Immortals of the End Times

"The one who escaped!"

This vast and powerful Daoist voice resounded throughout Zhao Wuji's sea of ​​consciousness.

It was as if divine thunder from the heavens had struck his dantian, shaking his primordial spirit.

The sound seemed to emanate from the strange breathing sounds within one's sea of ​​consciousness.

It also seemed to originate from the ancient, unchanging, weathered figure inside the medicine furnace in front.

He suddenly raised his head, his gaze sharp as lightning, piercing through the murky fog of calamity.

The figure inside the medicine furnace slowly turned its head, and its torn eye sockets and cheeks gradually became clear in the hazy light.

His appearance was strikingly similar to his incarnation as "Zhao Zheng" in the ancient immortal court, with about 70-80% resemblance, and also about 50-60% resemblance to his true self!
"Zhao Zheng!?"

Zhao Wuji's pupils shrank to needle size, and his Dao heart was instantly filled with turbulent waves.

The person formed from the overlapping souls of the three second-generation Heavenly Venerables was actually Zhao Zheng?

Could it be that just because he impersonated Zhao Zheng in this era and traveled to the ancient immortal court, he formed a karmic bond with this ancient being in the long river of time?

Before he could think it through, "Zhao Zheng" inside the medicine furnace had already gotten up.

His tattered Taoist robe fluttered without wind, and a mysterious spiritual light rose from his body.

"Buzz!"

Zhao Wuji suddenly felt a violent tremor in his sea of ​​consciousness.

The ever-present breathing sound in his mind was perfectly synchronized with the other person's aura.

The breath seems to originate from the same source!

"The one who escaped!"

As Zhao Zheng smiled, he suddenly made a hand seal, his ten fingers flitting like butterflies among flowers, his fingertips radiating a dreamlike, ethereal light.

It was actually the Dream Marriage Technique from the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiend Techniques!

"Marrying a Dream!?"

This scene caused Zhao Wuji to be instantly shaken.

Before he could react, the hazy, dreamlike aura of the Marriage of Dreams technique engulfed him like a tidal wave.

In an instant, his mind was forcibly pulled into a chaotic dream.

In the dream, the magnificent palaces and pavilions of the ancient celestial court unfolded like a scroll painting.

In the first image, the Celestial Venerable of Vast Mansions sits serenely on a cloud platform, his jade robe adorned with the innate Daoist script of "vast mansions."

The Celestial Venerable nodded slightly to Zhao Zheng, who was kneeling and listening to the sermon, and with a light tap of his fingertip, a dazzling Dao pattern entered into his brow.

The second image immediately appears.

But then, the twelve-petaled lotus platform beneath the Jade Pure Heavenly Venerable radiated seven-colored light. As he was expounding the "Purification Mantra," his wondrous eyes suddenly pierced through the thousands of cultivators listening to the sermon, focusing solely on Zhao Zheng.

He gently trembled the willow branch in his hand.

A drop of pure jade dew flew out and fell precisely into Zhao Zhengtian's spirit.

These two scenes are clearly Zhao Wuji's past experiences in the ancient Celestial Court when he was Zhao Zhengshi!

The dream suddenly took a turn.

In the third scene, Zhao Zheng breaks through to the Dao Integration Realm, causing all thirty-three heavens to tremble.

The black robes of the Celestial Venerable of Immortal Conferment hung like clouds from the sky, and his imperial edict resounded throughout the Celestial Court: "Zhao Zheng, hear the conferment! Today, I hereby confer upon you the title of Patrol Immortal Lord."

The scene changed again.

The fourth scene was even more shocking to Zhao Wuji.

But then they saw the four Heavenly Venerables, their Taoist robes fluttering, stepping out of the Thirty-Three Heavens side by side.

Four supreme beings simultaneously attacked, fiercely clashing with a powerful and terrifying being from beyond the heavens!
As the sword light clashed with the laws of the Dao, the entire dream trembled violently.

The aftershocks of the dream materialized into a tangible tide, tearing the surrounding space into a spiderweb of dark cracks.

Amidst this apocalyptic scene, Zhao Zheng and numerous immortal lords stood tensely atop the Jianmu tree.

Suddenly, a massive shockwave containing the essence of the Dharma's decline descended.

"Crack!!"

The towering Jianmu tree immediately cracked inch by inch like glass, and the thirty-three heavenly palaces began to collapse.

Many celestial officials turned to ashes under the erosion of the Dharma-ending Age.

Even powerful immortals suffered physical collapses and looked horrified.

"choke!!"

At the critical moment, a dazzling sword light descended from the heavens.

The sword energy stretched for thousands of miles, like the primordial light that created the world, and emerged in the shape of nine leaves, forcefully tearing a rift of life in the tide of the end of Dharma.
"boom!!"

The sword light had not yet dissipated.

The Dharma forms of the three Heavenly Venerables, Fengxian, Guangsha, and Yujing, have been completely disintegrated.

The three Celestial Venerables roared and joined forces, their three brilliant Daoist auras intertwining to form the "Transformation of the Dao" divine technique.

boom! !

Suddenly, the sea of ​​clouds in the sky split open, and a colossal hand, covered with chaotic patterns and blotting out the sky, burst forth.

The giant palm was as big as a star, and the lines on its palm were as crisscrossing as mountains and rivers, with each line flowing with the chaotic Daoist rhyme of creation.

When the five fingers are spread out, they resemble five ancient divine mountains stretching across the sky, and the bending and stretching of the fingers evokes countless cries of sorrow.

"boom!!"

The giant palm suddenly pressed down, and the surging waves of the end times from beyond the realm were like waves hitting a reef, and were actually smashed into a rain of light.

Wherever the palm wind passed, the void collapsed and reformed, forming a boundless and spiritually desolate belt that stretched across the heavens.

"This is..." Zhao Wuji was shocked when he saw the enormous hand.

"what!!"

A heart-wrenching roar came from beyond the realm; the indescribable, terrifying being had clearly suffered a great loss under this palm.

The three Heavenly Venerables who used the Dao Transformation Divine Technique were already beginning to be annihilated inch by inch by the backlash of the Dao.

Only three divine soul rays fell like a galaxy, overlapping and merging in the void before disappearing into the body of the patrolling immortal lord Zhao Zheng below.

"The souls of the three Heavenly Venerables, and the giant's soul, actually entered Zhao Zheng's body?"

Zhao Wuji's mind is strange and wondrous.

"Shh!"

As the river of time flows on and the dreamscape changes once more, everything has already shifted and things have changed.

However, Zhao Zheng was also surrounded by a vast and powerful aura of a celestial being, and an ancient medicine furnace was swirling with chaos in his palm.

The yin and yang energies in the furnace swirled like dragons, refining the turbid chaos of the heavens into the two polarities of purity and turbidity.

It was clearly a process of purifying the scars left behind by past battles!

"laugh!"

Suddenly, a pitch-black light of the end times broke through the boundary from beyond the heavens, tearing through the clouds like a festering sore.

Within the mist, the rough, giant hand was instantly corroded, and even half of the weathered face, formed by the condensation of clouds and mist, was corroded with hideous cracks.

"True Immortals of the Dharma-Ending Age?"

Zhao Zheng's pupils suddenly contracted, and he shouted loudly, raising his medicine furnace as he rolled up his sleeves to fight back.

But as the black light passed, his face cracked like porcelain, and his left eye socket burst open with a bloody hole, with chilling Daoist runes writhing around the wound.

"Boom!"

At the critical moment, he transformed into a streak of light and plunged into the medicine furnace.

A brilliant divine soul burst forth from the damaged body, falling like a meteor into the Nine Yin Nine Yang Pearls suspended in the medicine furnace.

"Om!!"

The precious pearl rotated, and the Daoist principles of Yin and Yang surged.

The medicine furnace that contained the Celestial Venerable's divine soul trembled violently, and in the alternation of reality and illusion, it suddenly disappeared into the world!
"boom!"

Upon witnessing this scene, Zhao Wuji felt as if his mind had been struck by divine thunder from the heavens, and in the midst of the tremor, he suddenly understood.

The mystery of her own time travel was actually closely related to Zhao Zheng!
Just then, the scenes depicting the evolution of the Dream Marriage Technique began to rotate again.

But then, that broken divine soul streaked across the heavens like a meteor, and suddenly fell into a bizarre and wondrous world.

There, steel behemoths roared and galloped.

A magnificent building pierces the clouds, and neon lights cascade down like a galaxy.

Zhao Zheng's faint divine light flickered amidst the city's neon lights before finally disappearing beneath the overpass.

A woman who had drowned was being pulled ashore by rescuers.

A faint, almost extinguished fetal breath still lingered in the swollen belly.

The divine light, like a weary bird returning to its nest, quietly merged into the body of the unborn infant.

"Shh!"

The dream suddenly became blurry at this point.

“That’s how it is.”

Zhao Wuji suddenly opened his eyes, breaking free from the dream. His pupils reflected the figure inside the medicine furnace deep within the Heavenly Dao's Single Eye.

The familiar torn eye sockets, the hideous scars, and the soul fluctuations and breathing frequency that were completely synchronized with his sea of ​​consciousness caused his Dao heart to surge with turbulent waves.

"So it wasn't you who caused my time travel."

He looked at Zhao Zheng opposite him, his expression complex, his brows furrowed, somewhat incredulous, utterly unable to accept it, "But you... are my past life?!"

"Not bad!"

Zhao Zheng's divine sense, like a gentle spring breeze and nourishing rain, came from the deepest part of Zhao Wuji's consciousness, his voice seemingly resonating with his soul.

"I am you, and you are me."

The gentle Daoist voice was like a morning bell and evening drum. Zhao Zheng smiled and transmitted his voice, "Do you think that your travels in the Celestial Court under my name were merely a coincidence, rather than a predetermined encounter in the long river of cause and effect?"

"Do you perhaps think..."

His divine sense suddenly sharpened, staring intently at Zhao Wuji, "Those powerful celestial beings who saw through your 'Escaped One' identity, would they not be able to distinguish between the disguise and the true form under a mere illusion technique?"

Zhao Wuji was deeply shaken, as if he had been enlightened.

That's it! With the Heavenly Venerable's abilities, how could he not see through his shallow disguise?
Since we recognize him as "the one who has escaped," it means that this was originally the cause and effect written in the long river of fate.

He, Zhao Wuji, has always been Zhao Zheng, always that one variable that escapes the secrets of heaven!
Even with his clear mind, he couldn't help but breathe rapidly.

Anyone who is suddenly told that "you and I are one" will inevitably experience a shock to their Daoist heart.

Moreover, the answer was so absurd yet irrefutable.

Those memories of the present world, long since lost in the river of time, those towering buildings and bustling traffic.

Besides him, the transmigrator, who else in this world could know this?

In my memory, my adoptive parents said that my birth mother was already six months pregnant when she drowned herself.

Logically, the fetus had no chance of survival, but he miraculously survived.

Looking back now, it wasn't a miracle at all.
It was clearly Zhao Zheng's departed true spirit that returned to this world by taking over the body of a dying fetus!

"So it seems..."

Zhao Wuji was shocked, his eyes flashing like lightning as he swept over the broken figure in the medicine furnace.

A storm raged deep within my mind.

It turns out that the fetus in the womb of the woman who drowned years ago had already died.

It was Zhao Zheng's wisp of broken divine light that was reborn through a new body.

His soul is both Zhao Wuji, who transmigrated from another world, and Zhao Zheng, the ancient patrol immortal lord!
This physical body carries the memories of the present world, while the primordial spirit is imprinted with the karma of the celestial court.

No wonder he found the medicine furnace by some strange twist of fate and crossed over to this world back then.
It turns out that everything was predetermined.

He was neither an unlucky nor a lucky person who traveled through time.

Rather, everything was predetermined.

Why should you be so troubled?

Zhao Zheng, seemingly sensing the turmoil in his heart, smiled gently across his scarred face: "Even if you find it difficult to accept the karma of your past life right now, there's no need to do it. You are one who has escaped."

His voice suddenly became ethereal and otherworldly, as if it came from the end of the river of time: "The Great Dao is fifty, and the Heavenly Evolution is forty-nine."

"You are both Zhao Zheng and the former Celestial Venerable. We are all ultimately manifestations of the Great Luo's will. Therefore, you should be yourself, not a reincarnation."

"The will of the Great Luo?"

Zhao Wuji's pupils suddenly contracted.

Suddenly, Zhao Zheng's body emanated a chaotic, clear light, and his tone carried a sense of relief: "Back then, I was severely injured by a True Immortal of the End of Dharma. Knowing that I was no match for him, I took advantage of a flaw in the Heavenly Dao to send the will and soul of a Great Luo through the Nine Yin Nine Yang Pearls into the world where the Great Luo was born, thus completing the reincarnation of the Great Luo!"

And you

Zhao Zheng looked at Zhao Wuji, his figure becoming increasingly ethereal, but his voice grew clearer: "Now that you have attained the Dao Integration stage, my mission is complete."

"The One Who Escaped"

Zhao Zheng stretched out his arms, his body radiating a dazzling Daoist aura, like an ancient immortal lord about to ascend to immortality, gazing at Zhao Wuji with a smile.

"My final mission is to give you this wisp of divine soul essence that carries the will of the Great Luo."

As his sleeves fluttered, he said, "You ascended to the Ninth Heaven precisely to seek this answer?"

Who exactly is Da Luo?

Zhao Wuji raised his head to question, but the image of that towering giant lying in the darkness and chaos gradually surfaced in his mind.

The giant's divine soul transformed into Pangu, Nuwa, and Fuxi, and then into the second-generation Heavenly Venerables Fengxian, Guangsha, and Yujing.

"I see."

He suddenly realized, "It seems that not only you and I, but all the Celestial Venerables throughout history are the continuation of the Great Luo's will?"

"boom!!"

The ancient medicine furnace in the Heavenly Dao's Unique Eye suddenly roared and trembled. The moment the furnace lid was lifted, Zhao Zheng laughed loudly and transformed into a rainbow piercing the sun.

The divine light contained the Daoist essence accumulated over millennia, like a galaxy falling from the sky, pouring directly into Zhao Wuji's crown chakra.

"Wait a minute!"

Zhao Wuji suddenly took a half step back, his eyes flashing with golden patterns.

The true meaning of the Intercepting Dao transformed into a barrier in front of him, but it ultimately failed to completely seal him off.

His brows were furrowed, and a struggle surged in his eyes like a turbulent tide.

To accept this wisp of divine soul means to bear the karma of countless ages.

Those memories and missions that do not belong to this world will overwhelm the existence of "Zhao Wuji" like a tide.

But if you turn them away
He looked up at the churning chaos beyond the Nine Heavens, the eternal abyss of darkness that was eroding the very Dao of Heaven.

In a daze, it seemed as if one could see the end of the road a hundred years from now, when spiritual energy is exhausted and one's own cultivation is melting away like ice and snow.

"That's it!"

Zhao Wuji suddenly burst into loud laughter, the sound of which shook the surrounding tribulation mist to the point of churning.

Amidst his laughter, his Dao Domain completely vanished.

Even amidst the myriad troubles of the mortal world, I am still myself!

"boom!!"

Zhao Zheng's divine light pierced through his body in an instant.

The sound of his breathing in his mind suddenly synchronized perfectly with the figure of the medicine furnace.

Like the mirror that has been separated for eternity, the inside and outside of the mirror finally become one at this moment!

Souls and spirits merged.

A tremendous storm suddenly surged in Zhao Wuji's mind.

A vast will, like an ancient divine fire, suddenly awakened.

Countless fragmented memories poured into the sea of ​​consciousness like a galaxy.

Those flashbacks of ancient images almost made his brain and soul explode.

“Uh.”

He groaned, and blood seeped from his seven orifices.

The golden pattern between his brows flashed wildly, forcefully suppressing the surging torrent of inheritance.

All that could be seen were fragments of memories.

A colossal giant, lying in chaos, had his chest pierced by a jet-black claw.

A goddess, whose beauty was as radiant as the moon, shed divine blood from her fingertips when she molded humans from clay.

Furthermore, the Bagua diagram disintegrated into countless sparks in the void.
"Shh!"

Just as Zhao Wuji's primordial spirit was about to collapse, the Nine Yin Nine Yang Pearl suddenly shone brightly in his sea of ​​consciousness.

The yin and yang energies transformed into a millstone, crushing and sealing away most of the violent memories.

Only a few crucial scenes remain, etched deep into the soul like a brand.

Deep within the chaos, the majestic being known as "Da Luo" was actually an unparalleled True Immortal from the Realm of True Immortals.

He was originally a seeker of the Dao from Zhao Wuji's previous life. By chance, he entered the Realm of True Immortals, cultivated into a True Immortal, and was known as the Great Luo.

However, he was ambushed and severely injured in a life-or-death battle with the "True Immortal of the End of Dharma".

He then used the "Three Gods Transformation Technique" to transform his three souls into the three great Dao bodies of Pangu, Nuwa, and Fuxi.

He severed six of his souls and hid them in the Nine Netherworlds, where they devoured evil thoughts and transformed into the Ancestral Demon of the Nine Netherworlds.

He intends to use this world to heal his wounds and comprehend the Dao, so that he can return to the True Immortal Realm once he has recovered to his peak strength.
"I see."

Zhao Wuji slowly regained consciousness, raised his hand to wipe away the bloodstains from the corner of his eye, and golden patterns flowed in his eyes.

At that moment, he finally understood.

The so-called Pangu who created heaven and earth, Nuwa who molded humans from clay, and Fuxi who determined the heavens through divination.
They are merely the three Dao bodies that the Great Luo True Immortal manifested while healing his injuries!
Even the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, the Hundred Schools of Thought, Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han, whom Nuwa created, as well as historical figures she encountered such as Xiang Yu and Huang Shang, were all included.
They are nothing more than illusions born from the influence of the Great Luo's will, not real historical figures like those in my previous world.

At most, they are merely 'substitutes' whose bodies and minds are influenced by the will of the Great Luo and who follow his will.

It's like Zhuangzi dreaming of a butterfly; I don't know if the butterfly transformed into Zhuangzi, or Zhuangzi transformed into a butterfly.
"I see."

Zhao Wuji was deeply shaken, and in a daze, he seemed to see endless years ago.

A butterfly flutters its wings and flies across the chaos.

As the scales and powder fall, they transform into countless figures, enacting joys and sorrows, partings and reunions, in the long river of time.

But the real butterfly remained asleep deep within Da Luo's dream.

His gaze was like lightning, sweeping over the illusory phantoms of those dynasties in the Heavenly Dao's single eye.

Those emperors and generals who left their illustrious names in his previous life's history.

Those literary figures who shone like stars in the long river of time were actually the unconscious dreams that drifted away when Da Luo was asleep.

"The historical trajectory of this world is a deformed product distorted by the memories of Da Luo's subconscious!"

He was deeply shaken.

The three thousand clay figures that Nuwa created carry with them historical snapshots from the memories of the Great Luo.

The Qin Emperor's domineering ambition in unifying the six kingdoms, Emperor Wu of Han's brilliant strategy in defeating the Xiongnu, and Li Bai's ethereal beauty as he drunkenly embraced the bright moon—all are like reflections in a mirror or the moon in the water, arising and ceasing with the persistent memories of his former world in the Great Luo Dream.

"No wonder history diverged after the Ming Dynasty."

Zhao Wuji suddenly realized.

When the history in Da Luo's memory reached the Ming Dynasty, this True Immortal's subconscious may have been influenced by his preferences and diverged.

The "Great Wilderness Era," a time when immortality flourished, is the true face of the real world.

After all, Da Luo himself was also a cultivator.

The erosion of the rules of the Dharma-ending Age has made this world increasingly distorted in the gap between reality and illusion.

"call!!"

The moment he saw through cause and effect, the eerie breathing sound that had been following him like a shadow in his sea of ​​consciousness suddenly disappeared.

Instead, an overwhelming torrent of will condensed into a seed of will deep within the sea of ​​consciousness.

"This is."

Zhao Wuji looked inward at himself.

The surface of the seed shimmered with the Daoist aura of creation and the light of the divine soul, while its roots were deeply embedded in the depths of the turbid mist of calamity.

It pointed directly to the remains of a Great Luo Immortal who had been corrupted by the laws of the Dharma-ending Age for ten thousand years.
(End of this chapter)