Shrouding the Heavens: The Ultimate Daoist Venerable

Chapter 644 Second Generation
The Corpse Emperor returned to the Underworld Palace and began preparations for seclusion.

The Underworld Emperor asked, "Are you ready?"

The Corpse King said, "Thank you for your help, Senior Brother."

The Underworld Emperor nodded slightly, then activated the Underworld Scripture, mobilizing the power of the Underworld's origin, ready to unleash his power.

The Corpse Emperor took a deep breath, and then planted the Ancient Tree of Life in his Sea of ​​Wheels, allowing it to take deep root and connect with his life essence, so that he could draw on its divine power and better comprehend its life laws.

Then, the Corpse King took out the corpse energy and absorbed it into his own body.

Instantly, a mournful phoenix cry resounded throughout the Underworld Emperor Palace, causing the corpse energy within the Corpse Emperor to go berserk. This caused cracks to appear in the five secret realms within his body, and even his life essence began to suffer serious damage.

Stimulated by this corpse energy, the ancient tree of life, which was temporarily connected with the Corpse Emperor, suddenly unleashed a powerful life law, mobilizing and strengthening all the vitality within the Corpse Emperor's body, resulting in a fierce collision with this corpse energy.

Now, fine cracks began to appear all over the Corpse King's body, as if this solid, almost immortal body was about to shatter like porcelain.

At this critical moment, chanting suddenly resounded within the Corpse Emperor's body, causing the primordial power of the Netherworld to surge and begin to converge into his body.

The Underworld Emperor immediately activated the Underworld Nerve, drawing upon the power of the Underworld's origin to continuously and steadily flow into the Corpse Emperor's body.

Under the powerful and mysterious primordial force of the Earthly Immortal Realm, the corpse energy and vitality that were constantly colliding and conflicting within the Corpse Emperor's body gradually subsided and began to rub against each other in a relatively balanced state.

However, although the two forces had temporarily stabilized, there was still no sign of them merging. Therefore, the Corpse Emperor then began to use the Underworld Emperor Scripture to activate the Reincarnation Seal within his body, causing this mysterious and unpredictable entity to unleash astonishing divine power, gradually controlling and mastering the two forces, and restoring them to balance.

During this process, the Corpse King was also constantly contemplating the Yin-Yang Dao Diagram from the Taiyin Human Emperor, sorting out the vitality and corpse energy according to the principles of Yin and Yang, and promoting them to reach a new stage.

Seeing that the Corpse King's condition had stabilized and that he was beginning to organize, absorb, and integrate the various powers within his body, the Underworld King couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

After all, continuing to cultivate in this state will only take longer, but it will certainly put one on the right path.

As time passed, four thousand years went by. By this time, the Corpse Emperor's state had completely stabilized. He no longer needed to consciously maintain it to preserve this balance, allowing his life force and corpse energy to continuously grow and become stronger.

Even thanks to the trace of the Immortal Phoenix's aura remaining in the Immortal Emperor's corpse energy, the life force and corpse energy within the Corpse Emperor's body not only began to merge, but also showed signs of mutual transformation.

Thus, the Corpse Emperor finally found some time to begin comprehending the mysteries of the Underworld Emperor Scripture and the Reincarnation Seal, as his two powers continued to improve. He used this knowledge to continuously refine his Dao and Dharma, aiming to reach a completely new realm.

Although a large amount of Netherworld Origin Power, the Immortal Emperor's Corpse Qi, and the life force constantly stimulated by the Ancient Tree of Life were continuously consumed during this process, the Corpse Emperor was not originally there to absorb these powers. Rather, he was using this process to evolve his own Dao and Dharma. Thus, the Corpse Emperor remained immersed in ascetic cultivation, never leaving the Netherworld Emperor's Palace.

In the blink of an eye, another six thousand years have passed. The Corpse Emperor finally ended his seclusion. The corpse energy from the Undying Emperor has been worn down to its last essence. His Dao, Dharma, and even his own origin have grown much stronger, and he has reached his twilight years.

Although his cultivation had made significant progress, his greatest achievement was his profound understanding of the Samsara Seal, which had become the core of his cultivation in this lifetime.

Within his body, the Reincarnation Seal serves as the core, manipulating both life force and corpse energy, allowing them to merge and evolve, constructing a completely new state of balance, a significant improvement over the previous state where the two forces were clearly distinct.

By calculation, the Corpse Emperor's lifespan in this life has reached 16,000 years, which is slightly longer than that of an ordinary Dao Prover.

Although the Corpse Emperor absorbed a large amount of Netherworld Origin Power to aid his cultivation, he never relied on the Netherworld Scripture to absorb this Origin Power to slow down his aging. Therefore, his lifespan in his first life was a solid 16,000 years.

As the Corpse King reached his twilight years, he began to lose control of his state. His corpse energy increased, his vitality weakened, and he could no longer continue cultivating. It was time for him to live a second life.

The Corpse Emperor separated the Ancient Tree of Life from his own life essence, took it out of his body, planted it to the side, and nourished it with divine spring water.

In his years of cultivation, although he tried his best to avoid consuming the essence of the Tree of Life and only used its life laws to strengthen his own vitality, the Tree of Life still inevitably lost a lot of divine essence, and even the green glow emanating from its branches and leaves dimmed considerably.

However, the Corpse Emperor managed to keep these losses within a range that did not damage the Tree of Life's core, nor rendered the Elixir of Immortality ineffective for him, and thus did not prevent him from living a second life by borrowing the Tree of Life.

In the latter half of his cultivation, the Corpse Emperor consciously began to refine the corpse energy from the Undying Emperor, extracting its essence. The remaining corpse energy was a concentrated essence condensed into the shape of a celestial phoenix. Once it was completely absorbed, the cultivation would be fully complete.

In order to maximize the results of his cultivation in this life, the Corpse Emperor plans to absorb this essence of corpse energy along with the fruit of the Ancient Tree of Life, so as to live a second life.

Thus, the Corpse King absorbed the fruit of the Ancient Tree of Life and the last essence of corpse energy into his body. With the help of the Reincarnation Seal, he completely dissolved these two forces and merged them into one, allowing him to regain his vitality and live a second life.

Seeing the Corpse Emperor's significant improvement over his first life, the Underworld Emperor knew that he must have benefited greatly from his cultivation in this life. Although he essentially relied on external forces to live out his second life, the increase in his cultivation had made him even stronger, just like the former Celestial Venerable Shengxuan.

The Underworld Emperor said, "After this lifetime of cultivation, you should have already comprehended many of the mysteries of the Reincarnation Seal. Therefore, it is time to make a choice."

"If you choose to continue exploring the Reincarnation Seal, then I will pass on some of the inheritances related to this path left by the former Underworld Lord to you. The Underworld Lord is special. Although you probably cannot replicate his path to immortality in the mortal world, you should still gain a lot of insights and it is not impossible for you to undergo a transformation through this."

"If you choose to abandon the Samsara Seal, then I will pass on to you the Dharma left here by the Celestial Venerable Lingbao, who once subdued the Corpse Calamity. He once used this Dharma to shatter the Samsara Seal, transcend life and death, and complete a rebirth. Even if you cannot successfully reverse your life, you should still gain something from abandoning the Samsara Seal."

(End of this chapter)