Summoning the Peak of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 2980 A Meeting Across the River of Time (Part 1)
Chapter 2977: A Meeting Across the River of Time (Part 1)
After slaying Rahu, Hongjun's figure gradually became transparent, and his blood-stained Taoist robe seemed to have lost its support, fluttering gently in the wind.

All the weariness, paleness, and lethargy on his face vanished in that instant, replaced by an indescribable tranquility and…completeness.

Hongjun looked down at his hands, which had become illusory, and then looked up. His gaze seemed to pierce through the barrier of the Hundred Thousand Mountains, as if he saw the distant Kunlun Mountains, the seriously injured Yang Mei, his grieving disciples, and the land of China, where the flames of war were gradually dying down, the land was scarred, yet it contained the hope of new life.

A sense of relief, a touch of comfort, ultimately transformed into a faint smile on his lips, a smile that seemed to reflect the eternal starry sky.

"The lotus returns to stillness, following the natural way..."

Hongjun's voice grew softer and softer, more and more ethereal. The will, emotions, and memories belonging to "Hongjun" were rapidly stripped away like the receding tide, merging into the cold, vast, and ever-flowing torrent of the Heavenly Dao.

His existence is being rapidly "formatted," soon to become a flat, uneventful footnote to the rules themselves.

The transformation has reached its final stage and is irreversible.

But just as that last bit of independent "self" consciousness was about to be completely dissolved by the great power of Heaven and return to eternal silence.

"Wow……"

A faint yet incredibly clear cry from an infant, like the first ray of life breaking through the chaos, precisely pierced the core of Hongjun's fading consciousness.

The cry was so tender and fragile, yet it contained the most primal and tenacious cry of life, awakening the humanity that Hongjun was about to completely freeze.

hum-

The surging torrent of the Heavenly Dao, which was about to complete its final assimilation, was thus slightly stagnant.

Hongjun's almost ethereal and transparent body trembled almost imperceptibly, and his extinguished "self" consciousness was forcibly pulled back by the crying.

"This is……"

An almost instinctive thought, transcending the dissolving mind, drove Hongjun's last remaining wisp of will, a transparent figure, to swiftly drift toward the direction of the crying.

At this moment, several miles away from the core battlefield of Panwang Valley, at the foot of a cliff in a mountain valley.

The corpse of a woman, dressed in coarse linen clothes and with her back charred and broken, was curled up in an extremely twisted yet unusually resolute posture, her arms tightly wrapped around a small baby wrapped in an animal skin swaddle.

Clearly, as the terrifying aftershocks of energy swept in, this mother used her own flesh and blood to build the last barrier for the child in her arms.

The baby's face was covered in dust and the mother's blood. He cried out in fear and discomfort, but miraculously, his voice was not drowned out by the strange noises around him.

Hongjun stood before the swaddling clothes. Without needing to touch it, his remaining perception of the Heavenly Dao traced back, reflecting the causal lines of this short life.

The baby girl before them was the daughter of the leader of the Houtu tribe, whose father was Houtu, one of the twelve tribal leaders who had been devoured by Rahu.

His mother, worried about her husband, brought him food, but unfortunately got caught up in the final battle between the Dao and the Demon, and sacrificed her life to protect her husband's last bloodline.

What stirred Hongjun's fading consciousness even more was that the infant girl in the swaddling clothes possessed extremely pure Chi You blood.

After Rahu's massacre, very few descendants of Chi You remained in the south. The purity of this baby girl's bloodline is far superior even to that of the current Emperor Jiang. She should be the person with the purest bloodline among the surviving descendants of Chi You.

That vibrant life force and ancient potential, like a seed buried deep in the earth, stubbornly shines with a faint light even in the ruins of death.

A clear thought arose in Hongjun's consciousness, which was about to completely dissipate: This woman should be preserved.

This is not out of pity, but stems from a deeper understanding of the long river of time and an instinct to maintain the balance of China.

Through the river of time, Hongjun clearly "saw" that this pure bloodline would, at a crucial juncture in the future, intersect and merge with the orthodox bloodline of the Yanhuang people.

Among her bloodline descendants, one woman will marry into the Han court, become a concubine of Emperor Ling, and give birth to an imperial daughter.

This imperial princess's bloodline purity is no less than that of Emperor Jiang at his peak, and she will become a crucial figure in the turbulent years to come—the imperial concubine of the newly established empire.

She will be a key link connecting the past and the future, balancing certain causes and effects, and the offspring she and the chosen one will possess the strengths of both the Yellow Emperor and Chi You's bloodlines, completely resolving the thousand-year-old feud between the two clans.

With this thought in mind, Hongjun made up his mind, and his transparent fingertips trembled very slightly.

A wisp of barely perceptible yet extremely pure and gentle qi, like the softest rain in early spring, quietly entered the brow of the crying baby girl.

The pure, natural vitality instantly soothed the baby's fear and discomfort.

As the crying subsided, the baby girl opened her bright black eyes and looked at Hongjun in a daze.

"Little guy, I didn't know you had such a big background."

Hongjun revealed a kind smile, and then activated the last bit of controllable Heavenly Dao power. An invisible shield gently enveloped the baby girl, isolating her from the dust and residual evil energy of the outside world.

Then, Hongjun, holding the baby girl, transformed into an almost invisible beam of light and disappeared into the devastated southern sky.

When Hongjun reappeared before Kunlun Jade Void Palace with an infant girl still in swaddling clothes, the entire Han Dynasty was shaken, and the Confucian and Taoist schools were overjoyed.

"Welcome back, champion!"

Led by Taiqing, Yuqing, and Shangqing, the Taoist disciples knelt in unison, their shouts echoing through the heavens. In their eyes, their master had not only vanquished the world-destroying demon Rahu but had also returned unharmed—a testament to the protection of Heaven and the eternal prosperity of Taoism.

Upon hearing this news, the various schools of thought, led by the Yin-Yang School and the School of Diplomacy, were struck as if by lightning. However, the anticipated great purge did not occur, and Hongjun remained in seclusion in Kunlun after his return.

This relieved the various schools of thought, but also caused them to fall silent, daring not to make any further moves for fear of attracting Hongjun's attention and bringing about their extermination.

And so, a catastrophe that swept across the world seemed to have suddenly subsided with the return of the Dao Ancestor, and the world returned to peace. The Han imperial family was also about to rise to power.

Only the three Pure Ones—Taiqing, Yuqing, and Shangqing—who served Hongjun, knew the chilling truth beneath the calm surface.

Although the master has returned, he is no longer a complete person. Not only is he unable to help the Daoist sect, but he also has to constantly fight against the invisible will of Heaven.

They could clearly sense that the independent consciousness belonging to their master was being continuously eroded and assimilated by a more powerful and icy will of Heaven.

Every sermon and every divination of heavenly secrets seemed to consume the last of his "fuel."

Master is using unparalleled willpower to forcibly delay that final moment of "transformation." He could completely dissipate at any moment!
This cruel reality weighed heavily on the hearts of the three disciples, plunging them into deeper worry and sorrow.

Once their master is gone, can the three of them alone withstand the backlash from all the sects and protect the Daoist sect?
Hongjun was aware of his disciples' worries, but he was powerless to help them at the time. After entrusting the baby girl to his eldest disciple Taiqing for upbringing, he began to enter seclusion.

This was the last role Hongjun could play for the Daoist sect. As long as his consciousness remained and as long as the various schools of thought did not know that he had transformed into the Dao, they would not dare to cause trouble.

Thus, with his remaining, incredibly tenacious will, Hongjun stubbornly resisted the will of Heaven for a full ten years.

For the past ten years, he has been like someone walking on a thin rope above a bottomless abyss, maintaining the surface peace of China, secretly sorting out the chaotic spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and making final arrangements for what will happen after his death.

Under Taiqing's arrangement, the baby girl grew up peacefully in a secluded village at the foot of Kunlun Mountain, becoming a healthy and lively ordinary girl who knew nothing about her own bloodline and origins.

But human strength has its limits, and the way of Heaven cannot be defied.

The price of defying the Heavenly Dao is the rapid disappearance of Hongjun's "existence".

Finally, on a night when the starlight was dim, Hongjun clearly sensed that the final limit had finally arrived, and he was about to run out of energy and die.

Hongjun did not choose to disappear in silence; at the final moment of his life, he chose to emerge from seclusion.

As his remaining sense of self was about to completely dissipate, Hongjun stood atop Kunlun Mountain and rekindled the flame of life.

"Master."

Taiqing shouted anxiously, but Hongjun ignored him and instead pointed his fingers like a sword, slowly slashing down into the empty space in front of him.

"Shoot..."

A dazzling rift in spacetime, spanning the ages, was forcibly torn open by Hongjun.

Across the rift, the river surges, reflecting fragments of light and shadow from the past, present, and countless futures—a chaotic, magnificent, and bizarre river of time.

Hongjun's gaze pierced through the mists of time and space, locking onto a node downstream of the long river, a node heavily shrouded in immeasurable calamity and chaotic mist, its figure indistinct yet radiating an aura of destiny.

That person, according to Hongjun's predictions, will be the key figure who will lead China into a new era, and his final task is to protect and guide the future chosen one.

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August 15th, the fourth year of Shenwu (199 AD)
In the study of the Prefectural Governor's residence in Yingchuan Commandery, Yuzhou.
The flickering candlelight illuminated the pensive face of Emperor Ying Hao of the Qin Dynasty. The air was filled with the exotic fragrance of tribute from the Western Regions, yet it could not dispel the solemnity between his brows.

Beside Ying Hao was his beloved concubine Zhu Rong, who had removed her armor and was dressed in fiery red southern barbarian attire. Before they had a real relationship, she was telling him an ancient secret buried in the south in her slightly exotic voice.

"...Your Majesty, it has been passed down orally through generations that the earth-shattering battle between gods and demons a hundred years ago broke out in Panwang Valley in the South, and that battle even changed the topography of the South."

Zhu Rong's eyes held awe and a hint of lingering fear of the power of his ancestors as he said in a deep voice, "Dao Ancestor Hongjun, Demon Ancestor Luohou... those were truly beings who could make the world lose its color and the Milky Way reverse."

The chieftains of the twelve tribes of the South, along with thousands of warriors with the bloodline of Chi You, were as vulnerable as lambs to the slaughter before the Demon Ancestor…

Their bloodline power was completely devoured by the demon Rahu, turning into nourishment for his demonic arts...

If it weren't for Dao Ancestor Hongjun sacrificing himself to merge with the Dao at the last moment, triggering the judgment of Heaven, I'm afraid..."

"hiss……"

Even Ying Hao, who was used to seeing big scenes, couldn't help but gasp when he heard this.

Ying Hao closed his eyes and began to ponder. His slender fingers unconsciously tapped on the sandalwood table, producing a dull sound. In his mind, he could already imagine the terrifying scene of the two fighting, with blood gushing into the sky, destroying the world, and roaring like a demon god.

This made Ying Hao yearn for such great power, and he couldn't help but marvel at the strength of the 'system', which could even summon Hongjun and Luo Hou.

"This is outrageous! This level of combat power is seriously excessive."

Ying Hao originally thought that Taiqing Daoist was the pinnacle of martial prowess in this world, but he never expected that two even more powerful figures would emerge.

Ying Hao definitely did not summon Hongjun and Luohou, but these two, as well as Wuzu Dijiang, had already appeared in the world, and they all appeared a hundred years ago. They were obviously summoning figures on the hidden list.