Destiny is ashes

Chapter 1133 The Python of the Dao

heartbeat.

An Jing sensed a heartbeat.

The heavens and earth were roaring.

Like the tide surging in the boundless sea, the clouds flowing in the vast sky, the wind, thunder, rain, dew, grass, trees, earth, new buds blooming among the scorched earth, broken eggshells in a bird's nest, rising chicks, the shining sun, the shifting stars, and above those stars, eyes looking down on all things in the world, gazing at the past and the future.

And all of this—the grand and the minute, the audible and the silent, the existing and the vanishing—in an instant, transformed into a single heartbeat.

Then silence returned.

The greatest form is formless, the greatest sound is silent.

In the absolute silence, An Jing slowly stood up.

In the void, a hazy cave suddenly shone with light, its brightness shifting uncertainly in the boundless chaos, like a star.

The star and the encircling python are staring at each other.

Just as a point and a rotating circle gaze at each other, so too does heaven and man gaze at each other, as does eye gaze at an even larger eye.

"Your sorrow..."

An Jing said softly, raising his hand as if to touch the enormous silver python, his voice filled with pity, "I understand."

Yes, how tragic.

The Tao is nameless, formless, shapeless, and soundless; it is existence hidden in nothingness. If it is the true Tao, it should not be understood, communicated, or described, because it is 'existence that does not exist'.

how to say?

It's like things like nation and morality.

From a material perspective, they do not exist at all; they are merely a kind of consensus imagined in people's minds, seemingly existing but actually non-existent.

The Way of Heaven is similar to this, yet completely opposite; it seems not to exist, but in reality, it truly exists.

Just like a sage king, who acts without doing anything, yet brings peace to the world and governs everything.

It may seem like He did nothing, but the rules He set at the beginning determined everything that would happen in the future.

Such is the way of Heaven. Its mere existence determines how everything in the world develops. Everything in the past and future is embraced, cared for, and nurtured within it, thus growing stronger, either merging with it to achieve success, or breaking away from it to prove itself.

This is the Tao, whether one walks upon it or derives from it.

But if the Dao can be communicated, described, and even become...

A kind of life.

Then He would no longer be the Way.

But it is merely... [the will of the world].

It's so good that you understand.

The Celestial Serpent spoke softly, its voice resonating in An Jing's heart. Its sun- and moon-like eyes slowly turned, filled with a sigh, yet also with relief: "Too many people cannot understand the difference between the two, but I know you can... you absolutely can."

"I can only understand that falling from the formless and nameless state of the ruler of heaven and earth to become a kind of life in heaven and earth is definitely a kind of degeneration."

An Jing shook his head slightly: "As for what exactly the 'Will of Heaven and Earth' is, and what the essence of the 'Dao of Heaven' is, it is not something that a True Person like me can comment on."

"The reason I can understand this is mainly because I have also thought about whether there is a hidden danger in using the 'Cave Heaven Method' to unite with the Dao, becoming a collection of the laws of heaven and earth without self-awareness. If this step is taken, it is extremely difficult to turn back. Therefore, I am still thinking about it and have not rashly become a True Lord."

"But after trying for a long time, I found that unless the Cave Heaven Technique is forcibly improved through initiation, resulting in a failed breakthrough and the soul being unable to control the Cave Heaven and thus being scattered, it is destined to become the 'Will of the World' rather than the seemingly selfless 'Heavenly Dao'."

"According to this theory, the 'Heavenly Dao' formed by the failure of the Cave Heaven Method is actually inferior to the 'World Will' of the success... But this kind of 'Heavenly Dao' is very different from the Huai Xu Realm and your kind of Heavenly Dao."

"The former is less the Way of Heaven and more the world instinct without self, like an animal that cannot be tested by a mirror... But you are not without wisdom, but the essence of wisdom is too lofty and vast, a huge collection of wisdom, so I haven't figured out the detailed difference yet."

You have grasped the most crucial difference.

The Heavenly Python sighed: "Heaven and earth can certainly have a will, but that is 'Heavenly Heart,' 'Heavenly Intent,' 'Heavenly God,' 'Heavenly Spirit,' 'Heavenly Ghost,' not 'Heavenly Way.'"

Just like me now, because I have a ego, I can no longer be the way of heaven, at most I am just 'divine will'.

"The Tao is merely a guiding principle..."

An Jing seemed to be deep in thought, and calmly said, "But if the 'Dao' has a self, it will have bias and selfishness, and it will be unable to serve as a perfect 'vessel' to contain the true essence of the Dao."

He realized, "I understand now. The Heavenly Dao did not originally exist; it was created by the Dao Court!"

【Yes】

Tianyuan Tiandao said with satisfaction: "[If a world nurtures life, regardless of whether it possesses self-awareness and intelligence, it will naturally develop a soul due to the accumulation of spiritual energy. This soul, in turn, carries even more spiritual energy, thus granting intelligence to things that shouldn't possess it.] [For example, stones, wind, and clouds—those are the so-called original 'spirits' and 'demons.' In sufficiently powerful worlds, with abundant spiritual energy, at the very beginning of the world's creation, this spiritual energy combined with ethereal concepts to become 'true spirits' and 'ancestral gods.']"

Here, there are two possibilities. One is the ordinary world, and the other is the world with 'normally powerful' range. In the constant cycle of death and reincarnation of spirits, demons, or even true spirits and ancestral gods, a long river of spirits will gradually accumulate. This river is the cycle of life and death, the flow of the past and the future. It will intersect and accumulate, gradually becoming 'the collection of all spirits,' that is, 'the Lord of Heavenly Spirits.'

"That is the will of the world."

An Jing nodded slightly and said with certainty, "This is also the world will I have deduced—when the Cave Heaven Method realizes the internal spiritual cycle, making one's 'spirit' increase without decrease, and obtains the immortal career of the 'Way of Spirit,' then I can become a True Lord, which is also the world will of my Cave Heaven."

"So, what about special cases?"

[An extremely powerful world, or rather, a world that is naturally infinite, with boundless spiritual energy, which, from the very beginning of its creation, was in harmony with 'all things'. It is 'self-existent and self-caused,' and is the most powerful world will.]

Tianyuan Tiandao slowly said: [This world will is extremely powerful. From the very beginning, its will has permeated the infinite spacetime of the past and future. It has known everything within it from the very beginning. It is omniscient and omnipotent within itself. It is the embodiment and essence of the 'Dao' that is ineffable and unfathomable.]

It was not the birth of life that gave rise to the endless river of spirit and time, nurturing the will of the world; rather, it was the will of the world that chose a future that could infinitely expand itself. And because intelligent life can create new paths, supplementing the will of the entire world and making it even stronger, they chose the emergence of intelligent life, and have meticulously cared for and protected them.

Because He is so powerful that He is all of nature itself, His wisdom is vast, and His thought is reality.

[He does not exist, because He is everything. He exists in the eyes of all living beings; everything they see is Him, a part of Him, a fragment, a slice of Him.]

[A world will that does not exist, yet exists in some inconceivable way; it is extremely difficult to see unless one is infinite or possesses extraordinary qualities.]

They pervade all things, and with infinite futures and infinite parallel universes, they anchor all the possibilities they desire, encompassing all developments within their own hands and embrace.

A gigantic, silver python coiled around it, and at its center, a light appeared. This silver light pierced through everything, like the distant, silvery-blue sun, radiating infinitely in countless directions and possibilities.

An Jing looked at the lights and saw infinite possibilities.

He saw it; he saw himself, he saw Huo Qing, he saw Nian Quan.

He saw it, Huo Qing.

This original Rahu, his first friend in the Tianyuan Realm, also has his own shining moment in the infinite parallel universe.

Among the possibilities of that world, An Jing chose the path of cultivating the Five Emperors' Method as its core, but due to insufficient immortal cultivation, he failed to comprehend the Cave Heaven Method.

At that point in time, events didn't unfold as quickly; everything was delayed by about five or six years. When the great war between the Northern Heaven Cave Heaven and the Demon Kingdom broke out, An Jing chose to break through in the central core of the Cave Heaven's Void in order to defeat the Holy Demon's clone and attempt to reach the True Lord realm.

Huo Qing used the "Tai Ming Calling Gods and Descending Body" method, which was the fundamental cultivation method of the Tai Ming Sect taught to him by An Jing, to merge with An Jing's "Mirror Self" clone, transforming into the Dharma Image of the Five Emperors, standing in the center of the great formation, protecting An Jing who was breaking through.

Enemies came one after another, but he did not retreat a step, burning his life and soul to block all attacks.

The future he dreamed of needed Anjing to realize, the world now needed Anjing to change, and the corrupt and ancient world needed Anjing to end. Even if the demons and demons surged in like a tidal wave, he would still forge ahead without hesitation.

"Huo Qing!"

Nianquan fought alongside him, his sword light surging like a celestial river, shattering wave after wave of surging demons. Although he was stronger than Huo Qing, he could not directly borrow An Jing's power like Huo Qing did. His sword aura quickly became scattered in the endless demon tide, and his body was already covered in wounds.

Huo Qing looked at Nian Quan, a friend who was similar to him yet different, and remembered their youthful appearance when they first met. He suddenly laughed.

"Only a genius like you could make it to the end." His voice was crystal clear even on the battlefield: "Accompany An Jing to see that future."

"And this is my limit."

"Huo Qing, what are you doing?!" Nian Quan exclaimed in surprise, sensing something amiss.

Huo Qing just laughed loudly, forcefully pushing the exhausted Nian Quan out of the formation's range with one hand, and then with a backhand, fiercely ripped out his own heart.

In his palm, the heart transformed into a rapidly spinning core surrounded by a tri-colored halo, its axis dark and swirling.

Fire, earth, wood.

The withering and flourishing of plants... all return to the fiery earth!

"You heartless, bloodless demons!"

He surveyed the endless demonic tides around him, laughed loudly, and clenched his right hand: "How can we hand over the future to you!"

A massive explosion wiped everything out.

Just as the Holy Demon Avatar descended upon this scorched earth that had been completely purified, An Jing, who had successfully broken through, silently emerged from the rear, the only area unaffected by the explosion.

After a long period of time, everything in the old world of Tianyuan Realm has come to an end. A new world has been established, plants and trees have revived, and even the children left behind by Huo Qing have grown up.

When the child was being instructed in cultivation by An Jing, he saw a book on formations in the room.

The book is still there.

It has never been put down, and it will never be forgotten.

(End of this chapter)