction Calamity was raging fiercely, but it could not shake the ship in the slightest, nor could it shake him.
The Master of the Miluo Palace's Dao heart was withered and dead, as if he was about to enter nirvana and dissolve into the Dao.
At that moment, a man with graying temples, holding a little girl's hand, arrived on the golden ship.
The Master of the Miluo Palace looked at him with lifeless eyes. Suddenly, his eyeballs moved. The man with graying temples performed a disciple's salute to him.
"A visitor from the future?"
The Master of the Miluo Palace returned the salute and said, "I can see something on you that does not belong to this universe. You seem to have traveled far in time. Are you from the future?"
"Teacher, I am your seventh disciple, Chaos."
Qin Mu said, "I have come back here to see you."
The Master of the Miluo Palace stared at them blankly, then suddenly said, "Is the future good?"
"The future is good." Qin Mu smiled.
The Master of the Miluo Palace fell silent. His dead Dao heart seemed to slowly recover, and his ideals returned. He staggered into the golden halls, mourning his past friends, the past living beings, and the past years in hall after hall.
After a long time, he walked out of the halls. His seventh disciple and the little girl were nowhere to be seen.
The Master of the Miluo Palace felt a sense of loss.
After the Destruction Calamity came the Creation Calamity.
When the Creation Calamity erupted, the Five Tai evolved. After the Tai Ji Great Dao evolved into the myriad Daos of heaven and earth, a new universe was born.
The Boundless Elder sat in the Yao Pool under the World Tree, bored as he took some Hong Meng Primordial Liquid and rubbed the dirt off his body. The Destruction Calamity and Creation Calamity, though grand and spectacular, always left him covered in dust.
"Brother Boundless."
The Boundless Elder heard this voice, poked his head out of the Yao Pool to look, and saw a man with graying temples holding a little girl's hand walking toward him. He quickly jumped out of the pool, hurriedly put on his clothes, and chuckled, "I recognize you! You're not from this universe. I saw you jump out of Chaos."
"I am the seventh disciple of the Master of the Miluo Palace, Chaos. In the future, I will benefit from you, Brother, so I have come specifically to thank you for your help."
The young man smiled and said, "Brother will help me in the future, and I have nothing to repay you with. I owe you a favor, so I have come back to the past to write you an IOU."
The Boundless Elder laughed, "So you're Miluo's disciple. What status do I have? In terms of seniority, even Miluo has to call me senior. Do I need your IOU? How improper! Forget it, forget it. No need for an IOU."
Qin Mu's expression was kind. "Brother, you should still take it. It might come in handy in the future, right?"
He wrote the IOU, and the Boundless Elder casually accepted it. Seeing this, Qin Mu kindly reminded him, "Brother, this IOU cannot survive the Destruction Calamity and Creation Calamity. It's best to put it in the tree roots."
The Boundless Elder did as he was told and laughed, "You're quite interesting."
He looked at the little girl beside Qin Mu, finding her adorable, and asked curiously, "I saw a little girl beside you during the Destruction Calamity of the First Epoch. Is it her? Why hasn't she grown up?"
Qin Mu smiled, "She was born in the future and survives by absorbing the power of the Destruction Calamity. She has already absorbed the power of several subsequent Destruction Calamities. Only the power of the First Epoch's Destruction Calamity did she start absorbing after birth, so she can only grow in the First Epoch."
"Is there such a strange thing?"
The Boundless Elder was surprised. Finding his conversation extraordinary, he became interested and sat down to discuss Dao with him. The longer they talked, the more he felt this person was remarkable.
Qin Mu looked around. This vast, desolate Ancestral Court had no human presence, only the Five Tai gathering and brewing, with the Five Tai deities waiting to be born.
"Don't look. There's nothing for you here."
The Boundless Elder laughed, "Miluo has been guarding that place all along. The first living beings born from the first mineral vein were all taken by him. By the way, since you are his disciple and come from the future, you must know what happens to me in the future, right?"
Qin Mu said solemnly, "Ancestor Boundless has boundless divine power, his might piercing through cosmic epochs. Countless Ascended submit and guard the Ancestor!"
The Boundless Elder laughed heartily, "You sure know how to talk! You're worthy of being Miluo's seventh! I really like you!"
...
In the Second Epoch, the Master of the Miluo Palace entered the world to save people, teaching divine powers and Dao techniques. The number of living beings in the world gradually increased, with many ancient gods and beings from various races following him to learn and ask about the Dao.
The Master of the Miluo Palace's eldest disciple was still a young lad but had already received his teacher's true teachings. Sometimes, he would teach on behalf of his teacher.
One day, he encountered a strange father and daughter. He curiously sized them up but could not discern their origins.
Tai Shang felt a chill in his heart. He stood up to inquire, "Where do you two come from, brothers?"
Qin Mu quickly said, "Senior Brother Tai Shang, I am your seventh junior brother, Chaos. I joined the sect later than you, so I am not worthy of being called brother!"
Tai Shang was confused.
Qin Mu asked, "Brother, what is your origin?"
Tai Shang said, "I was born from the Tai Yi mineral vein, originally an egg. The teacher enlightened me and let me cultivate with him."
Qin Mu suddenly understood and laughed heartily.
"So that's why Tai Yi always loses to Young Master Tai Shang and is always outdone by Tai Shang! So that's it, so that's it!"
He finally figured out the key to the problem. Tai Yi was the primordial spirit of the Heavenly Capital Master, who had possessed the Tai Yi of the Seventeenth Epoch. Because it was possession, his understanding and application of the Tai Yi Dao were always a bit off, repeatedly suppressed by Tai Shang, and ultimately captured and placed in the Burial Dao Divine Coffin!
"Brother, has the teacher ever taken you to the Gui Xu to have a look?" Qin Mu asked with a sly smile.
Tai Shang felt that his smile was ill-intentioned, but since he was a junior brother, he probably wouldn't harm him. He shook his head and said, "No."
"Why not go and take a look?" Qin Mu coaxed.